Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T11:33:10.603Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Institutionalisation of Squadrismo: Disciplining Paramilitary Violence in the Italian Fascist Dictatorship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2013

MATTEO MILLAN
MATTEO MILLAN*
Affiliation:
Università degli Studi di Padova, Via Tiziano Minio 30/ter, 35134 Padua, Italy; matteo.millan@gmail.com, matteo.millan@unipd.it
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues that squadrismo represented a central feature in the ideology and politics of Fascist Italy, influencing the whole period of the dictatorship. In the second half of the twenties, many squadristi became political prisoners, accused of being ‘bad Fascists’: it looked like the end of squadrismo. Despite punishments and (brief) periods of imprisonment, the squadristi actually continued to play an important part in the fascistisation of Italian society, in particular during the intransigent 1930s. By disciplining the blackshirts while continuing to make use of their particular skills, Fascism hoped to ‘tame the revolution’.

L'institutionnalisation du squadrismo: comment la violence paramilitaire a été domptée sous la dictature fasciste en italie

Cet article montre que le squadrismo constitue un élément incontournable de l'idéologie et de la politique de l'Italie fasciste, dont l'influence a perduré tout au long de la période de la dictature. Dans la seconde moitié des années vingt, de nombreux squadristi ont été accusés d'être de ‘mauvais fascistes’ et sont devenus des prisonniers politiques: le squadrismo semblait donc enterré. Mais malgré des sanctions et de (brèves) périodes de prison, les squadristi ont en fait continué de jouer un rôle déterminant dans la fascisation de la société italienne, notamment durant la période d'intransigeance des années trente. En sanctionnant les chemises noires tout en ayant recours à leurs compétences particulières, le régime fasciste espérait ‘dompter la révolution’.

Die institutionalisierung des squadrismo: die disziplinierung paramilitärischer kampfbünde im italienischen faschismus

Der Autor dieses Beitrags vertritt die These, dass der Squadrismo ein zentraler Bestandteil der faschistischen Ideologie und Politik in Italien war, der die Diktatur während ihrer gesamten Dauer beeinflusste. In der zweiten Hälfte der zwanziger Jahre wurden viele Squadristi als politische Gefangene inhaftiert und beschuldigt, ‘schlechte Faschisten’ zu sein: Der Squadrismo schien am Ende zu sein. Trotz Bestrafung und (kurzfristiger) Inhaftierung spielten die Schwarzhemden allerdings bei der Faschistisierung der italienischen Gesellschaft weiterhin eine wichtige Rolle, insbesondere als sich die Fronten in den dreißiger Jahren verhärteten. Von ihrer Strategie, die Squadristi zu disziplinieren und zugleich deren besondere Fähigkeiten weiterhin gezielt für ihre Zwecke zu nutzen, versprach sich die faschistische Diktatur letztendlich eine ‘Zähmung der Revolution’.

Type
Paramilitary Violence in Italian Fascism: A Discussion
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , November 2013 , pp. 551 - 573
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Conti, Ettore, Dal taccuino di un borghese (Milan: Garzanti, 1946), 342Google Scholar. See also De Felice, Renzo, Mussolini il fascista, i: La conquista del potere (1921–1925) (Turin: Einaudi, 1981), 585Google Scholar.

2 Mussolini, Benito, Omnia, Opera, vol. XVI, Dal Trattato di Rapallo al primo discorso alla Camera: 13 novembre 1920–21 giugno 1921 (Florence: La Fenice, 1955), 241 (3 Apr. 1921)Google Scholar.

