Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-kwt9d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T05:28:22.110Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mussolini's charisma∗

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Emilio Gentile
Emilio Gentile*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Studi Politici, Facoltà di Scienze Politiche, Universita degli Studi La Sapienza, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185, Roma, Italy
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Mussolini was the prototype of twentieth-century charismatic dictators. His personal charisma antedated the founding of Fascism and the formal construction of collective charisma through the movement and the personality cult. First forged in the socialist movement, Mussolini's charisma assumed a new guise when he became a supporter of Italy's intervention in the First World War. He acquired an aura for the third time as Fascist leader. There were always tensions between the Duce and Fascism as the latter embodied the collective charisma of a movement. Nevertheless, Fascist ideology and culture incorporated the idea of the charismatic leader as a focus and source of authority on the model of the Catholic Church. Although it was difficult by the 1930s to distinguish between the believer's exaltation and courtly adulation, Mussolini exercised a personal charisma for many Fascists even after his death.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 3 , Issue 2: Charisma and the cult of personality in modern Italy , November 1998, pp. 219 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Notes

1. Biondi, D., La fabbrica del duce, Vallecchi, Bologna, 1967; Melograni, P., ‘The cult of the Duce in Mussolini's Italy’, Journal of Contemporary History, 1976, pp. 221–37; Ostenc, M., ‘La mystique du Chef et la jeunesse fasciste de 1919 à 1926’, Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome, 1, 1978, pp. 275–80; Hasler, A. B., ‘Das Duce–Bild in der Faschistchen Literatur’, Quellen und Forschungen, 60, 1980, pp. 421–506; De Felice, R. and Goglia, L., Mussolini. Il mito, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1983; Petersen, J., ‘Mussolini: Wirklicheit und Mythos eines Diktators’, in Mithos und Moderne, Frankfurt a. M., 1983, pp. 242–60; Passerini, L., Mussolini immaginario, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1991; Imbriani, A. M., Gli italiani e il duce. Il mito di Mussolini negli ultimi anni del fascismo (1938–1943), Liguori, Naples, 1992.Google Scholar

2. See for example: Hamon, L. and Mabileau, A. (eds), La personnalisation du pouvoir. Université de Dijon, Paris, 1964; Rustow, D. A., Philosophers and Kings. Studies in Leadership , Braziller, G., New York, 1970; J. MacGregor Bums, Leadership, Harper & Row, New York, 1978; Cavalli, L., Il capo carismatico, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1981; Held, J., The Cult of Power. Dictators in the Twentieth Century, Boulder, New York, 1983; Schweitzer, A., The Age of Charisma, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1984. An exception is Bach, M., Die charismatischen Führerdiktaturen, Nomos, Baden-Baden, 1990.Google Scholar

3. Weber, M., The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, Free Press, New York, 1964, p. 358.Google Scholar

4. Tucker, R. C., Stalin as Revolutionary, Chatto and Windus, London, 1974, chapter 2.Google Scholar

5. Tucker, R. C., ‘The rise of the Stalin personality cult’, American Historical Review, 2, 1979, pp. 347–66.Google Scholar

6. Quoted in Megaro, G., Mussolini dal mito alla realtà, Milan, 1947, p. 365.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., p. 366.Google Scholar

8. On Gramsci's ‘Mussolinianism’, see Romano, S. F., Antonio Gramsci, Einaudi, Turin, 1965, p. 281.Google Scholar

9. Toscani, I., ‘I giovani, il socialismo e la guerra’, Avanti!, November 29 1914, quoted in De Felice, R., Mussolini il rivoluzionario, Einaudi, Turin, 1965, p. 281.Google Scholar

10. Zibordi, G., ‘Continuando a discutere di cose interne di famiglia’, Critica Sociale, 1 August 1914.Google Scholar

11. Zibordi, G., ‘La logica d'una crisi’, Critica Sociale, 16 November 1914.Google Scholar

12. Quoted in Rafanelli, L., Una donna e Mussolini, Rizzoli, Milan, 1975, p. 33.Google Scholar

13. La Voce, 13 December 1913.Google Scholar

14. L'Unità, 19 June 1914.Google Scholar

15. Letter from Roadolfo Savelli to Giuseppe Prezzolini in the Archivio Prezzolini, Lugano, quoted in Gentile, E., Il mito dello Stato nuovo dall'antigiolittismo al fascismo, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1982, p. 122.Google Scholar

16. ‘Agathon’ (pseudonym of Henri Massis and Alfred de Tarde), Les jeunes gens d'aujourd' hui, Paris, 1913, pp. 144–5.Google Scholar

17. Papini, G., ‘Crispi’, Il Regno, 29 May 1904.Google Scholar

18. D'Annunzio, G., Elettra, Mondadori, Verona, 1953, p. 108.Google Scholar

19. See Gentile, E., ‘From the Cultural Revolt of the Giolittian Era to the Ideology of Fascism’, in Coppa, F. J. (ed.), Studies in Modern Italian History. From the Risorgimento to the Republic, Lang, New York, 1986, pp. 103–17; and ‘The Myth of National Regeneration in Italy: from the Modernist Avant-Garde to Fascism’, in Affron, M. and Antliff, M. (eds), Fascist Visions, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1997, pp. 25–43.Google Scholar

20. Quoted in Gentile, , Il mito dello Stato nuovo, p. 128.Google Scholar

21. Reproduced in Gentile, E. (ed.), Mussolini e La Voce, Sansoni, Florence, 1976, pp. 163–75.Google Scholar

22. Letter from Arcangelo Di Staso to Prezzolini, G., 26 February 1917, in Prezzolini, G., Il tempo della Voce, Vallecchi, Milan–Florence, 1960, p. 719.Google Scholar

