Nationalism and its Influence
on the
Development of Fascism in Italy
Introduction
Fascism was a product of discontent. A considerable slice of this rested with individual disappointments and fears, and with socio-economic groups which felt threatened in the postwar economic and political environment 1. The other major source of Fascist origins lay in the inability of a range of minority and splinter groups from all parts of the political spectrum to achieve their aims, either within their parent ideological groupings or else within the national arena. Alienated conservatives, expelled socialists, syndicalists, anarchists, futurists, republicans, nationalists, radicals and right-wing clericals 2 all contributed to both the policies and muscle of the Fascist movement as it became increasingly recognised as a rallying point against the perceived chaos inherent in the failure of liberal parliamentarism and the threat of bolshevism 3. In terms of ideological direction, Nationalists and Syndicalists shared primacy of influence. Syndicalism provided the basis of the economic purpose and structure of the Fascist state 4, while Nationalism heavily influenced its national and international political posture. This Nationalist influence will be examined in terms of its origins, development and aims, and how these influenced Fascism’s direction, both before and after its absorption into Fascism.
Nationalist Origins and Development
Italian nationalism was one source of impetus in the Risorgimento5. It was always a comparatively small element in Italian thinking, as rural political inertia left a minority of the population as candidates for nationalistic fervour 6. Within that minority, competing attractions and confusions of Piedmontism, republicanism, Austrophilism, Papal temporalism and separatism 7 ensured that pure nationalist sentiment was something of a rarity. The gurus of national unity and national mission – Mazzini and Gioberti – had different perspectives: the former of a republic which was Roman not Piedmontese, Catholic but not Papal; the latter of a presiding Papacy with a Piedmontese executive 8. Disenchantment of an increasing number of Mazzinians and Garibaldians with a Piedmontese Italy led to the Party of Action in which a pragmatic approach to unification and national aspirations emerged in the 1870 drive for redemption of Rome and Venice through support of Germany against France 9. This forerunner of the twentieth century Nationalists found it expedient to accept the Piedmontese monarchy and work within it to achieve nationalist aims. It was able to press for an international role for Italy in Africa, reaching its zenith with the formation of the Crispi government in 1896, and its nadir in the post-Adua collapse of both that government and imperial aspirations 10.
A more coherent Nationalist movement arose from the ashes of that defeat. From the beginning of the new century, an increasingly prominent group of literati espoused nationalist issues in a fashion quite different from the leftist, revolutionary men of action of the Garibaldi-Crispi genre. The closing years of the nineteenth century had seen political trends which must inevitably have provoked reaction – the growth of socialism and internationalism, the strengthening of the urban middle class and bourgeois values, and the parliamentary neutralisation of transformismo 11. To the inheritors of the spirit of the Risorgimento, none of an international working class, Italietta or an ineffectual neutered parliament could have a place in the fulfillment of unified Italy as a nation or amongst nations 12. Not only was a patriotic reaction inevitable; the trends in Italy which provoked it made the direction of that reaction entirely predictable.
Central to this growing new nationalism were the counter-concepts of authoritarianism, militarism and imperialism 13. Support for this approach in the post-Adua 14 disillusionment was early confined to intellectual discussion but that conceptual development laid the foundation for the rapid extension of Nationalist political influence as increasing international turmoil and war in Europe made introverted and isolationist policies increasingly untenable for non-internationalists. As an essentially patriotic movement, Nationalism could lay claim to carrying on the spirit of the Risorgimento, and a spirit purified of the dead hand of liberal compromise which had extinguished it 15. As a beginning, Alfredo Oriani attempted to reinstate Crispi as a national hero: imperial expansion was a national duty, with Italy’s destiny to be fulfilled by conquest of empire in northern Africa and domination of the Adriatic and Mediterranean. The solution to economic problems and class divisions lay in national heroism and greatness 16.
