Croce

Benedetto Croce: History and Politics Author(s): Denis Mack Smith Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 8, No.
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Benedetto
and
Croce:
History
Politics
Denis Mack Smith

Croce's eighty published volumes include no formal treatise on politics, yet he had strong views about political theory and practice,and he had somethingincisive to say about all the main political movements which came into being during his long
lifetime (I866-I952). As a senator from
I9I0
onwards he sat in
parliament, and he was twice in the cabinet. Through his magazine,La Critica,his influenceon the small readingpublic in Italy was far greaterthan that of any other single writer.He early won the reputationof being the most learnedman in Italy, and no other scholarhad his rangeof intellectualinterests. Croce was largely self-taught and never completed his degree courseat Rome university.In the earlydays he was not known as a philosopher, and his first publications were concerned with small byways of literature and minor episodes in Neapolitan history. Then in I895 Labriola's essay on the Communist Manifesto shook him out of what was in danger of becoming a sterile antiquarianism.Subsequently he objected when people said that he had ever become a socialist, and it is true that he never joinedthe party,but in I899-I903 he wrote occasionally for the socialist Avanti, a journalwhich he helped to launch with a generousfinancialdonation,and Labriolaused to refer to him as comradeCroce. Though he quicklyfound intellectualreasonsfor rejectingmost of marxisteconomicsand philosophy,he acknowledged that Marx had first taught him about politics and had introducedhim to the fundamentalteachingsof Machiavelli.He once said that a statue to Machiavellishould be raised in every town squarefor the discoverythat politics were about power and the strugglefor power, not about consentor justice.Machiavelli's teachingwas that no act of politics could be moral or immoral,
4I
CONTEMPORARY
HISTORY
only expedient or inexpedient, and this lesson became the first articlein Croce'spoliticalcreed. Soon after I900 he becameattractedto Georges Sorel'sversion of socialism. He greatly admired Sorel's impatiencewith demoand the acceptanceof conflict as the real cratic humanitarianism substance of history. Although he continued in frequent correspondencewith Sorel until the latter'sdeath in I922, very few of Croce's letters have been published, and not much is yet known of the steps by which his exaltationof Machiavelliand then Hegel took himnacross the political spectrum to the point where, by I9II, he pronounced that socialism was finished. In this new phase he repudiatedthe socialists as materialisticand disruptive and demoof social unity. He likewise condemnedegalitarianism cracy,while the principlesof I789 were now said to be out of date and irrelevant to contemporaryneeds. When in I914 Croce descended from theory into the melee of Neapolitan politics, it was in order to become president of the fascio dell'ordine,a allianceagainstsocialistsand radicals. conservative A number of people thought there were errors of perception and logic in Croce's criticism of democracy,and also in the way that he excluded considerationsof justice and moralityfrom the study of politics. Primarilya scholar and man of letters, he had learnt to think theoreticallyof political matters, and had become accustomed to argue too much from dogmatic (and sometimes idiosyncratic)definitionsof democracyand socialism. Condemning democracyas an antiquatedjacobindoctrineof the eighteenth century,he refusedto allowthat it might have become differentin the more recent politicalpracticeof Britainand America.By Ihis definition, democracy could not be a development of, but was rather antecedent to, and superseded by, liberalism. An early reactionagainstHerbertSpencerand the positivistsleft him with an abiding distaste for English empiricism,and Mill's utilitarian defence of liberalism he repudiated as fallacious and ignoble. Only much later in life did Croce come to recognize that academicdogmatismcould be perilouslyinadequatein this field. It was the Germansratherthan the Anglo-Saxonsfrom whom he thought he had most to learn. He had grown up in a distinguished intellectual coterie which believed that the Germanyof Goethe and Hegel was on a par with Periclean Athens and RenaissanceItaly as the third great moment of Western culture.
42
BENEDETTO CROCE
He greatly admiredin Germanythe pronouncedsense of loyalty to the state and the belief in a historicmission of the fatherland. For a time he consideredthe possibilitythat north of the Alps a kind of national socialismmight be developingwhich would set world history on a new and more exciting course. Germanshad the great advantage in his eyes of acceptingthat politics was force and conflict, whereas France and England were wasting time and a along the blind alleys of humanitarianism, internationalism, foolishidealizationof the commonpeople.' Hegel was the Germanwhom Crocereveredmost, and, despite certain criticisms, he called himself a Hegelian. He criticized Hegel for going too far in idolizing the state, but others accused Croce himself of doing just the same. He was also accused of worshipping a World Spirit which seemed to limit the role of individual initiative in history. Another abiding Hegelian influence on his politics was the dialectic conflict and union of opposites. Another was the convictionthat every occurrencehad to have a reason for happening and so could be justified as necessary and in some sense also beneficent. Hegel here reinforcedthe historicistattitudewhich Crocehad acquiredfromVico. The Inquisition,the persecutionof Jews, Bismarck's warmongerin 1922, all these he ing, the collapseof Italian parliamentarism regardedas having fulfilled justifiableends of society, since the real must be rationaland 'nothing could ever happen in vain'.2 Nor would he admit that this attitudemight lead to a panglossian to acceptanceof things as they were which was more appropriate a historianthan to a politician.
THESE THEORETICALAND ESSENTIALLY bookish ideas about politics were first put to a serious practicaltest by the war of 1914 when
Croce was nearly fifty years old. In August I914, and until May 1915 when Italy enteredthe war, he was by his own confessiona
pro-German,since Germanystood for the values which he most prized. Though not especiallybelligerent,he felt that Italy could not stand aloof. He had welcomed the Libyan war of 1912 as a boosterfor Italiannationalmorale,but such patrioticfervourwas
1 B. Croce, Pagine sulla Guerra (Naples I919), I4-15, 68-69, I64-65; Etica e Politica (Bari 1945), 172. 2 Cib che e Vivo e Cib che e Morto della Filosofia di Hegel (Bari 1907), 56-57, 207; Ultimi Saggi (Bari I963), 256.
43
CONTEMPORARYHISTORY
not enough by itself. War was like love; one simply fell into it, and there was little point in seeking rationalreasonsat the time. War was its own justification. The essenceof historywas conflict, and war was a conflict of oppositeswhich would be resolved and fused into a higherform of civilization.3 By December I914 he began to see that Italy might side not with her ally, Germany,but with Franceand Britain,and he was ready to act as a good patriot on whichever side the underlying forces of historymight choose. Eitherway the World Spirit would be acting out its beneficent purpose. He was theoreticallyconvinced that no idealism, no considerations of justice or humanity could possibly be at stake, only nationalhonour, and Machiavelli had proved that the concept of a just war was logicallyirrelevant. His main fear was that outsidersmight call Italy dishonourable if she disownedher treatywith Germany,and he himself was weak enough to wonderif it were not treacheryto changesides; yet he quicklyreturnedto the more realisticpreceptof 'my countryright or wrong'.4 No sooner had the government decided to fight against Germanythan he at once renouncedhis pro-Germanstance and voted as a senator for Salandra's policy to join France and England. Absolute obedience to officialauthoritywas something which he now preached as a duty, the only duty for a good citizen, and national honour would certainly look tarnished if Italy repudiated Salandra'snew treaty with the Allies so soon after renouncing another with the Central Powers. No special virtue distinguished the allied cause in his opinion. All that matteredwas for Italy to escape from being thought a secondary nation and from the accusationof being cowardlyor unwarlike. War would be worthwhileif it had this result. It was only much later that Crocemodifiedhis views and stated that this first world war must have been a war of religion,a conflictbetween different ideas of life, a war which had been 'caused' by the folly and of Austriaand Germany.5 provocation Throughoutthe war years, Croceretainedhis Hegelianconvic3 Pagine sulla Guerra, 9, 40; Cultura e Vita Morale (Bari I926), 183; Epistolario (Naples I967), I, 3 4 Pagine sulla Guerra, I02; Epistolario, I, 5, 20; Contributo alla Critica di Me Stesso (Bari I945), 67, 79. 5 Pagine sulla Guerra, I27, 151, 224-25; Pagine Sparse (Naples I943), II, 203; Quaderni della Critica (Bari), April I946, 7I; Epistolario (Bari I969), II, 28I
44
BENEDETTO
CROCE
tion that both sides must be inevitably,if unconsciously,working together for the greater good of mankind. He had to recognize that the war badly bruised Italy, and the defeat of Caporettoin I917 shatteredsome of his illusions,but he optimisticallysaw the bright side. He thought that Italy had won an excellentposition in Europeby I919, and this justifiedthe damage.He rejoicedthat the idealistic war aims of the democraticideologues had been proved wrong. He condemnedthe League of Nations, since the strugglefor powerwas a permanentfact of life, and any successin 'would destroythe mainspring ending international disagreements of history and end the world in a great yawn of boredom'.6This was the time when Croce,of his own accord,volunteeredto write for the nationalistmagazine,Politica. He thought that dangerous forces were at work on the left; D'Annunziohad not yet revealed that nationalism was a danger on the right. A moderate liberalismwas bound to prevail in the end because the logic of history was on its side. The method of liberalism was the Hegelian reconcilerof opposites. Liberalism'satisfiedthe moral conscience', whereas the alternatives,whether democracy,communism, catholicism, or other current cults of the irrational, would inevitablyfail becausethey were in conflictwith logic and with the progressof thoughtand culture. From June I920 to June 1921, Crocewas ministerof education in Giolitti's cabinet. Despite his lack of experience,he was an improvement on most of his predecessors. He introduced a welcome cost-effectivenessinto administration,and in general stood out against the abuses of patronagewhich were a major corruptingforce in Italian public life. Nevertheless, as an innocent in practicalpolitics, he did not concealhis sense of superiority over the lesser men who constitutedparliament,and his two projectedreformbills thereforeran into overwhelming opposition and sank without trace. He concluded from this that more were needed to makethe parliamenauthorityand less democracy tary system work. In his last months of office a general election was held in which the fascists were included inside the same government bloc to which he himself belonged, and this was something of which he entirely approved.7Scandalousintimi6
Pagine sulla Guerra, 298. Guido de Ruggiero, Scritti Politici 1912-I926,

