Customer Reviews

Mussolini: A New Life

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book will prompt much vitriol. It is a departure from the typical biography of Benito Mussolini which has been penned by British authors over the past six decades. Most biographers portray il Duce as an evil incompetant who bullied his way to power; in short, the dogma of "Mussolini was always wrong" applies. By ascribing to this mantra, these authors (Mack Smith, Ridley, Bosworth, etc.) fail to answer an important question: if Mussolini was so stupid, how could he retain power for over twenty years? Was it by "hypnotizing" the masses? If so, why was this feat not replicated by any other Italian stateman either before or since?
In this well-researched book, Farrell traces the roots of Mussolini's political thought and the events that led to Italy's "mutilated victory" of World War I. He explains how the Treaty of London (1915)promised to a victorious Italy territorial gains that were then denied to her at the conclusion of the war. This fact, together with the sacrifice of over 600,000 of Italy's youth in the Great War, set the stage for Mussolini and allowed him to tap into Italian humiliation, anger and nationalism. The picture of a shrewd and resourceful politician emerges.
Farrell identifies some of Fascism's successful public work projects in the interwar years, e.g. the "Battle for Grain" that allowed Italy to sever its dependance on foreign sources of grain to feed its people. Hitler's ascent to German chancellor in January of 1933, however, changes the dynamics of power in Europe and Hitler's ambitions provide the Allied destraction Mussolini needs in order to widen the Italian sphere of influence. The Ethiopian campaign is born but so too is Italy's tie to Germany as Britain objects to Italy's territorial ambitions in Africa. Farrell then points to Britain's Foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, and his anti-Italian prejudice as being partly culpable for cementening Italy to Germany. He proposes that had it not been for Eden, World War II may have been avoided. Indeed, few authors mention that it was Italy alone among the European powers that chose to stand up to Hitler in 1934 and prevent the Nazi anschluss of Austria. Farrell wonders whether had Britain acted differently towards Italy from 1935-1940 and coaxed her over to the Allied side whether sufficient pressure would have been brought to bear on Hitler's Germany and much bloodshed avoided. Would Italy have been coaxable, however, by allies who had betrayed the promoises of the Treaty of London?
Revealed, therefore, is a man driven by greed, fear and patriotism who led his country into a devestating war she was unprepared to fight. Such a decision was probably not based on stupdity, however, as the predominent wisdom in June of 1940 was that France was vanquished and England would soon sue for peace. History would obviously prove otherwise. Farrell is not a heretic or a blasphemer. Mussolini is not portrayed as a saint or a satan. He is made out to be a man who made mistakes, sometimes catastrophic, but always with the goal of making Italy great.

Mussolini was the father of modern fascism, now a movement roundly and rightly condemned for the results it would have later in Germany. But the truth is that Fascisms real successes were in Italy and Spain where it stemmed the tide of uncontrolled anarchism and communist subversion to create a proletarian corporate state. Although Fascism is now synonymous with evil, this was not so in Italy, where today's Italian party includes a coalition of Italy's old fascist party.

This wonderful much needed book examines Mussolini and although it pulls no punches in detailing Italian atrocities in Ethiopia and Mussolini's weakness to stand up to Hitler this book also widely and accurately praises Mussolini by offering a sobering honest account of his life. Usually the Italian dictator who came to power in 1922 is dismissed as a buffoon and a clown. But this book shows positively that this is not case. Mussolini called on the veterans of WWI to stand up for themselves by refusing to be spat on in public and he called on the nation to stop the flirtation with international socialism and instead become a nationalist productive beacon. His movement condemned the parasites of society, but unlike the Nazis, these parasites were not outlines by race or religion, rather they were parasites who came from all classes and embodied the ethic of the professional bureaucratic communist, those who never worked but who were professional strikers and politicians, living off the backs of proletariat to create a new dictatorship where the proletariat would be enslaved as it was in Russia.

Here we see how Mussolini went from being a dedicated socialist to apply his ideas to a new movement. And we see the inner workings of the Italian state under fascism, at peace with Europe until Hitler dragged it into WWII. No punches are pulled. This book details Mussolini's vast secret police forces and his failures as well as his insane obsessions. But a fair assessment is made, especially in analyzing Mussolini's half hearted defense of Italian Jews and his efforts to never allow one concentration camp on Italian soil, which is why not one Jew was ever deported until after the Nazis took over Italy in 1943. This book reminds us that Mussolini's greatest influences had been Socialism and in particular two Jewish women, titans of Italian socialism, which is why it has been a tragedy that Mussolini has gone down in history as no more then Hitler's goon, which he certainly was not from 1922 to 1943.

