Mussolini: Just a Century Ago

 

Mussolini: Son of the Century is an Italian TV series (M. Il figlio del secolo), based on a 2018 novel of that name by Antonio Scurati, which focuses on the early political career of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), the founder of the Italian fascist party, who was Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy and virtual Dictator from 1922 through 1943. The series follows Mussolini's early (post Word War I, post socialist) career from his founding of the Italian Fascist Party in 1919 up to the assassination of the famous socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti in 1924 and its immediate aftermath.

The series has eight episodes. So far, four have been shown. The first follows Mussolini's immediate post-war trajectory, when he was still a journalist but had left Socialism behind in order to support Italy's entry into the war in 1915. Italy emerged from World War I on the winning side, but had little to show for it, what was accordingly called la vittoria mutilata ("the mutilated victory"). The episode highlights aspects of Mussolini's tempestuous personal and family life, the disordered state of post-war Italian social and political life, and Mussolini's rivalry with war-hero and poet Gabriel D'Annunzio, who in 1919 illegally occupied and briefly ruled the disputed city of Fiume. Episode Two follows Mussolini's change of tactic, leading to his entry into Parliament. Episodes three and four follow the Fascists' successful exploitation of social and class conflict in the early 1920s. Episode four, which just aired today, begins with Prime Minister Facta holding a self-congratulatory party during which he expresses his belief that he can manage the Fascists. Meanwhile, Mussolini is readying his followers for the "March on Rome," the great bluff that to Mussolini's eventual appointment by the King as head of government in October 1922. The episode highlights how phoney the "March on Rome" actually was, with Mussolini prepared to flee to Switzerland if it failed, and his dependence for success on assumptions, which ultimately proved correct, about the impotence of the Italian state, which could likely have defeated the movement had it had the nerve to try to do so. 

Presumably, the subsequent episodes will follow his gradual consolidation of almost complete power over the next two years, culminating in the death of the socialist parliamentarian Giacomo Matteotti (which Mussolini will be allowed to get away with) and the establishment of the dictatorship.

As appears increasingly fashionable, many of the scenes seem to have been filmed in the dark, which imposes a certain degree of visual burden on the audience, who (unless they are Italian speakers) must also follow the subtitles.That said, it is well filmed, and worth the challenge of following its violent, but not always completely clear, trajectory. (Some previous knowledge of 1920s Italian history seems to be presumed.) The program also gives greater dramatic prominence to Rachele Mussolini than some other accounts do, which is a welcome addition.

History does not repeat itself. But this dramatization of Italy exactly a century ago illustrates how precarious liberal government inherently becomes when it fails (and is widely perceived to fail) to resolve pressing social problems, especially social inequality and increasing precarity, especially when the opposite was widely expected and desired (in Italy's case, thanks to victory in the world war). The interwar period of the early 20th century was characterized by this widely experienced failure of liberalism and democracy and a therefore unsurprisingly widely shared search for various types of alternatives. of which Italian fascism was one model, which particularly presented itself as a viable alternative to Soviet Bolshevism. The program dramatizes Mussolini's flamboyance, a veritable "strongman," but also highlights his banality and that of his followers, highlighting how little it actually takes to destroy liberal institutions in the absence of very good leadership - something neither the liberal politicians nor the King seemed to be able to manage.

Meanwhile, with a surprising and somewhat comical lack of subtlety, the program even portrays Mussolini, in an aside to the audience at his moment of triumph, saying (in English, no less), "Make Italy great again."

Of course, we know where all this was eventually going to lead, something obviously none of the participants in the actual history of the 1920s - neither the King, nor the Duce, nor Mussolini's followers, nor his ineffective opponents - could anticipate. (Presumably, the King thought that in appointing Mussolini as Prime Minister he was just doing something he had done many times before and would do again in the future.) Had the King and other politicians had the gift of foresight, perhaps they might have managed to find some vestiges of political leadership among themselves to avert Italy's impending tragedy. That tragedy was not inevitable, but was the direct result of the failure of Italy's constitutional checks and balances, thanks to the personal failures of those whose office it was to uphold them.