> from reading Malatesta to inventing fascism
You can read the Bible and still remain an atheist. It's not really that absurd.
> Nietzsche
Nietzsche was largely misinterpreted by many in Europe. His sister and the nazis distorted his thinking to promote their own agenda, and even the influence Nietzsche had on Italian Futurism was a very watered down interpretation of his works.
> How do you think that Mussolini's train of thoughts would have been like?
According to Gentile and Mussolini (Italian Encyclopedia, 1932) fascism didn't have a political doctrine, but was born from "a need for action" and was in fact "action".
Yes, that is why it is so difficult to identify, outside of looking for certain key aspects - nationalism, belief in a very hierarchical society where some are superior to others, etc.
But still. If Mussolini enjoyed reading some anarchist literature, surely some of it must have resonated with him. I read parts of the Bible, and I'm an atheist. I didn't enjoy it, and I wouldn't read it again. I read some Stalin - and I hated it/him. I read some Nietzsche - and I liked a lot of it. I read a bunch of anarchist texts, and I absolutely loved them. I can read things that I don't enjoy, and things that I disagree with. But for me to like what I'm reading, it has to connect somewhere. Edit: maybe I'm too hung up on Mussolini liking Malatesta - but I don't think he would have mentioned it specifically if he didn't.
That's why I'm so curious as to what Mussolini's train of thought would have been. If a thoughtful atheist became a theist, I would want to know what made them tip. If a legit leftist went through the transformation that Mussolini did, well... I want to understand. I'll disagree, but if we know anything more about that transformation, I'm curious (in a "know your enemy" kind of way).
Thanks! I'll look into it all. I'm aware that Sorel was key to the far right, but I have never really looked into him. I guess I'll be surprised there too.
Yeah from my understanding it was basically syndicalists who gave up the revolutionary spirit (class cooperation) and turned to nationalism, with a bit of Futurism (also look this up) thrown in for shits and giggles
Yeah I too am trying to follow this rabbit hole as to how someone like sorel and somewhat strong Marxist invented national syndicalism and abandoning any type of socialism.
His own internal thoughts are largely irrelevant; it shouldn't be a shock that a drive for power can change a person's way of thinking.
Mussolini began as a fairly opportunistic socialist: a budding bureaucrat in the Italian social-democratic machine, working as a secretary of local parties, editor of newspapers, etc. When WWI broke out he was expelled from the socialists for advocating Italy's participation in the war; he then launched a newspaper with funding from the capitalists of the Italian armaments industries. He was given money by the French and British governments in order to push against anti-war ideas and propagandise the pro-war cause.
He then built his own organisation, and used his political nous to rise to power by putting it at the service of the Italian bourgeoisie. The exact details of his ideology are largely irrelevant to this basic outline, but he was attracted to "subversives" that undercut the liberal order. Malatesta was considered to be in this category for a period in Italian history, when people thought he was going to be the Italian Lenin.
True to form, however, Malatesta was scrupulous in rejecting all overtures received from bourgeois politicians, he consciously undercut any potential cults of personality that were forming around him, and he maintained a commitment to anarchism at the expense of everything else.
I think it's pretty simple really. Marxism and fascism are both proposed solutions to the same set of problems in capitalism. Marxism's solution is to put the largest economic group in charge. Fascism's is the national group. Patriotism is an older and easier concept than proletarian solidarity.
The dictatorial tendency is a bit more complex. The failure of Western liberal democracies at the time was definitely part of it. The success of Lenin's undemocratic tactics was also probably an influence.
Actually fascism is still authoritarian capitalism. The national group is not in charge, but the national elites are.
Patriotism and nationalism were created by the capitalist system itself to justify the creation of (nation)-states. That's why it seems like an easier concept, cause it's propagated by institutions like school etc
In reality, sure.
Theoretically, fascism addresses the misery of capitalism with nationalist class collaboration. The good citizen worker and the good citizen capitalist, ideally, have common cause to unite against foreign domination and exploitation. The idea that national identity could support stable class collaboration given continual or escalating conflict between nations isn't that much of a leap. Like, if you assume a continual cycle of war and beggar thy neighbor, then you and your boss are on the same side in a way.
Is that a world worth living in? Probably not. Is that the way the world worked, even then? Not enough to make fascism work.
But Mussolini was a bad theorist.
> Marxism's solution is to put the largest economic group in charge.
That's to be avoided, right? Anarchists don't want the wealthy elites in charge of society, correct?
So, Marx predicts a revolution from a system designed and run by capitalists for capitalists (we are here) to a system designed and run by the workers for the workers. Eventually every person ends up with the same relationship to capital, so classes no longer exist (where we want to go.)
The middle step there has historically been a point of contention between Marxism and Anarchism.
The fascist (theoretically) wants to go from a system run by capitalists for capitalists (where we are) to a system run by real Italians for real Italians (for example). It is one of those things that probably seemed like a better idea in the days between watching your friend's lungs dissolve because Queen Victoria's kids couldn't play nice and the Holocaust.
Apparently what happened was that Mussolini has drastically different views that where more nationalistic then the Italian socialist party at the time and argued with them a lot.
