(Bruce Walker) Fascists and Bolsheviks as friends
https://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0208/0208fasbol.htm
(译文)
如果纳粹和布尔什维克彼此是朋友和敌人的次数相当，那么法西斯和布尔什维克的关系究竟如何呢？左派的伪概念里很少提到“纳粹”，而是“法西斯”，而且这些“法西斯”都是布尔什维克的死敌，在理念上，“法西斯主义”和马克思主义处在完全相反的两级，等等。
这是错的。贝尼托-墨索里尼（Benito Mussolini）是以马克思主义者的身份开始政治生涯的，而且它还是个暴力派、革命派马克思主义者。墨索里尼不但是意大利左派头领，而且他还是世界上最重要的共产党人之一。1914年，墨索里尼组织了“红色周”，旨在发动一场针对腐败资本主义世界的暴力革命。墨索里尼经常被称为“Duce”，意思是“领袖”－－相当于德语的“Fuhrer”，俄语的“Vozd”－－而且通常认为是法西斯给了他这个称呼。这也是错的。这个绰号是马克思主义者在一次庆祝他出狱的宴会上给他起的，之前他因抗议“帝国主义”意大利对利比亚的战争被捕，在那次出狱宴会上，一个社会主义老战士说：“贝尼托，从今天起，你不但是罗马涅地区（Romagna）社会主义者的代表，而且是意大利全体革命派社会主义者的领袖（Duce）！”
这个作为马克思主义者的墨索里尼是《前进！》（Avanti!）的编辑，《前进！》是意大利也是世界一本主要的马克思主义期刊。尽管大部分墨索里尼传记都会涉及他一生中很长时期与这本马克思主义期刊的关系，但几乎没人提到同一时期他还是意大利马克思主义者的知识分子月刊《乌托邦》（Utopia）的编辑。墨索里尼没有退出马克思主义。他被“意大利社会主义党”（Italian Socialist Party）驱逐，是因为在第一次世界大战中，他支持意大利加入英法俄联盟反对德国-奥匈帝国一方。尽管历史学家可以、而且已经争辩说这象征着墨索里尼向他们虚构出来的右派靠拢，而当时在左派当中，在支持还是反对战争才能帮助推动世界无产阶级革命上存在严重的分歧。
实际上，墨索里尼是跟从而不是领导意大利的极左派。Zeev Sternhell在《法西斯理念的诞生》（The Birth of Fascist Ideology）里解释说，在1914年8月19日，Alceste De Ambris在“米兰工会主义联盟”（Milanese Syndical Union，MSU）讲台上攻击中立立场，推动支持法国和英国。他把德国的行为比作反应，把法国的行动比作法国大革命。墨索里尼这时放弃了中立态度，在 1914年11月发表了《Il Popolo d’Italia》，支持加入英法联盟一方。当宣战之后，墨索里尼和其他革命派工会主义首领自愿入伍。
即便在墨索里尼之前，法西斯主义就是左派的革命工会主义，由左派里的不同意见者创建。在墨索里尼成为法西斯主义者之前，法西斯主义就是左派意识形态。当法西斯主义联合成一场全国性运动以后，它属于左派运动，而不是属于右派。尽管墨索里尼从马克思主义分离出来，他并没有与社会主义分离。他对马克思主义的反对在于，马克思和恩格斯都是德国人，马克思主义被用来作为推动德国和俾斯麦政治的工具。
此外，工会主义（Syndicalism）不是在意大利、而是在法国发展起来的，它属于左派，而不是右派。正如Roger H. Soltau在他1930年介绍法国政治的书中所说：“有一些社会主义人士不是工会主义者，也有一些工会主义者不投票给社会主义候选人，不过两个党的立场几乎没有什么区别，都相信用革命方式摧毁资本主义社会，以及用无产阶级的国际行动来彻底消灭政治分野。”这种友好关系直接影响了工会主义者（法西斯主义者的先锋）和布尔什维克的关系：当布尔什维克军事政权反对民主选举产生的、推翻了沙皇政治的革命政府的时候，工会主义者很活跃的反对法国参与反对俄国布尔什维克。确实，工会主义者内部的冲突是城市里的“红色共产主义者”和乡村的“绿色共产主义者”的冲突。法西斯主义者和布尔什维克的这种重叠关系一直持续到“俄国法西斯党”（Russian Fascist Party）时期，该党1930年代成立于中国哈尔滨；但是后来该党首领Konstantin Rodzaevsky改信了斯大林主义，他说：“斯大林主义…是我们俄国的清除了极端、幻觉和错误的法西斯主义。”
托洛茨基支持墨索里尼超过支持列宁
