406 Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized BiographyD’ANNUNZIO’S FASCIST PILOT PROJECT IN FIUME, 1919-1920
If Mussolini was gaining the support of Marinetti, the most famous Italian painter, the most
famous Italian poet, the decadent Gabriele D’Annunzio, was creating his own separate pilot project
for fascism. D’Annunzio, joined by several thousand disgruntled war veterans and fervently
idealistic students, seized control of the city of Fiume on the Adriatic Sea near Italy’s eastern
border, where he functioned as the ruler of a quasi-independent city state for some 15 months.
D’Annunzio’s constitution for Fiume took the form “a relatively democratic structure of
corporatism” which strove to be three things — “corporatist, nationalist, and nominally
democratic.” (Payne 92-93) It was under these partially leftist auspices that D’Annunzio elaborated
much of what was to become a typical fascist aesthetic: “...D’Annunzio succeeded in creating a
new style of political liturgy made up of elaborate uniforms, special ceremonies, and chants, with
speeches from the balcony of city hall to massed audiences in the form of a dialogue with the
leader. In other key contributions to what soon became ‘fascist style,’ D’Annunzio and his
followers adopted the black shirts of the arditi as their uniform, employed the Romans salute of
raising the right arm, developed mass rallies, brought out the hymn Giovinezza (Youth), organized
their armed militia precisely into units, and developed a series of special chants and symbols.”
(Payne 92)
The marked left wing tendencies of Italian fascism began to disappear towards the end of 1920
and the beginning of 1921, but some of these elements persisted well into the late summer of 1921.
As late as May 1921, Mussolini “was still thinking of the possibility that the movement would
crystallize in a possible ‘Fascist Labor Party’ or ‘National Labor Party.’ On May 22 he announced
that the republicanism of the Fasci must be accentuated and raised the possibility of a new
agreement with the Socialists — assuming they would shed their internationalism and class
revolutionism.... Mussolini... still could not imagine taking a categorically anti-leftist position.”
Mussolini had to jettison his “lingering leftist loyalties” before he could create the National Fascist
Party (PNF) in November 1921. (Payne 99-101) it was only in the early 1922 that Mussolini
announced that “il mondo va a destra” – the world is turning right, while parliamentary democracy
and socialism were in decline. The 20th century, Mussolini argued, would be an aristocratic
century dominated by new elites — notions which are not alien to Obama’s elitist and anti-blue
collar supporters today.
One more phase of Il Duce’s career deserves attention, and that is the final phase. Mussolini was
ousted as dictator of Italy in July 1943, and was imprisoned on a mountain in southern Italy called
the Gran Sasso d’Italia. He was rescued by Otto Skorzeny and his SS commandos and taken behind
the German lines. Here Mussolini created a German-controlled puppet state in northern Italy which
called itself the Italian Social Republic (RSI). This regime turned out to be much more radical than
anything the Duce had tried during his 20-year dictatorship in Rome. The RSI, also known as the
Salò republic after the small town which was its nominal capital, introduced corporatist self-
management by workers acting through assemblies and councils. The old National Fascist Party
(PNF) was re-baptized as the Revolutionary Fascist Party. According to one commentator, “This
represented Mussolini’s revenge against the bourgeoisie and the rightist elite whom he believed had
thwarted fascism.” Ernst Nolte, one of the leading theoreticians of fascism, felt that Mussolini had
remained in many ways a Marxist as long as he lived: “The finalità [goal] of Marxism continued to
live in him, even if he was not aware of it.” (Payne 413) In sum, it can hardly be denied that leftism
and fascism cannot be seen as polar opposites or incompatible impulses, but must rather be regarded
as inextricably intertwined. The implications for the Obama phenomenon are obvious and ominous.