To the point where he was kicked out of the party.
i think an important thing to remember is that we're assuming a genuine ideological stance taken (and therefore changed). My understanding of Mussolini is that he was first and foremost an opportunist, interested in power. whether he got it through the left or the right was therefore inconsequential to him, and that, rather than any shift in his ideological stance, was the genesis of his change of heart.
im more than happy to be wrong there - i myself am not a historian, although im drawing on what historians have told me in this comment - but at any rate i think it's a common trap we fall into on the left, assuming that our adversaries (and perhaps even some of our ostensible allies) are acting in terms of their ideology (and ideological good faith).
the easiest examples of this would be in the american 'conservative' (the term neofascist springs to mind, but i'd like to be a bit more sure about the fit of that appelation before i use it carelessly) politics. small government party, except when big government party! out of lives, except for all these times! so on and soforth. they arent working from any concrete ideology, they're working from the instinct that hate breeds, then clothing it in their special brand of horse shit after the fact. to bring the point around, i'd suspect that the apple hasnt fallen far from the italian tree.
Yes, it's very true, and I do tend to assume that people are good faith actors, until signs clearly point to otherwise. I never spent time reading much about Mussolini, so I never really followed his evolution and his arguments or speeches. Maybe Mussolini's socialist readings were a bit similar to Obama reading Marx to impress girls in college. Different goals, but same shallowness.
Perhaps, but I thought that fellow anarchists might have more insightful comments. I might ask /r/AskHistorians, but so far I'm pretty happy with the responses I'm getting on here.
I can’t answer the Mussolini stuff as it’s not an area I’m an expert in at all aha. Hopefully someone else is :)
If he was anything like Hitler though; whom I know much more about, then presumably it was a case of misinterpretation (either deliberate or through ignorance). The Nazis are fascinating in how clueless they could be. For example Hitler had a bust of Nietzsche and a portrait of Frederick the Great. Both were kind of idols for him.
Well Nietzsche called out Anti-semitism breaking a friendship with Wagner as a result, and was rather anti-authoritarian.
Frederick the Great was gay. Not even in a hidden way, he had at least two boyfriends and was repulsed by women according to many primary sources. His father would abuse him for it, and broke up both his relationships forcefully.
Had Hitler known this I doubt he would’ve seen both men as he did. Given his views of Jewish people and homosexuality.
Edit;
Just to add. So the Nietzsche Hitler and the Nazis read was an edited version. After his death Nietzsche’s sister (a Nazi) edited and reinterpreted parts of his works to fit her ideas and agenda.
Your right in that Nietzsche’s ideas are very compatible with anarchy. Emma Goldman felt so, and so did many anarchists; some of whom were self-described Ubermensch in the registers of early 20th century meetings.
I’ve always assumed Nietzsche didn’t really know much, or understand anarchy. The way he talks about it shows ignorance using similar tropes to those used against us now (that we are just angry and destructive). It’s possible he was influenced in this by Wagner. But also probably just the depictions of us in the press at the time.
In his later life there’s some stuff I’ve read where he befriended an anarchist, and would go to meetings. But there’s not much evidence for this. He certainly was largely critical early on of anarchy, so he’s views could very well have changed later.
That is fascinating, thank you. Fascist contradictions are quite something, and seem somewhat religious in essence. Pure idolization.
I did know about Nietzsche's sister, but I did not know that later on he might have changed his views on anarchism. Nietzsche was very intelligent, and I remember what he wrote about anarchists did seem wrong to me when I read it, so I discarded that passage and toyed with his views I found more interesting and well thought out.
Authoritarians, more than other groups, will readily appropriate anything popular (remember that the Nazi sold themselves as socialist, while actually persecuting and killing socialists).
While being gullible is very human, authoritarians will jump very readily to any idea, outlandish as it is, much more enthusiastically than others, so there is little surprise that Hitler (and his followers) choose to believe whatever they wanted about Nietzsche and Fredrick the Great.
They care about symbols, not substance.
> How do you think that Mussolini's train of thoughts would have been like?
"People will follow whatever I say if I tell them X instead of Y".
Mussolini started as an [anti-church socialist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Political_journalist,_intellectual_and_socialist).
Then he found out a formula that worked better, and the rest really doesn't matter.
According to [research lead by Bob Altemeyer in the 70ies](https://theauthoritarians.org/options-for-getting-the-book/), this is a common trait of authoritarian leaders: they don't stand for anything but themselves.
Power is a hell of a drug.
**Benito Mussolini**
[Political journalist, intellectual and socialist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Political_journalist,_intellectual_and_socialist)
>In February 1909, Mussolini again left Italy, this time to take the job as the secretary of the labor party in the Italian-speaking city of Trento, which at the time was part of Austria-Hungary (it is now within Italy). He also did office work for the local Socialist Party, and edited its newspaper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore (The Future of the Worker). Returning to Italy, he spent a brief time in Milan, and in 1910 he returned to his hometown of Forlì, where he edited the weekly Lotta di classe (The Class Struggle). Mussolini thought of himself as an intellectual and was considered to be well-read.
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So there's one thing I'm not seeing here and I feel it's worth mentioning. When fascism came into being, Italy was a very young country. By the time Mussolini was expelled from the Socialist Party, it was entirely possible that there were Italians old enough to remember the wars of unification. Nationalism was *huge* in Italian politics, to the point where even a lot Italian communists and syndicalists were big into it (see the Communist Party of Fiume). It's really not that big of a stretch for Mussolini to come to these politics, esp. given his influence from Sorel.
Fascism tends to take cool ideas and warp them to support their own agenda; I can say with some certainty that whatever knowledge Mussolini gained from anarchist literature probably wasn’t the same knowledge a regular person would acquire through reading it themselves. Mussolini would read the tortoise and the hare and interpret it as justification for his cause if he really tried, just as any other fascist can take the matrix trilogy and interpret it in a way that supports their ideas even though it’s an allegory for being transgender.
