Italian fascism was undeniably a totalitarianism – it notably presented the violence and the ambition to transform man at all costs, characteristics of this type of regime. It remains more difficult to circumscribe the fascist doctrine that was developed a posteriori.
Marie-Anne Matard-Bonucci, an internationally renowned specialist for her work on fascism, anti-Semitism in Italy and the phenomenon of political violence, brings together twelve essays, including several unpublished ones, in a fascinating and scientifically very rich work. The concept of totalitarianism is claimed (p. 8) following the work of Renzo de Felice and, closer to us, of Emilio Gentile. Contrary to what Hannah Arendt wrote, Italian fascism was a form of totalitarianism, whatever its degree of development and completion. Indeed, Italian fascism perfectly corresponds to the canonical form of the model proposed with more or less nuances by the “totalitarian” school: an ideology; a project of radical transformation of both individuals and society; the use of violence in the service of the totalitarian project. We find in the work of Marie-Anne Matard-Bonucci the analysis of both the instruments at the service of the project (the use of violence, object of the 1D part), that more or less successful achievements born from this desire for radical transformation (2e section on culture and society).
For several years, Marie-Anne Matard-Bonucci has been exploring the question of political violence, before and after fascism. It is therefore not surprising to find the idea of continuity since the war – the author takes up the already well-known notion of “war culture” and insists in particular on the importance of arditi in the brutalization of Italian political life. However, one could suggest that this political violence was present even before the war, especially during electoral campaigns – in 1913 – which already claimed victims. Violence was at the heart of the fascists’ strategy for conquering power: it was then a question of eliminating “the enemy” (p. 20), as Mussolini wrote unambiguously to Giovanni Amendola. The latter, a victim of physical violence inflicted by the fascists, thus had to pay with his life for the stigmatization of all Mussolini’s adversaries as enemies. A “culture of combat” is thus consubstantial with the ideology and strategy of fascism (p. 23), even if the profound influence of the Church prevents the State from freely theorizing violence as was the case in Nazi Germany.
Racist violence
Violence, on the other hand, is expressed without any restraint and in a savage way against the Ethiopians. Chapter 2 on colonial violence offers a fascinating (but terrible for Italian society) study of the atrocities committed by the rank and file of the army, a fascism seen from below, so to speak, as close as possible to the men who participated in these massacres (officers). It offers an analysis of a language in veiled terms, as shown by the use of the word “sistemazione” to designate mass murder – which of course recalls the coded language used by the Nazi leaders to designate genocide. Let us recall some facts that have only recently been officially recognized by the Italian state. The fascist regime used asphyxiating gas, a practice recognized only in 1996, even though photographs and testimonies from foreign observers or the Red Cross left no doubt on the matter (pp. 40-42). The Duce is of course fully responsible. The regime also sent considerable troops (377,750 soldiers, including militiamen), which could only lead to excesses and violence against the Ethiopian population. Then Italy, like other nations before them, based its domination on a racial ideology. This thus made it possible to perpetrate without too much qualms a policy of terror in retaliation for a few attempts at resistance (3,000 deaths in a few days at the end of February 1937). The practice of secret executions and other operations carried out by the army undoubtedly led to the death of nearly 100,000 Ethiopians. According to Marie-Anne Matard-Bonucci, the systematic terror of the fascist state in Ethiopia was therefore not “a deviation, but a way of doing politics” (p. 61).
In a paroxysm of horror, the third chapter evoking Rome under Nazi-fascist occupation (autumn 1943-summer 1944), which explores an episode insufficiently known in France, completes the demonstration of the totalitarian nature of the Mussolini regime where the extermination of the enemy is at the heart of the project (more than 23,000 dead).
The totalitarian language
It is more difficult for the author to analyze the fascist doctrine, which must be recognized as being developed a posteriori by a philosopher who had joined the regime, Giovanni Gentile. Can his doctrine – actualism – be assimilated to fascism? Difficult, since many of Gentile’s disciples who adhered to actualism found themselves in anti-fascism. In reality, actualism is above all a philosophy of practice and can serve several opposing ideologies. Fascism used actualism, or more precisely Gentile believed he could put actualism at the service of fascism. More than actualism, it is the role of the fanatical cult of the State, specific to Gentile, that should be emphasized to explain the link between the philosopher’s thought and the regime that he serves without interruption for his own greater profit.
If the interesting theme of cultural diplomacy does not necessarily allow us to see the originality of the fascist regime, the same is not true of the clumsy but very significant attempts to impose a fascist vocabulary, to reform the Italian language. We can without hesitation speak of symbolic violence and totalitarian intentions: transforming language is, in the mind of Mussolini (and also of Stalin), preparing the new man. In the framework of the fascist regime, it is among other things a question of eliminating all foreign “contamination” in the Italian language, prefiguring in some way biological racism. It is interesting to dwell on the project of reforming the Italian language, as it recalls that it constitutes one of the elements defining the totalitarian character of a regime (one need only think of 1984 Orwell’s and Stalin’s suppression of Russian linguistics in 1951). The failed abolition of Lei (feminine of the 3e singular person) as a polite person inherited from Spanish, for example, enters into a double project of purifying the Italian language of what is foreign and of forcing Italians to accept a facade of egalitarianism equivalent to the use of camerati (“comrades”) among fascists. On this point, we could cite an anecdote: to a journalist (Leo Longanesi) who was ironic about the choice of the Italian Academy of the noun autistic to replace French driver and mentioned the Academy autistic people (the word has the same meaning in French and Italian), the very directive Ministry of Popular Culture replied that its sarcasm was unwelcome because the choice came from the “high fascist hierarchy”. It was therefore not a question of some whims of zealous fascists, but of a project with a totalitarian vocation carried out at the highest level.
Anti-Semitism
The third part of the book continues the author’s research on Italian anti-Semitism and racism, addressing various themes that have not yet been sufficiently explored (the link between racism, affirmed during the conquest of Ethiopia, and the concomitant anti-Semitic laws; the study of language in the last chapter). Biological racism, as Marie-Anne Matard-Bonucci shows very well, is based on ante-fascist authors, such as Lombroso or Niceforo, by taking up the opposition between the “Aryan” Italians of the North and the others (p. 232). As Chapter 8 devoted to the historiography of anti-Semitism shows, the concealment of this dark page of Italian history is almost as interesting as its study itself. Italian anti-Semitism is certainly far from reaching the intensity of that which affects Drumont’s France – with a few exceptions, one does not find in Italy an obsessive discourse based on the pseudo-scientific racist delusions specific to France in the years 1880-1940.
However, several points must be clarified: the anti-Jewish laws of 1938 were not an imported product linked to the rapprochement with Germany and resulted in a purge carried out with zeal and accompanied by a profusion of documents, essays, propaganda posters, magazines, and the creation of university chairs. If official anti-Semitism represents a “turning point”, it is nonetheless “an integral component of the culture” of the regime (p. 195). And this is most certainly explained by the fact that there was an anti-Semitism of reactionary Catholic origin – which continued, moreover – but not an anti-Semitism that was the work of certain socialists – more widespread than one might think, and still insufficiently studied. The stigmatizing and hateful discourse that the man who was to become the President of the Senate, Cesare Merzagora, could still hold towards the Jews after the war, says enough on this subject. It is one of the author’s many merits to offer new and stimulating avenues of research on this subject.