Benito Mussolini The Doctrine Of Fascism

Benito Mussolini wrote The Doctrine of Fascism as part of an article for the Enciclopeida Italiana in 1932 (235). Mussolini outlines fascism “as a doctrine” which entails specific views on “material and intellectual problems” which have been the historical source oppression (236). He opposes three major ideologies and concludes by arguing that fascism is the superior political and social doctrine to unite Italy towards her “destined impulse” of expansion (239). Mussolini has two main targets, and these audiences structure the main points of his essay. His first audience and thesis is to refute the ideologies he considers antithetical to fascism. First, fascism opposes classical liberalism because fascism affirms the State “as the true reality
Mussolini posits four main points to present fascism’s ideological pillars as the superior political and social doctrine. First, that fascism does not believe “in the utility of perpetual peace” (236). War gives men a chance to display “heroism” (237). This “heroism” is the origin of his second point: fascism is opposed to socialism’s economic interpretation of history. For Mussolini, history is more than the haves against the have-nots; in fact, “class struggle can be the primary agent of social change” (237). Third, liberalism and democracy should be cast in to the “hecatomb” of WWI. The twentieth century is a reaction to this bloodshed, and will be the “century of the state” (237, 238). Finally, the State comprises the past, present and future because in the State, the “individual is not suppressed, but rather multiplied” (239). By controlling all political, economical, and spiritual mechanisms, the State becomes everything. Mussolini’s Italian State is equipped and destined to expand the Empire “after many centuries of abandonment or slavery to foreigners”
His symphony no. 5 in D Minor, op. 47 premiered on November 21, 1937 with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeniy Mravinsky (99). Shostakovich’s 5th is comprised of four movements: Moderato allegro non troppo, Allegretto, Largo, and Allegro non troppo. Shostakovich composed the 5th to save his life. He was under scrutiny after his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was accused of having anti-Party themes (84). He also pulled his 4th symphony the day before the debut because of its Mahlerian form was interpreted as “an act of defiance” against the Party (94-95). Many of his family members and close friends disappeared or were executed in the great Soviet purges in 1937 (98). Out of this pressure to prove his state-loyalty, Shostakovich wrote his 5th