Towards Eurafrica! Fascism, Corporativism and Italy’s Colonial Expansion

Towards Eurafrica! Fascism, Corporativism and Italy’s Colonial Expansion Jens Steffek / Francesca Antonini (Technische Universität Darmstadt / Università degli Studi di Pavia) Draft chapter prepared for Ian Hall (ed.) Radicals and Reactionaries in Twentieth Century International Thought. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming 2015).

The nexus between imperialism and internationalism has made its way to the agenda of international studies in recent years. A good number of authors have shown that many of the proliferating world order proposals of the late 19th and early 20th century were at least inter alia an answer to the vexing colonial question; and that many of them stood in imperialist traditions of thought about the relations between a colonial motherland and its overseas dependencies (Bell 2007; Long and Schmidt 2005; Mazower 2009). Since international studies is predominantly an Anglo-Saxon discipline, most contributions to this emergent debate about imperialism and internationalism focus on the British Empire, and on British and (to a lesser extent) American versions of internationalism. Little attention has been paid in this context to world order proposals that originated from non-English speaking parts of the world. An almost complete void in this respect is fascist and national-socialist international thought (but see Mazower 2012). Fascist and national-socialist political doctrines became intellectual pariahs after the defeat of the axis powers in World War II and as the full dimensions of the holocaust and the war crimes committed in their name became clear. Historical research has shown that this was very different before the war. We know now how much interest Western economists had in the economic policies of Nazi-Germany and fascist Italy during the 1930s, and how well they were connected with their peers from

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those countries (Schulz-Forberg 2013). Western political reformers, among them the architects of the American New Deal, also looked with great interest to Italy and Germany. We also know now to what extent right-wing German political thought, in particular Carl Schmitt’s political theory, influenced the formation of American international relations (IR) theory after the war (Scheuerman 2007). At the time, there was far more dialogue across ideological frontlines than we might be inclined to expect in retrospect. In this chapter we would like to contribute to the re-discovery of internationalism beyond the Anglo-Saxon mainstream by taking issue with Italian fascism and its views on international relations and colonialism. We show that during the fascist period some Italian intellectuals and diplomats developed a distinct style of international theorizing, in which they suggested exporting corporativism, Italy’s domestic economic doctrine, to other parts of the world. The doctrine of corporativism, a purportedly new way of organizing statesociety relations beyond free-market liberalism and state socialism, also became pivotal in linking internationalism and colonialism in the Italian case. Not only did it allow Italian fascists to claim that their own colonialism was fundamentally different from the one of the Western empires. It also enabled them to make proposals for a new international order that could overcome the rivalries between Europe’s colonial powers by means of international organization of the colonies. Their support for ‘Eurafrica’, the economic integration of the European and African continents on a supranational basis, can illustrate this strategy. Eurafrica, however, was not a fascist invention but an ‘international idea’ that Italian fascists were able to take up and capitalise on. This chapter is organised as follows. In the next section we briefly introduce the ideology of Italian fascism, with an emphasis on the socio-economic doctrine of corporativism. The third part focuses on Italian fascist thought about colonialism and international relations. Quite central in this respect was the work of Giuseppe De Michelis,

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a high-ranking diplomat and arguably the most influential Italian thinker on these matters in the early 1930s. The fourth section of the paper therefore is dedicated to his writings. In the fifth section we then describe the rapid decline of fascist internationalism: the changed political climate of 1935/6 put indeed an end to the proliferation of plans for a more peaceful and cooperative development of the African continent under international supervision. In the concluding section we argue that Italian fascists developed quite a distinctive approach to international order by linking up their doctrine of corporativism to the colonial question and issues of international organization more generally. While this strand of international thought was certainly never representative of Italian fascism as a whole it nevertheless enjoyed considerable support in the first half of the 1930s.

Fascism, corporativism and colonialism The origins of the Italian fascist movement and its ideology are a topic that both historians and political scientists have discussed extensively. Generally speaking, as a political movement and distinctive (but never terribly coherent) school of political thought fascism arose in the aftermath of World War I. Italy had fought the war on the side of the allied powers and, despite the eventual military victory over the crumbling Hapsburg empire, the country found itself in a situation of great political and social instability at the end of it. During the so called biennio rosso (1919-20) Italy’s labour movement got stronger, the Socialist party gained great electoral consent and the supremacy of the middle class seemed to be at risk. With socialism on the advance, an alarmed bourgeoisie began to search for a political force that could restore the old order. At the same time, Italy’s old ruling class was unable to manage the quickly changing situation and the liberal representative system was becoming more and more unstable.

