Mussolini - R.J.B. Bosworth

The second of two books on Mussolini, this one has the advantage of being a few decades newer, but I'm not sure that makes it better. This is the second edition, released three years ago, apparently in response to what Bosworth perceived as a rise in neo-Fascism, or perhaps an acceleration of the revisionist history about Fascism. So he wanted to address what after-effects Mussolini has had on the world going forward. His conclusion was Mussolini's most lasting impact might be his attempts to appear as a man of the people. How he wanted it to be known he was a family man, someone who played all manner of sports, even went swimming in the ocean amongst his subjects, stuff like that. In other words, every time you see a politician run an ad that shows them horsing around with their families or whatever, you could possibly blame Mussolini.

I'm not sure I buy it myself, if only because I feel like American politicians would have been trying that kind of thing long before Il Duce, but I could be wrong. The only other thing I'll say about the additional last chapter is he needed to edit it. There are multiple occurrences where a sentence starts, then stops. Then the next sentence repeats the previous one, only it actually finishes the thought. Example:

'The ruling junta change to Successive leftist juntas in Predappio have dreamed of. . . Predappio dreams of better ways to recall the town's most famous son, and to appraise his history,' and it continues from there. Those sorts of errors are all over the final chapter. It just looks shoddy, like he rushed the book back into print to capitalize on something, and slapped together some new material to justify it. He also added a new introduction, but went ahead and kept the intro from the first edition as well. Does a book really need two introductions?

Perhaps if it's a book about a leader primarily concerned with the appearance of greatness, it's fitting. The primary concern Bosworth seems to have is whether Mussolini is a strong or weak dictator. This is in regards to how effectively he made his influence felt on the people, whether the power came from "above" (him), or "below" (the people). The original introduction explains Bosworth became interested in the idea after reading to two biographies, one arguing Franco was a "strong" dictator, the other that Hitler was a "weak" one. What this boils down to in terms of the text is a lot of questions he poses, then addresses about whether Italian society came to reflect what Mussolini alleged were proper Fascist behaviors and ideologies. How much success did he have imposing his vision on Italy, and the answer seems to be not very.

Which was hardly a surprise to me, after reading the Denis Mack Smith biography, which easily demonstrated that Mussolini had no real vision for Italy once he achieved control. That's what I found most interesting about Bosworth's book, the ways in which his interpretations of Mussolini differed, and in what he chose to highlight. For one thing, I thought he gave remarkably short shrift to the period where it was common for dissenting voices in parliament to be beaten right there in the assembly hall, and in some cases to be assaulted or killed on the streets. Smith spent quite a bit more time on this in the chapters detailing Mussolini's rise to dictator, but Bosworth briefly mentions Giovanni Amendola being beaten to death in one paragraph, then moves on. My guess is he feels Mussolini didn't order these attacks, and so they aren't relevant, except as some difficulty for Mussolini to tap dance his way through. Smith's interpretation agreed, but he pointed out Mussolini had gained support through encouraging these black shirts to violently silence opposition, and so he does bear some responsibility. Also, he noted it in relation not only to Mussolini's ability to juggle opposing sides, but also in his inability to truly rein in the forces he'd unleashed. Bosworth also mentions that with regards to the ras (local fascist groups) in the countryside who did largely as they pleased, but it seems like he could have used it further as an example of Mussolini's inability to exert his will.

Smith also frequently brought Mussolini's tendency to lose his will, where he was unable to make any decisions, or even stir the usual charisma he typically relied on. Bosworth doesn't note this until near the end of Mussolini's life, when his health was truly failing, but this is probably because he perceives Mussolini as never having any control, and always trying to delay making decisions in any real way (meaning, actually knowing how to accomplish whatever it is he wants done). From that perspective, Il Duce was always indecisive, it's just sometimes he was more listless than others.

The Denis Mack Smith book is a significantly easier read. I settled on reading it in 4 days, doing 80 pages per day, and had no trouble. My original plan was to tackle Bosworth's in 5 days, handling 70 pages per day, but it ultimately took an extra day to finish. He tends to be needlessly wordy. I would recommend Bosworth's if you're looking for more about the people around the dictator, or the larger political theory of Fascism. Smith admitted as much in his intro, that he was primarily concerned with Benito Mussolini, and would touch on everyone else only as much as needed for things to make sense. So if you're really just interested in the man, go with Denis Mack Smith.