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Mussolini: A New Life
Drawing on freshly discovered material--including correspondence previously unavailable outside academia--the talented writer and journalist Nicholas Farrell has created a revelatory biography of the Italian fascist leader and dictator. How did Mussolini manage to take power and hold on to it for two decades? What inspired Churchill to call him "the Roman genius" and Pope Pius XI to say he was "sent by Providence"? And how did Mussolini successfully curtail democracy without using mass murder to stay in command? Farrell answers these questions and more, focusing particularly on Mussolini's fatal his alliance with Hitler, whom he despised. Anyone interested in history, politics, and World War II will encounter an intriguing and startling picture of one of the 20th century's key figures.
560 pages, Paperback
First published December 30, 2000
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November 5, 2023
Farrell is earnest about fairness, and feels that the prevailing public image of Mussolini is a biased stereotype. He tells present-day Italian admirers of the strongman that he will seek the “truth.” The resulting book balances coverage of Mussolini’s socialist and nationalist sentiments. It shows how, in the post-WWI tide of communist idealism, Mussolini tried to cast the struggle of civilization not as a worker vs. owner battle, but a struggle of patriots and producers vs. ideologues and parasites. Farrell depicts Mussolini trying to straddle the left vs. right divide, as a modestly intellectual defender of the ordinary, realistic people:
Only collaboration between the productive proletariat and the productive bourgeoisie can succeed in advancing civilization. ... We don’t believe in a single solution—whether of an economic, political, or moral kind—a linear solution to the problems of life, because, oh illustrious ballad singers of all varieties—life is not linear …. Two religions vie today for domination over spirits and the world: the black and the red. From two Vaticans, today, encyclicals depart: from the one in Rome and the one in Moscow. We are heretics of these two religions. We alone, are immune from the contagion.”
His calls to unite in strengthening the nation seemed inspiring, vigorous, and manly. Farrell describes how the hero-worship Mussolini attracted grew stunning, especially from Italy’s women. But to be truly admirable, something more was needed, namely some dominance over others in the world. Though his rhetoric seemed to challenge extremism, his gut-level emotional needs drove him toward picking fights and seeking trophies—in Ethiopia, Spain, Albania, or Greece. Perhaps his real primordial “philosophy” came down to this confession: He who does not feel the need to do a little war, for me is not a complete man. War is the most important thing in the life of a man, like maternity in that of a woman …
I suppose the main objectivity of the book is showing how other national leaders of the time also combined intellectual flexibility, devotion to public service, and truly barbaric traditional bigotry, such as the revolting anti-Semitism expressed by Winston Churchill in the 1920s ("international Jews" were "leaders of a worldwide conspiracy to overthrow civilization"). But although Farrell announces impartiality as his primary goal, I think hostility to leftists shines through. In describing the Spanish civil war, he makes the leftists defending the Republic seem more murderous than Franco’s Fascist forces.
Only collaboration between the productive proletariat and the productive bourgeoisie can succeed in advancing civilization. ... We don’t believe in a single solution—whether of an economic, political, or moral kind—a linear solution to the problems of life, because, oh illustrious ballad singers of all varieties—life is not linear …. Two religions vie today for domination over spirits and the world: the black and the red. From two Vaticans, today, encyclicals depart: from the one in Rome and the one in Moscow. We are heretics of these two religions. We alone, are immune from the contagion.”
His calls to unite in strengthening the nation seemed inspiring, vigorous, and manly. Farrell describes how the hero-worship Mussolini attracted grew stunning, especially from Italy’s women. But to be truly admirable, something more was needed, namely some dominance over others in the world. Though his rhetoric seemed to challenge extremism, his gut-level emotional needs drove him toward picking fights and seeking trophies—in Ethiopia, Spain, Albania, or Greece. Perhaps his real primordial “philosophy” came down to this confession: He who does not feel the need to do a little war, for me is not a complete man. War is the most important thing in the life of a man, like maternity in that of a woman …
I suppose the main objectivity of the book is showing how other national leaders of the time also combined intellectual flexibility, devotion to public service, and truly barbaric traditional bigotry, such as the revolting anti-Semitism expressed by Winston Churchill in the 1920s ("international Jews" were "leaders of a worldwide conspiracy to overthrow civilization"). But although Farrell announces impartiality as his primary goal, I think hostility to leftists shines through. In describing the Spanish civil war, he makes the leftists defending the Republic seem more murderous than Franco’s Fascist forces.
December 23, 2024
Nicholas Farrell is an English journalist, now resident in Italy. Indeed, at the time he wrote this book, he was living in Predappio, Mussolini’s hometown and a mecca for neofascists, which had, at the time, a booming cottage industry selling what can only be described as ‘Mussolini Memorabilia’ to visiting tourists, fascist pilgrims and the merely curious.
‘Mussolini: A New Life’ is not the definitive Mussolini biography. It does not purport to be.
In Farrell’s own view, this honor goes to Renzo De Felice.
However, De Felice’s bio stretches to four volumes, has yet to be translated into English, and was unfinished at the author’s death. This makes it a heavy read even for someone fluent in Italian, a daunting work to translate, and one likely to be read in full only by professional historians.
Farrell sees his own book as primarily an abridgement, translation and popularization of De Felice, written to bring De Felice’s new revelations, and perspective, to a wider Anglophone audience.
It is both readable and revisionist.
How is it revisionist?
First, Farrell argues first that Mussolini was not so bad, and, second, that he always remained a socialist.
Given that Farrell himself is far from socialist, these claims come close to contradiction: If Mussolini was a leftist, then why is a conservative like Farrell defending him?
Of course, conservatives can admire radicals—albeit, as Leo Rosten wrote, usually only after they are dead.
But Farrell perhaps wants to have it both ways: Mussolini wasn’t so bad, and, even if he was, he was a socialist anyway so he’s not our problem.
A Benevolent Dictator?
Is Farrell successful in rehabilitating Il Duce?
Up to a point—the point in question being the latter’s decision to join WW2.
Until then, Mussolini had been, by Italian standards, a successful and, by international and historical standards, a not especially repressive dictator.
Whereas the average Italian government stays in power all of five minutes, Mussolini remained in office almost two decades.
There was no gulags or Stalinist purges in Italy, and, until WW2, no concentration camps.
The conquest of Ethiopia was brutal. Here, concentration camps were employed.
But Italian rule in Ethiopia was no worse than what preceded it, a regime under which slavery was both legal and widely practiced—and Il Duce had a point when he charged Britain and France with hypocrisy for opposing Italian expansion in Africa despite their own vastly larger African empires, acquired only a few years earlier, often with comparable brutality (e.g. the Boer War).
Finally, in agreeing the Papal Accords and resolving the ‘Roman Problem’ that had dogged the Italian state since Garibaldi, he produced a legacy that outlived Fascism, as this agreement continues to govern the relationship between Church and State in Italy today.
Mussolini was initially wary of Hitler.
Nationalists of neighbouring nations are not natural allies, but natural enemies. The fact Italy was the chief ally of Austria and had annexed South Tyrol hardly helped.
Mussolini would have preferred an understanding with the Brits. (So, incidentally, would Hitler.)
Initially the British were receptive. Yet three factors led Il Duce into Hitler’s embrace:
1) The Spanish Civil War
2) British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden;
3) The conquest of Ethiopia.
Antisemitism
Hitler also seems to blame for Italy’s antisemitic laws. Mussolini had been in power a decade and a half without enacting such laws, and changed his mind only after allying with Hitler.
But Farrell claims rapprochement with Germany was “not the reason”, only “the catalyst” (p304).
The real reason was that:
They included Mussolini’s mistress, Margherita Sarfatti—a leading Italian intellectual in her own right and supposedly the only of his mistresses whom his wife saw as a threat—who plays a major role in the first half of Farrell’s book.