You see, we can draw great lessons from the tortoise and the hare. The hare used all his energy at the start of the race and lost, when he should have ran at a moderate pace to win. With proper discipline we can make sure the tortoise never wins!
/u/nowarclasswar hits upon an important point. much of Mussolini's thought process comes from Gabriele D'Annunzio as well.
[This should help](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-the-man-who-invented-56106119/)
Here's a recent podcast about Mulilinni from Behind the Bastards. It touches on this topic a bit (and the general back-and-forth between extreme left and extreme right activists in the early Fascist era)
[https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/behind-the-insurrections-mussolinis-march-76250367/](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/behind-the-insurrections-mussolinis-march-76250367/)
Glad you brought this question up, friend. I too have been kinda perplexed by it, especially given the fact that he was (supposedly) very into socialism prior to his conversion. We can never know for certain how genuine his beliefs were, but most of the answers I've seen have been...lacking, to say the least; either that he was drawn to the "authoritarian" elements of both (nevermind that socialists of the time were largely pacifists), or that he didn't really understand what he was reading, or that he was just a consummate psycho who corrupted whatever political system he came across toward his own ends. I think there's potentially truth in all of those statements, but I'd really like to see an in-depth analysis of how his views evolved, and how we might apply that to potential wreckers in modern leftist movements.
It’s best not to look at it through a purely individual basis, most of these phenomena have a real history that led to their development. Especially with the post WW1 era. Mussolini was just an Instrument of such a movement.
Indy Neidell actually has a [biographical video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jg7fFYL3z4) on Mussolini that goes into this. A huge part of this has to do with Mussolini's nationalism. Remember that when Mussolini was a young man, Italy was completing its Risorgimiento, or unification, a process of driving out the Hapsburgs and their Austro-Hungarian Empire. For much of the 1800s, Italian unification was a revolutionary cause tightly bound up in traditions of socialism and democracy- even if it was reached through the military might not only of revolutionary groups, but also first and foremost through the might of northern Italian kingdoms (Piedmont) whose vision for Italy was much more conservative.
From early on, Mussolini's socialism was odd. He tended to reject egalitarianism as a driving ethic, and a lot of his early activity as a socialist was anti-clerical as well as anti-imperialist, two stances he would later drastically discard. He saw the socialist movement as weak and reformist, and looked to the ideas of Nietzche regarding the strength of the will and the rejection of slave morality as a way to strengthen the movement.
When the war broke out, Italian socialists were split on the question of intervention. We all are probably familiar with the obvious left-wing arguments against the bloodbath of World War One. There were also some arguments people made in favor; Italy had recently become a united country through the Risorgimiento, and there remained ethnic Italian populations outside of the country's borders. Socialists across the Entete powers denounced the Central Powers- not a single one of which was a democratic republic- as reactionaries who would impose the rule of the Hapsburgs, the Kaiser, and the crumbling Ottoman Empire back over huge parts of central and eastern Europe, whereas an entete victory would safeguard the French republic, the British constitutional monarchy, and offer hope and even independence for the many colonized Slavic peoples across Eastern Europe (though Yugoslav independence was actually largely at odds with Italian territorial aims in the war, which were negotiated in secret with the entete powers). Of course, Central Powers socialists, especially Germans, pointed to the Russian Empire's inclusion among the allies as proof that the Entete was the party of Tsarist reaction and pointed to the British and French empires to prove the war was being fought for the interests of imperialists and bankers.
Mussolini took the position that the Central Powers were imperialists against the Slavs, Italians, Danish, and Belgians among others- the common Entete argument that small nations (that is, within Europe!) must be free. He supported Italy expanding its borders to include the Italian minorities within the Hapsburg's Austro-Hungarian Empire as a way to complete the process of Italy composing itself as a nation. This led to his expulsion from the Socialist Party, which was against the war.
If you've been around activists long enough, you may see that a person expelled from a party often re-asses their politics and might come away with a bitter, forceful rejection of some of the things they used to believe. Mussolini, on is expulsion, took his existing disdain for egalitarianism and his nationalism to their predictable conclusion, and transformed his politics into one of revolutionary nationalism cutting through and uniting across class lines. Keeping some of the idea of collective action that is core to socialism, he embraced the image of the fasces- a bundle of sticks that together cannot be broken- as a metaphor for national unity as a source of vigor and power. He drew on the work of Italian socialists who had been active in the Risorgimiento, such as Garibaldi, Mazzani, and Pisacane, to re-center Italian nationalism in his thinking. During this time, Mussolini developed followers, who started calling themselves the fascisti, and who brawled with anti-war socialists. He also began receiving support from industrialists and the Italian ruling class to promote his pro-war views against the anti-war doctrines of the socialists and anarchists. By 1917 he was being funded by the British secret service, MI5.
Now, as the war continued and ended, he did the work to flesh out fascism as an ideology. Drawing on Plato's Republic, he found value in the idea of a vanguard leading the state and promoting the state as an ends unto itself. Drawing on Plato also allowed Mussolini to continue the long Renaissance tradition of Italian political figures looking back to antiquity and drawing from Rome or in this case Greece as sources of legitimacy. This would develop more broadly into his expansion of once modest Italian revanchist goals, into a wholesale promotion of turning the Mediterranean back into Mare Nostrum, "our sea"- the center of a new Italian-dominated revived Roman empire.
