I have finished reading up on the article from , very interesting piece of history, I learned under what conditions and how Mussolini came to power, and what influenced his fascism.
Though the article claims that national socialism and fascism are the same. It also put evidence there that Mussolini was racial conscious, but the site seems long gone, and I cannot access what it had linked.
From what I know now, the functionality and cohesion of the state was very important to him. I think Mussolini foremost sought to unify Italy under a strong banner, and win over the volk. I couldn't view his take on race in the article, but I found a few take-aways in a blog-post, that posted. Check this out:
Starts with a quote from Mussolini:
"Race? It is a feeling, not a reality. Ninety-five per cent, at least. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today.… National pride has no need of the delirium of race.”
Then the explanation from the blog-post:
It would be easy to take this and apply a universal context to this quote, if one did not understand the concept of race at that point in time. The Linnaeus taxonomic system would have still been in use at this point in time, and the term “race” would have suggested a variation within of the species Homo europaeus (White Europeans). In other words, Mussolini’s reference to “biologically pure races” was in the context of a mixture of White race sub-sets within the White race species Homo europaeus. Just as other Europeans mentioned the “German race” or the “English race”, so did Mussolini the “Italian race”."
Another good take-away:
"In the book “Racial Theories in Fascist Italy” by Aaron Gillette, Aaron records Mussolini’s pessimism about the fate of Europe. Mussolini went on to say “The singular, enormous problem is the destiny of the White race. Europe is truly towards the end of its destiny as the leader of civilization.” Mussolini went on, explaining this sad outcome had occurred because “the White race is sickly,” “morally and physically in ruin,” and in opposition to the “progress in numbers and in expansion of the yellow and black races, the civilization of the White man is destined to perish.” According to Mussolini, only through an aggressive program of promoting natality and eugenics was there any hope of reversing this trend."
Looks like race was important to him, afterall. Yet, I'm not seeing much out there that Italy was a particular racist state, unlike Germany.
Learning about his downfall, and if the picture collage of is to be believed, it seems that perhaps he had found himself too far caught up in political intrigues and trusting the wrong people too much, to do what was necessary.
I want to point out the following good posts:
All in all, the common theme I see here is that fascism places it's focus on the state, and race only in so far as a fundamental pillar to it's well-being, while national socialism does everything in it's power to give the best care and happiness to it's volk. From what I learned in the history of Mussolini's rise, it seems to confirm that, even though his personal views may have been different.
I looked up Evola, I found a few entries on this wikipage here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Evola … if you skip to the section "third reich", turns out he did eventually worm his way in afterall.
Some of the important takes I found on him:
"Evola endorsed Otto Weininger's views on the Jews. Though Evola viewed Jews as corrosive and anti-traditional, he described Adolf Hitler's more fanatical anti-Semitism as a paranoid idée fixe that damaged the reputation of the Third Reich."
"After World War II, Evola continued his work in esotericism. He wrote a number of books and articles on sex magic […]"
"After World War II, Evola's writings continued to influence many European far-right political, racist and neo-fascist movements."
"It was Evola's custom to walk around the city during bombing raids in order to better "ponder his destiny". During one such raid, 1945, a shell fragment damaged his spinal cord and he became paralyzed from the waist down, remaining so for the remainder of his life"
"During his trial in 1951, Evola denied being a fascist and instead referred to himself as a "superfascist"."
I mean, at least he is showing some fervor, but he used it very poorly, doing more damage than good.