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The Institutionalisation of Squadrismo: Disciplining Paramilitary Violence in the Italian Fascist Dictatorship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2013

MATTEO MILLAN
MATTEO MILLAN*
Affiliation:
Università degli Studi di Padova, Via Tiziano Minio 30/ter, 35134 Padua, Italy; matteo.millan@gmail.com, matteo.millan@unipd.it
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Abstract

This article argues that squadrismo represented a central feature in the ideology and politics of Fascist Italy, influencing the whole period of the dictatorship. In the second half of the twenties, many squadristi became political prisoners, accused of being ‘bad Fascists’: it looked like the end of squadrismo. Despite punishments and (brief) periods of imprisonment, the squadristi actually continued to play an important part in the fascistisation of Italian society, in particular during the intransigent 1930s. By disciplining the blackshirts while continuing to make use of their particular skills, Fascism hoped to ‘tame the revolution’.

L'institutionnalisation du squadrismo: comment la violence paramilitaire a été domptée sous la dictature fasciste en italie

Cet article montre que le squadrismo constitue un élément incontournable de l'idéologie et de la politique de l'Italie fasciste, dont l'influence a perduré tout au long de la période de la dictature. Dans la seconde moitié des années vingt, de nombreux squadristi ont été accusés d'être de ‘mauvais fascistes’ et sont devenus des prisonniers politiques: le squadrismo semblait donc enterré. Mais malgré des sanctions et de (brèves) périodes de prison, les squadristi ont en fait continué de jouer un rôle déterminant dans la fascisation de la société italienne, notamment durant la période d'intransigeance des années trente. En sanctionnant les chemises noires tout en ayant recours à leurs compétences particulières, le régime fasciste espérait ‘dompter la révolution’.

Die institutionalisierung des squadrismo: die disziplinierung paramilitärischer kampfbünde im italienischen faschismus

Der Autor dieses Beitrags vertritt die These, dass der Squadrismo ein zentraler Bestandteil der faschistischen Ideologie und Politik in Italien war, der die Diktatur während ihrer gesamten Dauer beeinflusste. In der zweiten Hälfte der zwanziger Jahre wurden viele Squadristi als politische Gefangene inhaftiert und beschuldigt, ‘schlechte Faschisten’ zu sein: Der Squadrismo schien am Ende zu sein. Trotz Bestrafung und (kurzfristiger) Inhaftierung spielten die Schwarzhemden allerdings bei der Faschistisierung der italienischen Gesellschaft weiterhin eine wichtige Rolle, insbesondere als sich die Fronten in den dreißiger Jahren verhärteten. Von ihrer Strategie, die Squadristi zu disziplinieren und zugleich deren besondere Fähigkeiten weiterhin gezielt für ihre Zwecke zu nutzen, versprach sich die faschistische Diktatur letztendlich eine ‘Zähmung der Revolution’.

Type
Paramilitary Violence in Italian Fascism: A Discussion
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , November 2013 , pp. 551 - 573
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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48 CP 459, file on Antonio Gaspardo, 5 Dec. 1927, Carabinieri to Chief of Police, Turin.

49 CP 64, file on Alfredo Barillari, 15 Nov. 1927, Prefect of Turin to Provincial Commission for Internal Exile.

50 CP 462, 17 Apr. 1929, Carabinieri to Provincial Commission.

51 CP 499, 16 Oct. 1931, file on Antonio Gozzi, Carabinieri to Provincial Commission. See also CP 462, file on Luigi Gatti, 17 Apr. 1929, Carabinieri of Milan to Carabinieri General Headquarters in Rome.

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55 CP 21, file on Giuseppe Ambrosi, 6 Aug. 1934, Carabinieri to Provincial Commission; CP 499, file on Antonio Gozzi, 10 Sept. 1931, Prefect of Modena to DGPS; PP 563, 19 May 1931, Political Police to DGPS; CP 324, file on Aldo De Feo, Oct. 1927, Genoa Chief of Police to DGPS.

