Revolt against the Modern World, Spiritual Racism and Anti-Semitism

As a very young poet and painter, the Sicilian aristocrat Evola was interested in Marinetti’s futurism, the decadence of Oscar Wilde and Gabriele D’Annunzio, and in the Dada movement. During the First World War Evola served as an officer, but in 1914 he had asked for intervention on the side of the Triple Alliance favouring typically Prussian principles such as discipline and hierarchy. After a few years during which he devoted himself to alchemy, mysticism, metaphysics, esotericism and oriental philosophy, taking the initiative in 1927 of setting up of his own magical order, the UR group, he turned to political philosophy. In 1925 he published both Saggi sull’idealismo magico (Essays on Magical Idealism),Reference Evola⁶ where he presented his idealist position, and a political article critical of both Fascism and democracy, entitled ‘Stato, potenza, libertà’ (‘State, Power, Freedom’)Reference Rossi⁷ in which he expressed his contempt for the masses. In 1928 he published Imperialismo Pagano (Pagan Imperialism)Reference Evola⁸ in which he attacked Christianity and the Catholic Church. Later he started to contribute to Giuseppe Bottai’s Critica fascista, but he never applied for membership of the Fascist Party. In 1934, the publication of Rivolta contro il mondo moderno (Revolt against the Modern World) made him widely known within intellectual circles. From 1934 to 1943 Evola was also responsible for ‘Diorama Filosofico’, the cultural page of Il Regime Fascista, a daily owned by Roberto Farinacci. In the same period he published regularly in Giovanni Preziosi’s La Vita Italiana and Carlo Costamagna’s Lo Stato.

Rivolta contro il mondo moderno gained him notoriety as the ‘philosopher of the Tradition’. The book was meant as an answer to the question posed by Nietzsche: how to find a meaning of life in the modern world and in the post-nihilist-epoch, after the death of all ideals and values? How will the individual be able to live without being annihilated? Where will he find new norms for his conduct in life? In a couple of articles published in the 1950s and in the book Cavalcare la tigre, Evola confessed that ‘the best Nietzsche’ represented the intellectual starting point of his own production.Reference Evola⁹ By ‘the best Nietzsche’ he meant not the idea of the ‘superman’ or of ‘the will to power’, which Evola understood as misunderstandings of the German author’s real intentions, but rather the problem of overcoming the ‘European nihilism’ that in the modern world was characterised by radical scepticism, relativism and total mistrust in objective truth or in ethical rules with universal validity.Reference Evola¹⁰ Evola’s conception of Tradition elaborated during the 1930s became the answer to the collapse of all values, a counterforce the Italian philosopher posed against modernity and nihilism.

In Rivolta contro il mondo moderno, Evola understood the history of mankind as a process of caste regression, from a traditional epoch characterized by a priestly caste that held spiritual power, to an epoch dominated by the warrior caste and further to the modern epoch that saw the emergence of the bourgeoisie and the Third State, when power was handed down to the merchant caste. The breakdown in the traditional order, according to Evola, happened several centuries BC, and he saw the Roman Empire and the reign of Charlemagne as unsuccessful efforts to reverse the process of degeneration.Reference Evola¹¹ The latter, characterised by a slowly but constant transition from traditional civilisations to modern ones, continued in European history and can best be exemplified by the merchants of the communes of northern Italy who rebelled against the authority of the German Emperor or, in recent decades, by the liberal-democratic American civilisation and the communist civilisation of the Soviet Union, both attached to values such as individualism and materialism (Ref. Reference Evola11, pp. 387–398). During this process, Tradition has survived only as a spiritual energy that is made up of constant factors that remain unchanged over the centuries: the ideas of Authority, Hierarchy, Order, Discipline and Obedience, the primacy of quality over quantity, the differentiated personality, corporative solidarity in the social field, justice that recognizes difference and inequality. Besides these absolute and eternal values, there is also a set of virtues: honour, courage, loyalty, obedience, sacrifice. According to Evola, the Roman Empire was the perfect example of warrior virility and pagan ethics: it was the culture of auctoritas and imperium (Ref. Reference Evola11, pp. 306–321). The latter term is the second basic concept in Evola’s theory from the 1930s, beside Tradition. Imperium is understood, according to its original meaning, as the authority and power to command and rule absolutely, not bound by inherited office or formal ritual consecration. Such responsibility and a sort of natural right to command comprise the very essence of the state.