Mussolini also saw the Jews as harboring “secret loyalties that conflicted with Fascism” (p304)—much like Freemasons, themselves less fashionable victims of persecution under both Nazism and Fascism.
Italy’s antisemitic laws, Farrell claims, “did not involve violence at all” (p310), and he concludes, “Although not anti-Semitic, Mussolini became increasingly anti-Jewish” (p304)—but never explains the difference.
Farrell also emphasizes that Mussolini’s racism was not “biological” but “spiritual” in nature (p305)—i.e. Spenglerian and Evolian not Hitlerian.
However, that Il Duce’s dislike of them reflected not biological but purely ‘spiritual’ factors was likely scant consolation for those Jews expelled from their jobs on account of their race.
Farrell quotes Jewish-Italian historian De Felice as writing:
Holocaust
Farrell does a good job of absolving Italians in general from culpability in the Holocaust.
Italian officials, ordered to round up Jews, often refused to comply or were obstructive. Many Italians hid and protected Jews.
Mussolini fares less well. He seems to have been largely indifferent to the fate of Jews.
Under Nazi orders, he ordered their interment and deportation—but also overlooked the refusal of some officials to follow these orders, and the efforts of others to obstruct and defy them.
Farrell claims, “Mussolini did much to save Jews from Hitler” (p363).
But the most he shows is that Mussolini was far less antisemitic than Hitler—faint praise indeed!
WW2
It is perhaps from WW2 that the popular image of Mussolini as a buffoonish figure emerged.
Partly this was Allied propaganda—but, despite Farrell’s attempted rehabilitation, Mussolini’s conduct of the war does indeed seem inept from the start.
Having made his first error, signing an alliance with Germany, Mussolini then, in violation of this treaty, failed to come to Germany’s aid when war broke out.
Mussolini justified this decision on the grounds that Italy was not ready for war. In this assessment, he was right, as was proven when Italy did go to war.
Il Duce had not made the mistake of falling for his own publicity. He knew that his own militaristic braggadocio and strutting was mere bluff.
But, on witnessing Germany’s dramatic defeat of France, Mussolini wanted to get in on the spoils, and hence signed up for the war right about the same time Hitler had already (seemingly) won it and hence had no need of him. Therefore, he got none of the territorial gains he coveted.
Then, chagrined that Hitler kept invading foreign powers without consulting his ostensible ally, Mussolini decided to do likewise, invading Greece. But, his invasion rebuffed, Mussolini was forced to call in for help from the very Germans whose victories he had so envied and sought to emulate—and the delay to the planned invasion of the USSR demanded by Germany’s intervention has been implicated as a key factor that doomed Operation Barbarossa, and hence ultimately doomed both Hitler and Mussolini as well.
Farrell is successful in explaining why Mussolini did what he did in WW2 given what he knew and the circumstances in which he found himself—but he fails to revise the established view that these decisions were ultimately anything other than fatal miscalculations.
Leaving the Left
What then of Farrell’s other claim: Was Mussolini always a socialist?
Mussolini’s journey from the Left began when he advocated Italian involvement in WWI, contrary to the policy of the PSI and Second International.
He came to believe in the power of nationalist sentiment, and, like the early-DAP in Germany, sought to combine socialism with nationalism.
He also came to believe that, just as the Bolshevik Coup in Russia would never have occurred without Lenin, so socialism in Italy would require an elite revolutionary vanguard.
Here, he was right. The Bolshevik coup would never have occurred without Lenin as driving force.
Thus, the Great Man Theory of history became perennially unfashionable at almost precisely the moment that, in the persons of first Lenin and later Hitler, it was proven tragically true.
But this was contrary to Marxist dogma, whereby the coming revolution was seen as both historically inevitable and brought about by the proletariat as a whole.
Moreover, if an elite vanguard was necessary for revolution, this suggested that this vanguard represented a superior caste of man. This, ironically, undermined the entire basis for socialism, which presupposed human equality.
This led Mussolini to Nietzsche and ultimately Fascism.
Explaining the Fascist adoption of the black Arditi flag, he explains, “Red was the colour of the enemy – Socialism” (p80), yet on the next page claims, “Fascism was anything but… right-wing” and “the first Fascist programme… was very left-wing” (p81).
Mussolini’s eventual return to his leftist roots, Farrell reports, only came much later with the establishment of the Italian Social Republic.
But, by then, Mussolini was a mere puppet, and any socialist pretentions, or indeed pretentions to any sort of action independent of his Nazi patrons, were wholly ineffectual.
Defining Fascism
To decide whether Fascism was left-wing, we must first define we mean by ‘Fascism’. The meaning of the word changed over time.
Like Mussolini, Fascism began on the Left.
Most leftists are less radical in power than they promise to be in opposition, but Fascism’s move rightward began even earlier.
As early as 1920, Farrell concedes:
Thus, the meaning of Fascism evolved with the regime itself.
Fascism came to mean whatever the regime stood for at any given time—which reflected pragmatic realpolitik more than ideology.
Defining the Left
To determine if fascism was leftist, we must also define what we mean by ‘leftist’.
Hayek, in The Road to Serfdom, equates leftism with big government and a planned economy and hence classes both Nazism and Fascism as leftist.
Thus, A. James Gregor reports:
Defining the Right
If Fascism wasn’t left-wing, was it right-wing?
Unfortunately, defining the Right is even more difficult than defining the Left.
A Christian fundamentalist who wants to ban porn and abortion has little in common with a libertarian who wants to decriminalise prostitution and child pornography, nor with a eugenicist who wants to make abortion, for certain classes of person, compulsory.
Yet all are classified as right-wing, even though they have no more in common with one another than any does with a raving Marxist.
The Right, then, is defined as, in effect, anything that is not the Left.
As Pinker puts it, the Left is like the South Pole. Just as, at the South Pole, all directions lead north, so, at “the Left Pole”, all directions lead right.
Thus, right-wing is itself a leftist term. It defines all political positions by the extent to which they diverge from a perceived leftist ideal.
Hence, debating whether Fascism is an ideology of Left or Right simply exposes the inadequacy of this one-dimensional conception of political space.
A Third Way?
Farrell proposes an even more provocative analogy in his Preface:
But what they meant by this phrase was very different.
For Mussolini the Third Way entailed nationalism, abrogation of individual rights to the needs of the nation, and totalitarian dictatorship.
In contrast, much though the idea of totalitarian dictatorship might have appealed to Tony Blair, the objectives of New Labour were more modest.
Indeed, the two regimes differed, not only their conception of the Third Way, but also in their conception of the First and Second Ways to which their own Third Way was posited as an alternative.
For Il Duce, these were Marxism and liberal democracy; for Blair, Thatcherism and socialism.
But defining what Blairism or New Labour itself stood for is more difficult—more difficult even than defining Fascism.
This points to a deeper similarity between the two movements. Both were not so much ideologies as glorified marketing campaigns—triumphs of ‘spin’ over substance.
Indeed, Mussolini, a former journalist, was perhaps the first politician to successfully manage his own public image through modern media.
As for Farrell’s comparison of Fascism and New Labour, this, I suspect, reflects a marketing strategy of Farrell’s own.
Farrell, also a journalist, was using a provocative quote to attract media attention, publicity and sales in Blair-era Britain.
A few years on, the claim already seems strangely anachronistic, as New Labour has itself gone the way of Fascism, into the dustbin of history, to be replaced, in the Labour Party at least, with a return to radical leftism. Indeed, on the evidence of recent Labour leaders, even “communist ideals” may not be as “terminally ill” as Farrell once so confidently predicted.
