Il Duce and His Women

by Roberto Olla

  Fascism was by now irrevocably a right-wing movement. Those members who had come to it from the left had either abandoned it or were increasingly isolated within it. Only Mussolini was still trying to adjust the balance – with his support, for example, on 8th June, of pay strikes within the country’s public sector. When negotiations opened to reach some kind of truce or compromise agreement among the divergent political forces, many of the ras rebelled, but Mussolini won them over with a right-wing line of reasoning they had to accept: he was the founder of the movement, he was their leader, what he wanted and said went; it was their duty to discipline themselves and obey him.

  The signing of the agreement was fixed for 2nd August in the office of the Leader of the Chamber Enrico De Nicola. In the arrangements for the small-scale ceremony, the Socialist Party asked De Nicola to avoid any formal act of greeting between the two delegations. They refused categorically to shake Mussolini’s hand, since he had been expelled from the party as someone who was morally and politically unworthy of membership. Cesare Rossi, who was involved in the planning, realized the Socialist Party would be unmoveable on this point; he gave orders that Mussolini was not to be told about their refusal in order to avoid a controversy over status which might have caused serious problems. Unaware of the Socialists’ demand, Mussolini went to the ceremony and signed; at which the local Fasci rose up against the agreement. In Bologna they even threatened to split away.

  On 18th August, Mussolini staked everything on one last gamble: he announced his resignation from the executive of the Fasci. The effect was like an electric shock to the exposed nerves of the Fascist movement. The whole of the national press followed the developments of the crisis. Il Popolo d’Italia printed a series of telegrams which had been sent in support of its editor-in-chief. From Bologna, one of the most powerful of the ras, Italo Balbo, sent a letter to the paper in which he tried, with the help of some contorted reasoning, to calm the situation down by maintaining that while the Bolognese “fascio” were against the agreement, they also realized that Mussolini was not personally responsible for it, but had agreed to sign only because of his overwhelming desire to see the political reconstruction of the country. The executive committee of the Fascist movement rejected Mussolini’s resignation. At a meeting of the parliamentary party on 7th September Mussolini decided not to take a hard line on the issue, instead giving his listeners to understand that his opportunism would override any residual sense he might possess of political ethics. He completely ignored the agreement signed before the Leader of the Chamber and acted in such a way that its provisions were never put into practice. Rossi described the agreement as “stillborn. Most of those who signed it did so with so many private reservations and conditions as to leave it in moral and practical terms quite worthless. The Communists besides were violently opposed to it and attacked the Socialist Party ferociously for signing up to it. But even the Socialist Party had only agreed to sign it out of tactical necessity and to mark themselves out from the Communists.”15

  With no principle to guide him any longer, interested only in action, or rather enamoured of action for action’s sake, Mussolini closed off all overtures to the left and turned to the right – after all, he believed that Fascism was an “absolute relativism” to which the categories of right and left, reaction or revolution, no longer applied. Hannah Arendt’s words on him are relevant here:

  Everything which was useful for the so-called productivity of the individual, in other words the completely arbitrary play of that individual’s “ideas”, was transformed into the centre of a total vision of the world and of human existence. The cynicism which is inherent in such a romantic cult of personality has given rise to certain attitudes among modern intellectuals. Mussolini, one of the last to spring from this tradition, is a typical example: he boasted of being at one and the same time aristocratic and democratic, revolutionary and reactionary, proletarian and anti-proletarian, pacifist and anti-pacifist. At the heart of romantic individualism in all its ruthlessness has always been the sole belief that “each of us is free to create his own ideology” (a quotation from an article by Mussolini). What distinguished Mussolini from other romantic intellectuals and from many of his contemporaries was that he devoted all his energies to putting his ideas into practice.16

  On 7th November the “Partito Nazionale Fascista” (“National Fascist Party”) was founded in Rome. At the time Dino Grandi was a very young man, so young that his election to parliament had been annulled because he was found to be under the age of majority. Right up to the eve of the establishment of the party he had been regarded as the leader of the revolt against the peace agreement and, as such, the movement’s new man, the only figure who could rival Mussolini. Instead, at the congress which founded the party, Grandi embraced Mussolini, to the wild applause of the delegates, after he declared his sincere fraternal wish to “work alongside” the party’s leader. This was Grandi’s attempt to replace Mussolini, and it failed; his second, on 25th July 1943, when he proposed a motion to unseat the Duce, succeeded: “Twenty-two years later he was successful, but only after twenty long years spent in servile fawning and flattering and being rewarded with leading positions in the regime, honours and fat emoluments.”17

  More than thirty thousand men from the local Fascist squads attended the new party’s congress in Rome, and among them there were those who suggested seizing the opportunity to overthrow the state by taking control of the city’s strategic centres and wresting power into their own hands. Mussolini said it was too early to make such a move, but the mass of Fascists in the capital gave rise to clashes which led to six deaths and more than a hundred people wounded. Such an outcome suited Mussolini: he wanted these new and increasingly violent attacks from the armed wing of the party to destabilize further the country’s already fragile democracy. The message had to arrive loud and clear to all the politicians: without the Fascists Italy could not form a government, and only the Fascists could restore stability to the authority of the state.