Rivolta contro il mondo moderno placed Evola beside authors such as Arthur de Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chamberlain.Reference Evola¹² It is a work that can be compared to Der Untergang des Abenlandes (The Decline of the West) by Oswald Spengler, published in 1921, or to La crise du monde moderne (The Crisis of the Modern World) by René Guénon, published in 1927 and translated into Italian by Evola himself, or to Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (The Myth of the Twentieth Century) by Alfred Rosenberg, published in 1930. Evola himself, in an article from the 1950s, confesses his intellectual debt to Spengler.Reference Evola¹³ Evola was then well connected with the community of European intellectuals who propagated the political-philosophical ideas of the Tradition as a reaction to the decadence expressed by the modern world. He collaborated over a long period with Guénon, who shared Evola’s vision and whose correspondence with him is most revealing, but he also had contact with traditionalists such as Edmond Dodsworth and with the ideologists of the Konservative Revolution in Germany (Karl Anton Rohan, Wilhelm Stapel, Gottfried Benn and Karl Wolfskehl). He was also acquainted with representatives of the Vienna school (Othmar Spann and Walter Heinrich), conservatives (Charles Petrie, Gonzague De Reynold, Paul Valéry and Friedrich Everling) and Austrian nationalist Catholics (Hans Eibl and Friedrich Schreyvogel).Reference Cassata¹⁴ Evola shared the positions of this cultural stream; he was openly opposed to positivism, nationalism, modernity, the Enlightenment and any notion of human progress, but also to nihilism. In common with other European authors, Evola also developed a traditionalist and conservative interpretation of fascism as supranational phenomenon; it was a political movement, situated on the far right and inspired by aristocratic, monarchic and military ideals. In addition, Evola had a good knowledge of the theories of German ideologues of the NSDAP such as Arthur Rosenberg and Walter Darré.Reference Cospito and Werner Neulen¹⁵

As long as his philosophy was centred on the decadence of the western world, with relatively pessimistic and catastrophic scenarios, it did not gain success in mid-1930s’ Fascist Italy. At this time, Fascism – the Italian Mussolinean regime – was still predominantly optimistic, vitalist, futurist and modern. In Evola’s opinion, it was too democratic as well. Two Fascist factions were dominant, the nationalist pragmatic moderate right-wing group and the syndicalist left-wing group, both interested in progress and modernity, although in different ways. Evola, who was regarded with suspicion by the Fascist leadership, was a ‘lonely exponent of radical right-wing Fascism with a traditionalist vision of the world’.Reference Germinario¹⁶

At the end of the decade, though, Evola’s theories on race and Semitism attracted the attention of Mussolini. The philosopher published some 80 articles devoted to racial matters, in various Fascist press organs. Three essays were published in the late 1930s and early 1940s: Tre aspetti del problema ebraico (Three Aspects of the Jewish Problem) in 1936, Il mito del sangue (The Myth of Blood) in 1937 and Sintesi di dottrina della razza (Synthesis of the Doctrine of Race) in 1941. During the same period (1939–1942), he was published in La difesa della razza, a periodical devoted entirely to racial topics and edited by Telesio Interlandi, an intransigent and radical Fascist, racist and anti-Semite.Reference Evola¹⁷

