The Challenge to Geneva
" FASCISM is a party only in name, in point of fact it is an army."
Here in this " strictly scientific " exposition of Fascism is the pure gospel of the State militant, and we are not surprised to
find Herr von Binzer writing of the trend Of Fasciit opinion in Germany in the strain of Treitschke and the war-mongering professors. This is only one Of various affirmations implying that all the other nations are out of step with Italy beettuse they continue to listen to the '‘‘ Sirens of international democracy,"
and bearing a family likeness to that pan-Germanism which
the Great War was fought to destroy. In these days, when the world is everywhere being organized for peace through co-operation, as the only means of safeguarding each valuable national personality, such a7 doctrine is patently obsolete. The only question is whether it is still dangerous.
The flame of local patriotism burns brightly in Switzerland, and the good folk of Lausanne, it is said, have never quite recovered from their disappointment that Geneva should have been preferred as the seat of the League of Nations. And so apparently, like Malvnlio with his " I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you," they have offered their pleasant •city to be the headquaiters of the International Centre of Fascist Studies (Cinef). It is a clear case of retribution. For, as it stands revealed in this little book of essays on its tenets and its achievements, Fascism is a challenge to Geneva and all that .Gentva stands for in the modern world. Our Italian friends who are at a loss to understand why the new regime in Italy is not popular abroad need look no further. The choice is not, as they would have us believe, one between Rome and Moscow, for both Fascism and Bolshevism are in essence forms of reaction born of despair. The attempts here to conjure up the Fascist idea in France, in Germany and in Ireland are simply pathetic—the paper on France being contributed by a Portuguese ! And if Communism can be described as an " anti-historical movement," which is the verdict of Signor Olivetti, Socialist turned Syndicalist, and now one of the hierarchy of the Ministry of Corporations, Fascism is surely no less anti-historical, for it disregards everything that has happened in the world since the Reformation, the seed of self-expression from which has sprung that unity in diversity which we call modern civilization.
Thus in the introductory essay a distinguished Dutch Catholic informs us that " the Reformation sanctioned for each individual the power of divine inspiration," also that the French Revolution, the industrial revolution, doctrinaire Liberalism and Socialism are the direct political and economic consequences of a fundamentally false rationalistic philosophy. The aim of Fascism is, we are told, to restore those social and political principles (defined by Mr. J. S. Barnes, author of The Universal Aspects of Fascism, as responsibility, hierarchy. and discipline) which governed the civilized world before the triumph of individualism, and it is Italy's privilege as the direct heir of Rome to be the first country to apply them in the conditions of the modern nation-State. The point is made that the actual form Fascism has taken, i.e., a personal dictatorship, is by no means an essential attribute. With this we are in agreement, nor can anyone be blind to the positive achievements of Signor Mussolini's Government.
Mr. Barnes, as Secretary of the ".Cinef," translates a number of the papers appearing here and contributes one himself on the reform of the State. This and others relating the history of the last ten years in Italy are well worth reading, although Signor Villari can scarcely expect :us to credit his statement that outrages committed by Fascists were invariably affairs of " vigour, courage and enterprise, whereas the Reds never attacked except by treachery or in overwhelming superiority of numbers " I But, when it comes to justifying the revolution in Italy in the name of a philosophy which was in fact thought of after the event, we can only marvel at human credulity.
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