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Radio War Nerd #264 — The 1970 Borghese Coup, Part One. With Annibale (Patreon)

Published:
2021-01-25 01:49:43
Imported:
2026-06
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Guest: Annibale 

Recorded: January 21, 2021

We talk to popular RWN guest Annibale about the murky 1970 Borghese Coup, in the early part of Italy's Years Of Lead. In part one, we look at Junio Borghese's background: the famous Borghese family, his wartime heroics & plans to bomb New York harbor, and his relationship to Fascism, Nazis, James Jesus Angleton and NATO.

Images:

*Drawing of Borghese's manned torpedoes used to bomb British battleships

Follow Annibale on Twitter. Listen to Annibale's popular RWN series: Italy's Years Of Lead(#134, #135,#136, #139); Italian Resistance in WW2 (#131); Italy on the Eastern Front in WWII (#226, #227, #228, #231, #236); Venetian Empire (#207, #208, #209, #214); The Hundred Years War (#175, #176, #177, #180, #182, #183).

Total time: 1:53:26

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Galerkin

On fascism: Annibale hit the nail on the head by calling fascism extreme liberalism. And because there is generally a lot of obfuscation with respect to the word "fascism", the marxist approach in my opinion is the more consistent - and I think Annibale trying to draw strict lines on whether Borghese was or not is rather unhelpful. And that is: fascism is in the end a ruling class scheme, ideologically imposed upon increasingly downwardly mobile middle classes. People have to realize that the ruling classes have always been fascist in a sense. Borghese simply didn't think he can win against the Anglos and thus his apparent "liberalism" (that is a capitulation to foreign capital). Trying to define fascism purely in terms of ideology and not paying attention to the ruling class component is rather distracting. Paxton said (quoting from memory) that fascism is the repression of the left amidst popular enthusiasm. So yes, there is a movement in fascism, but it is a movement in the service of sectors of the elite, cultivated by the elite and turned against the interests of the majority. Will Annibale disagree if, for example, we called Mrs. Madeleine "killing 500k children was worth it" Albright a fascist? Do you think they would have any problem with a "totalitarian" state if their interests and property were under risk?

Annibale

I want to be specific on the labels because calling "fascism" everything to the right of a moderate center, or "fascism," every form of politics we think is evil and oppressive. It is plain wrong and guarantees (as it did during WWII) that anything that calls itself "anti-fascism" gets a pass no matter how reactionary and regressive and plainly bad it is. Albright was not "fascist," and the cynical way she tried to justify the consequences of Iraqi sanctions as "worth it" was not specific to "fascism." In my opinion, it was specific of the way unchecked liberalism works - the interests of a small cosmopolitan clique/class are prevailing above any moral consideration. And the same clique may be focused on a specific nation like the US, but don't really IDENTIFY with it, another instance where nationalists are deluded. If you call everything you don't like "fascism," the term itself loses any meaning. Fascism, conservatism, liberalism, and anti-communism are not interchangeable terms. During the Years of Lead, some of the architects of the worst moments in the strategy of tension were definitely hostile to fascism. Still, they were also more scared by the end of the Yalta status quo and communism/socialism erosion of the liberal norms, so they had no trouble using "fascist" to fight what they considered a bigger threat to their interests.

MD

I’m sort of a pedant about this, and it was really only briefly mentioned in the middle of the excellent taxonomy-of-fascism discussion, but I will stand up for the idea that Bernie is a socialist in a meaningful sense (if a Fabian one.) While what he proposes is for the most part social democratic reform, he still has a basically Marxist understanding of how politics works, where power comes from, and how reforms are won. If you put him in a more reasonable country, I suspect he would react by upping his demands.