Evola developed his own racial theory, which he named ‘totalitarian’ or ‘traditional’ racism. In short, Evola claimed that in every human being the character (one’s style, way of being and way of behaving) and the spirit (spirituality or one’s attitude to the world, to life and to action) are of greater value than ‘corporeal’ characteristics defined by the criteria of anthropological racism. Superior races are then defined by their members’ straightforwardness, strong inner characters and the ability to dominate passion and follow the values and virtues of Tradition. The totalitarian racism of Evola aimed to show how a super-race, capable of dominating the world, should be selected, and how to find its leaders (capi).¹⁸ The Italian philosopher’s main intellectual concerns were of course based on deep anthropological pessimism, elitism and contempt for the weak, for men and women of lesser intellectual capacity, or lesser strength of character. He had a general distrust of human beings; they were selfish and hypocritical. We understand that Evola’s racial theory was heavily influenced by Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss’ book Rasse und Seele (Race and Soul) published in 1926, but we should not underestimate the influence that came, once again, from Nietzsche.

In line with his theory of race, Evola also provided a ‘totalitarian’ and ‘spiritual’ interpretation of Semitism. The latter was not only biologically and racially founded. It was primarily an instinct, an attitude, a vision of the world and life, a style, a way of being and thinking, and a spiritual category. As such, it represented a total antithesis to the values of Tradition and Aryanism. Hebraism was a life-style that precisely corresponded to the ‘worst’ and ‘most decadent’ traits of the modern spirit, traits such as equality, democracy, sensuality and materialism.

At that point of time – the end of the 1930s – Evola was fully committed to political engagement. Mussolini was fascinated by his theories.¹⁹ The super-race Evola had written about was, of course, identified not with the Aryan-German race, but with an Aryan-Roman race. Evola’s spiritual theory of ‘race of Mussolini’s man’²⁰ meshed perfectly with the Fascist project of combating the Italian bourgeoisie and all of its weaknesses, a campaign that was launched at the end of the 1930s.²¹ Evola’s spiritually-oriented racism and anti-Semitism were intended to be Italian versions of racism and anti-Semitism that could easily be integrated with the highly politicised Fascist totalitarian project of shaping a new generation of Italians. Evola’s totalitarian racism involved a ‘process of racist selection’ which would bring about a ‘purification’ of the Italian race.Reference Evola²² The leaders of a purified Italian race would be an imaginary Fascist Order of the Italian Empire (Ordine Fascista dell’Impero Italiano), modelled on Heinrich Himmler’s German SS.Reference Evola²³

After July 25, 1943, Evola moved first to Berlin and later to Vienna. He was among the party that welcomed Mussolini to Hitler’s headquarters in Rastenburg; this confirms how close he was to inner Fascist circles. Evola, though, kept a distance from the final years of the republican and social experience of Fascism (1943–1945). In Vienna he was wounded by a bomb and crippled thereafter. He did not return to Rome until 1948.

Ideological Foundations of the Radical Right

In the post-war period, Evola reappeared under the pseudonym of ‘Arthos’, although he was later to give his own signature to articles in different neo-fascist publications, the most notable being Meridiano d’Italia and La Rivolta Ideale. Even if he did not directly involve himself in politics, he continued to write. In 1950 he produced a booklet with the significant title Orientamenti Reference Evola²⁴ (Guidelines) in the neo-fascist magazine Imperium and in 1953 he published a new book, again with a significant title: Gli uomini e le rovine Reference Evola²⁵ (Men among the Ruins). No mention of either spiritual racism or anti-Semitism is to be found in Evola’s post-war output, with few exceptions. An important exception is formed by three articles published in 1951 where his clear intention was to exonerate himself from any charge of anti-Semitism (Ref. 19). Here, he described his interest in racial matters during the regime as purely ‘incidental’.Reference Evola²⁶ However, this is an unconvincing defence. In the 1950s, Evola argued that it was not the Semitic race, with its physical traits, that had caused the decadence of the West, but the race of the weak-spirited that had been corrupted by modern materialism.Reference Evola²⁷ However, we can ask ourselves whether Evola’s interpretation of Hebraism as a lifestyle is very far from crude anti-Semitism. Let us consider the following statement:

This insistence that a Jewish danger was still lying ‘inside us’ (Ref. Reference Evola28, p. 108) shows that even after the war Evola espoused a ferocious and destructive anti-Jewish racism.

