Response to Oreste Foppiani’s review of Mussolini and the Salò Republic, 1943–1945

Abstract

Oreste Foppiani, in his review of my book, Mussolini and the Salò Republic, 1943–1945: The Failure of a Puppet Regime, does not objectively evaluate my approach and focus, and the validity of my thesis. Rather, his analysis reveals a bias that is common to apologists of the regime, such as the well-known Italian historian Renzo De Felice. The purpose of my book is to focus on the civil, military, administrative, political, and social conditions of the Italian Social Republic (RSI) and an examination of its key figures. By shedding light on the internal struggles of the regime, I was in a position to analyse how radical fascists managed to take the Salò regime from dictatorship in Italy to a continental Nazifascismo. Mr Foppiani paid no attention to the above. In the effort to highlight his own interests, he continually introduced subjects that were not germane to my research, chastising me for not having included them in the book. Among these is his assertion that I should have written about such foreign policy issues as the secret armistice that Italy signed with the USA. Similarly, he wanted me to ‘dedicate a full chapter on [sic] the grand phenomenon of volontarismo’, which was, in his words, ‘ignited’ by the Decima Flottiglia MAS. Indeed, as I point out, volontarismo (which considers an act of will to be more important than a judgment based on intellect) was part and parcel of the Decima Flottiglia MAS creed. Instead of declaring that ‘this phenomenon is not well explained to the reader’, Mr Foppiani should have acknowledged my in-depth description of the activities of the Decima and its daredevil leader, Junio Valerio Borghese. As regards socializzazione, I have no idea what Mr Foppiani is talking about when he refers to my alleged use of the phrase ‘socialization of companies’, which appears nowhere in my book. He further claims that ‘the author has misunderstood the long-term effect and enduring model of revolutionary socialization (socializzazione)’. Wrong. I did not misunderstand socializzazione. Rather, I felt that a discussion of that phenomenon beyond 1943–1945, the period covered in the book, was irrelevant, and I chose not to peer into the future. JOURNAL OF MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES 2022, VOL. 27, NO. 5, 826–827 https://doi.org/10.1080/1354571X.2022.2110363