This is why it is inconvenient to commemorate Renzo De Felice: the “irresistible” fascism and the rib of communism
Historical Fascism is “irresistible” – In the deafening silence of recent days, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Professor Renzo De Felice has slipped away, without anyone noticing it (8 April 1929 – 25 May 1996).
Apart from a few exceptions, no one has spoken of him, no one has publicly commemorated him, no one has uttered his name, dedicating even a minimum space to him, as if he were not the most important historian of fascism in Italy.
Instead, very many, and in particular all those who do not have an ideological homeland that recognizes itself in fascism or communism, owe the Rieti professor an unequivocal gratitude for having critically faced an extremely complex historical phenomenon (fascism in fact), through a 'historical analysis that aimed to be as independent as possible from ideological conditioning, drawing on sources, documents, and archives, as every historian should do: for this reason it has become "uncomfortable" and has been put on the index, demonstrating that even in Italy the "past that does not want to pass" is more tyrant than ever.
University professor at the Sapienza University of Rome, he taught "History of political parties", and his bibliography includes dozens of articles, and, among many, two pocket books, "The interpretations of Fascism" ( Laterza , 1989 ) and "Interview on Fascism" ( Laterza , 1985) not to mention a monumental work in eight volumes published by Einaudi on the biography of Mussolini.
Contrary to many texts by university professors today (including the University of Venice who photograph certain books upside down), by juxtaposing De Felice's volumes on Mussolini, after the first lines of each volume, of each chapter, one breathes the density of arguments, the immense wealth of sources, the mine of historiographical references, the long list of bibliographical references, the description of events, accompanied by documents from the archives. A monumental work, which could only annoy some interpretations of fascism, and among these that of the Action Party, prevalent today. The one to be clear that fascism is inscribed in the nature of Italians and that every now and then peeps out in the course of history and needs, coincidentally, an elitist and "healthy" (or self-styled) political force that is always on guard and suppresses it as soon as it manifests itself. The comforts of history.
But let's start from the “Interview on Fascism”, a book that can still be found in the bookstore, to understand where his work as a historian originates. Here De Felice states that contrary to Croce, who did not want to tell the story of fascism because it disgusted him, he was instead "convinced that the time had come to try a more strictly historical, less political discourse, [which] certainly does not he could ask those who had lived through fascism, fighting it, being anti-fascist, or having just been a spectator of it. (…) " And he continues: “In short, I was convinced that this story had to be made (…) and that this was the task of a new generation of historians, that is, those who had not experienced fascism in the first person”.
De Felice was convinced that a critical, scientific approach based on sources could be the right way and in fact, a little further on, he affirms: “Fascism had to be revisited, re-studied, with greater detachment with the greatest possible critical serenity”.
But on the same page of the Interview he adds a historical judgment that none of the authorized guides of today's mainstream dares to repeat, a statement that contrasts with the shareholder interpretation and with the "vulgate" – as he liked to call it – of today's "culture": "Fascism, which I call historical fascism – as it took place between 1919 and 1945 – is dead, it is irresolvable ". And he adds: "It is a closed page and for this reason it is possible to study it historically, with a historical method and mentality."
In recent years we have seen improvised depictions of political leaders hanging upside down, university professors who have expressed themselves with unworthy terms towards representatives of the Parliament, so much so as to provoke solidarity calls from the President of the Republic; or squares of citizens who have been called "oil spill", having as their sole fault not to share the opinions of the establishment .
The question would be simple: the "topic is closed," says De Felice. Yet closing it is displeasing to many, because it is too easy to take charge of defending "democracy" in danger and to define oneself as a healthy force to fight one's political opponents, with the support of an increasingly powerful, increasingly overwhelming, increasingly invasive of conscience mainstream. of Italians, the common mentality and the so-called Italian culture are increasingly decisive, a mainstream always ready to disqualify the works of scholars such as the Rieti professor with direct attack – as happened in the past – or with silence, as happens today. Powerful and therefore critically and scientifically unassailable studies must be fought with the means of censorship or social disqualification.
Is Fascism a "current" of Communism? – But there's more. As we have said, De Felice's studies lead to conclusions that must remain in the drawer. One case above all is the one that tells of the dismantling of the idea that fascism was born as an anti- communist force, as today it is clear that culturally it is a force whose origin lies within the Marxist riverbed. What does this mean? That Gentile (ideologue of fascism) and Gramsci (ideologist of communism) have their cultural roots in the same revolutionary ideology of a Marxist type, which gave rise to both their philosophies. Isn't it amazing? But let's go in order.