56 CP 617, file on Emiliano Marchesini, 29 Feb. 1936, Prefect of Bologna to Marchesini's family.

57 CP 1029, file on Luigi Trucchetti, 8 Oct. 1927, Turin Chief of Police to Prefect.

58 CP 648, file on Ugo Mazzacurati, 25 Aug. 1934, Perfect of Bologna to DGPS; CP 563, file on Federico Gaschi, 19 May 1931, Political Police to DGPS.

59 CP 317, file on Carlo Davoli, 12 Mar. 1941, Perfect of Foggia to DGPS; CP 91, file on Emilio Bentivoglio, 23 June 1931, Carabinieri to Provincial Commission.

60 Cf. Benadusi, Lorenzo, Il nemico dell'uomo nuovo: L'omosessualità nell'esperimento totalitario fascista (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2005), 264Google Scholar.

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68 CP 113, file on Libero Biddau, 1 Sept. 1929, Biddau's mother to Rachele Mussolini; CP 784, file on Felice Pestoni, 3 Nov. 1927, Pestoni to Appeals Committee; CP 1102, file on Oscar Zulato, 9 Jul. 1931, Zulato to Appeals Committee

69 CP 228, file on Leone Cazzola, 6 Apr. 1931, Cazzola to Appeals Committee.

70 See, as instance, CP 1029, file on Luigi Trucchetti, 22 Sept. 1940, Trucchetti's parents to Mussolini; CP 324, file on Aldo De Feo, 6 Jan. 1928, De Feo to Mussolini; CP 784, file on Felice Pestoni, 27 Nov. 1927, Carabinieri to Perfect of Genova).

71 CP 646, file on Leopoldo Maurelli, 22 May 1929, Maurelli to Mussolini. See also Bosworth, ‘Everyday Mussolinism’, 33–4.

72 CP 617, no date, Marchesini's brothers to Mussolini (on Marchesini's trials see Cardoza, Anthony L., Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism: The Province of Bologna, 1901–1926, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982, 424–9)Google Scholar; CP 1102, file on Oscar Zulato, 1 Mar. 1932, Zulato to Mussolini.

73 CP 169, file on Giangaetano Cabella, 3 Nov. 1927, Cabella to Appeals Committee; CP 442, file on Macario Gadda, 1 July 1929, Gadda to Mussolini; CP 676, file on Gastone Missio, 13 Aug. 1927, Gastone Missio to Appeals Committee; CP 12, file on Ernesto Albini, 15 Aug. 1941, Ernesto Albini to Appeals Committee; CP 1001, file on Luigi Teruzzi, 11 Mar. 1939, Teruzzi to Appeals Committee.

74 PP, serie A, 17, 285, Gerardo Bonelli's trial records.

75 CP 499, 23 June 1931, Carabinieri to Provincial Commission; see also Ebner, Michael, ‘Dalla repressione dell'antifascismo al controllo sociale: Il confino di polizia, 1926–1943’, Storia e problemi contemporanei, 43 (2006), 81–104Google Scholar.

76 Corner, ‘Whatever Happened', 340; Palla, Marco, ‘“Fascisti di professione”: il caso toscano’, in Brezzi, Camillo, ed., Cultura e società negli anni del Fascismo (Milan: Cordani, 1987), 31–49 (pp. 34–7)Google Scholar.

77 Lupo, Il fascismo, 211; Palla, ‘Lo Stato-Partito’, 9. Cf. Kallis, Fascist Ideology.

78 Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power, 110; see also Corner, The Fascist Party, 69–71, 92–3, 105–6.

79 Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo, 180.

80 This discussion is based on Cifelli, Alberto, I prefetti del regno nel ventennio fascista (Rome: Scuola superiore dell'amministrazione dell'interno, 1999)Google Scholar. See Morgan, Philip, ‘The prefects and state-party relations in Fascist Italy’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 3, 3 (1998), 262CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the biographical sketches in Franzinelli, Squadristi, 175–275 and in Di Nucci, Loreto, Lo Stato-partito del fascismo: Genesi, evoluzione e crisi 1919–1943, (Bologna: il Mulino, 2009), 527, 550Google Scholar.