A round defense of Italian fascism and an excellent biography. Anyone interest in the alternative fascisms of Spain and Italy, will enjoy this book as will anyone interested in Italian politics and society or WWII.

Seth J. Frantzman

Nicholas Farrell's book is an impassioned revision of a good deal of the standard lore we have learned about Benito Mussolini since 1941, and he offers a different picture of a man who was once greatly admired by Churchill, Roosevelt, and others, only to see his life and life's work go up in flames in April 1945. Athough Farrell's interpretation may be disputed at points, at the very least he presents fascinating and intriguing facets about the life of "Il Duce," and, after reading his volume, one feels a lot closer to understanding the "hows" and "whys" of of an individual who still remains something of an enigma.

Nicholas Farrell's 'new life' on Mussolini is indeed a refreshingly 'new' appraisal of the man, his achievements and his failures. Farrell presents Mussolini as a dictator/politician who avoided most of the excesses of dictatorship and was as a result immensely popular with the Italian people for his achievements until the last few years when fatally he dragged Italy into the war. Farrell's theory is that if, like Franco, Mussolini had kept out of the war, he would have survived, like Franco, and history would have viewed him in a much kinder light.
The book is packed with details that interest and inform, for the most part it is written in a way that compels you to turn the pages and at its best reads like a thriller, for example the chapter on The Duce's betrayal by his closest colleagues entitled 'The Last Supper'. Farrell's excellent analysis of fascism as 'The Third Way' between socialism and capitalism reveals just why it had such popular appeal in the turmoil after the first world war.
The book is bound to provoke as it shows more sympathy to the dictator than is 'politically correct' but Farrell sets out the case why logically and consistently and forces us to re-examine our viewpoint and that demonstrates the book's merits.
For myself, I agree with Churchill's analysis that Mussolini's fatal character flaw was displayed in joining forces with Hitler and also with Farrell's comments that fascism probably would have ossified and become a spent force (cf Franco's Spain).
A thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking read!!

As an english speaking reader, you might have wondered how a supposedly incompetent, pathetic buffoon could hold power for twenty years, in the country that produced most of western civilization, and unlike Stalin or Hitler, do so without sitting on a pile of corpses; you might also ask yourself how could he achieve such a vast popular consensus, end a civil war, pacify the nation, stabilize the colonies, expand the empire, restore the economy, reclaim marshes, build entire cities, some in less than a year, some in Africa, innovate culture and arts, invent italian cinema, collect nobel laureates, sport victories and beat records of various kinds. And all that while the west was flagellated by the great depression and a seizable fraction of americans were forced into nomadism.

Should you then come across, say, an article of the Time, written in the twenties or thirties, you might be further bewildered in discovering that the same buffoon was unanimously incensed by his contemporaries as the greatest statesman of the age (as "the Roman genius" by Churchill, or "a superman" by Gandhi to name only two).

Your understanding could be facilitated by attentive perusal of the monumental work (7 volumes, about 5,000 pages) of Renzo de Felice, arguably the world's greatest historian of fascism; unfortunately his informative and highly documented yet terse and convoluted prose has not been translated into English yet.

Farrell's agile and highly readable book is perhaps the first english work largely based on de Felice's golden mine of facts, rather than WWII propaganda, and that alone would be a good reason for reading it. As an added bonus, it is so captivating that you'll find it hard to put down.

Unlike de Felice who writes about fascism, Farrell concentrates mostly on Mussolini himself, and there are many important omissions, which I will not list here. Then again, his work is of 500 pages (although densely typed) rather than 5,000.

Farrell is of course not an historian but a journalist, and of the kind that likes to appear nonconformist and politically incorrect. While this does spices up his pages, it might also give an unfortunate impression of bias. He does have his own bias, yet less so than most historians.

Incidentally, Farrell is fluent in Italian, in fact he has married an Italian woman and lives and works in Italy, precisely Predappio, Mussolini's birthplace.

I found this book disquieting because of the way it glosses over Mussolini's manifest faults.
This was a man who beat up, exiled or imprisoned thousands of his political opponents, who with no justification whatsoever, attacked Abyssinia, the Spanish Republic, Greece, France, and Great Britain - vainglorious and inefficent adventures that cost his country dear.
Thousands of Abyssinians suffered hideously from the mustard gas employed by his forces and Spanish civilians who had no quarrel with him were bombed. In 1940 he waited to stab France in the back until Germany was on the point of defeating her. From then on he had to turn to Hitler rescue him from his folly, a deflated buffoon whose unrealistic ambition had killed thousands and left Italy in a much worse case when he fell than when he came to power. He was no more capable of forming a sensible view of the capacities of his country than he was of putting together a long term strategy for it. Does he deserve this apologia? I think not.