Annibale

Fascism and liberalism are two separate ideologies. At some point, Liberals saw Fascist as the lesser evil that could be used against the greater evil (Communism) because, unlike Communism, Fascism doesn't see classes as social constructs to be removed. Like "national characters", Fascism sees class differences as "inherent" differences, and classes must collaborate for the good of the national State but cannot and won't be dissolved, equalized. In this sense, Fascism is obsessed with "differences", both class difference and identity differences, while Liberalism is obsessed only with the former and not the latter. And in Fascism, "state" is a central concept, while Liberalism sees the state just as a useful tool to keep the elite's interest going. The idea of a Fascist state is a place where if you're an industrialist/financer/whatever you can make a lot of money and even in an aggressive manner, but you must collaborate with the State and help social cohesion. On the other hand, if you're a worker, you have the right to work, be paid, fed, have a house, but that's it. No chance for control of the production means no class struggle, no political unions (fascist unions are always corporative), no class mobility. You're stuck where you are unless the State decides otherwise. Fascism is totalitarian, the State and "politics as a ritual" always gets the final word, and "national interest" is ALWAYS prevalent over any specific class interest. On the other hand, Liberalism uses nationalism when it suits. Still, it's always cosmopolitan and class conscious - class interests ALWAYS prevail over national considerations (WWI was a big lesson to liberal upper classes). So Liberalism and Fascism had a marriage of convenience and not of love. And the "convenience" was to stop Communism / Socialism from eroding the Liberal norms that had been overwhelmingly prevalent from 1789 onwards. After WWII, Liberals made clear no Fascist state would be tolerated, unless as "extreme conservatism" (Chile, Spain, etc.) where the form could be akin to fascism, but the economic reality was unbridled liberalism (international upper classes interest always win. Period). And "fascist" could be used against the bigger threat (Socialism) but under strict liberal control, which had not been there under Mussolini.

Rusty Shackleford

Hey Mark, could you guys do an episode about the book From Time Immemorial, by Joan Peters? TrueAnon just did some interview eps with Norm Finkelstein, and that book came up. I would be keen to know the details and context of that book (I suspect it's significance at the time is forgotten), but I don't want to actually have to read that pile of crap.

Rusty Shackleford

Yeah, same! It makes me think, among other things, that this book was a big fucking deal.

online Leftist Archive Project (LARP)

@1:40 ish, small correction, the new strain isn't more virulent, it's more transmissible. Transmissible is how quickly it spreads, virulent is how bad it gets when you catch it.

Kevin Walsh

Finkelstein discusses the book in his own book Beyond Chutzpah, the one where he accused Dershowtz of plagiarising Peters.

Annibale

There are some indication the new variants can have a higher fatality ratio (deaths among the infected) but it's a contradictory evidence at best. What worries scientists is that higher transmission rates may mean higher mortality (absolute number of deaths with the population per unit of time). This is because if more people gets it, more vulnerable subjects may get infected.

Galerkin

Annibale, while I don't disagree with what you said, I think you didn't address my comment. Do you disagree that fascism is a strategy of the (national) ruling class? Do you think national ruling classes have any commitment to liberalism? Is liberalism an ideology for the ruling classes? If you can't address these questions, then you (anyone) will be stuck in an ideological framework of what fascism is, which I believe can be quite obfuscating. Were the Greek Battalions (which swore oath to the 3rd reich) fascists? Well, it is difficult to say if we follow your approach, while common sense says they were, although this might be rejected as an answer to an academic examination. I could go on an say that fascism as a category then is meaningless outside the national boundaries and the specific national civil society (Italy for example). Because within the country, you have all those ideological epiphenomena you described - ritualistic politics, aesthetics of violence, mythology, occultism, all signs of downwardly mobile middle classes- but outside the nation it is simply plain old imperialism/colonialism. I mentioned Albright and I am asking you: do you believe if her class interests were threatened seriously (by a combination of class struggle internally and war from outside) she and her peers would have any reason NOT to join and facilitate fascism?

