Italian fascism: competition for the role of the leader
Editor’s note: The fifth article of a series on essence, birth and rise of fascism. D’Annunzio’s Fiume Exploit taught Mussolini many things about what fascism should be like: what the leader must do, how the leader should effectively incorporate mysticism in his image, the role of mystical symbols and rituals that surround the leader, how to spellbind the crowd. D’Annunzio also made mistakes; Mussolini learned from his mistakes and became the Duce not of a single city, but of all of fascist Italy. XXI century Europe might give in to fascism despite all efforts – alas, fascist ideas might be dear to it’s people. Bringing fascists to power, with their solutions to to immigration and economic crises, might be tempting to too many people. But this is the expectation of those who constructed these crises by bombing Libya and supporting extremists in Syria, by destroying the economies of some European countries in favor of the economies of others. Everyone who wants to fight fascism must be prepared. You, who want to fight fascism, will not convince anyone that you are right without deep intellectual understanding of fascism. We must learn to be convincing. And we are running out of time: fascism gets closer by the second.