Il fascismo nella provincia operosa: politica, economia e società a Terni nel ventennio nero (1921-1940)
Author(s)
Bitti, Angelo
Date Issued
May 27, 2014
Type
Doctoral Thesis
Abstract
This research project is an in-depth study, in a comprehensive and long-term perspective, of
what Fascism represented at a local level in a peripheral and non-homogeneous context, as in
the case of the Southern Umbria areas, established as an administrative province in 1927.
This specific geographical district flagged-up all the prerequisites for an exemplary case
study, featuring several significant explanatory points. To this unique large provincial
administrative industrial hub located within the Terni basin, other districts, part of the same
province, remained juxtaposed. Within their respective areas, these districts included towns
such as Orvieto and Amelia, which had strong links with the neighbouring communities,
representing the rural, agricultural and mezzadrile aspects of Umbria, land of Saint Francis of
Assisi, rich in art and religious meanings, which the Fascist Regime came to proclaim
officially as the “heart” of Fascist Italy. On the basis of these introductory remarks, the study
focuses its scope of research on three main points, all but essential to understand fully the
aspects and dynamics of the local society during the Fascist period, also referred to as the
ventennio mussoliniano. An interpretative functional grid has been designed with a view to
describe the role of the National Fascist Party (Nfp) within the centre-periphery and
continuity-innovation relationships with the previous regime. The study seeks to investigate
how Fascism exerted its influence on the establishment and process of strengthening of the
local ruling ranks, attesting its ability to relate with the old dominant élites, or promote the
emerging of new ones or, in addition, facilitate and support the coexistence of both.
Furthermore, the research focuses on the role exerted by the Nfp at a local level, its capability
to affect the various localised dynamics of power, to create and control networks of affiliates
and, above all, to relate with the two main subjects which remained independent from its
control, the important industrial group represented by “Terni” of Bocciardo and the local
Catholic Church, with an overarching aim to achieve its totalitarian objectives. Finally, the
question of popular consent has also been scrutinised. At one level, the study analyses the
2
role of fascist violence deployed to obtain power and the repressive actions carried out under
the Regime, which were highly effective, as one might expect under a dictatorship. At
another level, it investigates the popular dissent and the grey areas of passive acceptance and
weak consent which were common among strata of the local population. Additionally, in a
broader perspective, political and institutional historical analysis has been coupled with social
and economic investigation, through a systematic scrutiny and cross-examination of the main
sources, as a methodological approach needful to the achievement of the final outcomes of
the research. Findings on the origins, development, and strengthening of Fascism within the
Terni province appear to concur with the conclusions reached by previous historical research.
In the Southern areas of Umbria, Fascism, at its highest level, was brought into power and
successfully established by the traditional ruling classes. The establishment of Fascism was
supported and facilitated by the agrarian reaction and the monopolistic industrial groups
threatened by the discontent of the rural and working classes and the rapid advancement of
Socialism. The political defeat of the traditional ruling élites at the 1919 general election and
the 1920 local elections, which followed the social turmoil of the so-called red biennium; the
agreement of the 1920 patto colonico, disadvantageous to landowners; the occupation of
factories, though a brief and contradictory experience, against a background of economic
difficulty, caused their reaction and prompted their acceptance and support for Fascism.
Firstly, Fascism, in the form of Fascist action squads and their capability of defeating its
opponents militarily, with the extensive assistance of the State security services, then as an
electoral block and political force capable to achieve power, presented itself as a sort of union
sacrée against the threat of Bolshevism into which various groups appear to converge: the
agrarian conservatism but also industrial and more modern forces. Undoubtedly, Fascism
drew together different political forces, which during the first decade of the twentieth-century
had been mutually antagonistic, and segments of the complex and divided political
establishment of the Giolitti era. The scrutiny of the highest levels of the local Nfp and civil
servants has revealed that, at least till 1927, the main political figures belonged to those
forces already part of the agrarian block. Firstly, the landowners, many of whom belonged to
the local nobility, supported by members of the professional bourgeoisie, whose estates and
wealth had augmented during the nineteenth- and twentieth-century, and other sectors which
were the direct expression of the rural milieus, such as the rural agents, farmers, but also
those peasants whom, during the first two decades of the twentieth-century, had succeeded in
becoming landowners themselves. Therefore in the Terni province, from the establishment of
the Fascist regime to the introduction of the office of podestà and, for some time even after,
3
the highest offices of the municipal and provincial administration were held by members of
the local nobility, primarily aristocrats, landowners and professionals. This is an invariable
characteristic which put the Terni province in alignment with similar situations in Tuscany,
Emilia Romagna and other areas of Southern Italy. The administrative reform and the
establishment of the podestà authority, together with the prerogatives of the prefectures in
appointing members of the highest offices within the municipal administrations, did not
radically change, at least during the early phases of the reform, established practice. A survey
of the municipalities located within the Terni province, shows that the prefects in the
selection process to appoint the podestà took greatly into account the candidates’ social and
economic status of and, without doubt, a honorific title and tenure of highly considered
profession were often sufficient criteria for a candidate to be nominated even when lacking
some of the prescribed requisites as outlined by the administrative reform. The Fascist regime
therefore, in perpetuating a bureaucratic and grandees system, showed an intention to
reassure the existing ruling élites and obtain the support of the local population.
