IN CONTEXT
Fascism
Philosophy of the state
27 BCE–476 CE The Roman empire quickly expands from Europe to Africa and Asia.
1770–1831 Georg Hegel develops his philosophy of unity and absolute idealism, later used by Gentile to argue for the all-embracing state.
1943–1945 Allied forces invade Italy at the end of World War II, and the fascist regime surrenders.
1940s–1960s Neofascist movements become increasingly popular in Latin America.
From 1960s Neofascist philosophies become incorporated into many nationalist movements.
When World War I ended in 1918, Italy was in a state of social and political unrest. The country had been forced to concede territory to Yugoslavia and was reeling from heavy losses in the war. At the same time, unemployment was rising as the economy shrank. Mainstream politicians appeared unable to provide answers, and both left- and right-wing groups were growing in popularity among the struggling peasants and workers. The right-wing National Fascist Party, under the political leadership of Benito Mussolini and the philosophical guidance of Giovanni Gentile, used nationalist rhetoric to win over popular support. They advocated a radical new form of social organization based around the fascist state.
Unity through collectivism
The guiding principles for the new Italian state are laid out in The Doctrine of Fascism, a text that is thought to have been ghostwritten by Gentile for Mussolini. Gentile rejected the idea of individualism and thought the answer to both the people’s need for purpose and the state’s need for vitality and cohesiveness lay in collectivism.
Gentile describes the fascist conception of the state as an attitude toward life in which individuals and generations are bound together by a higher law and will: specifically, the law and will of the nation. Like communism, fascism sought to promote values beyond materialism, and like Marx, Gentile wanted his philosophy to underlie the new form of the state. However, he did not agree with the Marxist position, which saw society as divided into social classes and historical processes as driven by class struggle. Gentile also opposed the democratic idea of majority rule, which sees the will of the nation as subordinate to the will of the majority. Above all, Gentile’s fascist state was defined in opposition to the prevailing doctrines of political and economic liberalism, which at that moment in history had proved itself unable to maintain political stability. He thought that the aspiration for permanent peace was absurd, because it failed to recognize the conflicting interests of different nations that make conflict inevitable.
This new understanding of the state was designed to appeal to a confident and victorious “Italian spirit” that could be traced back to the Roman empire. With Mussolini as “Il Duce” (“The Leader”), the fascist understanding of the state would place Italy back on the world map as a great power. In order to create the new fascist nation, it was necessary to mold all individual wills into one. All forms of civil society outside the state were repressed, and all spheres of life—economic, social, cultural, and religious—became subordinate to the state. The state also aimed to grow through colonial expansion, which was mainly to be achieved through conquests in North Africa.
Gentile was the foremost philosopher of fascism. He became Mussolini’s minister of education and chief organizer of cultural politics. In these roles, he played a key role in the construction of an all-embracing fascist Italian state.
Mussolini visited the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution, Milan, in 1932. This vast and striking propaganda event was designed by artists and intellectuals, including Gentile, to herald a new era.
GIOVANNI GENTILE
Giovanni Gentile was born in Castelvetrano, in western Sicily. After completing high school in Trapani, he received a scholarship to the prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, where he studied philosophy with Donato Jaja, focusing on the idealist tradition in Italy. Gentile later taught at universities in Palermo, Pisa, Rome, Milan, and Naples. During his time in Naples, he co-founded the influential journal La Critica with the liberal philosopher Benedetto Croce. Gentile and Croce would later fall out as Croce became increasingly critical of the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, in which Gentile had become a key figure.
As Minister of Public Education in Mussolini’s first cabinet, Gentile implemented the so-called Riforma Gentile: a radical reform of the secondary school system that prioritized the study of history and philosophy. He was the main force behind the Enciclopedia Italiana, a radical attempt to rewrite Italian history. He later became the fascist regime’s leading ideologist. Gentile was made president of The Academy of Italy in 1943, and supported the puppet regime of the Republic of Salò when the Kingdom of Italy fell to the Allies. He was killed the following year by a communist resistance group.
Key works
1897 Critique of Historical Materialism
1920 The Reform of Education
1928 The Philosophy of Fascism
See also: Georg Hegel • Karl Marx • Friedrich Nietzsche • Vladimir Lenin • Joseph Stalin • Benito Mussolini