Download Enrico Corradini`s Italian nationalism: the `right wing`

Journal of Political Ideologies (June 2004),
9(2), 203–224
Enrico Corradini’s Italian
nationalism: the ‘right wing’ of the
fascist synthesis
MAURO MARSELLA
Department of History, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. W., Hamilton,
Ontario L8S 4M2, Canada
ABSTRACT Scholars of fascist ideology have defined fascism as a political
synthesis of revolutionary syndicalism and integral nationalism. The ideological
evolution from the far left of Italian fascism, embodied by Benito Mussolini, has
already been effectively demonstrated. Considering that recent scholarship of
fascist ideology has increasingly emphasized the nationalist or rightist aspect of
the fascist synthesis, there is also a need to examine the development of the far
right, represented in Italy by Enrico Corradini’s Italian Nationalist Association.
The evolution of Corradini’s thought, however, has not been adequately isolated
and analyzed within the specific context of Liberal Italy, nor evaluated in
relation to the development of fascism. Corradini’s ideology was not only an
integral source of the original fascism of 1919, but his doctrine also played a
progressively significant role as fascism shifted rightwards and became a mass
movement. This article will trace Corradini’s ideological development in six
historical stages, from 1909, during the second wave of modern nationalism in
Italy, to 1923, when the National Fascist Party absorbed the Italian Nationalist
Association. It will illustrate how Corradini applied a coherent and protofascistic worldview to the turbulent historical events of the period that included
the war in Libya, the Great War, and the post-war era, which saw the Liberal
regime collapse in the face of internal and external stresses and the onslaught
of fascism.
The relatively brief history of the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI) concluded in February 1923 when the governing Italian Fascist Party (PNF) fully
absorbed the nationalist movement. The fusion of the two movements and the
PNF’s decision to adopt the doctrine of the ANI clearly indicate an ideological
and political affinity between Italian nationalism and fascism. The thought of the
central ideologue of the ANI, Enrico Corradini, however, has not been isolated
and analyzed, especially within the particular historical context of Liberal Italy.
ISSN 1356-9317 print; ISSN 1469-9613 online/04/020203–22  2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/13569310410001691217
MAURO MARSELLA
Scholarship would also benefit from an investigation of Corradini’s nationalism
in relation to the development of fascism, given that a self-proclaimed ‘consensus’ has emerged among a select few non-Marxist scholars of fascist ideology.
Two key pioneers, Zeev Sternhell and James Gregor, argued that fascism was a
product of the fin-de-siècle counter-cultural rebellion against the heritage of the
Enlightenment. Both regarded fascist ideology to be largely a child of revolutionary syndicalism that appropriated aspects of integral nationalism. Sternhell
claimed that fascism was a completely autonomous belief system that resulted
from a specific anti-materialist revision of Marxism. James Gregor emphasized
fascism’s leftist character even more strongly than Sternhell and defined fascist
ideology as a variety of Marxism, with characteristics drawn from both left and
right.1 Gregor’s Young Mussolini and the Intellectual Origins of Fascism and
Sternhell’s The Birth of Fascist Ideology, also examined the ideological development of the principal architect of Italian fascism, Benito Mussolini, from
heretical Marxism to fascism. Their analyses, however, centred upon figures of
the far left and did not investigate influential thinkers of the far right.
Building upon the works of Sternhell and Gregor, Roger Griffin and Stanley
Payne defined fascism according to its ultra-nationalistic core myth and laid
greater emphasis on the nationalist aspect of the doctrine than their predecessors.
Their conclusions suggest that fascist ideology is best viewed as a synthesis of
modern right-wing nationalism and revolutionary left-wing syndicalism, which
developed interactively as kindred movements of the counter-cultural rebellion.2
Payne’s comprehensive definition of fascism essentially exemplifies the consensus view: ‘a form of revolutionary ultra-nationalism for national rebirth that is
based on a primarily vitalist philosophy, is structured on extreme elitism, mass
mobilization, and the Führerprinzip, positively values violence … and tends to
normalize war and/or the military virtues’. His typological description of fascist
goals, moreover, included the pursuit of an authoritarian state, a multiclass,
integrated national economic structure, and an empire or a radical change in the
nation’s international status.3 Both scholars also underscored the importance of
pre-fascist incarnations of modern nationalism for the development of fascism,
which acknowledged that fascism was heavily influenced by an already deeply
rooted and defined nationalism that was not simply invented by the far left. In
Italy, Corradini’s ANI created a modern form of nationalism that appropriated
aspects of the left, almost a decade before Mussolini’s fascist synthesis from the
far left. Unlike Gregor, Payne and Griffin—who believed that the nationalist
aspect of the doctrine acted as the movement’s driving force after 1919—distinguished between the left-leaning theoretical fascism of 1919 and the fascism
that became a mass political movement.4
Scholars of European nationalism also generally agree that the ideology of the
ANI was indeed the distinctively Italian variant of the ‘new Right’ or of the
‘integral nationalism’ that emerged in late nineteenth century France. This trend
has also been labeled national socialism or revolutionary conservatism, due to its
anti-positivism, its Social Darwinism, and its appropriation of socialist techniques. Scholars usually note that the Italian variant, although similar to the
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French organic authoritarian model, differed by its greater emphasis on imperialism and the absence of anti-clericalism and biological racism.5 According to
Payne, the radical right in Europe was less willing to accept cross-class
mobilization or to initiate the revolutionary social, economic and cultural
changes of genuine fascism, as it was more reliant on existing elites and
institutions. Corradini’s partly traditionalist doctrine thus lacked several populist
and revolutionary features comprised by the leftist or Mussolinian aspect of the
fascist synthesis.6
Mussolini’s increasing appropriation of Corradini’s ideas from 1914 onwards
demonstrates that the ANI’s ideology was nonetheless an integral source and
component of the original fascism of 1919. As Mussolini moved progressively
rightwards following his dismal showing in the 1919 elections, he increasingly
incorporated features of Corradini’s nationalist doctrine. The nationalist segment
therefore became ever more important, both on an ideological and political level,
as nationalism became the mobilizing force of a second, politically successful
fascism and the ideological core of the fascist regime. Many prominent scholars,
including Robert Cunsolo, Luigi Salvatorelli and Franco Gaeta, have thus argued
that the fusion of the two movements, which constituted a political victory for
Mussolini, was also an ideological triumph for Corradini and the ANI.7 This
article will investigate Corradini’s theoretical development within the historical
context of Liberal Italy in six historical stages from 1909, when Corradini’s
political writings achieved technical maturity and nationalism grew in popularity, to the Pact of Fusion in 1923. Although there were internal conflicts in his
system of thought, Corradini created a proto-fascistic ideology with a homogeneous worldview, which he refined and applied to the successive historical
events of the period. It opposed all facets of Enlightenment culture and centred
on the themes of tradition, Social Darwinism, idealism, activism, authoritarian
state dictatorship, corporatism, social harmony, imperialism, masculinity, militarism and regenerative nationalism.
Prologue: modernity reaches the Italian peninsula
Eighteen ninety-six is typically seen as the defining moment of the young Italian
state and the birth year of modern Italian nationalism. Not only was it the year
that inaugurated Italy’s comparatively late industrial surge, but it was also the
date of the infamous military disaster in Adowa, Ethiopia, which awakened a
new and aggressive form of patriotism. Adowa represented for the nationalists
the many deficiencies of Italian state and society, which they blamed upon the
ruling order. Adowa also converted a little-known literary man to the cause of
awakening Italy’s national consciousness. Enrico Corradini was born on July 20,
1867, in a small village near Florence. He was educated in a positivist
institution, but was ideologically transformed during the cultural movements of
the 1890s towards reactionary anti-positivism.8 Despite this, Corradini maintained a positivistic, mechanistic fatalism, which he combined with an antipositivistic idealism and mysticism. He also developed a pseudo-scientific
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philosophy that appropriated biological language, which he applied to politics
and all human relations. Before Adowa, he had been a dramatist and novelist, an
editor of various artistic journals, and a teacher. Nationalism as a modern
political movement essentially emerged in an afternoon encounter in September
1903, in culturally vibrant Florence, between Corradini and Giovanni Papini.9
Papini and Giuseppe Prezzolini would later lead the Florentine avant-garde
through the magazine, La Voce, which preached spiritual and cultural regeneration, elitism, war, imperialism and violence. Other significant neoidealist
nationalists included the poet, Gabriele D’Annunzio, and social scientists and
theorists, such as Mosca, Pareto and Sighele, who created elitist and antiparliamentary doctrines.10 When Corradini decided to launch a nationalistic review, he
therefore had a pool of like-minded anti-positivists to join him in the venture.
