ABSTRACT
Fascism, at least in its origins, speaks Italian; and in order to understand what fascism was and how it came to life one must first restore Italy to the place it has occupied in the history of modern Europe. With the publication in 1965 of Renzo De Felice's first volume of Mussolini's biography, a new trend in the historiography of modern Italy got underway, reopening the whole question of the origins of fascism on the grounds of fresh and much more extended documentation. Mussolini displayed an uncommon shrewdness in turning to his advantage any weakness of the democratic system; in so doing he certainly aggravated the situation. But the reasons for that weakness are quite independent of fascism and must be explained independently. The alternative to liberalism may no longer be fascism, but whatever new forms it takes, the reaction to liberalism is bound to be a brutal tyranny quite incompatible with the principles of Western civilization.