3 See Aquarone, Alberto, ‘Violenza e consenso nel fascismo italiano’, Storia contemporanea X, 1 (1979), 145–55Google Scholar; Gentile, Emilio, Storia del Partito fascista: 1919–1922: Movimento e milizia (Rome: Laterza, 1989), ch. 7Google Scholar; Ben-Ghiat, Ruth, ‘Unmaking the Fascist Man: Masculinity, Film and the Transition from Dictatorship’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 10, 3 (2005), 341CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reichardt, Sven, Camicie nere, camicie brune: Milizie fasciste in Italia e in Germania (Bologna: il Mulino, 2009)Google Scholar; Reichardt, Sven, ‘Fascismo e teoria delle pratiche sociali: Violenza e comunità come elementi di un concetto praxeologico di fascismo’, Storiografia 12 (2008)Google Scholar. Reichardt's innovative study refers explicitly to Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus: cf. Bourdieu, Pierre, Practical Reason (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), Book 1, ch. 3Google Scholar.

4 Mosse, George L., Masses and Man: Nationalist and Fascist Perceptions of Reality, 2nd edn (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), 174, 195Google Scholar. See also Lyttelton, Adrian, ‘Fascism in Italy: The Second Wave’, Journal of Contemporary History 1, 1 (1966), 75–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lyttelton, Adrian, The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy, 1919–1929, 3rd edn (London: Routledge, 2004)Google Scholar, ch. 11; Gentile, Emilio, La via italiana al totalitarismo: Il partito e lo Stato nel regime fascista (Rome: Carocci, 2001), ch. 5Google Scholar; Reichardt, Camicie nere, 20; Kallis, Aristotle A., Fascist Ideology: Territory and Expansionism in Italy and Germany, 1922–1945 (London: Routledge, 2000), 93Google Scholar; Paxton, Robert O., The Anatomy of Fascism (London: Allen Lane, 2004), 56–8, 131–3Google Scholar.

5 Baranhy, George, ‘The Dragon's Teeth: The Roots of Hungarian Fascism’, in Sugar, Peter F., ed., Native Fascism in the Successor States, 1918–1945 (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 1971), 76–9Google Scholar. See also Mann, Michael, Fascists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 257–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the importance of paramilitary networks in Hungary see also Gerwarth, Robert, ‘The Central European Counter-Revolution: Paramilitary Violence in Germany, Austria and Hungary after the Great War’, Past and Present, 200, 1 (2008), 175–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Passmore, Kevin, ‘Boy Scouting for Grown-Ups? Paramilitarism in the Croix de Feu and the Parti Social Français’, French Historical Studies, 19, 2 (1995), 532Google Scholar. See also Passmore, Kevin, From Liberalism to Fascism: The Right in a French Province, 1928–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 229–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Soucy, Robert, ‘French Fascism and the Croix de Feu: A Dissenting Interpretation’, Journal of Contemporary History, 29, 1 (1991), 159–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 See Irvine, Willian, ‘Fascism in France: The Strange Case of the Croix de Feu’, Journal of Modern History, 63, 2 (1991), 275)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wardhaugh, Jessica, In Pursuit of the People: Political Culture in France, 1934–39 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, 68–71.

8 Passmore, ‘Boy Scouting for Grown-Ups?’, 552–6.

9 Gallo, Max, The Night of Long Knives: June 29–30 1934: Hitler's Purge of the SA (New York: Harper and Rowe, 1972)Google Scholar; Hohne, Heinz, Mordsache Röhm: Hitlers Durchbruch zur Alleinherrschaft 1933–1934 (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Spiegel-Buch, 1984)Google Scholar; Bessel, Richard, ‘Political Violence and the Nazi Seizure of Power’, in Bessel, Richard, ed., Life in the Third Reich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 133–7Google Scholar; Gritschneder, Otto, Der Führer hat Sie zum Tode verurteilt . . . (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1993)Google Scholar; Evans, Richard, The Third Reich in Power, 1933–1939 (London: Allen Lane, 2005), 33–52Google Scholar.

10 Jones, Nigel H., Hitler's Heralds: The Story of the Freikorps 1918–1923 (London: John Murray, 1987), 248Google Scholar.