This basic nationalist panacea was soon expanded into a more coherent exposition of some ideological substance. Enrico Corradini’s first Nationalist periodical Il Regno in 1903 began to expound a theory based on social and international Darwinism. By 1910 this had been extended to one of class division of nations 17. Plutocratic nations such as France and Britain based their power on capital, were rich and strong, and so were able to out-compete, dominate and humiliate such proletarian nations as Italy whose chief resource was labour. Pascoli had presaged it in 1900 by shifting the class struggle 18 to a struggle against other nations, a lead which Corradini took up in seeing that the corporate solution of syndicalism could be harnessed to help divert socialist struggle to an international one via a drawing together of the economic and social forces in the state 19. The response to such a resolution was not likely to be extensive, however it had attractions for the rising intellectual generation which was reacting against perceived inadequacies of ruling class liberalism and permissive democracy in developing a strong and modern 20 nation. Those attractions involved a fairly wide spectrum of imperialists, irredentists, other conservative elements and syndicalists, but lack of impetus confined activity to the literary and the intellectual.
An impetus was provided by Austria’s annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 which, by highlighting Ottoman weakness, demonstrated the practicability of imperialist expansion into their territory 21 by comparison Austria’s apparent strength dampened irredentist hopes for Trieste and Trentino. Also a rising issue was interest in the continuing emigration from Italy to foreign countries, which gave the prospect of colonial expansion a new respectability as a solution for the depressed South: better that Italians become colonists in Italian territories than menials in foreign ones 22. These factors, together with the 1909 Socialist electoral success at the expense of the Liberals, provoked a renewed interest in nationalistic agitation which began to attract conservative liberals 23, and so an entry to the political arena. Not that there was any immediate prospect of establishing a nationalist political party, as indeed much of the growing support for the new nationalism came from members of other parties and groupings who had no intention of leaving them. However moves for a political association to foster a nationalist movement resulted in a 1910 congress forming the Italian Nationalist Association which, through careful avoidance of hard positions on such divisive matters as the imperialist – irredentist and free trade – protectionist disputes, finally incorporated a grouping largely composed of conservative liberals 24. Attempts to soft pedal the monarchist issue failed, divorcing the republicans from the Association 25.
Although there was considerable success in avoiding confrontation on the most immediately divisive issues, the new nationalists had no intention of allowing the Association to lapse into a simple patriotic association as the more convinced liberals would have preferred. The executive which controlled the Association between congresses was firmly in the hands of the imperialists 26, and was given a voice by the Idea Nazionale published by Corradini, Federzoni, Davanzati, Coppola and Maraviglia. For the Association to become a political force which could exert enough influence to transmute its intentions into action, it needed to develop an ideology which would act as a basis on which to ally support, and from which to exert influence on the mass audience which the elitist Association itself could not attract. If the Nationalists were not to become just a pale shadow of the Action Francaise from which early inspiration had come 27, they needed to establish a specifically Italian philosophy and objectives. The objectives had to be positive, and there were more than sufficient targets: the failure and dangers of liberal democracy; the need for a coherent force to oppose socialism; and the action required to carry through the stalled Risorgimento to develop Italy into a modern, independent state 28. Unless these targets were attacked, Nationalism would be no more than a debating association for right wing liberals who could quite readily reconcile this with conservative liberalism 29.
Search for Political Space
Corradini’s response was typically aggressive and hard line. This authoritarian, anti-parliamentary, anti-individualistic response alienated liberal moderates from the Association 30. Uncompromising support for the 1911 Libyan war also brought the imperialist-irredentist issue to a head, with the purist-irredentists overridden by the prior claims established for colonial expansion to give a lift to proletarian Italy against plutocratic France, Britain and Germany in the Mediterranean. This approach also drew Syndicalist support on the potential benefit to southern Italy, the potential for war as a school for revolution and its substitution of national for proletarian revolution 31. But there were other by-products of the war. The Socialist Party expelled its reformists, but was debarred from entering into coalition with Giolitti’s liberals, who had to turn to Catholic support in the following extended-franchise election 32. Liberal moderates attempted to gain control of the Nationalist Association, provoking the imperialists to counter-attack on the basis of traditional liberal anticlericalism, also recognising the benefits to their own cause of attracting conservative Catholic support. A policy of opposition to the twin threats of Masonry and Marxism provided an effective lure to Catholics now emerging from the constriction of the non expedit, and conscious of the value of cooperation against mutual enemies 33.