On 30 November 1903, Corradini and a varied array of bourgeois intellectual
dissenters launched Il Regno, which was geared towards restoring the class
consciousness of the bourgeoisie as the future leaders of a prosperous nation.11
Il Regno’s main themes were the exaltation of war, imperial Rome, dictatorship,
high production and colonialism, and the negation of socialism, parliamentarism
and humanitarianism. This early circle, however, was too elitist, ideologically
heterogeneous and locally incubated to survive. Il Regno unsurprisingly ceased
publication in 1906. Although the disparate group around the journal was largely
held together by negations, the publication created a rudimentary foundation for
the future ANI program, which also helped disentangle their brand of imperialist
nationalism from liberal nationalism. The economic slump of 1907, followed by
the Austrian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 revived organized
nationalism after a 2-year hiatus.12 Filippo Marinetti created the avant-garde
Futurist movement, which glorified modernity, violence and revolution, and
rejected all past artistic styles as antiquated. Although it was not politically
adept, Futurism became a significant aspect of early fascism and especially
contributed to fascist style and sentiment.13 Another organization, the ‘Tricolore
Nationalist Group’, which formed in July 1909, took their inspiration from
Corradini’s imperialism and French syndicalism. Their life was transient, but
they illustrated how the ideas from Il Regno were becoming a doctrine. Their
failure also taught Corradini that organized nationalism had to be built upon a
more moderate basis, particularly irredentism, which would appeal to a wider
spectrum of opinion, including liberals.14 The era’s events and a continuing
disdain for the Liberal order among young revolutionaries thus spawned a
second and more coherent wave of nationalism.15 Novel nationalist manifestations included doctrinarians, cultural currents, political movements and an active
core of young liberals.16
During this period, Liberal Italy was often led by the wily Giovanni Giolitti,
who exemplified both the potential and the failings of the nation. Despite certain
national achievements, such as northern industrialization and social reforms,
many felt the ideals of the Risorgimento had been abandoned by leaders of the
Liberal ruling elite. Notwithstanding Giolitti’s paper majority, the ruling order
lacked a proper social base, which left a large disparity between the bulk of the
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population, especially the largely illiterate southern peasantry, and the legal
representatives of power. Serious internal and external problems also beset the
country. Domestically, uneven development increasingly separated the industrial
and prosperous North from the rural and poor South. The nation could not
provide for its population, which forced millions of Italians to emigrate every
year. Internationally, Italy remained the ‘least of the Great Powers’. From the
time of unification, the Liberal regime relegated itself to a foreign policy of
benevolent neutrality and caution, largely because its underdevelopment meant
that Italy was a Great Power in name only.17 Despite Giolitti’s seemingly
masterful policy of traditional cooption and clientelist politics, known as
trasformismo, the status quo satisfied few and incensed the growing extra-parliamentary political forces of the left and right, as it achieved neither social justice
nor national greatness. To many extremists, Giolittismo meant machine politics,
bloc governments and underhanded managerial techniques, which simply maintained the liberal elite’s unrepresentative political hegemony.18 Enrico Corradini’s political thought was a product of this turbulent environment and it
addressed both Italy’s domestic and external problems.
Body: Stage 1: the second wave of modern Italian nationalism (1909–1910)
After witnessing the failures of Il Regno and the Tricolore group, Corradini was
mainly preoccupied with better defining his doctrine. From his earlier days at Il
Regno, Corradini conceived the healthy and strong nation as a harmonious and
unified organism, with a hierarchical society, which was guided by a strong
authoritarian state. He continued to believe that certain traditional institutions,
such as the monarchy and a reconciled church, were timeless aspects of the
nation. Despite his conservative inclinations, however, Corradini also admired
revolutionary syndicalism. In a similar fashion, Mussolini was a heretical
Marxist during this period, who was heavily influenced by Sorelian socialism
and also recognized redeeming qualities in national sentiment. His vision of a
socialist international was closer to a Mazzinian conception that favoured an
international union of socialist nation-states.19 As early as 1909 Corradini
became increasingly intent on appropriating syndicalist theories to further
modernize nationalism and to broaden its base of support. He regarded syndicalism as an anti-positivist product of the fin-de-siècle, which shared traits with his
own creed. To him, ‘Syndicalism, nationalism and imperialism represent the
rebirth of the valour of collective existence’.20 Like modern nationalism, syndicalism espoused a communal and elitist doctrine that exalted the use of violent
direct action and a final great conflict. In contrast to the moderate left,
syndicalism contained a more elitist conception of society, which differentiated
between productive and non-productive work. Syndicalists also possessed the
imperialist aim of the conquest and domination of one class over another.
Corradini could therefore easily nationalize syndicalism by shifting the focus
from class to nation: as there were unequal classes with differing interests, there
were unequal and differing nations. He correlated syndicalism’s general strike
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with nationalism’s great international war: a grandiose, religious and moral
event, which involved the discipline, sacrifice, and solidarity of a bonded
community. Corradini also recognized imperialist inclinations in syndicalism,
which he could easily transfer into the international arena.21
For Corradini, the creation of a new empire would not only raise Italy’s
international status, but also cure many of its domestic problems. He believed
imperialism would allow for the moral diffusion of the nation’s civilization and
the acquisition of wealth and prestige through colonialism, market monopolization and access to enough raw materials to achieve self-sufficiency. The
reacquisition of the nation’s unredeemed territories, so dear to the liberal
patriots, was but a starting point for Corradini. A greater problem was that of
underdevelopment, which forced Italians to emigrate from their over-crowded
homeland. Some 4.5 million people left the country permanently between 1860
and the eve of the Great War, while millions more sought seasonal work
abroad.22 Corradini lamented that, ‘Italians cannot but emigrate, and woe if they
were unable to emigrate’.23 Emigration helped ease the ills of over-population,
unemployment, and insufficient arable land, but the need to emigrate was
indicative of Italy’s morally and materially inferior state. This was in accordance
with his proto-fascist world view, in which he saw all human interaction in
Social Darwinian terms and believed that the history of humanity was dictated
by organic communities or nations. Like individual organisms, nations either
advanced or declined in a violent struggle for existence. Great nations inherently
expanded and produced civilization through imperialism, while successive civilizations created the history of humanity. Corradini thus reasoned that, ‘as
opposed to the nations with the imperialist will, Italy still is a nation with an
opposite will: it is a nation that has the will for servitude, not so much because
it emigrates, but because it celebrates its emigration’.24 An active policy of
expansion coupled with industrialization was therefore necessary to cure unemployment, the national sense of inferiority and over population.25 If Italy
possessed its own colonial outlet, its emigrants and their future generations
would not lose their national identity. Corradini essentially saw imperialism as
a natural and positive manifestation of nationalism, which would lead to national
re-birth and the advancement of civilization.26
Corradini also sought to make nationalism a moral means towards Italian
self-recognition and regenerative empowerment, in the same manner that socialism had been applied to the proletariat. To achieve this, he adopted and revised
the syndicalist Arturo Labriola’s famous ‘proletariat nation’ slogan. ‘As there are
proletariat classes, there are proletariat nations; nations in which the conditions
of life are inferior to other nations, just like classes’.27 Its material and moral
deficiencies, both nationally and internationally, made Italy a ‘proletariat nation’.
