In the days leading up to the Allied occupation of Naples during World War II, many residents fled to underground shelters and catacombs to escape the bombings that hit the city. What some of them left behind amounts to a grim warning about the power of a utopian ideology to deceive and denigrate the human mind.
In the shelter I recently visited – a labyrinth of eerily narrow passages and small caves at least 30 meters deep – our guide pointed out a scratched design on one of the walls. It was a crude portrait of the fascist leaders who plunged the world into war: Hirohito, Hitler and Mussolini. Underneath the design was the word “Vincerò!” Not even with the collapse of the Axis powers in sight, living like a rat in a sewer system, would the underground artist lose faith in his political religion.
One hundred years ago, on 28 October 1922, Benito Mussolini orchestrated the March on Rome, when 20.40 black shirt followers coerced King Victor Emmanuel into effectively granting him control of the government. Within weeks, Mussolini installed the first fascist regime in Europe. “One day,” he told his mother when he was a taciturn and violent boy, “I will surprise the world.”
Mussolini kept his word. His achievement — the transformation of Italy from an insecure constitutional monarchy to a militarized totalitarian state — impressed the young Adolf Hitler. His charisma — as described by journalist Luigi Barzini, “there was something about him that surprised and fascinated almost everyone” — enabled him to bend an entire nation to his will. For two decades Mussolini enjoyed absolute power: he was Il Duce, the leader, the “new man” of the beginning of the century 20, as loved and feared as any Caesar in the Roman Empire. “His powers were limitless,” writes Barzini in The Italians [Os Italianos, sem edição no Brasil]. “Where his legal prerogatives ended, began his undisputed authority and immense personal prestige.”
Also like the Caesars of yore, Mussolini understood something about the human need to worship. . In this case, the object of veneration would be the nation-state, embodied in a singular individual, a benevolent superman. As Mussolini proclaimed: “Fascism is not just a party, it is a regime; it is not just a regime, but a faith; it is not just a faith, but a religion that is conquering the working masses of the Italian people.”
Mussolini himself did not like religion; he adopted his father’s atheistic and anti-Catholic views. He once mocked Christ as “a small and mean man who in two years converted a few villages and whose disciples were a dozen ignorant vagabonds, the scum of Palestine.”
The problem for Mussolini, however, was how to avoid a direct confrontation with the Catholic Church, which maintained a deep cultural loyalty among ordinary Italians, whatever the quality of their personal faith. Mussolini had introduced the concept of a “totalitarian” political ideology. How could the church be accommodated if fascism could not tolerate rivals? As Mussolini wrote in The Doctrine of Fascism :
“Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; fascism reaffirms the rights of the State as an expression of the real essence of the individual (…) or spiritual can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, fascism is totalitarian, and the fascist state — a synthesis and an inclusive unity of all values — interprets, develops and potentiates the entire life of a people.”
Negotiations between the Church and the government began in 1936 , but stopped because of fascist educational policies. Talks resumed, however, and on 20 February
, in a dazzling ceremony at the Lateran Palace, Mussolini signed protocols making Vatican City a fully independent enclave within Rome. Its citizens were exempt from fascist law. Catholic authority over marriage was restored, as was compulsory religious education.
Thus, there were practical limits to Mussolini’s totalitarianism. As biographer RJB Bosworth sums it up: “Mussolini’s dictatorship did not have, would not and could not invade the citadel of Catholicism.” In praising the protocols, the papal newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano , declared that “Italy was given back to God and God to Italy”. However, Mussolini also got what he wanted: a way for the Italian people to somehow retain the spiritual inspiration of Catholicism while directing their most important loyalties to the regime. Indeed, state idolatry continued apace: militant nationalism was the new creed.
Fascist youth organizations — whose motto was “Believe, obey, fight”—were modeled on the Society of Jesus. The anniversary of the March on Rome was staged into a pseudo-religious event, with a morning mass and a mix of Italian military, fascist militia and Catholic priests. Celebrations of military battles, such as the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, followed a similar pattern. “The commemoration of the fascist martyrs freely confused fascism with Christianity,” writes Michael Burleigh in Sacred Causes [Causas Sagradas, sem edição em português], “which the presence of so many clerics in such rituals did little to dispel, while fascist memorabilia owes much to pious kitsch.”
