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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 June 2011
Renzo De Felice's most recent publications, Mussolini il duce and Fascism: An Informal Introduction to Its Theory and Practice, have caused considerable consternation among both the lay and academic public. De Felice has suggested that generic fascism, and particularly Italian Fascism, may have displayed some progressive and revolutionary features. He goes on to suggest that Italian Fascism shared some affinities with the traditional “left.” Most of these contentions are well supported in the specialized literature; while they may cause some political discomfort, they should generate little intellectual resistance. The discussion concerning sensitive political issues has caused scholars to neglect some important methodological theses which De Felice is prepared to defend. The most critical issue turns on the role and legitimacy of generalizing over an ill-defined generic fascism. De Felice has attempted to restrict the characterization “fascist” to one or two strictly European regimes. The article concludes that there are no methodological grounds for such a restriction.
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4 In 1973, Pathfinder Press in New York republished Guerin's, DanielFascism and Big Business, first published in 1936.Google Scholar A new edition of Rajani Palme Dutt's “orthodox” Stalinist interpretation of fascism, Fascism and Social Revolution, was published by Proletarian Publishers in 1974. See my comments on both in Gregor, , Interpretations of Fascism (New York: General Learning Press 1974), chap. 5.Google Scholar
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6 Weber's brief Varieties of Fascism (Princeton: Van Nostrand 1964)Google Scholar was one of the first attempts to treat the fascist phenomena with a studied measure of detachment and objectivity.
7 This must be partially qualified by the appearance of Denis Mack Smith's review of Felice's, De work in the Times Literary Supplement of October 31, 1975Google Scholar, republished with an exchange with Michael Ledeen in Italian as Smith, D. Mack and Ledeen, M., Un monumento al duce? (Florence: Guaraldi 1976).Google Scholar
8 Collier, Richard, for example, told English-language readers that Mussolini was, at best, a “superficial reader” (Duce! [New York: Viking 1971], 46)Google Scholar, who read “only those writers who spoke for violence.” MacGregor-Hastie, Roy insisted that Mussolini only “fluttered from philosopher to philosopher” and derived from his reading “nothing but momentary gratification. …” (The Day of the Lion [New York: Coward-McCann 1963], 29).Google Scholar Furthermore, MacGregor-Hastie insisted that Mussolini had “neither philosophy, policy, or programme. …“
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49 Gentile, Emilio has provided a good account of these elements in the thought of the young Mussolini; see his Le origini dell'ideologia fascista (Rome: Laterza 1975), chap. 1.Google Scholar
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52 Schueddekopf (fn. 39), 76.
53 Ibid., 213.