被斯大林认为太左的列昂-托洛茨基（Leon Trotsky）支持墨索里尼的立场，即第一次世界大战会催生马克思主义革命，列宁也支持这个立场。很多后来成为法西斯主义者的意大利马克思主义者，也支持墨索里尼的这个立场，包括Sergio Panunzio，A.O. Olivetti，Roberto Michels，Paolo Orano。托洛茨基在听说墨索里尼被逐出社会主义党之后说，意大利社会主义阵营失去了他们唯一的革命者。墨索里尼没有停止把自己看作左派。在被逐出意大利社会主义党到1922年向罗马进军之间，墨索里尼在1919年被称为“意大利的列宁”，因为法西斯主义者以工人的名义占领工厂。诗人、飞行员、法西斯主义的民间英雄之一的Gabriele d’Annunzio曾说，他支持的法西斯主义是一种拉丁化的国家布尔什维克主义。1920年代，墨索里尼表达了对列宁的仰慕，把苏联看作“斯拉夫法西斯主义”（Slav Fascism），同时共产国际主管布哈林（Comintern Chief Nicolay Bukharin）宣称，法西斯党比任何其他政党都更吸收和应用俄国革命的经验。在1926年的第六国际之前，法西斯主义都没有被看作是一种和共产主义竞争的意识形态。墨索里尼也说过，他以“法西斯主义战友”的身份欢迎斯大林。法西斯主义者公开猜测是否斯大林正在变成法西斯主义者。
墨索里尼之前的意大利总理Francesco Nitti在1927年的《布尔什维克主义，法西斯主义和民主》（Bolshevism, Fascism and Democracy）一书中写道：“如果在意大利没有了反对力量，法西斯主义会进一步演化成什么呢？考虑到当前的流行潮流，墨索里尼会变成共产主义者吗？他会突然回到原来的教义吗？”在同一本书里，Nitti还写道：“这两者之间几乎没有区别，在某种程度上，法西斯主义和布尔什维克主义是一回事。”他书里一章的标题就是“布尔什维克主义和法西斯主义完全一样”，这章的结论是：“在今天的意大利，人们对依附于莫斯科的共产主义者更容忍，超过对自由派（Liberals），民主派（democrats）和社会主义者的容忍。”Nitti并不是保守主义者，也不是右派政客，而他是一个受人尊敬的政治人物，也是法西斯主义的死敌，这使得他不得不逃离意大利。
牛津大学出版社1928年出版了哥伦比亚大学（Columbia University）Herbert Schneider教授的《建造法西斯国家》（Making the Fascist State）里写道，黑格尔信徒（Hegelian）和马克思信徒可能很快会发现，工会主义是社会主义和法西斯主义的组合，他指出一些社会主义者已经开始修改自己的理论。Sherwood Eddy在1933年的《法西斯主义和布尔什维克主义》（Fascism and Bolshevism）写道，法西斯的意大利和苏维埃的俄国有很多一样的地方。1928年，文学巨人、共产主义的辩护士萧伯纳（George Bernard Shaw）在《知识女性社会主义、资本主义、苏维埃主义和法西斯主义指南》（The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism & Fascism）里指出，共产主义和法西斯主义造成类似的改变，法西斯主义好过自由主义（Liberalism）。
作为马克思主义的朋友的法西斯（不是纳粹）
1922年法西斯主义工会的主要组织者是Edmondo Rossoni，他是佛罗伦萨大学（University of Florence）的教授，在他1936年的《在法西斯主义的斧头之下》（Under the Axe of Fascism）一书中这样描述墨索里尼，他已经成为“极端左派的革命派社会主义者。他已经成为美国的‘世界工业工人革命工会’的军事人物。”和 Nitti一样，Rossoni在法西斯当政初期离开了意大利。与Rossoni相反，Kemechy是墨索里尼的铁杆支持者。在1930年出版的《Il Duce: The Life and Work of Benito Mussolini》里，Kemechy怎么说墨索里尼呢？支持墨索里尼和法西斯主义的Kemechy说的，和同一时期反对墨索里尼也反对法西斯主义的人说的一样。他写道，墨索里尼是个社会主义者，列宁主义者，革命派。
