The enigma of how ordinary people related to would-be totalitarian regimes is still far from being resolved. The tension between repression and consensus renders analysis difficult; where one ends and the other begins is never easy to determine. In the case of fascist Italy, recent scholarship has tended to tilt the balance in favour of popular consensus for the regime, identifying in the ideological and cultural aspects of Mussolini's rule a ‘political religion’ which bound the population to the fascist leader. This book presents a different picture. While in no way underestimating the force ... More

The enigma of how ordinary people related to would-be totalitarian regimes is still far from being resolved. The tension between repression and consensus renders analysis difficult; where one ends and the other begins is never easy to determine. In the case of fascist Italy, recent scholarship has tended to tilt the balance in favour of popular consensus for the regime, identifying in the ideological and cultural aspects of Mussolini's rule a ‘political religion’ which bound the population to the fascist leader. This book presents a different picture. While in no way underestimating the force of ideological factors, the book argues that ‘real existing Fascism’, as lived by a large part of the population, was in fact an increasingly negative experience and reflected few of those colourful and attractive features of fascist propaganda which have induced more favourable interpretations of the regime. Distinguishing clearly between the fascist project and its realisation, the study examines the ways in which the fascist party asserted itself at the local level in the widely-differing areas of Italy, at its corruption and malfunctioning, and at the mounting wave of popular resentment against it during the course of the 1930s which, in effect, signalled the failure of the project. The study, based largely on archival material, concludes by suggesting that the abuse of power by fascists at the local level mirrors a wider problem related to the utilisation of power within Italy, both past and present.