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The figure of the ex-socialist leader Benito Mussolini emerged on the scene in this tumultuous and difficult situation. In 1919 Mussolini founded a political and para-military movement, the fasci italiani di combattimento, later transformed into the National Fascist Party, whose target was a ‘national revolution’. What followed is well-known: already in 1921 fascists entered the Italian parliament. After the largely symbolic ‘march on Rome’ in October 1922 Mussolini was charged with forming a new government and began his transformation of the Italian state. With the approval of the leggi fascistissime (1925-6), following a crisis triggered by the assassination of the socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti in 1924, Mussolini’s regime was definitely established and became increasingly authoritarian (on the origins of the fascist regime cf. Vivarelli 1965-1990-2012; on its ideology Gentile 1975 and Sternhell 1994). The emergent ideology of Italian fascism was influenced by many different elements from the ‘left’ and ‘right’ side of the political spectrum. Originating from the conservative right was the arditismo that espoused ideas of ‘redeeming’ the war veterans who were disappointed with the provisions of the treaty of Versailles,1 as well as radicalised nationalist ideas; more to the ‘progressive’ side of the spectrum there was futurism, elements of ‘revolutionary syndicalism’, etc. Mussolini’s revision of his own socialist experience played a pivotal role in the definition of the fascist ideology and of its pursuit of a ‘re-foundation’ of Italian society. In some respects fascism could also be considered as a form of ‘political modernism’, namely an «ideology that accepts modernisation and believes to have the formula that gives men [...] “the power to change the world”.» (Gentile 1975: 40, n. 69 – all translations from the Italian are ours) From this point of view, particularly interesting is the reassessment of fascist political and economic issues by some intellectuals in the first half of the 1930s, and especially the reappraisal of the doctrine of corporativism

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(corporativismo), the socio-economic ‘third way’ that Italian fascism tried to find between free market liberalism and socialism. Corporativism was a core fascist doctrine whose aim was to overcome the class struggle and to establish a new socio-economic order based on the ‘corporations’, i.e. associations of employees, employers and professionals. It suggested a disciplining of labour relations and an economic system highly regulated and organised by the state. All branches of the economy were to be inserted into a centrally controlled system. The contrast between sweeping ideological statements and the sluggish realization of this doctrine, however, was enormous: while specific legislation was approved already in 1927 (cf. the so called Carta del lavoro), the concrete attempt of realising corporativism in practice occurred only in the 1930s and faced many obstacles. Nevertheless, the ideological discussions about the concept and purpose of corporativism were undeniably among the freest and most animated ones in the fascist era. Albeit rather vague and malleable, the doctrine of corporativism fulfilled an important function for the fascist regime: it helped make the claim that fascism had its own and distinctive economic ideology, and a convincing answer to the social question (cf. Santomassimo 2006, Stolzi 2007 and Gagliardi 2010).

International and universal aspects of fascism From the ideological point of view, since the end of the 1920s fascism claimed to be more than an Italian movement. As many fascist theoreticians maintained, fascism was not simply a political doctrine but an ‘ideal of life’, whose scope went beyond politics and its application was possible in every country (cf. for instance Nasti 1930; on the ‘universality’ of fascism cf. Ledeen 1972, Cuzzi 2006 and Cavarocchi 2010: 84-6). Fascism was hence ‘international’ and ‘universal’, as recalled by the titles of two rubrics of an influential fascist

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journal, Critica Fascista, directed by Giuseppe Bottai.2 In this context the reflections on corporativism were central: in the first half of the 1930s it became popular also outside Italy and was considered not only a terza via – that is as a socio-economic and political model alternative to capitalism and to socialism – but also as a possible way of placating the growing conflicts within and among nations, and to keep the peace. In this respect, two texts are emblematic. The first one is an article by Mario Gianturco, working for the information division of the International Labour Organization (ILO), entitled Funzione internazionale della corporazione (International function of the corporation). Taking the cue from the disappointing conclusions of the London Economic Conference of 1933, he describes the critical situation of European capitalism and states that every nation should turn to a form of state interventionism in order to get out of the crisis, following the example already set by the Italian fascist regime (Gianturco 1933: 407). Furthermore, only corporativism with its rejection of the class struggle was able to neutralise the increasing social and political conflicts and avert the danger of a new war. In this framework fascism owns therefore the «fatal imperialism of all the great ideas» and appears to be nothing less than the founding principle of a «new civilisation» (Gianturco 1933: 406). A similar train of thought can be found also in the work of Arnaldo Volpicelli, philosopher of law and one of the major ideologues of Italian corporativism. While analysing the meaning of the ‘universality of fascism’, he flags the crucial challenge of the time: how to combine state sovereignty with the necessities of supranational political coordination, necessary to avoid the risks of a new military conflict. In Volpicelli’s view, the diffusion of corporativism all over Europe was a «logical and necessary consequence of the historical situation» (Volpicelli 1934: 337): not only did fascist corporativism promise the most appropriate coordination of the national and international political levels, it also provided a valid alternative to the unsuccessful political and economic strategies of the

