Margherita Sarfatti (1880-1961), Jewish Intellectual and longtime mistress of Benito Mussolini, the Duce, wrote a book titled "My Fault" about her experience as his confident and counselor. By Sarfatti's explicit wish, the book was never published but excerpts from it are reported by Roberto Festorazzi in his book titled "The Woman Who Invented Mussolini" (2022). The following paragraph from the book gives us a damning portrait of the intellectual, human, and moral decay of a man whom circumstances had put in charge of a country of 44 million inhabitants. How was it possible that most Italians followed him in the many disastrous choices of his late years in power? It is one of the mysteries of the human mind, but it happened. Could it happen again? Fortunately, right now, we don't see in the world these larger-than-life monsters in charge of entire countries, but that does not mean they could become fashionable again. In the meantime, we tend to follow abstract ideas: progress, growth, science, and more with the same mindless devotion and lack of moral concerns that once were reserved to dictators.
From "Margherita Sarfatti, the Woman Who Invented Mussolini," By Roberto Festorazzi, 2022
That Mussolini of the early years was now more than dead to me. I do not even consider him the same man of the later years: A different spiritual being, bound to his original identity only in the physical aspect. But even this one, as in The Portrait of Dorian Gray, had become weighed down and distorted under the influence of such a profound spiritual change. So I can think back, sadly but without hatred, to the man who once was, as one thinks back to someone long dead. The man who was shot by cruel and indignant patriots in April 1945 was only the degenerate shell of the first Mussolini, like cancer compared to the previously healthy flesh and limbs. Perhaps the disease was darkly at work even then. Sometimes, I had vague suspicions, and in my 1924 book on Mussolini, I hinted at some such danger looming over him. But who is ever completely healthy, physically and morally? Perhaps the saints may have been spiritually whole in their earthly lives, but one does not expect holy perfection from a man of action. In the early days, however, the good in him kept evil at bay and kept in check the growth of arrogant conceit and morbid cruelty. Mussolini was then a man who could honestly be looked upon with faith and respect.
Quel Mussolini dei primi anni era per me ormai più che morto. Non lo considero nemmeno lo stesso uomo degli anni seguenti: Un essere spirituale diverso, legato alla sua identità originale solo nel fisico. Ma perfino questo, come nel Ritratto di Dorian Gray, si era appesantito e involgarito sotto l'influsso di un così profondo cambiamento spirituale. Così posso ripensare, tristemente, ma senza odio, all'uomo che fu una volta come si ripensa a una persona morta da tempo. L'uomo che venne fucilato da patrioti crudeli e indignati nell'aprile 1945 era solo il guscio degenerato del primo Mussolini, come un cancro rispetto alla carne e alle membra in precedenza sane. Forse la malattia era oscuramente all'opera già allora. A volte avevo dei vaghi sospetti, e nel mio libro del 1924 su Mussolin,i accennai a qualche pericolo del genere che incombeva su di lui. Ma chi mai è completamente sano, fisicamente e moralmente? Forse i santi saranno stati spiritualmente integri nella loro vita terrena, ma non ci si aspetta una santa perfezione da un uomo d'azione. Nei primi tempi, comunque, il buono in lui teneva a bada il male, e manteneva sotto controllo la crescita di una superba presunzione e di una crudeltà morbosa. Mussolini era allora un uomo a cui onestamente si poteva guardare con fede e rispetto. e manteneva sotto controllo la crescita di una superba presunzione e di una crudeltà morbosa.
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