All of this only reinforces my suspicion that any attempt to draw analogies between Fascism and contemporary political movements or regimes ultimately reflects little more than a version of ‘Guilt by Association’ or what Leo Strauss called the ‘Reductio Ad Hitlerum’.
Fascism has little in common with the modern Left, but, as a nationalist movement, it has even less in common with the individualist and globalist ethos of contemporary neoliberalism and neoconservatism.
As George Orwell wrote only a year the defeat of both Nazism and Fascist Italy:
‘Mussolini: A New Life’ is not the definitive Mussolini biography. It does not purport to be.
In Farrell’s own view, this honor goes to Renzo De Felice.
However, De Felice’s bio stretches to four volumes, has yet to be translated into English, and was unfinished at the author’s death. This makes it a heavy read even for someone fluent in Italian, a daunting work to translate, and one likely to be read in full only by professional historians.
Farrell sees his own book as primarily an abridgement, translation and popularization of De Felice, written to bring De Felice’s new revelations, and perspective, to a wider Anglophone audience.
It is both readable and revisionist.
How is it revisionist?
First, Farrell argues first that Mussolini was not so bad, and, second, that he always remained a socialist.
Given that Farrell himself is far from socialist, these claims come close to contradiction: If Mussolini was a leftist, then why is a conservative like Farrell defending him?
Of course, conservatives can admire radicals—albeit, as Leo Rosten wrote, usually only after they are dead.
But Farrell perhaps wants to have it both ways: Mussolini wasn’t so bad, and, even if he was, he was a socialist anyway so he’s not our problem.
A Benevolent Dictator?
Is Farrell successful in rehabilitating Il Duce?
Up to a point—the point in question being the latter’s decision to join WW2.
Until then, Mussolini had been, by Italian standards, a successful and, by international and historical standards, a not especially repressive dictator.
Whereas the average Italian government stays in power all of five minutes, Mussolini remained in office almost two decades.
There was no gulags or Stalinist purges in Italy, and, until WW2, no concentration camps.
The conquest of Ethiopia was brutal. Here, concentration camps were employed.
But Italian rule in Ethiopia was no worse than what preceded it, a regime under which slavery was both legal and widely practiced—and Il Duce had a point when he charged Britain and France with hypocrisy for opposing Italian expansion in Africa despite their own vastly larger African empires, acquired only a few years earlier, often with comparable brutality (e.g. the Boer War).
Finally, in agreeing the Papal Accords and resolving the ‘Roman Problem’ that had dogged the Italian state since Garibaldi, he produced a legacy that outlived Fascism, as this agreement continues to govern the relationship between Church and State in Italy today.
“Garibaldi had begun the process of the creation of Italy. Mussolini would complete it” (p199)A Match Made in Hell
Mussolini was initially wary of Hitler.
“Fascism is not for export”Though jingoistic, Mussolini was right. He was a nationalist. Jingoism was consistent with his ideology.
“I should be pleased, I suppose, that Hitler has carried out a revolution on our lines. But they are Germans. So they will end by ruining our idea.”
Nationalists of neighbouring nations are not natural allies, but natural enemies. The fact Italy was the chief ally of Austria and had annexed South Tyrol hardly helped.
Mussolini would have preferred an understanding with the Brits. (So, incidentally, would Hitler.)
Initially the British were receptive. Yet three factors led Il Duce into Hitler’s embrace:
1) The Spanish Civil War
2) British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden;
3) The conquest of Ethiopia.
Antisemitism
Hitler also seems to blame for Italy’s antisemitic laws. Mussolini had been in power a decade and a half without enacting such laws, and changed his mind only after allying with Hitler.
But Farrell claims rapprochement with Germany was “not the reason”, only “the catalyst” (p304).
The real reason was that:
“Jews had come to epitomise Mussolini’s three enemies: Communism, the bourgeoisie and anti-fascism. Jews were prominent in all three” (p304).But Jews were also prominent among Fascists.
“More than 10,000 Jews, about one-third of adult Italian Jews, were members of the PNF in 1938” (p303)Thus, Jews were overrepresented among Fascists by a factor of three (Italy's Jews from Emancipation to Fascism: p44).
They included Mussolini’s mistress, Margherita Sarfatti—a leading Italian intellectual in her own right and supposedly the only of his mistresses whom his wife saw as a threat—who plays a major role in the first half of Farrell’s book.
Mussolini also saw the Jews as harboring “secret loyalties that conflicted with Fascism” (p304)—much like Freemasons, themselves less fashionable victims of persecution under both Nazism and Fascism.
Italy’s antisemitic laws, Farrell claims, “did not involve violence at all” (p310), and he concludes, “Although not anti-Semitic, Mussolini became increasingly anti-Jewish” (p304)—but never explains the difference.
Farrell also emphasizes that Mussolini’s racism was not “biological” but “spiritual” in nature (p305)—i.e. Spenglerian and Evolian not Hitlerian.
However, that Il Duce’s dislike of them reflected not biological but purely ‘spiritual’ factors was likely scant consolation for those Jews expelled from their jobs on account of their race.
Farrell quotes Jewish-Italian historian De Felice as writing:
“Mussolini’s campaign against the Jews ‘was more against the Italians than against the Jews’” (p304).Yet it was the latter paid the greater price.
Holocaust
Farrell does a good job of absolving Italians in general from culpability in the Holocaust.
Italian officials, ordered to round up Jews, often refused to comply or were obstructive. Many Italians hid and protected Jews.
Mussolini fares less well. He seems to have been largely indifferent to the fate of Jews.
Under Nazi orders, he ordered their interment and deportation—but also overlooked the refusal of some officials to follow these orders, and the efforts of others to obstruct and defy them.
Farrell claims, “Mussolini did much to save Jews from Hitler” (p363).
But the most he shows is that Mussolini was far less antisemitic than Hitler—faint praise indeed!
WW2
It is perhaps from WW2 that the popular image of Mussolini as a buffoonish figure emerged.
Partly this was Allied propaganda—but, despite Farrell’s attempted rehabilitation, Mussolini’s conduct of the war does indeed seem inept from the start.
Having made his first error, signing an alliance with Germany, Mussolini then, in violation of this treaty, failed to come to Germany’s aid when war broke out.
Mussolini justified this decision on the grounds that Italy was not ready for war. In this assessment, he was right, as was proven when Italy did go to war.
Il Duce had not made the mistake of falling for his own publicity. He knew that his own militaristic braggadocio and strutting was mere bluff.
But, on witnessing Germany’s dramatic defeat of France, Mussolini wanted to get in on the spoils, and hence signed up for the war right about the same time Hitler had already (seemingly) won it and hence had no need of him. Therefore, he got none of the territorial gains he coveted.
Then, chagrined that Hitler kept invading foreign powers without consulting his ostensible ally, Mussolini decided to do likewise, invading Greece. But, his invasion rebuffed, Mussolini was forced to call in for help from the very Germans whose victories he had so envied and sought to emulate—and the delay to the planned invasion of the USSR demanded by Germany’s intervention has been implicated as a key factor that doomed Operation Barbarossa, and hence ultimately doomed both Hitler and Mussolini as well.
Farrell is successful in explaining why Mussolini did what he did in WW2 given what he knew and the circumstances in which he found himself—but he fails to revise the established view that these decisions were ultimately anything other than fatal miscalculations.
Leaving the Left
What then of Farrell’s other claim: Was Mussolini always a socialist?
Mussolini’s journey from the Left began when he advocated Italian involvement in WWI, contrary to the policy of the PSI and Second International.
He came to believe in the power of nationalist sentiment, and, like the early-DAP in Germany, sought to combine socialism with nationalism.
He also came to believe that, just as the Bolshevik Coup in Russia would never have occurred without Lenin, so socialism in Italy would require an elite revolutionary vanguard.