在向罗马进军之后墨索里尼掌握权力，他就清晰传达了和苏联建立友好关系的愿望，动作比希特勒还快。在向罗马进军的1922年，Mussolini对众议院（Chamber of Deputies）宣称，意大利不需要害怕苏联。1931年，当时一名美国保守派共和党参议员的儿子Alfred Bingham访问了意大利和苏联，墨索里尼对他说“法西斯主义和共产主义是一回事。”1938年，Dorothy Thompson说了几乎相同的话，她认为共产主义和法西斯主义在意识形态上的争夺是虚张声势，在政府形式上，法西斯主义和共产主义几乎完全一样。她接着指出，政府作为终极的好是黑格尔和马克思发明的，法西斯主义直接继承了这一点。著名的苏联作家高尔基（Maxim Gorky）离开苏联后，在法西斯的意大利度过了大部分的1920年代。后来回到苏联以后，高尔基在莫斯科得到一幢大房子和一个别墅。
法西斯意大利和苏联有很好的商业关系。不仅如此，法西斯意大利还是苏联的一个主要军火供应国，特别是飞机和海军船只。1933年签订的苏联-意大利合约不仅仅是一个商业条约，而且是一个友好、互不侵犯和中立条约。法西斯的意大利和布尔什维克的苏联，不但在1933年签订了军事、外交和经济合约以限制希特勒，而且这个条约在两个专制国家都被正面宣传。当布尔什维克和纳粹签订了臭名昭著的宣布第二次世界大战开始的互不侵犯条约的时候，苏联外长莫洛托夫（Molotov）最初宣称布尔什维克和纳粹制定的新合约与布尔什维克几年前和意大利法西斯签订合约是一类事情，试图以此降低民主国家的担心。1937年 Freund写道，意大利和苏联的关系令人满意。Genevieve Tabouis在她1938年的《勒索和战争》（Blackmail or War）里说，基于墨索里尼对革命的过去的坚持，以及他对布尔什维克的同情，1934年他当即把苏联当作意大利的天然盟友。他尽一切可能对苏联政府说好话，甚至成功的让他的代表在英国首相Ramsey MacDonald之前拜访克里姆林宫。整个意大利宣传机器都赞美莫斯科，传达对列宁的理念和手段的同情，而共产主义俄国建立初期，曾使用了非道德的压制和暴力逼迫。后来的书里，Tabouis指出墨索里尼本人在《Popolo d’Italia》上匿名发表了一篇文章，宣称要联合两个伟大的革命－－法西斯主义革命和布尔什维克革命。Rauschning也在1938年指出，“不久前法西斯主义的领袖自己也得出结论，斯大林主义代表着布尔什维克主义发展成了一种法西斯主义。”
在反对纳粹上法西斯和布尔什维克的战斗友谊
法西斯和布尔什维克的友谊是互利性的。1934年7月15日在苏联官方报纸《消息报》（Izvestia）说，苏联和法西斯的意大利是好朋友。人们会说，专制体系之间的马基雅维里式的交易是很常见的。但几百万苏联人阅读的出版物声明“法西斯主义”不是布尔什维克主义的敌人有很大不同。
苏联和民主国家一道，正式谴责了法西斯对埃塞俄比亚（Ethiopia）的侵略。而在私下，布尔什维克的表现却是另一个样子。根据Henry Wolfe撰写的《帝国主义苏维埃》（The Imperial Soviets）一书，苏联给意大利军队提供了大量石油和战争资源，而且苏联和法西斯意大利的贸易关系非常协调。实际上，当法西斯意大利准备秋季对阿比西尼亚（Abyssinia）的战争的时候，40艘满载希腊货轮运载苏联的麦子、石油、煤、焦油、木材、大麦和燕麦支持墨索里尼的战争机器。Eugene Lyons在1941年指出，“苏联一直卖给意大利石油和谷物，同时假装反对意大利对俄赛俄比亚的入侵…”
一个有趣的事情是意大利内部的基督徒对阿比西尼亚战争的反应。一城一城的意大利人到教堂里向玛丽亚祷告停止这场战争，法西斯头子不知该如何制止基督徒发自良知的呼求。在把国家利益置于理念之上的现实政治（Realpolitick）上，布尔什维克、纳粹、法国人和英国人对法西斯帝国征服一个欠发展王国没有不同的道德判断。法西斯意大利内部的主流基督徒意见是坚持反对战争。尽管也有合作，天主教会因为法西斯主义的异教特质而强烈反对它，而随着墨索里尼和希特勒越走越近，天主教会对法西斯主义的敌意也逐渐加深。
在奥地利，法西斯主义准军事组织Heimwehr，和布尔什维克准军事组织Schutzbund在1930年代并肩战斗。前面已经说过，法西斯和布尔什维克都反对德国和奥地利的联合，它们一起阻止两国的合并。法西斯和布尔什维克都对纳粹的扩张方向表示忧虑－－向东和向南－－在这两个专制国家和纳粹达成交易之前，他们都尽力防止巴尔干国家成为德国的势力范围。即便在法西斯名义上反对布尔什维克的时候，他们也是很不情愿的，正如Dorothy Thompson指出，1937年10月意大利才签了反共产国际条约。晚到1941年，Eugene Lyons还描述“法西斯意大利和苏维埃俄国的紧密政治联系。”
法西斯主义在1944年的最后日子