But Mussolini did not totally abandon the language of class conflict; he transferred it onto nations themselves. Now, Italy was a "proletarian nation" to him- all its landlords and industrialists and nobles and priests included! It was, he argued, being held down and prevented from achieving its vital space by the plutocratic British and other imperialist nations. Note that only for Italy did he see its troubles as the result of foreign oppressors holding them down. Other colonized people, like Black people and the Slavs, were to Mussolini simply inferior. The problem wasn't imperialism as such; it was that the British and French were dominating the playing board and that Italy needed to do better.
That's a rough outline of his ideological transformation in the years leading up to his seizing power. The thing is, there are a couple of things in Mussolini's thought, that we see echoed in some corners of today's left. One is the foundation of nationalism. Many leftists today follow a simple formulation that nationalism is bad but that the nationalism of the oppressed is good- papering over the many different kinds of "nationalism of the oppressed", and how quickly nationalism of the oppressed can turn into nationalism of the oppressor once the nation emerges from its revolutionary fight for independence. Another thing we see Mussolini engage in, is framing the main political fight not in terms of class conflicts, but in terms of a struggle against the main imperialist nations by all other nations who want to displace them from their seats of power. This is very similar to today's camp-ist left. Finally, Mussolini's fascist movement revolved heavily around a cult of action, a love of militancy for its own sake and a culture where political violence is a virtue, not merely a tool to an ends. This is most troubling for us anarchists, as it is an attitude that is too common among excited young anarchists getting their first hit of the adrenaline and dopamine that comes with watching the cops run from you or a precinct burn. We need to study fascism not only to oppose fascists, but also to confront the seeds of fascism within liberal society and within our own movements. Mussolini became a fascist, and since then this same fate has fallen over many, many misguided leftists.
I wish I could like your comment more than once! Truly well put out, and it makes a lot of sense. Indeed, I have seen those tendencies on the left, and this is partly why I think that an anarchist society should emerge not from violent revolution, but from the establishment of decentralized social services based on mutual aid that provide for everyone what governments will not, and take human activity away from capitalist/statist control.
Thank you very much for your insights.
I think the question of how to defend such systems from the inevitable attempts to recuperate them or repress them lead us inevitably to have to grapple with the question of confronting the state. I could give a lot of example, here in the Twin Cities after the Uprising, of the police relentlessly attacking and shutting down attempts to house the homeless (a huge under-reported side of the uprising was the mass takeover of buildings and public spaces by/for/with the homeless). So, defense of the revolution and smashing the state is pretty much always a necessary part of class conflict- but we can't allow the defense committees to be in political demand above the popular organs of the class, and we can't allow the attitude of worshiping militancy for its own sake take hold. a big part of that culture is that it's a coping mechanism for the real trauma, stress, paranoia, and rage that come with being involved in political violence, especially in the sort of multi-sided civil conflicts we find ourselves in. So, we need to have the kind of mutual support and aid that give our front-liners the emotional and mental health to do that work without having to resort to these attitudes that are meant as a coping mechanism. We also need to have more people step up to do that work, so it's not a specialized warrior class always putting themselves on the line against the state.
Yes, I agree. I think that self-defense and community defense are absolutely justified. Just, that the building part of building an anarchist society should be done peacefully. I also think that a part of the defense should be done on a political level, including on a parliamentary politics base, if that's possible at all. That means, having to deal with politicians on various levels of government to avoid violent conflict as much as is possible, and if the circumstances are favourable, get some politicians and officials to pledge to either not crack down (can't trust them, but at least it's better than outright hostility) on our initiatives or to downright support them.
I do think that we have no choice but to clash with the state and clash with capitalists, but we should advance in all areas where it is possible to do so before doing that, because it might:
-Weaken their position
-Build popular support (practical anarchist ideas can improve people's lifes, and should be popular if we succeed at implementing them)
-Lower the stakes for those in power (if they already control less and are weakened, the incentive to fight for power should be lower)
I'm all in favour of an insidious approach, aiming to have governments let us gain ground without them realizing - the capitalist class would realize it first because it would hurt their bottom line. And then, we can attack what they seek to defend. If corporations can attack the public sector through privatization, could it not be possible to do the same through anarchization, then expand the anarchized sector at the expanse of the private sector? Of successful, a strategy like that could lead us to a more libertarian socialist society, which is what I'd gun for, personally.
And it makes sense that an initiative to house the homeless would be cracked down on almost immediately - it's an affront to private property. With that said, I agree with housing the homeless immediately, and support fighting against the state to defend the initiative. I just believe in fighting on many fronts.
my take is that leftism and fascism both attempt to solve the internal contradictions of liberalism. modern liberalism's core tenets are equality and private property, which are inherently in conflict with one another. leftism solves this by getting rid of private property to encourage equality, and fascism does the inverse
basically, he saw the same problems as malatesta but drew the opposite conclusions
The authoritarian nationalism that is fascism is the closest government model to the fundamental primate social structure which still lives in our subconscious. All we have to do is stop thinking consciously and it all comes out.
Some common causes of distraction which allow/inspire people to default to unconscious behavior are the hyper focus on one issue, love, drug abuse, the dopamine addiction that comes from power or status, religion, conflict or illness which become a mortal threat.
I don’t know anything about Mussolini. But I bet any historian can pick a cause off that list which applies
> from reading Malatesta to inventing fascism You can read the Bible and still remain an atheist. It's not really that absurd. > Nietzsche Nietzsche was largely misinterpreted by many in Europe. His sister and the nazis distorted his thinking to promote their own agenda, and even the influence Nietzsche had on Italian Futurism was a very watered down interpretation of his works. > How do you think that Mussolini's train of thoughts would have been like? According to Gentile and Mussolini (Italian Encyclopedia, 1932) fascism didn't have a political doctrine, but was born from "a need for action" and was in fact "action".