De Felice's work was influenced by the discoveries and studies of colleagues such as Augusto Del Noce, whose influence is central and to describe it we need to make a small prologue.
Del Noce also teaches in Rome at La Sapienza University. Among his most important works published in Italy there is " The problem of atheism " ( Il Mulino , 1964) " Descartes " ( Il Mulino , 1965) " The era of secularization " ( Giuffrè , 1970) and " The suicide of the revolution "( Rusconi , 1974): they are powerful works, with an iron logic and acute and profound philosophical knowledge, reading them" cold "is difficult if you do not know the philosophy, and today few know it.
Del Noce is a philosopher and like all philosophers he retraces the cultural origins of political phenomena that are connected to specific philosophical systems. His book “The suicide of the revolution” is no exception, and in the introduction he states (page 15): “at that time the relationship of Gramscian thought with [Gentile's] actualism was not yet clear to me”.
In " The suicide of the revolution " Del Noce addresses the relationship between Gentile and Gramsci in a chapter dedicated to them (pages 123 – 199) and in particular on Gentile states, that the date of birth of fascism can be traced back to 1899, when a book entitled " The philosophy of Marx " was published by a young university professor, Giovanni Gentile. In " The suicide of the revolution " on p. 229, in fact goes as far as to say: "In 1960 I wrote, and I believe I was the first to say it, that the birth certificate of fascism is in 1899, the year of the publication of Marx 's Philosophy " (…) "and that it is, in the most rigorous of the senses, the prologue of that culture which has prevailed in Italy in our century, or which continues to prevail if we think of Gramsci "[sic]
Did we read that right? But how, does the birth certificate of Fascism allow itself to be dated by the publication of a book that rereads and deepens Marx from a neo-Hegelian perspective? By Gentile, what is often referred to as the "ideologue of fascism"?
Del Noce writes again: in Gentile's book, we find a new figure of Marxist criticism, that of the realizing , a figure that made Marx "in a superior form, through the passage from the objectivist to the subjectivist version of the philosophy of praxis".
What does all this mean? It means that, summarizing and simplifying a lot, Gentile's cultural path that starts from Croce and neo-Hegelism to get to Marx, Gioberti and finally to actualism , is the same path that Gramsci takes to reach revolutionary Marxism, which – he too – reinterprets Marx from a neo-idealist point of view. Gramsci, as Del Noce documents, will realize that he has "copied" Gentile and will later be angry when he finds out (see chapter on Gramsci "Gramsci or The suicide of the revolution" pages 253 – 343).
To get to the point, we can say that fascism is no longer to be considered a political force that was born in an " anti- communist" key – as it was for Nazism -, but was instead born as a revolutionary force, paradoxically becoming a " current "Of communism, as it shares its cultural matrix of origin, the activist-revolutionary incubator in a subjective sense, that is the interpretation, the reading of Marx in a neo-idealistic key, that of" Marx after Hegel ". To take a flash of “The suicide of the revolution” (page 123) we can read: “The philosophy of Marx (Gentile's book ed), is one of the converging starting points of actualism ".
Gentile and Gramsci have their cultural roots in the "non-philosophy of Marx", from which they both derive their positions, overcoming the Crocian inability to recognize the speculative scope of European thought that implies the analysis of "Marx after Hegel". Both ask "whether all Marxism does not constitute the passage from a concept of philosophy as understanding to a concept of philosophy as revolution " (Del Noce, "The Non Philosophy of Marx" , pages 238-239).
Translated into a nutshell: you excavate the cultural provenance of Gentile (fascism) you find Marx, you excavate the cultural provenance of Gramsci (communism) and you find Marx himself: the "oil spill" apart when it does not occupy nine-column titles of certain newspapers is a contradictory concept. Culturally speaking, there are essentially no differences between oil spill and red tide.
In Europe there are studies that tell this paradox, for example those of Eric Voeglin reported in his books "The myth of the new world" (Rusconi 1990) and "The new political science" (Borla 1968). By adopting the Gnostic categories, he reaches the same conclusions: totalitarianisms in Europe have identical structures, they differ from each other "outwardly", while in the "internal" mechanisms they are similar, they resemble each other so much that they can be traced back to a single pattern , the idea of a Marxist revolution declined in various ways.
Mussolini and the Marxist concept of "revolution" – Del Noce's discovery of Gentile struck De Felice just as he was about to publish the first volume of his monumental biography on Mussolini.
Del Noce's arguments struck him so much that he decided to change the title of his first volume on Mussolini: initially the volume was to be called " Mussolini, the Socialist ", but he wanted to change it to " Mussolini, the Revolutionary ", so much the analysis Del Noce had hit the mark.
