Republican Fascist Party
Partito Fascista Repubblicano
AbbreviationPFR
DuceBenito Mussolini
SecretaryAlessandro Pavolini
Founded13 September 1943
Dissolved2 May 1945 (Disbanded)
22 December 1947 (Banned)
Preceded byNational Fascist Party
Succeeded byItalian Social Movement (Not legal successor)
HeadquartersPiazza San Sepolcro,
20123 Milan, Lombardy,
Italian Social Republic
Paramilitary wingBlack Brigades
Armed wingNational Republican Army
Membership (1943)900,000
IdeologyItalian Fascism
 • Italian nationalism[1][2][3][4]
 • National conservatism[1][2][3][5]
 • Social conservatism[6][7][8]
 • Revolutionary nationalism[9][10]
 • Antisemitism[11][12]
 • Anti-liberalism[13][14]
 • Anti-communism[15]
 • Anti-capitalism[16]
 • Anti-monarchism
 • Republicanism
Political positionFar-right[17]
Colours  Black
Party flag
Flag of the National Fascist Party (PNF).svg

The Republican Fascist Party (Italian: Partito Fascista Repubblicano, PFR) was a political party in Italy led by Benito Mussolini during the German occupation of Central and Northern Italy and was the sole legal and ruling party of the Italian Social Republic. It was founded as the successor to the National Fascist Party while incorporating anti-monarchism, as they considered King Victor Emmanuel III to be a traitor after his signing of the surrender to the Allies.

History

After the Nazi-engineered Gran Sasso raid liberated Mussolini, the National Fascist Party (PNF) was revived on 13 September 1943 as the Republican Fascist Party (PFR) and as the single party of the Northern and Nazi-protected Italian Social Republic, informally known as the Salò Republic. Its secretary was Alessandro Pavolini.

Due to the strong control of the Germans, the power of the party in the context of the Republic of Salò was always very limited. In order to obviate this inherent weakness, the party tried to obtain the support of the few strata of the population who still sympathized with fascism.[18] In the provinces under the control of the Germans it was organized into three entities called Administrative, Assistance and Political.[19] The Assistance, also called the National Fascist Assistance Body, was formed in early October 1943. In the minds of the party leaders, the Assistance was to be a continuation of the powerful cadres of militants and volunteers of the former National Fascist Party.[19]

The PFR did not outlast Mussolini's execution and the disappearance of the Salò state in April 1945. However, it inspired the creation of the Italian Social Movement (MSI)[20] and the MSI has been seen as the successor to the PFR and the PNF.[21] The MSI was formed by former Fascist leaders and veterans of the National Republican Army of the Salò republic.[22] The party tried to modernise and revise fascist doctrine into a more moderate and sophisticated direction.[23]

Giuseppe Pizzirani [it] led the PFR organization in Rome until April 1944, when he was named Deputy Secretary of the national party organization.[24]

Ideology

PFR sought to reconnect the new party with the pre-1922 early radical fascism. This move attracted parts of the fascist 'Old Guard', who had been sidelined after Mussolini had come to power in 1922. The new party was, however, internally divided with different internal tendencies vying for Mussolini's support. And whilst the PFR revived some of the early revolutionary fascist discourse, it did not return to the anti-clerical positions of the early fascist movement.[25]

Secretary of the PFR

Main article: List of secretaries of Italian Fascist parties

National Congress

References

  1. ^ a b Grčić, Joseph. Ethics and Political Theory (Lanham, Maryland: University of America, Inc, 2000) p. 120.
    • Griffin, Roger and Matthew Feldman, eds., Fascism: Fascism and Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 2004) p. 185.
    • Jackson J. Spielvogel. Western Civilization. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012. p. 935.
  2. ^ a b Stanley G. Payne. A History of Fascism, 1914–1945. p. 106.
  3. ^ a b Roger Griffin, "Nationalism" in Cyprian Blamires, ed., World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2006), pp. 451–53.
  4. ^ Riley, Dylan (2010). The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe: Italy, Spain, and Romania, 1870–1945. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-8018-9427-5.
  5. ^ Riley, Dylan (2010). The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe: Italy, Spain, and Romania, 1870–1945. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-8018-9427-5.
  6. ^ Mark Antliff. Avant-Garde Fascism: The Mobilization of Myth, Art, and Culture in France, 1909–1939. Duke University Press, 2007. p. 171.
  7. ^ Walter Laqueur (1978). Fascism: A Reader's Guide : Analyses, Interpretations, Bibliography. U of California Press. p. 341. ISBN 978-0-520-03642-0.
  8. ^ Maria Sop Quine. Population Politics in Twentieth Century Europe: Fascist Dictatorships and Liberal Democracies. Routledge, 1995. pp. 46–47.
  9. ^ Griffin, 2000, pp. 31–35
  10. ^ Kallis, 2008, p. 515
  11. ^ L' antisemitismo nella Repubblica Sociale Italiana. Repertorio delle fonti conservate all'Archivio centrale dello Stato, Libreria Universitaria
  12. ^ La Repubblica sociale italiana e la persecuzione degli ebrei
  13. ^ Jim Powell, "The Economic Leadership Secrets of Benito Mussolini", Forbes, 22 February 2012
  14. ^ Eugen Weber. The Western Tradition: From the Renaissance to the present. Heath, 1972. Pp. 791.
  15. ^ Stanislao G. Pugliese. Fascism, anti-fascism, and the resistance in Italy: 1919 to the present. Oxford, England, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004. pp. 43–44.
  16. ^ Rimbotti, 2018
  17. ^ Raniolo, Francesco (2013). I partiti politici. Roma: Editori Laterza. pp. 116–117.
  18. ^ Roberto., D'Angeli (2019). Storia del partito fascista repubblicano. Castelvecchi. ISBN 978-88-3282-582-4. OCLC 1091262426.
  19. ^ a b Dianella Gagliani, Il Partito nel Fascismo Repubblicano Delle Origini: Una Prima Messa a Punto, in Rivista di Storia Contemporanea, vol. 23, n. 1/2, 1º gennaio 1994, pp. 130-169.
  20. ^ Davies, Peter; Lynch, Derek (2002). The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right. Routledge. p. 328. ISBN 978-0-203-99472-6.
  21. ^ Levy, 1996, p. 188.
  22. ^ Ignazi, 1998, p. 157.
  23. ^ Stanley Payne (1992). "Fascism". In Mary E. Hawkesworth; Maurice Kogan (eds.). Encyclopedia of Government and Politics. Psychology Press. p. 177. ISBN 978-0-415-07224-3.
  24. ^ Claudia Baldoli; Brendan Fleming (25 September 2014). A British Fascist in the Second World War: The Italian War Diary of James Strachey Barnes, 1943-45. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 211. ISBN 978-1-4725-0789-1.
  25. ^ John Pollard (22 July 2005). The Fascist Experience in Italy. Routledge. p. 116. ISBN 978-1-134-81904-1.
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