Decline of the Fascist State

Frederick Gruin, "Decline of the Fascist State", ''The Saturday Review'', August 26, 1944. Recension ''[[Twilight of the Gladiators]]''

In October, 1939, when people were beginning to call World War II the "phony war," the well-known Swedish journalist Frank Heller left Germany for a winter in "the wonderful Italian sun." The Maginot Line was still the hope of France, and Italy had not yet made the gambler's plunge into the struggle. When these things came to pass, the Scandinavian sunlover was still in the land whose spiritual and sensual enchantments "enthralled" him. He did not leave Italy, as a matter of fact, until the eve of Mussolini's fall. What he observed as the Fascist State stumbled into its twilight he chronicles in this supple and more than a shade nostalgic book, smoothly translate d by Llewellyn Jones. 

Though Mr. Heller had an inside
view, he has little inside information.
But he gives fresh first-hand corroboration of many a fact familiar to
United States readers: Italy's complete unreadiness for a long war, or
for any war; the Duce's colossal mistake in believing Germany invincible;
the Italian people's great expectations
of easy victory and rich loot, then
great disillusionment over tightened
belts and the swift march of the war
to their doorstep. Still, when Mussolini's resignation came, it was a shock
to the Swedis h journalist: "I had
no suspicion of what was coming."
Nor did the majority of Italians. So
far as Mr. Heller could see, they were
still fairly well dressed and fed. With
a bit of wonderment he records how
he saw bathing at Ostia and boating
on the Tiber a fortnight before Badoglio took over. 

Mr. Heller takes pains to make clear
his aversion to fascism and his disapproval of its excesses. But he does
not see it all black or all white. He
rather feels sorry for Mussolini, who
"had a real disposition to greatness
and was not far from realizing it."
The Duce, he says, lost contact with
reality, and thereby had his fall. 

In chitchat with a well-to-do Italian
woman, the journalist remarked: "In
any event fascism has one thing to its
credit: it prevented communism from
taking over." The early blackshirt
march, he finds, was one of "glorious
youth and courage" against the machinations of sinister "men with
marked profiles" who came from
"Eastern Europe." He sees "beautiful" nobility in Italian sympathy for
little Finland against big Russia; he
sees no irony in the fact that these
same Italians picked on Ethiopia, Albania, and Greece. 

Mr. Heller seems to be tight in the
grip of the traditional Swedish antipathy to Russia, a national foe of
ancient standing. But it is difficult to
understand his thinly veiled contempt
for parliamentary democracy. At one
point he hints that democracy may be
all right for northern lands (presumably like Sweden), but he is certain
it is no go in southern Europe. The
"parliamentary system" of the French
Third Republic he brands as utterly
corrupt — it had "no reason to crow"
over the "non-parliamentary system"
of the Italian Fascist State. This
sounds like the sentiment lavished on
Mussolini in the twenties: he makes
the trains go on time, etc. 

Mr. Heller continues: "In theory I
have always been friendly to enlightened despotism, but I have been quite
aware of the great difficulty of finding an enlightened despot." He indulges in an astonishing tirade against
parliamentarianism: "What monstrosities of twaddle, of dirty deals, of corruption, and hypocrisy have not flourished under the protection of parliaments!" Mr. Heller finds not a creditable thing to say for the institution.
He has strong doubts whether parliamentarianism is the wise way out for
suffering Italy. It may be too weak —
as it was before 1922, when the blackshirts saved the country from the
"Red baronies" along the Po. Above
all, Mr. Heller fears lest fascism be
succeeded by "bolshevism with seven
evil spirits worse." 

Do many Swedes think this way ?