You can tell you are not reading a serious book when the author compares Mussolini to Tony Blair in the introduction. Unlike the biographies of Denis Mack Smith and Richard Bosworth, Daily Telegraph journalist Nicholas Farrell uses little primary or archival evidence. Instead he relies largely on the conservative biographer Renzo De Felice and likeminded people. He is not exhaustive on any subject, so that he writes about women while ignoring Victoria De Grazia, or Pius XII's attitude to the Holocaust without reading Susan Zuccotti, or about postwar treatment of fascists with no mention of Roy Palmer Domenico. The result is a book that argues that Mussolini was a more thoughtful, productive and "modern" man with a reasonable level of achievement before he unfortunately entered World War Two on Hitler's side. Like many conservative interpreters of Mussolini he applauds and encourages his attacks on socialists and liberals. Also like them he argues that Mussolini was "really" a man of the left, a man who opposed the "bourgeoisie".

This is unconvincing. Arguing for Mussolini's "radicalism" means taking seriously Mussolini's incredibly cynical and opportunist posturings as a scheme of serious thought, and this cannot survive a reading of Mack Smith. Farrell himself admits that Mussolini criticized the "bourgeois" but praised the "entrepreneur," a distinction without a difference, that he opposed "bourgeois" golf but played tennis instead. Reading his work in parallel with Bosworth, Mack Smith, or with Macgregor Knox or Adrian Lyttleton is a peculiar experience. Over and over again in the latter works we see damning details, which Farrell does not so much refute as ignore. Since people can easily contact the other books one wonders why he bothered. Consider his treatment of Mussolini's war leadership. Obviously a disaster, Farrell over and over again implies this was the fault of the military leadership. This won't work for the obvious reason that Mussolini, having ruled Italy for the previous 18 years, was directly responsible for having a poorly led, badly equipped army. It won't work because war was not something forced on Mussolini, but freely chosen. And it won't work because over and over again Mussolini made stupid and ill thought decisions of his own that made the war worse. It was Mussolini's fault that Italian troops were dispersed on half a dozen fronts. It was Mussolini's fault that half the army was demobilized just before the invasion of Greece, that the Ministry of War offices still closed for lunchtime in the fall of 1940, and that the bourgeois university students were exempted from the draft. Farrell suggests that it was the accidental death of Italo Balbo that prevented a successful offensive against Egypt in 1940. But there was a genuine lack of equipment in 1940 Libya. It was also Mussolini who refused German aid in 1940 when it might have helped, who tried to abort one of Rommel's successful offensives and then tried to take credit for it when it succeeded. One could go on. Farrell doesn't even start.

Elsewhere Farrell states that Fascists only opposed parliamentary democracy when it didn't work, as if their own behaviour had not done so much to kill it. Likewise he argues that fascist militarism did not love war for its own sake but simply encouraged a natural sense of self-defence against external attack. Who, in 1929, was planning to attack Italy? Mussolini's fall in July 1943 is presented as a "betrayal," although it did not violate the Fascist party's own rules, the Italian constitution or the will of the Italian people. The refusal of Italians to assist the Holocaust before September 1943 is presented as a sign of Mussolini's virtue, while the Republic of Salo's involvement is barely mentioned. Farrell doesn't have much to say about Salo, except to suggest that Mussolini was serving as a shield against the Germans. This old argument wasn't true when Petain used it, and at least he never freely entered an alliance with Hitler. It ignores Mussolini's desire to execute naval officers who obeyed the king's orders, as they were obliged to do, and his cowardice in allowing his son-in-law to be murdered. Much of the book really wishes to settle scores with the left. The murdered Matteotti is described as "fanatical." We hear about Loyalist atrocities in the Spanish civil war, but nothing of the Nationalists', (including Mussolini's order to murder prisoners of war). The Resistance is accused of murdering 35,000 fascists in the course of liberation, when it was more like 12,000. "The chattering classes" of Italy are sneered at because they demurred at one historian's memoirs of how he fought for Salo. Why shouldn't one by angry with someone who fought for Hitler and against their country? The British are blamed not only for not supporting Mussolini's brutal conquest of Ethiopia, but also for not offering French Tunisia! Farrell offers no new evidence about overwhelming popular support for Mussolini. He likes to quote Indro Montanelli, the most respected post-war conservative journalist. He does not tell us that Montanelli in 1936 praised the Italian army for its racial disdain for conquered Ethiopians, or that in 1942 he praised the blood-soaked Croatian psychopath Pavelic. But he does quote a passage in which Montanelli blames the Italian war effort not on Mussolini, or Italy's selfish elite, but on the moral failings of the Italian people. One cannot help but think that the blame has been misplaced, by Montanelli, by Farrell, and by all who seek to euphemize Mussolini's crimes.