He reasoned that as socialism empowered workers against the bourgeoisie,
nationalism would empower Italians to transcend their decadent state and revive
the nation, both morally and materially. Nationalism would therefore become
Italy’s ‘national socialism’ and war would serve as its mobilizing myth or its
version of syndicalism’s general strike. War was the ultimate embodiment of a
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nation’s valour and it would teach the workers that their interests lay with the
prosperity of the nation and not with competing foreign labour.28
In 1910, Corradini organized the first congress of the fledgling nationalist
movement. Not only had he created a reasonably coherent ideology, but
nationalism also continued to grow in popularity, especially among professionals
and the Liberal youth. At the congress of December 1910 the society was
officially named the Italian Nationalist Association and it became a pressure
group within the varied Liberal party, which included moderate conservatives.
Because the congress attracted individuals of varying political inclinations,
which included Corradinian imperialists, liberals, republicans, socialists, syndicalists and irredentists, Corradini shrewdly avoided making any extremist proclamations. He knew that a fixed doctrine could only come after he had established
a cohesive organizational base. Although this satisfied moderates, such as the
irredentists, and disappointed the imperialists and syndicalists, Corradini had
succeeded in conferring power upon the imperialists, who dominated the
executive Junta. He also managed to establish the necessary organizational base
by not alienating any major faction, except for the republicans, who fled due to
the association’s monarchism.29
Stage 2: from Libya to the eve of the Great War (1911–1914)
By the early 1910s, the old system of trasformismo could no longer fully coopt
and control the emerging popular political forces. Giolitti’s trasformismo also
had the ironic effect of not only strengthening the political extremes, but in
bringing them closer together because of shared enemies.30 In 1911, the Prime
Minister decided to seize Libya from the decaying Ottoman Empire. The move
was partly meant to weaken nationalist influence, but again it only damaged the
prestige of the Liberal order.31 The war caused an open rift within the Socialist
Party and it brought only criticism from the nationalists, who attacked the
government’s handling of the war effort and the peace that followed.32
During the 1911–12 period, the ANI further developed its doctrine and its
organizational structure. Corradini seized the opportunity of war in Libya to
apply his imperialist and colonialist rhetoric to contemporary events. Libya also
revealed ideological divisions within the nationalist camp. Some cultural
nationalists did not believe the war was perilous enough to generate a national
revolution and irredentists feared the war would take the nation’s focus away
from the Austrian-ruled north.33 The ANI’s increasing attacks on democracy also
caused more moderates to leave the organization. The government’s declaration
of war, however, was a victory for Corradini’s faction, which would increasingly
dominate the movement. This faction also founded, in March 1911 (on the
fifteenth anniversary of Adowa), their second and most enduring publication,
L’Idea Nazionale, which spread the doctrine of imperialist authoritarianism.
Initially a weekly, the newspaper became a daily and the ANI’s official
mouthpiece. Even before this change, however, Corradini’s Rome-based L’Idea
Nazionale gained the crucial support of the ANI’s Rome section, which was
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essentially the epicenter of the association. The war also helped the ANI make
further inroads and it raised Corradini’s star as well. During the ANI’s second
congress, in Rome in 1912, the Corradini bloc again successfully championed
their position and defeated an attempted takeover by the Milan-based democratic
moderates. Unlike 1910, Corradini was ideologically firmer and he effectively
moved the organization to the extreme right, emphasizing discipline and order.
The association now also chose to ally with the Church, in the hope of gaining
a mass base. The exiting democratic moderates were, in contrast, anti-clerical,
irredentist and in favour of economic liberalism. During this same period
Corradini’s politically astute partner, Luigi Federzoni, emerged as the tactical
leader of the movement. Corradini’s influence within the ANI, however, would
persist, as his ideology remained the foundation of the movement and Federzoni’s policies.34
During the Libyan conflict, Corradini embarked upon a strong pro-war
campaign, buttressed by his Social Darwinian conceptions. Mussolini, meanwhile, continued to display an unorthodox Marxism that valorized war and
violence, but he did not believe that the colonial adventure would further the
cause of Italian modernization or social progress.35 Corradini also applied
Labriola’s concept of the ‘proletariat nation’ in a radically conservative manner.
He envisioned an organic domestic order, which would bring social peace and
national unity not by the eradication of class, but through a hierarchically
structured social order in which all classes laboured for a common national
interest. Corradini believed ‘the proletariat must stop believing that it is best for
them to always make common cause with the Socialist Party, and must begin
again to believe that it is in its best interests to make common cause with the
rest of the nation’.36 His domestic application of the concept of the ‘proletariat
nation’ was thus intertwined with his international politics and also very similar
to Labriola’s reinterpretation of Marxism, which held that Italian workers were
oppressed by international competition and not the Italian bourgeoisie. According to Corradini, Italian workers should therefore strive for national solidarity
and begin a cross-class national struggle.37
Corradini saw modern nationalism both as a form of conservation and as a
revolution, preserving what was already productive and revolutionizing what
was unproductive and dormant. Like many national syndicalists, he distinguished
modern nationalism from liberal nationalism, which he saw as altruistic, ‘inactive’ and ‘dead’, by defining modern nationalism as populist, egoistic and
instructive.38 Like the future fascist regime, Corradini envisioned both a participatory and subservient citizenry, guided by duty rather than rights. Adherents to
this form of ‘organic’ populism saw it as a true form of democracy, in which the
whole of the nation, rather than its individual parts, was paramount. This form
of nationalism was also distinctly proto-fascist, in comparison to traditional
conservatism, which rejected mass citizen participation of any sort. His vision of
a revolution proceeding from the top down was a further conservative aspect,
which also revealed his desire to imbue the state with enough power to impinge
upon the private sphere and to demand the individual’s contribution to the
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collective. For Corradini, ‘the nation must be sovereign, with its citizens
subordinate to it’.39
As children of the fin-de-siècle counter-culture, both Corradini and Mussolini
believed that war was beneficial as a moral, natural and regenerative act. ‘Do not
forget’, Corradini proclaimed, ‘that man is an animal of war’. War represented
the antithesis of the pacifist, humanitarian, effeminate and liberal culture that he
loathed and that he believed to be debilitating much of Europe. For Corradini,
a nation at war also embodied virility, youthfulness and manliness. A literary
man, he poetically idealized these facets of the war effort. In contrast to the
bourgeois world of theory, self-interest and pretence, ‘the morale of the soldier
is not hypocrisy, it is sincerity; he accepts what is and does not deform human
nature’.40 In a nation rife with divisions, Corradini claimed that the exercise of
war forged national solidarity and laid the foundations for an imperial future: ‘in
the present moment in Italy there is a love (among Italians) that was not there
before’.41 The army itself personified the ideal nation in miniature, with the
soldier representing the new elite. The soldier epitomized the disciplined citizen,
who performed his duty and sacrificed for the good of the orderly whole: ‘…the
morale of this unity, of this union, the morale of the fatherland that is essentially
the morale of the soldier; every man and every armament was in its place’.42
Corradini characterized the war as a multi-faceted ‘proletariat’ revolution,
which would reform the nation internally and alter the international balance of
imperial power. Corradini and the imperialists unabashedly spoke of Libya as a
cultivable land of ‘Eden’ that would launch Italy’s colonial empire and stem the
tide of emigration. Libya was also an opportunity to carve into what Corradini
characterized as the Franco–British plutocratic hegemony, which was linked to
the Ottoman Empire. Much like the far left, he characterized the ‘plutocracies’
as hypocritical capitalist exploiters who only spread liberal ideals, such as
pacifism and humanitarianism, to maintain their hegemonic control. Corradini
even claimed that the Italian conquest of Libya represented the regenerative
march of civilization and morality against inert and unproductive plutocratic
Europe.43 The imperialists, however, misjudged the importance of Libya, as only
305 000 Italians would actually settle in all of Italy’s African colonies by 1940.44
As the structural flaws of the Liberal regime became increasingly apparent,
new political space opened for relatively fresh political manifestations. Conservative sectors of the population were especially troubled during the infamous
‘Red Week’, in which a general strike paralyzed parts of the country in June
1914. In a pattern that would repeat itself with much greater fervour and
violence after the World War, citizens reacted to a perceived threat from the left
with an aggressive and populist patriotism. Many now believed that draconian
measures to repress domestic unrest were necessary. In the 1913 elections, once
marginal or non-existent political forces made large gains at the expense of
established Liberals, as increasingly more Italians questioned the Liberal system.45
Corradini and the nationalists profited from the increasingly apparent structural flaws of the Liberal regime and further solidified their doctrine. During the
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1913 elections, in which the ANI participated in electoral combinations with
democratic parties, the ANI projected themselves as the party of the bourgeoisie.
