Benito Mussolini (1893 – 1945) is the living image of Fascism and one of the most well known historical figures ever, the antonomasia of a Dictator: nevertheless few are the ones aware that early in the 20th century he was the coming man of the Italian Revolutionary Socialism, headed to represent the Socialist Party, in which everyone had high hopes for the overthrowing of the so-called “bourgeois system”, when Socialism was still revolutionary and hostile to Capitalism. Lenin said of him: “in Italy, comrades, in Italy there is only a Socialist capable of guiding the people towards the revolution, Benito Mussolini”, soon after the Duce would lead a revolution, but a Fascist one… So, why did he become a Fascist after wall? Has he really betrayed Socialism as his critics accused him of doing? Or was Fascism the genial and natural outcome of a Socialist’s evolution, of a charismatic mass leader, towards the real revolution? In “Revolutionary Fascism” Erik Norling, author of “Blood in the Snow: The Russo-Finnish War” (Shelf Books, 2001), acquaints us not only with the Revolutionary and Socialist roots of primeval Fascism but also describes the Italian Social Republic period, at the end of the war, when these values reemerged in its utmost purity.
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About the Author
Erik Norling (Gothenburg, Sweden, 1964), is a lawyer and an Historian that lives in Malaga, Spain. He is an expert in the European volunteer anti-Communist movements, namely the Nordic, as well as in the Leftwing factions of Fascism, to the point that he has been nicknamed as the “Historian of Red Fascism”. He has published over a dozen books and numerous articles in historical magazines. He writes regularly in “Aportes”, journal of contemporary History from the University of CEU (San Pablo, Madrid, Spain) and “Nihil Obstat”, journal of History, Metapolitics and Philosophy (Ediciones Nueva Republica, Barcelona, Spain), he has also published articles in Richard Landwehr‘s “Siegrunen”, journal specialized in the History of the Waffen-SS.
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This book consists of five essays in which Erik Norling examines the socialist and revolutionary aspects of Italian Fascism. Anyone familiar with the work of A. James Gregor or Zeev Sternhell is aware that Fascism emerged from a syndicalist and therefore revolutionary socialist matrix. What distinguishes Norling's work is that he argues for the persistence, to one extent or another, of revolutionary socialism throughout the career of Italian Fascism.
The first essay is a short biography of Nicola Bombacci, a founder of the Italian Communist Party who became a follower of Mussolini and died with him in 1945. The second and fourth essays deal with the Italian Social Republic, or Salo Republic, and its Black Brigades. The third essay examines the question of Europeanism in the doctrines of Fascism, and the fifth essay provides a sort of overview of the themes of the other essays. The essays are accompanied by a selection of speeches by Mussolini, manifestos and laws of the early days of the Fascist Party and the Social Republic, and a chronology of the Republic.
All other things being equal, I would give this book four stars--Norling doesn't really go into enough detail on any of his topics to warrant five stars, but what he does, he does well. However, this book is a translation of a Spanish work (Norling is a Swede who now lives in Malaga), carried out on behalf of a Portuguese publisher. It is because of the awful translation that I give this book only three stars. Whoever performed the translation is not at all fluent in English, so the translation is everywhere awkward and unidiomatic and in many places difficult to understand without a prior knowledge of what Norling is writing about.... Read more ›
The first essay is a short biography of Nicola Bombacci, a founder of the Italian Communist Party who became a follower of Mussolini and died with him in 1945. The second and fourth essays deal with the Italian Social Republic, or Salo Republic, and its Black Brigades. The third essay examines the question of Europeanism in the doctrines of Fascism, and the fifth essay provides a sort of overview of the themes of the other essays. The essays are accompanied by a selection of speeches by Mussolini, manifestos and laws of the early days of the Fascist Party and the Social Republic, and a chronology of the Republic.
All other things being equal, I would give this book four stars--Norling doesn't really go into enough detail on any of his topics to warrant five stars, but what he does, he does well. However, this book is a translation of a Spanish work (Norling is a Swede who now lives in Malaga), carried out on behalf of a Portuguese publisher. It is because of the awful translation that I give this book only three stars. Whoever performed the translation is not at all fluent in English, so the translation is everywhere awkward and unidiomatic and in many places difficult to understand without a prior knowledge of what Norling is writing about.... Read more ›
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Very good-more scholarly than entertaining. Allows one to analyze w/out having to make a moral judgement & provides an "intellectual" basis from the Fascist point of view, left & right, while still being able to MAKE that necessary moral judgement against it.
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