The 1912 Nationalist Congress was held against this background, which was accentuated by the desire to retain vitality and influence rather than slip back into obscurity after the end of the war. Federzoni emerged as leader in a swing to hard line right objectives of order and discipline and condemnation of democracy, socialism, internationalism, masonry and radical teachers 34. Whilst this package was a bitter pill to liberal-moderate members, it was attractive to conservative Catholics and the changing attitudes of the Syndicalists. It constituted a barely concealed bid to disengage the Association from the liberals 35, and turn towards mass based organisations which were expected to be receptive and useful in swinging the country from class conflict to national unity against European economic and political competition. The move had its successes: a majority of liberal moderates resigned, relations with clericals and syndicalists were extended, and the subsequent national elections and by-elections saw six Nationalists elected in their own right to the Chamber of Deputies 36 – including Luigi Federzoni.
This clear shift to the right together with electoral success brought with it further ideological clarification and moves to consolidate allies and supporters. Rocco, a recent adherent to the Association, believed that Nationalism should provide a doctrine for an elitist ruling class that should cast aside a liberalism which, having no counter to socialist ideology, had become irrelevant. A strong conservative party was needed to demand the sacrifice of individualism to the higher purpose of the nation. An alternative economic and social programme was required, based not on the socialist goal of distribution as this was inappropriate to an under developed country, but on production to generate sufficient resources to obviate the necessity for class conflict. The country had to compete with other nations for trade and expand overseas to do that effectively. It needed internal harmony and a strong hierarchy to achieve these goals: there was no place for democracy or parliamentary compromise 37. Corradini furthered this approach with blandishments to industrial and commercial interests as necessary allies in the task of nation building, production and military power 38. These policies were consolidated at the 1914 Congress, where the liberal connection was finally severed and economic policy confirmed as production-oriented, via industrial cartels in which worker unions would become a mechanism for regulation of the work place 39.
Convergence of Right and Left Interventionalists
All this provided a strong base from which to capitalise on opportunities presented by World War 1 and its preliminaries. Whilst indecision and disputation, on which side to back or even neutrality, caused internal problems, these were resolvable against Nationalist objectives on the fairly straightforward basis of which course of action was most likely to provide greatest advantage with greatest surety 40. There were casualties in finally settling on the Entente, as Roman Catholic opinion was divided between the official Vatican strict neutralist stand and support for Catholic Austria 41. But there were also longer term benefits. Not only did the war provide a short cut to industrial development and tighter state control, but it also opened the door to overseas expansion and international power. And as well as cementing an alliance with the industrialists, it also brought together an axis of right and left interventionists against flaccid liberal parliament, socialism and internationalism 42. Whilst the revolutionary groups of Mussolini and his following, and of the Syndicalists, had been pursuing lines of convergence with Nationalists for a decade, the war provided a catalyst which facilitated a temporary alliance of convenience, and one which subsequently had the opportunity to develop into something unexpectedly closer and more durable.
