[Fasces]

Fasces

What is the current status of the Fascist movement in Italy, are the main parties (party?) 'acceptable' in an ideological sense or are they more like conservatives?

There are currently no overt fascist parties in Italy, due to Constitutional prohibitions, so any fascist movement within Italy is, by legal necessity, tainted by other positions. I do not claim to be an expert on Italian internal affairs, so forgive me for this brief answer. We will be talking about the Italian Social Movement, the only party that may even marginally fit this definition of any importance. It is worth noting that it dissolved in 1995, and in 2009 its successor party, the National Alliance, which was wholly conservative and had no fascist tendencies except shared ideological points, merged with the People of Freedom under Berlusconi, a party which describes itself as liberal centre-right.

As of right now, there are no parties that describe themselves as fascist, or are described as fascist beyond attempted leftist slandering. No major party can claim to be fascist.

The MSI, Italian Social Movement, was criticized as a neo-fascist movement. This may have been true at some point, and in a few ways shares many traits of fascist ideology, but over the years it has become little more than an average conservative party.

It’s platform made reference to a variety of positions, as follows.

• Advocacy of the Third Way
  Unfortunately, this no longer means an advocacy of corporatism. By the 1990’s, the MSI had become fairly liberal in its economic platform, and its use of the Third Way is limited to the modern definition coined by the Labour Party. It is not an advocate of national syndicalism or any similar ideology, but regulated capitalism. Thus, it could not be said to be economically fascist, but a social democratic party.
• Rejection of party politics
  This is a wholly fascist viewpoint, and one worth nothing. As I have discussed before, the syndicalists rejected liberal parliamentary politics. The MSI shared this viewpoint, at least in theory, though its eager participation in parliament undermines this claim.
• Anti-communism
  While not a unique trait to fascist ideologies, the MSI was anti-communist.
• Government Intervention in Social Affairs
  The MSI certainly supported intervention into social affairs, from a fascist perspective. It tried to maintain gender roles, under the idea that both men and women are equal in dignity but apart in function. It was a Catholic party, a characteristic of Italian fascism, and can be said to be its successor in this regard.
• Rejection of Superpower politics
  While this was a claim of the MSI, and certainly a very nationalist idea, the fact that in 1954, the party endorsed membership in NATO erodes this. Of course, Mussolini himself had little problem with making Italy subservient to a foreign power, so it certainly maintains the legacy of the PNF.

In my own opinion, the MSI, which, again, no longer exists, was more conservative than fascist. In Italy today, fascism is not making any resurgence as fascism, but as a conservative-fascist hybrid. While the recent election of Alemeno has been criticized as a resurgence of fascism, his own words speak to the contrary.

“People calling me Duce makes me laugh. I’m not at all fascist and I think that today the word belongs to the history books. I’ve grown to hate all forms of totalitarianism, whether of the left or of the right.”

I would think that the fascist movement in Italy is in similar position as fascist movements elsewhere in Europe, outside of the United Kingdom. Decades of propaganda by both the Democracies and the Communists have turned people against this misunderstood ideology, and it will be difficult to regain lost ground and reputation. The fascist movement in Italy is no more powerful than similar movements in France, or Belgium, and in many ways less so. The integration of fascism with conservatism in Italy has eroded, perhaps permanently, any hopes for a major resurgence.