MUSSOLINI'S RHETORIC
Phillip Wander
The key m Mussolini's masterful manipulation of the Italians in the 1920's and '30's is his rhetoric. The most important source we have of Mussolini's writings, many of which were meant to be spoken rather than read, is the 35-volume edition by Edoardo e Duilio Susmel of the Opera Omnia [Complete works]. Comprised of newspaper articles, speeches, essays, miscellaneous reflections, letters, telegrams, and even a novel, the Opera Omnia is the best source we have of Mussolini's rhetoric. There is a great deal of repetition in these rexes, and reading Mussolini's works reveals some monolithic obsessions, some of which are succinctly stated in the Fascist pany's yearly arrangement of slogans co be painted on public walls (Segala 22-23). Fascism is rife with refrains that are obvious yet nebulous, repellent yet seductive, at times intriguing, but ultimately, heavy-handed and defective. There is for instance "Non siamo gli ultimi di ieri ma I primi di domani [We are nor yesterday's last but tomorrow's first]." It is impossible to define, clearly, where in time this is located. History is always treated with a broad brush and with remarkable fluidity: "lo sono reazionario e rivoluzionario, a seconda delle circostanze [I am revolutionary or reactionary as circumstances dictate]" (Susmel XV 187). There is no time to examine the ultimate meaning of these slogans because (and this particular slogan is still on the church wall ac Maretrimo an island off the coast of Sicily): "Sostare é retrocedere. La Marcia continua, altremete attendono il segno romano della nostra conquista [Stoppi ng is retreating. The march continues, other objectives await our Roman conquest]." There is no escaping the nationalist it and jingoistic themes of patria, glory, pride, domination, combat, destiny, victory, honor, heaven, and duty. The notion of war, of ban le, of sacrifice, of courage, of heroism and of its supposed grandeur is a consistent and yet paradoxical element of his rhetoric.
Augusto Simonini's book II Linguaggio di Mussolini explores Mussolini 's language. Simonini's analysis of the cadences of Mussolini's speeches are very insightful and helpful to the non-native speaker of Italian. Whereas the visual impact of Mussolini's pugnacious face and histrionics are immediately accessible to anyone who sees one of the many videos of his speeches, a detailed scansion of his radio address regarding war on Erhiopia on October 2, 1935, requires a trained and sensitive ear (71-77). Simonini wrote extensively on linguistics and declares in the first line of II Linguaggio di Mussolini chat it "is a sustainable proposal" that ''Mussolini was interested in linguistic research and study" (7). For Mussolini, words were palpable entities and living things, endowed with personalities and independent life, inextricably linked to the political fabric of the moment. However, Mussolini was not simply a "natural" rhetorical talent. Thar he was a skilled speaker is irrefutable, but he groomed and developed his natural abilities, simultaneously refining and strengthening his delivery. This process of development is evident from even a superficial comparison of one of his earlier speeches with a later example such as the "Declaration of war on Ethiopia," analyzed by Simonini. Mussolini was both a wordsmith and student of linguistics; char he was, in his political writing, a link to some of the literary movements of more recent rimes merits more study and analysis. He used words like fetish objects at a religious ceremony, as points of departure to a spirit land of dreams shared by the collective consciousness of the crowd. People talk of the evil genius of Mussolini and Hitler without insisting on the extent to which they were the creations of their audience. A share of the culpability resides in the people who could not resist their flattery, hearing that they constituted the best of races, that they were the torch carriers of civilization, and the promise and future hope of humanity: "Io non ho creato il Fascismo: !'hotrtttto dalt'inconscio degli iraliani [I didn't create fascism: I retieved it from the Italian subconscious} (Lepre 173).
Mussolini read and re-read Gustave Le Bon's Psychologie der Foules, calling it "a fundamental work, to which I still often return" (Susmel XXII 156). According to Le Bon, crowds, instead of being the sum total of the individuals of whom they are comprised, constitute a single personality, stronger and more single-minded than any of it constitute parts, as well as more violent and more barbaric. Mussolini understood that in crowds, individuality vanishes and instinct cakes over: " Mobs especially Latin mobs- become enflamed with enthusiasm for glory and honor, and can easily be dragged into war without bread or arms" (Simonini 129). This quotation is peculiarly prophetic with regard to Mussolin i's poorly armed, poorly fed, and poorly led troops. When the Nazi General Siegfried Westphal was asked if Italian soldiers were any good, he said: "The Italian soldier was badly equipped and carried basically the same arms and equipment that he had in World War I. In such conditions one cannot go to war... Mussolini had certainty not prepared his nation as he should have for serious combat" (Bertoldi 43). The general was a practical man, so for him, mere rhetorical preparation was not enough.