Here, he was right. The Bolshevik coup would never have occurred without Lenin as driving force.
Thus, the Great Man Theory of history became perennially unfashionable at almost precisely the moment that, in the persons of first Lenin and later Hitler, it was proven tragically true.
But this was contrary to Marxist dogma, whereby the coming revolution was seen as both historically inevitable and brought about by the proletariat as a whole.
Moreover, if an elite vanguard was necessary for revolution, this suggested that this vanguard represented a superior caste of man. This, ironically, undermined the entire basis for socialism, which presupposed human equality.
This led Mussolini to Nietzsche and ultimately Fascism.
““Nietzsche had ‘cured me of my socialism’” (p30)Yet Farrell insists that:
“[While] Mussolini was never a democrat… much of him was and remained a Socialist” (p39)But he is not very consistent.
Explaining the Fascist adoption of the black Arditi flag, he explains, “Red was the colour of the enemy – Socialism” (p80), yet on the next page claims, “Fascism was anything but… right-wing” and “the first Fascist programme… was very left-wing” (p81).
Mussolini’s eventual return to his leftist roots, Farrell reports, only came much later with the establishment of the Italian Social Republic.
But, by then, Mussolini was a mere puppet, and any socialist pretentions, or indeed pretentions to any sort of action independent of his Nazi patrons, were wholly ineffectual.
Defining Fascism
To decide whether Fascism was left-wing, we must first define we mean by ‘Fascism’. The meaning of the word changed over time.
Like Mussolini, Fascism began on the Left.
Most leftists are less radical in power than they promise to be in opposition, but Fascism’s move rightward began even earlier.
As early as 1920, Farrell concedes:
“Most of the Fascists of the first hour—especially those of left-wing origin—had gone… Fascism… moved right” (p95).While fascism was at first anticlericalist and associated with Syndicalism and Futurism, it later came to be associated with Catholicism and tradition.
Thus, the meaning of Fascism evolved with the regime itself.
Fascism came to mean whatever the regime stood for at any given time—which reflected pragmatic realpolitik more than ideology.
Defining the Left
To determine if fascism was leftist, we must also define what we mean by ‘leftist’.
Hayek, in The Road to Serfdom, equates leftism with big government and a planned economy and hence classes both Nazism and Fascism as leftist.
Thus, A. James Gregor reports:
“After 1936 the Fascist government controlled proportionately a larger share of Italy’s industrial base than any other nation in Europe other than the Soviet Union” (The Search for Neofascism: p6)But leftism is also associated with redistribution and egalitarianism. By this criterion, Fascism was not especially leftist.
Defining the Right
If Fascism wasn’t left-wing, was it right-wing?
Unfortunately, defining the Right is even more difficult than defining the Left.
A Christian fundamentalist who wants to ban porn and abortion has little in common with a libertarian who wants to decriminalise prostitution and child pornography, nor with a eugenicist who wants to make abortion, for certain classes of person, compulsory.
Yet all are classified as right-wing, even though they have no more in common with one another than any does with a raving Marxist.
The Right, then, is defined as, in effect, anything that is not the Left.
As Pinker puts it, the Left is like the South Pole. Just as, at the South Pole, all directions lead north, so, at “the Left Pole”, all directions lead right.
Thus, right-wing is itself a leftist term. It defines all political positions by the extent to which they diverge from a perceived leftist ideal.
Hence, debating whether Fascism is an ideology of Left or Right simply exposes the inadequacy of this one-dimensional conception of political space.
A Third Way?
Farrell proposes an even more provocative analogy in his Preface:
“Whereas communist ideas appear terminally ill, the Fascist idea of the Third Way lives on and is championed by the standard bearers of the modern Left such as New Labour in Britain” (pxviii).This single throwaway sentence upon which he never expands appears to rest on a mere convergence of slogans. Both Fascism and New Labour claimed to represent a ‘Third Way’.
But what they meant by this phrase was very different.
For Mussolini the Third Way entailed nationalism, abrogation of individual rights to the needs of the nation, and totalitarian dictatorship.
In contrast, much though the idea of totalitarian dictatorship might have appealed to Tony Blair, the objectives of New Labour were more modest.
Indeed, the two regimes differed, not only their conception of the Third Way, but also in their conception of the First and Second Ways to which their own Third Way was posited as an alternative.
For Il Duce, these were Marxism and liberal democracy; for Blair, Thatcherism and socialism.
But defining what Blairism or New Labour itself stood for is more difficult—more difficult even than defining Fascism.
This points to a deeper similarity between the two movements. Both were not so much ideologies as glorified marketing campaigns—triumphs of ‘spin’ over substance.
Indeed, Mussolini, a former journalist, was perhaps the first politician to successfully manage his own public image through modern media.
As for Farrell’s comparison of Fascism and New Labour, this, I suspect, reflects a marketing strategy of Farrell’s own.
Farrell, also a journalist, was using a provocative quote to attract media attention, publicity and sales in Blair-era Britain.
A few years on, the claim already seems strangely anachronistic, as New Labour has itself gone the way of Fascism, into the dustbin of history, to be replaced, in the Labour Party at least, with a return to radical leftism. Indeed, on the evidence of recent Labour leaders, even “communist ideals” may not be as “terminally ill” as Farrell once so confidently predicted.
All of this only reinforces my suspicion that any attempt to draw analogies between Fascism and contemporary political movements or regimes ultimately reflects little more than a version of ‘Guilt by Association’ or what Leo Strauss called the ‘Reductio Ad Hitlerum’.
Fascism has little in common with the modern Left, but, as a nationalist movement, it has even less in common with the individualist and globalist ethos of contemporary neoliberalism and neoconservatism.
As George Orwell wrote only a year the defeat of both Nazism and Fascist Italy:
“The word fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’.”Full (i.e. vastly overlong) review here.
April 20, 2015
Although Nicholas Farrell's biography of Mussolini has received a number of savage of reviews it is a rollicking great read. Named by his socialist father after Benito Juarez who overthrew the Emperor Maximilien of Mexico, Mussolini was the embodiment of the "Futurist" man. Il Duce was a lifetime socialist, a poet, a novelist, a head of state, an insurrectionist, an amateur violinist, a prodigious fornicator and ultimately one of history's losers. He died quite appropriately at the hands of several anonymous communist executioners. The book's many flaws are due to the fact that Farrell is not a trained historian but a fan and a journalist. The book, however, possesses two great virtues: it presents most of the pertinent facts and it corrects the image of Mussolini presented in the popular media of a buffoon and a monster.
Those of you who prefer a more academic and rigorous analysis would unquestionably prefer R.J.B. Bosworth's biography which is better researched and does not have any of the flights of hyperbolic nonsense which characterize Farrell's work. I think that Farrell's great contribution to the debate is to insist that above all Mussolini was and remained till his death a socialist revolutionary. His personal journey prior to seizing power in October 1922 with his famous March on Rome was very similar to that of Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Pol Pot, Che Guevara, Mao or Trotsky. He was an orthodox marxist and a member of the Italian labour party. He moved in the same circles as Lenin whom he once met briefly.
His experiences with World War One turned him into a nationalist. He believed that the socialism could only succeed if it was nationally not internationally oriented. Fascism was simply his brand of socialism. He specifically stated that the Soviet Union had neither the moral right nor rational justification for asserting its form of communism to constitute orthodoxy. On this issue, Farrell of course runs head long against conventional wisdom which holds fascism to be a movement based in the bourgeoisie and to hence constitute the polar opposite of communism. Farrell sees Fascism and Communism as two peas from the same totalitarian pod. I tend to agree with Farrell. However, if you do not, you will find his biography painful reading.