I963), 3I.
ed. Renzo de Felice
(Bologna
45
CONTEMPORARYHISTORY
dation of the electoratewas deliberately permittedby the authorities, and as a result, under Giolitti'ssponsorship,the first fascists took their seats in parliament. Crocehad a distastefor partypolitics, and it is noteworthythat he rarelywrote anything-let alone anythingappreciative-about the working of parliamentaryinstitutions. As a philosophical idealist it was to him the unalterableidea that mattered, rather than institutionswhich were fallible and changeable.He was also too much the grand seigneur, too much of an autocraticdisposition, too consciousof his own rectitudeand superiorwisdom, to He advisedItaliansto stand aside from be a good parliamentarian. parties so that they could concentrateon the good of the fatherof social order,since this he understood land and the maintenance to have been the teachingof Cavourand Giolitti, his two political heroes. His slightly cynical view was that 'the party which governs or misgovernsus alwaysturns out to be the same party, and all other politiciansagree with it, or merely pretend to be in opposition'. Knowing that all events in history must have their own rationality,he concludedthat Italy did not need a two-party system, his argumentbeing that 'if she had needed a different political system she would have createdit'.8 Only the arrivalof fascism, and in particularwhen fascism turned out to be something very differentfrom what he at first took it to be, did he join a political party. By this date, April I925, the whole world of Cavourand Giolitti stood in ruins, and he had done nothing to stave off its collapse. Looking at Mussolini'ssuccess in I925, there might have been cause for a philosopher to ponder whether the real was indeed always rational, whether what happened had so to happen and never unjust,foolish or 'wrong';Crocehad was never 'accidental', reasonto doubt whetherthe principleof liberty reallywas bound to win; and whether his easy optimism and belief in progress through the dialectic had not been the product of a sheltered mind living in a shelteredage; and whetherone partyto a conflict were not sometimes more just than the other. Perhaps he had been wrong to deprecatethe bringing of ideals into politics and wrong to discourageItaliansfrom joiningpartieswhich could put
8
I942), I, 312;
Storia d'Italia dal I87I al I9I5 (Bari I928), Cultura e Vita Morale, i9I, I97.
2I, 25;
Pagine Sparse(Naples 46
BENEDETTO CROCE
those ideals into practice. Perhaps democracyand party politics were, if not positivelywelcome,at any rate the lesser evils.9
in 1922-24 was something which he FOR FASCISM CROCE'S SUPPORT
later tried to minimize and even sometimes denied, but it was a fact, and indeed was logical enough in the light of his general beliefs. In so far as fascism was anythingdefinite, it was against humanitarianism, againstdemocratic ideologues, against the contamination of bringing moral judgments into politics. It also seemed to be against left-wing revolutionaries.All these things appealed to Croce. Fascism stood above all for patriotism, and Croce thought patriotism a moral imperative. Mussolini had shared Croce'schangingenthusiasmsfor Marx, Machiavelli,and Sorel. He whole-heartedly agreed with Croce's doctrine of politics as power, with his dislike of the multiplicity of parties, with the need for socialunity and more authorityin the state. In private conversationCroce praised Mussolini as a brilliant politicianand applauded'fervently'the first speech of the fascist leaderthat he heard.10 There is nothing to suggest that he saw in fascismthe negationof his own liberalism,at least not until it was far too late and the Liberals had helped Mussolini into an invulnerableposition. Fascism rather seemed to exemplify his own convictionsthat, in the interest of liberalism,the advanceof democracyshould be resisted.Though Crocelater denied the fact strenuously,his writings show that he was not very far from the fascist idea of the 'ethical state'." His Hegelian idea of history convinced him that what happenedmust be necessaryand true, and that dictatorships,if they came into being, must have some justification.As he had once said about the persecutionsof the Inquisition and about Prussianauthoritarianism, they must have been right for their own age,and if Italy had needed or deserveda non-fascist type of governmentshe would surely have produced
9 D. Mack Smith, 'The Politics of Senator Croce', The Cambridge Journal (Cambridge),October I947, 42. In a private letter, Croce called this article an accurateaccount of his views, but added that he would like to make a clearer distinction between historical judgments and moral judgments; and he also wanted to make clear that he believed in progress only in the sense that new truths alwaysincluded the truths they replaced. 10L. Russo, 'Conversazioni con Benedetto Croce', Belfagor (Messina), JanuaryI953, 6-7: and Croce added, 'violenceis the midwife of history'. 11Etica e Politica, I60; Pagine Sparse,II, 389.
47
CONTEMPORARYHISTORY
it. For these variousreasonsthe leadingfascistintellectualslooked upon Croceas their spiritualfatherand as a fascistmalgrelui.12 Of coursehe repudiatedthe title. It remainstrue, however,that Croce was at first close to Gentile and Volpe, and the magazine which later became the Civiltdfascista listed his name among its founders.As a senatorhe stood with the largemajorityof Liberals who voted full powers to fascism at a time when Mussolini, with only 5 per cent of the seats in parliament,was entirelydependent on the Liberalvote. He supportedthe new electorallaw which in I923 fundamentallychanged the constitutionand gave dictatorship parliamentary sanction. On the first anniversary of Mussolini'smarch on Rome he publicly confirmedthat, far from fascism being opposed to liberalism,all good Liberalshad a duty to support the new regime. One of his favourite disciples later recalled that criticism of Mussolini used to make him angry.13 Croce himself was once askedby Mussolini to become a minister, and though he refused the offer, the first two ministers of educationunder fascism, Gentile and Casati,were appointedon his recommendation. In the elections of April I924, Croce was still supporting fascism and advised the electorate to help Mussolini obtain an absolute majority in parliament, though the more perceptive Liberals had by now moved strongly against him on this point. He continued his support even after the murder of the socialist deputy, Matteotti, had badly shaken the regime. He was much less enthusiasticnow, but, far from reactingagainstthis culmination of four years of horrifyingviolence by the fascist squads, he declaredthe bludgeoningof politicalopponentsto be allowablein certain circumstances. In June I924, he voted again for Mussolini in parliament:every impartialmind, he explained,had to admitthat fascismhad done a lot of good, and the time for it to had not yet come.14 disappear No doubt Croce was acting from the best of motives in hoping