Syndicalist Transition
Patriotism and irredentism were the obvious common ground, but the urge for revolutionary rather than evolutionary change was an even more significant factor. This ground had become common by the gravitation of left and right towards a realisation that Italy was poor by European standards, isolated and in need of an uncompromising drive towards modernisation and industrial efficiency if it was to rise above its backwardness and aspire to equality in the western community. Syndicalism had become increasingly compatible with nationalism as its leadership progressively came to recognise this fact. Perceiving themselves as the true heir to Marxism through reinterpretation of the Marx-Engels literature in the light of contemporary circumstances, Syndicalists moved from an early opposition to state, nationalism, militarism and clericalism to a position which increasingly diverged from mainstream socialism 43. Although they retained their essentially revolutionary approach, based on the function of industry-unions in furthering the interests of the proletariat through organisation, motivation and training, by 1910 there was acceptance that industrially retarded Italy was, in Marxist terms, still in the historical process of developing an economy which could support a distributionist socialist state. To this productionist ideology, and recognition of the position of the state in the necessary process of economic development, was added the concept of an elite which carried responsibility for the mobilisation of working class consciousness and its direction towards that economic goal 44. The transition was furthered by the 1911 Libyan war in which Engel’s support of war, as a basis for encouraging economic development and the spirit essential for revolution, was used to justify emergence from pacifism 45. From there, acceptance of Corradini’s postulation of plutocratic versus proletarian nations had, by 1914, completed a metamorphosis to a national syndicalism now plainly different from internationalist and reformist socialism. It still based itself on revolution, but only after fulfillment of its prior and distant goal of completion of productive development; it was for an authoritarian, non-parliamentary state with elitist leadership; and a large element was anti-pacifist and interventionalist 46.
Syndicalist-Nationalist Convergence
The convergence with Nationalist thought was clear, indeed Corridini had observed the beginnings of the trend at the turn of the century 47. Also clear was that the Syndicalists themselves recognised it, citing the principal area of difference as the inability of nationalist myths to influence the proletariat: working class appeals were necessary for this 48. That position was not really one which the Nationalists would want to challenge as they recognised themselves as not a movement of mass appeal, but one which represented the best interests of all. While the ultimate objectives of both movements might not be identical, there were no mainstream obstacles to closer cooperation between them. And as an outcast revolutionary socialist with syndicalist leanings 49, Mussolini was similarly amenable to Nationalist influence, as far as it suited and benefited him. Between those two conceptual approaches lay the essential foundations for the development of Fascism beyond its reactionary-action beginnings.
Mussolini’s Syndicalist connections dated from a decade earlier. He was a great dabbler, having connections with socialists, anarchists, futurists, republicans and others, all in a fairly superficial way 50. This superficiality also endowed him with a flexibility and eclecticism which was so critical in allowing Fascism to develop into a force which encapsulated and captured such a broad span of opponents of and defectors from the dismemberment of liberal democracy, christian democracy and socialism. Indeed, Mussolini’s flexibility was tested to the extreme in the transition he made from radical, revolutionary, internationalist, irredentist, pacifist, socialist, anti-monarchist and anti-clericalist, to authoritarian controller of a productionist, expansionary state incorporating the traditional institutions of monarchy, military, church and bourgeoisie 51. Yet the seeds were always there. And the convergence of nationalist right and Syndicalist left 52, accelerated by the pressures and opportunities of the war, provided both lead and vehicle around which Mussolini could develop his ideas, accept expedient compromises, and weld the discontented, the frightened and the reactionary into a different sort of revolution.
Mussolini’s susceptibility to other ideological connections was accentuated by his realisation that socialism was neither a coherent, positive force, nor did its objectives embrace all the directions which Italy needed if it was to rise out of a position of European backwardness and subservience 53. His expulsion from the party and editorship of Avanti left him with no option, or for that matter hindrance, to espousing other ideas which fitted his ambitions and political direction. His transition from the revolutionary left to the nationalist left is witnessed by the 1917 change of masthead of Il Popolo d’Italia to ‘Organ of Combatants and Producers’ and the 1919 programme for the Fasci di combattimento embracing a mix of political reform, corporative councils, rationalisation of workers’ conditions and responsibilities, and a military and foreign policy 54. This mix was an unavoidable reflection of the disparate mix of adherents of the Fasci which included, as well as youth and ex-military activists, syndicalists, conservatives, clericals and nationalists. That amalgam ensured that the position of nationalist left became increasingly susceptible to a shift towards the right as the Fascist movement expansion in the early 1920s incorporated an increasing number of opponents of and refugees from red and white socialism 55.