A closer analysis of the other main issues Evola dealt with in the post-war period reveals a subtle continuity in his philosophy. In the 1950s he focused on a revitalisation of the crucial concept of Tradition and a clarification of the concept of Imperium.Reference Evola²⁹ Again, Evola’s premise was an uncompromising rejection of any belief in the progress of mankind – the ‘myth of progress’.Reference Evola³⁰ Decadence and sickness remained central concepts in his work. Enlightenment and rationalism, liberalism, democracy, socialism and communism were all diseases of modernity that had affected European civilization since the liberal revolutions in England. They were ‘toxins’ (Ref. Reference Evola24, p. 31), products of modernity that had poisoned culture, science, literature and sociology. In the 1950s, Evola added that also Darwinism, psychoanalysis, existentialism and relativism were ‘toxins’ that the modern world had produced as a consequence of what Nietzsche had described as ‘European nihilism’. Moreover, in the articles published after the Second World War, Evola presented new arguments that interpreted the history of the Western world through the centuries as a slow and inexorable ‘decline of the idea of the state’.Reference Evola³¹ He asked whether the war had not been the ultimate, desperate and ‘unfortunately’ unsuccessful attempt on the part of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan to restore the principle of authority in the face of the coalition of the democracies. With an eye to this interpretation, we can here mention, without any ambition to go deeper into the matter, another important exception to the silence that covered any reference to racism in Evola’s post-war intellectual production. In his autobiography Il cammino del cinabro (The Cinnabar’s Path), published in 1963, Evola reflected on racism as the ultimate means the spiritual forces of disorder used in order to discredit the Axis forces. Again, Evola’s aim to camouflage his own racism sounds little convincing.Reference Evola³²

In view of developments in the contemporary Western world, Evola declared in Orientamenti that the ultimate stage of decline had been reached since power had fallen into the hands of the working class: the ‘servants’ caste’ or ‘the Fourth State’. Values had become purely economic, and everything was seen in terms of profit, production, wages and the material interests of the working class; social progress was reduced to measurements of material well-being. Evola pointed out that conformism, democratic levelling and the myth of production were values that were shared by both American capitalism and Bolshevik communism (Ref. Reference Evola24, p. 24).

Evola’s response in the 1950s was a firm belief that political action could counter the process of the regression and decline of modern society, so he openly rejected any temptation of pure intellectual rebellion:

At this point, a modified version of ‘spirituality’ is presented, at the same time when Evola launched a sort of political manifesto taking on the responsibility of changing the state of things in Italy. An important concept Evola developed in the post-war period was that of the ‘real men’ (uomini veri) or ‘unbroken men’ (uomini non-spezzati). These were the individuals who had special qualities (‘differentiated men’); their actions would counter the inevitable decline of Western civilisation. In 1949, one of Evola’s first articles in Meridiano d’Italia was entitled ‘Towards the Élite of an Ideal Front’.Reference Evola³³ He wrote that Italy needed to select those individuals who could ‘remain on their feet among the ruins’ and keep them apart from the ‘broken’ men (uomini spezzati). The leaders of men follow the values of Tradition and they epitomise and exhibit Tradition in their actions. They possess the qualities of real leaders, who can lead men because they have a sense of hierarchy and can instil this in others. Leaders have strong characters and they can command. Evola, in post-war Italy, wrote about the ‘legionary spirit’ that ‘is the custom of those who were able to choose the hardest way, who dared to fight even knowing that the battle was materially lost…’ (Ref. Reference Evola24, p. 19).

Once ‘unbroken’ men have been selected, they need to be organized as an elite. To Evola, the distinction between party and movement is important.Reference Evola³⁴ Those who belong to a party simply pursue a programme of practical and contingent social and economic objectives. They remain loyal to the party to the extent that the party’s ideas enable them to achieve specific goals. On the other hand, those who belong to a movement have a vision of life, a style. They believe in ideas and principles to the extent that changing them would involve a deep personal and existential crisis.