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League of Nations.3 Thus Volpicelli advertised corporativism (and consequently fascism) as a truly internationalist doctrine, with internationalism defined as «a synthesis and a simultaneous coexistence of international and national order» (Volpicelli 1934: 322). Moreover, the project of a ‘fascist international’ had also a practical implication. In 1934 the CAUR (Comitati d’azione per l’Universalità di Roma), a political organisation founded in 1933 and inspired by the thought of Asvero Gravelli, an important fascist party official and founder of the journal Antieuropa, organised an international congress in Montreux (Switzerland), aimed at gathering fascist movements from every part of the world in order to ‘globalise’ fascism and to fight against liberal democracy and communism (cf. Longo 1996 and Cuzzi 2005). However, even if this venture aroused a certain interest, the CAUR did not manage to elaborate a common theoretical platform and the project remained a dead letter; for the rest, new political priorities soon contributed to the definitive abandonment of the idea. Since about 1930 the debates about corporativism and the international aspects of fascism increasingly intermingled with the debate on colonialism and Italy’s alleged right to colonial territories. Since its emergence in the 1920s the fascist regime had longed for its own colonial empire. Besides consolidating its power over the existing Italian colonies (Libya, Somalia and Eritrea), Mussolini attacked and conquered Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935/6, and created the so called Africa Orientale Italiana (cf. Labanca 2002). Fascists claimed that their colonialism was substantially different from the colonialism of other European countries, in particular as far as exploitative, ‘capitalist’ practices were concerned. Italian colonial territories were expected to become settler colonies, where a large number of Italian emigrants could make a living, satisfying the longing for new territories of a ‘young’, demographically ‘oversaturated’ nation like Italy (cf. Bruni 1933). In this way, the

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regime aspired to solve the problem of domestic unemployment and to discourage people from migrating to foreign countries, in accordance with Mussolini’s policy since 1926.4 In the first half of the 1930s the possibility of applying corporativist ideas to the colonies became something like a hot topic among Italian intellectuals. A lively discussion took place that involved economic, juridical and political issues.5 A representative example for this type of debate is an article published in 1934 by a young and aspiring scholar, Italo Papini, entitled Corporativismo e colonie (Corporativism and colonies). After summarising the opinions of different experts, Papini states that, even if there were some difficulties due to the juridical and cultural primacy of the Italians over the native populations, the extension of corporative forms of social and political organization to a country like Libya (the most developed Italian colony) was highly desirable (Papini 1934). The same cautious but essentially positive conclusions can be found in the proceedings of the second Congress of colonial studies held in Naples in October 1934. The conclusion of the juridical session of the Congress stated indeed that the colonies, and especially Libya, «represent a special field of application of the syndacalist-corporative system.» (Congresso di studi coloniali 1934: 21) Even more interestingly, the colonial question constituted the point of departure for a more general application of the corporativist principle. Following on the necessity of a close collaboration between the motherland and the colonies, Gennaro Mondaini, one of the most important experts on Italian colonial policy, affirmed: «a colonial corporative policy [...] could be able [...] to open new horizons to the modern colonial organisation and to the colonial relationships between the nations. They are both struggling to adequate themselves to the new economic and moral needs and to the new political tendencies of people» (Mondaini 1934: 1005; on the figure of Mondaini cf. Carrattieri 2011). His approach points to an ‘internationalisation of colonies’, which is meant to be a possible

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solution to the global economic crisis of 1929 and to its consequences. The ‘great depression’ and its social and political aftermaths, he argued, were inextricably linked to the discussion on colonial corporativism: the African continent appeared to be the ‘lifeline’ of the unsteady European economy and the colonies were considered the starting point for an economic and political integration among the nations, as pointed out by the contemporary discussion on ‘Eurafrica’. In this period also other Italian authors dealt with such themes from different perspectives and put forward more or less feasible proposals, but they all shared the idea of a supranational, corporativist ‘solidarity’. For instance, Mario Govi, after describing the unequal distribution of population and natural resources, said that «all the countries subjected to the government of civil states [...] should be open to immigration and commerce without limitations» and hoped for the quick realisation of a «concrete internationalisation of colonies», that represents the unavoidable condition for the economic (but also intellectual and moral) progress of the nations (Govi 1930: 378-9). Erberto Casagrandi, another scholar, while dealing with the economic exploitation of the territories under mandates of type B, hoped for an «international collaboration, planned by the interested nations in order to get an economical utilisation and a white peopling of the African territories», while Mondaini, as said above, spoke of a «colonisation of international nature» and hinted at new forms of ‘association’ and ‘collaboration’ between the nations (Casagrandi 1934: 206; Mondaini 1934: 1004).6 All of them, however, referred directly or indirectly to the authority of the diplomat Giuseppe De Michelis, whose theory of the international coordination of the fundamental elements of the economy (land, labour, capital) represented a milestone in the discussion on colonial corporativism and on the possibility of the creation of a fascist, corporativist internationalism as well. In the next section we discuss the proposals that De Michelis made in some detail.