The election’s results illustrated the deterioration of the old Liberal oligarchy,
while four ANI candidates were elected to the chamber (increasing the total to
six). As the organization grew in confidence and Giolitti’s Liberal regime was
placed increasingly on the defensive, Corradini launched a systematic critique of
the entire culture of bourgeois liberal democracy and of Liberal Italy itself.
Having established ties to the Church, the ANI now also began to develop
relations with heavy industry through Corradini’s Idea Nazionale faction. Simultaneously, Alfredo Rocco, the ANI’s emerging technician and future fascist
official, helped Corradini create a more technically coherent corporatist plan.
Corradini’s call for external expansion and a hierarchical internal community
soon emerged as the party’s core ideology at the congress in May 1914, where
Corradini’s Rome faction won its final battle against the liberal nationalists of
Milan, who now resigned in droves. The ANI also declared its independence
from the Liberal party and banned dual membership.46 Less than 4 years after
forming the association, Corradini was successful in creating a cohesive association that championed his personal vision.
Stage 3: Italian neutrality and the Great War (1914–1915)
The outbreak of World War One in August 1914 greatly intensified the
polarization between those who sought to make Italy into a great international
power and those who focused upon domestic social issues. The former saw the
war as an opportunity to forge a new imperial Italy, while the latter became
neutralists. The tensions flowing from this polarization would undermine the
Liberal regime’s legitimacy throughout the war. Most of the population, however, including Giolitti, remained anti-militaristic and opposed Italian intervention. Under the terms of its alliance with the Central Powers, Italy was not
obliged to enter the conflict. These factors, combined with an ever-growing
popular aversion to Austria, caused the government to choose neutrality. As
elsewhere in Europe, all political parties in Italy were divided on the issue of
supporting the war. The ANI endorsed Italian intervention, but not all members
agreed on which side to join.47 Corradini’s faction, which renounced the old
alliance as having lost its relevance, eventually emerged triumphant and urged
a revolutionary war against the Central powers, which would also serve to
invalidate Giolittismo at home. Given their ideological similarities with the
extreme right, a small number of syndicalists also supported the war as a means
towards a progressive revolution. Mussolini himself first opposed the war, but
soon altered his stance and renounced the official Socialist position as academic
and dogmatic. He characterized the conflict as a revolutionary social war against
the autocratic and imperial Central Powers. This decision began Mussolini’s
ideological transformation from heretical Marxism to national syndicalism.48 As
a long-time admirer of syndicalism, Corradini welcomed these interventionists
from the far left as allies. Trasformismo had therefore not weakened the
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extra-parliamentary forces of the extreme left and right, who now drew closer
together, in both a strategic and ideological sense. Collectively, they launched a
fervid interventionist drive, which became the first concrete manifestation of the
fascist synthesis of syndicalism and nationalism.49
Corradini cited numerous incentives for Italy’s entry into the conflict, which
he characterized as a revolutionary and global imperial struggle. A single global
war could reap the benefits of many smaller wars, and achieve moral, political,
military and economic renovation. Unlike the democratic interventionists, who
saw the war as one of social justice, democracy and irredentism, the ANI saw
the war as an imperialistic venture against the Central Powers.50 Although
irredentism was not a main ANI concern, not acting against a clearly anti-Italian
Austria would also be a ‘vile disgrace’.51 Corradini reasoned that a victorious
war on the side of Britain and France would result in the combined defeat of the
Turkish and Austrian Empires, which would allow Italy to fill the vacuum of
power.52 Inaction, moreover, would only weaken the nation’s diplomatic capability, turn it into an ‘enclosed Spain’ or a ‘neutral Switzerland’, or even annul
its very existence. On the domestic front, the material and moral effects of
mobilizing such a national enterprise could unify the divided country, restore
state authority to quash the socialist menace and eliminate parliamentary
democracy, and inaugurate a corporatist system of extraordinary productive
capacity.53 Corradini also foreshadowed the post-war fasci organizations and the
anti-party self-image of the fascist movement by calling for men of all political
persuasions to unite into one national party: ‘men of many parties, of many
ideals, we are gathered here in just one party, in just one ideal: Italy!‘54
Stage 4: Italy’s revolutionary war (1915–1918)
Despite the reluctance of the majority of the population and of parliament, the
Italian government officially renounced its traditional alliance and entered the
war on the side of the Entente Powers, in May 1915, after signing of the Treaty
of London the previous month. The treaty promised Italy the return of its
irredenta and compensation in the Balkans. The decision to enter the war was
orchestrated by the king and the current Prime Minister, Salandra, who used the
impetus of the interventionist drive, represented by a vocal minority that had
gained control of the streets. These days would be idealized as those of the
‘Radiant May’. Despite the display of modern patriotic fervour, however, the
initial stages of the Italian war effort illustrated an inability to break out of
nineteenth century customs. The government failed to fully mobilize the economy and the war on the field was led by the draconian General Cadorna, who
refused to adapt to modern trench warfare and rejected the need for any form of
popular patriotic display or propaganda. The inefficient war campaign and the
delayed declaration of war on Germany brought down the Salandra government
in June 1916.55
Corradini characterized the ‘Radiant May’ as the first true manifestation of
national unity, which a properly conducted war effort would complete, both
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MAURO MARSELLA
morally and materially.56 He called for the fusion of all the major facets of the
nation, including the state, industry and bureaucracy, in order to achieve unity
and optimal efficiency. Mussolini himself continually called for a more austere
and united war effort.57 Corradini ultimately saw the war as an immense modern
national project that required unity between the battle front and the home front:
‘a nation cannot win without parity of the military organization and industrial
organization’.58
For Corradini, national organic unity was inexorably tied to the high production and guided economy of a corporatist state. Corradini further illustrated
his conservative inclinations by characterizing the productive bourgeoisie as the
‘aristocrats of the modern epoch’. Like the syndicalists, he did not divide society
in stark Marxist terms, but claimed that each class possessed both its productive
and parasitic members. By mid-1918, Mussolini fully repudiated Marxism and
characterized social classes in a remarkably similar fashion. The subtitle to his
daily, Il Popolo d’Italia, was symbolically changed in August 1918, from ‘A
socialist daily’ to ‘A daily for combatants and producers’.59 Corradini’s own
corporatist vision, which borrowed from national syndicalism, constituted the
rather widely held concept of a ‘third way’ between capitalism and socialism.
Such a system would theoretically avoid the decadent excesses of capitalism,
which Corradini condemned with the same ferocity as a Marxist, and the social
injustice of socialism. Accordingly, his producer aristocracy was to perform its
task as a national duty, rather than for personal gain, which he described as
‘brutish’, ‘inferior’ and self-destructive. As a conservative corporatist, Corradini
sought to overcome social discord and worker impoverishment by raising the
proletariat’s standard of living through increased production, which would then
lead to social cooperation. Although he advised the owners to view their workers
as fellow Italians and not as mere subordinates, he also planned to outlaw all
independent labour organizations as divisive socialist enterprises. It was clear
that Corradini elevated the worker mainly because he/she was integral for the
productive capacity of the nation. He did not envision equality, but a socially
paternalistic and hierarchical relationship between workers and owners, which
would inevitably subordinate the working classes to business interests.60
Corradini considered the moral aspect of the war to be as important as the
material one. He accordingly idealized the virtue of war as a religious exercise
and portrayed the soldier as the ultimate embodiment of virtue with even greater
fervour than he had during the Libyan war. More important than the producer
within his national hierarchy was the soldier, the ‘producer of the spirit and
moral virtue’, while the society of the trench embodied the ideal national unity
of all classes. Despite their class or occupation, all soldiers were equal in their
‘death, sacrifice and glory’, as they were prepared to sacrifice their lives for the
nation.61 After a brief stint on the front lines, Mussolini echoed these views with
even greater zeal, as he developed his concept of a soldier elite class, a
‘trenchocracy’, which would lead post-war Italy.62 Corradini ultimately saw the
war as a means towards his ‘conservative revolution’. The war would not only
alter the balance of power, but also abolish the nineteenth century political
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ENRICO CORRADINI’S ITALIAN NATIONALISM
conceptions of socialism and liberalism. In so doing, it would revive the timeless
Social Darwinian conceptions of human relations and restore the classic, martial
‘laws of life’.63
The fall of 1917 was a decisive period for Italy’s war effort and political
landscape. In October, a German/Austrian military offensive at Caporetto broke
the Italian front lines and pushed the Italians back 80 miles in just 3 weeks.