Annibale

I think facts do not support the classic Marxist take on Fascism as a simple reactionary trick invented by the ruling classes as an antidote or defense against Socialism. Fascism was definitely not "invented" by the Italian bourgeoisie. It was sponsored by some element of that class after 1921. Still, it was an autonomous political movement whose largest support was among the middle classes, and it had a definite "eversive" character. In other words, parts of the Italian elite saw Mussolini as a "protector," but Mussolini's plan was not to be the "lapdog" of the bourgeoise. Again - Fascism was a totalitarian, revolutionary ideology whose aim was to change the Italian society, to create a "fascist new man.". A significant part of the Italian elites was sympathetic to this project, but it was not "their" project. And it was not even just "Mussolini's" project. It was an ideological project and was definitely NOT Liberal. Of course, its original "radical" roots were greatly whitewashed between 1925-1934, so you had this kind of "nice fascism" that seemed to appeal to international capitalism more than the "radical fascism" of the origins (that had a comeback between 1943-1945). Yes, Liberalism/Liberism is the ideology of capitalism, and capitalism will always fall back to Liberalism, not to Fascism. Keep in mind that when I say "Liberalism," I'm not using the American definition of the term, a nice ideology committed to individual rights and parliamentary democracy. I'm using the European definition - an ideology that puts free market and free enterprise at the center of its political action and sees democracy and individual rights as "enablers," not critical assets. Fascist Italy was not a free market paradise. While it's not true, as it's often repeated, that Mussolini introduced social welfare in Italy, it didn't repeal it and developed it in several forms, including public healthcare, paid retirement, etc. 1927's "Carta Del Lavoro," which gave all workers paid healthcare was, sad to say, more "progressive" than the current US healthcare legislation. Mussolini also introduced many checks and regulations over things like work safety, food quality, etc. Of course, the same "Carta del Lavoro" severely reduced worker's rights in terms of freedom to unionize, right to strike, and made the same workers completely dependent on the State decisions over things like wages, opening/closing activities, and the like. You may say that Fascism welfare was meant to control the population and enforce social stability, and you would be right. It wasn't "democratic" welfare the way we think today. But it wasn't a free business utopia, under current terms, not even something acceptable in a free market economy. Italian upper classes liked it until it guaranteed social peace and made them richer. But after the Ethiopian war and the economic downturn that it followed, they liked it less, and when Italy began losing WW2, they hated it. Again - a marriage of convenience, not of love. You ask if people like Albright would "join fascism" if their class interest would be seriously threatened, I think they would resort to some extremely aggressive political tactics (like those we saw in Latin American countries in the 70), or a Yeltsin type free-market dystopia. Still, I find it improbable they would openly embrace a real, militant fascist dictatorship the way Italian or German ruling classes did before the war. That experiment failed (very badly), and the current global reality does not support it. Again - dictatorship or a capitalist nightmare is not a synonym for fascism.

Annibale

There's another point I would like to clarify - Fascism itself was NOT an epiphenomenon. I think Emilio Gentile has clearly explained it in his 2002 book "Fascismo - Storia e Interpretazione" that some of the points you mention we often associate "externally" to Fascism (ritualistic politics, aesthetics of violence, mythology, occultism, downwardly mobile middle classes) are not "necessary" to fascism (except ritualistic / mythologized politics). For instance, Fascist Italy never had the Nazi fascination with the occult). Instead, full refusal of parliamentary democracy and full adherence to the concept of the Nation as a homogenous cultural (if not necessarily racial) community ARE essential elements of Fascism.

Ellen Harold

Borghese family pretty important in 17th c. As Pope Paul V, Camillo Borghese's name is on the facade of St. Peters, completed in his pontificate. He protected Galileo, canonized Carlo Borromeo, etc., etc. Nephew Scipione was the patron of Bernini. I think the family may have originally have been Tuscan (from Siena?).

Annibale

Yes, they were Tuscanians

xnfec

I really liked that film (The Great Beauty), though I took it at face value as a film about a group of friends trying to help eachother survive in modern times. I had to watch it four times as I kept getting absorbed in the scenery and lost the plot entirely. Another of Sorrentinos (the director) films (Il divo) was actually set in the Years of Lead. What did you think of that, Anibale? It is (or was) on Amazon Prime. I liked it better the second time around. An alternative to the term fascist is authoritarian which I think captures the times better as it allows for the idea that our fears drive us. This leads us to accept what we least hate as our political driver and leads to our current miserable state as no-one wants to build anything for the future, just stop people we don't like building what they want. This was briefly discussed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYriSO1jT9k Where you can see an old-school Republican arguing for strong unions (at the end)! Great show guys. Much appreciated.

Annibale

I think your analysis of "Great Beauty" is spot on. There's a scene where Gep, the main character, appears to humiliate Stefania, an insufferably selfish woman who insists on her radical credentials despite being just like any other upper-class privileged people (actually the actress is playing herself, a nice twist). But in fact, he's not scolding her - he's just very calmly and even affectionately trying to wake her up from what he sees as a delusion. It's a very mild and even caring reality check, not a public humiliation. In fact, Gep's characteristic is his refusal to judge people. He knows well about his own shortcomings, so he has no problem accepting those of the others. The movie has no real plot, except the one about Ramona, the stripper (who is the other likable character along with Dadina, the dwarf magazine editor. I'm not a big fan of "Il Divo" - it's a nice film but Andreotti was different.

