Per necessità famigliare: Hypocrisy and corruption in fascist Italy

European History Quarterly

Volumn 30, Issue 3, 2000, Pages

  Bosworth, R J B ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA   (Australia)

Author keywords

Corruption; Fascism; Italy; Patronage

Indexed keywords

EID: 34247307764     PISSN: 02656914     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/026569140003000304     Document Type: Article

References (125)

1. See, for example, the special issue of the Journal of Modern History 68 (1996)
2. and notably its editors' summary, S. Fitzpatrick and R. Gellately, Introduction to the Practices of Denunciation in Modern European History' (747-67), Fitzpatrick's follow-up work in a special issue of Russian History: S. Fitzpatrick, 'Editor's Introduction: Petitions and Denunciations in Russian and Soviet History', Russian History 24 (1997), 1-9
3. There is also a further piece, S. Fitzpatrick, 'Supplicants and Citizens: Public Letter Writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930s', Slavic Review 55 (1996), 78-105
4. See, further, S. Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times. Soviet Russia in the 1930s (New York 1999)
5. See, especially, E. Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy (Cambridge, Mass. 1996), translation of Il culto del littorio: la sacralizzazione della politica nell'Italia fascista (Ban 1993)
6. See, for example in the recent English-language literature, S. Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy (Berkeley 1997), who (7) declares that Gentile has not gone far enough in representing Fascism's 'original totalitarian culture'
7. For a review of this literature, see R.J.B. Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the History of M ussolini and Fascism (London 1998)
8. M. Berezin, Making the Fascist Self: The Political Culture of Interwar Italy (Ithaca 1997), 4
9. K. Pinkus, Bodily Regimes: Italian Advertising under Fascism (Minneapolis 1995)
10. J. Schnapp, Staging Fascism: '18BL' and the Theatre of Masses for Masses (Stanford 1996), 68
11. M.S. Stone, The Patron State: Culture and Politics in Fascist Italy (Princeton 1998), 3
12. see also R. Griffin, The Sacred Synthesis: The Ideological Cohesion of Fascist Cultural Policy', Modern Italy 3 (1998), 5-23
13. Berezin, Making the Fascist Self, 4, 243
14. The adjective was first deployed by Susan Sontag, a usage duly emphasized, for example, in the 1996 anniversary issue of the Journal of Contemporary History devoted to Italian Fascism. See the introductory article by J. Schnapp, 'Fascinating Fascism', Journal of Contemporary History 31 (1996), 235-44
15. V. De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy 1922-1945 (Berkeley 1992)
16. See, for example, G. Boatti (ed.), Caro Duce: lettere di donne italiane a Mussolini 1922-1943 (Milan 1989). Boatti notes that, during his term in office, Mussolini received more than 100,000 letters (15)
17. They splendidly include copies of his plagiarized law thesis and the original thesis. See Segreteria particolare del Duce, Carteggio Riservato, usta 40 (hereafter SPDCR). Farinacci's thesis, entitled 'Le obbligazioni naturali dal punto di vista del diritto e del diritto civile', as presented to the University of Modena, was word for word with that by Stefano Marenghi, 'Revisione critica delle varie teorie intorno al fondamento della obbligazione naturale', and was passed by the University of Turin. B. 42 (Farinacci) police report to Bocchini, 31 October 1931, contains further accounts of the 'well-known trick with the thesis", including richer details in a letter from Alberici to Arpinati, 24 July 1930. Also to be found in the Farinacci file is the legal statement that plagiarism should be punished with a term of six months gaol, that 'being mandatory in all universities in the kingdom where university exams are concerned' (b. 43, statement of 19 April 1925)
18. D. Mack Smith, Mussolini (London 1981), 128
19. See, most recently, A. Petacco, L'archivio segreto di Mussolini (Milan 1997). Of journalistic accounts, see the much more De Felicean, M. Innocenti, I gerarchi del Fascismo: storia del ventennio attraverso gli uomini del Duce (Milan 1992). Bottai is here defined as 'the most human and elevated of Mussolini's followers' (83). Similar, too, is G.B. Guerri, Fascisti: gli italiani di Mussolini, il regime degli italiani (Milan 1995), who is also particularly respectful towards Bottai, describing him as 'the only leading Fascist to have an organic vision of the state and of the means to build it', a man with a generally positive influence on Italian history (161, 164)
