Fascist Spectacle.pdf

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77. Scritti e discorsi , vol. VI, p. 283.
78. On March 24, 1924, the fifth anniversary of the fasces' foundation, Mussolini told the Italian mayors convened in Rome:
"One does not have the right to believe in humanitarian, peaceful ideologies. They are very beautiful, you see, in theory. They
are magnificent, poetic utopias. But the factual reality admonishes us to be vigilant and to consider the ground of foreign politics
as a highly mobile ground" ( Scritti e discorsi , vol. IV, p. 72). A few months later, in a June 4, 1924, speech at the Chamber,
Mussolini declared: "But one needs to be vigilant. That is why next to a foreign politics of peace—because only peace can allow
us to stand up again—we need to keep ready and efficient all our land, sea and air forces" (ibid., p. 173).
79. Speech of January 29, 1926, at the Chamber of Deputies, in Scritti e discorsi , vol. V, p. 259.
80. Scritti e discorsi , vol. VI, p. 109.
81. Scritti e discorsi , vol. VII, pp. 20-21. (Also see vol. VI, pp. 109, 120, 227, 283.)
82. Scritti e discorsi , vol. V, p. 36.
83. Scritti e discorsi , vol. VII, p. 200. Six days later, in Florence, Mussolini again attacked those whom he accused of wanting a
war against Italy and affirmed: "A powerfully armed fascist Italy will put out her simple alternative: either precious friendship or
a very hard hostility" (ibid., p. 206).
84. Ibid., pp. 207-208.
85. Ibid., p. 210.
86. Ibid., p. 211.
87. Ibid., p. 226.
88. Ibid., p. 228.
89. Scritti e discorsi , vol. VIII, p. 131.
90. Ibid.
91. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire 1875-1914 (New York: Pantheon, 1987).
92. Angelo Del Boca, Gli italiani in Africa Orientale: Dall'unità alla marcia su Roma (rome-Bari: Laterza, 1976). On fascism's rule
in the existing colonies, see Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini's Roman Empire (New York: Longman, 1976). According to Mack
Smith, fascism showed little understanding for indigenous ways of life.
93. For a theory of fascism's imperialism in the 1920s, see Giampiero Carocci, "Appunti sull'imperialismo fascista negli anni
'20," in Aquarone and Vernassa, op. cit.; and Renzo De Felice, "Alcune osservazioni sulla politica estera mussoliniana," in ibid.
92. Angelo Del Boca, Gli italiani in Africa Orientale: Dall'unità alla marcia su Roma (rome-Bari: Laterza, 1976). On fascism's rule
in the existing colonies, see Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini's Roman Empire (New York: Longman, 1976). According to Mack
Smith, fascism showed little understanding for indigenous ways of life.
93. For a theory of fascism's imperialism in the 1920s, see Giampiero Carocci, "Appunti sull'imperialismo fascista negli anni
'20," in Aquarone and Vernassa, op. cit.; and Renzo De Felice, "Alcune osservazioni sulla politica estera mussoliniana," in ibid.
94. Giorgio Rochat, Militari e politici nella preparazione della campagna d'Etiopia: Studio e documenti, 1932-1936 (Milan: Franco
Angeli, 1971).
95. According to Rochat, the politicians aimed at a colonial war of limited extent; the military planned a war of vast proportions.
These internal conflicts created such a situation that in 1934 "fascist Italy prepared a war against Ethiopia, but had
not yet chosen which war" (ibid., p. 95). On the contradictions in Mussolini's foreign politics, see Rumi, "'Revisionismo'
fascista e espansione coloniale," op. cit.
96. Rochat, op. cit., p. 39.
97. See Mussolini's memorandum to Badoglio in Rochat, op. cit., pp. 376-379.
98. See Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri, ASMAI II, La campagna italo-etiopica 1935-36 , pacco 1; and Rapporti
politici: Etiopia .
99. Ibid., pp. 184 (May 14, 1936).
100. Scritti e discorsi , vol. IX, pp. 191-192.
101. On melodrama I follow Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of
Excess (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). Melodrama, which literally means a drama with music, originally derived
from pantomime—a genre played in Paris popular theaters in the second half of the 1700s. This genre, especially in its dialogued
form (which began in the 1780s), almost always featured a "dramatic conflict of clear emblems" accompanied by strong visual
images and actions. In the 1800s melodrama developed its themes and style from this popular tradition and came to be
conceived as a drama of the ordinary.
102. See ibid. Following Northrop Frye's categorization, Brooks argues that melodrama generally operates in the mode of
romance.
103. Dissimulation and betrayal are typical of melodrama (ibid., p. 33).
101. On melodrama I follow Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of
Excess (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). Melodrama, which literally means a drama with music, originally derived
from pantomime—a genre played in Paris popular theaters in the second half of the 1700s. This genre, especially in its dialogued
form (which began in the 1780s), almost always featured a "dramatic conflict of clear emblems" accompanied by strong visual
images and actions. In the 1800s melodrama developed its themes and style from this popular tradition and came to be
conceived as a drama of the ordinary.
102. See ibid. Following Northrop Frye's categorization, Brooks argues that melodrama generally operates in the mode of
romance.
103. Dissimulation and betrayal are typical of melodrama (ibid., p. 33).
101. On melodrama I follow Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of
Excess (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). Melodrama, which literally means a drama with music, originally derived
from pantomime—a genre played in Paris popular theaters in the second half of the 1700s. This genre, especially in its dialogued
form (which began in the 1780s), almost always featured a "dramatic conflict of clear emblems" accompanied by strong visual
images and actions. In the 1800s melodrama developed its themes and style from this popular tradition and came to be
conceived as a drama of the ordinary.
102. See ibid. Following Northrop Frye's categorization, Brooks argues that melodrama generally operates in the mode of
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