12 Gerarchia (Milan), October 1924, 159-60; G. Volpe, Guerra, Dopoguerra, Fascismo (Venice 1928), 298; L. Villari, Italy (London I929), 365; Prezzolini's preface to U. Benedetto, Croce e il Fascismo (Rome I967), 2, II. 13 E. Cione, Benedetto Croce ed il Pensiero Contemporaneo (Milan I963), I27; Pagine Sparse, II, 373; C. M. Destler states that these interviews were later toned down by Croce to make them more suitable for publication, Journal of Modern History (Chicago), 1952, 387. 14 Pagine Sparse, II, 374-78; La Critica (Bari), I924, XXII, I91-92.
48
BENEDETTO CROCE
that Mussolini would restore authority and correct a defective system. But his logicaldeductionswere suspect and parliamentary his armchairview of politics was strangelyunreal. His study of history and humannaturehad led him to assumethat revolutions were to be expected only from the left. By his definitionit was Democratsand never Liberalswho paved the way to tyranny.As he later confessed, it never crossed his mind that Italy might be on the verge of plunging back into barbarism.He had prided himself on his realismin seeing politics as nakedpower, but was quite unable to recognizein Mussolini a variationon the type of Machiavellianhero which he thought he so thoroughlyunderstood. On the contrary, he considered himself as the whereasMussoliniwas in his opinionthe dupe. He Machiavellian in a friend told June I926 that he was sure the Liberals could when the time was right, and in the meantime Mussolini overturn This was colossalnaivete. Far from keeping 'he is our prisoner'.15 Mussoliniprisoner,the Liberalswere imprisoningthemselvesand giving much-neededsupportto fascismat its weakestmoment. Croce moved into opposition. Although his indignantlycriticalreply to the Manifestoof the Fascist Intellectuals was written in April 1925, for some time before this he had been becoming uneasy in his attitude; on the other hand even after 1925 he still continued to retain the hope that fascism might be serving some inscrutable and beneficent As a historicist,he was as ready to justify the fascist purpose.16 revolutionas he was ill-equippedto try to reverseit. But at some point he realizedthat his earlierpolemic againstdemocracymust have been misconceived, and eventually (as unobtrusively as possible) he redefinedthe word so that it meant not one of the worst but one of the best forms of government.Practicalexperience of fascism gradually convinced him that he must have over-emphasizedthe doctrine of politics as force: he was now and preparedto condemn'crudeand unilateralMachiavellianism' give more place to moral considerations in politics. In his philosophythe moment camewhen he tried to repudiatethe label
THEREWAS NO SUDDENMOMENTwhen
15 G. Levi della Vida, Fantasmi Ritrovati (Venice I966), 195-97; E. Scaglione, Tre Discorsi (Salerno I944), 33; Rivista di Studi Crociani (Naples I967), 386. 16 Epistolario, I, 132; Q. Piras, Battaglie Liberali (Novara 1926), 35.
49
CONTEMPORARYHISTORY
of philosophicalidealismand even confesseda profoundaversion to some aspectsof Hegelianism. After January I925, from being a conditional supporter of fascism, Croce swung over to become the leading antifascist among those Italianswho did not go into exile. For four years he appeared occasionally in the Senate and voted with the tiny minority who opposed some of Mussolini's more extreme legislation. The circulationof his magazine,La Critica, began about I928 to rise from I,500 copies to reach 3,000 ten yearslater. Most of the younger antifascistsseem to have eventuallydesertedhim in favour of a more radical opposition than he thought either logical or expedient, and some were to claim that his refusal to take the gloves off made him more a help than a hindranceto Mussolini; but this was as unilaterala judgmentas Croce's own impenitent refusal to admit that his earlier support for fascism might have been foolish.17The most he himself would admit to and insufficiently was havingbeen over-optimistic farsighted. This lack of self-criticismwas compoundedby an extraordinary retrospectiveattempt,going againsthis belief in historicalnecessity and historical continuity (and against his veto on ideas of 'blame'in history),to throw the blamefor Mussolinion to foreign peoples and foreign governments. He argued that fascism was entirely alien to the Italian temperament-though he never let others get away with argumentsbased on the concept of national character.He said it was rather the English who had helped Mussolini into power, especially Churchill and the British for they had alwaysbeen in love with fascism and Conservatives, Italians were implacably against Mussolini.18 whereas nazism, The same self-righteousnessled him to blame Britain for the 'error'of permittingthe fascist conquest of Ethiopia, though he himself sent his senator'smedal to be melted down as a contribution towardsMussolini's colonial war and at first welcomed the of Ethiopiainto Italy. incorporation Another of his often repeated dogmas was that there was no room in historyfor any talk of what might have or ought to have happened,and yet he now arguedthat, as well as stoppingthe war
17 R. Zangrandi, II Lungo Viaggio attraverso il Fascismo (Milan I964), 332-33; G. de Ruggiero, II Ritorno alla Ragione (Bari I946), 13-i8; B. Croce, Per la Nuova Vita d'Italia (Naples I944), 56. 18 Due Anni di Vita Politica Italiana I946-47 (Bari I948), 34, i6o; Quando l'Italia era Tagliata in Due (Bari 1948), 89, 99.