20. SPDCR, b. 47 (E. Muti), police report of 31 October 1940
21. For further background, see R.J.B. Bosworth, Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima: History Writing and the Second World War 1945-1990 (London 1993), 138-9
22. See the highly controversial book by R. Quartararo, Roma tra Londra e Berlino: la politic a estera fascista dal 1931 al 1940 (Rome 1980)
23. and the biographical studies by Paolo Nello, Dino Grandi: la formazione di un leader fascista (Bologna 1987)
24. Unfedele disubbidiente: Dino Grandi da Palazzo Chigi al 25 luglio (Bologna 1993). Galeazzo Ciano, by contrast, continues to have a very bad press among the D e Feliceans, despite the insights which he does seem to have had from time to time
25. Among the chief propagandists for his father has been Bruno Bottai, who rose to become Secretary General of the M inistry of Foreign Affairs (1987-94), a position of influence and potential patronage. See his B. Bottai, Fascismo familiare (Casale Monferrato 1997). Giuseppe Bottai's journal, Critica fascista, had welcomed the racial laws in 1938, a line very difficult to explain away in the 1990s. See, for example, Critica fascista, XVI. 15 August 1938; 1 September 1938. In the latter case, an editorial argued that Italian racism was different from German even while '3000 years of history' proved the existence of 'a solidly based Italian race always homogeneous, equal to itself on every occasion". Neither 'Africans' nor Jews could belong to this race since, after all, 'the spiritual personality of Jews is too diverse from ours. Actually to be precise it is the complete opposite of the Roman and Catholic Italian personality.' An educational campaign might be needed to convince all Italians of this truth and it should proceed 'with what we can define as surgical intransigence in the Mussolinian sense' (Critica fascista, 15 October 1938). Corporatism (always Bottai's special 'intellectual theme'), too, was fundamentally extraneous to Jews. Impossible to assimilate to the Italian race as to others in Europe, the Jew has found in anonymous and speculative capitalism his sanctuary and his patria' (issue of 15 December 1938)
26. R. De Felice, Mussolini il duce: gli anni del consenso 1929-1936 (Turin 1974), 216-7, 221
27. For the starkest presentation of this case, see R.F. H arney, Italophobia: An English-speaking Malady', Studi emigrazione 22 (1985), 6-44
28. See, for example, R. De Felice, Mussolini il fascista II L 'organizzazione dello Stato fascista 1925-1929 (Turin 1968), 357-61
29. Mussolini il Duce: gli anni del consenso, 1929-1936, 19-21, 174
30. Berezin, M aking the Fascist Self, 15, remarkably argues that Tew fascists (I cannot identify one) began their career as liberals and few liberals converted to fascism.' Perhaps it depends a little on definition, but many in the leadership group and presumably even more ex-servants of the Liberal regime indeed surrendered their liberalism to fascism (though, doubtless, often without thinking that there was much that was contradictory between the two ideologies and practices)
31. B. Mussolini, Opera omnia (ed. E. and D. Susmel), vol. XVII (Florence 1955), 80-3
32. SPDCR b. 81, 8 January 1928, Mussolini to Bodrero. Even in desperate circumstances in October 1943, Mussolini ostentatiously kept a volume on Socrates open on his desk. See E. Dolfin, Con Mussolini nella tragedia: diario del capo della segretaria particolare del Duce 1943-1944 (Cernusco sul Naviglio), 1949, 35
33. G. Bottai, Diario 1935-1944, ed. G.B. Guerri (Milan 1982), 247
34. Documenti diplomatici italiani, 7th series, vol. IV, 387, 8 August 1926, Mussolini to Volpi
35. He frequently remarks publicly on how tough and sharp-edged a personality he is. See, for example, B. Mussolini, Opera omnia (ed. E. and D. Susmel), vol. XIX (Florence 1956), 354
36. in which he defined himself as 'an unsociable animal'. He also was rather given to talking rhetorically about his dislike of speechifying and of ceremoniousl regretting too many public ceremonies. See, for example, vol. XVIII (Florence 1956), 422
