In Europe

the shouted slogans – ‘Adolf Clinton, go home!’. Their greetings are warm – ‘
Mio caro
,’ long time no see’ – and amid the strains of the ‘Internationale’ you can hear the cheeks being kissed. In the crowd, another mobile phone rings loudly. At set intervals the progress grinds to a halt, as the boys up in front have to push-start their Flat. The communists are singing ‘
Bella ciao
,’ the collective feminists and lesbians of Bologna form a solid bloc of floral dresses, two blind men try to cross the street between them all, groping along with their white canes, the proletarians let their siren wail, the anarchists wave their black-and-red flags, this is demonstration raised to a science, a speciality of the city.
    I spend the night in my van close to the city's huge exhibition grounds. The perfume and lipstick merchants of Italy are holding a convention there. At the entrance to the car park lot stands a gigantic man with a friendly face who charges 10,000 lire for each car, and tears off vague little ticket stubs. One hour later he is arrested, but there's no hurry, he's even allowed to buy himself a sandwich before he is carted off. This is obviously a daily ritual. At night the exhibition grounds are deserted, yet a certain hecticness remains: prostitutes, shady deals, young boys, brothels on wheels. There is nothing dangerous about it, everything takes place calmly and routinely.
    The next day I take the fast road to Ravenna, through the hills and thelight green of spring in the direction of Predappio, the village where Mussolini was born. Driving there I almost collide with a rubbish bin along the road, stunned as I am by what I see across the street. One shop after another is selling everything that has been anathema in the rest of Europe since 1945: SS and
Wehrmacht
uniforms, Italian Fascist caps, weapons, books, swastikas. The village is one huge souvenir shop for all things from the wrong side of the fence.
    The architecture of Predappio is remarkably uniform. These buildings were meant to breed model Fascists: the housing blocks with their typical square-jawed style, the warehouses of the Caproni aircraft company, the now abandoned Casa del Fascio on the village square. Mussolini pampered his birthplace. Between 1926–38 the town was converted into a Fascist
città ideale
. The order of the box of blocks rules supreme, the pillars stand rigidly to attention, the windows stare arrogantly at the sky, the barracks of the
carabinieri
greet the robust party headquarters across the square, arms raised in salute, heels clacked together.
    Today the underground bunkers are used for growing mushrooms. All reference to Il Duce has been rigorously removed from the buildings, but his chunky face – complete with jutting chin – comes back a thousandfold on ashtrays, vases, lighters, buttons, posters, T-shirts and wine bottles. The house where he was born is kept in perfect condition, and one can take guided tours on request. The meter box by the front door is covered in inscriptions: ‘Il Duce, I love you.’
    Was Fascism an incident, a strange twist in the course of Italian history, a kind of disease that descended on the Italians around 1920 and of which they were finally cured in 1945? Or was Fascism, as the liberal Giustino Fortunato wrote in 1924, ‘not a revolution, but a revelation’, a movement that mercilessly exposed the weak spots in Italian society? What does Fascism tell us about Italy?
    From the day the corpses of Mussolini and his mistress Claretta Petacci were left dangling upside down from a sign beside a Milanese petrol station on 29 April, 1945, almost every Italian historian has racked his brains to answer those questions.
    To the outside world, Fascism was and is always seen as a single ideology, a single movement. In reality, however, the Fascists, with theirmany connections and backgrounds, formed a strange and motley crew. They reflected in every way the turbulent Italy of the 1920s. They included frustrated officers and industrialists, but also many frightened citizens and angry farmers. There were staunch nationalists among them, but also many who wanted little or nothing to do with the state. It was only to the outside world that Mussolini looked like the uncontested leader. In reality, he had constantly to play a game of give and take with all those different factions.
    The driving force for all Italians, in all their hope and rage, was above all the inferiority