11 Bosworth, R. J. B., Mussolini's Italy: Life under the Dictatorship, 1915–1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2005), 207–11Google Scholar; Bosworth, R. J. B., ‘Everyday Mussolinism: Friends, Family, Locality and Violence in Fascist Italy’, Contemporary European History, 14, 1 (2005), 23–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 See especially Felice, De, La conquista del potere; Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il fascista, ii: L'organizzazione dello stato fascista (1925–1929) (Turin: Einaudi, 1968)Google Scholar; Aquarone, Alberto, L'organizzazione dello Stato totalitario (Turin: Einaudi, 1965)Google Scholar.

13 Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo; De Grazia, Victoria, The Culture of Consent: Mass Organization of Leisure in Fascist Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Palla, Marco, ‘I fascisti Toscani’, in Mori, Giorgio, ed., Storia d'Italia: Le regioni dall'Unità a oggi. La Toscana (Turin: Einaudi, 1986), 453–528Google Scholar; Palla, Marco, ‘Lo Stato-Partito’, in Palla, Marco, ed., Lo Stato fascista (Milan: La Nuova Italia, 2001), 1–78Google Scholar; Lupo, Salvatore, Il fascismo: La politica in un regime totalitario (Rome: Donzelli, 2005)Google Scholar; Albanese, Giulia, La marcia su Roma (Rome: Laterza, 2006)Google Scholar; Corner, Paul, ‘Everyday Fascism in the 1930s: Centre and Periphery in the Decline of Mussolini's Dictatorship’, Contemporary European History, 15, 2 (2006), 195–222CrossRefGoogle Scholar and The Fascist Party and Popular Opinion in Mussolini's Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

14 Lupo, Il fascismo, 5.

15 Gentile, Emilio, Il mito dello Stato nuovo: Dal radicalismo nazionale al fascismo (Rome: Laterza, 2002), 29–30Google Scholar; Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo, 140–1.

16 Pinto, António Costa, ‘Elites, Single Parties and Political Decision-Making in Fascist-Era Dictatorships’, Contemporary European History, 11, 3 (2002), 442–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kallis, Aristotle A., ‘The “regime-mode” of Fascism: A Typology’, European History Quarterly, 30, 1 (2000), 77–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Morgan, Philip, ‘“The Trash Who are Obstacles in Our Way”: The Italian Fascist Party at the Point of Totalitarian Lift-Off, 1930–1931’, English Historical Review, CXXVII, 525 (2012), 303–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 There is a large literature on squadrismo prior to the March on Rome. Among the most important contributions are: Tasca, Angelo, Nascita e avvento del fascismo: L'Italia dal 1918 al 1922 (Florence: La nuova Italia, 1950)Google Scholar; Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power; Gentile, Storia del Partito fascista; Franzinelli, Mimmo, Squadristi: protagonisti e tecniche della violenza fascista, 1919–1922 (Milan: Mondadori, 2003)Google Scholar; Reichardt, Camicie nere.

18 Fabbri, Fabio, Le origini della guerra civile: L'Italia dalla grande guerra al fascismo (1918–1921) (Turin: Utet Libreria, 2009), 615–36Google Scholar.

19 Albanese, La marcia su Roma.

20 Agostino Lanzillo, ‘Esame dei nuovi compiti’, Il Popolo d'Italia, 10 Nov. 1922. See also Bonomi, Ivanoe, Dal socialismo al fascismo: La sconfitta del socialismo, le crisi dello Stato e del Parlamento, il fascismo (Rome: Formiggini, 1924), 154Google Scholar, and Mussolini's own speeches, e.g. Mussolini, Benito, Opera Omnia, vol. XIX (Florence: La Fenice, 1966), 334 (25 July 1923)Google Scholar.

21 Salvatore Lupo, Il fascismo, 129. Compare the rival interpretations of De Felice and Aquarone: De Felice, La conquista del potere, 436–8; Aquarone, Alberto, L'organizzazione dello Stato totalitario (Turin: Einaudi, 1965), 18Google Scholar.

