Ecumenical Neofascism

For most Italians, the Easter holiday this year was more frustrating than festive. Alitalia was struck, which meant that both planes and plans had to be canceled. In a protest for higher wages, refinery workers sporadically cut delivery of the premium gasoline that most Italian cars require, thereby limiting autostrada excursions. (Enterprising urchins in Naples took advantage of the situation by selling mixtures of regular gas and cheap red wine as premium.)

In a nation that has already been depressed by rising crime rates, riots, political bombings, inflation, unemployment and inept government, Easter was as irritating as any other day.

The holiday frustrations came at a particularly unfortunate time: the most recent Italian government lost a confidence vote five weeks ago, and national elections take place next month--one year prematurely. In a vote filled with foreboding and uncertainty, 37 million Italians will choose Parliament members and determine the makeup of a new government from candidates of eight major parties and a host of minor ones. Trailing in strength but leading in voter attention--and gaining more with each new disruption--is the Movimento Sociale Italiano, the latter-day heir of Benito Mussolini's Fascism.

National Right. Up until now, when voters were angry at whichever center-left coalition the Christian Democrats headed, they protested by turning further left and voting Communist. MSI Leader Giorgio Almirante, 57, has made his party so attractive that the neofascists are certain to capture large chunks of this protest vote, with results hard to predict.

In the last Chamber of Deputies, the MSI held 24 of the 630 seats. On the strength of the national mood, and recent MSI showings in local and regional elections, Almirante expects to double that. Since the number of dedicated oldtime Fascists is limited, Almirante is stressing the concept of a "national right" and adopting what observers call "an ecumenical approach," in order to appeal to businessmen, professionals, youth and the 70% of Italian workers who are nonunionized. The party has issued a doctrinaire platform calling for "authority with liberty," a strong presidential form of government, curbs on strikes, and worker representation in management. More important, Almirante is shrewdly changing MSI's image from blackshirt to button-down.

Three months ago, MSI party headquarters in Rome's Palazzo del Drago sent new instructions to 94 local organizations reining in its swaggering street fighters. Members were to get haircuts regularly, shave daily, wear neckties, eliminate profanity and downplay nostalgia for the good old days of II Duce. No swastikas were to be smeared on synagogue walls or provocative marches made through Jewish neighborhoods.

To set an example, pictures of Mussolini in uniform and helmet on walls at party headquarters were replaced with 19th century landscapes. The Trieste party responded to the decree with a public ceremony at which clubs, helmets and iron bars were virtuously surrendered. In lieu of rabble-rousing party posters, MSI floods urban crime areas with handbills that read: "The people want protection against criminals."

Almirante himself, a green-eyed, graying Parma native of Sicilian ancestry, is an example of his own strategy. He has successfully smothered a fanatical past that included bitter-end service in Mussolini's last government and membership in the hated "Black Brigades" that hunted down Italian partisans. Now he is a well-tailored, low-keyed political leader. A spellbinding if somewhat long-winded orator, Almirante is in the midst of a whirlwind campaign in which he will make 230 speeches in 70 days, preaching the new neofascist message of propriety.

The MSI approach seems to be working. Other parties, including even the Christian Democrats, are stressing a conservative note in their campaign tactics in response to the MSI challenge. "Now we have a strong right, a right that counts," Almirante gleefully told TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn. "It was our growing strength that influenced the Christian Democrats to break the center-left coalition."

MSI is also attracting voters. "Look at all the crime we have now--robberies, rapes and murders," a fishwife in Rome's Piazza Vescovio outdoor market told Wynn. "It wasn't this way when we had Fascism, signore. We never had to lock our doors in those days." Milan's conservative magazine Oggi jokes that "the initials MSI no longer stand for Movimento Senza Importanza [Movement Without Importance]. Now they mean Maggioranza Silenziosa Italiana [Italy's Silent Majority]."

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