Between 1994 and 2024, 4769 books were published in Italy with the word “fascism” in the title, 2318 with “Mussolini”, 3530 with “fascist”.
To these are added the approximately 1500 with “anti-fascism” and “anti-fascists” as well as the 1229 with “Italian Resistance”. The data is easily obtained from the precious Opac of the national banking service, i.e. from the archive of the entire Italian book heritage accompanied by the indications for finding each individual volume. Between 1964 and 1993, the figures are significantly lower. A sign that the market for novels and essays on the Twenty Years is growing, and moreover there are publishers, both on the right and on the left, who make a living only or almost exclusively on literature on the Regime. Evidently, putting the word “fascism” on the cover ensures a certain amount of attention from the public. Naturally, our survey is indicative: books are off the radar, and there are many, that deal with fascism despite not having the word itself in the title. This is the case of many novels, for example the best-selling series by Carlo Lucarelli on the colonial empire wanted by the Duce. Also off the radar is Antonio Scurati’s best-selling trilogy, which features only Mussolini’s gigantic M on the cover.
It is useless to ask how many of these books are necessary and make a significant contribution to the debate on the Regime that obsesses Italians, some of whom are convinced that we are now there, the black shirts are close to returning, freedom is on its last legs, censorship dominates in every sector, from now on truncheon and castor oil for everyone.
This vision, ultimately, expresses a total disorientation of the Italian left. Before continually asking Giorgia Meloni to declare herself anti-fascist, progressives would do well to ask themselves, once and for all, what anti-fascism was in Italy. Some anti-fascists were not democrats or even patriots. They fought for the communist revolution and obeyed orders from Moscow. It is not enough to declare yourself anti-fascist to belong to the democratic and liberal family. We must also be anti-communist. It is an obvious truth all over the world except in Italy where communism had culture in its hands for decades and was able to mystify the history of the twentieth century.
All in all, there is even worse.
The grotesque and endless controversy over returning fascism also hides a substantial backwardness of our country, still clinging to the 20th century. In the rest of the planet, the problems on the table are very different. We are in the midst of an epochal change that affects international geopolitical balances: who will lead the change and in which direction? What do we do with artificial intelligence, which poses new questions and possibilities yet to be understood? How to deal with the radical transformation of work and, perhaps, of the very idea of work? What attitude should we have when faced with the concrete possibility of manipulating our genetic heritage and human biology? These questions barely enter the public debate. And we could continue. Other than multinationals. Today we are faced with giants with extremely uncertain status.
Is Facebook a social network or an independent nation, assuming that it makes sense to use such a historically connoted term as “nation”? What services do companies like Amazon or Tesla really offer, thinking of taking humanity to another planet? What does it mean that the business of the present and the future, in Silicon Valley, has become immortality?
Instead of discussing these issues, we are still in the now ridiculous skirmishes between (imaginary) fascists and (imaginary) anti-fascists.
Those who really have an impact on the future are happy not to attract attention and to operate undisturbed while we offer the parody of a tragic but fortunately over century.
