Sacrifice

This is an excellent account of the dynamics of a fascist organization in Italy. The author does a masterful job of telling a compelling, interesting story while also explaining how he approached the task as a sociologist. He weaves his discussion of methodology into the account instead of creating a separate chapter to deal exclusively with it. The result of this choice is a book that is both scholarly and accessible to lay readers interested in contemporary fascist movements. Orsini strikes a good balance between creating a more complex portrait of fascists and underscoring the violence and danger inherent in fascist beliefs and goals.

An enjoyable read and also a timely one. Orsini provides incredible insights from the birthplace of fascism by engaging two small-town fascist militias thorughout several years. I think the main strength of the book is the expoition of difficulties, suprises and ultimate benefits of engaging in such an immersive etnographic study. On the other hand, the small-town aspect of the study is also significant, one cannot help but wonder if Orsini would be accepted in a fascist militia in a big city. My guess is No. This leads the author towards a portrayal of fascists being victims of their own politicization: isolated and despised in their small communities. While the author accepts the etnographic work has not been the best possible version (constant threat of violence and expulsion is the reason here), some inquiry into the elitist nature of fascist organizations is missing in my opinion. One of the characteristic aspects of fascism is hierarchy with a constant emphasis of love of the people and community. Yet, even with a public supporting fascists, its core remains to be elitist or in a fascist’s words from the book: “I don’t care, because it means we’re different from the others. It means that our spirit is different from the other guys’ in this town. We have values, they have nothing.” This quote displays both the despised and alienated nature of a fascist militia in Italy in 2010s but also the sense of superiority of fascists over the masses.
Another missing part is how antifa or communists view themselves in these rural towns. The communists are portrayed as somehow victorious in the book, because they have the numbers against fascists, but also fascism is defeated in Italy 70 years ago. Yet repeatedly, communists are portrayed on the defensive (on the defensive as in they already are victorious and defending their advantageous position) in the book while fascists try to (re-)establish themselves on the political scene of small-town Italy. This is probably from the fascists’ perspective as we already know from the Anglophone countries that fascists claim “cultural Marxism” prevails in today’s world and this leads all of us towards the decay of Western civilization. A few mentions of what author calls “revolutionary gnosticism” (which sounds an incredibly weak and ahistorical argument although I didn’t read the author’s book on Red Brigades but read some reviews of it) luckily did not derail the fascinating etnographic work.
All in all, as Orsini says in the book there are probably enough material out there enough for writing at least ten books, but all we have is this one. A nice read.