^1. E.g. both Morgan, Philip, Italian Fascism 1919–1945, Macmillan, London, 1995 and Whittam, John, Fascist Italy, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1995 ignore cultural issues entirely, while even scholarly studies such as Tannenbaum, E.R., The Fascist Society and Culture 1922–45, Basic Books, New York, 1972 and Lyttleton, A., The Seizure of Power. Fascism in Italy 1919–1929, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1987, chapter 14 make no attempt to identify a basic theory underlying Fascist cultural phenomena. Nor is the reader given much sense of the existence of such a theory from multi-author treatments of the subject, such as Golsan, R. J. (ed.), Fascism, Aesthetics, Culture, University Press of New England, 1992, or the two special issues of periodicals devoted to the subject, Stanford Italian Review, 8, 1–2, 1990, ‘Fascism and Culture’ and Journal of Contemporary History, 31, 2, 1996, ‘The Aesthetics of Fascism’.Google Scholar

The refreshing exception to this generalization is the essay published in the latter collection by Ruth Ben-Ghiat called ‘Italian Fascism and the Aesthetics of the “Third Way’” (ibid., pp. 293–316), which emphasizes the fascist bid to create a new type of total culture. In addition I must draw attention to Affron, M. and Antliff, M. (eds), Fascist Visions. Art and Ideology in France and Italy (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1997), which went to press only after I had finished the present article. Underlying this important collection of essays is a concept of the vision of culture adopted by generic fascism which corroborates and illustrates the one expounded in this article to a remarkable degree: the essay by Maria Stone, ‘The State as Patron Making Official Culture in Fascist Italy’ introduces the concept of ‘hegemonic pluralism’ which is profoundly congruent with the present article. (Falasca-Zamponi's, Simonetta Fascist Spectacle. The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997, and Mabel Berezin's Making the Fascist Self, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1997, similarly unavailable at the time of writing, both indirectly provide lavish documentation of the centrality of palingenetic myth to the concrete measures taken by Fascism to create a new type of culture. However, neither make it central to the conceptual framework of their investigation.).Google Scholar

^2. The catalogue to the Anni Trenta exhibition held in Milan in 1982 (ed. Pansera, A., Nuove Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, Milan) is one of the most comprehensive collection of essays and images so far to have appeared, but again there is no attempt to identify a cohesive Fascist cultural theory.Google Scholar

^3. Smith, Denis Mack, Mussolini, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 1981.Google Scholar

^4. Quoted in Cannistraro, P. V., La fabbrica del consenso, Laterza, Bari, 1975, p. 103.Google Scholar

^5. Davis, John A. and Smith, Denis Mack, Mussolini and Italian Fascism, Warwick Teaching Videos, University of Warwick, Coventry, 1991.Google Scholar

^6. Whittam, John, Fascist Italy, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1995, p. 1.Google Scholar

^7. On the essential heterogeneity of ideological communities within political movements, however strong the shared illusion of their homogeneity, see Platt, G. M., ‘Thoughts on a Theory of Collective Action: Language, Affect, and Ideology in Revolution’, in Albin, M. (ed.), New Directions in Psychohistory, Lexington Books, Lexington, 1980.Google Scholar

^8. For a more detailed exposition of the methodological premises outlined here see Griffin, R., The Nature of Fascism, Routledge, London, 1993, chapter 1.Google Scholar

^9. See Griffin, R., Fascism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995, which gives an extended account of this theory, as well as providing comprehensive documentary evidence for the presence of the ideological matrix it identifies in the writings of inter-war and post-war ideologues widely associated with fascism. For an understanding of how the theory of palingenetic ultra-nationalism forms part of an emerging consensus on the nature of fascism, consciously advocated by some and unwittingly applied by others, see Griffin, R. International Fascism. Theories, Causes, and the New Consensus, Arnold, London, 1998.Google Scholar

^10. For a classic example see Allardyce, G., ‘What Fascism is Not: Thoughts of the Deflation of a Concept’, American History Review, 84, 2, 1979.Google Scholar

^11. Quoted in Griffin, , Fascism, p. 29.Google Scholar

^12. See Gentile, E., Il mito dello stato nuovo, Laterza, Bari, 1982, pp. 103–6.Google Scholar