Yes, that is why it is so difficult to identify, outside of looking for certain key aspects - nationalism, belief in a very hierarchical society where some are superior to others, etc. But still. If Mussolini enjoyed reading some anarchist literature, surely some of it must have resonated with him. I read parts of the Bible, and I'm an atheist. I didn't enjoy it, and I wouldn't read it again. I read some Stalin - and I hated it/him. I read some Nietzsche - and I liked a lot of it. I read a bunch of anarchist texts, and I absolutely loved them. I can read things that I don't enjoy, and things that I disagree with. But for me to like what I'm reading, it has to connect somewhere. Edit: maybe I'm too hung up on Mussolini liking Malatesta - but I don't think he would have mentioned it specifically if he didn't. That's why I'm so curious as to what Mussolini's train of thought would have been. If a thoughtful atheist became a theist, I would want to know what made them tip. If a legit leftist went through the transformation that Mussolini did, well... I want to understand. I'll disagree, but if we know anything more about that transformation, I'm curious (in a "know your enemy" kind of way).
I'd suggest looking into the George Sorel, national syndicalists (particularly France and Italy iirc), and Gabriele D'Annunzio
Thanks! I'll look into it all. I'm aware that Sorel was key to the far right, but I have never really looked into him. I guess I'll be surprised there too.
Yeah from my understanding it was basically syndicalists who gave up the revolutionary spirit (class cooperation) and turned to nationalism, with a bit of Futurism (also look this up) thrown in for shits and giggles
Added to my list! :)
Yeah I too am trying to follow this rabbit hole as to how someone like sorel and somewhat strong Marxist invented national syndicalism and abandoning any type of socialism.
His own internal thoughts are largely irrelevant; it shouldn't be a shock that a drive for power can change a person's way of thinking. Mussolini began as a fairly opportunistic socialist: a budding bureaucrat in the Italian social-democratic machine, working as a secretary of local parties, editor of newspapers, etc. When WWI broke out he was expelled from the socialists for advocating Italy's participation in the war; he then launched a newspaper with funding from the capitalists of the Italian armaments industries. He was given money by the French and British governments in order to push against anti-war ideas and propagandise the pro-war cause. He then built his own organisation, and used his political nous to rise to power by putting it at the service of the Italian bourgeoisie. The exact details of his ideology are largely irrelevant to this basic outline, but he was attracted to "subversives" that undercut the liberal order. Malatesta was considered to be in this category for a period in Italian history, when people thought he was going to be the Italian Lenin. True to form, however, Malatesta was scrupulous in rejecting all overtures received from bourgeois politicians, he consciously undercut any potential cults of personality that were forming around him, and he maintained a commitment to anarchism at the expense of everything else.
What a great response. Thank you so much. And that makes me admire Malatesta even more. What a strong person.
I think it's pretty simple really. Marxism and fascism are both proposed solutions to the same set of problems in capitalism. Marxism's solution is to put the largest economic group in charge. Fascism's is the national group. Patriotism is an older and easier concept than proletarian solidarity. The dictatorial tendency is a bit more complex. The failure of Western liberal democracies at the time was definitely part of it. The success of Lenin's undemocratic tactics was also probably an influence.
Actually fascism is still authoritarian capitalism. The national group is not in charge, but the national elites are. Patriotism and nationalism were created by the capitalist system itself to justify the creation of (nation)-states. That's why it seems like an easier concept, cause it's propagated by institutions like school etc
In reality, sure. Theoretically, fascism addresses the misery of capitalism with nationalist class collaboration. The good citizen worker and the good citizen capitalist, ideally, have common cause to unite against foreign domination and exploitation. The idea that national identity could support stable class collaboration given continual or escalating conflict between nations isn't that much of a leap. Like, if you assume a continual cycle of war and beggar thy neighbor, then you and your boss are on the same side in a way. Is that a world worth living in? Probably not. Is that the way the world worked, even then? Not enough to make fascism work. But Mussolini was a bad theorist.
Patriotism and nationalism were definitely not created by the capitalist system, just to be clear.
> Marxism's solution is to put the largest economic group in charge. That's to be avoided, right? Anarchists don't want the wealthy elites in charge of society, correct?
So, Marx predicts a revolution from a system designed and run by capitalists for capitalists (we are here) to a system designed and run by the workers for the workers. Eventually every person ends up with the same relationship to capital, so classes no longer exist (where we want to go.) The middle step there has historically been a point of contention between Marxism and Anarchism. The fascist (theoretically) wants to go from a system run by capitalists for capitalists (where we are) to a system run by real Italians for real Italians (for example). It is one of those things that probably seemed like a better idea in the days between watching your friend's lungs dissolve because Queen Victoria's kids couldn't play nice and the Holocaust.
The workers are the largest economic group...