意大利加入德国一方参加第二次世界大战之后，它的命运就和第三帝国连在一起了，也失去了显示独立的机会，除了抵抗纳粹对犹太人的迫害，意大利比任何其他“盟国”和德国占领地区坚持的都长。但是当“大法西斯议事会”（Grand Fascist Council）赶走墨索里尼，新意大利政府对德国宣战之后，墨索里尼得到了在残留的被称为Salo或意大利社会主义共和国的北意大利显示自己真实意识形态的机会。这个政权的宪法是由共产主义者、列宁的朋友Nicola Bombacci起草的。1944年2月，意大利社会主义共和国签署了“社会主义化企业的立法公告”，规定任何资产超过1百万里拉或雇员超过100人的私营企业，都要被一个管理人员和工人各占一半的委员会管理。这个公告出台之后，意大利社会主义共和国更加激烈的向左靠拢。1944年，墨索里尼赞美斯大林，并说如果非要让他选择哪个国家统治欧洲，他选择苏联。在墨索里尼和他的情妇被杀死之后，共产主义者Bombacci也被处决，他最后的话是：“墨索里尼万岁！社会主义万岁！”
法西斯主义，和布尔什维克主义、纳粹主义和毛主义等其他左派意识形态一样，只对权力感兴趣，不计代价，不择手段。最终，“法西斯主义者”被证明更像布尔什维克，而不是纳粹，尽管他们都相信权力超过其他任何东西。认为我们应该荒唐的相信墨索里尼这个终生的马克思主义者是马克思主义的敌人，或者墨索里尼这个厌恶希特勒和纳粹种族政策的人推崇纳粹德国（而实际上纳粹和法西斯几乎因为他们的不同而发生战争），是反思考的精英的无稽之谈。
任何时候有人要把你称为“法西斯”，提醒他们只有意大利人曾经自称“法西斯主义者”，而且他们把卡尔-马克思当作先知。提醒他们法西斯主义的头子在被行刑队枪决的时候，赞美马克思主义革命。然后告诉他们，这个家伙是个左派。
（原文）
If Nazis were allies as often as enemies of Bolsheviks, what was the relationship between Fascists and Bolsheviks? The pseudo-cognition of Sinisterism seldom talks about Nazis at all, but rather about "fascists" and these "fascists" are the mortal enemies of Bolsheviks, the polar ideological opposite of Marxism, and so on. This is not true. Benito Mussolini did not begin his political career as just a Marxist, but as a violent, revolutionary Marxist. Mussolini was not just a leading Leftist in Italy, he was one of the most important Communists in the world. In 1914, Mussolini organized "Red Week" which was aimed at causing a violent revolution against the corrupt capitalist world. Mussolini is often referred to by the name "Duce," which means "leader" - rather like Fuhrer in German or Vozd in Russian - and this is usually attributed to be a name given to him by the Fascists. This is not true. The moniker was given to him at a banquet given by Marxists after his release from prison for protesting the "imperialist" Italian war in Libya, at which one veteran socialist said: "From today you, Benito, are not only the representative of Romagna Socialists, but the Duce of all revolutionary Socialists in Italy!"
