The March on Rome revisited. Silences, historians and the power of the counter-factual

Abstract

This historiographical article will argue that the March on Rome (October–November 1922) was the end point of a serious and at that point unique insurrectionary project, which followed three intense years of Fascist violence (where the state had rarely if ever taken on the Fascists, and had often colluded passively or actively with them). It was accompanied by violence and constant threats of further violence, in Rome and across Italy. It was in no way a bluff – but also stood as a warning to all those who still imagined that Fascism could be opposed, on the streets, in parliament, or at the ballot box. The violence hit bystanders, but was also targeted at the private homes of communists, socialists and hated liberals, and at centres of urban resistance in Rome itself. This article will look in detail at the ways historians have understood the March on Rome, and systematically removed the violence from that event, ignored the March itself and played down the role of the squadristi. It will also look at the powerful role of a ‘what if’ counter-factual which has dominated most accounts of the March on Rome to date, with some recent exceptions.

From ‘Anomaly’ to ‘Laboratory’? Fratelli d’Italia, Illiberalism and the Study of Right-Wing Parties in Western Europe

“…Most of the current ‘ Fratelli di Giorgia’ (Vassallo and Vignati, 2023) were socialized into politics in a very polarized climate. In the early 1990s, the memories of the clashes between extra-parliamentary violent groups and terrorists during the 1970s (the so-called ‘years of lead’, when the number of politically motivated homicides could only be compared with those of the ethnic conflicts in the Basque countries and in Northern Ireland; Foot, 2023) played a decisive role in the birth and the evolution of the ideological profile of the ‘third party of the flame’ (Vassallo and Vignati, 2023: 26). But how likely is that politicians that proudly claim to finally emerge from a life spent as ‘underdog’ – a term used by Meloni in her investiture speech – will turn authoritarian in government?…”