37. cf. vol. XXI (Florence 1956), 146, in which he urged that the people, too, were tired of ceremonies
38. SPDCR b. 50 (Vidussoni), 16 February 1943, Caruso to Mussolini. Vidussoni was sacked in April 1943. He was replaced by Carlo Scorza who promptly wrote a devastating series of accounts of the feebleness of Fascist ideals then surviving in either Party or nation. See, for example, b. 49 (Scorza), 7 June 1943, Scorza to Mussolini
39. Almost all the numerous case studies of regional Fascism have as their theme the defeat of radicals by conservatives, often people with excellent contacts with power elites before 1922
40. SPDCR b. 46 (Giampaoli), 9 October 1926, A. Mussolini to Giampaoli
41. SPDCR b. 46 (Giampaoli), 1 April 1929, Turati to Mussolini; 19 April 1929, Giampaoli to Mussolini
42. see also his further appeal on 23 August 1930 which ran to fourteen pages
43. See the still highly positive summation of his career, SPDCR b. 79 (Arpinati), 6 October 1927 police report
44. SPDCR b. 46 (Giampaoli), 20 November 1928, Arnaldo Mussolini to B. Mussolini
45. SPDCR b. 48 (Parenti) 26 June 1933, police report, underlines the belief that the new federale of Milan, Rino Parenti, was a client of Starace. Denunciations eventually accused him of sex troubles with a maniac and of possessing a socially crude wife
46. SPDCR b. 79 (Arpinati), 1 May 1933, Mussolini to Arpinati
47. see also b. 49 (Starace), 3 May 1933, Starace to Mussolini. Starace was especially troubled by the fact that Arpinati had presided over a province in which there were only 36 subscribers to Il Popolo d'Italia
48. SPDCR b. 79 (Arpinati), 17 October 1933, Ciro Martignoni to Starace. Arpinati loudly denied the financial misdealing charge
49. See, for example, 20 October 1933, Arpinati to Mussolini
50. SPDCR b. 49 (Starace), 15 September 1934, Starace to Mussolini; b. 25 (Iraci), 10 September 1934, Starace to Mussolini
51. It is of course the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: Bolsheviks: Short Course (Sydney 1942) which happily talks about 'bukharins', 'rykovs', 'kamenevs' and other 'insects' (347)
52. Consider his pledge to Mussolini: 'You have the right to know everything about my every act, including those in my private life/SPDCR b. 94, 14 April 1937, Starace to Mussolini
53. There were also rumours of financial and sexual misconduct in his regard and he was thought to have gone to an early grave in 1940, exhausted by the combination of a heavy dinner and a young wife. Innocenti, I gerarchi del Fascismo, 168
54. SPDCR b.49 (Starace), 22 June 1939, Starace to Mussolini
55. Even at the moment of his first successes, there was a file of allegations about his alleged fondness for peculation, sexual misdeeds, taking of cocaine and his troubles with his wife who was thought to prefer a cousin to him. See SPD CR b. 94 (Starace), 13 October 1928, police report
56. SPDCR b. 94 (Starace), 14 July 1942, police report
57. A. Petacco, L 'archivio segreto di Mussolini, 74-5
58. For his post-Second World War memoirs, see A. Dumini, Diciassette colpi (Milan 1958)
59. See M. Canali, Il delitto Matteotti: affarismo e politica nel primo governo Mussolini (Bologna 1997), 104
60. B. Mussolini, Operaomnia (ed. E. and D. Susmel), vol. XX (Florence 1956), 325-6
61. See Canali, Il delitto Matteotti, 526-44
62. SPDCR, b. 84 (Dumini), 20 May 1928, Dumini to Mussolini, where he complained 'I am hungry. I don't have a bean ... I don't merit being treated this way.'
63. The cold and damp of the Tremiti allegedly brought on arthritis, inflamed his war wounds and damaged his sight. See 20 March 1930. Dr Luigi Mazzilli to D irezione coloni confinati
64. 4 March 1931, Jessie Wilson to Bocchini
65. See also 4 December 1933. both Dumini and Jessie Wilson to Rachele Mussolini, appealing against a return to the Tremiti islands after Dumini had apparently been about to despatch abroad documents 'which would have compromised the responsibility of the Head of Goyernment' (Report, 13 August 1933)
66. see also 1 January 1928, where Dumini offered to change his name and make himself disappear
67. Cf. the similar use of this word by the Novara Fascist Amadeo Belloni. SPDCR b. 80 (Belloni), 12 February 1930, Belloni to Mussolini
68. SPDCR, b. 84 (Dumini), 23 July 1932, Jessie Wilson to Mussolini