81 On these events in Florence see Palla, Marco, Firenze nel regime fascista 1929–1934 (Florence: Leo Olschki, 1978), 140–7Google Scholar; Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power, 233–5.

82 Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Archivi Fascisti, Segreteria particolare del Duce, Carteggio riservato (hereafter SPD, CR), 95, 2 Oct. 1935, Tamburini to Mussolini.

83 SPD, CR, 95, 29 July 1940, Tamburini to Mussolini.

84 Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo, 178.

85 Missori, Mario, Gerarchie e statuti del P. N. F.: Gran consiglio, Direttorio nazionale, Federazioni provinciali: quadri e biografie (Roma: Bonacci, 1986), 381Google Scholar.

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89 See Ciano, Galeazzo, Diary 1937–1943, tr. Miller, Robert (London: Heinemann, 2002), 279–80 (22 Sept. 1939)Google Scholar.

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91 CP 534, file on Giuseppe Innocente, 11 Feb. 1935, Innocente to Mussolini; CP 64, file on Barillari, 22 Nov. 1927, Barillari's mother to Mussolini.

92 See Matteo Millan, ‘L'essenza del fascismo: La parabola dello squadrismo tra terrorismo e normalizzazione (1919–1932)’, PhD thesis, Università degli Studi di Padova, 2011.

93 Ebner, Ordinary violence, 1–22.

94 Report by the MVSN officer Nicchiarelli, 4 Jan. 1930: Saija, Autorità di vigilanza, 216–20.

95 Ibid. 47. See also Ebner, ‘Dalla repressione dell'antifascismo al controllo sociale’, 92–94; Poesio, Camilla, Reprimere le idee, abusare del potere: La milizia e l'instaurazione del regime fascista (Rome: Aracne, 2010), 41–60Google Scholar.

96 CP 91, file on Emilio Bentivoglio, 11 May 1932, Bentivoglio to Mussolini.

97 CP 462, file on Luigi Gatti, 1 Jan. 1930, Mussolini to Ministry of the Interior.

98 Cf. Passerini, Luisa, Mussolini immaginario: Storia di una biografia 1915–1939, 2nd edn (Rome: Laterza, 1991), 69Google Scholar; see also Duggan, Fascist Voices, 85–112.

99 See Franzinelli, Squadristi; Griner, Massimiliano, La pupilla del duce: La Legione autonoma mobile Ettore Muti (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2004), 137, 222Google Scholar; Gagliani, Dianella, Brigate nere: Mussolini e la militarizzazione del Partito fascista repubblicano (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1999)Google Scholar; PP 209, file on Giangaetano Cabella, 17 Sept. 1940, report by an informant; ACS, Suprema Corte di Cassazione, II sezione penale, 1949, vol. 2, judgment 154, 1949 (Emiliano Marchesini); PP 69, file on Giuseppe Ambrosi, 23 and 25 Aug. 1944, report by an informant.

100 Cf. Knox, MacGregor, ‘Conquest, Foreign and Domestic, in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany’, Journal of Modern History, 56, 1 (1984), 1–57 (pp. 44, 57)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101 CP 499, file on Antonio Gozzi, 16 Oct. 1931, Carabinieri to Prefetto; CP 1029, file on Luigi Trucchetti, no date, biographical dossier.

102 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 277–9.

103 Cf. Corner, The Fascist Party; Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, 164–71.

104 On the relationship between Fascist ideology and Fascist practice, see Kallis, Fascist ideology, 57–60, 203–4. On the need to take a long-term view see Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, 52–4.

105 The distinction between ‘Fascism as movement’ and ‘Fascism as regime’ was first drawn by Renzo De Felice: De Felice, Renzo and Ledeen, Michael A., Intervista sul fascismo, 3rd edn (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1975), 99–106Google Scholar. On the persistence of the political style and mindset generated by squadrismo see Gentile, Il mito dello Stato nuovo, 29–30, 238–44. Cf. also Morgan, Philip, ‘Fascism in General, and Fascism in Particular’, Contemporary European History, 12, 1 (2003), 107–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kallis, ‘Fascism, Violence and Terror’, 204.