This Marxist Mussolini was the editor of Avanti! which was the leading Marxist periodical in Italy and one of the leading Marxists periodicals in the world. Although most biographies of Mussolini touch on that long period of his life, few also mention that Mussolini was at the same time editor of Utopia, the monthly intellectual journal of Italian Marxists. Mussolini did not quit being a Marxist. He was expelled from the Italian Socialist Party because he supported Italy intervening on the side of the Allied Powers and against the Central Powers in the Great War. Although historians can, and have, argued that this represented a movement by Mussolini to the mythical Right, there was a sharp fissure within the Left about whether or not it helped promote world proletariat revolution to support the war or to oppose it.
Actually, Mussolini was following, rather than leading, extreme Leftists in Italy. As Zeev Sternhell explains in The Birth of Fascist Ideology, on August 19, 1914, Alceste De Ambris, speaking from the platform of the Milanese Syndical Union (USM), attacked neutrality and urged going to the aid of France and Britain. He equated the Germans with reaction, and equated the French with the French Revolution. Mussolini dropped his neutrality at this time and began to publish Il Popolo d'Italia in November 1914, supporting entering the war on the allied side. When war was declared, Mussolini and other revolutionary syndicalist leaders volunteered for duty."
Even prior to Mussolini, Fascism was revolutionary syndicalism of the Left formed by dissidents and nonconformists of the Left. Fascism was Leftism before Mussolini was a Fascist. When Fascism coalesced into a national movement, it was a movement of the Left, not the Right. Although Mussolini did break from Marxism, he did not break with socialism. His objection to Marxism was that both Marx and Engels were Germans and that Marxism was a tool used to advance German and Bismarckian politics.