The first weakness of Farrell's book is that he goes too far. While the view on Mussolini needs to be corrected, there is still no case for turning him into a hero as Farrell does. Farrell is right to argue that Mussolini was not an anti-semite and made every effort not to hand Jews over to the Nazis for extermination. Farrell is also right to argue that it was highly hypocritical of the French and English to criticize Mussolini for seizing Abyssinia after that had fifty years earlier divided Africa between themselves. However, Mussolini through his intervention in the Spanish Civil War shares a large portion of the blame for the victory of fascism in that country. His invasion of Albania in April of 1939 prior to the outbreak of WW II set a of a series of conflicts that resulted in at least 2 million deaths in Yugoslavia.
The second major flaw with Farrell's book is that it is do not seem to be based on Research. Rather Farrell, in his "Source Notes" on page 478 implies that his book is a précis of Renzo de Felice's eight volume biography of Mussolini which is not available in translation.
The charm of Farrell's book is how he adds his own love and knowledge of European culture to his biography of a political figure. He provides comments by George Bernard Shaw, Ezra Pound and Evelyn Waugh on Mussolini. He identifies the relations between paintings of the the Futurists and the poetry of d'Annunizio. He tells us how on the evening prior to setting out on his March to Rome which would bring him to power in Italy, Mussolini attended a performance of Wagner's Lohengrin with his Jewish mistress. Personally, I loved this type of detail which many readers might find somewhat dotty.
Farrell's book is well worth the read if you are interested in the man and the era. I urge anyone enrolled in an undergraduate history course to deny any knowledge of it.
Those of you who prefer a more academic and rigorous analysis would unquestionably prefer R.J.B. Bosworth's biography which is better researched and does not have any of the flights of hyperbolic nonsense which characterize Farrell's work. I think that Farrell's great contribution to the debate is to insist that above all Mussolini was and remained till his death a socialist revolutionary. His personal journey prior to seizing power in October 1922 with his famous March on Rome was very similar to that of Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Pol Pot, Che Guevara, Mao or Trotsky. He was an orthodox marxist and a member of the Italian labour party. He moved in the same circles as Lenin whom he once met briefly.
His experiences with World War One turned him into a nationalist. He believed that the socialism could only succeed if it was nationally not internationally oriented. Fascism was simply his brand of socialism. He specifically stated that the Soviet Union had neither the moral right nor rational justification for asserting its form of communism to constitute orthodoxy. On this issue, Farrell of course runs head long against conventional wisdom which holds fascism to be a movement based in the bourgeoisie and to hence constitute the polar opposite of communism. Farrell sees Fascism and Communism as two peas from the same totalitarian pod. I tend to agree with Farrell. However, if you do not, you will find his biography painful reading.
The first weakness of Farrell's book is that he goes too far. While the view on Mussolini needs to be corrected, there is still no case for turning him into a hero as Farrell does. Farrell is right to argue that Mussolini was not an anti-semite and made every effort not to hand Jews over to the Nazis for extermination. Farrell is also right to argue that it was highly hypocritical of the French and English to criticize Mussolini for seizing Abyssinia after that had fifty years earlier divided Africa between themselves. However, Mussolini through his intervention in the Spanish Civil War shares a large portion of the blame for the victory of fascism in that country. His invasion of Albania in April of 1939 prior to the outbreak of WW II set a of a series of conflicts that resulted in at least 2 million deaths in Yugoslavia.
The second major flaw with Farrell's book is that it is do not seem to be based on Research. Rather Farrell, in his "Source Notes" on page 478 implies that his book is a précis of Renzo de Felice's eight volume biography of Mussolini which is not available in translation.
The charm of Farrell's book is how he adds his own love and knowledge of European culture to his biography of a political figure. He provides comments by George Bernard Shaw, Ezra Pound and Evelyn Waugh on Mussolini. He identifies the relations between paintings of the the Futurists and the poetry of d'Annunizio. He tells us how on the evening prior to setting out on his March to Rome which would bring him to power in Italy, Mussolini attended a performance of Wagner's Lohengrin with his Jewish mistress. Personally, I loved this type of detail which many readers might find somewhat dotty.
Farrell's book is well worth the read if you are interested in the man and the era. I urge anyone enrolled in an undergraduate history course to deny any knowledge of it.
December 31, 2018
The book starts off fondly describing Italian youths making pilgrimages to Mussolini’s hometown so they can give the fascist salute to his statues and gets worse from there.
Nothing Mussolini did can possibly be wrong. He’s one of the greatest unsung heroes of the last century. He was a peace-loving man and all the murders and violence carried out in his name made him very angry and we should feel frightfully sorry for all the pain inflicted on his poor brownshirts’ knuckles in the course of their duties. He was so beloved that even his enemies had nothing bad to say about him (or at least nothing that he’ll report). And if you doubt that then just look at all the personal testimony quoted from the propaganda office. His crimes during the war were all due to that nasty Adolf and his threats of invasion. The ones he must have made to get Mussolini to act so out of character.
The entire book is full of sickening arguments like these. They’re rarely based on any evidence beyond intuition and selectively quote sources in a way that makes clear, if it wasn’t already, that this is just a puff piece and not a serious work of scholarship. There is a case to be made that Mussolini’s reputation has been overly tarnished through his association with Hitler and that he had some good qualities and wouldn’t have been nearly so bad on his own.
This is not that case.
Nothing Mussolini did can possibly be wrong. He’s one of the greatest unsung heroes of the last century. He was a peace-loving man and all the murders and violence carried out in his name made him very angry and we should feel frightfully sorry for all the pain inflicted on his poor brownshirts’ knuckles in the course of their duties. He was so beloved that even his enemies had nothing bad to say about him (or at least nothing that he’ll report). And if you doubt that then just look at all the personal testimony quoted from the propaganda office. His crimes during the war were all due to that nasty Adolf and his threats of invasion. The ones he must have made to get Mussolini to act so out of character.
The entire book is full of sickening arguments like these. They’re rarely based on any evidence beyond intuition and selectively quote sources in a way that makes clear, if it wasn’t already, that this is just a puff piece and not a serious work of scholarship. There is a case to be made that Mussolini’s reputation has been overly tarnished through his association with Hitler and that he had some good qualities and wouldn’t have been nearly so bad on his own.
This is not that case.
September 26, 2024
This account should be read as a counter to other accounts. It is however too sympathetic to its subject and the research is thinner than is purported. In a way it is not a new life either, but rather one of the few books in English to treat its subject seriously and sympathetically and tries to show how different fascism was from Nazism and how much Mussolini disliked Hitler. Indeed, the alliance between Germany and Italy was a rather poor one, with lots of mutual suspicion. One thing is certain, if you hate communism, this is the account for you.
I knocked off another star for the prose. I found it too conversational and, for lack of a better word, dream-like. The book would put in a state of sleep not from boredom but from its soothing cadence. However, Ferrell is good at making Mussolini a multi-dimensional figure so I will not give the book a true bad rating.
I knocked off another star for the prose. I found it too conversational and, for lack of a better word, dream-like. The book would put in a state of sleep not from boredom but from its soothing cadence. However, Ferrell is good at making Mussolini a multi-dimensional figure so I will not give the book a true bad rating.
March 18, 2022
At last, something nice about fascism. Besides the memoirs of Mussolini's eldest daughter, Edda, this is the only book I've ever come across that tries to rescue Mussolini from his historical legacy as a buffoon, clown, tyrant, puppet of Hitler's and all-around pompous ass. The British author of this biography only succeeds in part. The Duce was not evil, just stupid, and his greatest act of stupidity was his alliance with Hitler. Farrell argues that if they had tried harder the French and the English could have had Mussolini on their side; a dubious enterprise at best. Recommended for those who want to escape the temptation of being an unsuccessful dictator.
