The Case of Benito Mussolini, August 1914 – May 1915

164 O’brien Chapter 8 Inventing Fascism in the Period of Italian Neutrality: the Case of Benito Mussolini, August 1914 – May 1915 Paul O’Brien In his 1962 biography of Benito Mussolini, Christopher Hibbert referred to Mussolini’s position in relation to Italy’s 1915 intervention in the European war in terms of ‘the seed of Fascism [being] sown.’ This is a very far-reaching claim, since it suggests that Italian intervention may explain the origins of the fascist phenomenon. Unfortunately, however, not only is the statement not followed up with any further argumentation or sources, but Mussolini himself is in and out of the war by the end of the first paragraph of the following page.1 A few years later, the first volume of Renzo De Felice’s biography gave an account of Mussolini’s ‘conversion’ to the cause of the war and touched on his activity in the rest of the period of Italian neutrality between August 1914 and May 1915.2 However, De Felice’s account is replete with contradictions. He argues, for example, that Mussolini’s right-wing nationalist turn began only after Italy’s military defeat at Caporetto in October–November 1917,3 a position which is difficult to reconcile with De Felice’s interpretation of Mussolini and fascism in 1919 as left-wing and revolutionary.4 A. James Gregor’s 1979 study on the intellectual life of the young Mussolini attempts to develop what in a 1974 book Gregor had argued to be the ‘progressive revolutionary’ nature of fascism due to its focus on industrialization. But Gregor depends too heavily on abstract sociological typologies.5 He therefore quotes uncritically from Mussolini’s writings, and the latter’s political and military activities during the First World War are dealt with only briefly.6 Moreover, these activities are set within the ‘historically progressive’ categories which Gregor applies to his quotations 1 C. Hibbert, Benito Mussolini: The Rise and Fall of Il Duce (London, 1961), pp. 39-40. 2 R. De Felice, Mussolini il rivoluzionario (Turin, 1965), Chs. 9-10. 3 Ibid. Ch. 11. 4 Ibid. Ch. 12. 5 A.J. Gregor, Interpretations of Fascism (Morristown NJ, 1974), esp. Ch. 5. 6 A.J. Gregor, Young Mussolini and the Intellectual Origins of Fascism (Berkeley, CA, 1979), pp. 205-7. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004363724_010 Inventing Fascism in the Period of Italian Neutrality 165 from Mussolini and, from there, to his ‘progressive revolutionary’ interpretation of fascism in general. Finally, Richard Bosworth’s mammoth biography makes no critical reassessment of the war texts of Mussolini and in fact sees the material has having little meaning in terms of the development of fascist ideology.7 In short, we are left with quite a few pre-fabricated ideas, the basis of which is presumption rather than analytical substance. This chapter could skim over Mussolini’s experience as a journalist and soldier, covering the war in its entirety, and argue that it was precisely in that period that he practically invented fascism. However, to allow for a more detailed assessment of Musso- lini’s political trajectory towards fascism, it will limit itself to the period of Italian neutrality (August 1914-May 1915), arguing that it was already in that narrowly defined timeframe that he laid the foundation of the fascist project. At the time of the international diplomatic crisis in July 1914 Benito Mus- solini was chief editor of Avanti!, the daily newspaper of the Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI). He had held this position since December 1912 following the triumph of the Maximalist current at the party’s Reggio Emilia congress the previous month. In the wake of Austria’s 23 July ultimatum to Serbia, Mussolini declared that the Italian working class would give ‘not a man, not a penny!’ and would spill ‘not one drop of blood’ for a cause ‘that has nothing to do with it.’ He demanded that the Italian government declare absolute neutral- ity8 and issued slogans such as ‘Down with the war!,’ ‘Long live the international solidarity of the proletariat!’ and ‘Long live socialism!.’9 On 3 August Italy announced its neutrality. But not for this was Mussolini sitting contentedly in his editor’s chair. He had in fact begun to question socialist anti-militarism before the outbreak of the war. In November 1913 he founded a periodical, Utopia, through which he teased out his personal views independent of Avanti!. In May 1914 he published an article by Sergio Panunzio, a revolutionary syndi- calist, which argued that, since a war would create a revolutionary situation, ‘whoever cries Down with war! is the most ferocious conservative.’10 Examination of correspondence between the two men that same month shows that Mussolini subscribed to Panunzio’s view.11 In August, Mussolini refused to pub- lish an article by Panunzio in Avanti!. The piece in question was most likely the 7 R. Bosworth, Mussolini (London, 2002), pp. 114-21. 8 B. Mussolini, Opera Omnia, eds. E. and D. Susmel, 44 Vols (Florence, 1951-1980), Vol- ume 6, pp. 287-8. From here on OO. 9 Ibid., pp. 289 and 290-3. 10 S. Panunzio, “Il lato teorico e il lato pratico del socialismo”, Utopia (15-31 May 1914). 11 F. Perfetti, “La ‘conversione’ all’interventismo di Mussolini nel suo carteggio con Sergio Panunzio”, Storia Contemporanea, Volume 17, No. 1 (February 1986), 139-67. .

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