Well before the advent of Fascism, and before it was codified by the sociology of Weber and Michels – not to mention Gramsci’s thought – the concept of Caesarism circulating in the Italian political discourse was a broad and ill-defined one, which nevertheless had wide circulation and resonated across disciplines and politics . It was based on historical-political assumptions that drew on the arguments of late Tainian, naturalist and organicist positivism, and assumed that certain characteristics of peoples, particularly Latin ones, were propitious to the emergence of strong leadership, of a Caesar suited to that particular people. Given that the rhetoric of the leader was an intrinsic feature of Italian fascist political culture since its inception, to the extent that its leader was given the synonymous title of Duce, this essay aims to shed light on other side of the phenomenon, namely the object upon which the leader's power is exercised. It focuses on the rhetoric of the “Caesarist people” rather than the “Caesarist leader” and aims to highlight the nexus between Caesarism, Fascism and the ‘character of the people’ by tracing a trajectory in Italian political thought through the 19th and 20th centuries, with the turning point in the Great War, which leads from Caesarism as a generic characteristic of ‘Latin nations’, whose model was found in the French post-revolutionary experience, to the fundamental role of the Italian nation in fascist discourse. Along those lines, the first section of this contribution outlines a genealogy of the naturalization of “national characters” considered conducive to Caesarist outcomes during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the second section, the focus is shifted to the Great War, tracing how this naturalistic and organic imprint, combined with a radical anti-socialist patriotism born out of wartime experience, forged a conception of the people modelled on the hierarchical military structure. The third section is intended to illustrate how, in the transitional years between the March on Rome of 1922 and the leggi fascistissime of 1925-6, a combination of wartime hierarchical organicism with the leadership principle took shape during the debate on constitutional reforms, particularly in the thought of the philosopher Giovanni Gentile and the jurist Alfredo Rocco. In the fourth and final section, it is suggested that the mutual hybridization of Rocco and Gentile's positions on the basis of hierarchical organicism, concerns for social conservation, and an authoritarian conception of the State produced an original paradigm of “corporative Caesarism,” around whose distinctive features a consensus coalesced in the political discourse of Fascism.
The Other Side of Caesarism. A Genealogy of Italian Fascist Authoritarianism
Laura CERASI
In corso di stampa
Abstract
Well before the advent of Fascism, and before it was codified by the sociology of Weber and Michels – not to mention Gramsci’s thought – the concept of Caesarism circulating in the Italian political discourse was a broad and ill-defined one, which nevertheless had wide circulation and resonated across disciplines and politics . It was based on historical-political assumptions that drew on the arguments of late Tainian, naturalist and organicist positivism, and assumed that certain characteristics of peoples, particularly Latin ones, were propitious to the emergence of strong leadership, of a Caesar suited to that particular people. Given that the rhetoric of the leader was an intrinsic feature of Italian fascist political culture since its inception, to the extent that its leader was given the synonymous title of Duce, this essay aims to shed light on other side of the phenomenon, namely the object upon which the leader's power is exercised. It focuses on the rhetoric of the “Caesarist people” rather than the “Caesarist leader” and aims to highlight the nexus between Caesarism, Fascism and the ‘character of the people’ by tracing a trajectory in Italian political thought through the 19th and 20th centuries, with the turning point in the Great War, which leads from Caesarism as a generic characteristic of ‘Latin nations’, whose model was found in the French post-revolutionary experience, to the fundamental role of the Italian nation in fascist discourse. Along those lines, the first section of this contribution outlines a genealogy of the naturalization of “national characters” considered conducive to Caesarist outcomes during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the second section, the focus is shifted to the Great War, tracing how this naturalistic and organic imprint, combined with a radical anti-socialist patriotism born out of wartime experience, forged a conception of the people modelled on the hierarchical military structure. The third section is intended to illustrate how, in the transitional years between the March on Rome of 1922 and the leggi fascistissime of 1925-6, a combination of wartime hierarchical organicism with the leadership principle took shape during the debate on constitutional reforms, particularly in the thought of the philosopher Giovanni Gentile and the jurist Alfredo Rocco. In the fourth and final section, it is suggested that the mutual hybridization of Rocco and Gentile's positions on the basis of hierarchical organicism, concerns for social conservation, and an authoritarian conception of the State produced an original paradigm of “corporative Caesarism,” around whose distinctive features a consensus coalesced in the political discourse of Fascism.
I documenti in ARCA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