Finally, it is necessary that these organised elites are instilled with an idealistic motivation. To Evola, it is evident that fascism, as an idea and a concept independent of the historical contingency of the Italian Fascist regime, remains valid, in spite of a military defeat that in his opinion was caused by the military – and not ideological – superiority of the opponents. In Evola’s view, one key concept of fascism, or idée-force, is the concept of the Right. From a purely ideological point of view, Evola identifies fascism with the Right. By the ‘Right’ he does not mean liberalism, capitalism, plutocracy, the bourgeoisie or conservatism centred on the economic interests of specific social classes. Evola’s idea of the Right is a conception of life and the state that is inspired by the principles of Tradition: authority, hierarchy, and aristocracy. They involve the values of heroism and quality and the supremacy of politics over economics and society.Reference Evola³⁵ In the 1950s, Evola still felt that he belonged to the anti-democratic tradition (Plato in The Republic and Dante in De Monarchia, de Maistre, Donoso Cortés, Bismarck, Metternich, Mosca, Pareto and Michels). He insisted on defining himself as an anti-democratic thinker, although he firmly denied that he was a Fascist.Reference Evola³⁶

Evola’s vision involved a total opposition to the political system established in post-war Italy, which he saw as one in which petty politicians were merely engaged in pursuing their interests. First, Evola condemned the Italian neo-fascist party founded in 1946, the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI). At the end of the 1940s, the MSI was divided into two main factions. There was a left-wing radical faction concerned with corporative democracy and social issues such as socialization, the policy of developing worker participation in management and profit-sharing (‘national socialists’). There was also a moderate, nationalist and conservative centrist faction engaged with European integration and political alliances with other parties on the right (‘political realists’).Reference Wolff³⁷ Evola asked whether the MSI could be regarded as the legitimate representative of Italian Fascism, and whether this party had the power and the will to attract all forces that were ‘truly right-wing, that is, forces of order, authority, reconstruction, and tradition’Reference Evola³⁸ that could counter the process of decadence. Evola recognized that the MSI had the intention of preserving the positive Fascist legacy; however, he doubted whether it could truly represent the Right. In fact, he claimed that a true ‘Right’ did not exist in Italy (Ref. Reference Evola38, p. 36). In Evola’s opinion, the MSI was too democratic or, at least, too keen to respect the rules of democracy, just as Fascism had been too liberal. He had little understanding for the left-wing representatives of the party and for the republican formulae of ‘social nationalism’ or of ‘national socialism’ or even ‘corporative democracy’, concepts that were extensively discussed in post-war neo-fascist circles. Secondly, Evola called for action to defend the country from the threat of communism. An Order of real men, inspired by the idea of fascism/Right, should be in a position to counter the communist threat.

Evola’s Influence on the Younger Generation

The event that marked the beginning of Evola’s intellectual influence on the younger generation of Italian post-war neo-fascists was the publication of an article entitled ‘For a Charter of Youth’.Reference Siena³⁹ In this text, Evola listed the cardinal points of a (fascist) doctrine that in his view should and could inspire the younger generation. The Charter of Youth became a political and ideological manifesto for the young neo-fascists of the 1950s, individuals who had not taken part in the war or who had only been able to enlist in the Italian Social Republic just before the war ended. Some of them had been engaged in clandestine activity.Reference Giorgino and Rao⁴⁰ The smaller band of very young neo-fascists, clustered around Julius Evola, comprised a third group within the party MSI, one that can be defined as an intellectualist-aristocratic radical right-wing faction (‘radical elitists’) (Ref. Reference Wolff37, p. 251). In the 1950s, these young neo-fascists were behind the publication of magazines that were strongly inspired by Evola’s philosophy: Imperium (1950–51; 1954) and La Sfida (The Challenge) (1948–49), both edited by Enzo Erra, and Cantiere (Building Site) (1950–52), edited by Primo Siena. Contributors to these magazines all played a leading role in neo-fascist circles in the decades after the period covered by this article.

