Fascist Spectacle.pdf

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102. On the influence of Sorel's theory of violence at the time, see H. Stuart Hughes, Consciousness and Society: The
Reorientation of European Social Thought 1800-1930 (New York: Vintage, 1958).
103. Henri Bergson, L'évolution créatrice (Paris: F. Alcan, 1907). On Sorel's relation to Bergson, see H. Stuart Hughes, op. cit.,
pp. 121-123.
104. Goerges Sorel, Reflections on Violence (London: Allen and Unwin, 1916). trans. T. E. Hulme, p. 99 (first published in
English in 1914).
105. On this issue, see Sorel's distinction between force and violence, ibid., Chapter V, "The Political General Strike." For Sorel,
force imposes a social order; violence destroys a social order.
106. Ibid., p. 32. On Sorel's myth also see Michael Tager, "Myth and Politics in Sorel and Barthes," Journal of the History of
Ideas , vol. XLVII, no. 4 (October-December 1986), pp. 625-639.
107. Sorel's theory of myth also influenced the political theorist Carl Schmitt. In the chapter entitled "Irrational Theories of the
Direct Use of Force," in The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), trans. Ellen Kennedy
(originally published in German in 1923), Schmitt praises Sorel's theory of myth. For Schmitt, it is not important what the strike
means today or what it can accomplish. Its value resides in its ability to generate enthusiasm.
108. Sorel, op. cit., p. 295.
109. See Zeev Sternhell with Mario Sznajder and Maia Asheri, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political
Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), for Sorel's influence on revolutionary syndicalism. Sternhell affirms:
"Sorel's writings represented the conceptual space in which the theoreticians of revolutionary syndicalism evolved" (op. cit., p.
20). On Sorel's syndicalism also see J. R. Jennings, Georges Sorel: The Character and Development of His Thought (New York:
St. Martin's, 1985). On Sorel's influence on Gramsci see Walter Adamson, Hegemony and Revolution: A Study of Antonio
Gramsci's Political and Cultural Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). On syndicalism also see David D.
Roberts, The Syndicalist Tradition and Italian Fascism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979).
110. According to Renzo De Felice, author of a voluminous biography of Mussolini, the most important influence on Mussolini's
formation was revolutionary syndicalism. See his Mussolini il rivoluzionario, 1883-1920 (Turin: Einaudi, 1965), p. 40.
111. Mussolini's review was published in Il Popolo on May 27, 1909, now in Opera Omnia , vol. II, p. 126. Mussolini wrote: "I do
not think much of Bergson's influence on the formation of syndicalist theories, whereas Sorel is truly nôtre maître ." A year
earlier Mussolini had subscribed to Sorel's "Apology for Violence." See Opera Omnia , vol. I, p. 147.
112. Opera Omnia , vol. II, pp. 163-168. It seems that Mussolini first read Sorel during his sojourn in Switzerland. See De Felice,
Mussolini il rivoluzionario , op. cit., p. 40, footnote 4. Mussolini resided in Switzerland from July 1902 to November 1904.
Also his first encounter with Pareto's theories took place during his stay in Lausanne. See De Felice, ibid., p. 38.
113. Opera Omnia , vol. II, p. 164.
114. Ibid., p. 168. Later, in 1910, Mussolini criticized Sorel for sponsoring the monarchy. See Sergio Romano, "Sorel e
Mussolini," Storia Contemporanea , vol. XV, no. 1 (February 1984), pp. 123-131.
115. English translations of some manifestoes and other writings of Marinetti can be found in Filippo tommaso Marinetti,
Marinetti: Selected Writings (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971), ed. with introduction by R. W. Flint, trans. R. W. Flint
and Arthur Coppotelli.
116. See Adamson, Avant-Garde Florence , op. cit.; Emilio Gentile, ed., Mussolini e "La Voce" (Florence: Sansoni, 1976); and
Gentile, "La Voce" e l'eta' giolittiana (Milan: Pan, 1972). An important influence on the generation of 1880 was Alfredo Oriani's
La rivolta ideale (The Ideal Revolt) (1908), which called for the spiritual rebirth of Italy. Mussolini honored Oriani as a spiritual
precursor of fascism. See Scritti e discorsi , vol. IV, p. 101 (speech of April 27, 1924, which became the preface to Oriani's
Opera Omnia ).
117. Cited in Adamson, Avant-Garde Florence , op. cit., p. 88.
118. Ibid., p. 146. "War is the general examination to which people are called every so often by history. When this occurs,
everything that is healthy, even if hidden, is revealed; and what is rotten is also revealed."
119. Il Regno was founded in 1903.
120. Enrico Corradini, Discorsi politici (1902-1923) (Florence: Vallecchi, 1923). Also see Alexander De Grand, The Italian
Nationalist Association and the Rise of Fascism in Italy (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978).
121. See for example Mussolini's May 30, 1920, article in Il Popolo d'Italia on the crisis of parliamentarism. The article was
entitled "La montagna e i topi" (The Mountain and the Rats), now in Opera Omnia , vol. XV, pp. 9-11.
122. "The Fasces are not, do not want, cannot be, cannot become a party," Mussolini wrote in Il Popolo d'Italia on July 3, 1919.
See Opera Omnia , vol. XIII, p. 219.
123. See Mussolini's article in Il Popolo d'Italia of October 6, 1919: "It is hard to define the fascists. They are neither republican,
nor socialist, democratic, conservative, nationalist. They represent a synthesis of all negations and affirmations. . . . In fascism
and its lack of statutes and transcendental programs one can find the liberty and autonomy missing from the rigidly cast
organizations [ organizzazioni rigidamente inquadrate e tesserate ]" ( Opera Omnia , vol. XIV, p. 44). According to Franz
Neumann, National Socialism also lacked a specific program: "The ideology of National Socialism contains elements of idealism,
positivism, pragmatism, vitalism, universalism, institutionalism—in short, of every conceivable philosophy." See Behemoth: The
Structure and Practice of National Socialism 1933-1944 (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), p. 462. The book was first published
in 1942. A revised version was published in 1944.
124. Opera Omnia , vol. XV, pp. 216-217. Compare with the German novelist Ernst Jünger's statement as singled out by
Benjamin in his review of the collection Krieg und Krieger , edited by Jünger: "[I]t is of secondary importance in which century,
for which ideas, and with which weapons the fighting is done" ("Theories of German Fascism: On the Collection of Essays War
and Warriors , edited by Ernst
Jünger," New German Critique , no. 17 [Spring 1979], p. 120). The essay was originally published in 1930. See also this
quote from Ernst Jünger's Kampf als inneres Erlebnis as cited by Jeffrey Herf, op. cit., p. 76: "[P]erhaps we are sacrificing
ourselves for something inessential. But no one can take away our worth. What is essential is not what we fight for but how we
fight. The quality of fighting, the engagement of the person, even if it be for the most insignificant idea, counts for more than
brooding over good and evil." On turn-of-the-century stress on vitalism and motion, see Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring: The
Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989).
125. Opera Omnia , vol. XV, p. 221.
126. Cited in Emilio Gentile, Storia del Partito Fascista (1919-1922): Movimento e milizia (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1989), p. 400.
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