Fascism and Antifascism in the Italian Historical Consciousness

By means of Allesandro Tarsia

After completing my PhD in indigenous history, I recently returned to my native Italy. It had been seven years since I had visited the villages of my home region of Calabria. Although I had always been aware of the debates about the place of fascism in the Italian historical consciousness, I could not help but feel that something was different now. The place of the fascist regime and the antifascist resistance in the historical consciousness is the contentious issue at the center of Italy’s hard-hitting contemporary political debate. Walking through the main streets and squares of Italy’s 8,000 municipalities, one can feel the intense discussions taking place in newspapers, on television channels, and on various benches and cafeterias. Moreover, the restoration or abandonment of historical artifacts—such as defense bunkers and the walls of public and private buildings adorned with countless signs of the fascist regime—serve as a stark visual reminder of this ambiguous climate.

Nazi-fascist bunker – Capo Colonna (Italy). Alessandro Tarsia, May 29, 2024.

Walking through Italy’s historic centers, I saw faded propaganda slogans from the Fascist era, such as “Stopping is Retreating” and “You cannot glorify yesterday’s sacrifice if you are not ready for tomorrow’s.” Their preservation is overseen by the Superintendencies of the Italian Ministry of Culture, which pursue a conservative policy aimed at “preserving the past as it is.” Some Superintendencies occasionally allow explanatory panels and counter-history to be placed next to the graffiti, but most of the Fascist graffiti from the 1930s and 1940s remains prominent and unchallenged. In addition, hundreds of Nazi-fascist bunkers (part of Italy’s Organisation Todt section of fortified defenses) dot the landscape unnoticed. Many are slowly becoming buried, and some are filled with trash or used as public toilets. But others, painted with fresh graffiti by a new generation of neo-fascists, attempt to revive a history they have romanticized and sanitized of its cruelty and hatred. But these relics of history are increasingly powerful reminders in the contemporary historical consciousness. They are stark visual reminders of Italy’s ambiguous fascist climate.

“To stop is to retreat.” San Fili (Italy). Alessandro Tarsia. May 18, 2024.

The Italian Democratic Party and the other four opposition parties asked Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and other government officials to declare themselves anti-fascist. Unlike in the United States, the term “antifa” is not often associated with far-left movements in Italy. The Italian Constitution, written and signed in 1948, was supported by all anti-fascist parties, such as socialists, communists, Christian democrats, republicans, populists and others. The only party that was not part of this “constitutional arch” was the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI, Italian Social Movement), which brought together politicians and supporters of the former fascist regime who could not unite under the name and symbols of the banned National Fascist Party. The MSI adopted as its symbol the “eternal” flame on the tomb of Benito Mussolini in Predappio, which can still be seen in Meloni’s party symbol.

Cinema – Municipal Theatre, fascist symbol. San Fili (Italy). Alessandro Tarsia. May 18, 2024.

Prime Minister Meloni’s political views are closely aligned with those of the early fascists. She holds anti-LGBTQIA2S+ beliefs, promotes anti-immigration conspiracy theories such as the Nazi theory of the “Great Replacement”, and rejects feminist ideas. Meloni is a member of the “Brothers of Italy” party, which espouses populist, nationalist, patriarchal and male-chauvinist ideas. And despite this, or perhaps because of it, this party leads the government with the support of Silvio Berlusconi’s former party (Forza Italia) and the anti-EU, pro-Putin Lega party. Recently, Senator Ignazio La Russa, the president of the Italian Senate, which is the second most important institutional position in the Italian Republic, admitted to owning a bust of Mussolini and other fascist memorabilia. Furthermore, he stated that the Fosse Ardeatine massacre, in which German troops killed 335 civilians and political prisoners on March 24, 1944, was a reprisal for the Resistance attack on a retired German music band in Via Rasella the day before. In reality, they were part of “Bozen”, a Nazi SS police regiment.