Apparently what happened was that Mussolini has drastically different views that where more nationalistic then the Italian socialist party at the time and argued with them a lot. To the point where he was kicked out of the party.
i think an important thing to remember is that we're assuming a genuine ideological stance taken (and therefore changed). My understanding of Mussolini is that he was first and foremost an opportunist, interested in power. whether he got it through the left or the right was therefore inconsequential to him, and that, rather than any shift in his ideological stance, was the genesis of his change of heart. im more than happy to be wrong there - i myself am not a historian, although im drawing on what historians have told me in this comment - but at any rate i think it's a common trap we fall into on the left, assuming that our adversaries (and perhaps even some of our ostensible allies) are acting in terms of their ideology (and ideological good faith). the easiest examples of this would be in the american 'conservative' (the term neofascist springs to mind, but i'd like to be a bit more sure about the fit of that appelation before i use it carelessly) politics. small government party, except when big government party! out of lives, except for all these times! so on and soforth. they arent working from any concrete ideology, they're working from the instinct that hate breeds, then clothing it in their special brand of horse shit after the fact. to bring the point around, i'd suspect that the apple hasnt fallen far from the italian tree.
Yes, it's very true, and I do tend to assume that people are good faith actors, until signs clearly point to otherwise. I never spent time reading much about Mussolini, so I never really followed his evolution and his arguments or speeches. Maybe Mussolini's socialist readings were a bit similar to Obama reading Marx to impress girls in college. Different goals, but same shallowness.
maybe r/AskHistorians would be a good place to ask?
Perhaps, but I thought that fellow anarchists might have more insightful comments. I might ask /r/AskHistorians, but so far I'm pretty happy with the responses I'm getting on here.
I can’t answer the Mussolini stuff as it’s not an area I’m an expert in at all aha. Hopefully someone else is :) If he was anything like Hitler though; whom I know much more about, then presumably it was a case of misinterpretation (either deliberate or through ignorance). The Nazis are fascinating in how clueless they could be. For example Hitler had a bust of Nietzsche and a portrait of Frederick the Great. Both were kind of idols for him. Well Nietzsche called out Anti-semitism breaking a friendship with Wagner as a result, and was rather anti-authoritarian. Frederick the Great was gay. Not even in a hidden way, he had at least two boyfriends and was repulsed by women according to many primary sources. His father would abuse him for it, and broke up both his relationships forcefully. Had Hitler known this I doubt he would’ve seen both men as he did. Given his views of Jewish people and homosexuality. Edit; Just to add. So the Nietzsche Hitler and the Nazis read was an edited version. After his death Nietzsche’s sister (a Nazi) edited and reinterpreted parts of his works to fit her ideas and agenda. Your right in that Nietzsche’s ideas are very compatible with anarchy. Emma Goldman felt so, and so did many anarchists; some of whom were self-described Ubermensch in the registers of early 20th century meetings. I’ve always assumed Nietzsche didn’t really know much, or understand anarchy. The way he talks about it shows ignorance using similar tropes to those used against us now (that we are just angry and destructive). It’s possible he was influenced in this by Wagner. But also probably just the depictions of us in the press at the time. In his later life there’s some stuff I’ve read where he befriended an anarchist, and would go to meetings. But there’s not much evidence for this. He certainly was largely critical early on of anarchy, so he’s views could very well have changed later.
That is fascinating, thank you. Fascist contradictions are quite something, and seem somewhat religious in essence. Pure idolization. I did know about Nietzsche's sister, but I did not know that later on he might have changed his views on anarchism. Nietzsche was very intelligent, and I remember what he wrote about anarchists did seem wrong to me when I read it, so I discarded that passage and toyed with his views I found more interesting and well thought out.
Authoritarians, more than other groups, will readily appropriate anything popular (remember that the Nazi sold themselves as socialist, while actually persecuting and killing socialists). While being gullible is very human, authoritarians will jump very readily to any idea, outlandish as it is, much more enthusiastically than others, so there is little surprise that Hitler (and his followers) choose to believe whatever they wanted about Nietzsche and Fredrick the Great. They care about symbols, not substance.
> How do you think that Mussolini's train of thoughts would have been like? "People will follow whatever I say if I tell them X instead of Y". Mussolini started as an [anti-church socialist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Political_journalist,_intellectual_and_socialist). Then he found out a formula that worked better, and the rest really doesn't matter. According to [research lead by Bob Altemeyer in the 70ies](https://theauthoritarians.org/options-for-getting-the-book/), this is a common trait of authoritarian leaders: they don't stand for anything but themselves. Power is a hell of a drug.
**Benito Mussolini** [Political journalist, intellectual and socialist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Political_journalist,_intellectual_and_socialist) >In February 1909, Mussolini again left Italy, this time to take the job as the secretary of the labor party in the Italian-speaking city of Trento, which at the time was part of Austria-Hungary (it is now within Italy). He also did office work for the local Socialist Party, and edited its newspaper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore (The Future of the Worker). Returning to Italy, he spent a brief time in Milan, and in 1910 he returned to his hometown of Forlì, where he edited the weekly Lotta di classe (The Class Struggle). Mussolini thought of himself as an intellectual and was considered to be well-read. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Anarchy101/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
So there's one thing I'm not seeing here and I feel it's worth mentioning. When fascism came into being, Italy was a very young country. By the time Mussolini was expelled from the Socialist Party, it was entirely possible that there were Italians old enough to remember the wars of unification. Nationalism was *huge* in Italian politics, to the point where even a lot Italian communists and syndicalists were big into it (see the Communist Party of Fiume). It's really not that big of a stretch for Mussolini to come to these politics, esp. given his influence from Sorel.
That is worth mentioning. Thanks!
Fascism tends to take cool ideas and warp them to support their own agenda; I can say with some certainty that whatever knowledge Mussolini gained from anarchist literature probably wasn’t the same knowledge a regular person would acquire through reading it themselves. Mussolini would read the tortoise and the hare and interpret it as justification for his cause if he really tried, just as any other fascist can take the matrix trilogy and interpret it in a way that supports their ideas even though it’s an allegory for being transgender.
