From Rome
This October 28 marks 100 years of the so-called March on Rome, an aggressive demonstration crowd of militants fascists, that marked the destiny of Italy determining that the dictator Benito Mussolini took office on October 31. The country was still a monarchy ruled by King Victor Emmanuel III and a Parliament, and considered a “liberal state”.
The centenary of this event is celebrated in a very particular context, given that Italy and several European countries are turning to the right, something that did not happen until a few years ago. This weekend, in fact, The first right-wing government took office in Italy since the end of World War II.lead by Giorgia Meloni of Fratelli d’Italia, which in the September elections managed to be the most voted party.
Many wonder why this is happening in Italy and in Europe, and if the country will end up experiencing a new fascism with all the terrible consequences that it had, such as racial laws against Jews, among other things.
Pierfranco Pagliarulo has been president of ANPI (Italian National Partisan Association) since 2020, one of the most famous and respected anti-fascist organizations in the country, founded in 1944 in Rome and originally bringing together members of the Resistance against Nazi-fascism. Thanks to the Resistance (groups of civilians who fought armed but also people who collaborated silently) and the Allied countries, the Nazis were expelled from Italian territory and fascism overthrown. It should not be forgotten that Italy was occupied by the Nazis from 1943 to 1945. Among them was el SS Erich Piebke who later escaped to Argentina and was prosecuted in Italy, some 40 years later, for the Massacre of the Fosse Ardeatine from Rome. It was the Resistance, moreover, that laid the foundations for the Constitution of the Italian Republic that is still in force.
Pagliarulo was a member of various left-wing parties, including the Olivo and the Democratic Party. As a member of Olivo, he was elected senator in 2011. He has also worked as a journalist and directed several workers’ and parties’ newspapers, including the ANPI’s “Patria Independiente”.
-What were the most important causes and effects of the March on Rome?
-The situation of 100 years ago was completely different from the current one. But even so, the causes of the victory of fascism were mainly two: the division of the democratic forces (socialist, popular, communist) and the defeat of the liberal state. There was no liberal democratic state as we consider it today. Even today’s Italy is not a liberal state. It is rather a state of social democracy. Then, the liberal state falls and in part becomes an accomplice of fascism because it fails to govern the social tensions that had been created after the First World War. Why was there no liberal democracy? Because there was no universal suffrage, only men voted, women did not, although there was a parliamentary system. Besides, there was a king, not a republic.
– In Italy there is a lot of division between the center-left democratic forces. Do you think that the country runs the risk of reliving a situation similar to fascism with the right-wing government that exists now, after more than 70 years of an anti-fascist Italy?
-Frankly, I don’t think so. There are other dangers. One of the components of historical fascism has been the use of violence as a legitimate form of political battle through the “squadristi” (paramilitary squads) that persecuted or killed opponents, minorities who spoke another language, as happened in Trieste (north of Italy), and racial laws. The violence in foreign policy was colonialism and imperialism. And so many invasions of Italian fascism: in Libya, Ethiopia, Albania, Greece, Yugoslavia. The use of violence that became a characteristic of fascism and Nazism does not exist today. The greatest danger that I see in these post-fascist parties, which carry elements of fascism in their DNA, is exasperated nationalism. There is a return of nationalism: Italy, Hungary, Poland, with right-wing governments, are some examples.
-What should Italians and Europeans do to change this situation?
-Today anti-fascism cannot be limited to the necessary contrast or opposition to fascism. To win, it is necessary to ensure that the social conditions that determine the consensus for fascism no longer exist. Social conditions are the great crises. Today Italy and all of Europe are going through a great crisis made up of several crises: the economic-social one (in Italy there are 5.6 million people in a situation of poverty, that is to say almost 10% of Italian citizens), the one caused by the pandemic that has hit the entire world and the crisis of the Russia-Ukraine war that is having catastrophic consequences for Russians, Ukrainians and Europeans mainly, and has determined the increase in inflation (almost 9% in September). There is also the environmental crisis, climate change that is determining the melting of glaciers. The democratic forces must intervene on all these points, speaking with the most unfortunate, with the popular masses, recovering a relationship with the youth, with the world of work. Relationships that in recent years have practically been lost.
-The right has not addressed these issues seriously. So why has he won in the last elections where there was the lowest number of voters in the history of the republic (64%)?
-If there is no response from the democratic forces to the needs of the population, inevitably part of the electorate goes to the other side. If you think about the great economic crises that have occurred in the world, they have almost always been resolved to the right, not to the left. I am not surprised by this. There is no need for the right to do good things to gain consensus. It is enough that the democratic forces do the wrong things. Not having a response from the democratic forces, they go to the other side that offers other solutions, hoping that something better will happen. A something better that will not exist because the economic position of the right is very similar to the neoliberal positions, perhaps with a touch of nationalism and protectionism.
–It is possible that the fascists will take to the streets on the 28th to celebrate, given the government that Italy now has. Does the ANPI have in its program any demonstration against or that highlights the role of the Resistance in the birth of the Italian Republic?
-We have organized a program of activities that will take place over several days. But we have chosen not to do anything of our own on October 28, so as not to give this date, which is a date of mourning in national history, a value that it does not have. What interests me at this moment is that the new extreme right-wing government assumes a clear position of condemnation of the March on Rome on the occasion of the anniversary. We ask the new prime minister and the authorities of the Senate and the Chamber to assume positions consistent with the Constitution. The Constitution is born of the Resistance. The Resistance was the instrument that allowed fascism to be defeated. Fascism was imposed in fact on October 28, 1922. It is fair that the government and institutions condemn, without pretexts, the birth of fascism, that is, the March on Rome.