Spencer M. Di Scala

Science and Fascism: The Case of Enrico Fermi

Abstract This article describes the work and fate of Enrico Fermis group (the ‘Via Panisperna Boys’) under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini. It examines the fundamental research the group did and its significance and demonstrates how scientists cannot work under conditions innimical to freedom such as those that existed under the Fascist regime.Abstract This article describes the work and fate of Enrico Fermis group (the ‘Via Panisperna Boys’) under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini. It examines the fundamental research the group did and its significance and demonstrates how scientists cannot work under conditions innimical to freedom such as those that existed under the Fascist regime.

The Battle Within: Benito Mussolini, the Reformists and the Great War

Benito Mussolini’s dedication to violence since his early youth has always struck historians, and violence characterized him as a theoretician and practitioner of revolutionary socialism. Nevertheless, while his violent streak as the founder of fascism has been well documented, his early career as a fierce opponent of a gradual, non-violent approach to socialism—its phases up to the outbreak of World War I and its impact—is less familiar but just as significant. In his struggle against the older and well-established reformist founders of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) led by Filippo Turati may be found the key to Mussolini’s attitudes as a radical Socialist and of revolutionary socialism.1 If Mussolini’s radical socialism is to be understood, the documentation of the different phases of Mussolini’s strategy and action to gain control of the PSI up to the outbreak of World War I, and his expulsion from the Party must be examined.

The Italian Left in the Twentieth Century: A History of the Socialist and Communist Parties.@@@Moscow and the Italian Communist Party: From Togliatti to Berlinguer.

Acknowledgments Introduction Part One: The Left from the Formation of the Italian Socialist Party to the Triumph of Fascism Chapter 1 The Origins of the Socialist Movement in Italy, 1860-1900 Chapter 2 The Heyday of Reformism and the Challenge of Revolutionary Socialism, 1900-1917 Chapter 3 The Left between Revolution and Reaction, 1917-1920 Chapter 4 The Creation of the Italian Communist Party, 1921-1926 Chapter 5 The Years of Exile, 1926-1943 Part Two: The Left and the Republic Chapter 6 The Fall of Fascism and the Establishment of the Republic Chapter 7 The Cold War and the Creation of a Bipolar Political System Chapter 8 The Left in the Years of Centrism, 1948-1960 Chapter 9 The Opening to the Left: New Beginning or False Start Chapter 10 The Perils of Prosperity, 1968-1979 Conclusion Bibliographical Essay Index