Search for Political Dominance
The end of the Great War did not leave the Nationalists in the same vulnerable position as had the Libyan war. Although their party organisation had atrophied due to members’ absence on war service, the twin issues of the ‘mutilated peace’ and governmental inability to control workers or socialism provided ample opportunities to reestablish a high profile and attract recruits from veterans and the youth which had missed the war 56. The 1919 Congress decided that the only way of countering socialism in the face of a paralysed government response was by the mechanisms of syndicalism to replace Industrialist-Worker struggle, syndicate councils to replace parliament, and use of force to keep socialism under control 57; the first Nationalist blueshirt squads were on the street – supporting D’Annunzio in Fiume, at least at the start, urging intransigence in restoration of Italian territories and acquisition of African and Turkish territories, and even going to the brink of conspiring for a coup d’etat. With such similar aims, it was inevitable that there were some close connections with the Fascists, however these were often uneasy or in conflict as each tried to make a separate path to influence in its own right 58.
It was the failure of the anti-socialist forces to form a unified middle class bloc which led to the outstanding successes of the Socialist and Popular Parties in the 1919 Deputies election and 1920 municipal elections 59. The liberals had no counter to socialism, and the right wing setback drove the Nationalist leadership to turn again to conspiracy as the solution. It left Mussolini convinced that his movement could not aspire to political power and must remain, as with the Nationalists, as a pressure group which would seek to operate through other mass mobilising fronts 60. This meant that the Fascists had to make accommodations not only with the right but with the Partito Popolare and socialists, whilst retaining its muscle and avoiding absorption by the right 61. The eventual direction of Italian politics might have taken another turn had not Vatican suspicion of the Partito Popolare weakened its potential 62, and had not the socialists blunted their impetus by internal dissension and compromised their power in the abortive factory occupation 63. The anti-socialist forces knew that they could prevail. Nationalist strategy, learning from previous electoral defeats the lesson of unified opposition, aimed at drawing Fascism firmly into a right coalition. Mussolini, also learning, accepted the necessity for a National Union for the 1921 elections. As a result these elections returned sufficiently strong contingent of Nationalist, Fascist and Solandran Liberals to make a significant right wing in the Chamber of Deputies 64.
Struggle for Control of the Right
The Nationalists set out to dominate this right wing under Federzoni’s leadership. Mussolini, now convinced of eventual Fascist political supremacy, had no intention of being either absorbed or overshadowed, using a declaration of republicanism as an artifice to distance his group from the conservatives 65. This was a somewhat unreal situation in parliamentary terms of countering leftist control of the government, and the more so as several Nationalist deputies were also members of fasci 66. A right coalition was agreed on the basis of support for a strong foreign policy, veteran rehabilitation, control of public services and promotion of industrial development; the Nationalists imagined that they had control. But Mussolini was not about to give in so easily, entering a pacification pact with the Socialist Party and General Confederation of Labour. And although pressure from activists, conservatives and syndicalists from within his own ranks obliged him to allow the pact to lapse, he was again able to reinforce the integrity of the Fascist movement through formation of the Fascist Party 67. From this, de Vecchi mounted a counter campaign for fusion of the Fascist and Nationalist parties – a move which placed Federzoni on the defensive, calling for closer cooperation instead. The real problem was that Nationalists and Fascists were engaged in the same general line of political activity and action and their parties and leaders were in competition for primacy in the Chamber, the streets and the fields 68 and the Nationalists were increasingly becoming the junior partners in practical terms. Their own self perception as providing the brains, with Fascists as the muscle helped neither inter-party relationships nor Nationalist acceptance of growing Fascist dominance of the resurrected Risorgimento 69.