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De Michelis and the international governance of the colonies Giuseppe De Michelis (1872-1951) was an Italian diplomat and migration scholar who for many years represented Italy at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Geneva (cf. Ostuni 1990). His international career began early. Having studied medicine and jurisprudence at the University of Lausanne he worked for a couple of years as assistant at the Chair of hygiene at the University of Geneva. But already in 1904 he left academia to join the Swiss branch of the Italian Commissariato Generale dell’Emigrazione (CGE), a body in charge of the diplomatic protection of Italians abroad. De Michelis embarked on a remarkably steep career in the CGE and by 1919 was appointed its Commissioner General. In this function he negotiated a number of international agreements with European and extra-European countries to which Italians had migrated. In 1920 De Michelis began to represent the Italian government in the Administrative Council of the newly founded ILO and served as head of the Italian delegation to the International Labour Conference until 1936 (Liebscher 2009: 52-120). For a short period (1930-1931) he was also a delegate to the Assembly of the League of Nations (cf. Ostuni 1990 and Archivio Storico del Senato della Repubblica (ASSR), fascicolo personale n° 794). De Michelis is regarded as one of the most important intermediaries between Rome and the ILO, “who supported fascism and used their address books to achieve a common goal: keeping Italy within the group of nations which had signed the Washington Pact in 1919” (Gallo 2013: 160). Next to his diplomatic engagements, De Michelis was a prolific author of scholarly studies and pamphlets, most of them published by the institutions he was affiliated with. With regard to content, until the 1920s most of his writings tackled questions of labour law and migration (Allio 1973, Cannistraro and Rosoli 1979, Gallo 2008 and Ostuni 1978). In the 1930s he turned to more general problems of international politics and political

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economy, putting forward proposals for European integration and global corporativism (De Michelis 1931a, 1932).7 It was in this period of his life that De Michelis worked on a book-length study on the global application of Italy’s corporativist model, La corporazione nel mondo, which represents the arguably most elaborate statement of Italian fascist internationalism (De Michelis 1934b). Giuseppe De Michelis was at no point in time a central figure of the fascist regime but he served it in a number of notable functions. In 1924 he received the honorary membership in the fasci italiani all’estero, the foreign branch of the movement, and formally joined the fascist party in 1926 (ASSR, fascicolo personale n° 794: 14). Although certainly not a protégé, De Michelis must have been on reasonably good terms with Mussolini as he remained in office as head of the CGE after the fascist seizure of power and held this position until the body was dissolved in 1927 (Cannistraro and Rosoli 1979: 28-9, 39-40; on changes in fascist migration policy after 1926 see Collotti 2000: 137 ff.). During the 1920s he organised international conferences on behalf of the regime and represented fascist Italy abroad. In 1929, De Michelis was appointed Senator upon the proposal of the Minister of Corporations, Giuseppe Bottai. La corporazione nel mondo was published in Italian in 1934, with an English and French edition following suit (De Michelis 1935a, 1935b). It was clearly directed at an international audience. Like many other works in economics and political science published during the 1930s, World Reorganisation on Corporative Lines, as it was called in English, takes the experience of the Great Depression as a point of departure. The book was intended as a programmatic proposal to overcome the crisis by «establishing a form of organised economy on the international plane» (De Michelis 1935a: 236). The interest of the author in the topic, however, was not triggered by the Great Depression: De Michelis had made proposals for international economic «triangulation», as he preferred to call it, at diplomatic

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meetings already in the 1920s (De Michelis 1935a: 13). Some major arguments presented in the book were also subject of earlier publications (De Michelis 1931a, b).8 Although De Michelis repeatedly claimed that Italy’s practical experience with corporativism was his chief source of inspiration for the book, and his purpose in writing it not an academic one, he starts with a theoretical exposition of the need for coordinating economic activity within and beyond the state. The terms he uses for authoritative intervention into economic life vary, from co-ordination, regulation, rationalization to triangulation. Triangulation does not refer to threepartite structures of governance but to the coordinated use of three basic factors of economic production: «labour, nature and capital» (De Michelis 1935a: 26). If the coordination of the three factors fails an economy will face what he calls ‘maladjustments’. It is the task of politics to counter such maladjustments. De Michelis argues that the massive ‘maladjustments’ brought about by World War I and the Great Depression cannot be addressed by one state alone, even if many nations had tried that. The interdependence in the global market demands international cooperation to address the uneven distribution of labour, natural resources and capital across the globe. Only sustained international efforts at triangulation can bring these three resources fruitfully together. After the theoretical exposition of his argument De Michelis moves on to discuss the single factors of production, mustering all sorts of statistical data on countries and regions of the world that are included in a sizeable annex to the book. He diagnoses a mismatch between the massive concentration of the world’s population in some areas of Europe and Asia while other inhabitable lands remain almost void of human activity. International political intervention is required to re-distribute populations, so as to make more efficient use of natural resources and provide work for the unemployed masses. Yet the political situation was precarious with regard to the mobility of the labour force. De

