Italian Nationalist Association
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| Italian Nationalist Association | |
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| Associazione Nazionalista Italiana | |
| Former Italian National Party | |
| Political ideology | Nationalism |
| Official Newspaper | L'Idea Nazionale |
| See also | Politics of Italy |
The Italian Nationalist Association, Associazione Nazionalista Italiana (ANI) was Italy's first nationalist political party founded in 1910. under the influence of Italian nationalists such as Enrico Corradini and Giovanni Papini. Upon its formation, the ANI supported the repatriation of Austrian held Italian-populated lands back to Italy and was willing to endorse war with Austria-Hungary to do so.[1] The authoritarian nationalist faction of the ANI would be a major influence for the National Fascist Party of Benito Mussolini formed in 1921. The ANI merged into the Fascist Party in 1923.[2]
[edit] Ideology
The ANI's ideology remained largely undefined for some time other than it being nationalist. The ANI was divided between supporters of different kinds of nationalism - authoritarian, democratic, moderate, and revolutionary.[3] [4]
Corradini, the ANI's most popular spokesman, linked leftism with nationalism by claiming that Italy was a "proletarian nation" which was being exploited by international capitalism which had led to Italy being disadvantaged economically in international trade and its people divided on class lines, but instead of advocating socialist revolution, he claimed that victory against these oppressing forces would require Italian nationalist sentiment to succeed.[5]
| “ | We must start by recognizing the fact that there are proletarian nations as well as proletarian classes; that is to say, there are nations whose living conditions are subject...to the way of life of other nations, just as classes are. Once this is realized, nationalism must insist firmly on this truth: Italy is, materially and morally, a proletarian nation." (Report to the First Nationalist Congress, Enrico Corradini, Florence, December 3, 1919) | ” |
Of interest was Corradini's occasional use of the term "national socialism" to define the ideology which he endorsed, though there is no evidence that Corradini's beliefs directly influenced or related to German National Socialism (a.k.a.Nazism).[6]
In 1914, the ANI began to tilt towards authoritarian nationalism with its endorsement of the creation of an authoritarian corporate state, a radical idea created by Italian law professor, Alfredo Rocco.[7] Such a corporate state led by a corporate assembly rather than a parliament, which would be composed of unions, business organizations and other economic organizations that would work within a powerful state government to regulate business-labour relations, organize the economy, end class conflict, and make Italy an industrial state which could compete with imperial powers and establish its own empire.[8]
[edit] Membership
A large number of the ANI supporters were wealthy Italians of right-wing authoritarian nationalist background, in spite of efforts by Corradini and left-leaning nationalists to make the ANI a nationalist mass movement supported by the working-class.[9]
