Narratives of neo-fascist transnational trajectories: travellers, warriors or ‘national-tourists’?

ABSTRACT

During the cold war, Italian neo-fascism had an impressive transnational dimension, which is receiving increasing scholarly attention. The Italian post-war context played a pivotal role in shaping neo-fascist militants’ identity as a proudly marginalized warrior elite: the extent to which this underwent a shift in the transnational context is nonetheless yet to be determined. Adopting a narrative psychology lens, this article explores the transnational experience’s narratives of three former neo-fascist militants (Vincenzo Vinciguerra, Stefano Delle Chiaie, Pierluigi Concutelli). The analysis of their autobiographies allows me to highlight that the transnational experience played a significant role in the construction of some militants’ personal myths, while others tend to diminish it to remain focused on the domestic battle. While the focus is mainly on individual narratives, the texts here analysed shed light on some common elements indicating that operating in a transnational context led to a partial shift in neo-fascist identity.

RIASSUNTO

Durante la Guerra Fredda, il neo-fascismo Italiano ebbe una notevole dimensione transnazionale, che sta ricevendo un crescente interesse da parte della comunità accademica. Il contesto del dopoguerra italiano ha giocato un ruolo fondamentale nel delineare l’identità dei militanti neo-fascisti come elite guerriera fieramente emarginata: non è tuttavia chiaro se questa abbia subito dei cambiamenti nel contesto transnazionale. Attraverso la psicología narrativa, questo articolo analizza il racconto dell’esperienza transnazionale di tre militanti neo-fascisti (Vincenzo Vinciguerra, Stefano Delle Chiaie, Pierluigi Concutelli). L’analisi delle loro autobiografie mi permette di illuminare il ruolo significativo giocato dall’esperienza transnazionale nella costruzione dei miti personali di alcuni, mentre altri tendono a diminuirne l’importanza per concentrarsi sulla battaglia nazionale. Nonostante l’analisi si concentri principalmente su narrazioni individuali, le autobiografie ci consentono di fare luce su alcuni elementi comuni che indicano come operare in un contesto transnazionale abbia comportato un parziale cambiamento dell’identità neo-fascista.

KEYWORDS:

• Italian Neo-Fascism
• Transnational Neo-fascism
• Avanguardia Nazionale (A.N.)
• Ordine Nuovo (O.N.)
• Self-Narratives
• Neo-fascist Identity

PAROLE CHIAVE:

• Neo-Fascismo Italiano
• Neo-Fascismo Transnazionale
• Avanguardia Nazionale (A.N.)
• Ordine Nuovo (O.N.)
• Auto-narrazioni
• Identità Neo-Fascista

Introduction

During the cold war, Italian neo-fascism was a unique phenomenon in the Western European context, characterized by virulent, prolonged and indiscriminate violence (Weinberg 1995; Ferraresi 1996, 73). Moreover, it did not operate exclusively on national soil. From the early 1970s on, several

militants left Italy to avoid prosecution for their involvement in the Strategy of Tension, a subversive strategy aimed at spreading terror across the country by staging bomb attacks that would have been attributed to the left in order to justify an authoritarian coup (Ferraresi 1996, 129). Militants from the main neo-fascist movements – Avanguardia Nazionale (A.N.) and Ordine Nuovo (O.N.) – moved to Spain (Ferraresi 1996, 226) and later to Latin America, where they collaborated with local regimes (Ravelli and Cento Bull 2018). Transnational historical analyses have illuminated neo-fascism’s transnational dimension in the cold war, focusing on their relations with militants and right-wing dictators (Mammone 2015; Albanese and del Hierro 2016; Ravelli and Cento Bull 2018). Nonetheless, existing scholarship has not explored whether and how transnational activism relates to identity issues. Although Italy’s political context played a crucial role in the shaping of a neo-fascist identity, the extent to which transnational trajectories impacted upon militant identities is yet to be determined. Since identities are ‘evolving constructions’ (Scheibe 1986, 131), this article explores whether the act of operating in a transnational context affected Italian neo-fascists’ identities through the analysis of neo-fascist militants’ autobiographies.

The proliferation of memoirs by former protagonists of the anni di piombo provides a valuable insight into this troubled period. Existing scholarship has highlighted the pivotal role the domestic context played in shaping militants’ identities, and hence their conception of political struggle (Cento Bull 2007, 128–144), as well as recurring patterns of victimhood and anti-state feelings in these self-narratives (Cento Bull and Cooke 2013, 127–133). However, the extent to which some of these memoirs reflect potential identity shifts in a transnational context has not yet been researched. Exploring how militants made sense of their transnational trajectories contributes to a thorough understanding of Italian neo-fascism’s transnational dimension.

