The Red and Black Mystery
Masonry and Mussolini: 2025
Supercapitalism was a concept introduced by Benito Mussolini in a speech given in November 1933 to the National Council of Corporations of the Kingdom of Italy.[1][2] Mussolini gave this speech in the context of the ongoing Great Depression, and he attempted to explain the economic crisis in the world at the time by arguing that capitalism had gradually degenerated from its original form: first there had been dynamic or heroic capitalism (1830–1870), followed by static capitalism (1870–1914), in turn followed by the final form of decadent capitalism, known also as supercapitalism, which began in 1914.[3][1] Mussolini claimed that at the stage of supercapitalism "a capitalist enterprise, when difficulties arise, throws itself like a dead weight into the state's arms. It is then that state intervention begins and becomes more necessary. It is then that those who once ignored the state now seek it out anxiously".[4]
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Some time ago I wrote about the massive presence of Freemasonry in the Fascist Party and in the Italian Parliament at the time of the first Mussolini government (there were 267 parliamentarians of the majority and opposition affiliated with Freemasonry). According to the documentation published by Luca Irwin Fragale in “Freemasonry in Parliament. Early twentieth century and Fascism”, published by Morlacchi University Press, Freemasons were the quadrumvirs of the March on Rome, Italo Balbo, Emilio De Bono, Michele Bianchi, Freemasons were the leaders of the PNF, from Achille Starace to Attilio Teruzzi, Freemasons were Dino Grandi and Giuseppe Bottai, Freemason was Gabriele d'Annunzio (as had been Giosuè Carducci and Giovanni Pascoli) and some of his collaborators in the Fiume enterprise, such as Alceste de Ambris himself who wrote the Carta del Carnaro with the Poet. And then freemasons, not members of the same lodge, were the trade unionist Edmondo Rossoni, the minister Araldo di Crollalanza, the jurist Alfredo De Marsico; the fascist boss of Cremona Roberto Farinacci and the boss of Cerignola Peppino Caradonna; and Bernardo Barbiellini Amidei, Aldo Finzi, Balbino Giuliano and Costanzo Ciano, father of Galeazzo, Alberto Beneduce, the founder of the Iri and Giacomo Acerbo, author of the electoral law that bears his name. And Armando Casalini, former republican and then fascist deputy, killed in 1924 on a tram in Rome under the eyes of his daughter, "to avenge Matteotti".
In truth, there were just as many Freemasons in the anti-fascist opposition: from the leader of the Aventine Giovanni Amendola to the communist Francesco Misiano, from the socialist Ivanoe Bonomi to the trade unionist and socialist Arturo Labriola, from the future partisan Emilio Canevari to the social democrat Andrea Finocchiaro Aprile, from the liberal democrat Luigi Luzzatti to the socialist Corso Bovio, from Pietro Mancini (father of Giacomo) to Mario Berlinguer, of the well-known family that later gave birth to Enrico. And personalities such as Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, the economist Maffeo Pantaleoni, the writers Paolo Orano and Sem Benelli, and still other revolutionary trade unionists. A very long list. Not to mention the “esoteric” Freemasons, linked to the most ancient rites and most remote from the political arena. Brothers all, one could say paraphrasing an encyclical by Bergoglio: but in the sense of Masonic brotherhood…
A few days ago Paolo Mieli in the Corriere della Sera reconstructed the relationship between Freemasonry and fascism, based on a new research by Fulvio Conti, just released by Carocci (“Freemasonry and Fascism. From the Great War to the banning of lodges”): from the split from the Grand Lodge of Italy to the role of Domizio Torrigiani, and then the events that followed, from interventionism to the birth of fascism, from Mussolini's rise to power to the Matteotti murder in which almost all the protagonists and instigators of the kidnapping and the crime were members of the Masonic obedience of Piazza del Gesù. And then, again, from the attack on Mussolini by the Freemason and socialist Tito Zaniboni shortly before the dissolution of Freemasonry, up to the closure of the Rotary in 1938, because many Freemasons had taken refuge in their clubs. Freemasonry reappeared with the fall of the fascist regime: at the session of the Grand Council on 25 July 1943, eight Freemasons voted against Mussolini; two brothers instead sided with him, Farinacci and Buffarini Guidi. Then there was the Badoglio government, with many Freemasons. How many threads of continuity submerged behind so many historical fractures…
The strong bond of so many fascists with Freemasonry remains a mystery, despite the declared hostility of Mussolini and the regime towards the lodges. And the break between the regime and Freemasonry remains a mystery, partly explained by the rapprochement of the fascist regime to the Catholic Church, later sanctioned by the Concordat. But there were probably other underground clashes of another kind. It is plausible to assume that Freemasonry did not move as a single block but was divided between different observances, in particular between a “national” part closer to fascism and one more tied to the Franco-English lodges, increasingly anti-fascist; without considering that some figures of Freemasonry played on two tables, exactly as some fascist exponents did on the other side, so that they were for and against the regime, alongside some hierarchs and alongside the opposition. https://www.marcelloveneziani.com/articoli/il-mistero-rosso-e-nero-della-massoneria/
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