Moreover, Syndicalism did not develop in Italy, but in France, and it was a movement of the Left, not of the Right. As Roger H. Soltau writes in his 1930 book on French politics: "There remained some Socialist deputies who were not Syndicalist in their sympathies, and a few Syndicalists who did not vote for Socialist candidates, both parties maintained much the same tendencies, the destruction by revolutionary methods of the capitalist society, and the entire elimination of political frontiers by the international action of the proletariat." This friendship directly affected the relationship between Syndicalists (the forerunners of Fascists) and Bolsheviks: after the Bolshevik junta against the democratically elected revolutionary government that overthrew the Tsars, the Syndicalists actively opposed French intervention against the Bolsheviks in Russia. Indeed, the party conflicts within Syndicalism were between the "Red Communists" of the cities of France and the "Green Communists" of the countryside. This overlap between Fascists and Bolsheviks extended even to the Russian Fascist Party, which formed in Harbin, China during the 1930s; but whose leader, Konstantin Rodzaevsky later converted to Stalinism) said: "Stalinism…is our Russian Fascism cleansed of extremes, illusions and errors."
Trotsky supported Mussolini over Lenin
Leon Trotsky, who was considered by Stalin to be too far to the Left, supported the position taken by Mussolini (that the Great War would facilitate the Marxist revolution) and Vladimir Lenin also supported this view. Many Italian Marxists, who later became Fascists, also supported this position by Mussolini, including Sergio Panunzio, A.O. Olivetti, Roberto Michels and Paolo Orano. Trotsky, when he learned of the expulsion of Mussolini, said that Italian Socialists had lost their only true revolutionary. Mussolini did not stop considering himself a Leftist. During the years between his expulsion from the Italian Socialist Party and his March on Rome in 1922, Mussolini was called in 1919 the "Lenin of Italy" for Fascist occupation of factories on behalf of the workers. One of the folk heroes of Fascism was the poet and pilot Gabriele d'Annunzio, who said that what he was supporting in Fascism was a form of Latinized National Bolshevism. In the 1920s, Mussolini expressed admiration for Lenin and saw the Soviet Union as having "Slav Fascism," and Comintern Chief Nicolay Bukharin in turn noted that the Fascist Party, more than any other party, adopted and applied the experiences of the Russian Revolution. Fascism was not even seen as a competing ideology with Communism until the Sixth International in 1926. Mussolini, in return, remarked that he welcomed Stalin as a "fellow-Fascist." Fascists openly wondered whether Stalin was evolving into a Fascist.
Francesco Nitti, Prime Minister of Italy before Mussolini, wrote in his 1927 book, Bolshevism, Fascism and Democracy: "If there is no longer any opposition in Italy, what further transformations has Fascism in store for us? Will Mussolini yet become a Communist, in view of possible currents of popular feeling? Will he perhaps suddenly revert to his original tenets?" and he writes in the same book of Fascism and Bolshevism: "There is little difference between the two, and that, in certain respects, Fascism and Bolshevism are the same" and, indeed, an entire chapter of that book entitled "Bolshevism and Fascism are Identical," that includes the following: "In Italy today one finds that greater tolerance is shown toward Communists affiliated with Moscow than to Liberals, democrats, and Socialists." Nitti was not a conservative or Right Wing politician, insofar as those terms are used today: he was a leading Leftist in pre-war and post-war Italy, but he also was both a respected political figure and an implacable opponent of Fascism, which forced him to flee Italy
Professor Herbert Schneider of Columbia University in his 1928 book published by Oxford University Press, Making the Fascist State, wrote that it was possible that Hegelians and Marxists would soon discover that syndicalism is the synthesis of Socialism and Fascism, noting that some Socialists already were revising their philosophies. Sherwood Eddy wrote of Fascism and Bolshevism in 1933 that Fascist Italy and Soviet Russia had many things in common. In 1928, George Bernard Shaw, literary giant and apologist for communism, noted in his book, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism & Fascism, that Communism and Fascism produced similar changes and that Fascism was better than Liberalism.