In the Introduction to the volume De Felice intended to explain the profound reasons for this choice and to those who were indebted for the discovery that changed the perspective of his work, but was censored (even then) by his historical teacher Delio Cantimori (who in the meantime passed from fascism to communism), which threatened a slashing of the work in his Preface , and for this reason De Felice was forced to speak of Del Noce very superficially.
We are therefore faced with powerful figures, who have carried out extraordinary studies capable of disavowing rooted stereotypes and artfully widespread clichés , and who have always been relegated to the margins of mass culture: for example, all those who today call themselves Antifa they have no idea that fascism is an "irresistible" historical phenomenon. If we go back to the 1940s, they do not know how closely the culture they think they are fighting is intimately linked to that which they suppose to defend, through the neo – idealist reading of Marx.
Many have wondered if Fascism was an error against culture (Crocian hypothesis), or was it not rather an error of culture, of that culture that has "abandoned" itself to the concept of Revolution without limits and without restraints: Del Noce's studies support the second.
As a historian De Felice in the " Interview on Fascism " will express all his concern for this commonality of mentality between apparently opposing cultures:
"Fascism has done infinite damage, but one of the biggest damages it has done was to bequeath a fascist mentality to non-fascists , anti-fascists, to subsequent generations even more decidedly anti-fascist (in words and in their most firm and sincere belief). A fascist mentality that in my opinion must be fought in every way because it is very dangerous. A mentality of intolerance, of ideological oppression, of disqualification of the adversary in order to destroy him ”.
Don't you seem to read the recent chronicles of what groups of citizens have had to suffer during the demonstrations against the Zan Ddl?
Pasolini and "archaic fascism" – So far we have cited two authors who (alas) many times have been attacked and denigrated by the dominant culture, accused of being "fascists", so much so as to become "suspicious" and therefore unreliable or "unpresentable": where can the repeated media pillory reach? Wikipedia itself today raises many doubts about De Felice's "revisionism" by his detractors, remember this when they ask you for a donation.
Yet, we want to close by quoting another great Italian intellectual who in this context can be considered unassailable as he says of himself: "I am a Marxist" , just to straighten the many noses that have been twisted up to now , namely Pier Paolo Pasolini.
In the "Writings Corsari" ( Garzanti , 1975) on page 232 Pasolini writes: "Today there exists a form of archelogical anti-fascism which is also a good pretext for a real anti-fascism license".
With a single sentence he described the shareholder interpretation and his false alarmism, only to refer to some interventions by Eco, Mieli, Augias, Molinari etc. But he continues: "It is an easy anti-fascism that has as its object and objective an archaic fascism that no longer exists and will never exist again ". What Pasolini calls "archaic fascism" is De Felice's "historical fascism".
And continues by specifying:
"This is why a good part of today's anti-fascism, of what is called anti-fascism, is either naive and stupid or it is pretext and in bad faith: because it is fighting or pretending to fight a dead and buried phenomenon , archaeological precisely, which does not can no longer scare anyone. "
And he adds:
“I believe, I deeply believe, that true fascism is what sociologists have too good-naturedly called the consumer society . (…) If one observes reality carefully, and above all if one knows how to read around objects, in the landscape, in urban planning and, above all, in men, he sees that the results of this carefree consumer society are the results of a dictatorship, of a real fascism. "
Then he continues referring to the young people of that time: archaic fascism
“He had made them into clowns, servants and perhaps in part even convinced, but he hadn't really touched them, in the depths of their souls, in their way of being. This new fascism, this consumer society, on the other hand, has profoundly transformed young people, has touched them deeply, has given them other feelings, other ways of thinking, of living, other cultural models. It is no longer a question, as in the Mussolini era, of a superficial, scenographic regulation, but of a real regulation that stole and changed their souls. " ( Writings Corsari , p. 233)
The organic intellectuals of today know this well, but they rely on the ignorance of the very many and are therefore in bad faith. Today, to disqualify democratically elected political forces, the intellectuals of the regime continue to use the bugbear of fascism, when they are instead the "watchdogs" of a "new fascism", that of the consumer society and the dominant mainstream , as Pasolini said. ; for this they are very careful that De Felice is not commemorated.
The post This is why it is inconvenient to commemorate Renzo De Felice: “irresuscitable” fascism and the rib of communism appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/ecco-perche-e-scomodo-commemorare-renzo-de-felice-il-fascismo-irresuscitabile-e-costola-del-comunismo/ on Mon, 31 May 2021 03:51:00 +0000.