In Staging the Fascist War, Luigi Petrella examines the impact of Mussolini’s fascist propaganda on the home front during the very critical years spanning from 1938, on the eve of the Second World War, to the collapse of the regime in 1943. As the civilian population first experienced the immediate threat of ‘total war’ through air raids and bombings, Petrella argues, the institutions in charge of controlling the media struggled to provide a convincing official narrative that could reassure the population. The regime’s propaganda machine strove to cover up the fundamental unpreparedness of the Italian defence system. In the end, however, its inability to capture the popular mood, as well as institutional dysfunctions in conducting the work of propaganda, ensured that the regime’s efforts to sway public opinion would fail. At a very crucial moment in the regime’s history, propaganda could not uphold the mythical image of Fascism’s strength and superiority, while the hiatus between the reality on the ground and the media’s fictional accounts became unbridgeable.
Chapter 1 sets the book’s analytical context by addressing the gap between Fascism’s central myth of war, and in particular air war, and the Italian military’s actual abilities to protect civilians in case of air raids. Early on in 1934, the regime had established a National Union of Anti-Aircraft Protection with the task of aiding preparations for civil mobilisation in case of war. Once the British began bombing Italian cities in 1940, however, it became apparent that preventive measures were inadequate. Inefficiencies marred all attempts at providing regulations that could improve people’s chances of surviving an air attack. Even evacuation plans for large cities, encouraged by the same Mussolini, lacked organisational continuity: when the time came to implement plans, evacuations suffered from slow execution. Within this dysfunctional context, the Fascist propaganda machine had the unenviable charge of putting up a façade of might, while exuding confidence in inevitable success.
Chapter 2 shows the difficulties the Ministry of Culture and Propaganda (MCP) faced in communicating a coherent message to the Italian population (and also Germany and the other European powers). Beginning with the regime’s decision to join Hitler in the war against Britain and France in June 1940, the MCP, which for years had been in charge of controlling the press and other cultural institutions, was unable to find the right footing. On the one hand, it was supposed to minimise the risks of Italy’s decision to participate in the war by exalting its ability to defend civilians and counteract the enemy. On the other hand, it had to prepare the population for eventual attacks and bombings without alerting it to the country’s vulnerability. Juggling these two opposed aims turned out to be a Sisyphean task. When British air raids began, for example, newspapers were instructed to denounce the enemy and list the names of the victims without elaboration. At the same time, just mentioning bombings and casualties hinted at Italy’s weakness: the regime was unable to avoid destruction and death. Directives from Mussolini and the MCP did not solve the impasse and actually caused further confusion. As chapters 3, 4 and 5 show, the consequence of this situation was that the whole work of propaganda until 1943 suffered from the information media’s fundamental inability to provide a consistent and persuasive message. In addition to lacking an organised response, newspapers found themselves significantly erasing the line dividing fact from fiction. The MCP was more successful and effective in dealing with popular cultural forms, such as theatre and music, even though they were potential sites for expression of disagreement.
The last two chapters of the book focus on Fascist propaganda’s inability to adapt to the evolving historical situation. They address the regime’s failure to mould its message according to the changed circumstances. In particular, as Petrella writes, ‘the regime became estranged from its people’ (p. 6) and the media avoided dealing with the human aspects of war. This defective approach proved particularly consequential in 1942 and 1943, as the ineptness of the regime’s efforts to convince the Italians of the country’s might became apparent in the face of military setbacks and increasing air raids by the British. The Italians’ morale fell to ever-lower levels. The dire situation of food shortages and escalating bombings, along with lack of reliable news, steered Italians towards resenting the regime’s corruption and inefficiency. Internal struggles within the regime’s hierarchy made the work of propaganda even less successful, while changes at the top of MCP did little to improve the situation. As a result, the MCP was unable to incite Italian hatred against the enemy. British propaganda hoped to take advantage of the Italians’ loss of morale and convince them of the regime’s faults and responsibilities. The Italian secret police, OVRA, indeed reported several cases of disaffection among the population. As the British Foreign Ministry monitoring the situation realised, though, Italians were not ready to mount a serious opposition to Mussolini and his government.
The book offers a valuable contribution to the analysis of propaganda in Fascist Italy. It shows in detail MCP’s inner workings during the critical years from 1938 to 1943, and also addresses potential forms of opposition among the population. On this latter point, however, the book reveals its limitation. Petrella mostly hints at the issue of consent and does not develop a sustained discussion around it. What did it mean for Italians to dismiss official news or tune in to Radio Londra for alternative information, for example? Scholars of Fascism have long been battling with these questions and one should certainly not expect Petrella to resolve them. Nevertheless, a more direct assessment of this central problem would have strengthened the book’s principal and successful goal, which is to look at Fascist propaganda not as a monolith but as a changing and often contradictory enterprise. If propaganda indeed collapsed under the impact of war on the home front, we need to assess what, if anything, made Fascist propaganda successful before it crumbled.