Annibale

I don't think fascist and authoritarian are really interchangeable. All fascism is authoritarian, but not all authoritarianism is fascist (see my overlong answers in the thread above)

xnfec

Yes, Gep and Stefania end up dancing together towards the end in a clearly affectionate way.

xnfec

I think that is the point I was trying to make albeit badly. As soon as people become frightened they drift towards authoritarianism. You can see this in some of the reactions on the liberal side to the invasion of the senate on 6th January. The result is calls to clamp down on freedoms and people accept this because they are fearful. The other side then call this fascism as an insult rather than a thought-out criticism of a political position. People may end up with a fascist dictatorship when what they really wanted was just someone to severely control their enemies for them.

Kevin Hickey

Annibale, what was the lesson you referred to earlier in this thread that the ruling class learned from the First World War?

Kevin Walsh

Minor nitpick here: the Daily Mail isn't a Murdoch paper - it's still controlled by a Viscount Rothermere (the great-grandson of the pro-Nazi first Viscount). Rupert Murdoch's main British papers are the Times and the Sun.

PAUL bUTLER

Supreme Courts Hearing Access High Court of Justiciary Help out a great guy: Case: Petition and Complaint – the Lord Advocate v Craig Murray Date: Wednesday, 27 January 2021 Time: 10.30am Dial (United Kingdom toll): +44-20-7660-8149 Access code: 174 658 1827

PAUL bUTLER

pleas retweet/remirror wherever my last post

Galerkin

Thanks for the detailed response Annibale. I added a followup comment yesterday but patreon kept deleting it for some reason. Great points overall. One issue that causes confusion is probably the fact that nazism and fascism, despite their similarities, had significant differences as well, but they are lumped (correctly, but not without problems imo) together. In any case, I don't think the marxist approach states that fascism is just a ruling class "trick". But it certainly states that fascism is a movement to uphold the existing property relations when the class struggle is heightened. For example you say: " A significant part of the Italian elites was sympathetic to this project, but it was not "their" project. And it was not even just "Mussolini's" project. It was an ideological project and was definitely NOT Liberal." But this is my point: the elites *are not liberal or fascist*, they are class conscious! What you call "marriage of convenience" in my opinion is already giving these elites too much credit. The emphasis on nationalism is the result of historical constraints. Italy, Germany and other countries that embraced forms of fascism were *national* economies. Moreover, the reason Mussolini didn't repeal the welfare forms is, again, explained by the fact that Italy, unlike the US today, cannot rely on pools of people outside its borders. US elites can command labor and intellectuals to its purposes anywhere on the planet - why should they spend money to "train" or "take care of" their "own" population? So, again, if we go beyond the ideological framework, we can see there are clear economic laws that reinforce themselves. And this is, at the end of the day, my disagreement. You insist on fascisms "totalitarian nature" as some kind of "opposite" of what "liberal elites" would like, but dismiss the fact that fascism wouldn't be what it was without their help. If it wasn't for the industrialist class and the landed aristocracy, would Hitler in Germany or Mussolini in Italy or anywhere else, have gained power?

Annibale

Galerkin: I completely agree that Liberal elites were instrumentals in allowing Mussolini (and to a lesser extent Hitler) to take the power. And they "liked" some part of totalitarianism when it suited to their goals - namely no pesky lefties around to tell you what you should or shouldn't do, no unions, no class struggle etc. And they loved all the public money they were getting, particularly for large infrastructural projects or rearmement But at some point the goals diverged. Again: neither Italian fascism or German Nazism were "free market" economies, and were definitely not unregulated fiscal paradises. Also, Imperialism and aggressive foreign policies is all good and nice as long as it provides you with nice cheap raw materials or captive export markets. But once the same aggressive militarism does the reverse, ruining your export business or PREVENTING you from getting cheap raw materials, and once it makes it difficult for you to keep that nice business network with you fellow capitalism across the world. you begin to think "the sauce is costing more than the fish", as we say here. Liberalism when feels threatened loves the FORM of Fascism, not the substance. Also, it's not true that Italy or Germany were a national economies. There's a fantastic 1975 book titled "Italy's Industrial Imperialism", that has been never reprinted, and I've read again recently, which nicely outlines how one of the causes of WWI was Italy's competition with Germany to enter lucrative Eastern Europe and Levant markets for heavy industry export, and how Germany had basically put Italy in a corner with a very aggressive price dumping strategy - which in turn caused Italy to think the only way to outsmart Germany was to have logistical bases in northern Africa and outsmart/outmarket Turkey in the same areas. (the real reason for the Italo-Turkish war, not some form of late colonialism drive)

