Mussolini - Denis Mack Smith

I've been meaning to read a biography of Mussolini for a few years now, since I finished Cry Havoc, actually. It had some brief mentions of Mussolini's life in there, and it wasn't what I expected. My dad said he had a copy of this, but couldn't find it. So he ordered another and had it shipped to me.

The primary thing I took from Mussolini: A Biography about the subject was his lack of any goals outside the acquisition of personal power. He didn't take over the country with a clear idea of what he wanted Italy to become, or how he was going to do it. Power wasn't the means to an end, it was simply the end.

To that end, he is almost constantly contradictory. At one point socialist, he later rails against them (and engineers changes to elections to make a socialist-led parliament more fractured and less effective). Strongly anti-clerical in his youth, he strongly promotes the importance of religion and the Church in the lives of Italians, so as to garner the blessings of the Pope. When World War I broke out, he had claimed nationalism was a false concept, that workers across the world should not fight each other, because they were all part of one nation, as so these arbitrary borders were irrelevant. It didn't take long for him to see what direction the wind was blowing and change his tune. Soon he was arguing that Italy needed to be involved for national prestige and to enlarge her natural frontiers, and besides, the war would be over quickly.

He's very good at making that work, though. He can tell his fellow fascists one thing, then turn around and court the nationalists or liberals in parliament by saying the opposite. Tell the British one thing, the Germans another. Give his ambassadors one directive, tell the foreign correspondents of his newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia, information that runs at cross-purposes. Tell the public something different everyday. His belief was it - especially when it came to the public - that it didn't matter if he contradicted himself, so long as he made bold, declarative statements. People will only remember the things they agree with, he said, so it doesn't matter if he says something different tomorrow. They won't notice.

The downside to this is that it makes it difficult for anything to get done. Mussolini promoted the idea that he did everything, saw everything, knew everything, and he actually tried to run the government that way. He filled his cabinet with lackeys, incompetents, thugs, and yes men. Either they didn't know how to do their jobs properly, or they didn't, because they were too busy telling Il Duce that he was always right, and so they let him make all the decisions. But if he makes a decision on Tuesday that runs directly contrary to the one he made on Monday, then where are you?

But much as it didn't matter if he contradicted himself, so long as he didn't forcefully, it didn't matter if anything was accomplished, so long as it appeared as though Mussolini was getting things done. Style over substance. Concentrate on meaningless details, like the number of buttons on the new uniforms. Make big speeches about a 'war on bread', and vow to make Italy independent of grain imports. Never mind the fact it'll create a shortage of meat and other agricultural products by forcing so much farmland strictly into cereal production, or the fact Italy will still need imports of fertilizers. Fly to an international peace conference to sign a treaty he didn't read. It doesn't matter what it says (since he'll just ignore it if he doesn't like it), the important thing is everyone see how the great Mussolini is changing the world for the better with his brilliant fascism.

With all his flip-flopping and disingenuous personality, he's like Mitt Romney with charisma. But he had a lot of charisma, which is probably what carried him as far as it did. He was just successful enough at portraying himself as this massive public figure who never made mistakes, always was on top of things, needed no council or aid, that people couldn't work up the nerve to challenge him.

Either that, or they looked at his inability to make tough decisions until all options but one were removed, and believed they could easily manipulate him for their own benefit. That seems to be why the parliamentary heads didn't crush him when they had the chance in the early '20s. He had just enough sway over just enough people they wanted him on their side, and seemed indecisive enough they could control him. By the time they realized he whipped his followers into such a frenzy they'd kill anyone he wanted with the merest suggestion, it was too late to turn things around.

Smith seems to have researched this pretty exhaustively, if the number of citations is any indication. At times the book is a little dry, but Smith seems genuinely curious about his subject, which helps to carry it along. You can tell at times that Smith is struggling to figure out when Mussolini is being genuine. If he admits that fascism was really all about garnering power for himself, and it had no clear ideology, is that him being honest? Or is he playing a role, trying to put forth a more pleasant image? Is he ever not just telling people what they want to hear?