22 Morgan, Philip, Italian Fascism, 1919–1945 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995), 68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power, 232.

24 Central State Archive (Archivio centrale dello stato, ACS), Ministero dell'Interno, Direzione generale di pubblica sicurezza (DGPS), Ufficio confino politico, fascicoli personali (hereafter CP), 646, file on Umberto Maurelli, 12 Apr. 1929, local carabinieri to the Milan questore (chief of police).

25 CP 459, file on Antonio Gaspardo, 8 Oct. 1927, carabinieri to the Genoa Questore. The Prefect of Milan was of the same opinion: Ivano Granata, ‘Il Partito nazionale fascista a Milano tra “dissidentismo” e “normalizzazione” (1923–1933)’, in Maria Luisa Betri and Alberto De Bernardi, eds, Il fascismo in Lombardia (Milan: Angeli), 20–32. On the political impact of (ostensibly) non-political violence see Conway, Martin and Gerwarth, Robert, ‘Revolution and Counter-Revolution’, in Bloxham, Donald and Gerwarth, Robert, eds, Political Violence in Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 141–2Google Scholar.

26 Ben-Ghiat, ‘Unmaking the Fascist Man’, 341; Duggan, Christopher, Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy (London: Bodley Head, 2012), 171–3Google Scholar. Cf. Staub, Ervin, ‘The Psychology of Bystanders, Perpetrators and Heroic Helpers’, in Newman, Leonard S. and Erber, R., eds, Understanding Genocide: The Social Psychology of the Holocaust (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 11–42Google Scholar.

27 Ebner, Michael R., Ordinary Violence in Mussolini's Italy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 4, 14Google Scholar; Kallis, Aristotle A., ‘Fascism, Violence and Terror’, in Bowden, Brett and Davis, Michael T., eds, Terror: from Tyrannicide to Terrorism (St. Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 2008), 193–4Google Scholar; Corner, Paul, ‘Italian Fascism: Whatever Happened to Dictatorship?’, Journal of Modern History, 74, 2 (2002), 325–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, 109–10.

28 See De Grand, Alexander J., Italian Fascism: Its Origins and Development, 3rd edn (Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 44Google Scholar.

29 On Turati and Farinacci as PNF secretaries see Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo; Lupo, Il fascismo; Corner, ‘Everyday Fascism’; Morgan, ‘“The Trash Who are Obstacles in Our Way”’, 305–8. See also Morgan, Philip, ‘Augusto Turati’ and Fornari, Harry D., ‘Roberto Farinacci’, in Cordova, F., ed., Uomini e volti del fascismo (Rome: Bulzoni, 1980), 475–519, 213–43Google Scholar.

30 Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo, 177. See also Corner, ‘Everyday Fascism’, 197–9; Woolf, S. J., Fascism in Europe (London: Methuen, 1981), 52–4Google Scholar; De Grand, Italian Fascism, 72–5.

31 De Felice, L'organizzazione dello Stato fascista, 200–10.

32 Musci, Leonardo, ‘Introduzione’, in Pont, Adriano Dal and Carolini, Simonetta, eds, L'Italia al confino: Le ordinanze di assegnazione al confino emesse dalle Commissioni provinciali dal novembre 1926 al luglio 1943 (Milan: La pietra, 1983)Google Scholar. See also Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power, 86–7; Morgan, Italian Fascism, 82–4.

33 Renzo De Felice, L'organizzazione dello stato fascista, 208; Casa, Brunella Dalla, Attentato al duce: le molte storie del caso Zamboni (Bologna: il Mulino, 2000)Google Scholar.

34 Law no. 2318, of 31 December 1925, had empowered the government to amend statutes relating to public safety: see Ferrari, Francesco Luigi, Il regime fascista italiano (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1983), 142Google Scholar; Saija, Marcello, Autorita di vigilanza e magistrati nel confino politico di Lipari (Messina: Trisform, 2005), 14–15Google Scholar.