69. Bocchini and the Fascist secret police were alert at the time to a possible assassination attempt against Mussolini. See V. Rizzo, Attenti al Dace: storie minime dell'Italia fascista 1927-1938 (Florence 1981), 93
70. SPDCR b. 84 (Dumini), 25 March 1937, Dumini memorandum (cf. 1 March 1937, Sebastiani note)
71. See, for example, Ministero della Cultura Popolare (ed.), Che cosa hanno fatto gli inglesi in Cirenaica (Rome July 1941)
72. SPDCR, b. 84 (Dumini), 1 May 1941, Dumini to Sebastiani. For a time he got work in Italian-occupied Tunisia but eventually fled before the Allied advance. In April 1943, he was back in Italy and asking to be given a truck, a request which Mussolini approved but which the army seems to have successfully blocked until July. Dumini thereupon supported the Salo Republic, amid further charges of corruption. He was imprisoned after the war but, like so many others, was amnestied before too long
73. V. Emiliani, Il paese dei Mussolini (Turin 1984) 46-7
74. see also V. Emiliani, I tre Mussolini: Luigi, Alessandro, Benito (Milan 1997), an extended edition of the former book
75. Most effectively by R. Ben-Ghiat, 'Fascism, Writing and Memory: The Realist Aesthetic in Italy, 1930-1950', Journal of Modern History 67 (1995), 627-65
76. 'Italian Fascism and the Aesthetics of the "Third Way'", Journal of Contemporary History 31 (1996), 293-316
77. SPDCR b. 103 (M. Piacentini), 16 April 1931, 5 April 1932 reports. Cf. even more drastic claims made about the architect Armando Brasini; b. 98 (Brasini), 9 January 1937, police report. Brasini was thought to possess a solid patron in Francesco Giunta
78. SPDCR b. 102 (Mascagni), 24 June 1926, a characteristic eleven-page letter, Mascagni to Mussolini
79. 15 July 1931, Bottai to Mussolini
80. 1 September 1931, Mascagni to Mussolini
81. 1 March 1935, Farinacci to Mussolini
82. SPDCR b. 14 (Soffici), 10 June 1939, report. The most grovelling file is probably that of Fascist novelist Ada N egri, notably when she recorded her delight at Grazia Deledda winning the Nobel prize for literature but wondered if Mussolini could not himself recommend her for the same prize one of these years. See b. 14 (Negri), 19 December 1927. Negri to Mussolini. By 1934, Negri enjoyed a 25,000 lire government subsidy; see 27 February 1934, Chiavolini note
83. SPDCR b.43 (Farinacci), 10 October 1934, police report
84. SPDCR b. 103 (M. Petacci), 10 May 1938, Petacci to Sebastiani
85. For many examples, see Y. De Begnac, Taccuini mussoliniani (Bologna 1990), 87,426,438, 445 (actually here 'my ex-friend [Henri] Barbusse'), 446, 617 (this last case being Ezra Pound)
86. For another example, see SPD CR b. 91 (Riccardi), 28 January 1943, police report on Raffaello Riccardi, noting that his elevation to the post of Minister of Exchange had at once brought him a flood of 'friends', seeking deals, raccomandazioni and import-export rights
87. C. Ipsen, Dictating Demography: The Problem of Population in Fascist Italy (Cambridge 1996), 179. Acerbo, Angelini, Cianetti, De Bono and Solmi lacked legitimate heirs
88. Petacco, L'archivio segreto di Mussolini, 150-61
89. SPDCR b. 40 (Farinacci), 4 July 1934, police report noting that Farinacci had bought her a rifle costing 17,000 lire
90. see L. La Rovere. 'Fascist Groups in Italian Universities: An Organization at the Service of the Totalitarian State', Journal of Contemporary History 34 (1999), 457-75
91. SPDCR b. 42 (Farinacci), 6 June 1927, Farinacci to Mussolini
92. Cf. also b. 52 (Enciclopedia Treccani), 31 December 1937, Farinacci to Mussolini (and relevant telephone taps). Here Farinacci urged the Duce to intervene in order to save Count Treccani from an avaricious prostitute, remarking predictably that, by paying 1,000 lire a session, the naive count was ruining the market. 'In regard to women, Treccani must be an ingenue of 1000 horse power,' Farinacci concluded
93. SPDCR b.48 (A. Pavolini), 26 May 1942, pro-memoria
94. SPDCR b. 87 (Lessona), 27 December 1927, 24 June 1930, police reports. When, in 1937, Lessona was dropped as Minister of Colonies, his wife was recorded on the phone bewailing the ruin of her household that had resulted, a lamentable fate requiring the surrender both of her maid and her cook. 2 December 1937, telephone tap
95. SPDCR b. 100 (M. De Seta), 17 August 1929
96. SPDCR b. 75 (B. Giuliano), 5 June 1931, Anna Sile (from the Ministry) to Mussolini
97. SPDCR b. 98 (F. Boattini), 27 July 1942, police report