British and French reinforcements were rushed in to stem the tide of the
advance. After 2 years of negligible gains against the Austrians, the disaster of
Caporetto awakened the nation to the inefficiency of the government. Many
believed that Caporetto was a result of defeatist propaganda, which only further
polarized politics and seemingly proved the nationalists to be right. Caporetto
also brought the first genuine surge of popular support for the war, which now
achieved its full psychological effect, and saw the rise of a new government, led
by Vittorio Emanuele Orlando and Francesco Nitti. In the field, Cadorna was
replaced by the more forward thinking General Diaz. The nation finally adopted
full economic mobilization and began a true propaganda campaign, which
promised the better-equipped troops land upon their return home.64 During the
same month in Russia, the eruption of the Bolshevik Revolution intensified an
already volatile political environment in Europe and raised bourgeois fears about
a ‘Red Peril’.
The preparation of a post-war blueprint occupied much of Corradini’s writing
during the later phase of the war. He stressed the need for post-war Italy to
continue upon its war-time footing, as only radical measures would ensure
national unity, self-consciousness, maximum production and imperial expansion.
Corradini stated that ‘the serious and sane Italy is founded on victory and begins
to finance the work of peace, as for 4 years it financed the work of war’.65 He
agreed with the government on the need to reward the combatants with
employment and political power, but felt only a national corporatist state could
provide this.66 The nationalists also combated a democratic post-war settlement,
but appeared to remain blind to the reality of Wilsonianism.67 Some within the
ANI interpreted national self-determination in a Social Darwinian sense, in
which ‘superior’ nations would be given their opportunity to expand. Corradini
thus made plans for colonial expansion. He looked to the British and French
examples and called for a large mercantile marine system that would export
industrial products to conquer markets and allow for colonization.68 The ANI
saw the terms of the Treaty of London merely as the foundation of further
expansion into Albania and Asia Minor.69 An already growing anti-allied
sentiment within the anti-democratic interventionist camp, however, erupted into
anger when the reality of Wilsonianism became clear.70
Stage 5: the ‘Red Years’ (1919–1920)
The Italian war concluded with the victorious offensive of Vittorio Veneto, in
which a regenerated Italy exploited an internally disintegrating Austrian army.
The period following the armistice in Italy, however, was as active and unstable
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as that of the war itself, particularly during the ‘Red Years’ of 1919 and 1920.
The country was beset by a wave of industrial strikes, a large socialist success
in the national elections and a string of agricultural strikes. This instability
continued with factory occupations, military mutinies, violent clashes between
the left and the right, as well as economic recession and political instability. The
stress of war also intensified already existing national problems and divisions,
which successive governments were unable to address. The Italian delegation
fared poorly at the Peace Conference, in which the terms of the Treaty of
London were rejected in the name of democratic self-determination. Nitti
replaced Prime Minister Orlando in June 1919, with a chamber dominated by
Socialists and the new Catholic Popular Party (PPI), while the old Liberal
oligarchy only continued to govern by default, as the Socialists remained hostile
to the regime, while the PPI were reluctant to endorse it. Consequently, the
middle classes increasingly lost faith in the regime, which appeared to be
incapable of either subduing socialism at home or securing Italian rights abroad.
Although in reality the left was divided, the middle classes feared a communist
revolution and became increasingly convinced of the need for draconian state
solutions.71
By late 1920, the tide turned against the left and a mass anti-socialist reaction
spread to the countryside and revived the ailing fascist movement, which had
formed the preceding year. The 1919 elections was a disaster for both the ANI
and Mussolini’s Fascio di Combattimento. The ANI did poorly because of its
elitist doctrine and approach to politics. Early fascism failed because there
simply was not any political space on the left for a new movement that courted
both workers and the bourgeoisie. Mussolini originally conceived the quasi-republican fascism of 1919 as a gathering of leftist interventionist forces. He then
abandoned this approach and began to champion the needs of industrialists and
land owners by late 1920. The former socialist exploited bourgeois fears and
successfully projected his movement as the only true provider of law and order.
Faced with the political reality of a working class that was loyal to leftist forces
and a fearful bourgeoisie seeking a political vehicle, Mussolini consciously
chose to support the latter. He especially took advantage of the dissatisfaction of
the new class of small peasant landowners and angry veterans, who had returned
home to broken promises. Although the fascist leader did not want to fully
abandon his leftist roots, Adrian Lyttelton and other scholars have demonstrated
how political circumstances continued to push fascism rightwards. The government, in contrast, failed to capitalize upon the hard-fought victory or to control
the chaotic post-war situation. When Giolitti returned to power in 1920 he not
only overlooked fascist excesses, but also planned to incorporate and domesticate the movement into another broad coalition.72
Unlike the fascist movement, the ANI failed to become a mass political
movement and only succeeded in further developing its ideology during the two
‘Red Years’. The movement formulated its post-war anti-governmental programme at a congress in Rome in 1919, which elaborated on D’Annunzio’s
slogan of the ‘mutilated victory’. The association also issued a manifesto at the
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ENRICO CORRADINI’S ITALIAN NATIONALISM
congress, which reinforced Corradini’s conception of a strong state and a
bourgeois led organic society. During the 1919 elections, the ANI also allied
with moderate established conservatives and the industrial sector to battle the
socialists. When the momentum shifted towards the right in late 1920, the ANI
was only in a position to follow the fascist lead and periodically to abet fascist
squad activity. Many nationalists soon realized that they were unable to adapt to
mass politics and that their only routes to power were either through an unlikely
forced seizure or some form of alliance with the popular fascists.73
Before the rightward shift of the fascist movement, Corradini’s immediate
post-war concerns were doctrinal development and propagandist activity against
the Liberal regime, which he believed to be teetering. He continued to elaborate
on his concept of a strong national syndicalist state. Believing that ‘individualistic parliamentarism has passed’, he called for the replacement of parliament and
political parties by syndicates that would represent all classes. These syndicates
were to collaborate with one another—a ‘true, organic, unitary and integral
collaboration’—in order to achieve social harmony and the maximum level of
production and social justice. The state would ideally ‘transcend the interests of
all classes’ through coordination and assimilation.74 As the bourgeoisie reestablished their power, he unabashedly reasserted that nationalism was an ‘empowerment and organization of the bourgeoisie and the industrial classes’.75
Corradini blamed both the government’s weak diplomacy and the avarice of
the ‘Franco–Anglo-Saxon plutocratic hegemony’ for the external ‘mutilation’ of
victory. Mussolini soon endorsed the same sentiments, as well as the notion of
the ‘proletariat nation’.76 The xenophobic and growing anti-allied sentiments of
the late war period now escalated into a sense of isolation in a world of Social
Darwinian struggle. Corradini proclaimed that it was ‘evident’ that America and
Britain, using the Wilsonian principles of peace and national self-determination
as a facade, had a secret pact to maintain their empires and impede Italian
expansion.77 The ANI was the only party united in its call to the government to
exercise its own rights by annexing Adriatic areas promised in the Treaty of
London. Corradini saw this move not only as a ‘duty’, but as a ‘necessity’ to
ensure justice and security for a now isolated Italy, which must not appear
weak.78
Stage 6: reaction from the right and the seizure of power (1921–1923)
From late 1920 until the Pact of Fusion in February 1923 the right staged a
strong counter-reaction to the leftist onslaught of the previous 2 years and seized
control of the state. Although the ANI and fascist movement increasingly
cooperated with one another during this period, their relationship remained
tenuous because of their differing perspectives. As fascism grew, the ANI made
a preliminary approach to Mussolini. There were factions within each organization, however, that continually opposed a formal alliance. Some within the ANI
disliked fascism’s lingering leftist and radical traits. The Corradini faction
