Why Mazzinianism?

Why the Neglect?

The reason for the neglect of Mazzini's political thought is mostly down to the way history ended up playing out for him. Though he did rise to international fame at the height of the revolutions that swept through Europe in 1848, which saw him as the triumvir of the brief Roman Republic, the failure of the republic at the hands of the French also saw Mazzini's influence in the European democracy movement falter.

Waning Success

Despite this political failure, Mazzini had other problems that precluded his eventual vanishment and confinement to Italy political history. His style of romantic nationalism was quickly losing ground to the growing communist and socialist movements that were better articulating the grievances of the working classes experienced by the masses. Mazzini's movement, though consistently in favor of the working classes and their emancipation, drew most of its support from the educated middle-classes.

But it was also Mazzini's own anti-communism that would ensure his future political insignificance. Implacably opposed to class conflict (or any sectarianism of the sort), Mazzini emphasized the need to class collaboration through duty, that would enforce his concept of association through the nation. Mazzini was also strongly opposed to (Marx's) materialism, which he regarded as the erasure of noble and religious principle to wants, condemning it as "the worship of Interest, [that] would inevitably bring you down to egotism and anarchy." (The Duties of Man).

Communism and Fascism

Mazzini's anti-communism reached its crescendo in his harsh criticism towards the Paris Commune of 1871. Horrified by the "“the orgy of anger, vendetta, and bloodshed”, Mazzini wrote a scathing essay attacking the commune from emerging from a narrow, Parisian self-interest (The Commune and the Assembly, 1871). He called on the democratic movement to distance itself from associating itself with the Commune and desired Italy to show the world an alternative. However, this sentiment was not shared by the rest of the pro-democratic community, who were mostly in favor of the action in the Commune, and were puzzled by Mazzini's outrage. This ultimately marked a further step towards Mazzini's irrelevance today in the realm of ideas.

The more significant reason for Mazzini's neglect would come during the 1920s when the Partito Nazionale Fascista, led by Benito Mussolini, would come to power in Italy, ending the short-lived liberal(ish) democracy Italy had managed to form. The Fascists, particularly the self-proclaimed "philosopher of fascism", Giovanni Gentile, actively set about to mischaracterize and twist Mazzini's deeply held principle of national mission to support aggressive Italian chauvinism and imperialism. The revanchism of an even more vicious form of monarchism in Il Duce was so incompatible with what Mazzini believed when it can to democratic republicanism, that it is surprising that Mazzini could ever been credibly associated. Indeed, one of the most consistent opponents and activists against the Fascist regime, Carlo Rosselli, was himself inspired by Mazzini in his action against Mussolini.

The Man

Yet the most damning reason for Mazzini's obscurity today is down to his own qualities as a thinker. Mazzini was not a systematic theoretician who created complex philosophical explanations for history or his own political values. His writing is occasionally inconsistent, and his ideas sometimes lack the vigor that a Marx, a Mises, a Hegel, might have. Mazzini's faith was his philosophical system, and his devout Christian belief, given to him by his mother, influenced his fierce belief in his principles and his devotion to good and duty. But it's also true that it makes almost impossible for his ideas to attain any mass appeal today.