The Republican Fascist Party (, PFR) was a political party in Italy led by

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

and the sole representative party of the

Italian Social Republic The Italian Social Republic (, ; RSI; , ), known prior to December 1943 as the National Republican State of Italy (; SNRI), but more popularly known as the Republic of Salò (, ), was a List of World War II puppet states#Germany, German puppe ...

during the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

occupation of

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. The PFR was the successor to the

National Fascist Party The National Fascist Party (, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian fascism and as a reorganisation of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. The party ruled the Kingdom of It ...

but was more influenced by pre-1922 early radical fascism and

anti-monarchism Criticism of monarchy has occurred since ancient times. It can be targeted against the general form of government—monarchy—or more specifically, to particular monarchical governments as controlled by hereditary royal families. In some cases, ...

, as its members considered

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Victor Emmanuel III Victor Emmanuel III (; 11 November 1869 – 28 December 1947) was King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. A member of the House of Savoy, he also reigned as Emperor of Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941 and King of the Albani ...

to be a traitor after his agreement of the signing of the surrender to the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...

History

After the Nazi-engineered

Gran Sasso raid During World War II, the Gran Sasso raid (codenamed ''Unternehmen Eiche'', , literally "Operation Oak", by the German military) on 12 September 1943 was a successful operation by Fallschirmjäger, German paratroopers and ''Waffen-SS'' commandos ...

liberated Mussolini, the

(PNF) was revived on 13 September 1943 as the Republican Fascist Party (PFR) and as the

single party A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a governance structure in which only a single political party controls the ruling system. In a one-party state, all opposition parties are either outlawed or en ...

of the Northern and Nazi-protected

, informally known as the

Salò Salò (; ) is a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Brescia in the region of Lombardy (northern Italy) on the banks of Lake Garda, on which it has the longest promenade. The city was the Governance#Seat of government, seat of government of th ...

Republic. Its secretary was Alessandro Pavolini. Due to the strong control of the Germans, the party's power in the context of the Republic of Salò was always very limited. To obviate this inherent weakness, the party tried to obtain the support of the few population strata who still sympathised with fascism. In the provinces under the control of the Germans it was organised into three entities called Administrative, Assistance, and Political.Dianella Gagliani, Il Partito nel Fascismo Repubblicano Delle Origini: Una Prima Messa a Punto, in Rivista di Storia Contemporanea, vol. 23, n. 1/2, 1º gennaio 1994, pp. 130-169. The Assistance, also called the National Fascist Assistance Body, was formed in early October 1943. In the minds of the party leaders, the Assistance was to be a continuation of the powerful cadres of militants and volunteers of the former National Fascist Party. 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 The Italian Social Movement (, MSI) was a neo-fascist political party in Italy. A far-right party, it presented itself until the 1990s as the defender of Italian fascism's legacy, and later moved towards national conservatism. In 1972, the Itali ...

(MSI) and the MSI has been seen as the successor to the PFR and the PNF. The MSI was formed by former Fascist leaders and veterans of the

National Republican Army The National Republican Army (; abbreviated ENR), colloquially known as the Army of the North ( Italian: ''Esercito del Nord'') was the army of the Italian Social Republic (, or RSI) from 1943 to 1945, fighting on the side of Nazi Germany durin ...

of the Salò Republic. The party tried to modernise and revise

fascist Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...

doctrine into a more moderate and sophisticated direction. led the PFR organisation in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

until April 1944, when he was named Deputy Secretary of the national party organisation.

Ideology

The PFR sought to reconnect the new party with pre-1922 radical fascism. This move attracted parts of the fascist 'Old Guard', who had been sidelined after Mussolini had come to power in 1922. The new party was, however, internally divided, with different internal tendencies vying for Mussolini's support, and whilst the PFR revived some of the early revolutionary fascist discourse, it did not return to the

anti-clerical Anti-clericalism is opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historically, anti-clericalism in Christian traditions has been opposed to the influence of Catholicism. Anti-clericalism is related to secularism, ...

positions of the early fascist movement. In addition, the party promoted a

revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates for, a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective to describe something producing a major and sudden impact on society. Definition The term—bot ...

form of

Italian nationalism Italian nationalism () is a movement which believes that the Italians are a nation with a single homogeneous identity, and therefrom seeks to promote the cultural unity of Italy as a country. From an Italian nationalist perspective, Italianness i ...

,Grčić, Joseph. ''Ethics and Political Theory'' (Lanham, Maryland: University of America, Inc, 2000) p. 120. * Griffin, Roger and Matthew Feldman, eds., ''Fascism: Fascism and Culture'' (London and New York: Routledge, 2004) p. 185. * Jackson J. Spielvogel. ''Western Civilization''. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012. p. 935.Stanley G. Payne. A History of Fascism, 1914–1945. p. 106.Roger Griffin, "Nationalism" in Cyprian Blamires, ed., ''World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia'', vol. 2 (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2006), pp. 451–53.

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

, anti-liberalism,Eugen Weber. The Western Tradition: From the Renaissance to the present. Heath, 1972. Pp. 791.

anti-communism Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism, communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global ...

anti-capitalism Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists seek to combat the worst effects of capitalism and to eventually replace capitalism with an alternati ...

,Rimbotti, 2018

, and

republicanism Republicanism is a political ideology that encompasses a range of ideas from civic virtue, political participation, harms of corruption, positives of mixed constitution, rule of law, and others. Historically, it emphasizes the idea of self ...

. The RSI program, set out in the "Verona Manifesto" and approved by the congress of the Republican Fascist Party (Verona 15-16 November 1943), revived the revolutionary formulas of early fascism and included, among other things, the abandonment of

corporatism Corporatism is an ideology and political system of interest representation and policymaking whereby Corporate group (sociology), corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, come toget ...

and the creation of a National Confederation of Labour, a broad program of social welfare and worker participation in company profits. The program, opposed by the Germans and by Italian industrialists, was not implemented while, starting with the strikes of March 1944, a growing workers' opposition to the RSI developed.

Secretary of the PFR

* Alessandro Pavolini (15 November 1943 – 28 April 1945)

National Congress

* 1st National Congress –

Verona Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...

, 14–15 November 1943

References

{{Authority control 1943 establishments in Italy 1945 disestablishments in Italy Anti-communist parties Antisemitism in Italy Banned far-right parties Defunct nationalist parties in Italy Defunct political parties in Italy Fascist parties Italian Social Republic National syndicalism Parties of one-party systems Political parties established in 1943 Political parties disestablished in 1945