War is cot1ducted with the machinery of modern warfare, not with words, and slogans and ideas alone. When Le Bon wrote Psychologie des Foules in 1895, he was no doubt chinking of the ragged armies of revolutionary France, but his words are also applicable to the Italian armies in World War II, and much of what Le Bon has to say about the mob constitutes a blueprint for the transformation of Mussolini into "II Duce." According to Le Bon, mobs, in the manner of herds and Rocks, instinctively seek a chief or a leader, and so much the better if he is authoritarian and somewhat of a tyrant (23). From Le Bon, Mussolini knew char crowds respect force and the simplicity of force. He also learned that he could lead them anywhere, as long as the message promised future glory and conquest.
In his oratory, Mussolini has compared himself to an artist many times, on one occasion placing himself in the company of Michelangelo. The German journalist Emil Ludwig says in one of his "Colloquia" with Mussolini in 1932 that the dictator felt that a politician worked in a medium that was more difficult than char of an artist since his material is humanity. Ludwig reports char Mussolini saw humanity as material that is "variable, complex, subject to the influence of the dead and of women" (182-3). 1he pairing of women and the dead is indicative of one of Mussolini's secret fears and obsessions; in their submissiveness to the artist’s hand, the masses are also associated with the feminine:
When I feel the masses in my hands... or when I circulate amongst them... I feel myself a part of them. And yet a certain aversion is present, similar to what the poet feels about the material with which he works. Does not the sculptor sometimes strike the marble with anger [a reference to Michelangelo and his Moses) because it refuses to conform to his vision? For the politician it is still worse as his material sometimes s1rikesac him... Everything depends on this: dominate are the masses as an artist his medium. (Ludwig 126 -7)
But domination is not plenitude; it is a constant arriving. The politician, like the artist, is never finished; another "capolavoro" (masterpiece) beckons. It is the reverse for the dominated. TI1e masses muse feel an iron grip and will which freezes their world into coherence. For them the implacable vision of the artist and its inexorable constraints are the source of comfort and ease. The metaphor of the politician and the masses, the artist and his medium is the justification for the absolute subjugation of the latter and the total freedom of the former. These types of dichotomies and contradictions are at work in the structure of Mussolini's prose; their rhetorical resolution is purely imaginary:
What is the relationship between politics and art? Between the politico and the artist?... That politics is an art there is no doubt. It is certainly not a science. It's nor even empirical. Therefore, it is an art. An intuitive art. Political, like artistic creation, is slow elaboration and improvised illumination. An artist creates with inspiration and the politician with decision. Both work on matter and spirit... And there are other links between politician and artist; I'll cite just one: an endless, eternal lack of satisfaction. A tremendous but ultimately salutary dissatisfaction with the way things are, never the way one hoped them to be. The smug beatitude of the accomplished is as unknown to the artist as it is to the politician. (126-7)
Fascism is an ideology that hairs the world and suspends or reverses the flow of time. Fascism makes a pact with its adherents to enter a space where the laws of causality and logic are suspended. In this space, the world is clearer and simpler, which appeals to the mass of men, thus freed from the chore of thinking. To its followers, the fascist ideology is liberating and comforting. The tacit agreement between fascism and the mob is a flight from reality:
The world of fascism is not this superficial, material world in which the individual is separated from everyone else and living for himself, ruled by natural law, and instinctively living for pleasures both egotistical and fleeting. The fascist man is a nation and a fatherland, a moral law... suppressing the desire for a life of pleasure in order to attain a superior life, free of the limits of rime and space in which the individual renounces the self, its life, and its individual interests in favor of a purely spiritual life in which he finds his true value as man. (Susmel XXXIV 118)
The direction of Mussolini's thought progressively shaped the public man who became, both in appearance and pronouncement, ever more immutable. As the propaganda claimed, II Duce ha sempre ragione! The Leader is always right!