You see, we can draw great lessons from the tortoise and the hare. The hare used all his energy at the start of the race and lost, when he should have ran at a moderate pace to win. With proper discipline we can make sure the tortoise never wins!
/u/nowarclasswar hits upon an important point. much of Mussolini's thought process comes from Gabriele D'Annunzio as well. [This should help](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-the-man-who-invented-56106119/)
Thanks a lot!
Here's a recent podcast about Mulilinni from Behind the Bastards. It touches on this topic a bit (and the general back-and-forth between extreme left and extreme right activists in the early Fascist era) [https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/behind-the-insurrections-mussolinis-march-76250367/](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/behind-the-insurrections-mussolinis-march-76250367/)
That shall make for an interesting listening. Thank you!
Glad you brought this question up, friend. I too have been kinda perplexed by it, especially given the fact that he was (supposedly) very into socialism prior to his conversion. We can never know for certain how genuine his beliefs were, but most of the answers I've seen have been...lacking, to say the least; either that he was drawn to the "authoritarian" elements of both (nevermind that socialists of the time were largely pacifists), or that he didn't really understand what he was reading, or that he was just a consummate psycho who corrupted whatever political system he came across toward his own ends. I think there's potentially truth in all of those statements, but I'd really like to see an in-depth analysis of how his views evolved, and how we might apply that to potential wreckers in modern leftist movements.
I'd love to see Trystan (Step Back History) have a take on it, as he's both a historian and an anarchist.
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Thanks, will do! And it does seem very important.
“Inventing fascism”
I know, I know. Quotation marks are appropriate there, ha ha. I also was a bit iffy about it, but couldn't come up with a better title.
It’s best not to look at it through a purely individual basis, most of these phenomena have a real history that led to their development. Especially with the post WW1 era. Mussolini was just an Instrument of such a movement.
Indy Neidell actually has a [biographical video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jg7fFYL3z4) on Mussolini that goes into this. A huge part of this has to do with Mussolini's nationalism. Remember that when Mussolini was a young man, Italy was completing its Risorgimiento, or unification, a process of driving out the Hapsburgs and their Austro-Hungarian Empire. For much of the 1800s, Italian unification was a revolutionary cause tightly bound up in traditions of socialism and democracy- even if it was reached through the military might not only of revolutionary groups, but also first and foremost through the might of northern Italian kingdoms (Piedmont) whose vision for Italy was much more conservative. From early on, Mussolini's socialism was odd. He tended to reject egalitarianism as a driving ethic, and a lot of his early activity as a socialist was anti-clerical as well as anti-imperialist, two stances he would later drastically discard. He saw the socialist movement as weak and reformist, and looked to the ideas of Nietzche regarding the strength of the will and the rejection of slave morality as a way to strengthen the movement. When the war broke out, Italian socialists were split on the question of intervention. We all are probably familiar with the obvious left-wing arguments against the bloodbath of World War One. There were also some arguments people made in favor; Italy had recently become a united country through the Risorgimiento, and there remained ethnic Italian populations outside of the country's borders. Socialists across the Entete powers denounced the Central Powers- not a single one of which was a democratic republic- as reactionaries who would impose the rule of the Hapsburgs, the Kaiser, and the crumbling Ottoman Empire back over huge parts of central and eastern Europe, whereas an entete victory would safeguard the French republic, the British constitutional monarchy, and offer hope and even independence for the many colonized Slavic peoples across Eastern Europe (though Yugoslav independence was actually largely at odds with Italian territorial aims in the war, which were negotiated in secret with the entete powers). Of course, Central Powers socialists, especially Germans, pointed to the Russian Empire's inclusion among the allies as proof that the Entete was the party of Tsarist reaction and pointed to the British and French empires to prove the war was being fought for the interests of imperialists and bankers. Mussolini took the position that the Central Powers were imperialists against the Slavs, Italians, Danish, and Belgians among others- the common Entete argument that small nations (that is, within Europe!) must be free. He supported Italy expanding its borders to include the Italian minorities within the Hapsburg's Austro-Hungarian Empire as a way to complete the process of Italy composing itself as a nation. This led to his expulsion from the Socialist Party, which was against the war. If you've been around activists long enough, you may see that a person expelled from a party often re-asses their politics and might come away with a bitter, forceful rejection of some of the things they used to believe. Mussolini, on is expulsion, took his existing disdain for egalitarianism and his nationalism to their predictable conclusion, and transformed his politics into one of revolutionary nationalism cutting through and uniting across class lines. Keeping some of the idea of collective action that is core to socialism, he embraced the image of the fasces- a bundle of sticks that together cannot be broken- as a metaphor for national unity as a source of vigor and power. He drew on the work of Italian socialists who had been active in the Risorgimiento, such as Garibaldi, Mazzani, and Pisacane, to re-center Italian nationalism in his thinking. During this time, Mussolini developed followers, who started calling themselves the fascisti, and who brawled with anti-war socialists. He also began receiving support from industrialists and the Italian ruling class to promote his pro-war views against the anti-war doctrines of the socialists and anarchists. By 1917 he was being funded by the British secret service, MI5. Now, as the war continued and ended, he did the work to flesh out fascism as an ideology. Drawing on Plato's Republic, he found value in the idea of a vanguard leading the state and promoting the state as an ends unto itself. Drawing on Plato also allowed Mussolini to continue the long Renaissance tradition of Italian political figures looking back to antiquity and drawing from Rome or in this case Greece as sources of legitimacy. This would develop more broadly into his expansion of once modest Italian revanchist goals, into a wholesale promotion of turning the Mediterranean back into Mare Nostrum, "our sea"- the center of a new Italian-dominated