The Fascists (not the Nazis) as friend of Marxism
The chief organizer of Fascist labor unions in 1922 was Edmondo Rossoni who, as a professor in the University of Florence, described Benito Mussolini in the 1936 book, Under the Axe of Fascism, had been a "revolutionary Socialist of the extreme left. He had been a militant of the revolutionary-Syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World in the United States." Rossoni, like Nitti, left Italy early in the Fascist reign. Kemechy, by contrast, was an unapologetic apologist for Mussolini. So what does Kemechy have to say about Mussolini in his 1930 book, Il Duce: The Life and Work of Benito Mussolini? Kemechy, the pro-Mussolini and pro-Fascist, says the same things that anti-Fascist and anti-Mussolini writers at the same time were saying. Kemechy writes that Mussolini was a Socialist and a Leninist and a revolutionary.
When in power, after the March on Rome, Mussolini moved even more quickly than Hitler to make it clear that he desired friendly relations with the Soviet Union. In 1922, the year of the March on Rome, Mussolini declared to the Chamber of Deputies that Italy had nothing to fear from the Soviet Union. In 1931, when Alfred Bingham, then the son of a conservative Republican Senator in the United States, visited Mussolini, having traveled both to Russia and to Italy, Mussolini informed him "Fascism is the same thing as Communism." In 1938, Dorothy Thompson wrote almost exactly the same thing, when she wrote that the Communists and Fascists were fighting a phony struggle of ideals and that the forms of governments of Fascists and Communists were almost the same and she goes on to note that the State as the ultimate good was invented by Hegel and Marx, and that Fascism was derived directly from this. Maxim Gorky, the famous Soviet writer, left the Soviet Union and spent most the 1920s in Fascist Italy. When he later returned, Gorky was given a large home in Moscow as well as a dacha.
Fascist Italy and the Soviet Union had good commercial relations. Not only that, but Fascist Italy was a major supplier of arms to the Soviet Union, particularly aircraft and naval vessels. The Russo-Italian Treaty of 1933 was not simply a commercial agreement, but a treaty of friendship, non-aggression and neutrality. Not only did Fascist Italy and Bolshevik Russia sign military, diplomatic and economic accords in 1933 to help contain Hitler, but this was punctuated by favorable press reports in the totalitarian nations. When the Bolsheviks and Nazis first signed their infamous non-aggression pact which began the Second World War, Molotov initially tried to allay the fears of the democracies by noting that this new agreement between the Bolsheviks and Nazis was essentially the same as the agreement that the Bolsheviks had made with the Fascists years earlier. In 1937, Freund wrote that Italy's relations with Soviet Russia were satisfactory. Genevieve Tabouis notes in her 1938 book, Blackmail or War, that Mussolini in 1934, in fidelity to his revolutionary past and sympathy with Bolshevism, quickly turned to the Soviet Union as a natural ally of Italy. He did all possible to be on good terms with the Soviet government, even managing to get his representatives to the Kremlin before British Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald. The whole Italian press corps sang hymns of praise to Moscow, expressed its sympathy for the ideology of Lenin; the methods of which, during that period when the new Russia was being formed, likewise involved amoral pressure and physical coercion. Later in her book, Tabouis notes that Mussolini himself wrote a thinly anonymous article in the Popolo d'Italia in which spoke of the joining of two great revolutions, Fascist and Bolshevik. Rauschning also noted in 1938 "It is not long since the leader of Fascism himself arrived at the conclusion that Stalinism represented the development of Bolshevism into a sort of Fascism."
The budding friendship between Fascists and Bolsheviks against Nazis
This Fascist friendship for Bolsheviks was reciprocated. On July 15, 1934 Izvestia, the official newspaper of the Soviet Union, noted that the Soviet Union and Fascist Italy were good friends. One may argue that Machiavellian machinations among totalitarian systems are normal. But the publication for millions of Soviet citizens to read a statement that "Fascism" was not considered the official enemy of Bolshevism is something different.
