ABSTRACT
Italy was the first of the major European states to seek salvation in the policies of the radical right, and Mussolini was the first of a succession of fascist dictators. Yet there has always been a puzzling element about Mussolini’s rule. Although his influence was profound, he is often derided as a buffoon. In 1919, for example, the socialist Giacinto Serrati described him as ‘a rabbit; a phenomenal rabbit; he roars. Observers who do not know him mistake him for a lion.’1 In 1961, A.J.P. Taylor called him ‘a vain, blundering boaster without either ideas or aims’.2 ‘Fascism’, he added, ‘was a façade. There was nothing behind it but show and empty rhetoric.’3