35 Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power, 247–8; Carucci, Paola, ‘L'organizzazione dei servizi di polizia dopo l'approvazione del Testo unico delle leggi di Pubblica sicurezza nel 1926’, Rassegna degli Archivi di Stato, 36, 1 (1976), 82–114Google Scholar; Corner, ‘Whatever Happened', 336–7; Saija, Autorità di vigilanza, 8; Ebner, Ordinary Violence, 1–22.

36 Poesio, Camilla, Il confino fascista: L'arma silenziosa del regime (Rome: Laterza, 2011)Google Scholar.

37 Circular from Bocchini to all Prefects, 8 Nov. 1926: Saija, Autorità di vigilanza, 7–8.

38 De Felice, L'organizzazione dello stato fascista, 213.

39 Circular from Mussolini to all Prefects, 6 Nov. 1926: Musci, ‘Introduzione’.

40 Circular from Mussolini to all Prefects, 5 Jan. 1927: De Felice, L'organizzazione dello stato fascista, 303.

41 See Kallis, ‘Fascism, Violence and Terror’, 197.

42 Salvati, Mariuccia, ‘La fascistizzazione del sistema giudiziario: Il caso Zamboni’, Italia contemporanea, 225 (2001), 677–81Google Scholar. Cf. also Canali, Mauro, Il delitto Matteotti: Affarismo e politica nel primo governo Mussolini (Bologna: il Mulino, 1997), 354–5Google Scholar; Gentile, Il mito dello Stato nuovo, 240–4; Gozzini, Giovanni, ‘La persecuzione degli oppositori politici’, in Chiappano, Alessandra and Minazzi, Fabio, eds, ‘Il paradigma nazista dell'annientamento: La Shoah e gli altri stermini’, in Atti del Quarto Seminario Residenziale sulla Didattica della Shoah, Bagnacavallo, 13–15 gennaio 2005 (Florence: La Giuntina, 2006), 99–108Google Scholar; Lupo, Il fascismo, 214–57.

43 The Archivio Centrale dello Stato contains 16,786 personal records of victims of internal exile. In the general inventory kept by the Associazione Nazionale Perseguitati Politici Italiani Antifascisti in Rome I found 213 names of Fascists exiled for reasons connected with squadrismo. I analysed the personal files of about 100 of these exiles, all them ex-squadristi. When selecting and analysing this material I paid particular attention to the widespread purges in some major north Italian cities, which were of national importance, namely Genoa (1927), Milan (1929) and Bologna (1934). In addition I looked at members of the squadrista association and at representative cases relating to minor local purges (Modena, Vicenza).

44 On the relationship between legality and legitimacy see Nieburg, H. L., Political violence: The behavioral process (New York: St. Martins, 1969)Google Scholar; Schmitt, Carl, Theory of the Partisan: Intermediate Commentary on the Concept of the Political (New York: Telos Press Pub., 2007), 81–6Google Scholar; Wood, John Carter, ‘Conceptualizing Cultures of Violence and Cultural Change’, in Carroll, Stuart, ed., Cultures of Violence: Interpersonal Violence in Historical Perspective (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 79–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Lupo, Il fascismo, 383; Granata, ‘Il Partito nazionale fascista a Milano’, 19; Corner, The Fascist Party, 69–71.

46 Cf. Corner, ‘Everyday Fascism’, 208.

47 ACS, Ministero dell'Interno, Direzione generale di pubblica sicurezza, Divisione Polizia Politica, Fascicoli personali (hereafter PP), 563, 23 Feb. 1934, criminal record of Federico Gaschi.

48 CP 459, file on Antonio Gaspardo, 5 Dec. 1927, Carabinieri to Chief of Police, Turin.

49 CP 64, file on Alfredo Barillari, 15 Nov. 1927, Prefect of Turin to Provincial Commission for Internal Exile.

50 CP 462, 17 Apr. 1929, Carabinieri to Provincial Commission.

51 CP 499, 16 Oct. 1931, file on Antonio Gozzi, Carabinieri to Provincial Commission. See also CP 462, file on Luigi Gatti, 17 Apr. 1929, Carabinieri of Milan to Carabinieri General Headquarters in Rome.