23. Il popolo d'Italia, 29 November 1914.Google Scholar

24. Rossi, C., Mussolini com'era, Rome, 1947, p. 75.Google Scholar

25. See Gentile, E., Storia del partito fascista, 1919–1922. Movimento e milizia, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1989.Google Scholar

26. Gradi, M., Il sindacato net fascismo, ISC, Rome, 1987, p. 45. The allusion is to Mussolini's experience as a teacher (translator's note).Google Scholar

27. Grandi, D., ‘Pensiero di Peretola’, L'Assalto, 6 August 1921.Google Scholar

28. L'Assalto, 13 August 1921.Google Scholar

29. See Gentile, , Storia del partito fascista, chapter IV.Google Scholar

30. Pellizzi, C., Fascismo aristocrazia, Alpes, Milan, 1925, p. 8.Google Scholar

31. ‘Riforma burocratica’, Polemica Fascista, 21 October 1923.Google Scholar

32. The crisis within the Fascist Party and the challenge to Mussolini's personal charisma can be seen as a specific case of the relationship between charismatic leadership and ‘factional conflicts’, in the sense that the phrase is used in the analysis of National Socialism by Nyomarkay, J., Charisma and Factionalism in the Nazi Party, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1967.Google Scholar

33. Bencini, A., ‘Le ragioni della crisi’, La Scure, 23 December 1922.Google Scholar

34. Rivoire, M., Vita e morte del fascismo, Milan, 1947, p. 107.Google Scholar

35. Il Caffè, 11 July 1924.Google Scholar

36. Fortunato, G., Dopo la guerra sovvertitrice, Laterza, Bari, 1922, now in Fortunate, G., Il Mezzogiorno e lo Stato italiano, Vallecchi, Florence, 1973, vol. II, p. 702.Google Scholar

37. Atti parlamentari. Senato del Regno, Legislature XXVI, Sessione I, 1921–23, Discussioni, Tornata dell'8 giungo 1923, pp. 49–98.Google Scholar

38. Quoted in De Felice, R., Mussolini il fascista, Einaudi, Turin, 1966, p. 78.Google Scholar

39. Quaderni di ‘Giustizia e Libertà’, 6, March 1933, p. 103.Google Scholar

40. See De Felice, R., Mussolini il fascista, tomo II, Einaudi, Turin, 1968, pp. 69–73.Google Scholar

41. Turati, A., Ragioni ideali di vita fascista, Rome, no date, p. 79.Google Scholar

42. Turati, A., Una rivoluzione e un capo, Rome-Milan, no date. Turati, , Ragioni ideali , p. 58.Google Scholar

43. Il primo libro del fascista, Rome, 1939, pp. 17–20.Google Scholar

44. Gentile, , La via italiana al totalitarismo, p. 148: ‘a Caesaristic type of charismatic dictatorship which was integrated into an institutional structure based on a single party and on the mobilization of the masses. It underwent a continual construction process aimed at making it correspond to the myth of the totalitarian state. This myth was consciously adopted as an organizational model for the political system and functioned in a concrete sense as a fundamental credo and behavioural code imposed on both individuals and the masses.’ Google Scholar

45. Pellizzi, C., Il partito educatore, Rome, 1941, p. 30.Google Scholar

46. Costamagna, C., Storia e dottrina del fascismo, Turin, 1938, p. 419.Google Scholar

47. At the end of the 1930s there was an important debate amongst the regime's jurists and ideologists around the problem of the Duce role in a Fascist state ‘after Mussolini’: see Gentile, , La via italiana al totalitarismo, pp. 203 ff.Google Scholar

48. See Michels, R., Corso di sociologia politico, Milan, 1927.Google Scholar

49. Il partito nazionale fascista, Rome, 1936, p. 50.Google Scholar

50. Panunzio, , Teoria generale, p. 518.Google Scholar

51. Gentile, G., Fascismo e cultura, Milan, 1928, p. 47.Google Scholar

52. Quoted in Gentile, E., introduction to Giuriati, G., La parabola di Mussolini, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1981, p. XXVII. For Dante's enigmatic allegorical figure of the Hound destined to vanquish the she-wolf of covetousness and greed, see Inferno, I, 101ff (translator's note).Google Scholar

53. Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Segr. pari, del Duce, Carteggio Riservato, b. 65.Google Scholar

54. Giuriati, , La parabola di Mussolini, p. 39.Google Scholar

55. Cianetti, T., Memorie, Rizzoli, Milan, 1983, p. 373.Google Scholar

56. Bottai, G., Diario 1935–1944, Guerri, G. B. (ed.), Rizzoli, Milan, 1982, pp. 246–7.Google Scholar

57. De Begnac, Y., Palazzo Venezia. Storia di un regime, Rome, 1950, p. 131.Google Scholar

58. Rafanelli, , Una donna e Mussolini, p. 52, p. 103.Google Scholar

59. Quoted in De Felice, and Goglia, , Mussolini. Il mito, p. 99.Google Scholar

60. Sarjatti, M., Dux, Mondadori, Milan, 1930, p. 134.Google Scholar

61. Dinale, O., Quarant'anni di colloqui con lui, Clarrocca, Milan, 1962, p. 192.Google Scholar

62. D'Aroma, N., Mussolini segreto, L. Cappelli, Bologna, 1958, p. 194.Google Scholar