MUSSOLIN I'STRANSFORMATION FROMJOURNALISTTODICTATOR
The middle stage in the evolution of Mussolini's rise to power is one of ever-increasing purpose. Prior to his apotheosis into II Duce, and subsequent to his long apprenticeship as a socialist, journalist, serial novel writer, draft-dodger, anticlericalist, bohemian and expatriate (all identities char he would lacer renounce) are a series of roles that are mostly the exact antithesis of what he will lacer become. It is a stage whose predominant characteristics are struggle and dialectic. It is as if Mussolini had been struggling with his own confusion and contradictions in order to resolve them into something rational and coherent. In his work, Mussolini described a trajectory from the irrational to the rational, from the unintelligible to the unintelligible, from chaos to consistency, from common language to Ducean rhetoric. Philosopher Michel Foucault described the mechanics of the transition very insightfully in an interview:
All human behavior is scheduled and programmed through rationality. There is a logic of institutions and in behavior and in political relations. In even the most violent ones there is a rationality. What is most dangerous in violence is its rationality. Of course, violence itself is terrible. Bur the deepest root of violence and its permanence come out of the form of the rationality we use. The idea had been char, if we live in the world of reason, we can get rid of violence. This is quite wrong. Between violence and rationality there is no incompatibility. (Foucault and Lotringer 299)
Until 1919, Mussolini’s activities were journalistic. He edited and wrote for the Socialist newspaper Avanti! After banishment from the Socialist party for his support of Italy's entrance into World War I, he started his own publication, II Popolo d'Italia. Journalism allowed him to interact with the public and gain an audience. It also permitted him to experiment with the written word, in a context of constant change, which is the domain of the news media.
The usual image of Mussolini shows the dictator with his hands on his hips, his lips puckered, his jaw squared, his head haughtily tilted back, draped in one of his elaborate uniforms. However, long before this stage persona was crafted, he worked as an inflammatory journalist. It is probably his experience as a combative journalist, as someone who takes sides in a debate that taught him the tools of intransigence. Early in his career, he began thinking of the world purely in broad, clear but simple dichotomies: black vs. white, strong vs. weak, winner vs. loser, glory or dishonor.
Mussolini said that it was: "Meglio vivere un giorno da leone, che cento anni da pecora [Better to live one day as a lion, than one hundred years a sheep]"(Segala 22). Indeed, fascism is rife with slogans and pithy pronouncements of this sort. Mussolini was endlessly fecund in his production of mottos and catchphrases, some of which can still be seen in faded characters on the walls of Italia n buildings (38-74). He believed that such sayings were essential to communicating his message to the people, and in their communicating it to others. Slogans resemble viruses or machines that reproduce themselves endlessly. In the Italy of the 1920s, people caught the virus.
When real victory became ever more elusive, and then impossible with Italy's
surrender in 1943. slogans did not help. Far from a crescendo swelling the breast like a Fascist salute, the ubiquitous catchphrases stood like deflated sentinels of their own emptiness: from everything to nothing. From the "new Rome" expanding beyond the borders to the brief puppet state of La Repubblica Sociale occupying less than half of Italy and that half dismembered by Hitler. From independent scare to battlefield of foreign armies, from empire to civil war.
More and more, the dichotomies expressed in Mussolini’s writings became
not only a means of defining the sides of a question or debate, but also a means of exclusion and contempt. To an ever-greater degree, his dualities become mutually exclusive; more than contradictions, they assume the role of combatants. There is a slow transformation from a kind of secular Manichaeism to a dogmatic identification of the Enemy. As Mussolini put it: "O fascismo o antifascismo: chi non é con noi é contro di noi [Fascist or antifascist: for us or against us]." This sentence is from the official list of slogans for public buildings drawn up by the Partito Nazionale Fascista in 1939, but perhaps the most famous on that list is: "Credere obbedire combattere [Believe, obey, fight]." Mussolini repeats these words on March 26, 1939 in Rome am id wild applause and cheering co the "Old Guard," and in this speech are revealed all the pathos of his performances: "Grab your guns!, jump into the crucks!" According to Mussolini, the Italy of 1939, which was on the verge of collapse, is disciplined, creative, warlike, and imperial. Mussolini recognizes no obstacles and his soldiers joyfully embrace sacrifice: "La Patria si serve soprattutto in silenzio, in umilta e in disciplina [Above all the Fatherland is served in silence, in humility , and in discipline)."