50
BENEDETTO
CROCE
of I935-36,
the British ought to have prevented the rise of
Mussolini. Incidentally, when making this judgment, he never remindedhis readersthat foreigngovernmentshad been inhibited from acting by the fact that the Italian parliament,including Croce himself along with a very large majority,had voted full supportfor fascism.A furtherdegreeof blamewas laterbestowed by him on King Victor Emanuelfor not having stopped fascism in I922-24, again forgetting that he himself had at the time advised everyoneto support Mussolini. He was quick to attack other historiansif he caught them speculatingabout what might have happened had events gone differently,yet he confidently proclaimedthat if fascismhad come to countriesother than Italy, it would have been far worse there, since Italians were more mature and sensible than other people. This was anotherof the many occasions when he broke his own rule about national character and assumed the superior qualities of the Italian
people.19
These views show him to have been sometimesmore patriotic than consistent.A more seriousinconsistencywas over his conviction that the present conditionof any countrymust have emerged logicallyfrom its past; because he also decided, whetherto salve Italian pride or to explain his earlier confused attitude towards the regime, that fascism marked a complete and inexplicable break with Italy's previous history. Italians, he asserted, had never before been nationalisticand had never oppressed other peoples. Fascism must therefore be a mere parenthesisin the country's history, without roots, without serious support in Italian society. This was no casual verdict, but an opinion that Croce frequently voiced, and it does not square easily with his earlierexplicit statementin I924 that fascism came to power with the consent and applause of the nation.20 Other liberals, for instance Piero Gobetti and Giustino Fortunato,challengedboth these extreme beliefs, but in any case the two statements contradictedeachother.Onceyou admitthe possibilityof parentheses in history, it could equally well be held that the real parenthesis
was the period I870-1922, not I922-45, and such a supposition
19Per la Nuova Vita d'Italia, 25. 20 Ibid., io, 80; Pagine Politiche, Luglio-Dicembre I944 (Bari I945), 9I; Scritti e Discorsi Politici, I943-1947 (Bari I963), II, 257-59; Storia del Regno di Napoli (Bari I93I), 267; Pagine Sparse, II, 378; Discorsi Parlamentari (Rome
I966), 210.
51
CONTEMPORARY
HISTORY
would threatenthe whole liberalmyth upon which Croce relied. By refusing to admit that fascism was a product of the past, he was not only contradictinghis own historical principles about historicalcontinuity, but was refusing to use his vast knowledge and authorityto help a new generationdiscover what had gone wrong.
HEREAGAINTHIS WAS FAR from
his stated intention. During the
years I923-32, Croce turned to writing a series of general books tration on aesthetics and philosophy in the period I900-I2. He
of broad historical interpretation,this being an entirely new direction from his early antiquarianismand from his concen-
declared that his chief motive in writing history was now to discoverthe roots of the present, and so incidentallyshow people how they could act in the future. This was, he explained, a political duty incumbenton him as a scholar,and he added that historians,like philosophers,had a further obligation to clarify concepts and keep principles intact for the benefit of ordinary citizens who needed to understandtheir own society. It was a noble purpose, and up to a point he succeeded, but while he reprimandedother historianswhen they used history as a guise for political propaganda,he would not admit that the same criticismmight here be appliedto himself. One of Croce's canons of historical writing was that people should study the good ratherthan the bad in the past. The 'sole concern' of history was with the creative,the generous, and the positive, not with decadence but with those aspects of an age which opened a path to the future. Thus anyone writing the history of the I920S would, he said, have to deal with the malignantside of fascismonly incidentallyand in so far as the on what was narrativepositively requiredit, while concentrating and progressive in the period.21 admirable Croce'sother books were inspiredby the same precept. In his primarilyconcernednot with the baroque style itself (which he heartily disliked, and therefore had nothing at all to say about Bernini or Monteverde).He was ratherlooking for anythingthat and the liberal-national movements the Enlightenment anticipated
21 La Storia come Pensiero e come Azione (Bari I943), Idealitd Morale (Bari 1950), II5-i6.
volume (I924-25)
on the baroque period in Italy, he was
157-59;
Storiografia e
52
BENEDETTO CROCE
of more modern times. Somewhatinsensitivetemperamentally to religion, he stressed the CounterReformationas a politicalnot a religious victory, just because he had little interest in what he called the negativeaspectsof a period. In his searchfor what was creativeand foward-looking, he was delighted to discoverin the sixteenth century nothing less than the origins of the Italian risorgimento;and, though he hardly mentioned the Council of Trent, he justifiedthe Jesuitsfor stampingout religiousdivisions which 'might have otherwise'delayed nationalunificationin the nineteenth century.22 These were strangearguments.They must be seen in the light of Croce'sfamous dictum that all history is contemporary history- by which he meantthat historicalwriting must be triggeredoff by an activeinterest currentlyin the historian's mind. His own main interest was the developmentof the Italiannationand of secular,liberalculturein Europe;he was not so much concerned with democracy, or catholicism, or with Mussolini's totalitarianism;his study of the past was strongly conditionedby these essentiallycontemporary considerations. A similar quest for the origins of Italian patriotismand liberalism can be found in the Historyof Napleswhich some think his best book. Its writing was therefore,and by his own confession, an explicitlypoliticaland patrioticact. He admittedthat, until the nineteenth century, southern and northernItaly had had almost nothing in common with each other; neverthelessit had been historically'necessary'for a united Italy to be born, and Croce now thought that he could locate the first seeds of the future nation in the Neapolitanjacobinsof I799. To the objectionthat before I850 believed in Italianpatriotismor very few southerners even knew much about other Italian regions, he replied that unification must in that case be regarded by the historian of earlier periods as an unconscious and unexpressed objective.23 Here was an awkwardpiece of politically motivated invention. Croce'sprincipalaims were to give the south more nationalpride and to persuadethe north to show more respect for southerners. How his historical judgment was slanted may be seen in his
