•
Rating: Beyond the violence and the lack of democracy and freedom, the characteristics of fascism that seem most unacceptable to us today are the emphasis and almost mystical fanaticism with which the regime and many Italians regarded the homeland, the leader, and fascism itself.
These are not my words: I would not have been so generous.
These lines introduce this easy-to-read booklet that I read almost a quarter of a century ago by the historian and academic Giordano Bruno Guerri.
When I was still (moderately) lucid, I obtained a multitude of books and pamphlets concerning fascism, Nazism, and so forth. Nobody talked to me about it, and I wanted to know.
Just to make sure I missed nothing, I also read a significant part of "Mein Kampf": a paranoid madman who perhaps should have been better off not being given a pen and inkwell during detention.
We live in a historical phase where there's a lot of talk about a progressive return to fascism (predominantly keyboard-based).
Personally, I have the vague impression that those weak-minded individuals who today claim to be inspired by the Mussolini era have no real idea of what fascism truly was, but rather base their choreographed charades on the completely phony idea of the supposed "good things" achieved by the regime, elegantly glossing over some microscopic details like squadrismo, the dictatorial regime, the racial laws, imperialism, and the alliance with Nazi Germany.
Just to name a few: evidently all trivial compared to the fact that (they say) trains ran on time.
At the same time, I have the unpleasant feeling that even many who rightfully oppose aren't particularly informed on the subject.
But let's get back to Guerri.
He defines himself as a liberal, once a libertarian, libertine, former rake. Some have gone so far as to portray him as a "fascist intellectual."
Personally, I care little, but I believe that this is on one hand a stretch and on the other a significant contradiction in terms: I struggle to associate the noun "intellectual" with the adjective "fascist"; two terms morphologically at odds like Conan the Barbarian and Barbapapa.
It's a mystery how one can be a cultured person, a lover of knowledge, with a taste for beauty and art, and at the same time adopt squadrismo ethics in the name of a supposed superiority based on the integralist cult of the homeland.
It's a fact that Guerri, from his earliest writings dating back to the late seventies, has largely dealt with fascism and the many prominent figures that emerged through it. Analyzing a topic from a historical point of view does not necessarily mean sharing its ideas.
In any case, what interests me here is the prospective viewpoint through which Guerri has methodically analyzed the notorious two decades. Not having experienced it firsthand, he seeks to make the effort to get inside the minds of those Italians who made possible the rise and then the long establishment of what, regardless of more or less benevolent interpretations, was essentially a ruthless totalitarian dictatorship.
In a little over three hundred pages, the book analyzes and delves into both the two decades and the decades preceding and following the fall of the regime in a clear and aseptic manner, sketching a precise and detailed historical picture: from the establishment of the so-called fascist religion to the liberation resistance, to the decline and the execution of Mussolini.
I wonder if, when he wrote the work in question, Guerri could have ever envisioned a "black resurgence" like the one that seems progressively to fuel not only the national boot but a certain part of continental Europe.
When (and if) I eventually meet him, I will ask him.
Loading comments slowly