It is difficult to ascertain what Italians felt at the fascist rallies of the 1920s and 1930s, but contemporary descript ions of the Palio di Siena (which cakes place every year during the months of July and August) can help recreate the atmosphere. It is a remarkable event. Full of ceremony, speechifying, and military pageantry, with soldiers and their captains attired in medieval armor marching in the streets to the sound of drums. Siena reverberates with ominous drumrolls, shouts and bugle calls. Close-packed bands in colorful costumes fill the narrow streets, waving huge flags and chanting songs reflecting the glory of their "contrada" (ward). The cli max of the event is a horse race, but the Palio is, in fact, a kind of war that has been going on for centuries.
The pride that people invest in identifying themselves with their faction is amazing; scarves are worn so there can be no mistake of identity and allegiance; the color of Heraldry are displayed in the uniforms of the jockeys and the trappings of the horses, bright reds (Gules), greens (Vere), blues (Azure), purples (Purpure) set off with black (Sable) and gilt hang from every window turning the medieval streets into a kaleidoscopic array; though festive it is all nonetheless extremely serious and the honor of the contrada is no laughing matter. The summer I saw it (July 2013), some Dutch tourists made the mistake of crying to introduce some levity into the proceedings and were assaulted and punched for their pains. During the race itself, one of the jockeys, representing one contrada fell off his horse in front of a rival contrada's stands and, by some strange twist of wild pride, was beaten up-in spite of having broken his pelvis in falling. There are many religious aspects to the whole affair, not the least of which is its dedication to the Virgin Mary. On the morning of the race, each horse is blessed with great solemnity at the altar inside the church of its contrada. The mise-en-scène of each event is meticulously choreographed for maximum impact on the spectator, and to awaken one's natural impulse to cake sides in a competition. Prizes are distributed for everything from costume to flag-waving. Although, in some recess of the mind, the participants must realize the ultimately gratuitous nature of the enterprise, one would never know it-the flight from reality is its own reward. Fascism was a constant spectacle and circus, an escape to fictive triumphs fought in ersatz wars.
Mussolini never failed, when addressing crowds from balconies throughout Italy, to encourage his compatriots to compete for world domination. By any objective measure, this was patently nonsensical. His armies, armed with planes, ranks, bombs and poison gas, fought against Ethiopian warriors who lived in grass hue and carried spear. Despite the inequality, Mussolini compared victory in Ethiopia to the great conquests of the past and the reestablishment of the Roman Empireproof of his military genius and proof that the Italian armies were indomitable. This incongruous comparison between past and present was indicative of how disconnected Mussolini was becoming. The final stage of Mussolini's development goes from a "merely verbal" separation co a complete divorce from reality.
MUSSOLINI’S TRANSFORMATION FROM DICTATOR TO WORLD CONQUEROR
The solutions that Mussolini proffered are paradoxical: war is unifying because of its explosive energy. The trench is not a place of refuge and of death, but rather a furrow bearing seeds for the future. Mussolini had no notion that World War II would be substantially different from World War I, or that armies were no longer composed of sandal-footed men marching in close formation through the countryside. In his mind, he believed it is possible to win battles on faith rather than force of arms. The army that win is the army possessing the greater will to win:
Quali sono le tre parole che formano il nostro dogma [What are the three words of our creed)? “The crowd answers as if on cue: “Credere! Obbedire! Combatter!” Responds IL Duce: “Ebbene, camerati, in queste tre parole fu, è sará il segreto di ogni vittoria." Translation: Well, comrades, in these three words, was, and will be the success of every victory. (Susmel XXIX 253)
Some pose World War I literary movements were inspired by the potential terror of words and state rhetoric to flee from denotation and meaning, to demolition and absence. At least part of the "littérateur blanche" [blank literature] or "degré zéro" [zero point) of the literary word explored by Roland Barthes and ocher modern semiologists was reacting to its menace: "Language is never innocent: words have a second memory which continues mysteriously amongst its newer meanings" (16). There is a whole impulse in modern literature to withdraw from the political arena or to dis place itself from the partisan signifier. Rationality can also be akin to madness: how can one awake from the night mare of history (Joyce 28)?
