Fascism in Ferrara, 1915-25

312 Pages·1975·6.385 MB·English

by  Paul Corner

O X F O R D H IS T O R IC A L M O N O G R APH S
Editors
BARBARA H A R V E Y A. D. M A C IN T Y R E
R. W. SO U TH E R N A. F. TH O M PSO N
H. R. T R E V O R -R O P E R

FASCISM IN FERRARA
1915 - 1925
BY
P A U L C O R N E R
O X F O R D U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S
J975
Oxford University Press, Ely House, London W .i
OLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
CAPE TOWN IBADAN NAIROBI DAR ES SALAAM LUSAKA ADDIS ABABA
DELHI BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA
KUALA LUMPUR SINGAPORE HONG KONO TOKYO
ISBN O I9 821857 5
© Oxford University Press 1975
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Oxford University Press
Printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press), Ltd.
Bungay, Suffolk
PREFACE
T his study is a revised version of a thesis submitted for the
degree of D.Phil. in the University of Oxford during 1971. My
first thanks are due, therefore, to Mr. Christopher Seton-
Watson who acted as supervisor for the thesis; his criticisms
and encouragement were at all times much appreciated. I
should also like to express my gratitude to Mr. Adrian Lyttelton
who advised me on the revision of the original manuscript; to
Dr. Stuart Woolf who helped me at the outset of this study; to
Professor Renzo De Felice for his many valuable indications
about source material; and to Professor Giuliano Procacci for
reading the final draft and suggesting certain changes. I am also
indebted to Giovanna Procacci and Mario Missori for their
continued interest and assistance.
Much of the research was carried out in the Archivio Centrale
dello Stato in Rome and I wish to thank the Director and his
staff for their persistent patience and courtesy when faced with
what seemed innumerable requests for material. The same
thanks must also go to the Director and staff of the Biblioteca
Ariostea of Ferrara, to the Camera di Commercio of Ferrara,
and to the Cassa di Risparmio of Ferrara.
I should also like to acknowledge my debt to the Italian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the award of an Italian Govern­
ment Scholarship, to the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi of Turin for
a one year research fellowship, and to the Master and Fellows
of Balliol College for a generous travel grant which permitted
the further researching of many essential points during the
course of one summer vacation.
St. Antony's College,
Oxford. ' Paul C orner

CO N TEN TS
Page
Abbreviations viii
Introduction ix
1. From Unification to Intervention, 1870-1915 1
2. The Widening of the Divisions 1915-1918 28
3. The Defeat of the Interventionists, January-November
1919 48
4. Middle-class Attitudes and Socialist Administration 76
5. Triumph and Uncertainty: Provincial Socialism from
November 1919 to September 1920 85
6. The Beginnings of Reaction, September 1920-February
1921 104
7. The Rank and File of Fascism 137
8. Crisis and Consolidation: Provincial Fascism during 1921 170
9. Towards the Control of the State, February 1922 to the
March on Rome 209
10. The First Year of Fascist Government, November 1922-
December 1923 233
11. From the Elections of 1924 to the Stabilization of the
Fascist Regime 261
Bibliography 289
Map of the Province of Ferrara 296
Index 297
ABBREVIATIONS
ACS Archivio Centrale dello Stato
Min. Int. Ministero dellTntemo
DGPS Direzione Generale di Pubblica Sicurezza
AGR Affari Generali e Riservati
Seg. Part, del Duce Segreteria Particolare del Duce
GO Carteggio Ordinario
CR Carteggio Riservato
MRF Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista
Presidenza Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri
INTRODUCTION
When, in late October 1922, Mussolini formed his first
government, the fascist squads were permitted a victory parade
through the streets of Rome. Thus passed into fascist myth-
ology the legend that it was the march on Rome and the display
of armed force that had secured the so-called ‘fascist revo­
lution*. In reality, of course, the victory of the fascists was
political rather than military. The failure of the governing
class to find any solution to the threat of fascism other than
complete capitulation to Mussolini was a clear indication of
the advanced stage of political atrophy that had already gripped
the liberal Italian state. By late 1922 in fact, much of northern
Italy was already under fascist control. The two years prior to
the march on Rome had witnessed a progressive abdication of
the authority of the state in province after province and its
replacement with the authority of the fascists.
This book is a study of the growth of fascism in one such
province— Ferrara. It is an attempt to chart the course of the
local movement and to examine the circumstances that gave
rise to, and permitted the survival of, that movement. It aims
to discover who became fascist, why they became fascist, and
why they remained fascist. Given the way in which fascism
came to government, the provincial fascist organizations
assume particular importance. In effect they provided the basis
for the affirmation of fascism at a national level. Without a
strong provincial base, Mussolini could never have come to
power, much less remained there. Moreover, the provincial
movement also exerted a profound influence on the formation
of the ideology and the political programme of fascism, helping
to determine the characteristics of the party which did even­
tually achieve success. Yet a detailed examination of a pro­
vincial fascist organization may also be of more general interest.
The question of the nature of fascism continues to generate
debate, and what follows is a case study against which normally
accepted generalizations about fascism can be measured and
assessed.
The province of Ferrara was, for crucial months of 1921,
INTRODUCTION
X
the most vigorous element in the developing national fascist
movement. It was Ferrara that formed die spearhead of the
extremely rapid expansion of agrarian fascism which— at the
beginning of 1921— effectively rescued the town-based fascism
of Mussolini from political extinction. Although never to
assume quite the same degree of importance in later years, the
province none the less remained one of the principal strong­
holds of the Italian fascist movement. In addition, it was in
Ferrara that one of the most prominent of fascist leaders,
Italo Balbo, made his name and established his political base.
Many of the themes central to the problem of the rise and
subsequent stabilization of fascism as a whole are represented,
therefore, in a study of Ferrara. Certain of them relate to
the methods and organization of fascism— to the systematic
employment of violence by the squads, to the establishment of
the fascist syndicates as a means of controlling the agricultural
labourers, and to the structure and decision-making machinery
of the local fascist federation. Others are concerned with the
divisions that developed within the fascist movement itself and
with the growing tendency for fascism to be totally intolerant of
criticism or opposition, whether from fascist or non-fascist
sources. To a great extent, these divisions reflect the diversity
of social origin which existed between fascists, particularly
between those of the town and those of the rural areas, while the
methods by which dissidence was resolved are extremely
indicative of the influence the more ruthless agrarian fascism
exerted over the whole movement.
Yet the main focus of this study remains that of the origins of
the movement, of the reasons for, and the extent of, the initial
adhesion to fascism in early 1921. Ferrara was remarkable for
the speed with which fascism asserted its control. Although in
1920 the province had been one of the bastions of revolutionary
socialism, it took only weeks for the entire socialist organization
to be brought to submission. This extremely sudden transition
is in many ways the main problem in accounting for the rise of
fascism in Ferrara. Violence obviously played its part, as many
interpretations have stressed, yet in provinces where the
squads mounted an offensive just as violent, the results were less
impressive. Certain clues about the other factors involved can
be sought in the political background to the fascist onslaught—
particularly in the impact of the First World War on provincial