MUSSOLINI AND MAZZINI
SIR,—May I thank Miss Wiskemann for her courteous reply to my letter, and add one further comment ? Mazzinian societies are now lifting their heads once more in Italy, and elsewhere. There is an Associazione Mazziniana Italiana, whose headquarters are in Turin, and which pub- lishes a monthly periodical, II Pensiero Mazziniano. The Italian support of the European Federalist movement is largely Mazzinian. I regret, there- fore, any disposition to suggest to British readers that Mazzini was, even " in a way " and " in part," the spiritual ancestor of Fascism. If Fascism must, at this late hour, be presented with " ancestors," Vilfredo Pareto might be nominated. Even Garibaldi, with his Red Shirts, his " march on Rome," and his occasional disposition to assume dictatorial powers, might be given avuncular status. But Mar7ini is quite unmanageable. His Duties of Men, from which Miss Wiskemann quotes a solitary sentence (which I have been unable to trace), is a complete armoury of anti-Fascist
texts and doctrines.—Yours, etc. GWILYM 0. GRIFFITH. 57 Goldieslie Road, Wylde Green, Birmingham.
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