Why the post-fascists get so much encouragement

A specter is haunting the old continent: fascism. Is the movement that ruined Europe in the 20th century returning? In Italy, of all places, where fascism was virtually invented a hundred years ago under the leadership of Benito Mussolini, the Fratelli d’Italia (FdI), a party with roots in post-war post-fascism, tops opinion polls. With regard to the September 25 elections, more than twenty percent of Italians state that they want to vote for the FdI and its party leader Giorgia Meloni. Are twenty percent of the population fascists?

no To claim such a thing is nonsense. In this regard, Italy is no different than other European countries. The Fratelli, the only party in opposition to Mario Draghi’s technocratic government, offered itself as a gathering place for all kinds of dissatisfied people. And given the rising inflation and the bleak economic prospects, there are many of them. Against this background, the rise of Meloni’s party comes as no surprise.

No hard break with the past

The other Italian parties secretly hoped that this would be a temporary phenomenon. And many observers noted with satisfaction (and rightly so) that Meloni showed no weaknesses in the Ukraine crisis and clearly opposed Putin. Everything isn’t that bad, it was said unanimously.

With the government crisis and the approaching election date, everything looks different. Now fears and concerns about the party’s post-fascist roots are suddenly boiling up again. There is also a lot of mock hysteria and opportunism involved. “Simply attributing fascism to others is a wonderful excuse not to face the confrontation with Italian history oneself,” the writer Francesca Melandri once said in an interview with this newspaper.

On the other hand, there was and is no reason to play down the Fratelli ideology. It is also a fact that Italy has had a relaxed attitude towards fascism for decades. Anyone who strolls through the streets of Rome encounters the architectural evidence of those dark years at every turn.

In addition, a bizarre Mussolini cult lives on in certain circles. The descendants of the Duce continue to be a factor in the country’s political life, and every year tens of thousands of visitors make the pilgrimage to his home village of Predappio in Emilia-Romagna. There are nostalgics, neo-fascists and skinheads who are looking for posthumous closeness to Mussolini. Reports of his alleged benevolence – “the trains ran punctually under him” – persist, although they have long been refuted. Mussolini was a racist, anti-Semite and warmonger, there is no doubt about that.

In contrast to Germany, Italy did not make a hard break with that time. Coming to terms with the past was neglected for a long time, and history lessons were not and are not given an important role in schools and universities. The reasons are varied. The relatively mild view of the time of fascism has to do with the fact that Italy does not feel any collective guilt – the fact that there was also a remarkable resistance movement in the country at that time and that the partisans fought a heroic fight for freedom against Nazis and Nazis is always emphasized in the discussions fascists would have led.

The history professor Brunello Mantelli, author of the “Brief History of Italian Fascism”, also emphasizes the importance of fascism for the emergence of an Italian national consciousness. The monarchical-liberal state that emerged from the Risorgimento did not reach the masses. Fascism changed that. “Socialists and Catholics were nationalized by fascism in an authoritarian form,” says Mantelli, “hence the difficulty in coming to terms with the past.”

With the demise of the Democrazia Cristiana (DC), which had set the tone for decades, in the 1990s, an important moderate-conservative force then disappeared from the Italian party spectrum. Silvio Berlusconi, the Lega and the post-fascists jumped into the breach. The latter were part of the Berlusconi governments of those years, but they were kept in check by the «Cavaliere» and his partners and sought moderation. This experience took away some of their terror in the eyes of the public.

Tricolor flame from Mussolini’s coffin

For these reasons, much has been overlooked: for example, that the Melonis party logo still contains the old symbolism with the tricolor flame rising from the stylized Mussolini coffin; also that the organization of the FdI still includes cadres who received their political training in the youth organizations of the defunct Movimento Sociale, an organization that was co-founded by former fascists after the war.

Another question is whether this questionable legacy for Giorgia Meloni really pays off at the polls. The historian Brunello Mantelli sees it this way: «I think it certainly brings votes to the FdI, but not so much because of what fascism actually did, but because of the symbolic dimension – i.e. the idea of ​​a country that could is to make its own autonomous politics, proud of its independence and its own identity.”

For this reason, according to Mantelli, Meloni finds it difficult to free himself from the inheritance. She knows that it will cause her difficulties in the election campaign. At the same time, she doesn’t want to do without the votes that it ultimately brings. “If she breaks this connection, she runs the risk of sawing off the branch of the tree she’s sitting on,” says Mantelli.

The ambiguity of Giorgia Meloni

That is why she is ambiguous on the question of fascism – and quite tortuous, as an example from this Thursday shows. If anyone believes that “under our banner he can behave in such a way that the left can portray us as a nostalgic operetta, then be told that he is a traitor to our cause”, she called into the hall at a party event.

Does this get rid of the spirits she summoned? And does she even want it? In any case, she will certainly not be spared from these questions in the short election campaign that is currently underway. The “Repubblica” has been spreading the word with relish for days Connections of the Fratelli to neo-fascist circles like the Casa Pound or the Forza Nuova, and abroad people are looking to Italy with concern and doubting the reliability of a possible Meloni government, to which the Putin-sympathizers of the Lega and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia could also belong.