Mussolini’s accession to power in 1922 was not of Nationalist choosing. They were both prepared to enter a conservative-Fascist coalition under Salandra, and commit the blueshirts against the March on Rome 70. Mussolini, on the other hand, having achieved government constitutionally, did not intend to become a tool of either his party or of the conservatives, choosing a broad spectrum ministry to secure the power which he had won 71. It became apparent to the Nationalists that they had lost the struggle for preeminence in their own right as a party, and that future influence for their movement lay in working through Mussolini’s regime. The prospect of a merger of the parties was reopened – an action which was given impetus by the extraordinary success of the Nationalists in recruiting in the South having produced unacceptable competition and conflict between the two groups 72. However, progress was slow as the Nationalists struggled to maximise their entry price, Mussolini moved to restrict their influence, and disputes in the field multiplied. Major conciliatory gestures by the Fascist Grand Council in accepting the monarchy and condemning Masonry opened the way 73, but the eventual fusion was in reality conditional absorption of the Nationalist into the Fascist Party and Militia, with the establishment of a Nationalist cultural institute providing the remaining vestige of the Party 74.
The principal benefit was perceived as being the gaining of the long sought mass base for pursuit of Nationalist influence, with the additional practical bonus of ensuring that the Mussolini regime did not drift to the left 75. The 1924 elections saw a victory for the conservative grouping, but Mussolini retained his independence by minimising ex-Nationalist penetration of government and including instead representatives of the left 76. It took the Mattéotti scandal, with its direct threat to Mussolini’s control, to give the Nationalists a real bargaining counter – to either support the government in the face of defections by its newer supporters and wavering by the monarchy, Church and industry, or to put Federzoni forward as an alternative. Fear of a return to instability and hope of controlling Fascism from within led to a deal which saw Mussolini survive, Federzoni take the crucial Ministry of the Interior, and Rocco the Justice portfolio 77. The possibility of a durable right-conservative government without the Fascists was remote; but by taking two key positions within the Fascist government, the Nationalists were able to have their best opportunity to influence Italy’s future development.
In these twin positions, Federioni and Rocco were able to set Italy on a course of state controlled authoritarianism, in contrast to the Nazi party domination in Germany. With support from Mussolini’s long held aversion to party control, the institution of control via the bureaucracy, the authority of prefects over administration, press and unions, and the centralisation of executive power in the prime minister, prevented the party domination promoted by Farinacci 78. Repressive as the Fascist regime was, it lacked the intensity and single mindedness which party control would have brought. This was the principal, tangible achievement of Nationalist politicians, as when the regime was consolidated, the ex-Nationalists were moved from real positions of power, although they continued to exercise influence in subsidiary areas in propaganda, education and culture 79. Their principal achievement, however, had been to direct Fascism into conservative channels, attract intelligent Fascists such as Grandi, Balbo and Bottai towards their ideology 80, and so see it reflected in the subsequent internal and international policies of the regime. For themselves, they got their mass base but were absorbed within it, and rapidly lost all real direct influence on the regime, its deviations and its excesses.
Nationalism in Italy never was or claimed to be a mass movement. It did claim to be a representative movement – one which embodied the aspirations and interests of the nation; it also claimed, in this representative function, to provide an elite leadership. These true interests were portrayed as lying in national greatness through heroism and sacrifice, which would lift Italy from a servile to a dominant nation and people, and in achieving this also gain the spirit, prestige and resources which would obviate class conflict. Within this programme, the Nationalists recognised their affinities with other conservatives and syndicalists, and the value of Church and monarchy as traditional institutions on which the state could build. To Mussolini, searching for a socialist alternative to Socialism, and a national alternative to liberal inertia, Nationalism and Syndicalism provided allies and ideologies which were tolerable and usable. When he realised that, in the face of failing Socialism, Fascism was not confined to be a perpetual minority, Nationalist-Syndicalist ideas and support became indispensable. However in the use and absorption of these groups, Fascism developed many of their characteristics and was ideologically and institutionally shaped by them. Nationalism could claim to have made the Fascist state a safe bastion of conservatism, a haven of national unity, and springboard for national greatness. In so doing, it sacrificed its own existence and ability to influence its subsequent decline.
1. H. Finer Mussolini’s Italy London 1935, p129-131.
2. R. MacGregor-Hastie The Day of the Lion London 1963, p95-8; E.R. Tannenbaum Fascisim in Italy London 1972, p46; H.W. Schneider Making the Fascist State New York 1968, p84, 114.