  In January 1922 Mussolini launched a new publication, the magazine Gerarchia (Hierarchy), and asked Margherita Sarfatti to become its editor. Sarfatti was already a contributor to the cultural section of Il Popolo d’Italia. Now Mussolini had his brother Arnaldo as his right-hand man on the newspaper, and his mistress and muse leading the new political magazine. Sarfatti continued to publish occasional articles in Gerarchia under the pseudonym “El Sereno” (“The Serene One”); her friend and protégé the painter Mario Sironi frequently designed the cover illustration; and many of the intellectuals who frequented her salon contributed over the ten years she edited the review. In his interview with Ludwig, Mussolini once declared categorically that “women have no influence over men who are strong”18, only to cancel the remark in the proofs, perhaps because he regretted making such a dogmatic statement. But several times in the course of his life Mussolini denied that he had ever been influenced by a woman, although his relationship with Sarfatti and, in part, with Balabanoff, suggests otherwise. It is interesting to hear the point of view of a female historian, Karin Wieland, on this subject: “Mussolini was not a man who loved women, but nevertheless they were the only people he really trusted. His ideal conception of virility meant that he could not take criticism from a man or reveal his own weaknesses to one. Only with someone who was not an actual or potential rival could he share his own doubts. And that meant only with women, because a woman, precisely on account of her sexual status, was excluded from political power while still being capable of understanding its rules.”19

  At the beginning of 1922 Mussolini travelled to France where, in Cannes, he met his old political comrade Pietro Nenni, now a member of the Socialist Party and the Paris correspondent for Avanti!. They had been in prison together, their wives had been friends, Nenni had held the little Edda in his arms – a reunion was inevitable. They conversed a lot, sometimes deep into the night. Nenni later reconstructed from memory some of these conversations:

&nb
sp; One of us [Mussolini] said: “The state of civil war has been a tragic necessity. I take all responsibility for it. The failings of the state meant that there had to be a party which was capable of facing up to Bolshevism, restoring a sense of authority, saving the fruits of the country’s victory in the war.”

  But the other [Nenni] retorted: “You’ve become a tool in the hands of the classes for whom the right of the workers to organize themselves to defend their social interests and take power is called ‘Bolshevism’; authority equals the police, and ‘saving the fruits of victory’ means maintaining the dominance of a military ethos over a civil one.”

  “I’m not at all unaware of the feelings and resentments of the classes you’re referring to. But I’m not their tool. I’ve never hesitated at the right time to declare that we must leave the spiral of violence behind us.”

  “Leaving yourself isolated.”

  “Whenever I’ve spoken about peace, they’ve laughed in my face. I have had to accept a situation of war.”

  “Your individualism leads you astray. I’ve no idea how you’ll turn out, but I’m certain of one thing: everything you do is going to be marked by the iron brand of will, because you lack a sense of justice. The peace you hold out to my comrades in the Socialist Party means that they would have to give up the ideals they pursue. The bourgeoisie is always ready to come to an agreement if this is the price demanded. And then, you’re forgetting a lot.”

  “?”

  “You’re forgetting those who have died, you’re forgetting you once led the Socialist Party, you’re forgetting that the workers who are now being attacked by your Blackshirts probably became socialists because of your call to join the party.” […]

  “There’s no room for sentimentality in life. Those who died cannot be dismissed. I often remember my past with profound sadness. But it’s not only a question of the dozens who died in the streets in political clashes. There are the hundreds of thousands who died in the war. They too must be defended…”

  “The working class, the object of your attacks, defends the dead by struggling against war and against materialism. It might get some details wrong, but the general thrust of its struggle is always the right one.”20

  It’s hard to believe that during this trip to France, as on previous visits, Mussolini didn’t pursue sexual contacts, even though there’s no surviving evidence or reports of any encounters. This could be because his over-direct approach to women led to them turning him down, which he would hardly want to talk about. Or he “restricted” himself to visiting brothels. Either hypothesis is compatible with the coarse and racist description of French women found in Claretta Petacci’s diary: “French women – not the working-class women who are all sordid, filthy and sweaty – but those a bit higher up the social scale, they really are all the most unbelievable whores. Full of vice, just like real whores. They come after men. Did you know French women like Negroes? It’s said that Negroes’ cocks are not like white men’s, standing up thick and firm, but are long and thin. This gives French women a real thrill. Yes, they’re all crazy for Negroes, all of them.”21

  When, in 1922, the government fell for the third time in succession, Mussolini wrote in an editorial in Il Popolo d’Italia on 12th February: “In the light of the recent political and parliamentary developments, the eventuality of a dictatorship is one which must be taken seriously.”