January 6, 2016
It's a well-written book, but, unfortunately, it lacks a lot. First of all, the author is biased - he thinks that Fascism was not evil - not really so much of a problem when the author is upfront about his feelings. However, when the author is biased, he should take extra care on justifying any big or controversial statement - and Mr Farrell does not do any such effort. For instance, when he relates Fascism and Blair's New Left policies, he does not justify that, and, as such, it's very difficult to understand what he is referring to.
The bias is even more clear when it comes to international politics. Basically, the author spent the description of the 30s blaming England (and a little less, France) for the alliance of Italy with Germany - it is never Mussolini's fault, even when invades countries that are members of the League of Nations. Also, appeasing Germany was really bad (of course it was), but Mr Farrell appears to think that Englad should have appeased Italy instead...
The book is also quite disordered - its read in yearly chapters, but every chapter is spent on some things, and not others. For instance, once you have read about Mussolini's economic policy in its proper chapter, you will not get more information about how it changed in further years.
Also, and still more damming for a book that tries to be directed to a general audience, it lacks background. A lot. For instance, there is no background on the situation of Socialism when Mussolini joins that movement, or any background about the situation of Spain (save for a single paragraph before the details about the Civil War).
On the plus side, the book is really well written.
The bias is even more clear when it comes to international politics. Basically, the author spent the description of the 30s blaming England (and a little less, France) for the alliance of Italy with Germany - it is never Mussolini's fault, even when invades countries that are members of the League of Nations. Also, appeasing Germany was really bad (of course it was), but Mr Farrell appears to think that Englad should have appeased Italy instead...
The book is also quite disordered - its read in yearly chapters, but every chapter is spent on some things, and not others. For instance, once you have read about Mussolini's economic policy in its proper chapter, you will not get more information about how it changed in further years.
Also, and still more damming for a book that tries to be directed to a general audience, it lacks background. A lot. For instance, there is no background on the situation of Socialism when Mussolini joins that movement, or any background about the situation of Spain (save for a single paragraph before the details about the Civil War).
On the plus side, the book is really well written.
May 20, 2019
Great book. I learned a lot. And a great anti communism slant, which I always appreciate
February 7, 2022
"Whenever I went by my instincts, I won. When I analyzed, I usually lost."
Mussolini, a former Communist who became the world's leading Fascist, transformed Italy from the butt of the everyone's joke to the envy of the world. And he did it as a result of bloodless coup and by killing a grand total of seven people for political crimes in 23 years. (In contrast, the fascist government that succeeded him killed over a hundred people in less than a month in the Rome area and the Communist resistant killed over 5000 people in a few months in 1945.) A man who moved from aggressive atheist to a nominal Catholic, he had nothing but contempt for Hitler who in turn carried on a one-sided bromance with Mussolini. His one constant was an abiding faith in his own superiority.
The hypocrisy of the Italian people ("Fascist? Me? No of course not! Didn't even know one!") in the aftermath of Mussolini's fall and death is astounding. He was cheered by crowds in Milan less than a month before his and his girlfriend's bodies were hung upside down while the same people spat on their corpses.
This book doesn't engage in alternate histories but it did inspire three for me.
The first is neutral Italy. The Mussolini quote at the top was in regard to what he regarded as his biggest mistake, entry into World War 2. Mussolini believe that if he didn't enter the war, Hitler would invade Italy and use it to attack North Africa. In reality, Hitler considered the Mediterranean unimportant and as I said admired Benito. Neutral Italy would have meant no Mediterranean Theatre of Operations, no El Alameen, no Tobruk, no Operation Torch. Undistracted, the United States and Great Britain would have undoubtedly tried, for better or worse, a cross channel invasion in 1943.
The second is the opposite of the first; Italy enters the war in late October, 1939 after Mussolini gave up on brokering a peace conference. In our timeline, Hitler urged Mussolini to take this course pointing out that the island of Malta was nearly undefended in the beginning of the war and offering the Italians an airborne division and some planes to facilitate the plan.
Suppose the Italians had done this. They take Malta and send in two of their Mountain Divisions, which perform well on the Russian front, to reinforce the Germans. Then First Sea Lord Churchill is outraged and tries to immediately retake the island. While a French fleet raids the West Coast of Italy and bottles up the main Italian battle fleet, a British squadron and a division of sea borne troops head to Malta. German Stukas turn the carriers Ark Royal and Illustrious into funeral pyres. Without air cover, German Dive bombers and Italian Torpedo bombers wear down the British. In a weakened state, the British flotilla is attacked at night by Italian Torpedo boats (in our timeline, Italian Torpedo boats almost annihilated a British convoy to Malta in 1942). Numerous transport and cargo ships are sent to the bottom of the sea. Churchill reluctantly orders a retreat and resigns in disgrace. So that in May 1940 when Chamberlain resigns, the only choice for his replacement is the unrepentant appeaser, Lord Halifax. Halifax joins with Petain to make a comprehensive armistice/peace with Hitler. And so, in 1941, a undistracted Nazi Germany attack an unsurprised Soviet Union.
And last, had those fascist who overthrew Mussolini not vacillated between possibly continuing the war alongside Germany and switching sides to the Allies. Had they switched to the allies at once, at a time when there were only two German Divisions in Italy, it may have been possible for the British and Americans to seize all or most of the Italian Peninsular and the Balkans in 1943. This could have complicated the Nazi position considerably and made Churchill's "soft underbelly of Europe" conjecture come true.
One last observation, I never read a kindle edition with more typos than this one.
Mussolini, a former Communist who became the world's leading Fascist, transformed Italy from the butt of the everyone's joke to the envy of the world. And he did it as a result of bloodless coup and by killing a grand total of seven people for political crimes in 23 years. (In contrast, the fascist government that succeeded him killed over a hundred people in less than a month in the Rome area and the Communist resistant killed over 5000 people in a few months in 1945.) A man who moved from aggressive atheist to a nominal Catholic, he had nothing but contempt for Hitler who in turn carried on a one-sided bromance with Mussolini. His one constant was an abiding faith in his own superiority.
The hypocrisy of the Italian people ("Fascist? Me? No of course not! Didn't even know one!") in the aftermath of Mussolini's fall and death is astounding. He was cheered by crowds in Milan less than a month before his and his girlfriend's bodies were hung upside down while the same people spat on their corpses.
This book doesn't engage in alternate histories but it did inspire three for me.
The first is neutral Italy. The Mussolini quote at the top was in regard to what he regarded as his biggest mistake, entry into World War 2. Mussolini believe that if he didn't enter the war, Hitler would invade Italy and use it to attack North Africa. In reality, Hitler considered the Mediterranean unimportant and as I said admired Benito. Neutral Italy would have meant no Mediterranean Theatre of Operations, no El Alameen, no Tobruk, no Operation Torch. Undistracted, the United States and Great Britain would have undoubtedly tried, for better or worse, a cross channel invasion in 1943.
The second is the opposite of the first; Italy enters the war in late October, 1939 after Mussolini gave up on brokering a peace conference. In our timeline, Hitler urged Mussolini to take this course pointing out that the island of Malta was nearly undefended in the beginning of the war and offering the Italians an airborne division and some planes to facilitate the plan.
Suppose the Italians had done this. They take Malta and send in two of their Mountain Divisions, which perform well on the Russian front, to reinforce the Germans. Then First Sea Lord Churchill is outraged and tries to immediately retake the island. While a French fleet raids the West Coast of Italy and bottles up the main Italian battle fleet, a British squadron and a division of sea borne troops head to Malta. German Stukas turn the carriers Ark Royal and Illustrious into funeral pyres. Without air cover, German Dive bombers and Italian Torpedo bombers wear down the British. In a weakened state, the British flotilla is attacked at night by Italian Torpedo boats (in our timeline, Italian Torpedo boats almost annihilated a British convoy to Malta in 1942). Numerous transport and cargo ships are sent to the bottom of the sea. Churchill reluctantly orders a retreat and resigns in disgrace. So that in May 1940 when Chamberlain resigns, the only choice for his replacement is the unrepentant appeaser, Lord Halifax. Halifax joins with Petain to make a comprehensive armistice/peace with Hitler. And so, in 1941, a undistracted Nazi Germany attack an unsurprised Soviet Union.
