Mussolini’s Grandchildren by David Broder: How the keepers of Il Duce’s flame surged to power

While the author’s writing might lack flair and panache, his book provides an excellent insight into Mussolini’s political heirs

Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Fratelli d'Italia. Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images

Mussolini's Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy by David Broder

Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Fratelli d'Italia. Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images

Mussolini's Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy by David Broder

Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Fratelli d'Italia. Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images

JP O'Malley

March 18 2023 02:30 AM

In the run-up to last year’s Italian parliamentary elections, the international media began drawing attention to Fratelli d’Italia’s historical links with the neo-fascist movement. In August, one month before the election, Giorgia Meloni — who co-founded the far-right party in 2012 — posted a video on YouTube in response. “The Italian right has handed over fascism to history for decades now,” she claimed.

A month later, Fratelli d’Italia secured 26pc of the vote, giving the party a comfortable majority to lead a right-wing coalition government. Meloni was sworn in as Italy’s first female prime minister. It was a phenomenal result for a party that secured just 4pc of the vote in 2018.

In the opening chapter of Mussolini’s Grandchildren, David Broder, a historian of the Italian far-right, notes that Meloni’s remarkable rise to power just happened to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of the March on Rome — a coup d’état in which Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party (PNF) seized power in the kingdom of Italy through force, intimidation and violence.

In the autumn of 1938 Mussolini introduced a series of racial laws that proclaimed Italian civilisation to be of Aryan origin, while also denouncing Jews as enemies of state. But the racially pure glorious empire that Mussolini dreamed of ended in dramatic failure. In April 1945, along with his mistress, Claretta Petacci, he was arrested and then shot by partisans in the village of Giulino di Mezzegra in northern Italy. Their bodies were brought back to Milan, hung upside-down and displayed in public for crowds to kick and spit on.

Mussolini’s Grandchildren is mostly concerned with the chapter of Italian history that followed. In June 1946, Italians voted to dissolve their monarchy and become a republic instead. Political life for the next half century was mostly dominated by Christian Democrats. Corruption and instability were rife. Italy has had 68 different governments over the past seven decades, with a new cabinet taking office on average every 13 months.

Broder also notes that Italian fascism did not go to the grave with Il Duce. A neo-fascist movement was born in December 1946, with the founding of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI). “Almost all the [MSI’s] leaders were veterans of the Nazi collaborationist Salò Republic,” Broder notes. He has already written extensively about this period of Italian history in The Rebirth of Italian Communism: Dissident Communists in Rome, 1943-44, and First They Took Rome: How the Populist Right Conquered Italy.

The Rome-based English writer and translator clearly knows his subject matter inside out. But his writing lacks flair, panache or even the odd insider anecdote, that, say, a seasoned political journalist might bring to the narrative. Nevertheless, the book provides an excellent analysis of the drastic change that occurred from the mid-1990s onwards — when Italy made its transition from the First to the so-called Second Republic.

The latter term is typically used to describe how Italian politics tilted back to the right when the Cold War concluded. The birth of the Second Republic coincided with the rise of Forza Italia, led by Silvio Berlusconi. The Milanese media tycoon built his base through the TV stations he controlled, Broder writes.

“After 50 Years, Fascists return to Italian government” as a New York Times headline put it in April 1994. The article was referring to Berlusconi’s cosy alliance with the neo-fascist Alleanza Nazionale. The party was led by a former leader of the MSI, Gianfranco Fini, who went on to serve as deputy prime minister and minister for foreign affairs in the early 2000s. He once referred to Mussolini as “the greatest statesman of the century”.

Others agreed, including Giorgia Meloni. In 1996, the then 19-year-old appeared on French television proudly praising Il Duce. She keeps public discussions about Mussolini to a minimum these days, mainly because it doesn’t sit well with the branding of Fratelli d’Italia. Officially, the party defines itself as “national conservative”. “Post-fascist” is probably a more accurate description, says Broder. He then draws attention to their current political agenda.

It mostly wages war on domestic opponents. Namely: the LGBT community, migrants, cosmopolitan global elites, NGOs and left-wingers. But a more pragmatic approach to other political issues has meant Fratelli d’Italia has broadened its voter base. The party is pro-business, wants to remain inside the EU and continues to encourage Italy’s close alliance with Nato.

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Broder also briefly references Meloni’s memoir, I am Giorgia: My Roots, My Ideas, which topped the book charts in Italy upon its release in May 2021. The epigraph to the first chapter reads: “If this is to end in fire / Then we should all burn together / Watch the flames climb high into the night”.

Fire is a recurring theme in Italy’s neo-fascist political movement. Broder notes how Fratelli d’Italia’s political banner still holds the MSI’s controversial tricolore flame logo. What does the symbol of the flame represent exactly? Some historians claim it subtly indicates that the spirit of Mussolini and fascism burns eternally. “Meloni denies that the flame logo refers to Mussolini himself, claiming that it represents the 70-year tradition of the democratic right,” Broder writes.

Is fascism making a comeback in 2023? Not exactly. Meloni won’t be rallying black-shirted militias through the streets of Rome any time soon. Nor does Fratelli d’Italia have any plans to create a one-party state, or a militant fascist order.

Still, the prime minister leads the most right-wing government in Italy since 1945. They may not be the recreation of Mussolini’s regime but, Broder concludes, the Italian far right “is in power in new times, writing new history for the bearers of the tricolore flame”.