Annibale

James Meiers: yes, that was a fantastic episode. Would be great to discuss with the John & Mark again and compare our different takes

Galerkin

That was an interesting detail I was not aware of, regarding Italian and German industrial competition. I think it will make a pretty interesting episode too, if all Mark, John and you ofc are interested in discussing! Regarding fascism, and I think we can close it here because I believe we largely agree but we view it from different angles. You say for example that liberalism loves the "form", not the "substance" for the reasons you said. For the same exact reasons, my perspective is that the ruling classes opt for fascism or "liberalism" when it suits them. Both of these statements imply the same, but their content is different. Just as they don't have full control in "liberal" free market conditions, they don't have the same full control over fascist conditions. I just think your approach gives the ruling classes too much credit.

Aditya V

Very much enjoyed the conversation about the US political scene

radiowarnerd

Thanks for the correction. It sure reads like a Murdoch paper!

Andrew

Annibale, I read "The Black Prince and The Sea Devils", and in the book there are two topics which I have tried to research but there is very little information on. 1. It appears that Borghese was involved in the Trieste Crisis of 1953-54. Aside from an off-hand mention of a "bloody uprising" carried out by Borghese and Decima veterans, the authors do not go into further detail on this (there is a very short book/ magazine written on Trieste called "The Trieste Crisis 1953" by Bojan Dimitrijevic from Helion Publishing, if interested). 2. More interestingly, the book mentions that Decima veterans were recruited by the British intelligence services after WW2 to place explosive devices on ships carrying Jewish refugees to Palestine. This is mentioned in a book called “The Secret History of MI6” by Kieth Jeffrey, although he makes no mention of the Decima vets (the mission was known as Operation Embarrass w/in MI6). Are there any resources for these two subjects, in either English or Italian?

Andrew

Annibale, got a message saying you replied, but your comment didn't show lol. Must be Patreon

Annibale

Hi Andrew: 1) The Trieste Riots - yes, he was very much involved both personally, as a former X Mas commander and as a president of the MSI, the Movimento Sociale Italiano, more or less the "legal" successor of the Partito Nazionale Fascista after the war - but in reality, an instrument of the Democratic Christian Party and their allies to keep an eye on the former fascists who at the end of the war had felt betrayed by fascism and were starting to turn an eye to the left. Borghese, with his close ties with the fascist elite, the army, the monarchist and NATO was perfect in that role. By 1953 when the Trieste riots exploded, he was apparently disillusioned with the MSI and its leadership apparent unwillingness to support an armed uprising to insure that Trieste and Istria would remain Italian. So he was very openly the leader of the riots, but in all likelihood the riotes were part of the newborn "strategy of tension", as Trieste was controlled by the British authority and any unrest there played in GB interests. However, the whole thing turned out into a fiasco, as Tito was very quick on clarifying with NATO that while Trieste could remain Italian, there was no way Istria (the so called "zone 2") would be evacuated by the Yugoslavian forces. Italy was too weak and isolated to pursue a military retaking of Istria, and the US made sure everyone knew they didn't want to antagonize Tito too much. Thanks for the heads-up on Dimitrijevic's book, 2) Very likely but unproveb, and it may have been something coming from Borghese usual bravado (he claimed many post war actions that never really happened). British intelligence was pursing a version of its own of the strategy of tension in Palestine, and the goal of "Operation Embarass" was partly to disrupt Hagana's operation to bring people and weapons in Palestine, part to justify an armed crackdown, partly to put the Italian authorities into the position to be more assertive on stopping weapon and hardware smuggling in Israel through Brindisi and Trieste. Borghese may have been involved, but the entire thing was a fisco: the US were upset about any cover British maneouvering in Italy particularly relating to Palestine, and Hagana had a lot of covert help from part of the Italian intelligence, which detested the British. The sabotages in few Italian ports turned out to be totally useless an just had the effect to irritate the Italian authorities even more. The whole thing lost steam until the Exodus affair, which seemed to vindicate (from the MI6 point of view) a covert action campaign, or at least that's the British version. My opinion is that it was just completely delusional - without US and Italian support the whole thing was bound to fail.

Andrew

Annibale if I may ask one more question, do you know the names of the neo-fascists who supported the Palestinians?