3. Finer Mussolini’s Italy p150-1; MacGregor-Hastie Day of the Lion p131-2.
4. Schneider Fascist State p147.
5. C.J.S. Sprigge The Development of Modern Italy London 1943, p33-5.
6. C. Seton-Watson Italy from Liberalism to Fascism 1870-1925 London 1967 p24; Finer Mussolini’s Italy p90.
7. Sprigge Modern Italy p49-51.
10. C.J. Lowe and F. Mazari Italian Foreign Policy 1870-1940 London 1975 p9-11.
11. Finer Mussolini’s Italy p69-70, 82-3; Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p52, 157-160.
12. A.J. De Grand The Italian Nationalist Association and the Rise of Fascism in Italy Lincoln 1978, p3-6; Schneider Fascist State p1-2.
14. Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p349.
15. Finer Mussolini’s Italy p91-4.
16. J. Whittam The Politics of the Italian Army 1861-1918 London 1977, p170; Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p350.
17. De Grand Nationalist Association p11, 19.
19. Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p352; De Grand Nationalist Association p19.
20. De Grand Nationalist Association p12, 20.
21. Lowe and Mazari Italian Foreign Policy p114-5; Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p364.
22. Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p363.
23. De Grand Nationalist Association p20.
27. Schneider Fascist State p4-5; De Grand Nationalist Association p4-5.
28. Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p382; P C Kent The Pope and the Duce London 1981, p6.
29. De Grand Nationalist Association p29; for Salandra’s equation of conservative liberalism see A.W. Salomone Italian Democracy in the Making Philadelphia 1945, p28.
30. De Grand Nationalist Association p29-30.
32. Sprigge Modern Italy p105, 108; J.N. Molony The Emergence of Political Catholicism in Italy, Partito Popolare 1919-1926 London 1977, p35.
33. Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p383; D.A. Binchy Church and State in Fascist Italy Oxford 1941, P 55.
34. De Grand Nationalist Association p40-1.
36. Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p388.
37. A.J. Gregor Italian Fascism and Developmental Dictatorship Princeton 1979, p105-6; De Grand Nationalist Association p48-50.
38. De Grand Nationalist Association p49.
40. Sprigge Modern Italy p118-9.
41. Finer Mussolini’s Italy p 99; Binchy Church and State p56.
42. De Grand Nationalist Association p62-3, 69.
43. Gregor Italian Fascism p32-3.
46. Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p423-4; Gregor Italian Fascism p68-9, 78; Schneider Fascist State p141-2.
48. Gregor Italian Fascism p69.
49. Sprigge Modern Italy p106-7.
50. MacGregor-Hastie Day of the Lion p86, 96-7; Sprigge Modern Italy p195.
51. Sprigge Modern Italy p195-6, 210-2.
52. Gregor Italian Fascism p108-9.
53. Schneider Fascist State p59-60.
54. MacGregor-Hastie Day of the Lion p86, 88-9.
55. Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p573, 598, 600, 649.
56. De Grand Nationalist Association p96.
58. op cit p117-9; MacGregor-Hastie Day of the Lion p97.
59. Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p549-50; De Grand Nationalist Association p113, 121.
60. MacGregor-Hastie Day of the Lion pp 90, 95; Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p 572.
61. Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p 592.
62. Molony Partito Popolare p102, 124-5, 163.
63. Finer Mussolini’s Italy p126-7, 133.
64. De Grand Nationalist Association p123-5.
67. op cit p127; MacGregor-Hastie Day of the Lion p117, 119.
68. Tannenbaum Fascism in Italy p48; De Grand Nationalist Association p132.
69. De Grand Nationalist Association p155.
70. Seton-Watson Liberalism to Fascism p626-8.
71. Schneider Fascist State p85-6.
72. De Grand Nationalist Association p151-3.
73. op cit p155, 157; Molony Partito Popolare p98.
77. MacGregor-Hastie Day of the Lion p 162; De Grand Nationalist Association p166-171.
78. H Fornari Mussolini’s Gadfly Nashville 1971, p125.