Post Numéro: 35 de Enrico Cernuschi 19 Jan 2008, 20:51
Mais non (et maintenon pardon pour l'anglais).
La pelle is fiction and Malaparte a novelist quite far from reality. It would be like to judge France by Dirk Raspe, Brasillach and Drieu de la Rochelle forgetting De Gaulle and the resistence.
Mussolini was not a green goblet coming from Mars as the bad pather of Italian philosophy Benedetto Croce tried since 1944 to impose to the corrupt Italian intellectual mileu (Malaparte included) which was looking for an alibi disperately after a quarter of century of happy partnership (think only at the photos of the then well known famous writer Alberto Moravia - a Jew- in black shirt in front of Mussolini on 10 June 1943 receiving the Silver medal in memory of his brother died at El Alamein). It was the product of the Italian history (Gramsci wrote the Fascism was the self biograpfhy of the nation) and the by far greater majority of the people supported it
in Autumn 1920 when, tired of the two years of red chaos, the fascist movment grew in a month from some hundreds of black shirts without almost an organization to a 20.000 effective force acting with the silent approval of the police, the services and the state itself.
In 1922 when the Mussolini government had the votes of the big majority of the Parliament with catholic, liberal and some socialist ministers.
In 1924 when that movement gained the elections with such a majority (more than 65%) that even todays' writers like Paolo Sprinao, the official Communist Party historian, say that trick and violence could have made a 5% difference, but nothing more. The hard truth was the country had not forgiven the 1919-1920 chaos.
In 1924 and 1925 when, in spite of the Matteotti crisis, the parliament confirmed its support while the deputies who give up joining the Aventino" were little more than 10% of the MP.
In 1931 when the Church was unable to endure the confrontation with Fascism about the Azione Cattolica. The majority of the country was not formed, then and later, by fascists, but most of the people followed its politics as they believed they were what the country needed.
In 1936, when the Empire give three frustrated generations of Italians what school and common sense had always tought them: we are a poor country and our neighbours are rich and wily.
In 1938 when the laws against the Jews did not raise any serious protest, except for some speeches at the Senate which voted for their adoption (note that the Senate was formed by members nominated by the King at life and that the Fascist were still a minority in that chamber); th ehard truth is the Jews (1/1000 of the Italian people) did not interest anyone.
In 1940 when the war seemed almost over and the people asked for it in May and June 1940 being fearful to waste a fantastic opportunity for booty.
The Southern Italian attitude as described above is wrong too.
1) In Southern Italy Fascism had little impact in the early Twenties (the violence was almost totally in the northern part of the country beyond the Tuscany-Emilia line). Fascism was, instead, a synonimous of social progress as it improved the very poor situation there. After its fall violence was almost everythere absent south of Rome while the real Civil War, with thousands of deads, was confined in the usual northern part of the country.
2) The Piedmontese lobby in the Italian Army had the tendency, in the Twenties, Thirties and Forties, to form the new classes of infantry with Northern regions people (it's enought to give a look at the regiments new places) believing, uncorrectly, to improve the fighting standard while the southern classes were sent to Artillery, Eng. corps ect. They get quite the inverse (nothing of strange, they were Staff officers always far from the line during their life who simply did not know what was fighting) as the Southern people had a capacity to fight, endure, die and kill (even in ferocious condictions) military better than the more burguoise northern standard.
Moral: too much (wrong) literature and too few history.
Salut
EC