52 Cf. Swidler, Ann, ‘Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies’, American Sociological Review, 51, 2 (1986), 273–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 See Poesio, Il confino fascista, 146 n. 19. Cf. Pick, Daniel, Faces of Degeneration: A European Disorder, 1848–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Foucault, Michel, Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France 1974–1975 (London: Verso, 2003), 19Google Scholar. See also McLaren, Angus, The Trials of Masculinity: Policing Sexual Boundaries, 1870–1930 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 CP 21, file on Giuseppe Ambrosi, 6 Aug. 1934, Carabinieri to Provincial Commission; CP 499, file on Antonio Gozzi, 10 Sept. 1931, Prefect of Modena to DGPS; PP 563, 19 May 1931, Political Police to DGPS; CP 324, file on Aldo De Feo, Oct. 1927, Genoa Chief of Police to DGPS.

56 CP 617, file on Emiliano Marchesini, 29 Feb. 1936, Prefect of Bologna to Marchesini's family.

57 CP 1029, file on Luigi Trucchetti, 8 Oct. 1927, Turin Chief of Police to Prefect.

58 CP 648, file on Ugo Mazzacurati, 25 Aug. 1934, Perfect of Bologna to DGPS; CP 563, file on Federico Gaschi, 19 May 1931, Political Police to DGPS.

59 CP 317, file on Carlo Davoli, 12 Mar. 1941, Perfect of Foggia to DGPS; CP 91, file on Emilio Bentivoglio, 23 June 1931, Carabinieri to Provincial Commission.

60 Cf. Benadusi, Lorenzo, Il nemico dell'uomo nuovo: L'omosessualità nell'esperimento totalitario fascista (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2005), 264Google Scholar.

61 Reichardt, Camicie nere; Gerwarth, ‘The Central European Counter-Revolution’.

62 Cf. Ben-Ghiat, Ruth, Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922–1945 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2001), 19, 115–18Google Scholar.

63 Bellassai, Sandro, ‘The Masculine Mystique: Antimodernism and Virility in Fascist Italy’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 10, 3 (2005), 314–35 (p. 328)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 See Ben-Ghiat, ‘Unmaking the Fascist Man’, 340–2; Mosse, George L., The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), chs. 7 and 8Google Scholar; Bellassai, Sandro, La mascolinità contemporanea (Rome: Carocci, 2004), 91–2Google Scholar; Duggan, Fascist Voices, 113–27.

65 On masculinity and hegemony see Connell, Raewyn, Masculinities (Cambridge: Polity, 1995)Google Scholar; Tosh, John, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity and the History of Gender’, in Dudink, Stefan, Hagemann, Karen and Tosh, John, eds, Masculinities in Politics and War: Gendering Modern History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 41–58Google Scholar.

66 Cf. Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (London: Allen Lane, 1977), 274–5Google Scholar.

67 See e.g. CP 12, file on Giuseppe Ambrosi, 10 Sept. 1934 and 14 Aug. 1934, Ambrosi to Mussolini; CP 40, file on Giovanni Barberis, 9 Jan. 1928, Barberis to Mussolini; CP 64, file on Alfredo Barillari, 22 Nov. 1927, Barillari's mother to Mussolini; CP 499, file on Antonio Gozzi, 20 Jun. 1932, Gozzi to Mussolini; CP 617, file on Emiliano Marchesini, 14 Mar. 1936, Marchesini to Appeals Committee; CP 676, file on Gastone Missio, 13 Aug. 1927, Missio to Mussolini.