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Michelis documents that international migration flows between overpopulated and sparsely populated areas had been blocked by World War I, and never fully recovered. This trend affected temporary labour migration as well as permanent re-settlement (De Michelis 1935a: 46). He therefore makes the case for new international agreements to facilitate labour mobility and to protect migrants. Raw materials were also a factor unevenly distributed across the globe. That they were subject to national jurisdiction, according to De Michelis, also led to misallocations and shortage problems. Countries were using scarce resources as political levers and provided access to them selectively. The colonial empires played a particular role in the problematic because the mother countries concluded preferential trade agreements with their colonies, discriminating against outsiders. De Michelis hence suggested that national sovereignty over natural resources should be limited and free access to them guaranteed. Yet the idea was not pursued consistently. He also cited international agreements concluded between France and Italy during World War I that established some form of bilateral barter trade, rather than free access to resources. Under these agreements (that De Michelis had in fact negotiated) France employed Italian workers in phosphate and coal mines, and Italy in return received certain guaranteed amounts of the materials produced. Such agreements «might form the basis of an organization aiming at the redistribution of population and of raw materials.» (De Michelis 1935a: 124) With regard to capital, World War I and the subsequent years of political turmoil and economic crisis had also interrupted the free flow of foreign direct investment. In particular Africa, De Michelis diagnosed, suffered from a lack of foreign capital to develop its productive capacities and to serve as a market for goods produced in the industrialised world. Again, his diagnosis is one of misallocation brought about by nationalist policies and mercantilist measures. As a remedy, De Michelis suggests international cooperation of

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institutions that facilitate access to credit for small enterprises and farmers. He cites some examples from Italy, such as the Istituto di credito per il lavoro italiano all’estero, which provided Italian migrants with start-up credit (De Michelis 1935a: 158; cf. also Ostuni 1978). As already indicated, the relationship between the colonies and the centres of industrial production in Europe were at the heart of the ‘triangulation’ of productive forces that De Michelis suggested. One of the major hindrances was the territorial division of the colonies by treating them as annexes to specific European states. For De Michelis, treating colonies as a reserve of the mother country and not opening them to exchange relations with other countries (or neighbouring colonies) was a double evil: it diminished both the welfare of the colonies and of the colonial powers. This called for a «more methodical and orderly revival of that colonising activity» (De Michelis 1935a: 143). The key idea of De Michelis was to transfer unemployed European workers to the colonies, in particular to Africa, where he saw vast uninhabited or sparsely inhabited areas suitable for European settlement. At the same time, he criticises colonial practices that led to displacement and exproprietation of native populations, and all forms of forced labour in the colonies. De Michelis already perceived the menace of de-colonialisation movements that rose in reaction to the «detestable exploitation for the benefit of the mother countries and to the injury of the natives» (De Michelis 1935a: 177). To counter such threats, the colonisers should respect and guarantee the property of land used by native populations, taking into account traditional forms of property and intermittent land use that are unfamiliar in Europe. «The economic conquest of Africa [...] which must in our opinion be the first fixed goal of a policy of co-operation and afterwards of union between European countries, is bound up with this fundamental necessity of protecting the native populations.» (De Michelis 1935a: 75)

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De Michelis’s humanitarian concern for the fate of native populations met with his technocratic optimism when he advanced measures to protect the claim to land by native groups. One of the most urgent measures to be implemented in Africa was a cadastral operation to map and register all land use and land claims in the territories. Such a measure would both protect the rights of native populations and deliver much-needed data for the scientific planning of land use and agricultural improvement, he suggested (De Michelis 1935a: 90). In a similar vein, he hailed ‘modern’ approaches of colonial administration, citing an attempt of the Belgian Labour Commission to scientifically determine the number of persons that could be employed in colonial projects without putting the sustainability of the native communities and their agriculture at risk (De Michelis 1935a: 71-2). Working on such scientific, statistical and administrative tasks to him was also an ideal field for international cooperation and the work of international agencies. De Michelis promoted scientific cooperation in the field of agriculture and an international supervision of colonial administration inspired by the mandate system that the League had established after World War I. A comprehensive system of coordination would, as a first step, gather practical experiences from all national administrations in an effort to devise the most progressive system of colonial rule. Italy, much to his (and Mussolini’s) regret not chosen by the League as a mandate authority, should then become part of the powers entrusted with administrating such colonial territories, a «conscious co-operation between all civilised countries» (De Michelis 1935a: 150). De Michelis, and in fact other Italian fascists, espoused a version of colonialism that at least rhetorically took the interests of native populations seriously while not accepting them as equals. They conceived of some sort of ‘white man’s burden’ falling to the Europeans who have the task of helping the native populations on their path to development. «The historic mission of Europe has been and