Drawing on narrative psychology, I will explore the impact of transnational experiences on neo-fascist identity by analysing the autobiographies of three militants: Pierluigi Concutelli, Stefano Delle Chiaie,¹ and Vincenzo Vinciguerra. Founder and leader of A.N., Delle Chiaie left Italy in 1970 to avoid prosecution, and remained a fugitive for seventeen years. Based in Spain until the democratic transition, he then moved to Latin America where he was arrested in 1987. His connections with local dictators consolidated his leadership of the neo-fascist expat community. Delle Chiaie was eventually acquitted from charges of terrorism (Cento Bull, 2007, 156), although his innocence remains a controversial issue. Concutelli, one of the leaders of O.N. in the 1970s, drove the movement’s turn to armed struggle (Ferraresi, 1988, 93–94). His autobiography begins with a disturbing, but true, confession: ‘I’m a murderer’ (Concutelli and Ardica 2008, 17). He was convicted for the murder of Judge Vittorio Occorsio and two fellow prison mates (Preparata 2013, 109). Vinciguerra, formerly an O.N. militant, joined A.N. in 1974. In 1972, he staged a bomb attack that killed three carabinieri in Peteano (Gorizia) and moved to Spain in 1974. In 1979, he returned to Italy and turned himself in. He has been in prison ever since, serving his ‘life sentence for freedom’,² as the title of his autobiography suggests.

My primary focus is on individual narratives. I argue that the narratives are heavily politicized and reinforce neo-fascism’s anti-state feeling, preventing any re-elaboration of the past. However, by analysing individual narratives, I show that transnational experiences potentially impacted upon the militants’ neo-fascist identity, as operating transnationally opened new political opportunities to the neo-fascist galaxy. In the transnational context, neo-fascists narratively re-invented themselves as agentic characters that could finally fight the battle that had already been lost in Italy.

After introducing narrative psychology, I will illustrate the main tenets of neo-fascist identity in the domestic context, focusing on A.N. and O.N. I will then provide an insight into the transnational trajectories of Italian neo-fascism, before moving to an analysis of the militants’ memoirs, which will be discussed in two separate sections.

Methodology

Narrative psychology argues that ‘human life carries with it a narrative structure’ (Crossley 2000, 542). Accordingly, identity is a life story that individuals construct to make sense of their existence, ‘complete with settings, scenes, character, plot and theme’ (McAdams 2001, 101). Developed mainly by psychologists exploring personality issues within a developmental framework, narrative psychology is an interdisciplinary approach (Vassilieva 2016, 4), which lends itself particularly well to studies on political identities.

McAdams’ life story model of identity (1993) postulates that individuals rely on self-narratives to make sense of their lives, with self-narratives shaping their personality and identity. The analysis of self-narratives revolves around specific elements: personal myth, story themes, ideology and imagoes. Personal myth is ‘a special kind of story that each of us naturally constructs to bring together the different parts of ourselves and our lives into a purposeful and convincing whole’ (12), therefore providing life stories with meaning. Recurring story ‘themes’ reveal ‘what characters in the story recurrently want or intend’ (73), which contributes to shape a life story in a meaningful fashion. The socio-cultural context within which life stories are constructed underpins individuals’ identities; personal myth gives life a meaning, and it is also filtered through the individuals’ understanding of the world, namely personal values and beliefs. Hence, ideology ‘locates the personal myth within a particular ethical, religious and epistemological “time and place”’ (84). Finally, the imago embodies ‘idealized personifications in personal myth’ and ‘exists as characters in life stories’ (124). Imagoes play an integrative function in the life story by bringing together different personifications of the self, thus giving it coherence. McAdams identifies some ‘common characters’ (133) that recur in personal myths, such as the Warrior and the Traveller. As I will show, some of them emerge also in the neo-fascist militants’ life stories. Since life stories underpin identity building, McAdam’s model allows me to assess the impact of the transnational experience on neo-fascist militants’ identities. While his model is developed through the use of interviews, autobiographies are among the ‘most common tools employed to promote the identification of one’s personal myth’ (253), a statement that justifies my reliance on such medium.