around L’Idea Nazionale, however, wholeheartedly praised fascism and sup217
MAURO MARSELLA
ported closer relations. Mussolini himself had many factors to consider, which
made him hesitant about any general rightist alliance. He had the delicate task
not only of weighing the different factions within fascism, but of weighing his
desire to maintain fascist independence against the growing possibility of
reaching power through a rightist alliance, which could include an arrangement
with the state. Mussolini therefore postponed a final commitment until he felt it
was opportune to do so. In the 1921 elections he joined the ‘National Union’,
a rightist coalition that included the Nationalists and Liberals. The ANI had the
more modest ambition of becoming a partner and leader in such an alliance, but
Mussolini rejected any permanent coalition and looked towards a possible deal
with Giolitti. Not until the fascist congress in November 1921 did fascism shift
definitively rightwards.79 Even at this stage, Mussolini did not fully renounce his
leftist roots and he attempted to make peace with the Socialists. The Pact of
Pacification, however, brought howls of protest from his followers and again
forced Mussolini to cultivate his position on the right. By the end of 1921,
Mussolini renounced the Pact and his republicanism, and transformed the
movement into a political party.80
In a political environment in which the far right increasingly expanded at the
expense of the old Liberal elite, Corradini claimed that it was the rightist
bourgeois alliance that was defending, renovating and unifying the nation, where
the government could not. The passivity of the Liberal regime prompted an
increasing number of Italians to follow the rightist militia groups in order to
defend the nation for themselves. He saw the ‘civil federations, civil unions of
mobilization … nationalists and the Fasci di Combattimento … as the naturally
vivacious elements that have come to construct the national union’. For Corradini, these private groups represented the first sparse manifestations of Italian
self-consciousness and unity. They were the ‘fruits’ and the ‘sacred union of the
victory’. The bourgeoisie inevitably represented the core of these nationalistic
unions and would become the leaders of the future nationalist state.81
Less than a year after fascism’s rightward shift at the fascist congress
Mussolini’s opportunity to seize power arose and it was ironically the Socialist
Party that supplied it. The Socialists called for a general strike that lasted from
July to August 1922, which once again only succeeded in arousing middle class
fears and allowed Mussolini to pose as the defender of civil society. The
infamous ‘March on Rome’ that followed in October was sanctioned by the king
and the government, who believed they could incorporate fascism and exploit its
popular appeal. Mussolini was invited to become Prime Minister with full
emergency powers for 1 year and to form a coalition government. It was
Mussolini, however, who exploited the old ruling elite and slowly consolidated
power, while giving the impression of continuity. This consolidation was a slow
process, which began in 1922, when Mussolini formed a wide-ranging coalition
that included the ANI. At this stage, the PNF further exhibited its rightist
character by suppressing the political left, accepting both Church and king, and
introducing the familiar fascist credo of discipline, order and hierarchy. The ANI
demonstrated its tactical powerlessness throughout Mussolini’s rise to power.
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ENRICO CORRADINI’S ITALIAN NATIONALISM
During the ‘March on Rome’ it was prepared to defend the government against
the fascists and only joined Mussolini after his success. Despite its tactical
weakness, however, the ANI remained a crucial vehicle for Mussolini’s ambitions throughout the 1920s, as he still needed to assure skeptical conservatives
that he had abandoned his radical roots and appropriated a coherent conservative
doctrine.82
Corradini headed the faction of the ANI that sought to fuse completely with
Mussolini, as it believed fascism to be a populist embodiment of modern
nationalism. Whereas Federzoni first distrusted Mussolini, Corradini celebrated
fascism’s triumph as the realization of his own nationalist vision. He essentially
portrayed fascism as a popular manifestation of post-Adowa regenerative
nationalism, which began with the intervention of 1915 and succeeded in
defeating the anti-war forces: ‘Fascism is nationalism, or more precisely, is a
grand realization of nationalism’.83 He ultimately sanctioned and celebrated the
fascist victory because fascism propagated the central nationalist ideal of
imperialism, which was the essential means towards national re-birth. For
Corradini, the fascist victory ‘works to elevate the proletariat people of the
world, and such elevation is that of empire’.84
Epilogue: the Nationalist–Fascist hybrid and the legacy of Corradini
Both Mussolini and Corradini hailed the Pact of Fusion as not merely desirable
but inevitable. The Pact, signed on 27 February 1923, appeared to be a political
victory for fascism, which fully absorbed the ANI. With some exceptions, the
nationalists’ worker organizations, militia, youth groups, parliamentary and local
groups, and some 100 000 general members passed en bloc into the Fascist
Party.85 The pact not only removed nationalist competition throughout the
country, but it also provided fascism with a credible and mature conservative
elite, which could appease the conservative establishment.86 All these factors
were invaluable for Mussolini, who came to power partly on the expectation that
fascism would be domesticated. By choosing the nationalists over traditional
conservatives as his ‘domesticated partner’, Mussolini could maintain a semblance of his original radicalism and also form vital alliances with other centres
of power. This theoretically also left the door open for a future ‘fascistization’
of society. In return for disbanding their organization, the ANI gained doctrinal
superiority, as both parties agreed that the nationalist movement supplied the
ideology of fascism, while fascism supplied the mass base to nationalism. The
fascist vehicle was crucial for the nationalists, who because of their disdain for
the masses lacked a party mechanism to conquer the state. Nationalist influence
in Italian society was indirect and subtle, as their ideals permeated intellectual
and conservative circles, but never conquered popular opinion. They therefore
knew their future was doubtful without such an alliance.87
The Pact of Fusion was also the logical result of the fascist synthesis of the
far left and far right, and its subsequent shift to the right for political viability.
Although Gregor admitted that the ANI had created an association that was
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MAURO MARSELLA
‘animated by a belief system remarkably similar to the revolutionary national
syndicalists’, he also contended that fascism’s original rightism did not derive
from nationalist sources and that fascism did not move rightwards after 1919. He
instead claimed that fascism’s changed focus resulted from its mobilization of
the masses and that tactical manoeuvers did not determine its ideology.88 This
contradictory interpretation, however, minimizes the influence of the nationalist
right before 1919, as well as fascism’s further adoption of nationalist ideals
following the 1919 elections. It also fails to acknowledge that fascism only
became a mass movement by mobilizing the conservative middle classes.
Sternhell did, however, realize that fascism grew more conservative in 1920 and
that nationalism allowed fascism to become a mass movement.89 Payne and
Griffin have since recognized the increasing ideological and political importance
of nationalism to fascism. Griffin affirmed that the mobilization of fascism’s
post-war political constituency was based upon ‘palingenetic ultra-nationalism’
and that the punitive expeditions pushed fascism to the right. He believed that
fascism became a successful political entity only after it allied with sectors of the
right, which included the last significant strand of independent proto-fascism—
the ANI.90 Throughout the history of the ANI, Corradini had succeeded in
implementing his particular nationalist vision upon the association and he won
all of the factional battles.
Corradini’s nationalist ideology was essentially the glue that held together
fascism’s disparate parts. Modern scholars are aware that the fascist regime was
not only an assortment of various ideological strands, but a complex oligarchic,
authoritarian enterprise, which included traditional elites and institutions. Fascism as a ruling party incorporated several cultural and ideological variants,
including national syndicalism on the left, Futurism, and conservative nationalism and squadism on the right. Outside of the party, Mussolini had to contend
with the conservative establishment, which included the king, the armed forces,
the Church and big business.91 Griffin has argued that the core formula of
extreme regenerative nationalism and radical conservatism was able to straddle
each facet and appeal to both revolutionaries and traditional elites.92
The continual failure of the regime to realize its revolutionary ideals, moreover, typically led to a compromise that resembled the nationalist vision.