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still can be that of promoting in other countries and peoples of the world the material and moral advancement of civilised existence.» (De Michelis 1935a: 170) As we have seen, colonial territories in Africa are vital to De Michelis’s vision of international cooperation because they would produce the raw materials needed for industrial economies, and, for him even more important, provide much needed space and unexploited resources for settlers from Europe to make a living. In addition, he also foresaw Africans as potential consumers to absorb the industrial production of Europe. In the event, Africa became of paramount importance for the progress of the international integration project that De Michelis wants to start in Europe. His project of international integration along corporative lines is not to come about by one big revolutionary moment but is supposed to unfold gradually. «We believe that a well-constructed and well-equipped European union – or better, as we shall see, Eurafrican union – will be the best example and preparation for the future forms of world economic and political collaboration.» (De Michelis 1935a: 166) The idea of ‘Eurafrica’ was quite central to fascist internationalism but it was not an invention of De Michelis or any other Italian fascist. In the Interwar years this idea (or justificatory ideology, as some argue) was ubiquitous in European discourses on international order and the colonial question. It is hard to establish who actually used the term ‘Eurafrica’ or ‘Eurafrique’ first (Ageron 1975, Antonsich 1997). «The ideology of Eurafrica is a body of thought, originating in the colonial period, according to which the fate of Europe and Africa is seen as being naturally and inextricably linked at the political, economic, social, and cultural levels» (Martin 1982: 222). It suggests that these two continents are highly interdependent and have complementary functions: Europe as an industrial centre and cradle of modern civilization, Africa as a reservoir of raw materials and territory. The relationship it describes is a deeply unequal one, unilaterally imposed by

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the European colonial powers on the inhabitants African continent. The idea of Eurafrica did not vanish with World War II but, to the contrary, remained prominent in early discourses about European integration (Hansen and Jonsson 2014 [forthcoming], Heywood 1981). In his work, De Michelis credits the liberal internationalist Richard CoudenhoveKalergi with the idea, who had suggested joint expansion to Africa in the 1920s as a strategy of European integration (Coudenhove-Kalergi 1929, cited in De Michelis 1935a: 171, 175-6). At its core is a joint socio-economic development of the African continent through concerted efforts of European powers, whose «economic future is undoubtedly in Africa» (De Michelis 1935a: 174). This need for African territories to salvage Europe and its economy was, in fact, a common theme in the literature on Eurafrica, in Italy and beyond. As for the organizational form of the Eurafrican endeavour, De Michelis proposes the ‘colonial corporation’, a commercial company that would be assigned the right to develop large areas of land in the colonies. The advantage would be that without a formal change of boundaries this would offer the non-colonial countries, especially the Eastern European ones, or those that are short of colonial territories (of course including Italy) to participate in the undertaking (De Michelis 1935a: 182-3). He approvingly refers to similar ideas of the German economist and long-time president of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht, who had also envisaged colonies as an outlet for the European surplus population (Schacht 1931: 229-32). Europe’s colonial expansion should take place under the supervision of a public international organization derived from the Four-Power Pact of 1933.9 These four countries (Italy, Britain, France, Germany) should take the lead and organise a multilateral colonial conference to work out the details of the colonial programme and its organizational form. The system of mandates of the League was to be

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transformed into a new system of colonial administration, and the mandates jointly administered. Europe, or rather Eurafrica, was only the first stage of an integration project designed to gradually include more and more parts of the world. Economic interdependence did not stop short at the boundaries of the European continent and the greatest challenges of triangulation, as conceived by De Michelis, were intercontinental in scope. The true aspiration therefore was ‘world corporativism’, to be developed by global institutions. According to De Michelis, the League of Nations, the ILO and the International Institute of Agriculture (that De Michelis presided at the time) were destined to take the lead in realizing this project (De Michelis 1935a: 216). With regard to precedence or coordination among these three institutions, ‘World Reorganisation on Corporative Lines’ remains much more vague than an earlier version of his proposal published in 1931, which had put the League clearly on top (De Michelis 1931b: 504).

The rise and fall of fascist internationalism The political suggestions made by De Michelis and other Italian fascists certainly deserve the label ‘internationalist’ and they resemble proposals made by liberal internationalist writers in the same period. However, they already at the time of writing conflicted with other aspects of Italy’s official policies. An article of 1934 by De Michelis entitled L’autarchia economica (Economic autarchy) is significant to understand the supranational perspective embedded in his reflections, and the latent tensions with other elements of fascist doctrine. Here De Michelis maintains the international nature of his project and opposed his «rational system of economic (corporative) collaboration» to every form of «ultranationalism» and to its economic version, autarky (De Michelis 1934a: 99, 95; on the autarkic economic policy of fascist Italy cf. Federico 2002 and Gagliardi 2006). This