68 CP 113, file on Libero Biddau, 1 Sept. 1929, Biddau's mother to Rachele Mussolini; CP 784, file on Felice Pestoni, 3 Nov. 1927, Pestoni to Appeals Committee; CP 1102, file on Oscar Zulato, 9 Jul. 1931, Zulato to Appeals Committee

69 CP 228, file on Leone Cazzola, 6 Apr. 1931, Cazzola to Appeals Committee.

70 See, as instance, CP 1029, file on Luigi Trucchetti, 22 Sept. 1940, Trucchetti's parents to Mussolini; CP 324, file on Aldo De Feo, 6 Jan. 1928, De Feo to Mussolini; CP 784, file on Felice Pestoni, 27 Nov. 1927, Carabinieri to Perfect of Genova).

71 CP 646, file on Leopoldo Maurelli, 22 May 1929, Maurelli to Mussolini. See also Bosworth, ‘Everyday Mussolinism’, 33–4.

72 CP 617, no date, Marchesini's brothers to Mussolini (on Marchesini's trials see Cardoza, Anthony L., Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism: The Province of Bologna, 1901–1926, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982, 424–9)Google Scholar; CP 1102, file on Oscar Zulato, 1 Mar. 1932, Zulato to Mussolini.

73 CP 169, file on Giangaetano Cabella, 3 Nov. 1927, Cabella to Appeals Committee; CP 442, file on Macario Gadda, 1 July 1929, Gadda to Mussolini; CP 676, file on Gastone Missio, 13 Aug. 1927, Gastone Missio to Appeals Committee; CP 12, file on Ernesto Albini, 15 Aug. 1941, Ernesto Albini to Appeals Committee; CP 1001, file on Luigi Teruzzi, 11 Mar. 1939, Teruzzi to Appeals Committee.

74 PP, serie A, 17, 285, Gerardo Bonelli's trial records.

75 CP 499, 23 June 1931, Carabinieri to Provincial Commission; see also Ebner, Michael, ‘Dalla repressione dell'antifascismo al controllo sociale: Il confino di polizia, 1926–1943’, Storia e problemi contemporanei, 43 (2006), 81–104Google Scholar.

76 Corner, ‘Whatever Happened', 340; Palla, Marco, ‘“Fascisti di professione”: il caso toscano’, in Brezzi, Camillo, ed., Cultura e società negli anni del Fascismo (Milan: Cordani, 1987), 31–49 (pp. 34–7)Google Scholar.

77 Lupo, Il fascismo, 211; Palla, ‘Lo Stato-Partito’, 9. Cf. Kallis, Fascist Ideology.

78 Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power, 110; see also Corner, The Fascist Party, 69–71, 92–3, 105–6.

79 Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo, 180.

80 This discussion is based on Cifelli, Alberto, I prefetti del regno nel ventennio fascista (Rome: Scuola superiore dell'amministrazione dell'interno, 1999)Google Scholar. See Morgan, Philip, ‘The prefects and state-party relations in Fascist Italy’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 3, 3 (1998), 262CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the biographical sketches in Franzinelli, Squadristi, 175–275 and in Di Nucci, Loreto, Lo Stato-partito del fascismo: Genesi, evoluzione e crisi 1919–1943, (Bologna: il Mulino, 2009), 527, 550Google Scholar.

81 On these events in Florence see Palla, Marco, Firenze nel regime fascista 1929–1934 (Florence: Leo Olschki, 1978), 140–7Google Scholar; Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power, 233–5.

82 Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Archivi Fascisti, Segreteria particolare del Duce, Carteggio riservato (hereafter SPD, CR), 95, 2 Oct. 1935, Tamburini to Mussolini.

83 SPD, CR, 95, 29 July 1940, Tamburini to Mussolini.

84 Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo, 178.

85 Missori, Mario, Gerarchie e statuti del P. N. F.: Gran consiglio, Direttorio nazionale, Federazioni provinciali: quadri e biografie (Roma: Bonacci, 1986), 381Google Scholar.