  For ten days in early March Mussolini visited Germany, accompanied by his political secretary. Violently critical articles on him appeared in the left-wing German press. He had meetings with various prominent right-wing politicians. There is however, according to Renzo De Felice’s researches, no evidence that he met Hitler during this period. De Felice goes on to add, however, that “it is not at all unlikely that Mussolini met leading Nazis in Berlin in 1922. However, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I think it probable that such contacts did not go beyond a simple exchange of ideas and information.”22 This is borne out by Mussolini’s subsequent criticisms of Nazism as well as by the unsuccessful efforts Hitler made in the following years to establish contact with Mussolini once he was installed as Duce.

  Mussolini left Germany because he needed to be present in parliament to support the vote of confidence in the new government led by Luigi Facta. In May the military actions undertaken by the Fascist squads took on a new dimension: now there were plans for thousands of armed militants to muster with the intention of occupying entire towns and destroying associations, clubs, party headquarters, Chambers of Labour, cooperatives. During the summer the situation deteriorated. In July the Fascists launched attacks the length and breadth of the country, in Apulia, in Umbria, at Cremona and Novara, Magenta and Ravenna.

  Once the Fascist squads’ military machine was set in motion, it continued almost with its own momentum, achieving unprecedented “military” targets but descending to a level of truly bestial violence (in the second half of July, after Mussolini and the executive committee of the PNF [National Fascist Party] had already intervened to try to stop outbreaks of “excessive” and counterproductive violence, the squads in Magenta behaved so “barbarically” that the party was forced to order an inquiry) and frequently making its own decisions without any reference to the party leadership. Yet it is beyond doubt that the party leadership and Mussolini himself were willing to be carried along by the train of events and, casting aside all considerations of political prudence, believed they could exploit the military success of the Fascist squads for political ends.23

  On 28th July, the Socialist Party’s members of parliament called for decisive action to defend freedom and the rule of law. A general strike, or “sciopero legalitario” (“constitutional strike”), was called for 1st August. The country was once again without a government at the helm, and negotiations to form a new one were rushed through, resulting in Luigi Facta being asked for the second time to become prime minister. On 31st July Mussolini had a meeting with the leader of the (Catholic) People’s Party, Giovanni Gronchi, who agreed that his followers would refuse to join the strike. Many on the left, beginning with Salvemini, criticized the decision to call a strike, saying that it could only alienate once more that sector of moderate public opinion which was disturbed by Fascist violence. On 1st August Mussolini called on the squads to oppose the strike: he declared that with the backing of his own army he was ready to step in and replace the state. The strike was called off after one day: it was a defeat for the Socialist Party and the entire trade-union movement, but not only for them. Italian democracy lay in ruins. The failure of the strike meant the road was now clear for the March on Rome. Now that his opponents had been routed and their weakness revealed to the country, all Mussolini had to do was choose the right moment before public opinion once again turned and began to demand peace and tranquillity.

  The Fascist squads’ reprisals against the strikers were immediate. On 3rd August in Genoa the headquarters of the socialist newspaper Il lavoro were destroyed. On the 4th the offices of Avanti! were attacked and the seat of the city’s Socialist Party-majority council, Palazzo Marino, was occupied. The leaders of the squads saw the occupation as a coup d’état or something close to one, and wanted to celebrate it. By chance D’Annunzio was in Milan to visit his publisher. A Fascist delegation led by Cesare Rossi called on him, and after repeatedly insisting got him to agree to give a speech to the crowds from the balcony of Palazzo Marino.

  In August 1922, during the Fascist mobilization to counter the “sciopero legalitario”, the author of the present lines expressed a wish that the occupation of Palazzo Marino should be marked by a speech from D’Annunzio, full of his glittering eloquence… […] Mussolini deeply resented this revival of erstwhile Fascist enthusiasm for D’Annunzio, but he was brusquely told that the old adage that “those who stayed away from the party were in the wrong” had never been more true – he was in fact in Rome, lusting after some easy-to-get woman.24

  Under Rossi’s stage management, the Fascists decked the ba
lcony from which D’Annunzio would speak with the red flag which had flown during his brief rule of Fiume next to the black pennants of the Fascists. The poet’s speech was somewhat generic. “We were expecting a fiery harangue in favour of right-wing extremism. But, although it was full of patriotic rhetoric, the poet appealed to ‘the victory of the good’, to the ‘affirmative and creative’ virtues of all those who were prepared to put aside any partisan interests in the supreme name of Italy and its well-being.”25 Only a few phrases could be heard in the crowded and noisy piazza in front of Palazzo Marino. Amid the general celebrations after their victory, the Fascist squads hung on a few expressions – “a fraternal bond… nothing against the nation” – and were otherwise pleased that D’Annunzio had honoured their success with his presence. The fact that Mussolini was absent from Milan, on some amorous escapade in the countryside outside Rome, shows, in De Felice’s view, that both he and the party’s executive had played no part either in the involvement of D’Annunzio for propaganda purposes or more generally in the revolutionary aims of the Milanese “fascio”. Mussolini returned to Milan only on 12th August: “Rossi’s explanation that it was a love affair which kept Mussolini in Rome doesn’t hold water. This was a period when his love life never interfered in his political career. His adventures with women were rapid and uncomplicated; his other interests were never subordinated to his affairs.”26