The Fascist Civil War
The aim of this paper is to show how the category of civil war could
be used to study Italian fascism. The essay begins by concentrating on
the fascist movement organisers’ squads foundation since early 1919
and the use of World War symbology. The party’s enemies were, among
others, socialists and the members of the Catholic party. Nevertheless,
the concept of an «internal enemy», allowed the fascists to fight their
political opponents with the insinuation that they represented a danger to
the whole Nation. Thus, the period of «squadrismo» (1920-22) could be
considered a civil war not only for the high levels of political violence, but
also where this historical period’s long-lasting legacy is concerned. The
last paragraph purposely focuses on Civil War memory, which represents
a characterizing issue of the regime’s self-consciousness until the late
1930s. The aftermath of these facts turned out to be the instrument of
an ideological chasm between the fascist nation’s plan on one side and its
estranged (antifascists as well as non fascists) on the other.