Although Mussolini initially attempted to limit the nationalists’ role, the Matteotti affair made it difficult for Mussolini to create a purely Fascist Party elite,
as nationalists filled various state positions previously held by fascists and
helped to shield fascism throughout the crisis.93 Even though Mussolini recovered, the subsequent consolidation of the dictatorship was carried out within the
framework of the traditional state bureaucracy, with Rocco and Federzoni acting
as key architects. By 1925, the party was defeated and subordinated under the
power of an authoritarian state and the personal authority of Mussolini. The
party’s function was to mobilize political support for the regime and to
indoctrinate youth, but not to administer the state. Mussolini actually reinforced
state power to limit the influence of his own party fanatics.94 Mussolini’s
‘totalitarianism’ thus resembled Corradini’s modern authoritarian state more than
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ENRICO CORRADINI’S ITALIAN NATIONALISM
the totalitarianism of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. The fascist conception of
the ideal society mirrored the nationalist model of an organic and hierarchical
social order, which subordinated workers and eliminated their independence,
while it emphasized the importance of the productive bourgeoisie. Fascism also
redefined classes along the lines of ‘producers’ and ‘parasites’, and exalted the
corporatist model for its social justice and production value. Corradini’s call for
national self-sufficiency translated into Mussolini’s drive for autarchy. Finally,
fascism also adopted the nationalist preoccupation with external expansion, as a
means towards colonization, spreading Italian civilization and resurrecting proletariat Italy as a major power. As recognized by Payne, the fascist regime was
therefore ‘not a revolution, but an authoritarian compromise’, which Mussolini
was never able to escape.95 The regime remained fascist largely through the
function of the party and the dictatorial power of Mussolini, but fascism’s first
hour form was severely compromised. Upon the nationalist’s death, Mussolini
revealingly observed that Corradini was ‘not only a fascist of the first hour from
1919, but a fascist of the very first hour from 1896’.96 Although this is an overly
simplistic view of the roots of Italian fascism, it acknowledged the ideological
and political debt that fascism owed to Corradini’s regenerative nationalism.
Notes and references
1. Zeev Sternhell, The Birth of Fascist Ideology, trans. David Maisel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1989), pp. 3–7, 24–25, 27, 31; James A. Gregor, Italian Fascism and Developmental Dictatorship
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 96–97, 103, 115, 117.
2. Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995),
pp. 8–9, 23–34, 66–68, 488; Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London: Pinter Publishers Limited,
1991), pp. 27, 32–37, 62, 203.
3. Payne, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 14, 7, 10–12; Roger Griffin (Ed), International Fascism: Theories, Causes and
the New Consensus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 14, 54.
4. Payne, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 66–68, 81–101, 488–89; Griffin, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 61–69, 82, 201, 208–209.
5. Alexander De Grand, The Italian Nationalist Association and the rise of fascism in Italy (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1978); Ronald S. Cunsolo, Italian Nationalism (Malabar: Robert E. Krieger
Publishing Co., 1990); Franco Gaeta, La Stampa Nazionalista (San Casciano: F. Cappelli di Rocca, 1965);
Franco Gaeta, Il Nazionalismo Italiano (Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli Spa, 1981); Adriano Roccucci, ‘Il
Movimento Nazionalista e Roma’, Studi Romani 36, nos. 3–4 (1988), pp. 327–346; Roberto Vivarelli,
Storia delle origini del fascismo: Volume I (Bologna: Societa editrice il Mulino, 1991); Luigi Salvatorelli,
Nazionalfascismo (Turin: Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, 1977); Danilo Veneruso, ‘Il Nazionalismo e il
fascismo come risposta negativa all’avvento di una politica aperta’, Studium 83, no. 3 (1987), p. 366;
Salvatore Saladino, in Hans Roger (Ed), European Right, (Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1965); Fabio Filippi, Una Vita Pagana: Enrico Corradini dal Superomismo Dannunziano a una Politica
di Massa (Florence: Vallecchi Editore, 1989); Claudio Cesa & Giovanni Landucci & Giovanni Busino, in
Leo Olschksi (Ed), La cultura italiana tra ‘800 e ‘900 e le origini del nazionalismo (Florence: Biblioteca
dell’archivio storico italiano); Francesco Valentini, Il pensiero politico contemporaneo (Rome-Bari:
Editori Laterza, 1979).
6. Payne, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 6–19, 64–65.
7. Cunsolo, op. cit., Ref. 5; Ronald Cunsolo, Enrico Corradini and Italian Nationalism (New York: New
York University, Ph.D., 1962); Franco Gaeta, Il Nazionalismo Italiano (Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli Spa,
1981); Salvatorelli, op. cit., Ref. 5.
8. Filippi, op. cit., Ref. 5, p. 12.
9. M. de Taeye-Henen, Le Nationalisme d’Enrico Corradini et les origins du fascisme dans le revue
Florentine Il Regno (1903–1906) (Paris: Libraire Marcel Didier, 1973), p. 15.
10. Payne, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 62–63; De Grand, op. cit., Ref. 5, p. 10.
11. M. de Taeye-Henen, op. cit., Ref. 9, p. 15.
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MAURO MARSELLA
12. Taeye-Henen, ibid., pp. 85–86.
13. Payne, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 63–64.
14. Ronald Cunsolo, Enrico Corradini and Italian Nationalism (New York: New York University, Ph.D.,
1962), pp. 142, 158, 160, 166–167.
15. Cunsolo, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 168.
16. Busino, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 65–66.
17. Roger Absalom, Italy Since 1800: A Nation in the Balance? (New York: Longman Group Limited, 1995),
pp. 69–71; Richard J. B. Bosworth, Italy, the Least of the Great Powers: Italian foreign policy before the
First World War (London: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 2, 4, 9; Philip Morgan, Italian Fascism,
1919–1945 (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1995), pp. 4–6; Armando Patrucco, The Critics of the Italian
Parliamentary System, 1860–1915 (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1992), pp. 201–202.
18. Cunsolo, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 430; Richard J. B. Bosworth, Italy and the Approach of the First World War
(London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1983), p. 25; Carlo Tullio-Altan La Nostra Italia: clientelismo,
trasformismo e ribellismo dall’ Unità all 2000 (Milan: Edizioni Giuridiche Economiche Aziendali dell
Università Bocconi e Giuffrè editori S.p.A. Milano, 2000), pp. 98–99.
19. Benito Mussolini, Il Trentino veduto da un socialista (Florence: Casa Editrice Italiana, 1911), pp. 93–94.
20. Enrico Corradini, Discorsi Politici: 1902–1923 (Florence: Vallecchi Editore, 1923), p. 68.
21. Corradini, ibid., pp. 53–58.
22. Absalom, op. cit., Ref. 17, p. 58.
23. Corradini, op. cit., Ref. 20, p. 81.
24. Corradini, ibid., p. 87.
25. Corradini, ibid., pp. 74–87, 91–99.
26. Corradini, ibid., pp. 59–69.
27. Corradini, ibid., p. 100.
28. Corradini, ibid., pp. 100–101.
29. De Grand, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 23–26; Cunsolo, op. cit., Ref. 14, pp. 189, 198–199.
30. Tullio-Altan, op. cit., Ref. 18, pp. 99–100.
31. Bosworth, op. cit., Ref. 18, p. 74; Franca Menichetti, Concezioni e Metemorfosi dello Stato nell’Età
Giolittiana (Milan: Seminario per le Scienze Giuridiche e Politiche dell’Università di Pisa, 1987),
pp. 120–121.
32. Absalom, op. cit., Ref. 17, p. 71.
33. Busino, op. cit., Ref. 5, p. 67.
34. De Grand, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 22–23, 26, 30, 32–33, 37, 39–40.
35. Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il rivoluzionario 1883–1920 (Turin: S.p.A., 1965), pp. 106, 108; James A.
Gregor, Young Mussolini and the Intellectual Origins of Fascism (Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1979), p. 126; Margherita G. Sarfatti, The Life of Benito Mussolini (New York: Frederick A. Stokes
Co., 1925), p. 175.