And last, had those fascist who overthrew Mussolini not vacillated between possibly continuing the war alongside Germany and switching sides to the Allies. Had they switched to the allies at once, at a time when there were only two German Divisions in Italy, it may have been possible for the British and Americans to seize all or most of the Italian Peninsular and the Balkans in 1943. This could have complicated the Nazi position considerably and made Churchill's "soft underbelly of Europe" conjecture come true.
One last observation, I never read a kindle edition with more typos than this one.
November 16, 2021
Amazing book. Not perfect, I can see complaints or how someone would want events to be presented differently, but those would mostly be nitpicks. The major complaint that could be made is the ideological perspective of the author. Mussolini is presented in a very positive light. However, I would not take this against the book. On the contrary, it is very positive to try and see the world from the perspective of the person who is written about. I would be more worried with the cynical way communism is presented independently of Mussolini's views. That's where the personal attitudes of the author really peak their head and the difference between giving the benefit of the doubt to the communists and to the fascists is jarring. But still, it is a very good book, it is easy to read, understandable and shines light on less well known parts of Mussolini's life which was very eventful and much more complex than presupposed, from being a young socialist rebel to being a dictator to being in an alliance with the man and with the nation that he greatly feared while still staying the same person all the way through. I would definitely recommend this book.
February 16, 2019
Having never read a biography of Mussolini, I found this book quite interesting and informative. In my experience, when reading and studying about WW II, historians focus on Hitler, the Allies and events leading up to the war. This book gives a different perspective on some events that allied Italy with Germany and the disastrous results. The fact that Mussolini was in power many years before Hitler arrived on the scene is often overlooked and lost in the telling of events. More importantly, I think this book shows how easily a dictator can come to power and maintain that power with the consent of the people.
February 8, 2017
While this is an incredibly well-written book, it hinges for the most part on complete bias. There is a lot of apologist language for Mussolini's early actions (including rape) as well as a veil-thin defence of Fascism. The killer for me was comparing Mussolini to the 'New Labour' movement in England - it's not a great comparison to make without facts or evidence and none is provided.
Despite the fantastic writing and structure, I could not finish this book as it is clear that the author only really intends to include one side of the argument.
Despite the fantastic writing and structure, I could not finish this book as it is clear that the author only really intends to include one side of the argument.
June 25, 2011
I found the book an easy read as it maintained my interest from the beginning. Fascinating his journey to the end and his thoughts of a reincarnated Roman empire.
May 18, 2021
To me, it's disconcerting to start a lengthy, rich-looking book only to get deep in and realize that it's speckled with flaws. Unfortunately, that was my takeaway after finally finishing this half-baked Brobdingnagian bio (which I read on Kindle).
First, the good. It's expansive, to the point of describing the curio vendors near Mussolini's grave to his kitchen setup at the zenith of Mussolini's power. You feel like you get to know this totalitarian leader. But do you really?
Second, the bad. And that brings me to the squishy points and flaws. Maybe I missed it (because holy smokes, this book is long), but I didn't grasp how this dictator controlled the levers of power. Sure, there was plenty of discussion of the people around him, and yes, he referred between different factions, but how he ran the show day-to-day is enigmatic. However, there is *plenty* of discussion of the ambitious, lusty, ego-driven, and sometimes fatuous figures around him.
Next, I found the sections about Italy's involvement in WWII and its runup paltry. This isn't military history, but I didn't have a clear understanding of when/how they won in Ethiopia. For instance, one sentence tantalizingly mentions Somalia and Eritrean troops under Italian command. Now *that's* interesting. But gosh darn it, I want to know more. Same thing about the trainwreck invasion of Greece in 1941. By contrast, Farrell goes into great depth describing the pyrrhic, tragicomical story of the Italian soldiers on Cephalonia.
In that regard, note to author (or whoever prepares a second edition): Maps are your friends! Include them!
Finally, the ugly. The author uses far too much untranslated Italian. While I could make my way through portions (from Spanish), this lack of translation makes the author appear situationally unaware, if not supercilious.
Another inexcusable fundamental flaw (at least on Kindle) is the lack of quotation marks, and, in some cases, periods.
Now a few additional suggestions for a next edition. Please include a timeline of key events. This book would have been enriched with photos -- as many books of the era include. I'm baffled that they weren't included. Also, use of the X-Ray feature in Kindle would have been useful in keeping track of the many personalities around Mussolini.
Overall, I would recommend this book for hard-core historians of Italy during this period and those absolutely transfixed with Mussolini. But I'd recommend that a reader with moderate interest in the subject look for a crisper, clearer, and more concise book.
First, the good. It's expansive, to the point of describing the curio vendors near Mussolini's grave to his kitchen setup at the zenith of Mussolini's power. You feel like you get to know this totalitarian leader. But do you really?
Second, the bad. And that brings me to the squishy points and flaws. Maybe I missed it (because holy smokes, this book is long), but I didn't grasp how this dictator controlled the levers of power. Sure, there was plenty of discussion of the people around him, and yes, he referred between different factions, but how he ran the show day-to-day is enigmatic. However, there is *plenty* of discussion of the ambitious, lusty, ego-driven, and sometimes fatuous figures around him.
Next, I found the sections about Italy's involvement in WWII and its runup paltry. This isn't military history, but I didn't have a clear understanding of when/how they won in Ethiopia. For instance, one sentence tantalizingly mentions Somalia and Eritrean troops under Italian command. Now *that's* interesting. But gosh darn it, I want to know more. Same thing about the trainwreck invasion of Greece in 1941. By contrast, Farrell goes into great depth describing the pyrrhic, tragicomical story of the Italian soldiers on Cephalonia.
In that regard, note to author (or whoever prepares a second edition): Maps are your friends! Include them!
Finally, the ugly. The author uses far too much untranslated Italian. While I could make my way through portions (from Spanish), this lack of translation makes the author appear situationally unaware, if not supercilious.
Another inexcusable fundamental flaw (at least on Kindle) is the lack of quotation marks, and, in some cases, periods.
Now a few additional suggestions for a next edition. Please include a timeline of key events. This book would have been enriched with photos -- as many books of the era include. I'm baffled that they weren't included. Also, use of the X-Ray feature in Kindle would have been useful in keeping track of the many personalities around Mussolini.
Overall, I would recommend this book for hard-core historians of Italy during this period and those absolutely transfixed with Mussolini. But I'd recommend that a reader with moderate interest in the subject look for a crisper, clearer, and more concise book.
April 16, 2024
I haven't read the entire book ― just about quarter of it. It's left a mixed impression.
One one hand, I needed information on Mussolini's social years and his political evolution toward fascism and the book was a great source of such information. I tried several other Mussolini bios before and that one is the best researched and the most readable at the same time.
On the other hand, the author, although without bending facts, is constantly trying to rehabilitate Mussolini, insisting that he wasn't such a bad guy after all, not perfect but not some violent monster as we're being told and certainly much better than Italian socialists. I'm not a fan the radical left myself, very far from it, but I don't think it's a good enough reason to rehabilitate the radical right, especially when the very facts in the book contradict it: they show that Mussolini actually was quite a violent monster.
Still, as I said earlier, the author doesn't let his opinion to mess with his facts, and if you manage to zoom out of his POV, it's probably the best Mussolini's bio available.
