.jpg)
Political events of the past few years have reminded us that populism can be a key to electoral success, as well as a political ‘suicide’. Some examples can be seen in the frame of Italian populist parties such as the Northern League (Lega Nord) and the Five Stars Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle), as well as the populist campaign that led to Trump’s quite unpredictable victory in the 2016 United States presidential elections. In Italy, the failure of the anti-establishment ‘yellow-green’ coalition between the Northern League and the Five Stars Movement, represented by the first Conte government (2018-2019), showed that Italian populist parties are not a politically homogeneous group, and they paid a high price for their full or partial participation in the last three governments. In the United States, Trump won the elections by securing a huge share of the rural vote. In the 2020 elections, his margin of success in rural areas was even greater, but voter turnout in urban areas was much higher, and Trump lost. This might indicate that the populist and authoritarian policies of the Trump administration did little to reduce anger and frustration among rural and working-class citizens.
More generally, we know that Fascism is often invoked in relation to populist parties and movements. However, populism as political strategy is an older phenomenon than fascist ideology. Populist strategies capitalise on popular resentment against the order imposed on society by a long-established ruling class which is believed to have a monopoly of power. These strategies involve claims to act in the name of the ‘common man’, and can be used within different ideological frames along the left/right spectrum.
Populist strategies involve adapting to changing popular sentiments, while Fascism is considered a political system of belief. Thus, the volatile nature of populism may be considered contradictory to Fascism as a systematic ideology. In fact, Fascism in Italy never became an articulated system of belief because ideas were instrumentalised for Mussolini’s populist, short-term political goals. The interconnections between ideology and populist strategy may be illustrated by some examples of populism in the history of Mussolini’s Fascist regime, namely mass phenomena such as the cult of the leader, sporting events and public works.
Populists in black shirts
The March on Rome, which began on 28 October 1922, was the moment of Mussolini’s rise to power in Italy. The organizers of the March, recruiting people from various social backgrounds (farmers, veterans, etc.), performed a spectacular show that misled public opinion for many years. Moreover, in the wake of the First World War, the Duce was able to gain popular support by advocating a vision of Italy’s reconstruction and transformation on the principles of nation, race, discipline, and order.
On one hand, the new regime promised to restore order and political stability through the establishment of strong and centralized rule, represented by the National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF). On the other hand, Mussolini understood that, in order to reach a broad political consensus in favour of his leadership, it was necessary to transform Italians’ daily life into something attractive, adventurous, and epic. This required a populist strategy. Fascist Italy became a blaze of military parades, technological exhibitions and mass meetings that fuelled the propaganda machine. The ‘factory of consent’, in Philip Cannistraro’s words, culminated in the foundation of the Ministry of Popular Culture (Minculpop), with the aim to increase Fascist control over media and communication.
The cult of the duce
One example of Fascist populist strategy is the way Mussolini’s regime stressed the figure of the mythical leader (the duce), his rule and, above all, his infallibility as a guide to the future. The first and foremost element that characterized this populism was Mussolini himself. The body of the Italian dictator was not only a vehicle for propaganda, but also as an idol that people could worship.
We have numerous examples of Mussolini’s body language, but his ‘wardrobe’ was also a key part of his image. For example, in his socialist years, the future duce looked like a scruffy, proletarian intellectual. From the late 1920s, he was seen more and more frequently in uniform. This choice coincided with a clear shift towards the martial and the totalitarian within the regime. The body of the duce – before and after his death – became a matter of adoration and Mussolini’s deification reached its peak in 1931, when Achille Starace was made party secretary of the PNF. Starace was a major advocate of a cult of personality. Staging huge parades and marches, Starace executed the regime’s policy of ‘going to the people’ through the spectacularization of a Fascist lifestyle.
Sport, technology and nature
Mussolini’s dictatorship favoured individual as well as team sports. The former were useful to construct Fascists as fearless, solitary heroes. For example, the Italian boxer Primo Carnera, who won the 1933 world heavyweight title. The regime’s propaganda not only emphasized Carnera’s athletic capabilities, but also his humble immigrant origin, embodying the virtues of the brave, skilled and invincible fighter, the new Fascist champion. Team sports were used as a demonstration that Italians were now able to cooperate and win together, thanks to Fascist discipline. This was emphasized when Italy’s national football team won the World Cups in 1934 and 1938, and the Olympic games in 1936.
Technology and environment were other topics of importance for the consolidation of the imagined relationship between people and Fascism. For example, in the field of motor sport, the Mille Miglia car race was organised with the aim to show that Fascist Italy was a leading country in terms of roads construction, automotive industry and mechanical engineering. Flying competitions were synonymised with Fascist bravery. For example, one of the most prominent aviators in Italy was a PNF leader, Italo Balbo, the Undersecretary and later Minister of Aviation from 1926 to 1933. His successful North Atlantic crossing in 1933 had won him worldwide fame (and perhaps Mussolini’s envy), and was regularly referenced by Fascist propaganda. Aviation and speed constituted modern examples of the supposed never-ending battle between humanity and nature. This battle was also invoked for the reclamation of unsafe and unhealthy lands such as the Pontine Marshes (Agro Pontino). This metaphorical victory of Fascism over nature was a unique opportunity for the regime to create consensus among the people through the improvement of their living conditions. (Although the process of land reclamation had begun in Liberal Italy, the Fascist regime presented these achievements as its own.)
A new ‘man’ in a new nation
Mussolini’s regime made immense efforts to convince Italians that the Fascist state was ‘working for the people’ (e.g. the reclamation of the marshes), acting in the name of the people (e.g. combating old privileges), and finally fighting in the name of the oppressed people as well (e.g. war as liberation). In this Fascist narrative, Italy’s national rebirth was a gradual regeneration that began in the trenches of the First World War, and culminated with the inevitable blood sacrifice of a new great war.
The regime created new national heroes and new champions which aimed to galvanize Italians’ national pride. Italians, oppressed by evil plutocracies and diabolical international conspiracies, could now identify themselves with Mussolini and the superior ‘nation’ forged by almost two decades of Fascist discipline and faith.
But Fascism, in order to become ‘popular’, had to be ‘populist’ as well. The duce was a man of the people and he remained a populist dictator. In these terms, Fascism was a political experiment combining populism and totalitarianism, which still deserves further attention, particularly in the frame of modern manifestations of populist exploits. In other words, while Fascism was a political belief system, populism incarnated a particular strategy that, in various forms and representations, undermined the supposed coherence of the Fascist doctrine.
.jpg?alt=listing)
