Sergio Panunzio (20 July 1886 – 8 October 1944) was an Italian theoretician of national syndicalism. In the 1920s, he became a major theoretician of

Italian Fascism Italian fascism (), also called classical fascism and Fascism, is the original fascist ideology, which Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini developed in Italy. The ideology of Italian fascism is associated with a series of political parties le ...

Early life

Sergio Panunzio was born on 20 July 1886 in

Molfetta Molfetta (; Bari dialect, Molfettese: ) is a town located in the northern side of the Metropolitan City of Bari, Apulia, southern Italy. It has a well restored old city, and its own dialect. History The earliest local signs of permanent habit ...

, Italy. He started his political involvement young by associating with syndicalist circles in 1902. From the

University of Naples The University of Naples Federico II (; , ) is a public university, public research university in Naples, Campania, Italy. Established in 1224 and named after its founder, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, it is the oldest public, s ...

, he obtained two degrees, in

jurisprudence Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values ...

in 1908 and in

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

in 1911.

Career

Panunzio became the head of the Fascist Faculty of Political Sciences at Perugia University in 1928. Panunzio said that syndicalism is the historical development of

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

. He pointed to Georges Sorel and

Francesco Saverio Merlino Francesco Saverio Merlino (9 September 1856 – 30 June 1930) was an Italian lawyer, anarchist activist and theorist of libertarian socialism. During his law studies at the University of Naples Federico II, Merlino joined the International Wor ...

as revising

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

to fit the times and emboldening it. He is said to have spearheaded the revisionism that led many syndicalists through interventionism to corporativism and he ostensibly "gave Mussolini's dictatorship a veneer of revolutionary legitimacy". (From the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

, 15 March 2005) Panunzio criticized the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

state as a "dictatorship ''over'' the proletariat, and not ''of'' the proletariat". He is quoted as saying, "

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

bows before the light radiating from

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, ...

. The

Communist International The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internationa ...

no longer speaks to the spirit; it is dead." He opposed the

anti-Semitic 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 ...

campaign of 1938. A strong supporter of the state for its own sake, he had a long-running academic dispute with the corporatist Carlo Costamagna regarding the role of fascism. Philip Rees, '' Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890'', 1990, p. 68

Death

Panunzio died on 8 October 1944.

Works

*''La Persistenza del Diritto (Discutendo di Sindacalismo e di Anarchismo)'' he Persistence of the Right (A Discussion about Syndicalism and Anarchism)(

Pescara Pescara (; ; ) is the capital city of the province of Pescara, in the Abruzzo Regions of Italy, region of Italy. It is the most populated city in Abruzzo, with 118,657 (January 1, 2023) residents (and approximately 350,000 including the surround ...

: Casa Editrice Abruzzese, 1909). *''Diritto, forza e violenza; lineamenti di una teoria della violenza. Con prefazione di R. Mondolfo'' (Bologna, L. Cappelli, 1921) *''Italo Balbo'' (Milano, Imperia, 1923) *''Stato nazionale e sindacati'' (

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

: Imperia, 1924) *''Che cos' è il fascismo'' (Milan: Alpes, 1924) *''Lo stato fascista'' (

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

: , 1925) *''Il sentimento dello stato'' (Rome, Libreria del Littorio, 1929) *''Il diritto sindacale e corporativo (programma, concetto, metodo) ( Perugia-Venezia: "La Nuova Italia", 1930) *''Popolo, nazione, stato (esame giuridico)'' (

Firenze Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, "La Nuova Italia" Editrice, 1933) *''I sindacati e l'organizzazione economica dell'impero'' (Roma, Istituto poligrafico dello stato, Libreria, 1938) *''Sulla natura giuridica dell'impero italiano d'Etiopia'' (Roma, Istituto poligrafico dello stato, Libreria, 1938) *''L'organizzazione sindacale e l'economia dell'impero'' (Roma, Istituto poligrafico dello stato, Libreria, 1939) *''La Camera dei fasci e delle corporazioni'' ( Roma, Stabilimento arti grafiche Trinacria, 1939) *''Teoria generale dello stato fascista'' 2. ed., ampliata ed aggiornata (Padova, CEDAM, Casa editrice dott. A. Milani, 1939) *''Teoria generale dello stato fascista'', 2nd ed., enl. (

Padua Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 20 ...

: CEDAM, 1939) *''Spagna nazionalsindacalista'' (Milano, Bietti, 1942) *''Motivi e metodo della codificazione fascista'' (Milano, A. Giuffrè, 1943)

References

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Panunzio, Sergio 1886 births 1944 deaths People from Molfetta Italian fascists National syndicalists Academic staff of the University of Perugia