In the Charter of Youth, Evola exhorted the young to rise, to be reborn internally, to organize themselves in an order. He urged them to ‘have character’. He invited them to understand ‘Youth’ in terms of spiritual attitude, idealism, courage, enthusiasm, generosity, keenness for action, ambition for renewal, contempt for the comforts of life and rejection of materialism. Implicitly, he exhorted them to take responsibility for a ‘revolt’ against the modern world, against nihilism and all its sub-products or toxins. Moreover, in more concrete terms, he stated that revolution meant first of all the will to realize the [fascist] Idea; that the party system and quantitative democratic representation had to be rejected. And finally, he stated that the political strategy of the New Right had to focus on the establishment of a spiritual and national movement to train future cadres for the country’s ruling class.Reference Evola⁴¹

Let us consider how Evola’s ideas inspired his youthful disciples. To begin with, the young neo-fascists did not identify with the group of Salò veterans who supported the three-part slogan of Italy-Republic-Socialization, the left-wing conception of Italian fascism as a form of national and corporative socialism. On the contrary, they totally embraced Evola’s interpretation of fascism as a supranational phenomenon and a revolt against any modern and materialist approach to life, a revolt against the principles of 1789. Fascism was the true and only incarnation of the Right, it expressed the values of Tradition. They were convinced anti-democrats. In 1950, they claimed they were a new phenomenon in Italy, a revolutionary solution to the country’s political breakdown. By ‘revolutionary solution’ they meant a project of absolute opposition to the mentality, the men and the institutions that the Allies and the anti-fascist parties had imposed upon them.⁴²

Second, like Evola, they rejected an atomistic, egalitarian and libertarian concept of the individual, as well as any temptation of nihilism. They had a strong desire to give a sense and a meaning to life, on both a political and a moral level.Reference Erra⁴³ Their anti-materialism defined their notion of freedom, which was conceived as man’s successful control over instinct and passion.Reference Erra⁴⁴ The man who achieved that freedom was a ‘total man’.Reference Maresi⁴⁵ They clearly regarded the universal and metaphysical principle of ‘duty’ to be far superior to the concept of ‘freedom’. The young neo-fascists rebelled against all political theories, particularly American capitalist liberalism and Soviet Bolshevik communism, as well as against passivity.

Third, they felt the responsibility to construct an ethical state, but not a paternalistic and demagogic one modelled on Giovanni Gentile’s philosophy. Their ethical state was envisaged as a strong, authoritarian, hierarchic, anti-egalitarian, elitist state that should not merely safeguard the economic and material interests of its citizens. It should also have an ethical mission to educate the individual to overcome personal selfishness and find a meaning in life. The neo-fascists understood freedom as a possibility that might be granted within an organic system, but not something that was guaranteed by aprioristic natural law.Reference Rauti⁴⁶ As far as the idea of the nation was concerned, they saw it primarily as a spiritual community of all those who believe in fascism as true Right, as Tradition. The idea of the nation as a geographic, cultural and linguistic unit was a secondary concept.Reference Rauti⁴⁷

It is also interesting to consider their attitude towards Christianity. In a world dominated by the philosophy of success, by activism at any cost, and by commercial competition, the young neo-fascists asked how the religious spirit would be able to survive. In their view, the only possibility would be if the Church returned to its old intransigence and declared war on modernity and materialism.Reference Rauti⁴⁸ This call for a greater intransigence on the part of the Church echoed their lack of compromise. They believed that they possessed a moral integrity which elevated them above the world’s mediocrity, and they were proud of their idealism and the fact that they were a small minority.⁴⁹ It is clear that they were united by a sense of elitism: ‘quantity does not count, what counts is quality, the idea’.Reference Rauti⁵⁰ The neo-fascists declared that they felt they were ‘of another race’.Reference Rauti⁵¹ Although we are more interested in examining the ideological battle that these young neo-fascists fought in response to the historical events which they felt had betrayed them, we ought not to forget that many of them, in the following years, literally fought against the system.⁵²

The young ‘rebels’Reference Rauti⁵³ shared Evola’s idea of fascism as a spiritual revolution against the materialist, hedonistic, libertarian, relativist and democratic modern world, the world that had developed after 1789. They viewed revolution as being in opposition to reformist positions, and they spoke as radicals:

In the post-war period, these young reactionary-revolutionary neo-fascists cherished the illusion that they were the ‘unbroken’ men whom Evola had described, the elect who were able to remain on their feet among the ruins. These young people were the ideological ‘legion of true fanatics’Reference Erra⁵⁵ of Italian post-war fascism.