86 Suzzi-Valli, Roberta, ‘The Myth of Squadrism in the Fascist Regime’, Journal of Contemporary History, XXXV, 2 (2000), 131–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

87 Morgan, ‘“The Trash Who are Obstacles in Our Way.”’

88 Corner, ‘Everyday Fascism’, 204–5; Granata, ‘Il Partito nazionale fascista a Milano’, 60–1; Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power, 250–1.

89 See Ciano, Galeazzo, Diary 1937–1943, tr. Miller, Robert (London: Heinemann, 2002), 279–80 (22 Sept. 1939)Google Scholar.

90 Canali, Mauro, Le spie del regime (Bologna: il Mulino, 2004), 340Google Scholar; Lorenzo Benadusi, Il nemico dell'uomo nuovo, 224–6.

91 CP 534, file on Giuseppe Innocente, 11 Feb. 1935, Innocente to Mussolini; CP 64, file on Barillari, 22 Nov. 1927, Barillari's mother to Mussolini.

92 See Matteo Millan, ‘L'essenza del fascismo: La parabola dello squadrismo tra terrorismo e normalizzazione (1919–1932)’, PhD thesis, Università degli Studi di Padova, 2011.

93 Ebner, Ordinary violence, 1–22.

94 Report by the MVSN officer Nicchiarelli, 4 Jan. 1930: Saija, Autorità di vigilanza, 216–20.

95 Ibid. 47. See also Ebner, ‘Dalla repressione dell'antifascismo al controllo sociale’, 92–94; Poesio, Camilla, Reprimere le idee, abusare del potere: La milizia e l'instaurazione del regime fascista (Rome: Aracne, 2010), 41–60Google Scholar.

96 CP 91, file on Emilio Bentivoglio, 11 May 1932, Bentivoglio to Mussolini.

97 CP 462, file on Luigi Gatti, 1 Jan. 1930, Mussolini to Ministry of the Interior.

98 Cf. Passerini, Luisa, Mussolini immaginario: Storia di una biografia 1915–1939, 2nd edn (Rome: Laterza, 1991), 69Google Scholar; see also Duggan, Fascist Voices, 85–112.

99 See Franzinelli, Squadristi; Griner, Massimiliano, La pupilla del duce: La Legione autonoma mobile Ettore Muti (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2004), 137, 222Google Scholar; Gagliani, Dianella, Brigate nere: Mussolini e la militarizzazione del Partito fascista repubblicano (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1999)Google Scholar; PP 209, file on Giangaetano Cabella, 17 Sept. 1940, report by an informant; ACS, Suprema Corte di Cassazione, II sezione penale, 1949, vol. 2, judgment 154, 1949 (Emiliano Marchesini); PP 69, file on Giuseppe Ambrosi, 23 and 25 Aug. 1944, report by an informant.

100 Cf. Knox, MacGregor, ‘Conquest, Foreign and Domestic, in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany’, Journal of Modern History, 56, 1 (1984), 1–57 (pp. 44, 57)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101 CP 499, file on Antonio Gozzi, 16 Oct. 1931, Carabinieri to Prefetto; CP 1029, file on Luigi Trucchetti, no date, biographical dossier.

102 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 277–9.

103 Cf. Corner, The Fascist Party; Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, 164–71.

104 On the relationship between Fascist ideology and Fascist practice, see Kallis, Fascist ideology, 57–60, 203–4. On the need to take a long-term view see Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, 52–4.

105 The distinction between ‘Fascism as movement’ and ‘Fascism as regime’ was first drawn by Renzo De Felice: De Felice, Renzo and Ledeen, Michael A., Intervista sul fascismo, 3rd edn (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1975), 99–106Google Scholar. On the persistence of the political style and mindset generated by squadrismo see Gentile, Il mito dello Stato nuovo, 29–30, 238–44. Cf. also Morgan, Philip, ‘Fascism in General, and Fascism in Particular’, Contemporary European History, 12, 1 (2003), 107–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kallis, ‘Fascism, Violence and Terror’, 204.