One one hand, I needed information on Mussolini's social years and his political evolution toward fascism and the book was a great source of such information. I tried several other Mussolini bios before and that one is the best researched and the most readable at the same time.
On the other hand, the author, although without bending facts, is constantly trying to rehabilitate Mussolini, insisting that he wasn't such a bad guy after all, not perfect but not some violent monster as we're being told and certainly much better than Italian socialists. I'm not a fan the radical left myself, very far from it, but I don't think it's a good enough reason to rehabilitate the radical right, especially when the very facts in the book contradict it: they show that Mussolini actually was quite a violent monster.
Still, as I said earlier, the author doesn't let his opinion to mess with his facts, and if you manage to zoom out of his POV, it's probably the best Mussolini's bio available.
March 7, 2020
Hagiography not history
Apparently, this is a bold revisionist version of Mussolini's life. Put another way, the author ignores undeniable facts about the dictator by saying that he wouldn't have remained in power if he hadn't been popular... Would he? Stalin was in power for much longer than Mussolini so, by this writer's yardstick, Stalin was even more popular....
Within the first few chapters Farrell mentions that the very young Benito stabbed two people, was habitually armed with a knife and knuckledusters and lost his virginity by the violent rape of an underage girl. Apparently, this doesn't mean that Mussolini was a psychopath. You cannot be serious.
I didn't know much about Mussolini when I started this book. I still don't: look elsewhere for a measured assessment.
Apparently, this is a bold revisionist version of Mussolini's life. Put another way, the author ignores undeniable facts about the dictator by saying that he wouldn't have remained in power if he hadn't been popular... Would he? Stalin was in power for much longer than Mussolini so, by this writer's yardstick, Stalin was even more popular....
Within the first few chapters Farrell mentions that the very young Benito stabbed two people, was habitually armed with a knife and knuckledusters and lost his virginity by the violent rape of an underage girl. Apparently, this doesn't mean that Mussolini was a psychopath. You cannot be serious.
I didn't know much about Mussolini when I started this book. I still don't: look elsewhere for a measured assessment.
April 26, 2020
Informative
It's a shame there are no photographs in this book. Books of this sort are usually accompanied with photos. I'm not surprised by the lack of maps to show military action against other countries; there was very little of this especially during WW2. Maybe the campaign in Abyssinia is about all of Mussolini 's imperial ambitions achievements worth noting. For a man who was revered by Hitler, whom he despised; was revered in Italy by Pope Plus XI he didn't really achieve very much. He has always been an enigmatic character. He still is revered in certain parts of Italy. It started off okay but unlike a lot of books about world leaders, and dictators in particular it wasn't as interesting as I was expecting. Until the outbreak of WW2 nothing special happened. It was like reading a bad novel that you just want to finish.
It's a shame there are no photographs in this book. Books of this sort are usually accompanied with photos. I'm not surprised by the lack of maps to show military action against other countries; there was very little of this especially during WW2. Maybe the campaign in Abyssinia is about all of Mussolini 's imperial ambitions achievements worth noting. For a man who was revered by Hitler, whom he despised; was revered in Italy by Pope Plus XI he didn't really achieve very much. He has always been an enigmatic character. He still is revered in certain parts of Italy. It started off okay but unlike a lot of books about world leaders, and dictators in particular it wasn't as interesting as I was expecting. Until the outbreak of WW2 nothing special happened. It was like reading a bad novel that you just want to finish.
August 21, 2017
Probably Farrell isn't such a Mussolini devotee as some want us to believe. What he surely is ; anti communistic . He presents Mussolini as the better and preferably alternative to a communist (Bolshevik) take-over. A movement which was as violent as the Fascist one. Mussolini 's greatest tragedy was that he was involuntary condemned to an alliance with Hitler. Mussolini was nothing like Hitler and Farrell diligent comes with many examples to prove this( particularly his attitude towards the Jewish population). Mussolini will always be associated with his German counterpart and objectively this isn't fair and true. If your Political conviction is om the (far) left spectrum you will probably won't agree with Farrell's conclusions. I found the book interesting ,thorough and what was a great surprise, extremely well written, both style and form.
June 26, 2018
First book on Il Duce, detailed and I though precise, reading reviews however I found the overriding impression was of a revisionist. I enjoyed the book and I think the results of that read has added to my appetite of know more about fascism, etc
July 14, 2018
At times fascinating, at others a real fuckin slog of a read. Holy shit I don't care about every minute detail of Italian politics in the 1920s to 40s.
I suspect a scholar of this period might find the book useful.
I suspect a scholar of this period might find the book useful.
June 4, 2022
An enjoyable read. It helps to debunk the left wing of Mussolini as a right wing monster. Had France and the UK treated him with more respect the story of the 20th century could have been very different
January 27, 2023
Fascinating in its revisionism and the idea of eg an Allied fascist Italy boxing Nazi Germany in from the south is compelling for WW2 alt-historians! Perhaps a little too eager to forgive Mussolini his sins? but a worthwhile and interesting read regardless.
July 8, 2017
A very well written biography. The contemporary image of Mussolini is a telling example of the victors getting to write history.
November 14, 2019
It is a strange book, more a polemics with the Left than a real biography. Some points made by the author sound interesting, but in general, the habit of constant arguing is not very convincing.
November 20, 2019
Good insight into ww2
Hard to put down. A bit too much minutii for me (names became confusing) but I learned a lot about the jigsaw that was ww2. Will keep as a reference book.
Hard to put down. A bit too much minutii for me (names became confusing) but I learned a lot about the jigsaw that was ww2. Will keep as a reference book.
June 21, 2022
19/20
October 29, 2023
A thorough biography, fascinating account of the rise of fascism in Italy and Mussolini's diplomatic dance with the European powers throughout the 30 and the Second World War.
July 2, 2024
"Later Mussolini would recall that Hitler had told him that he was 'mystically and scientifically convinced of being possessed not by a demon, but by a spirit from Aryan mythological pre-history'."
February 5, 2016
Very interesting and readable. The author wears his pro-fascist and anti-communist political beliefs on his sleeve, which makes for uncomfortable reading for anyone brought up with the image of Fascism and Mussolini as an evil twin to Hitler and Nazism.
The author makes a compelling defence and I'm not in a position to judge its merits, being an interested reader and not an historian. So I chose to suspend my disbelief, not always easy.
Two bugbears that score against this book. There is too much unnecessary repetition of simple facts and not enough reinforcements of more complicated information. And there is an assumption that the reader is fluent in several languages, with quotes in Italian, Spanish, German and French liberally sprinkled throughout without translation or explanation. There are also many grammatical and spelling errors. In short, the book needs a good editor and proof reader.
The author makes a compelling defence and I'm not in a position to judge its merits, being an interested reader and not an historian. So I chose to suspend my disbelief, not always easy.
Two bugbears that score against this book. There is too much unnecessary repetition of simple facts and not enough reinforcements of more complicated information. And there is an assumption that the reader is fluent in several languages, with quotes in Italian, Spanish, German and French liberally sprinkled throughout without translation or explanation. There are also many grammatical and spelling errors. In short, the book needs a good editor and proof reader.
June 12, 2018
So-so
I couldn't help but feel the author was somewhat in awe of his subject making excuse after excuse for him. Mussolini was an opportunist who thought only of furthering his own cause and would therefore lean whichever way the wind was blowing. While all the facts are here, and indeed the book can be extremely hard going at times, I didn't feel I knew much more about the man himself once finished.
I couldn't help but feel the author was somewhat in awe of his subject making excuse after excuse for him. Mussolini was an opportunist who thought only of furthering his own cause and would therefore lean whichever way the wind was blowing. While all the facts are here, and indeed the book can be extremely hard going at times, I didn't feel I knew much more about the man himself once finished.
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