The Fascist Foreign Policy: Some considerations of Mussolini’s Fascist Ideology

Abstract

The current article tries to explain the origins of Mussolini’s Fascism and his foreign policy doctrine, by examining the political and ideological contexts of pre-Fascist Italy. This approach offers a wider analysis of the general conditions which enabled the surge of Mussolini’s Far-right movement, such as the political instability, the fear of Communism among Italian elites, and above all, a growing imperialist outlook of the Italian public opinion of that period. Thus, Italian society was characterized by a profound process of atomization, a necessary precondition for a totalitarian takeover, according to Hannah Arendt. The article tries to uncover the particularities of Mussolini’s Fascist, to point out the ideological differences between this doctrine and other Far-right political orientations, such as Hitler’s national socialism by stressing some of the differences, explaining why Mussolini’s Fascist régime was perceived as a moderate one by Western governments for a long period. Mussolini was held in high regard by important American diplomats, like State Secretary Henry Stimson, who labeled Mussolini as a reasonable gentleman in his Post-war memoirs. Also, President Roosevelt expressed often his admiration for Mussolini and his policies, like many of the U.S. ambassadors to Rome.