ABSTRACT

The Extreme Right in postwar Italy is made up of three elements: the "official" Neo-Fascist party the Italian Social Movement (Movimento Sociale Italiano, MSI); the Radical Right; and the Nouvelle Droite. The dramatic Ninth National Congress represented the collapse of the Destra Nazionale strategy. The exit of the prosystem faction led the party to engage in some ideological soul-searching. According to Pino Rauti, the MSI should appeal to the Left for a common struggle against capitalist and US domination and for the affirmation of a national identity: Rauti was to replace the MSI's traditional authoritarian, conservative, petit bourgeois political culture with a leftist, anticapitalist, and anti-Western one. The crucial question to be answered here is whether or not the cultural-ideological wave is consistent with beliefs of the MSI's cadres, members, and voters. The MSI has gone through a process of change.