1. E
october 29 In 1922, after leading the March on Rome, Mussolini was appointed Prime Minister. more than one sudden victory
−part of the mythology of fascism itself that was born in northern Italy three years earlier− the March was the culmination of a slow process of normalization of the Black Shirts ( squadristi) that the ruling class has long opted for as a antidote to the left
. The March made official its fusion
with the Italian bourgeois state. 100 years after her, Giorgia Meloni and her Fratelli d’Italia (FdI), heir to the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a post-Mussolinist party, won the elections. The analogies are troubling, but in very different contexts. The March took place in the midst of post-war radicalization and polarization, the expansion of mass politics and the -already descending- revolutionary wave. Today the FdI’s victory takes place in a climate of political demobilization, apathy and only thanks to the implosion of the centre-liberal technocratic forces that historically blocked its rise.
2. Carlo Ginzburg, a point of reference regarding the public uses and abuses of history −whose father, an anti-fascist publisher was assassinated in Rome in 1944−, remarked long ago that fascism is the future
(sic), in the way that successfully appeals to emotions
Y has deep roots in Italian society
(bit.ly/3UIA3Vi), a prediction that seems to have come true. Faced with the imminent victory of FdI, a party with clear fascist roots
, Ginzburg was concerned: “(…) we are not dealing with literal fascism, but many of the FdI voters are linked to it. I have always avoided using the word ‘fascism’ out of its historical context, but I remember that in 2016, when I saw Trump, I found it irresistible”, something that in turn made him think about the need to broaden his definition (bit.ly/3fPWo4K). Although today, for him, it’s just about some elements of fascism
it is difficult to fight against them after all the historical defeats of the left which, moreover, in Italy it already exists only as waste
(bit.ly/3UmqzQ0).
3. Contrary to doxa of fascism as illiberalism
Alberto Toscano, on the sidelines of the anniversary of the March and the victory of Meloni (bit.ly/3G5BCbV), emphasized that in Italy fascism was entrenched in power by absorbing the liberal coordinates and cadres. It has been supported by capitalist elites frightened by the specter of Bolshevism ( biennio rosso) and did what it promised: it crushed the unions, the strikes, shrank the state and introduced fierce austerity based on violence −liberalism by illiberal means
− as clearly demonstrated by Clara Mattei ( The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Allaned the Way to Fascism, 2022, p. 480). He was applauded by leading liberal ideologues—Ludwig von Mises: for this, fascism will live eternally in history
(D. Losurdo, Liberalism: A Counter-History, 2011, p. 328) − and the press of him ( The Economist, Sure). Although today the main denouncers of the fascism
of Meloni are the liberals −the same ones who have been administering… the austerity that catapulted her to power−, they can afford it: the left is not a threat. If not, they would already be embracing her as they did with Mussolini.
4. Given the differences in context, the direct analogy between fascism and current right-wing populist movements and parties is wrong. Instead of similarities, there are plenty of contrasts. sound the alarm fascism
the term used not in a historical/analytical sense, but as a political operation
−be it with good intentions or just to carry the vote for the (neo)liberal center− it obscures more than it explains. By imposing comparisons and references, it deforms the anatomy of the actors in question. Recalling Ginzburg’s desire to broaden the definition of fascism, FdI and Meloni are a perfect case of the post fascism
conceptualized by Enzo Traverso ( The New Faces of Fascism, 2019, p. 3-41), so it is a movement that has a clear fascist lineage, but lacks certain attributes (street fighting cadres, the desire to replace liberal democracy with a totalitarian
in which Mussolini ended up, etc.) and that instead of usher in a new era
it will end up −most likely− imploding just like its centre-liberal predecessors.
5. Post-fascism is a phenomenon in crystallization
: conditions that determine it can still change, but it is intrinsically negative
. He lacks a vision of the future, mixes nostalgia for the lost past with kitsch (the collection of fascist figurines of Ignazio La Rusa, co-founder of FdI) and trivialization (Meloni’s speeches). Beyond the ahistorical notions of eternal fascism
(Umberto Eco) or bon-mots of every era has its fascism
(P. Levi), it is convenient to historicize seeing the evolution of political ideas dialectically: thus, for Traverso today’s extreme right, with its obsession with culture wars
go back to the time of Kulturpessimismus pre-fascist and instead of embracing the irrationality
that ended in fascism, is still attached to the market rationality
and the defense of traditional values
along (sic) with individual liberal values threatened
by Muslims, migrants or cultural marxism
(Traverse in: G. Lukács, The Destruction of Reason, 2021, p. 43). 100 years after the triumph of fascism, post-fascism merges with pre-fascism.