22 Storia della Etd Barocca in Italia (Bari I953), I4, 41-42, 46; La Spagna nella Vita Italiana durante la Rinascenza (Bari I949), 254; Nuovi Saggi sulla Letteratura del Seicento (Bari I949), viii, ix. 23 La Rivoluzione Napoletana del I799 (Bari I969), viii, 234, 38I; Storiografia e Idealitd Morale, 105.
53
CONTEMPORARYHISTORY
disapprovalof the repeated attempts of Sicilians to break free from Neapolitan domination:from I282 to I849 many Sicilians fought to win independence of Naples, and they were roundly condemnedby Crocefor it, since their misplacedheroismput the long-termprocessof nationalunificationat risk. this type of teleologicalhistory when he Croce anathematized found it in others, and anyone else who had used a nineteenth century criterionto interpretthe thirteenth century would have provokedhim to a wealth of sarcasm.But the History of Naples was deliberatelyhistory with a message, the main message being that a united Italy had to be created. A subsidiaryaim was to controvert the marxist explanation of the 'southern problem'. Southernpoverty was in his view a moral question and not to be explained in materialisticterms; it was not to be defined by geography,climate, soil, and the availabilityof markets.Against those who wondered whether incorporationof the south might not have hinderedItaly's developmentafter i86o, he arguedthat the completed fact of unificationwas enough by itself to prove that the whole country must have gained from it. This was the kind of neo-Hegelian response which some of Croce's readers must have found uninformativeand not very persuasive;unfortunately it also contributedto keeping northernersin ignorance of the southern problem and hence to keeping that problem unsolved. Croce's strong attachment to patriotism as an ethical ideal emerges vividly from his historical writing. Though he warned other historiansagainst twisting the evidence in favour of their own nations, the same temptationwas obviously at work in his idealization and falsification of the Italian risorgimento. This national movement he magnified into 'the masterpiece of Europeanliberalism',into an almost flawless achievementwhich made modern Italy into the purest type of liberal nation-state. The unificationof Germany,on the other hand, was not liberal but had been achieved through blood and iron. Croce likewise made out Cavour to have been quite unlike Bismarckin beliefs and political techniques;for Cavourhad made Italy by the force of lofty ideals, 'without disorderly tumults, without creating vendettas,without stooping to turpitudeor cruelty',and without employing the despotic means which Austria used to resist him. that Cavourhad used many of these To those who demonstrated
54
BENEDETTO CROCE
very same means, he gave the unhelpfulanswerthat Cavourwas he must have saved from condemnation because,unlike Bismarck, done so without enthusiasmand out of an austeresense of duty. In the risorgimento, said Croce,no traceof aggressivenationalism could be discerned; Italian patriots had simply relied on 'the irresistibleforce of truth and liberty',and he concludedby saying that anyonewho did not agreewas not worth arguingwith.24 Such an interpretation, as well as being implausible,seems far removedfrom his earlierdoctrineof politics as power, and indeed he now virtually stated in so many words that the risorgimento had been morally good, whereas Bismarckon the contrarywas blameworthy.It should be added that, in developingthis theme, Croce sometimes relied on imagination rather than scholarly facts to reinforcehis eulogy research,inventing and exaggerating of liberal patriotism.He wrote proudly but inaccuratelyof the impeccabledisciplineand heroismof the Italianarmy; he lauded the commonpeople of Italy for having risen and thrown out the Austrians; he conveniently invented another enemy when he imagineda continuingplot by British politiciansto annex Sicily, and blamed Britain's 'error'in not helping Cavourto complete the process of national unification.Likewise he praised a nonexistent Italian public opinion for nobly rejecting Louis Napoleon's proposal to exchange Venice for Rumania-though the proposalwas a diplomaticsecret concealedfrom the public and had been, in fact, put forwardby the very Italian statesmen whom Croceso praisedfor decliningit. He later confessed himself grateful to fascism for rescuing Italians from delusions about their past, and yet his own alternativewas to offer them just a differentset of illusions.In private he was ready to admit that, behind the officialrhetoricad usum Delphini, behind what he calledthe scenographic historyof Italian military successes, there was a reality of military defeats which was far less comfortingand about which historianshad fabricated a conspiracyof silence. For all his talk of patrioticpublic opinion, he knew that only a tiny minorityof contemporaries had 'wanted' the risorgimento,and that both the common people and public
24 Storia d'Europa nel Secolo Decimonono (Bari 1932), 226-28, 248, 253-54; Quaderni della Critica, November I946, 77-78; Cultura e Vita Morale, I89; Epistolario, I, i i6; Pagine Sparse, II, 355; Conversazioni Critiche (Fourth series, Bari I932), 281.
55
CONTEMPORARYHISTORY
