The anarchist origins of Italian fascism are vividly described in this multiple biography of four anarchists who demonstrated extreme individualist tendencies. Leandro Arpinati began his political career as an anarchist, but went on to lead the Bologna fascists and become Mussolini's Minister of the Interior and the «Second Duce of Fascism.» Massimo Rocca was the extreme anarchist-individualist who goaded Mussolini into openly declaring his stance in favor of intervention in the First World War. Maria Rygier was a leader among the Bologna anarchists who reshaped the revolutionary ideas of the left in terms acceptable to the right. Torquato Nanni helped fuse the left wing of Fascism to the right wing of Bolshevism. All were friends of the young Mussolini, but were among the first to express disillusionment with fascism. By 1934, they had been arrested for «anti-fascist activities» and forced into external or internal exile. Despite Arpinati's and Nanni's participation in the Resistance a decade later, communist partisans assassinated them on the day of Liberation in April 1945. This book's analysis of the motives behind their assassination leads to conclusions about the use of the Myth of the Resistance as a paradigm for government in postwar Italy. It also suggests a model by which political parties have been appended to major personalities according to the degree to which they opposed fascism.

Despite the vast amount of research on Italian anarchism conducted over the last forty years, little is known about the history of Milanese anarchists. Living Like Nomads: The Milanese Anarchist Movement Before Fascism illuminates anarchist ideas, practices and militants in Milan during the two decades before the rise of fascism. It tells the fascinating stories of some Italian anarchists at the beginning of the twentieth century, and sheds light on their lifestyle, political campaigns and ideological debates. Living Like Nomads examines anarchist thought, particularly the relationship between theories of individualism and communist anarchism. It engages with masters of this school of philosophy such as Bakunin, Malatesta, Stirner and Kropotkin. By detailing the lives of unknown anarchists, it reveals the pivotal role played by anarchists – and anarchism – within the eclectic Italian Left. Milanese anarchists produced exciting initiatives and captivating ideological debates. While they did not cause a revolution in Milan, their importance cannot be overlooked. Anarchists in Milan gave birth to the first non-denominational modern school, campaigned against militarism, engaged with the labour movement, and published extensively. No other anarchist movement has published as much as Milanese anarchists did. While such anarchists did not prevent the rise of fascism in Italy, they were the first instance of anti-fascist resistance when they stood up against the violence of Mussolini’s black shirts after the First World War. Given anarchism’s principles of individual freedom, social justice and equality, this insightful study of the troubled history of anarchist movements contributes to a greater understanding of the modern Left.

Examines the history of the Italian anarchist movement in New London, Connecticut. In the early twentieth century, the Italian American radical movement thrived in industrial cities throughout the United States, including New London, Connecticut. Facing toward the Dawn tells the history of the vibrant anarchist movement that existed in New London’s Fort Trumbull neighborhood for seventy years. Comprised of immigrants from the Marche region of Italy, especially the city of Fano, the Fort Trumbull anarchists fostered a solidarity subculture based on mutual aid and challenged the reigning forces of capitalism, the state, and organized religion. They began as a circle within the ideological camp of Errico Malatesta and evolved into one of the core groupings within the wing of the movement supporting Luigi Galleani. Their manifold activities ranged from disseminating propaganda to participating in the labor movement; they fought fascists in the streets, held countless social events such as festas, theatrical performances, picnics and dances, and hosted militant speakers, including Emma Goldman. Focusing on rank-and-file militants—carpenters, stonemasons, fishermen, housewives—rather than well-known figures, Richard Lenzi offers a microhistory of an ethnic radical group during the heyday of labor radicalism in the United States. He also places that history in the context of the larger radical movement, the Italian American community, and greater American society, as it moved from the Gilded Age to the New Deal and beyond. “This book is the product of some wonderful and groundbreaking historical detective work, and it succeeds in combining two seemingly incongruent genres of history: the local/neighborhood study and the history of transnational migration and radicalism. The result is one of the best and most detailed histories of a single anarchist community written to date. In addition, it makes new and important contributions to the history and background of the Sacco-Vanzetti case, Prohibition, and the history of fascism and anti-fascism in the United States. Scholars and lay readers interested in any of these areas will find this work indispensable.” — Kenyon Zimmer, author of Immigrants against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America

On October 29, 1922, when Benito Mussolini completed the March on Rome and was appointed prime minister of Italy, the Fascist regime began in triumph. It ended some twenty-two years later with the execution of Mussolini and the collapse of the German-inspired Italian Social Republic. In this edition of Italian Fascism Alexander De Grand maintains his disagreement with recent interpretations of the movement and regime as "revolutionary" and "leftist." While not ignoring the importance of ideology, he sees Fascism in Italy as a bourgeois response to the challenge of proletarian revolution and an approach to the problem of conservative control in an era of mass politics.

This is the original Doctrine of Fascism. This doctrine worked as the basis of the Italian Fascist Party and influenced numerous fascist movements and individuals that followed. "Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism - born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it." -Mussolini

From the 1880s through the 1940s, tens of thousands of first- and second-generation immigrants embraced the anarchist cause after arriving on American shores. Kenyon Zimmer explores why these migrants turned to anarchism, and how their adoption of its ideology shaped their identities, experiences, and actions. Zimmer focuses on Italians and Eastern European Jews in San Francisco, New York City, and Paterson, New Jersey. Tracing the movement's changing fortunes from the pre–World War I era through the Spanish Civil War, Zimmer argues that anarchists, opposed to both American and Old World nationalism, severed all attachments to their nations of origin but also resisted assimilation into their host society. Their radical cosmopolitan outlook and identity instead embraced diversity and extended solidarity across national, ethnic, and racial divides. Though ultimately unable to withstand the onslaught of Americanism and other nationalisms, the anarchist movement nonetheless provided a shining example of a transnational collective identity delinked from the nation-state and racial hierarchies.