How did the young neo-fascists plan to operate within Italy’s democratic political system and what kind of political strategy did they intend to adopt in order to respond to Italy’s new historical situation? It is important that we make a clear distinction between the MSI political party and those elements of the radical right, inspired by Evola, who operated both inside and outside the party. We have seen how, according to Evola, the priority of the neo-fascists after the war should be the selection of ‘unbroken’ men, men who could remain on their feet among the ruins and epitomize the values of Tradition. These men should be organized in an order. It was necessary to arouse in them an idealistic motivation that was inspired by the idées-forces of fascism. If there remained a cult of the leader in post-war Italian neo-fascism, it was due to those theories of Evola that promoted the mystique of the ‘leaders of men’, those individuals who knew how to command with authority. How can this discourse be squared with that of the political strategy of the MSI? In an article from 1951, Evola examined the problem of the ‘men to guide’ (uomini-guida).Reference Evola⁵⁶ He doubted whether there were any such men able to guide the party and he held that one should also search for such leaders outside of the party. In 1953, Evola clearly expressed his views on what political strategy the MSI should follow: it should emulate the Communist Party.Reference Evola⁵⁷ Communism was an organized force, which had money, and means, and the support of a foreign power; moreover, it had great electoral weight. Communism clearly distinguished between tactics, which must be flexible, changeable and adapted to circumstances, and strategy, which must be inflexible. Communism had a set ideology and a particular vision of the world. In the early 1950s, when Evola was still involved in the political struggle in Italy, he exhorted the leaders of the MSI to be more intransigent and to move to ‘action’. What kind of action? Violent, extra-parliamentary political action against the system? Evola did not go into detail. However, he acknowledged that adopting an uncompromising ideological stance would expose the MSI to the danger of breaking out in factions or being banned by the constitutional and democratic parties. Consequently, the best strategy was to wait.

In the early 1950s, the young neo-fascists also discussed political strategy, since they were fully aware that the final aim, after all, was to gain power.Reference Erra⁵⁸ Erra, in line with Evola, noted the contrast between (their) anti-democratic fascist theory and the MSI’s formal, democratic organizational structure.Reference Erra⁵⁹ However, Erra shared Evola’s conclusion that such a conflict between theory and practice was inevitable, primarily because a qualified and selected minority capable of leading the party was not yet available.Reference Erra⁵⁹

Evola’s articles written at the beginning of the 1950s must be read together with the book Cavalvare la tigre, which was written simultaneously, but published ten years later because Evola did not succeed in finding a publisher.Reference Furlong⁶⁰ The book is a description of the state of corruption reached by modern societies, both on the communist and on the capitalist side. Here, Evola openly refers to Nietzsche’s critique of European nihilism as his point of departure and once again, as at the beginning of the 1930s, rejects anarchism as his point of arrival. The Italian philosopher is only apparently confined in a sort of metaphysical or moral rebellion. It is true that he wishes to invite the few men who were still able to stand on their feet among the ruins and the dissolution of the Western civilisation to keep their distance from everything belonging to the contemporary era and the bourgeois society.Reference Evola⁶¹ At the same time, though, he recognises that complete isolation as the perfect realization of apolitìa would have required not only a very strong inner character, but also privileged material conditions. So, the ‘traditional’ or ‘unbroken’ men, put in the situation of having to do with a world destined to collapse, ‘might be better to contribute to the fall’ (Ref. Reference Evola61, p. 6) of the modern civilisation. Apolitìa as a consequence of total rejection of the modern world becomes therefore only a new, free space ‘that could eventually become the premise for a future, formative action’ (Ref. Reference Evola61, p. 7). Action is not only possible, but also requested, not on the level of ‘politics’ as conceived within the modern world by ‘petty politicians’, but on another level. The tiger metaphor is revealed in its strongly political meaning: the traditional man will let the forces and processes of his epoch take their own course, but he will keep himself prepared to intervene when ‘the tiger, which cannot leap on the person riding it, is tired of running’ (Ref. Reference Evola61, p. 10).