opinion had been almost entirely irreleventto the outcome; nor did he fail to protest when other historiansused the 'people' and the 'masses'as a significantelement in historicalexplanation.He once even confessed that the achievementsof the risorgimento were largely due to extraneousforces and to 'a good luck which was beyondour deserts'.25 These unpalatabletruths were something not to be exposed carelessly to the public eye. What was important to stress in public was the good, the positive, the heroic, the liberal,for only thus would history be rightly educative. His job was to fight a battle against any alternativenon-liberalideopolitico-historical logies, for instance catholicism,which Croce continued to insist was decadent and incapableof renovation.Liberals had to fight of Volpe, which made Mussolini both the fascist historiograpny into the culmination of the risorgimento,and also the radical historiographyof Gobetti and Salvemini, which argued that all
was not well in pre-1922 Italy. It was important to assert that
liberal Italy, not fascism and not the radical democrats,was the real fulfilmentand conclusionof the risorgimento.As Croce put it, no one in Italy, not even her politicians, knew the bare elements of their own national history, and it was his task to ensure that they were given a version of events which would imparta messageof positive 'ethicalefficacity'. was the History THE RESULT, PUBLISHED IN I928, This volume was in large part based on his I87I-I925. of Italy personal memories, and he explained that, more than his other books, it came from the heart. It had a great impact, selling nearly I7,000 copies in eight successiveeditions before the end of fascism. The
History of Europe in the Nineteenth Century followed in I932.
These two volumes were a splendid apologyfor liberalism,which he now declaredto be not only a religion but the only possible religionfor the modernworld. They can be seen as a manifestoof the liberal-conservative opposition against Mussolini. They were intended as a consolationto opponentsof the regime, a reassurance and a prophecythat liberalismwas bound to returnone day strongerthan ever. As such they carefully excluded anything which might chal25 Pagine sulla Guerra, I8; II Dovere della Borghesia nelle Provincie Napoletane (Bari I924), 9; Quaderni della Critica, November 1950, 197.
56
BENEDETTO
CROCE
lenge his theory of a fascist 'parenthesis',or which hinted that fascism had emergedout of Giolitti's Italy. Croce himself, in the yearsbefore I915, had been far from sure that Giolitti's Italy was all that splendid,26 but he now thoughtit right to underplaythose things that might have been wrong. Of coursehe mentionedsome of the dark patches in the picture, but 'it was no part of the historian'sjob to dwell on them'. His refusalto treatseriouslythe revivialof catholicismis one exampleof this blind spot, since in his view the church was almost dead as a spiritualforce and was entirelyeclipsed by the lay state. Nor would he waste much time on the morbid aspects of nationalismand parliamentary corruption. He preferredto concludein retrospectthat Italy before I915 had 'a perfect liberal regime' and 'one of the most democratic in Europe'.27 governments Croce realized and indeed rejoiced in the fact that these two volumes were written as conscious political acts, but he denied that this had made him departfrom historicaltruth. Few sins did he condemn as much as the contaminationof history and philosophy by political passion. Michelet, Taine, Macaulay, Treitschke, he criticized all of these for allowing their words to become taintedby partypolitics, just as he was outragedby those who, as a justificationof fascism, attackedhis own fundamental thesis about the liberalism of the risorgimento.28 History, he in must never circumstances be any pronounced, propaganda, must never be used as a political weapon, just as it would be equally wrong to let historical views be influencedby political opinions: he himself, so he said, was never .-guiltyof such a crime.29Yet in fact some passages of his histories of Italy and Europeresembledpolemicalpamphlets.If this seems a paradox, the explanation is that he regardedhis own politics as being above parties, just as liberalism should ideally be above mere party controversies,and just as the liberal interpretationof history
26 Propositi e Speranze 1925-I942 (Bari I942), 14; Pagine sulla Guerra, 135-37; Letteratura e Critica (Bari I908), I9; La Letteratura della Nuova Italia
(Bari I943), II, I74; E. Ragionieri, Politica e Amministrazione nella Storia dell'Italia Unita (Bari I967), 266-67. 27 Per la Nuova Vita dell'Italia, 56; Storia d'Italia dal I871 al I915, I93. 28 La Storia come Pensiero e come Azione, I77-78; Storia della Storiografia Italiana nel Secolo Decimonono (Bari I947), II, 243. 29 Carteggio Croce-Vossler, I899-I949 (Bari I95I), 205; Contributo alla Critica di Me Stesso, 73; Etica e Politica, 249. 57
CONTEMPORARYHISTORY
must, by his definition, embrace and transcend all other interpretations.
While agreeing that his practical interventionsin politics all failed, Croceprofoundlybelievedthat his historicalstudies helped people by attackingintellectualconfusion,by exposing the illogicality of anti-liberal doctrines, and by teaching Italians where their true national traditions lay. In the later years of fascism, with considerable courage,he becamethe conscienceof the nation and his was almostthe one truly in its resistanceto totalitarianism, free voice to be heard in Italy. Nevertheless it must also be admitted that he sometimes muddled rather than clarifiedsuch concepts as liberalism,democracy,and fascism; he had confused some of his followers by coquetting with the enemies of liberin describing alism, and was not alwaysfree from tendentiousness Italian historicaltraditions. Coming from someone who was the dominantfigure in Italian culture, this did not assist the political was the effect on his educationof the nation. Equallyunfortunate own education,for he was left astonishedand bewilderedwhen Mussolini seemed to contradictall that good liberals had been on the good and not the bad in the past, taught. By concentrating by supposingthat the masseswere not a