^13. For a more detailed account of the implications of this ideal type for an understanding of Fascism and generic fascism, see Griffin, , The Nature of Fascism, chapters 2, 3; Griffin, , Fascism, General Introduction.Google Scholar

^14. See Berman, Russell A., ‘The Aestheticization of Politics: Walter Benjamin and the Avant-Garde’, Stanford Italian Review, 8, 1–2, 1990, ‘Fascism and Culture’ pp. 35–52.Google Scholar

^15. The crucial importance to the Fascist regime of the ‘art of secular celebrations’ had already been noted by Herbert Schneider in his study of the regime published in 1928. See Schneider, H. W., The Making of the Fascist State, Howard Fertig, New York, 1968 (1928), pp. 216–30.Google Scholar

^16. See Stone, Maria, ‘Staging fascism: The Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution’, Journal of Contemporary History, 28, 1993, pp. 215–41. For a contemporary source on this exhibition see Alfieri, D. e Freddi, Luigi (eds), Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista, PNF, Rome, 1933.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^17. See Benton, Tim, ‘Rome Reclaims its Empire’, in Britt, David (ed.), Art and Power. Europe and the Dictators, Hayward Gallery, London, 1995, pp. 120–9. On the way the essays in this catalogue corroborate the importance of an essentially modern (and modernist) project of cultural renewal in the Fascist, Nazi, and Soviet regimes, sec Griffin, R., ‘Totalitarian Art and the Nemesis of Modernity’, Oxford Art Review, 19, 2, 1996.Google Scholar

^18. See Ghirardo, D. Y., ‘Città Fascista: Surveillance and Spectacle’, Journal of Contemporary History, 31, 1996 (special issue, ‘The Aesthetics of Fascism’), pp. 347–72; Ghirardo, D. Y., ‘City and Theatre: the Rhetoric of Fascist Architecture’, Stanford Italian Review, 8, 1–2, 1990, ‘Fascism and Culture’, pp. 165–94.Google Scholar

^19. Cavazza, Stefano, Piccole Patrie. Feste popolari tra regione e nazione durante il fascismo, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1997.Google Scholar

^20. See particularly Gentile, E., The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1996.Google Scholar

^21. By contrast it is central to the ‘Gramscian’ diagnosis of contemporary history put forward by the Nouvelle Droite strand of neo-fascist ideology that ‘cultural hegemony’ has to be gained before the political and social transformations they long for can take place. See Griffin, , Fascism, pp. 346–51.Google Scholar

^22. Though it is by currents within post-war Fascism: Revelli, Marco, ‘La nuova destra’, in Ferraresi, F. (ed.), La destra radicale, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1984, pp. 119–214. See, too, Griffin, R., ‘Revolts against the Modern World: The Blend of Literary and Historical Fantasy in the Italian New Right’, Literature and History, 11, 1, 1985.Google Scholar

^23. See Eliade, M., The Sacred and the Profane, Harcourt, New York, 1959. For a more detailed exposition of some of these ideas see Griffin, , The Nature of Fascism , pp. 186–200.Google Scholar

^24. See, Gentile, , The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy.Google Scholar

^25. Gentile, Giovanni, Fascismo e cultura, Fratelli Treves Editori, Milan, 1928, chapter IV, pp. 53–8.Google Scholar

^26. Davanzati, Forges, Fascismo e cultura, R. Bemporad e Figli, Florence, 1926, pp. 30–1.Google Scholar

^27. Bottai, Giuseppe, ‘Cultura e azione’, reprinted in Bartolozzi, R. and del Giudice, R. (eds), Giuseppe Bottai. Scritti, Capelli, Bologna, 1965, pp. 64–8.Google Scholar

^28. In Pomba, G. L. (ed.). La civiltà fascista, Torinese Unione Tipografica Editoriale, Turin, 1928, pp. 195–6, 205.Google Scholar

^29. Ibid. p. 191.Google Scholar

^30. Scaligero, M., ‘Funzione fascista dell'arte’, first published in Regime Fascista, 18 January 1935, reprinted in Tarchi, M. and Evola, J. (eds). Diorama filosofico. Problemi dello spirito nell'etica fascista. Antologia della pagina speciale ‘Regime fascista’ diretta da Julius Evola, Edizioni Europa, Rome, 1974, pp. 221–3.Google Scholar