A prosopographical analysis of the biographical profiles of headmasters, members of the
provincial advice bureaus, podestà, members of the municipal advisory councils, during the
1926-1943 period, has made it possible to outline a summary framework which strongly
corroborates the analysis carried out at a national level by Luca Baldissarra over a decade
ago.1 What has emerged from this analysis is the class-based character of the Fascist political
and administrative representation during those years, though presenting various differences
linked to the social and economic specificity of the area scrutinised. In more depth, the study
carried out on a corpus of 147 civil servants (78 podestà and 69 prefectural officers)
employed by the municipalities of the province during the examined period, made it possible
to draw up a profile of the typical officer: between forty and fifty years of age; highly
educated (having achieved a high-school or university degree); often a landowner, a
characteristic consistent with the social and economic structure prevailing throughout the
province, and among whom the status of self-employed (generally lawyer or public notary)
represented the most frequent professional position held. Relations between the podestà and
the Nfp appear to have been particularly close, over half of the sample identified is composed
by individuals who had joined the Fascist Party at an early stage, during 1920-1922;
additionally, the majority of the appointments made by the prefects were agreed in advance
with the Provincial Fascist Federation. It would therefore appear that during the 1930s, in
1 Luca Baldissara, Tecnica e politica nell’amministrazione. Saggio sulle culture amministrative e di governo
municipale fra anni Trenta e Cinquanta, Il Mulino, Bologna 1998.
4
large areas of the province, the highest hierarchies of grandees were the prominent figures
holding local high office. The industrial area comprised within the administrative territories
of the two municipalities of Terni and Narni, however, appears to contrast with other districts
of the province. In this area, as for similar cases in other municipalities or other regional
administrations, the Nfp supported the emergence of members of the small and medium local
urban bourgeoisie, as the office of podestà became a vehicle of social advancement and an
opportunity to climb up the local hierarchy of power.
Despite the apparent pacification established forcibly by the Fascist regime, the dynamics of
power within the local government remained characterised by extreme unrest and strong
conflict at various levels. The sizeable number of prefectural commissioners and remunerated
podestà who succeeded in office, often in rapid succession, bears witness to the instability
which marred almost all the municipal administrations of Terni province. This is evidence of
the obstacles encountered by the prefects during the selection process of a qualified
managerial class but, above all, of the resistance put up by the traditional élites of power,
motivated by divergent interests and loyalty to various networks of familial and personal
relations, to the process of homologation pursued by the Fascist regime. Undoubtedly, the
Fascist regime, in implementing a model of podestà based on competence, on the energetic
ability to act, on its alignment to official directives, and in order to achieve a modernisation
of the administrative system, aimed at placing the local authorities under the prescriptive
control of a centralised State. The actual administrative actions implemented by the local
administrative offices, frequently under the guidance and pressure of the Prefects, as for
example in the case of the accomplishment of public works functional to the civil
mobilisation of various segments of the local community, became a measure of their
efficiency and, above all, a measurement of how industrious the local administrators should
be. The high turn-over of podestà is a clear indication of how difficult it was for the Fascist
regime to implement its plans of action in peripheral areas. Additionally, direct intervention
by the Prefects was often necessary to put an end to rivalries and internal power struggles
which frequently broke out among local élites. These clashes and their manifestations appear
to be similar in their dynamics, as pointed out by previous studies, to other cases occurred in
different municipalities, provinces and regions. Resorting to anonymous letters, official
complaints, accusations, came to represent the instrument to attack and weaken the opposite
factions at a local level, within the municipalities, but also within the provincial
administration, among the various representatives of the local administration and even the
highest offices of the Terni Fascist Federation. From 1927, following the establishment of the
5
Province and the set up of political and administrative authorities in Terni, now seat of local
government, a new phase emerged for the local Fascist Party too. The study of this new
province has facilitated the understanding of its relations with central authorities. The
establishment of this new local administration was the result of various circumstances linked
to the political requirements of the Fascist State following the transition to a totalitarian
regime. Additionally, the internal conflict dynamics of the regional Fascist Party played an
important role. These led to the inner pacification of the Party and the set up of a Nfp
Provincial Federation. Finally, the establishment of “Terni” had a pivotal role too. “Società