serioussubjectfor history, by assuming that liberalismwas bound to win and catholicism bound to lose, he had ended by creating an idyll and not an explanation. In a revealing letter Croce recollectedone reasonwhy he had not been particularly anxious for Italy to join the war of I914-I8-namely his feeling in I914 that the rhetoricalexaggeration of risorgimentoheroism had left Italians dangerouslyunpreparedto gauge the serious weaknessesin their own society. And he added that the terrible defeat of Caporettoproved this If only the officialtextbook fear to have been entirely correct.30 rhetorichad spokenmore of the defeatsin the nineteenthcentury and a little less of the victories, if it had allowed Italians to suspect that the risorgimentohad been in great part a stroke of luck, to know that the vast majorityof the populationhad stood apart from the patriotic movement, that the armed forces had been perilouslyineffectiveand Italy's system of govermnentmuch less than perfect, then perhaps enough people in I914-I5 might
30 in Italia e l'Avvento del Epistolario,I, 21-22; R. Vivarelli, II Dopoguerra Fascismo1918-I922 (Naples I967), 2I.
BENEDETTO
CROCE
have regarded the prospect of war in a different and more responsiblelight. They might even have decidednot to fight. And Croce in later life came to think that Italian interventionin the war had done more than anythingto precipitateItaly into fascism. These thoughts were in his mind when he promisedto spend the rest of his life educating the next generation so that they might know enough history to forestall another similar catastrophe. UnfortunatelyCroce's own philosophicaland historical preconceptionspreventedhim from helping his country to fend off the even greaterdisasterof Mussolini. Nor after I925 did he entirely understandwhat had happened to upset his prognostications. When the time came for him to provide an alternative to that of the history textbooks,all he could offer interpretation was anothermyth, a myth whose main purposewas not to explain but to console and edify. Thus in his histories he argued that there had been nothing wrong with the frequent changes of cabinet in Liberal Italy nor with the practice of parliamentary 'transformism',even though he had himself experienced as a minister how this made Italy ungovernablein 1920-21. Because he wanted to forget fascism or conjure it away, he did little to explain how it had occurredand what had been wrong in prefascist Italy, for that would not only have seemed unpatrioticbut would have meant exposing his own errors of judgment and perception.
WHEN FASCISM LED ITALY into a second world war, even Croce, though he saw what was happeningbetter than most, was still confused. That Italy should be fighting alongsideHitler seemed to him inexplicable and against the whole context of Italian history, as though the real had at long last ceased somehowto be rational.He found himself obliged, with reluctance,to stand once againin solidaritywith his fellow-countrymen just as he had done in I914-I8 and during the Ethiopianwar of I935-36. His advice to Italian soldiers was that, without questioning Mussolini's decision, they should fight with dignity in order to make their adversaries respect them. But he himself was rackedwith private doubts. He wonderedwhetherhis old theorymight not have been wrong and this was that unheard of thing, a just war, a war of religionin which Italy was in the incrediblesituationof being on the wrong side. When he saw that the war was being lost, it
59
CONTEMPORARYHISTORY
became apparentthat he might have a moral duty to wish for He does not seem to have been completelyclear Italy's defeat.31 on this point, for he could not suddenlychangethe thinkingof a of moralsfrom lifetime aboutpatriotismand about the separation he was to insist that his In October again trying politics. I943 earlieropinionshad been logicallycorrect,but a gradualaccumulation of facts told him to distrust this logic. The Germanswere morally guilty when they destroyed the Neapolitan archives. Their collective 'fanaticismand folly' had been responsible for pushing the world into disaster.The Germanidea of politics as force, which he had once extolled, must somehow be defective. Perhapsthere did exist after all a ius gentiumand a right to make moral judgmentsin politics.32 These hard truths he confronted with courage and honesty though in a mood of near despair. Then the end of the war effectively restored his spirits and justified his prophecy that liberalismwould return stronger than ever. With revived selfconfidencethere also returnedsome of his old self-righteousness. Croce's diary contains many reproaches,sometimes bitter reproaches,againstthe allied forcesin Italy, and no thanksto them for havingremovedthe incubusof Mussolini.Onthe contrary, they and not Italy had been responsiblefor fascism. He also insisted that Italians had destroyed fascism by their own efforts without waiting for an allied victory; and he then used this remarkable judgmentas a reasonfor Italy being treatedas one of the victors in the war. He thoughtit profoundlyunjustfor her to have to pay reparations,especiallyto other countriessuch as Yugoslaviaand Ethiopiawhich he was convincedhad gained as a result of Italian occupation in the past, and it was particularlywrong that the Italianempirein Africashould be confiscated.With singularlack of realism he thought that Italy should refuse to sign the peace treatyin which her rightswere denied.33 The peace plunged Croce back againinto active politics. For a time there was talk of his becomingpresidentof the republicand there was even a not very serious suggestion that he should be
31 Pagine Politiche, Luglio-Dicembre 1944, IOI-02; Per la Nuova Vita dell' Italia, 51-52; Fausto Nicolini, Benedetto Croce (Turin I962), 375. 32 II Dissidio Spirituale della Germania con l'Europa (Bari I944), 55-59; II Carattere della Filosofia Moderna (Bari I945), 103; Due Anni di Vita Politica (Bari I948), I35; Quando l'Italia era Tagliata in Due, 17. Italiana, I946-i947 33 Pagine Politiche, I02; Discorsi Parlamentari, 208-09.
6o
BENEDETTO CROCE
made prime minister.He was in fact a ministerwithout portfolio