The Soviet Union, like the democracies, formally condemned the Fascist Invasion of Ethiopia. Privately, the Bolsheviks acted differently. During the Ethiopian War, as Henry Wolfe writes in his 1940 book, The Imperial Soviets, Russia supplied the Italian army with huge quantities of oil and also with war material, and Wolfe notes that Soviet trade relations with Fascist Italy were very cooperative. In fact, as Fascist Italy prepared for war against Abyssinia that autumn, forty Greek freighters brought Soviet wheat, petroleum, coal, tar, timber, barley and oats for Mussolini's war machine. Eugene Lyons noted in 1941 "it [the Soviet Union] had continued to sell oil and grain to Italy while pretending to oppose Ethiopian aggression…"
An interesting aside is the reaction within Italy by Christians to the Abyssinian War. Whole towns in Italy flocked to churches imploring the Virgin Mary to stop the war, and the Fascist leadership was at its wit's end on how to stop this appeal to Christian conscience. Realpolitick, whether by the Bolsheviks, by the Nazis, by the French or by the British was morally indifferent to the Fascist imperial conquest of another more primitive empire. Christian popular opinion within Fascist Italy was seriously opposed to the war. The Catholic Church was also strongly opposed to Fascism, despite a façade of cooperation, because of the paganism of Fascism, and this hostility increased the closer that Mussolini turned to Hitler.
In Austria the Heimwehr, the Fascist paramilitary group, and the Schutzbund, the Bolshevik paramilitary group, fought side by side in the 1930s. As noted earlier, both the Fascists and the Bolsheviks opposed the union of Germany and Austria and worked together to prevent that Anschluss. The Fascists and the Bolsheviks both fretted about the direction of Nazi expansion - east and south - and tried to prevent Balkan states from falling under the influence of Germany before those two other totalitarian states had reached an understanding with the Nazis. Even when the Fascists nominally were aligned against the Bolsheviks, it was with great reluctance, as Dorothy Thompson noted in October 1937, that the Italians signed the anti-Comintern pact. As late as 1941, Eugene Lyons wrote of the "strong political bonds between Fascist Italy and Soviet Russia."
The last days of Fascism in 1944
After Italy entered the Second World War on the side of Germany, its fate was tied to the Third Reich and it had little chance to show its independence - other than resisting, for a much longer time than other "allies" of Germany or occupied territories, the Nazi persecution of Jews. But after the Grand Fascist Council fired Mussolini and the new Italian government declared war on Germany, Mussolini had a chance to show his true ideological colors in the rump state in northern Italy called Salo or the Italian Socialist Republic. The constitution of this odd polity was written by Nicola Bombacci, a Communist and a friend of Lenin. In February 1944, Salo issued a "Legislative Decree for the Socialization of Enterprises" which provided that all enterprises with capital of over one million lire or employed more than a hundred persons would be run by a committee composed of an equal number of management and workers. After that decree, Salo moved even more radically to the Left. In 1944, Mussolini praised Stalin and said that if he had to choose which nation should dominate Europe, it would be the Soviet Union. Bombacci, the Communist, who was executed after Mussolini and his mistress were killed, shouted as his last words: "Long live Mussolini! Long live Socialism!"
Fascism, like its siblings on the Left, Bolshevism, Nazism and Maoism, lusted only after power – at all costs and by all means – in the end, the "fascists" proved less like the Nazis and more like the Bolsheviks, although none of those believed in anything greater than power. It is a fable of our anti-thought elite that we should absurdly consider Mussolini (a lifelong Marxist) as the enemy of Marxism or that Mussolini (who loathed Hitler and Nazi
racial polities) as endorsing Nazi Germany, which Nazis and Fascists nearly went to war because of the differences.
Anytime someone tries to smear you with "fascism," remind them that the only people who ever called themselves "fascists" lived in Italy and thought Karl Marx was a prophet. Remind them that the leader of fascism died before a firing squad praising the Marxian revolution. Then suggest that this mean was Leftist.
选择“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
选择“don't run on pages on this domain”