In Conclusion

Within the wider discourse on European nihilism and its intellectual expressions, Evola undoubtedly represented an interesting and original position. He completely shared Nietzsche’s diagnosis of the modern world, pointing to all traits of decadence that affected the modern civilisation he was part of, but he was also strongly concerned with offering a solution to such decay. Evola’s original contribution was to elaborate a concept of Tradition and Autoritas that could counter the process of degeneration. In relation to these concepts, we should not underestimate that Evola in fact had a clear political project, which could be realised only when the young accepted taking on the heavy responsibility of countering nihilism. In raw political terms, duty in Evola means committing oneself to the establishment of a ‘new’ authoritarian, organic, hierarchic, anti-egalitarian and elitist political system, first in Italy and, in his vision, later hopefully in all Europe.

Evola’s influence on young neo-fascists in post-war Italy is indisputable. Their conception of the ‘total man’ was an updated version of Evola’s theory of a ‘super-race’. Their project of a new ethical state in post-war Italy was a version of Evola’s (and Mussolini’s) project of a new (Fascist) man in the ethical Fascist state. In Evola’s writings, they could find a complete receipt for political action and strategy, far from the alleged detachment that the philosopher seemed to propose. As a matter of fact, the young neo-fascists became deeply involved in Italian politics. In 1952, on the occasion of the national congress of the MSI, the youthful faction of ‘the Right’ within the party emerged and became known for its intransigence, inspired by Evola’s traditionalist philosophy. In 1954, Pino Rauti founded The New Order Centre of Studies (Centro Studi Ordine Nuovo) with the aim of diffusing the ideas of the right-wing youth faction through lectures and other cultural events. In 1956, he left the MSI to form the New Order movement (Ordine Nuovo: ON), taking with him the radical Evolian right. And more could be said – even more should be the object of academic research – on the several extra-parliamentary groups or movements that, along the 1960s and 1970s, were set up in order to carry out revolutionary acts, sometimes violent ones, against the democratic system.

Evola must be considered the most consistent radical anti-egalitarian, anti-liberal, anti-democratic and anti-popular Italian intellectual of the last century, as is briefly said by Franco Ferraresi.Reference Ferraresi⁶² He has also been labelled ‘the most important [Italian] theoretician of the Conservative Revolution’Reference Veneziani⁶³ in response to Nietzsche’s critique of nihilism. Both under the Fascist regime and in republican Italy, Evola’s understanding of fascism as a supranational phenomenon was radical and right-wing, from the point of view of a traditionalist thinker. Our analysis has shown how his main intellectual concerns remained unchanged from the pre-war to the post-war period. The doctrine of the Aryan-Roman ‘super-race’ was transformed into a doctrine of the ‘leaders of men’. However, both expressed not only a strong need for action, but also the same crude spiritual racism, which was even worse than anthropological racism because it involved all human beings with alleged weaknesses and all representatives of modern society who believe in values such as democracy and equality.

Should we locate Evola’s ideas in a confined, meta-political universe, as is argued by those who intend to free him from any connection to both the Holocaust and the terrorist actions of the 1970s? His writings are meta-political, in that they express his idealism as a theorist of Tradition. However, they are also deeply political, as they referred to contemporary events, both in the 1930s and in the post-war period, and because they openly offered political guidelines to young neo-fascists in post-war Italy. The influence Evola exercised on the young was primarily ideological. However, it also had indirect consequences that were practical and political.