in I944-45 and leader of the Liberal party for the years I944-47.
It was now his view that the Liberalshad no option but to return to the traditionof Cavourwhom he so admired;but this engendered some confusion, for he had recently defined Cavour as a radical revolutionary,whereas he himself had gone on record againstall radicalismand revolution.Croce the thinkerwas once more becoming entangledby Croce the politician.Believing that the Liberalsshould by definitionbe in the middle of the political spectrum, he rejected the label of conservativewhich was (correctly) given to him. He understandablydisliked his party's electoralalliancewith the neo-fascistgroupson the right, for that Even more stronglyhe resentedthat so many of his friendsand followerswent over to the partitod'azioneon the left. Liberalism, he thought,would be contaminated if it followedthese radicalsin of social the pursuing justice. He almost preferredthe principle communists,for they at least were not illogicalin their aims, and he foresaw a day when Italian communism would accept the liberal traditionsof the country.The christiandemocrats,on the other hand, were incorrigible;they were the one partywhich was illiberalbecauseof their connectionwith the Vatican.34 necessarily It must have been puzzling for Croce to see the christian democrats and the parties of the left sweeping the board at successiveelections,whereasthe Liberal party,which he was still quite sure would be the party of the future, lost its way and dwindledawayto almostnothing. By this time he was an old man of more than eighty. Otherwiseone may be sure that he would have found some way of demonstratingthat history was effectively on his side. No doubt he would have argued that other parties were now so essentiallyliberal that this exemplifiedonce more the all-pervadingtriumph of Cavourand the ideals of the The futuremay (just conceivably) risorgimento. provehim right.
34 L'Idea Liberale: Contro le Confusioni e gl'Ibridismi (Bari I944),
would remind people too much of an unhappy past in 1922-25.
I3-I4.
6i

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Benedetto Croce: History and Politics Author(s): Denis Mack Smith Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 8, No.

Denis Mack Smith

Pagine sulla Guerra, 298. Guido de Ruggiero, Scritti Politici 1912-I926,

ed. Renzo de Felice

the British ought to have prevented the rise of

his stated intention. During the

on the baroque period in Italy, he was

must, by his definition, embrace and transcend all other interpretations.

made prime minister.He was in fact a ministerwithout portfolio

would remind people too much of an unhappy past in 1922-25.

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