Mussolini himself, despite his personal disdain by the Church, was careful to disguise fascist doctrine in the language of obscure spirituality: “Fascism is a religious conception in which man is seen in his inherent relationship with a higher law and an objective will, which transcends the individual and makes him a conscious member of a spiritual society.”
Under the fascist view, citizens derive their sense of purpose and meaning from the regime: it is the state that “makes those aware of their mission”, “harmonises their divergent interests” and “leads men from primitive tribal life to the highest manifestation of human power, imperial rule”. It was a small step from the idolatry of the regime to the deification of its supreme leader. “The real novelty of his ambition,” writes Bosworth, in Mussolini, “was in his pretensions to enter the hearts and minds of his subjects. , and thus install fascism as a political religion.”
By taking full control of the media, Mussolini portrayed himself as the only man who could rescue Italy from economic disaster, defeat your enemies and restore your rightful place on the world stage. “I want to make Italy great, respected and feared,” he said. As the country’s youngest prime minister, he has always seemed manly and self-assured. Pictures of him swinging a hammer, laying bricks and chopping corn—usually bare-chested—appeared daily in the newspapers. Cups he drank from and picks he swung during his tours were considered holy relics. “There may be anti-fascists, but there were few anti-Mussolinians,” writes Christopher Hibbert, in Mussolini: The Rise and Fall of Il Duce [Causas Sagradas, sem edição em português] . “He wasn’t just a dictator. He was an idol.”
Mussolini’s personality cult reached its apex in 1936, when Italy brutally invaded and occupied Ethiopia. The world listened with indignation to reports of helpless natives choking on poison gas and being killed by machine guns. Yet Mussolini had defied the League of Nations—a badge of honor for most Italians—and won. Praise hymns sprang from the Italian press. “Homer, the divine in Art; Jesus, the divine in Life; Mussolini, the divine in action”, wrote journalist Asvero Gravelli. To others, he was “infallible”, a “titan”, a “genius” and “divine”. After hearing Mussolini announce from his balcony that Ethiopia had been defeated and that Rome was once again the capital of a great empire, his collaborators were almost defeated. “He’s like a god,” said one. “Like a god?” the other replied. “No no. He is a god.”
How could the Italian people, who lived in the midst of the headquarters of the universal Catholic Church — whose Catholic-Christian identity was assigned at birth—transfer your deepest devotion to a pagan regime led by an irreligious despot? After all, Italy was one of the victors of World War I. Its post-war economy was bad, but not as bad as Germany’s. However, its domestic conditions made it ripe for exploitation. Widespread poverty, war veterans with no hope of meaningful work, strikes, violence on the streets, the threat of communism, political divisions and a deep sense of disillusionment — all played a part in the history of a nation of 40 millions of souls in search of a political savior.
Mussolini, more performer than politician, took on the role. He invented the modern totalitarian state. He took away the freedoms of the people i Taliano, giving them dreams of a nationalist paradise nourished by imperialist glory. He made it look like fascism was the evolutionary pinnacle of Western civilization.
In fact, fascism proved to be a mutation: a miserable distortion of the political and religious ideals of the Western. Mussolini’s arrogance became his undoing. The democratic forces of the West pierced Italy’s fascist illusions and the Italian people finished the job. Deposed from power, Mussolini tried to flee the country. He was caught, shot and hanged to applause and mockery.
Yet Mussolini had legions of devoted followers who clung to hope — a hope separated from reason — like the artist crouching in a cave beneath the streets of Naples. Or like Manlio Morgagni, journalist, mayor of Milan and member of the Italian Senate. When Morgagni received news that Mussolini had been forced out of office, he committed suicide. “For over thirty years you, Duce , have had my full loyalty,” he wrote in a note. “My life was yours… I die with your name on my lips and a plea for the salvation of Italy.”