THE APPEAL OF FASCISM
(Review of Alastair Hamilton's “The Appeal of Fascism” written by Adriano Romualdi for his father Pino's «L'Italiano» magazine; published in 1973, two months after his death.)
One of our collaborators has written, in a previous issue of the magazine, that one of the most interesting phenomena of the first half of our century was the attraction exerted by the fascist movements on intellectual groups. This phenomenon was analyzed by Sérant in France (Fascist Romanticism) by Mosse (The Crisis of German Ideology), Mohler (The Conservative Revolution) and von Kempler (Germany’s New Conservatism) in Germany, by Harrison (The Reactionaries) in England. Whereas in Italy there are numerous studies that tend to underline the relationships between D'Annunzianism, the “La Voce” and “Lacerba” magazines, and what would later be the Fascist Movement. An European phenomenon for which, at the dawn of the century, numerous intellectuals turned their backs on the myths of democracy to accept – often through a courageous personal commitment – authoritarian solutions. Hamilton's book aims at being an analysis of the motives why numerous intellectuals, at some point, underwent the «Charm of Fascism». It shows us the Futurists as preachers of a new modernized and warrior Italy; D'Annunzio and Corradini as prophets of imperialism; Papini and Prezzolini as critics of Democracy and Socialism. It shows us Malaparte as the mouthpiece of Squadrism; Pirandello as a Fascist cardholder. It tells us of how even Croce had, at first, resigned himself to Fascism, for – he explained in a famous interview for the “Giornale di Italia” – «In the public spirit, there is the desire of not letting the benefits of Fascism disperse, and of not returning to the weakness and inconclusiveness that preceded it.» In regard to Giovanni Gentile, he adhered to Fascism because it seemed to him that it would carry out that “ethic” dimension of the State theorized by Hegel in his Philosophy of Right.
In Germany, the Right's cultural roots were much deeper. They went back to Romanticism, a typically German creation, that, with its ideas of Nationality, Organicity and Historicity, is the true matrix of the European Right, just as the French Enlightenment is that of the Left. From the first Romantic supporters of the Holy Alliance – through Treitschke, Lagarde, Nietzsche – up to the pre-War Racism or Pan-Germanicism. After the War, by virtue of the German intellectuals' so-called “Conservative Revolution”, an important sector of German culture contested the Weimar Republic, paving the way for National Socialism. The most prominent names are those of Oswald Spengler, Ernst Jünger, Moeller van den Bruck, Ernst von Salomon, Hans F. K. Günther, Othmar Spann and Benn. In France, the Action Française was active since the beginning of the century with its critique of the French Revolution. In the first post-war period, Maurras' influence began to decrease, although his Anti-Democratic teachings weren't lost among his disciples such as Brasillach and Rebatet. The two most important names of the 1930's new Right were those of Céline and Drieu La Rochelle, the former for the literary aspect, the latter for both the political and the literary aspect. In England, writers such as Henry Williamson and Percy Whindam Lewis sympathized with Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. Chesterton, Belloc and Bernard Shaw made no secret of their admiration for Mussolini; a poet such as Roy Campbell fought in the Spanish Civil War on Franco's side. Thomas S. Eliot, despite not being a Fascist, was a very Right-wing conservative, and his friend Ezra Pound even ended up speaking against America from Radio Roma during the War. Hamilton gives us a rather hasty picture of all of these characters. You can't expect more from a book that consists only of a quick overview, but you often get the impression that the author wishes to “liquidate” these figures with just a couple of abrupt quotes. Fascism wasn't a farce, it was neither an inebriation nor a sudden and ephemeral spiritual confusion. It represented a state of mind through which a whole European generation recognized a need for Order, Discipline and Spirituality. That there were some excesses, some dispersals, some regrets, does not allow us to simplify things, without which it is not possible to recount history, much less the history of culture. After all, it is evident from too many passages of the book that Hamilton is suited for giving hasty judgments, mirroring his likes and dislikes. Hamilton provided us with a work that demonstrates a good general preparation for an overall young author (31 years old). It wouldn't hurt him, however, to delve deeper into the details and to purge himself of his Radicaloid Englishman prejudices. Historical truth can't be substituted by casual prejudices, even though these prejudices are – unfortunately – fashionable.