Terni” (also referred to as “La Terni”) came to represent the real “strong power” of the
province, capable of imposing a factory regimen based partially on paternalistic assistance
and partially on a truck-system model. The Fascist regime dealt directly with “Terni”,
bypassing the newly-established Nfp Provincial Federation and, where necessary, intervened
to impose its authority, as the political and personal vicissitudes of Elia Rossi Passavanti, the
first Federal secretary and podestà of Terni, exemplified. In this perspective, drawing
together personal and professional career paths of the highest officers (prefects and police
commissioners), of both political (federals, deputy federals, administrative secretaries,
members of the Fascist Federation Federal Bureau) and economic authorities (members of the
Provincial Economic Council, members of the Provincial Corporations Council and of the
main bank) has represented an invaluable study, conducive to the understanding of the Nfp’s
role within the province and, in addition, of the political dynamics at play among the Fascist
Party and other authorities, such as the prefectures. With specific reference to the prefects, it
is worth noticing that of the nine prefects in office in the Terni province during the period
under scrutiny, as many as six were Nfp members. This situation, however, did not
necessarily imply a spontaneous collaboration between the prefectures and the Fascist
Federation, but it would appear to have been a response to the need of overcoming the
conflictual antinomy between the two authorities, which was a recurrent event throughout the
Terni province. In addition, the succession of twelve Federals as leaders of the Fascist Party
bears witness to a pervasive instability, a fact which is also confirmed by the noticeable
preference given to individuals, as many as nine, unconnected with the local milieu. This is
certainly a clear manifestation of the local Fascist Party’s weakness - which appeared unable
to express and produce capable managerial ranks - and of the evolution of the Federal
Secretary’s role, becoming more and more a professional one, in the context of the
remarkable bureaucratisation of the Nfp, aimed at strengthening its mediatory and
interventional role on the local administration, one of the main characteristics of the Nfp
6
under the leadership of Starace. Within this framework, the contrast between the prefects and
the Fascist Federal secretaries during the 1930s, with regard, as a case in point, to the
appointments of the podestà, and the crucial utilisation of official complaints and anonymous
letters, bears witness to the Party’s attempt to impose its decisions or, at least, to influence the
administration at a local level. This, in turn, resulted in a situation of polycracy, which was
one of the factors denoting local politics during the Fascist regime. During the 1930s, despite
deep rooted conflict among the authorities, the internal power struggles within the Nfp and
the endemic ineptitudes of the ruling class, the Fascist Provincial Federation was successful
in exerting and promoting the fascistisation of the local community. It is manifest that the
highest authorities within the National Fascist Party, with the exception of the Federals and
their closest advisors, remained the domain of the original Fascist core, composed by
members of the rural class and the bourgeoisie originating primarily from the Terni area. This
explains the inadequate generational change within the Fascist Federation and, in addition,
the political and economic importance of the Terni area in comparison to the entire province.
These political figures were part of the various Federal Bureau and, in some cases at the same
time, if the law permitted, held additional offices in different institutional bodies, such as the
Economic Provincial Council or were in charge of the main local bank. On the contrary, the
influence exerted on the high levels of the National Fascist Party by the small bourgeoisie or
by members of the working class remained negligible. It was only with the approach of the
Second World War that members of the clerical class, but also technicians and a few tradeunionists
already employed within the bureaucratic structure of the Provincial Federation,
acquired an enhanced importance and gained access to higher office, such as administrative
secretaries or members of the Federal Bureau. The Terni area too, though in a more limited
way, which bears not comparison with other provinces, saw the rising «from the bottom and
the periphery of a new ruling class within the totalitarian regime»2. During the 1930s
therefore, despite various difficulties, including economic issues, the Nfp was successful in
creating at a provincial level an organisational structure capable of influencing and organising
the local community. Additionally, the regular flow of financial contributions bestowed by
various public authorities (provincial administrations, municipalities, Provincial Economic
Council) and private companies (“La Terni”, first of all, but other businesses too) to a
political party constantly seeking financial backing, as thoroughly documented by records of
the Terni Fascist Federation, bears witness to the outstanding efforts the Regime made to
2 Marco Palla, Il partito e le classi dirigenti, in Renato Camurri, Stefano Cavazza, Id. (a cura di), Fascismi
locali, “Ricerche di Storia politica”, a. X, nuova serie, dicembre 2010, 3/10, p. 296.
7
successfully present the Nfp as a conducive mean to the development of this specific welfare
model, with a view to promote the fascistisation of the local community.