^31. Susmel, E. and D. (eds), Omnia Opera di Benito Mussolini, La Fenice, Florence, 1951–81, 8, pp. 228–30. It is also worth reading Mussolini's introduction to Pomba, Civiltà Fascista. Google Scholar

^32. On the prevalence of the Fascist sense of a generalized ‘crisis of Western civilization’ see Zunino, Pier Giorgio, L'ideologia del fascismo, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1985, chapter 6.Google Scholar

^33. For an excellent case-study in the fierce critique of pre- and non-Fascist culture offered by a group of Fascist idealists who looked to art (this time in ‘realist’ key) to unite the people to the regime and create the ‘new man’, see Ben-Ghiat, R., ‘The Politics of Realism: Corrente di Vita Giovanile and the Youth Culture of the 1930s’, Stanford Italian Review, 8, 1–2, 1990, ‘Fascism and Culture’, pp. 139–64.Google Scholar

^34. The principal institutions created by Fascism to regulate cultural production included the Istituto Nazionale Fascista di Cultura (1925) (renamed Istituto Nazionale di Cultura Fascista); L'Unione Cinematografica Educativa or LUCE (1925); Ente Italiano Audizione Radiofoniche (1928); Accademia d'Italia (1929); the Scuola di Mistica Fascista Sandro Mussolini (1930); Gruppi Universitari Fascisti (independent from 1926); Enciclopedia Italiana (1925); Corporazione dello Spettacolo (1930); Corporazione degli Intellettuali (originally the National Syndicate of Intellectual Work, then the Confederazione di Professionisti e degli Artisti); Comitato Nazionale per le Arti Popolari (1932); Ministero di Cultura Popolare (1937), which grew out Mussolini's Press Office; Opera Nazionale Balilla (1926) (merged into Gioventù Italiana del Littorio in 1937). A major role in generating and coordinating popular art was played by the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (1925).Google Scholar

^35. For a full English translation of some of the most important of these articles, see Schnapp, J. and Spackmann, B., ‘Selections from the Great Debate on Fascism and Culture: Critica Fascista’, Stanford Italian Review, 8, 1–2, 1990, ‘Fascism and Culture’, pp. 235–72.Google Scholar

^36. Ibid. p. 239.Google Scholar

^37. Ibid. pp. 248–9.Google Scholar

^38. Ibid. p. 258.Google Scholar

^39. Ibid. pp. 261–2.Google Scholar

^40. Ibid. p. 255.Google Scholar

^41. Ibid. p. 269.Google Scholar

^42. Ibid. p. 272.Google Scholar

^43. Ibid. p. 266.Google Scholar

^44. Ibid. p. 267.Google Scholar

^45. Ibid.Google Scholar

^46. Ibid. p. 163.Google Scholar

^47. On this crucial aspect of Mussolini's role as leader of Fascism, see Roberts, D. D., The Syndicalist Tradition and Italian Fascism, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1979, chapter 8, ‘The varieties of Italian Fascism’.Google Scholar

^48. Contrast the way that in Nazi Germany, Expressionism eventually was judged to be ‘un-German’ despite the vociferousness of its proponents. See Taylor, Brandon, ‘Post-Modernism in the Third Reich’, in Taylor, B. and van der Will, W., The Notification of Art, The Winchester Press, Winchester, 1990, pp. 130–2.Google Scholar

^49. For a recent study of totalitarianism which rightly underlines the hopelessness of the bid to create any more than the façade of total conformity and consensus within the population of a modern state, see Tormey, Simon, Making Sense of Tyranny, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1995.Google Scholar

^50. See Britt, , Art and Power, p. 131, and L'Esposizione Universale di Roma. Utopia e scenario del regime, Archivio di Stato, Venice, 1987.Google Scholar

^51. The allusion is to Moravia's novel Gli indifferenti and Bertolucci's film Il conformista, both of which can be read as allegories of the vacuousness at the core of Fascist society.Google Scholar

^52. Diary entry for 5 September 1942, Bottai, G., Venti anni e un giorno, Milan, 1949, cited in De Grand, A. J., Bottai e la cultura fascista, Laterza, Bari, 1978, p. 244.Google Scholar