36. Corradini, op. cit., Ref. 20, p. 127.
37. Corradini, ibid., pp. 53–58.
38. Corradini, ibid., p. 114.
39. Corradini, op. cit., Ref. 20, pp. 242–244; Enrico Corradini, Il Nazionalismo Italiano (Milan: Fratelli
Treves, 1914), pp. 75–93.
40. Corradini, op. cit., Ref. 20, p. 142.
41. Corradini, ibid., p. 143.
42. Corradini, ibid., pp. 137–150; Enrico Corradini, Il Nazionalismo Italiano (Milan: Fratelli Treves, 1914),
pp. 183–188.
43. Corradini, op. cit., Ref. 20, pp. 121–134; Enrico Corradini, Il Nazionalismo Italiano (Milan: Fratelli
Treves, 1914), pp. 173–179.
44. Payne, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 243.
45. Absalom, op. cit., Ref. 17, pp. 70, 73–76; Bosworth, op. cit., Ref. 18, pp. 26–27.
46. De Grand, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 43, 47–49, 51, 53–56.
47. Absalom, op. cit., Ref. 17, pp. 73, 82–83; Denis Mack Smith, Modern Italy: A Political History (Ann
Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1997), p. 257; Morgan, op. cit., Ref. 17, p. 7.
48. Domenico Settembrini, ‘Mussolini and the Legacy of Revolutionary Socialism’, Journal of Contemporary
History, 11 (1976), p. 257; Benito Mussolini, ‘Audacia!’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 15 November 1914, p. 1; B.
Mussolini, ‘Parole e fatti’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 23 November 1914, p. 1; B. Mussolini, ‘La prima guerra
d’Italia’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 14 February 1915, p. 1.
49. Absalom, op. cit., Ref. 17, p. 87; De Grand, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 61–63, 69; Smith, op. cit., Ref. 47, p. 261.
50. Gaeta, op. cit., Ref. 7, pp. 170–171, 178, 181.
51. Corradini, op. cit., Ref. 20, pp. 276–277.
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ENRICO CORRADINI’S ITALIAN NATIONALISM
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.
79.
80.
81.
82.
83.
84.
85.
86.
87.
88.
89.
90.
Corradini, ibid., pp. 288–289, 300–305.
Corradini, ibid., p. 288; E. Corradini, ‘L’ora dell’azione’, Idea Nazionale, 20 August 1914, p. 1.
Corradini, op. cit., Ref. 20, pp. 297–299, 285.
Absalom, op. cit., Ref. 17, pp. 88–89, 92; Bosworth, op. cit., Ref. 18, p. 134; Smith, op. cit., Ref. 47,
pp. 262, 271–273.
E. Corradini, ‘Per la guerra d’Italia’, Idea Nazionale, 15 August 1915, p. 1.
B. Mussolini, ‘Disciplina’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 26 May 1916, p. 1; B. Mussolini, ‘Un manifesto alla
nazione’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 8 November 1917, p. 1.
E. Corradini, ‘La nuova forza dello stato’, Idea Nazionale, 30 December 1915, p. 1.
B. Mussolini, ‘Trincerocrazia’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 15 December 1917, p. 1; B. Mussolini, ‘Combattere o
lavorare’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 16 July 1918, p. 1; B. Mussolini, ‘Novita…’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 1 August
1918, p. 1.
Corradini, op. cit., Ref. 20, pp. 341–353.
Corradini, ibid., pp. 316, 319, 354, 375–390.
B. Mussolini, ‘Dalle trincea al paese’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 27 May 1916, p. 1; B. Mussolini, ‘Pace tedesca,
mai!’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 27 December 1916, p. 1; B. Mussolini, ‘Intermezzo’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 24
October 1917, p. 1.
E. Corradini, ‘La forza rivoluzionaria della guerra’, Idea Nazionale, 4 April 1917, p. 1.
Absalom, op. cit., Ref. 17, pp. 95, 97–98; Morgan, op. cit., Ref. 17, p. 9; Smith, op. cit., Ref. 47, p. 274.
E. Corradini, ‘Il passagio dello stato di guerra allo stato di pace’, Idea Nazionale, 20 November 1918, p. 1;
E. Corradini, ‘La verità della guerra’, Idea Nazionale, 8 April 1918, p. 1.
E. Corradini, Idea Nazionale, 27 August 1918, p. 1; E. Corradini, ‘Lucida di visione e disidero di potenza’,
Idea Nazionale, 2 July 1918, p. 1.
E. Corradini, ‘La verità della guerra’, Idea Nazionale, 8 April 1918, p. 1.
E. Corradini, ‘Il passagio dello stato di guerra allo stato di pace’, Idea Nazionale, 20 November 1918, p. 1.
De Grand, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 88–90.
Absalom, op. cit., Ref. 17, pp. 99–100; Smith, op. cit., Ref. 47, p. 275.
Absalom, op. cit., Ref. 17, pp. 100–103; Morgan, op. cit., Ref. 17, p. 21; Smith, op. cit., Ref. 47,
pp. 276–281, 295–296.
Absalom, op. cit., Ref. 17, pp. 107–111, 114; Adrian Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy,
1919–1929 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973), pp. 45, 47, 57, 61–62; Roberto Vivarelli, Il
fallimento del liberalismo: Studi sulle origine del fascismo (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino, 1981),
pp. 151, 160; Morgan, op. cit., Ref. 17, pp. 22, 34, 39; Payne, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 90–91, 100.
De Grand, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 98, 113–14, 117–122.
Corradini, op. cit., Ref. 20, pp. 421–425.
Corradini, ibid., pp. 443–455.
Paolo Orano, ‘Il popolo dei produttori’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 31 March 1919, p. 1; B. Mussolini, ‘Italia e
Francia’, Il Popolo d’Italia, 3 December 1918, p. 1; B. Mussolini, ‘L’Adriatico senza pace’, Il Popolo
d’Italia, 25 January 1920, p. 1.
E. Corradini, ‘Nazionalismo e internazionalismo’, Idea Nazionale, 24 March 1919, p. 1.
E. Corradini, ‘Si deve proclomare l’annessione’, Idea Nazionale, 29 April 1919, p. 1.
De Grand, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 122–125, 129, 135, 139; Morgan, op. cit., Ref. 17, pp. 46, 51–56.
Lyttelton, op. cit., Ref. 72, pp. 72–73, 75.
Corradini, op. cit., Ref. 20, pp. 463–470.
Absalom, op. cit., Ref. 17, pp. 115, 117–120; De Grand, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 143, 146–148; Ronald
Cunsolo, Enrico Corradini and Italian Nationalism (New York: New York University, Ph.D., 1962),
p. 133; Lyttelton, op. cit., Ref. 72, pp. 75–77, 81–82; Morgan, op. cit., Ref. 17, p. 58; Gaetano Salvemini,
The Origins of Fascism in Italy (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1973), pp. 362–363, 368,
379–380, 382.
E. Corradini, ‘Nazionalismo e fascismo’, Idea Nazionale, 22 December 1922, p. 1.
Corradini, op. cit., Ref. 20, pp. 495–503.
De Grand, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 157–159.
De Grand, ibid., pp. 149–150, 153; Ronald Cunsolo, Italian Nationalism (Malabar: Robert E. Krieger
Publishing Co., 1990), pp. 133–134.
Morgan, op. cit., Ref. 17, p. 63; Lyttelton, op. cit., Ref. 72, p. 120.
Gregor, op. cit., Ref. 1, pp. 103, 106, 112, 115–119.
Sternhell, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 34; Zeev Sternhell, Neither right nor left: fascist ideology in France
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 29, 189.
Payne, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 95; Griffin, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 61, 63–64, 66.
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MAURO MARSELLA
91. Alexander De Grand, Italian Fascism: its origins and development (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
2000), pp. 138–145; Lyttelton, op. cit., Ref. 72, pp. 168, 269–294.
92. Griffin, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 67, 69.
93. De Grand, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 160, 164, 166, 169.
94. De Grand, ibid., pp. 171–172, 175; Payne, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 118.
95. Payne, op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 119, 123.
96. Susmel, Edoardo and Susmel, Duilio, (Eds), Opera Omnia di Benito Mussolini. Vol. XXV (Florence: La
Fenice, 1958), pp. 69–71.
224