In this perspective, the Nfp’s relation with the “Società Terni” is key to understanding the
nature of the Fascist Regime and its role within the Terni province. The establishment of a
Province was connected to the control of the water-system of the two rivers Nera-Velino,
essential to create an industrial hub; similar reasons were behind the agreement stipulated
between the Terni municipality and the Bocciardo Company, which came to sanction
resolutely the importance of the Company and, additionally, the supremacy of the “centre”
over the “periphery”. It was from this period and following the inclusion of “Società Terni”
within the system of state-controlled industries through the Institute for Industrial
Reconstruction, a transaction which secured State control over the Company and its
productive branches, that “La Terni” became firmly linked to Fascism and, more in general,
to the local community, though in a controversial and ambivalent mutual relation. The
Company was perceived as a capitalistic enterprise which took over the city, its directors
being able to negotiate with the central Government directly and with the Duce himself,
taking a super partes position in relation to the local Nfp. It was not a fortuitous occurrence
that the Federal secretaries gauged their political influence against the effectiveness and
strength of the relations they were able to maintain with the executive directors of “Società
Terni”, whom, on their part, appeared to be impenetrable to any influence exerted by the local
Fascist Federation. Additionally, following the 1927 agreement and during the ensuing
decade, “La Terni”, in conjunction with the Fascist Party, appeared to become, without doubt,
one of the main pillars of the province. At one level, it supported the Fascist Provincial
Federation through a constant flow of financial contributions, vital to bankroll the
Federation’s activities within the province; but, at a more general level, asserting its influence
as a large industrial group, it was capable of shaping the economic, trade-union and social
policies of the Fascist regime, creating those conditions to establish «a system of
aggregation/disaggregation of the social and political consensus/control conforming to the
mass reactionary regime model»3.
Within this dynamic interactions, and on the basis of documents available, the local Catholic
Church played a significant role in relation to the Fascist Party. With reference to the specific
case of the Terni-Narni dioceses and bishop Cesare Boccoleri, the Church’s main leader
during the Fascist ventennio, this research has showed that, as in the case of other Italian
3 Renato Covino, L’invenzione di una regione, Quattroemme, Perugia 1995, p. 58.
8
dioceses and in alignment with the decisions taken by the Vatican, the Church authorities in
Terni supported the Fascist apparatus and adhered to a policy of collaboration with the Nfp.
This was particularly manifest on specific occasions: for example during the economic and
social campaigns promoted by the Regime, as a case in point the so-called “Battle of the
wheat” and, above all, following the 1929 Concordat with the Catholic Church, or during the
Ethiopian and Spanish conflicts. At the same time, even when tensions arose and marred the
relations between the Fascist regime and the Catholic Church (following the 1931 crisis
caused by the limitations imposed on the prerogatives of Azione Cattolica or the adoption of
the 1938 racial laws), the consequences for the local Church were negligible and did not
appear to affect the on-going relations with the local Fascist Federation. The local Church
therefore in pursuing the aim of preserving and, wherever possible, augmenting the Church’s
influence on the local community, contributed to reinforce and widen consensus for the
Fascist regime. More specifically, the Church’s actions were particularly effective in
encouraging, especially in rural areas, that precise process of “political modernisation”,
though reactionary at its core, based on organising the entire Italian society on hierarchical
and centralising criteria, which Fascism was promoting particularly at a local level.
Additionally, and without doubt, the important function to create and, above all, to maintain a
high level of consensus was exerted by the pervasive surveillance and repression of any form
of dissent and political opposition, enforced within the province by the Fascist security
services. A repressive action which was extremely effective and, during the dictatorship, only
the Communist Party, despite being hemmed in to the Terni industrial area, was able to
maintain, albeit with great difficulty and in a limited way, a form of organised resistance. The
fact that the Fascist authorities continuously, though recognising what had been achieved by
the Party’s multifarious organisations to favour and support the working classes, lamented the
feeble “fascistisation” of the Terni industrial workforce and their being “politically
dangerous”, would appear to confirm implicitly that throughout the province the opposition
and political dissent had not completely ceased. More in general, under the “black shirts”,
despite the propaganda and the activities of various Fascist authorities and institutions, it
remained evident that the diversified interests which characterised the local society and the
different realities rooted at local level persisted.
Ultimately, the local Fascist Party appeared capable of exerting an active role in the
“fascistisation” process of society, in alignment with the creation and implementation of a
totalitarian state, being the main objective of the National Fascist Party under the leadership
of Starace. The Nfp was therefore a real centre of power, expression of an authoritarian
9
regime leaning toward totalitarianism. A regime against which all citizens had to relate for
their everyday life needs: that is to say, all citizens had to act, at least outwardly, as fascists.
Additional information
Dottorato di ricerca in Storia d'Europa: società, politica, istituzioni (XIX-XX secolo)
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
abitti_tesid.pdf
Size
3.44 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
4defe6e029e3dd90d6e7990d09a260c8