Futurism and Politics: Between Anarchist Rebellion and Fascist Reaction, 1909-1944 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Futurism and Politics: Between Anarchist Rebellion and Fascist Reaction, 1909–1944 Claudio Fogu Günther Berghaus, Futurism and Politics: Between Anarchist Rebellion and Fascist Reaction, 1909–1944. Berghahn Books: Providence, Rhode Island, and Oxford, 1996. Pp. 336. $49.95 Given the wealth of recent research into all aspects of Italian Futurism in recent years, a comprehensive historical treatment of its political origins and development has been almost inevitable. But what comes as a surprise in reading Günter Berghaus’s new book is the extent to which such an historical account has provided a fertile ground for a leftist brand of revisionism. Berghaus’s thesis is quite direct and uncompromising: Futurism was an artistic movement, [End Page 178] created and led by F. T. Marinettti, that slowly developed into a political force with a distinctive left-wing strategy and ideology. Gathered into a political force in 1918–1919, Marinetti’s Futurist Party pursued a strategic alliance with the Association for the Arditi (the Arditi had been combatants in World War I assault units) and Benito Mussolini’s Battle Fasces (Fasci di Combattimento) to effect an “Italian revolution” of the “proletariat of genius” (133). After 1920, in response to Fascism’s reactionary involution, Futurism underwent a profound split. On the one hand, a pragmatic leadership slowly adapted to Mussolini’s victory, and, after 1924, employed its energy to ensure the survival of Futurism within the “hostile environment” of Fascist culture (210). On the other hand, an independent and dissident strand of Futurism developed in various foci of provincial resistance to both Marinettian Futurism and the Fascist regime, thereby keeping alive the movement’s leftist spirit (diciannovismo) throughout the twenty years of Fascist rule. To the many tragic and heroic figures of dissident Futurists, Berghaus grants the highest moral status for their “passive resistance” to the regime (229); while to their pater familias F. T. Marinetti, Berghaus ascribes the prestigious accolades of “wily old strategist” and “agile and capable manager,” transforming him into a figure who is willing to sacrifice a few ideological limbs to save the healthy body politic of Futurism (289). Berghaus supports this thesis with extensive documentary evidence (newspaper articles, Futurist journals, private diaries, and hundreds of police files preserved in the Central State Archives in Rome). With great skill he has also unearthed the long lost file kept by Mussolini’s secret police on the “anti-fascist” Marinetti, as well as important documentation from the private archives of key figures such as Massimo Carli, Primo Conti, Ferdinando Corra, and Fortunato Depero. The archival research contributes much to the book’s most successful moments, a long and detailed chapter on the rise and fall of a united “Ardito-Futurist-Fascist” front in 1919, and constant attention to the relationship between provincial independent Futurists (in particular Pietro Illari and Vincenzo Paladini, Antonio Marasco, and the Neapolitan Destructivists) and Marinetti’s official movement in all its phases of development. Unfortunately, however, Berghaus’s research efforts are sacrificed on the altar of a sympathetic revisionism, reflected in the colloquial tone of the narrative and the imbalanced structure of the book. In four long chapters Berghaus illustrates the development of Futurist politics between 1909 and 1921. His reconstruction of the relationship between the Futurists (both Marinettian and independent) and other subversives (Anarchists, Syndicalists, Nationalists, Revolutionary Socialists, Arditi, and Fascists) is well articulated and informative, but his final judgment on the leftist spirit of Futurism is predicated on a certain inability to provide critical-historical readings of Marinetti’s statements and his tendency to view Marinetti’s political practices in purely instrumental terms. It is never made clear, for example, what is “leftist” in Marinetti’s famous call, issued in 1919, for “power to the artists” who would lead the Italian “proletariat of geniuses” (131). Similar doubts arise about Marinetti’s project, also outlined in 1919, for an “Italian Revolution” leading to “Futurist Democracy,” a democracy to be ruled by a “Technical Government Without Parliament and Senate, but with a House of Stimulators.” Why should we view this as “a guideline for a future realpolitik” (130–32)? Again, one wonders what leads Berghaus to reach the paradoxical conclusion that the principal reason...