Republican Fascist Party

The Republican Fascist Party (Italian: Partito Fascista Repubblicano, PFR) was a political party in Italy led by Benito Mussolini during the German occupation of Central and Northern Italy and was the sole legitimate and ruling party of the Italian Social Republic. It was founded as the successor of former National Fascist Party as an anti-monarchist party. It considered King Victor Emmanuel III to be a traitor after he had signed the surrender to the Allies.

Republican Fascist Party

Partito Fascista Repubblicano
DuceBenito Mussolini
(23 September 1943 – 25 April 1945)
SecretaryAlessandro Pavolini
(15 November 1943 – 28 April 1945)
Founded13 September 1943
Dissolved28 April 1945 (Disbanded)
22 December 1947 (Banned)
Preceded byNational Fascist Party
HeadquartersPiazza San Sepolcro,
20123 Milan, Lombardy,
Italian Social Republic
Paramilitary wingBlack Brigades
Armed wingNational Republican Army
Membership (1943)900,000
IdeologyItalian Fascism
Italian nationalism
Republicanism
Sansepolcrismo
Antisemitism
Fascist syndicalism
Political positionFar-right
ReligionRoman Catholicism
Colours     Black
Party flag

History

After the Nazi-engineered Gran Sasso raid liberated Mussolini, the National Fascist Party (PNF) was revived on 13 September 1943 as the Republican Fascist Party (PRF) and as the single party of the Northern and Nazi-protected Italian Social Republic, informally known as the Salò Republic. Its secretary was Alessandro Pavolini.

The PFR did not outlast Mussolini's execution and the disappearance of the Salò state in April 1945. However, it inspired the creation of the Italian Social Movement (MSI)[1] and the MSI has been seen as the successor to the PFR and the PNF.[2] The MSI was formed by former Fascist leaders and veterans of the republic's fascist army.[3] The party tried to modernise and revise fascist doctrine into a more moderate and sophisticated direction.[4]

Ideology

Italian Fascism was rooted in Italian nationalism, Fascist syndicalism, and the desire to restore and expand Italian territories, which Italian Fascists deemed necessary for a nation to assert its superiority and strength and to avoid succumbing to decay.[5] Italian Fascists claimed that modern Italy is the heir to ancient Rome and its legacy and historically supported the creation of an Italian Empire to provide spazio vitale ("living space") for colonization by Italian settlers and to establish control over the Mediterranean Sea.[6]

A corporatist economic system whereby employer and employee syndicates are linked together in associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy was advocated by the Fascists.[7] This economic system intended to resolve class conflict through collaboration between the classes.[8]

The Italian Fascists opposed liberalism and capitalism, but rather than seeking a reactionary restoration of the pre-French Revolutionary world, which it considered to have been flawed, it had a forward-looking direction.[9] It was also opposed to the reactionary conservatism developed by Joseph de Maistre.[10] It believed the success of Italian nationalism required respect for tradition and a clear sense of a shared past among Italians, alongside a commitment to a modernized Italy.[11]

Fascists were anti-communists. They were opposed to Marxism because it was viewed as a threat to nationalism,[12] and viewed Bolshevism as the greatest contemporary menace to European civilization.[13]

Secretary of the Republican Fascist Party
Main article: List of Secretaries of Italian Fascist parties

National Congress

References
  1. Davies, Peter; Lynch, Derek (2002). The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right. Routledge. p. 328. ISBN 978-0-203-99472-6.
  2. Levy, 1996, p. 188.
  3. Ignazi, 1998, p. 157.
  4. Stanley Payne (1992). "Fascism". In Mary E. Hawkesworth; Maurice Kogan (eds.). Encyclopedia of Government and Politics. Psychology Press. p. 177. ISBN 978-0-415-07224-3.
  5. Aristotle A. Kallis. Fascist ideology: territory and expansionism in Italy and Germany, 1922–1945. London, England, UK; New York City, USA: Routledge, 2000. p. 41.
  6. Kallis, p. 50.
  7. Andrew Vincent. Modern Political Ideologies. Third edition. Malden, Massaschussetts, USA; Oxford, England, UK; West Sussex, England, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2010. p. 160.
  8. John Whittam. Fascist Italy. Manchester, England, UK; New York City, USA: Manchester University Press, 1995. p. 160.
  9. Eugen Weber. The Western Tradition: From the Renaissance to the present. Heath, 1972. p. 791.
  10. Stanley G.Payne. A History of Fascism, 1914–45. Madison, Wisconsin, USA: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. p. 214.
  11. Claudia Lazzaro. "Forging a Visible Fascist Nation: Strategies for Fusing the Past and Present." In Claudia Lazzaro, Roger J. Crum (eds). Donatello Among The Blackshirts: History And Modernity In The Visual Culture Of Fascist Italy. Ithaca, New York, USA: Cornell University Press, 2005. p. 13.
  12. Stanislao G. Pugliese. Fascism, anti-fascism, and the resistance in Italy: 1919 to the present. Oxford, England, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004. pp. 43–44.
  13. Cannistraro, Philip V., and Edward D. Wynot Jr. "On the Dynamics of Anti-Communism as a Function of Fascist Foreign Policy, 1933-1943." Il Politico (1973): 645–681.
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