Duce Benito Mussolini Founded 13 September 1943 Preceded by National Fascist Party | General Secretary Alessandro Pavolini Dissolved 28 April 1945 | |
 | ||
Headquarters Piazza San Sepolcro, Milan, R.S.I. | ||
The Republican Fascist Party (Italian: Partito Fascista Repubblicano, PFR) was a political party in Italy led by Benito Mussolini during the German occupation of Central and Northern Italy. It was founded as the successor of former National Fascist Party as an anti-monarchist party. It considered King Victor Emmanuel III to be a traitor after he had signed the surrender to the Allied powers.
Contents
History
After the Nazi-engineered Gran Sasso raid liberated Mussolini, on 13 September 1943, the PNF was revived as the PFR and as the single party of the Northern and Nazi-protected Italian Social Republic (the Salò Republic). Its secretary was Alessandro Pavolini.
The PFR did not outlast Mussolini's execution and the disappearance of the Salò state in April 1945. However it inspired the creation of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), and the MSI has been seen as the successor to the PFR and the National Fascist Party (PNF). The MSI was formed by former fascist leaders and veterans of the republic's fascist army. The party tried to modernise and revise fascist doctrine into a more moderate and sophisticated direction. The MSI was considered legal under Italy's postwar constitution which forbids the formation of overtly Fascist parties.
Ideology
Italian Fascism was rooted in Italian nationalism and the desire to restore and expand Italian territories, which Italian Fascists deemed necessary for a nation to assert its superiority and strength and to avoid succumbing to decay. Italian Fascists claimed that modern Italy is the heir to ancient Rome and its legacy, and historically supported the creation of an Italian Empire to provide spazio vitale ("living space") for colonization by Italian settlers and to establish control over the Mediterranean Sea.
Italian Fascism promoted a corporatist economic system whereby employer and employee syndicates are linked together in associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy. This economic system intended to resolve class conflict through collaboration between the classes.
Italian Fascism opposed liberalism and capitalism, but rather than seeking a reactionary restoration of the pre-French Revolutionary world, which it considered to have been flawed, it had a forward-looking direction. It was opposed to Marxist socialism because of its typical opposition to nationalism, but was also opposed to the reactionary conservatism developed by Joseph de Maistre. It believed the success of Italian nationalism required respect for tradition and a clear sense of a shared past among the Italian people, alongside a commitment to a modernized Italy.