Historians often reinterpret and give new meanings to history, which is sometimes misunderstood by conservatives as “cancel culture”. However, the extreme political use of canceling history by scholars is often influenced by the continuity with Northern European puritan religious zeal and their use of sociology (cultural studies), as shown by Ramsay Cook. This Protestant political approach to writing history is challenged in Italy, a country with a history of colonial power (exploitative, extractive and settler) in Africa and Asia, but also a place marked by more than 3,000 years of various European, Asian and African colonial rule. Italy has been conquered by various cultures, such as the ancient Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Vandals, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Huns, Lombards, Normans, Byzantines, Saracens, Ottomans, French, Spanish, Austrians and Germans. Therefore, proposing the outright cancellation of historical artifacts and surnames is complicated. Many Italians who identify as left-wing and progressive have grandparents who supported the fascist regime. Historian Alessandro Barbero, for example, acknowledges that his grandfather was a fascist executed by the Italian resistance.

But it is essential to remember the past. Changing my last name would not change my history, which was born after the Spanish Alhambra Decree in 1492 and the subsequent papal bull of Pope Paul IV, “Cum nimis absurdum,” in 1555. My Jewish ancestors changed their last name to “Tarsia” after they left the town of Tarsia in Calabria to move to Cosenza and then to Paola. Indeed, my own last name, Tarsia, is the same as the location of the first Italian fascist concentration camp where Jews, Roma and Chinese, along with communists and prisoners of war, were held from 1940 to 1945. My grandfather, Giuseppe Tarsia, served in the Italian army in Russia, where he was given minimal equipment. Lost, scared and cold after a battle, he was rescued by Ukrainians. He was later arrested by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp in Gdansk. There he met my grandmother, Edwidge, a Polish cook who had been forced to work in the camp.

In the 2022 elections, Fratelli d’Italia won 26% of the vote from 64% of eligible voters. Their supporters and a significant portion of Lega voters (9%) view Italy’s fascist history in a positive light. They often still propagate strong but long-debunked historical claims, such as attributing modernization, the introduction of public education and pension schemes, punctual trains, and reduced crime to the fascist regime. When they do judge Mussolini negatively, they usually limit themselves to blaming him for the alliance with Hitler, which they claim led to the occupation of Italy by the Allies and thus to the demise of Italy’s colonial empire. Surprisingly, even some respected Italian scholars of organized crime subscribe to unsubstantiated right-wing theories about Mussolini’s alleged end to the Sicilian Mafia and the Allies’ involvement in revitalizing and strengthening the criminal organization in 1943.

Elena Ethel “Elly” Schlein is the first LGBTQIA2S+ secretary of the Italian Democratic Party. She is responsible for introducing the idea of ​​intersectionality, as proposed by African-American scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, into the Italian political debate. Schlein criticized the far-right historical revisionism of Meloni and her allies in the Lega, in particular their attempts to downplay the involvement of the fascist regime in the political assassination of the Italian socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti in 1924. Matteotti had revealed the bribes paid by the American company Sinclair Oil to Mussolini and the King of Italy. Schlein also objected to the commemoration by General Roberto Vannacci, who was recently elected to the European Parliament with the Lega, of the Xª Flottiglia MAS, an elite unit of the Italian army that collaborated with the fascists and Nazis during World War II.

Italy, like Canada, became a country in the 1860s. And like Canada, it was made up of people with different cultures and histories. When the Nazis invaded Italy, people saw it as just another foreign conquest. Although many Italians today downplay the influence of fascism on the rise of the Nazi regime, remnants of fascist propaganda can still be seen in the country. Although most graffiti with Mussolini’s face and fascist slogans were removed after the Allies conquered the country in 1943, some still remain. The Italian experience is a testament to the fact that history is more complex, nonlinear, and powerful than historical consciousness, which is often straightforward. After all, the present we live in is often shaped by the resilient evidence of the past.

Allesandro Tarsia is an Italian immigrant who teaches Indigenous history at the University of the Fraser Valley.

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Previously published on activehistory.ca with Creative Commons License

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Photo credit: Nazi-fascist Bunker – Capo Colonna (Italy). Alessandro Tarsia, May 29, 2024.

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