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outright rejection of autarky policies, however, openly collided with the official fascist economic plans, that since 1936 were oriented towards that ideal – because of the changed international climate and especially because of the sanctions imposed on Italy by the League of Nations for its offensive in Ethiopia. Not by chance from the mid of the decade the discussion of corporativist world order proposals diminished drastically and corporativism was mainly taken as a tool to create ‘imperial autarky’ (cf. Podestà 2004: 263). Several events contributed to a radical reshaping of fascist foreign policy: after the failure of the attempt to gain prestige in Europe by diplomatic means, Mussolini’s regime revealed its ambition to create with force a new ‘mediterranean order’, as well as an African colonial empire, strongly supported by the propaganda machinery (cf. Collotti 2000: 247 ff.). In the increasingly imperialist climate that prepared and accompanied the Abyssinian war the discourse about the universality of fascism was revised by the recovery of the myth of ancient Rome, the imperial ideal and the rhetoric of civilisation (on the reuse of the classical culture in the fascist context cf. Canfora 1980 and Nelis 2007). In many speeches Mussolini recalled the topic of the mare nostrum (a Mediterranean sea controlled by the Romans/Italians) and invoked the historical existence of Roman provinces in Northern Africa to justify the colonial ambitions of modern Italy. The new emphasis on Italy’s civilising mission complemented these references to ancient Rome: as Alessandro Lessona (head of the Ministry of the Colonies in 1936-7) maintained, «to speak of an Italian mission in Africa is equivalent to speaking of a necessity we cannot be in contrast with. For Rome, Africa did not represent only the fight against Carthage, but a field open to a big work of Latin civilisation. Roman Africa was more than a group of provinces; it was the way in which Rome stated triumphantly its right of access to universal life.» (Lessona 1936: 7)10 Even if Lessona speaks of universal life here, the thrust of his argument is different from

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the fascist internationalism illustrated above; his discourse is clearly propagandistic and his statements on the civilising mission towards Africa aim exclusively at upholding the primacy of Italian interests. This kind of bombastic declarations with references to antiquity became in fact very common after 1935 and provide a good example of the new fascist rhetoric in foreign policy matters. It is hence no exaggeration to say that the biennium 1935-6 represented a crucial watershed in the history of Italian fascist ideology. The political events that took place around the middle of the decade changed the way in which fascism presented itself to the outside world and it revealed the increasingly nationalist orientation and purposes of Mussolini’s regime. Even if earlier discussions were not completely rejected, they nevertheless were deeply transformed. The issue of corporativism can illustrate this sea change very well. As a matter of fact, corporativism turned from being seen as the basis of a new and potentially universal economic system to being simply a ‘crutch’ of Italy’s policy of autarky, while the universalistic references closely related to this doctrine now became mere propaganda tools. To sum up, Italian fascism initially supported these internationalist discourses to establish a sort of ‘cultural hegemony’ and to gain prestige in other European countries. When the geopolitical situation changed, the reasons to sponsor those internationalist theories vanished, revealing the (at least partially) instrumental character of the support by the fascist regime to these doctrines and, by contrast, how concrete its power-political aspirations were (from this point of view the colonial engagement represented therefore the very ‘catalysing’ element of that transformation). Thus, the relationship of fascism with these internationalist proposals appears ambiguous and problematic, as well as the bonds between the internationalist theoreticians and the regime. In fact, many of the more internationalist theorists of the fascist era, mentioned above, were marginalised by the regime. Arnaldo Volpicelli was removed from his university chair

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in 1935 (Latini 2012) and the diplomatic career of Giuseppe De Michelis also petered out after the mid-1930s.

Conclusion In this paper we have studied the relationship between colonialism, corporativism and ideas about international cooperation that thrived in fascist Italy during the early 1930s. We have shown that corporativism was a socio-economic doctrine whose precise meaning and purpose remained vague and that was never fully put into practice. It was nevertheless highly instrumental to the Italian fascist regime because it enabled it to claim that it had its own theory of economy and society, beyond liberalism and socialism. In the turbulent years of the Great Depression, when intellectuals and policy-makers alike searched for new blueprints, the corporativist alternative was taken seriously and had some international impact. It was thus instrumental to Mussolini and his regime in its incessant search for international recognition and prestige. In this favourable situation, internationally minded authors were able to link up their ideas about the universal applicability of corporativism to discourses about Italian foreign policy, in particular to the colonial question. The corporativist ideal also enabled Italian fascists to claim that ‘their’ colonialism was fundamentally different from the exploitative practices of the established colonial powers. For the lack of practical experiences with corporativist forms of social organization in the colonies this remained a largely unverifiable claim in the 1930s. The most far-reaching connection between colonialism, corporativism and international organization was made by De Michelis when he presented the colonialist but at the same time internationalist idea of a joint development of Africa, or rather ‘Eurafrica’, along corporativist lines and under the auspices of an international organization. This was, in the end, a post-national and even post-sovereign vision of international relations. That

