The Dynamics of Fascism 1005outsiders in the interest of racial “purity.” They believed that this also gave
them the right to expand their national frontiers toward what they consid
ered their proper “historical” limits. They placed such struggles in the con
text of what they conceived of as a Darwinian struggle of the fittest that
they would win, and celebrated what they considered to be the beauty of
violence. When the film version of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on
The Western Front appeared in 1930, Nazis marched in protest and shut
down some theaters.
Fascists did more than rule through terror—their dictatorships were also
built upon popular consensus. Fascism created what has been called a
“magnetic field” in Europe in the 1920s. Extreme right-wing movements
won widespread support among millions of ordinary people in many cor
ners of Europe, beginning in Italy.
Mussolini and Fascism in Italy
The economic and social tensions of the immediate post-war period desta
bilized Italy’s liberal government. The dissatisfaction of Italian nationalists
with the Treaty of Versailles accentuated a political crisis. This made Italy
vulnerable to a growing threat from the far right.
Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863-1938), a bombastic, decadent poet, had in
1914 described war as perfect hygiene for the modern world. Having pro
claimed, “I am not, and do not wish to be, a mere poet,” he took matters
into his own hands. In September 1919, the decorated war veteran who had
lost an eye in combat swept into the Adriatic city of Fiume (Rijeka). He led
a force of 2,000 men, many of whom were demobilized soldiers. D’Annun
zio planted the Italian flag, forcing the Italian government to begin negotia
tions with the new Yugoslav state, which also claimed the Adriatic port.
Both countries agreed that Fiume would be independent, but that most of
Istria and northern Dalmatia would remain in Yugoslavia, as the Treaty of
Versailles had specified. D’Annunzio’s little republic lasted sixteen months,
until Italian ships lobbed a few shells in the general direction of the city
and sent the poet and his small force packing.
D’Annunzio had briefly stolen the thunder of another fervent Italian
nationalist, Benito Mussolini (1883-1945). Mussolini was born to a fam
ily of modest means in northern Italy. His father, a blacksmith, was some
thing of a revolutionary; he had taught himself to read from socialist tracts
and named his son after the Mexican revolutionary Benito Juarez. The
young Mussolini was a schoolyard bully quick to raise his fists and pull a
knife, once stabbing a girlfriend. He had no close friends and was proud of
it—“Keep your heart a desert,” he once advised.
Mussolini read Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche, whose espousal of
daring revolt and the “will to power” intrigued him. After a stint in the
army, Mussolini proclaimed himself a socialist and anti-militarist and
became a political journalist. He took to the streets to denounce Italy’s