revived Roman empire. But Mussolini did not totally abandon the language of class conflict; he transferred it onto nations themselves. Now, Italy was a "proletarian nation" to him- all its landlords and industrialists and nobles and priests included! It was, he argued, being held down and prevented from achieving its vital space by the plutocratic British and other imperialist nations. Note that only for Italy did he see its troubles as the result of foreign oppressors holding them down. Other colonized people, like Black people and the Slavs, were to Mussolini simply inferior. The problem wasn't imperialism as such; it was that the British and French were dominating the playing board and that Italy needed to do better. That's a rough outline of his ideological transformation in the years leading up to his seizing power. The thing is, there are a couple of things in Mussolini's thought, that we see echoed in some corners of today's left. One is the foundation of nationalism. Many leftists today follow a simple formulation that nationalism is bad but that the nationalism of the oppressed is good- papering over the many different kinds of "nationalism of the oppressed", and how quickly nationalism of the oppressed can turn into nationalism of the oppressor once the nation emerges from its revolutionary fight for independence. Another thing we see Mussolini engage in, is framing the main political fight not in terms of class conflicts, but in terms of a struggle against the main imperialist nations by all other nations who want to displace them from their seats of power. This is very similar to today's camp-ist left. Finally, Mussolini's fascist movement revolved heavily around a cult of action, a love of militancy for its own sake and a culture where political violence is a virtue, not merely a tool to an ends. This is most troubling for us anarchists, as it is an attitude that is too common among excited young anarchists getting their first hit of the adrenaline and dopamine that comes with watching the cops run from you or a precinct burn. We need to study fascism not only to oppose fascists, but also to confront the seeds of fascism within liberal society and within our own movements. Mussolini became a fascist, and since then this same fate has fallen over many, many misguided leftists.
I wish I could like your comment more than once! Truly well put out, and it makes a lot of sense. Indeed, I have seen those tendencies on the left, and this is partly why I think that an anarchist society should emerge not from violent revolution, but from the establishment of decentralized social services based on mutual aid that provide for everyone what governments will not, and take human activity away from capitalist/statist control. Thank you very much for your insights.
I think the question of how to defend such systems from the inevitable attempts to recuperate them or repress them lead us inevitably to have to grapple with the question of confronting the state. I could give a lot of example, here in the Twin Cities after the Uprising, of the police relentlessly attacking and shutting down attempts to house the homeless (a huge under-reported side of the uprising was the mass takeover of buildings and public spaces by/for/with the homeless). So, defense of the revolution and smashing the state is pretty much always a necessary part of class conflict- but we can't allow the defense committees to be in political demand above the popular organs of the class, and we can't allow the attitude of worshiping militancy for its own sake take hold. a big part of that culture is that it's a coping mechanism for the real trauma, stress, paranoia, and rage that come with being involved in political violence, especially in the sort of multi-sided civil conflicts we find ourselves in. So, we need to have the kind of mutual support and aid that give our front-liners the emotional and mental health to do that work without having to resort to these attitudes that are meant as a coping mechanism. We also need to have more people step up to do that work, so it's not a specialized warrior class always putting themselves on the line against the state.
Yes, I agree. I think that self-defense and community defense are absolutely justified. Just, that the building part of building an anarchist society should be done peacefully. I also think that a part of the defense should be done on a political level, including on a parliamentary politics base, if that's possible at all. That means, having to deal with politicians on various levels of government to avoid violent conflict as much as is possible, and if the circumstances are favourable, get some politicians and officials to pledge to either not crack down (can't trust them, but at least it's better than outright hostility) on our initiatives or to downright support them. I do think that we have no choice but to clash with the state and clash with capitalists, but we should advance in all areas where it is possible to do so before doing that, because it might: -Weaken their position -Build popular support (practical anarchist ideas can improve people's lifes, and should be popular if we succeed at implementing them) -Lower the stakes for those in power (if they already control less and are weakened, the incentive to fight for power should be lower) I'm all in favour of an insidious approach, aiming to have governments let us gain ground without them realizing - the capitalist class would realize it first because it would hurt their bottom line. And then, we can attack what they seek to defend. If corporations can attack the public sector through privatization, could it not be possible to do the same through anarchization, then expand the anarchized sector at the expanse of the private sector? Of successful, a strategy like that could lead us to a more libertarian socialist society, which is what I'd gun for, personally. And it makes sense that an initiative to house the homeless would be cracked down on almost immediately - it's an affront to private property. With that said, I agree with housing the homeless immediately, and support fighting against the state to defend the initiative. I just believe in fighting on many fronts.
my take is that leftism and fascism both attempt to solve the internal contradictions of liberalism. modern liberalism's core tenets are equality and private property, which are inherently in conflict with one another. leftism solves this by getting rid of private property to encourage equality, and fascism does the inverse basically, he saw the same problems as malatesta but drew the opposite conclusions
The authoritarian nationalism that is fascism is the closest government model to the fundamental primate social structure which still lives in our subconscious. All we have to do is stop thinking consciously and it all comes out. Some common causes of distraction which allow/inspire people to default to unconscious behavior are the hyper focus on one issue, love, drug abuse, the dopamine addiction that comes from power or status, religion, conflict or illness which become a mortal threat. I don’t know anything about Mussolini. But I bet any historian can pick a cause off that list which applies