98. SPDCR b.44 (Farinacci), 25 December 1938, Farinacci to Mussolini
99. SPDCR b. 3 (DeBono), 3 October 1928, report
100. 1 June 1934, Balbo to Mussolini
101. SPDCR b. 3 (De Bono), 28 February 1937, report. Police interest in De Bono's clients did not cease. In 1942, one of the Scalera brothers lost his party membership, with a report noting that he had been 'one protected' by De Bono 'in a heartful manner', all the more because he gave employment to his illegitimate son (b. 23 [D e Bono], 3 February 1942, police report)
102. SPDCR b. 2 (Giuseppe M astromatti), 18 June 1928, Mastromatti to Mussolini after internecine conflicts in Genoa
103. SPDCR b. 3 (De Bono), 23 October 1934, 18 January 1935, both police reports
104. SPDCR b. 14 (Grandi), 17 June 1929, Grandi to Mussolini, giving a detailed refutation of the charge and, perhaps characteristically, using the occasion to expatiate on the relative poverty which he, his wife and children had endured for the cause. He then asked for pay rise of more than 100 %
105. SPDCR b. 4 (Bottai), for example report of 13 April 1942. He was similarly thought to possess a clique of corrupt friends. See note of 27 May 1935
106. SPDCR b. 4 (De Vecchi), 19 September 1934, report; 6 July 1935, telephone tap
107. SPDCR b.38 (Cini), 19 February 1929, police report
108. SPDCR b. 86 (Jung), undated report. He was also thought to possess in Alberto Beneduce a stubborn and eventually successful personal enemy. See b. 98 (Beneduce), 4 February 1935 police report
109. SPDCR b.48 (Ricci). January 1931,31 July 1942, police reports
110. See also report of 11 September 1942 which noted that the father-in-law was locally known as 'the pirate of the marble business'
111. SPDCR b. 62 Del Croix, January 1929, report
112. B. Mussolini, Opera omnia (ed. E. and D. Susmel), vol. XXII (Florence, 1957), 138
113. For an early example, SPDCR b. 4 (Acerbo), 18 September 1924, Acerbo to Mussolini hailing the 'glorious Fascism of the Abruzzi' (his home region) and the right of his cousin to prominence in it
114. See also the telegram of Sergio Panunzio to Mussolini of 28 November 1925 defending his paese of Molfetta against the disgrace of having to number (Anti-Fascist) historian Gaetano Salvemini as one of its sons, B, 48 (Salvemini)
115. For a classic example of Arnaldo's use of the raccomandazione, see SPDCR b. 78 (Appelius), 24 February 1926, Arnaldo Mussolini to his brother
116. SPDCR b. 79 (Banelli), January 1929, police report. Barelli was also said to be locked in conflict with Giuseppe Cobolli Gigli, a more radical local Fascist. Cf. b. 38 (Cobolli Gigli) with allegations of a wartime manipulation of petrol rationing by his socially ambitious wife, 19 February 1941, phone tap
117. SPDCR b. 87 (Lantini), 22 November 1927, police report on Ferruccio Lantini as being on the pay-roll of G noese shipping interests. Lantini was also described as being in conflict with Farinacci, Bottai, Balbo, Rossoni and Pala (the then federate of Genoa), but being able to rely on the friendship of A. Turati
118. For an account of the equivocations involved, see L. Passerini, Fascism in Popular Memory: The Cultural Experience of the Turin Working Class (Cambridge 1987)
119. SPDCR b. 87 (Lanzillo), 2 July 1934, Lanzillo to Mussolini. A phone tap of 25 March 1932 showed Lanzillo relying on his 'friend' Farinacci should it prove necessary to fight a duel with 'those people at Critica fascista', that is, with Bottai
120. 14 I. J. Steinberg, A Il or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust 1941-3 (London 1990), 170
121. Y. De Begnac, Palazzo Venezia: storia di un regime (Rome 1950), 642
122. B. Mussolini, Opera omnia (ed. E. and D. Susmel) vol. XXV (Florence 1958), 173-4. The comment appeared in a preface written by Mussolini to a book on Il Gran Consiglio neiprimi dieci anni dell'era fascista, published late in 1932
123. Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle, 100
124. SPDCR b. 75 (Lusignoli), M ay 1927, police report
125. S. Fitzpatrick, Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization (New York 1994). She says that peasants in the aftermath of the 1930s were 'contemptuous of any notion of public good, suspicious of energetic or successful neighbours, endlessly aggrieved at what "they" the bosses were doing, but virtually immovable in their determination not to do anything themselves' (320)