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such views existed within the ambit of the fascist movement, and could be publicly promoted by a Senator and party member, documents once again that Italian fascism was not a monolithic block, nor was its ideology ever fixed. Rather, fascist political doctrine was flexible and changed considerably over the more than 20 years of Mussolini’s rule. The mid 1930s were a crucial turning point in this respect, in particular with regard to foreign policy issues as Mussolini turned to a more aggressive strategy, to military conquest and a rapprochement with Hitler. The Abyssinian war of 1935-6 and Italy’s subsequent withdrawal from the League of Nations marked the end of a period when internationalist statements originating from Italy could still claim some plausibility. The manifest breach of international law and the war crimes committed by Italian troops made any talk about the cooperative and nonexploitative nature of Italian colonialism look absurd and propagandistic. To conclude, in the doctrinal history of Italian fascism there was a moment when progressive and internationalist forces were able to claim that corporativism could become a cure for the global economic crisis and lead the way for future international cooperation, thus making a strong claim to the modernity of the fascist doctrine. At the same time, the internationalism of these proposals cannot be understood without reference to the colonial question. An ‘internationalization’ of the European colonies in Africa would have been an elegant way of combining Italy’s quest for access to new territories with the export of its (corporativist) political doctrine, while showing commitment to the noble cause of international cooperation and integration.

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ZANELLI-QUARANTINI, A. (1937) Realizzazioni e futuri sviluppi dell’ordinamento corporativo nelle colonie italiane. Roma: Società italiana per il progresso delle scienze.

The so-called arditi were assault troops with a reputation of extraordinary courage and fighting power that contributed to Italy’s important military success at the Piave river. Many of them (not to be confused with the arditi del popolo, an anti-fascist group founded in 1921) joined the fascist movement when their units were disbanded after the end of World War I. Cf. Gentile (1975: 156-67). 2 On the figure of Bottai, leading member of the fascist regime and eminent theoretician of the corporativist doctrine, see Cassese (1970, 1971). For an overlook of his original and to some extent ‘heterodox’ idea of fascism and for his relationship with Mussolini cf. also De Grand (1978), Santomassimo (2006: 51-8) and Gagliardi (2010 ad indicem). His journal, Critica fascista, was the main forum for the debate on the expansive force of the fascist and corporativist ideology between 1928-9 and the mid of the 1930s, as it is shown by the great number of articles. See for instance Anonymous (1928), Anonymous (1930), Palazzi (1934) and Pinto (1935). These issues were also discussed in other journals like Universalità fascista (directed by Oddone Fantini) and partially also in Gerarchia, the official organ of fascism. 3 See also Panunzio (1935: 35-37): «the League of Nations cannot be only a still mechanism of procedure and sanctions. It has to be a living organism, a moral organism, and above all a great coordination and economic international corporation [...]. Italy grasped in its hands the supreme direction of the international policy and, with the African campaign - development of the war of 1915 - the universality of Rome turned from theoretical propaganda into practical action. [...] The fascism, if it is anti-pacifist and anti-internationalist is not anti-international and, on the contrary, it has to be international and universal, conscious of the Roman legacy». For the opposition of fascism to the League of Nations cf. Collotti (2000: 261 ff). 4 On the features of fascist colonial economic policies cf. Podestà (2004, 2013). On the connection between colonialism and emigration policy cf. Collotti (2000: 137-8). Moreover Papini (1933) provides a useful survey of the international debate on that theme and in particular to the theories on emigration and colonisation by Otto Corbach (1932a – the translation in Italian of his work in the very year of the publication is a proof of the big echo that his theories had in Italy; cf. Corbach 1932b) and Max Salvadori (1932). On the figure of Salvadori cf. Franzinelli (2005). 5 On this debate, that lasted till the end of the 1930s (despite the noteworthy change after the mid of the decade) see for instance Paresce (1934), Fornari (1934), Zanelli-Quarantini (1937), Pergolesi (1937), Sega (1938) and Napolitano (1939). 6 It is particularly remarkable that Casagrandi hints explicitly at the contemporary international discussion – he quotes the books by O. Corbach (1932) and by E. L. Guernier (1933) – and, moreover, that he refers to the proposals on that theme elaborated within the Geneva institutions (League of Nations, International Labour Office, International Institute of Agriculture). 7 There is not much literature on these proposals but see Marrero (2005), Scholz (2001), Tamedly (1969) and especially Liebscher (2009). 8 A concise summary of the book was also presented at the second Italian congress on colonial studies in October 1934, and published in the proceedings (cf. De Michelis 1934c). 9 The Four-Power-Pact was an international agreement between Italy, France, Great Britain and Germany, negotiated on the initiative of Mussolini and signed in Rome on 7 July 1933. The purpose of the Pact was to establish a new form of great power cooperation in Europe. The four signatories also reaffirmed their adherence to the Covenant of the League of Nations, the Locarno Treaties, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The Treaty was never ratified as the French parliament opposed it. On this matter cf. Collotti (2000: 175 ff.). 10 See also Lessona (1931, 1932) where he affirms the same propagandistic istances. On the figure of Lessona cf. Labanca (2005). 1

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