One of the reasons Mussolini was never able to get along with Filippo Marinetti or Gabriele D'Anunzio was that theirs was a literary fight, motivated by a desire to liberate society of its hackneyed and worn-out bourgeois ideals and move forward. Marinerci founded the Futurist movement that sought to embrace all the energy of the modern industrial city; D'Annuzio aspired robe the superman described by Friedrich Nietzsche, beyond good and evil. What Mussolini offered was, in fact, a step backward to a classical age, or rather a theatric al version of that age-hence his love of costumes, hats and all the paraphernalia and trappings of an ornate past.
It is difficult for us to gauge how "normal" the spectacle of Fascist Italy seemed
to the man in the street of the time. As pan of the huge cheering crowds unfailingly drawn by II Duce's appearances, he probably did not think about it much. In his private moments though, like the inhabitants of Siena during the Palio, he no doubt had misgivings. The passage of time distorts our view of Mussolini's" New Rome," and the words of the time align with a reality that is now evanescent and blurry, bur history plays a major part in that narrative:
Much of what was the immortal spirit of Rome resurfaces in Fascism: Roman is the Littorio, Roman are our combat formations, Roman are our pride and our courage... Today must be the history of tomorrow, the one we want to consciously create. (Susmel XVIII 161)
In my beginning is my end, the past is tomorrow, a relay co the invisible informs my actions: " L'inizio è la fine! Will. Purpose. Sacrifice. Glory! (Mussolini 356).
The identification of Fascism with ancient Rome is significant. The further back one goes, the easier one can ignore the problems of the present. The past, insisted Mussolini, did not make Italy great; remembering the greatness of the past however could inspire the citizens of modern Italy to surpass it. Greatness is not a privilege bur a duty. It was destiny that Rome, Fascist Rome, once again become the epicenter of Western civilization:
I am proud to say that if they let us work in peace for 5 or 10 years, Italy will be able to direct world civilization. In Europe, countries go up and others go down. We number amongst those on the ascent. We will rise. (Susmel XXI 444)
We are far from the mere winning of a territorial war; we are far from an impromptu ' improvised illumination;' we are standing at the crossroads of WORLD CIVILIZATION. Italy will rise, Italians will rise, and rising with them, II Duce. The divisions and oppositions that brought things to this scare are swept aside: everything conspires to make ONE. Thar one, for Fascist Italy, was II Duce. He was "always right." As a citizen I had only to let myself get drunk on his soaring rhetoric robe transported to the faery lands of fondest aspiration.
In the end, fascism was really nothing but Mussolini. Moreover, Mussolini sacrificed the man to build the idol. That idol, always right, proved to be nearly always wrong. Still, the course could not be changed. Mussolini was a one-way Duce: forward. Stopping is retreating. Without forward momentum, the elaborate stagecraft collapses and the emperor has no clothes. It seems incredible to us, bur the Fascist government had no plan of defense. Naples, Rome and Florence were bombed and there were no air-raid shelters. The emotional energy needed to cum co real defense from sham victory was not there. The last gasp was Hitler's promised weapons of mass destruction that thankfully never materialized.
Mussolini's rhetoric was comprised of often-repeated abstract words such as war, battle, sacrifice, courage, heroism and grandeur. Seemingly innocuous words such as these allowed the mid-twentieth dictatorships to turn living flesh into dead. Dead words, dead armies, walking cadavers with dead numbers tattooed to their tormented arms, dead crowds roasted in the fireballs of dead cities, dead art and dead sculpture forever buried beneath the dead rubble of dead promises and dead hopes. Fortunately, we have moved beyond those times though we can never rest assured char Fascism is dead. Wars are proof char Fascism is not dead.
POSTSCRIPT
Mussolini's tomb has become a place of pilgrimage for chose still devoted to him and co the "glories" of Fascism. Not long after their demise Fascism and II Duce engendered a cult. Moreover, one can buy rec shirrs. buses, and other paraphernalia online to help finance the cult. There are a number of websites devoted to the glories of II Duce and the twenty years of Fascism in anticipation of their return. Some still think they were the best years of Italy's history.
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