Fascist Spectacle.pdf

Fascist Spectacle http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft18700444&chunk.id=0&doc.v...
Within this context, violence acquired a positive role, and the discourse on violence, woven in with a
critique of democracy, became one of the fascist movement's foremost means of self-representation,
to be later adopted and further developed by the regime.
The Representation of Violence
On December 13, 1914, Mussolini made a speech in Parma protesting Italy's neutrality in World War I,
concluding: "We must act, move, fight and, if it is necessary, die. . . . It is blood that moves history's
wheel!" (E' il sangue che da' movimento alla ruota sonante della storia. ) [128] Mussolini accused the
pacifist socialists of "sacred egoism" and of offering only words to a France victimized by Germany's
attack. To the contrary, Mussolini called for a "solidarity of blood," and he encouraged the Italians,
especially "proletarian Italians," to oppose neutrality and join the fighters "with courage and
dignity." [129] Although initially siding with his fellow socialists in supporting neutrality at the outbreak
of the war, Mussolini had later reached the conclusion that intervention was a national duty. [130]
Against socialist formulas of immobilism, Mussolini proposed action: "Do we want to be as men and as
socialists the inert spectators of this grandiose drama? Or don't we want to be in one way or another
its protagonists?" [131] Expelled from the Socialist Party for his interventionist stance on November
24, [132] Mussolini incited Italy to war from the columns of his newly founded paper, Il Popolo
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d'Italia . [133] War, he claimed, allowed the socialists to participate in the creation of history. [134] Not
surprisingly, Mussolini joined the army on September 2, 1915, once Italy finally entered the world
conflict.
At the end of the war, the experience of the trenches (trincerismo ) became the basis for
Mussolini's new vision of politics. The violence and death experienced by the soldiers—the sacrifice of
blood—called out for social changes that would bring along a new order. The war cataclysm could only
be redeemed by a rejuvenated society. As a journalist of Il Popolo d'Italia wrote in 1918: "We are all
sure that a radical, deep, unforeseeable transformation awaits us. Everybody feels that millions and
millions of men cannot die without incredible renewals ensuing from the tremendous slaughter." [135]
The survivors brought with them at the end of the conflict a "culture of war" that sought an outlet in
civilian life. [136] Mussolini took charge of this responsibility, and in 1919, when he founded the Fasci
Italiani di Combattimento, he conceived of them as a logical continuation of the war years and the
battle for renewal. [137] The hostility between neutralists (mainly socialists) and interventionists, which
had divided the Italians during World War I, was thus continued after the war by Mussolini's adepts.
The fascists affirmed their will to fight the institutions of the past, and they accused the neutralists of
belonging to the "old" Italy. They claimed that by virtue of their "revolutionary" stance they had
gained the right to shape Italy's future. [138] Hence, the war became for the fascists the prelude to an
internal revolution that would mend Italy's moral crisis—a crisis that before the war had already been
diagnosed and dissected by the critics of Giolitti's government. The tension and difference between the
"two Italies" grew after the war. It eventually resolved into a violent conflict, of which Mussolini's
movement became the main protagonist. [139] On April 15, 1919, fascists—more specifically,
ex-Arditi [140] and futurists—burnt down the headquarters of the socialist newspaper Avanti! in
Milan. [141] Meanwhile, fascist squads were being organized as paramilitary groups. And in the years
before the March on Rome, the countryside of Italy's northern and central agrarian regions became the
theater of fascist "punitive expeditions," aggressions, and murders. [142] Fascists made recourse to
castor oil, the cudgel (manganello ), devastations, and fires. [143] In 1921 the deaths provoked by
fascist violence totaled from 500 to 600 people. [144] Hundreds of socialist headquarters, cooperatives,
cultural centers, popular libraries and theaters, peasants leagues, and unions were also
destroyed—726 locations in all. [145]
After each violent episode involving fascist squads, Mussolini, with an eye on the possible
institutionalization of his movement, justified fascist violence as a reaction or defense against the red
menace. [146] And even though
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fascist violence in the years between the end of the war and Mussolini's takeover of power served the
interests of the agrarian class, Mussolini never admitted it. [147] However, although he monitored his
language and propagandized a vision of conflict as a means to extirpate "evil," neither did Mussolini
refrain from praising violence for its contribution to dynamism, movement, and change. These two
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