The autobiographical genre is a key example of a self-narrative, whereas narrative is a transformative tool that ‘helps to define self and personal identity’ (Bold 2012, 4). This validates the identity-building function of life stories in McAdams’ model and reiterates its suitability for my analysis. The veracity of autobiographies is a controversial issue. If some levels of accuracy are to be expected, the main purpose of autobiographical memory is that of defining the narrator’s history and identity across times (Vonèche 2001; Fivush 2011), thus selecting episodes that are worth narrating while overlooking or rewriting those that do not fit into the overarching framework. McAdams’ life story model enables me to explore how neo-fascist militants made sense of their transnational experience through their autobiographies. Hence my focus on identity, which necessarily means overlooking the historical accuracy of the narratives, as the purpose of this article is not to question it. Nonetheless, in order to fully grasp the specific narrative elements of the examined texts, I will occasionally draw on non-autobiographical sources such as legal documents. A dedicated section on neo-fascists’ transnational trajectories further contributes to contextualize their narratives.

Italian neo-fascist identity

In order to analyse the impact of the transnational context on neo-fascist identity, I will now illustrate its main tenets in the domestic context. Ideology is the lens through which political militants see the world, ‘reinforcing the identity of their members’ (Ferraresi 1996, 30). To neo-fascists, ‘ideological self-representation’ is ‘the only way to let the external world understand its choices’ (Pisetta 1990, 191). This informs both individual and group identities, which are not in stark contrast since identity building implies a complex relationship between ‘the individual’ and the ‘collective dimension’ (Della Porta and Diani 2006, 92). The construction of a collective identity in radical groups is a ‘gradual process’, whereby individuals progressively ‘adopt the values and goals of the movement as their own and come to define themselves first of all as movement activists. Thus, the individual yields up part of his or her personal identity to the collective identity of the movement’ (Della Porta 1995, 206–207).

‘Neo-fascism’ is an umbrella term that refers to post-1945 movements and parties embracing the Fascist and Nazi inter-war experience in different forms (Cento Bull 2008, 586). Italian neo-fascist movements deliberately chose the revolutionary elements of Fascism that ‘would best fit their needs’ (Ferraresi 1996, 31–32), exemplified by Mussolini’s Repubblica Sociale Italiana (R.S.I.): anti-capitalism, exaltation of violence and heroic sacrifice (Ganapini 2007). The R.S.I. was a mobilizing symbol for those who rejected the new democratic order, as it embodied ‘the revolutionary fervour of the Fascist origins’ (Germinario 1999, 19) and neo-fascists felt ‘deep hatred and contempt for the new Italian nation’ (Cento Bull 2007, 11), in which they claimed to be inevitably marginalized. Significantly, Delle Chiaie’s (2012) autobiography starts with a mournful account of the Allies’ entry into liberated Rome in 1944. Only a child, he remembers being surrounded by a cheerful crowd, whilst his feelings were starkly different:

To them the war is over, and Rome has been ‘liberated’. I, on the other hand, feel a deep melancholy coming over me, which I will never manage to erase from my memory. I also had the impression that it was cold, even if it was summer. (Delle Chiaie et al. 2012 1)

He explains how ‘we felt exiled in our homeland, isolated witnesses of a neglected identity’ (12). Similarly, Concutelli argues that neo-fascists were ‘culturally and politically isolated’ (Concutelli and Ardica 2008, 33) and that ‘their’ history had been blatantly silenced: ‘they [the democrats] have erased our deceased’ (34). In a more convoluted fashion, Vinciguerra condemns the army’s prominent role in the new Republic after having ‘betrayed’ the nation by ‘favouring the Anglo-American-Soviet victory and the takeover by anti-fascist forces, which had little if nothing to do with the nation’ (Vinciguerra 1989, 5). This feeling of marginalization was inherently contradictory, as it stemmed from a fierce claim of superiority over the ‘masses’ (Cento Bull 2007, 11). Fascist thinker Julius Evola crucially contributed to consolidate neo-fascists’ self-perception as a superior elite, detached from the decadent democratic order. Starkly critical of the Italian Republic, Evola preached the ‘return to the respect of discipline, honour and obedience’ (Mammone 2015, 68) as well as the establishment of a hierarchical and elitist societal order. This was to be achieved through a ‘conservative revolution’ to be accomplished by a minority of ‘reactionary supermen’ (Drake 1989, 125). O.N. and A.N. militants therefore adopted a ‘warrior’s conception of life’ (Ferraresi 1987, 131) where ‘discipline and self-sacrifice were pushed to ascetic extremes’ (42).

O.N. was founded in 1956 by a group of Movimento Sociale Italiano (M.S.I.)dissidents, who considered the Third Reich as their model, whilst also being fascinated with exoticism and the oriental world (Picco 2011, 24). Initially, following Evola’s call for a non-political detachment from contemporary bourgeois decadence (19–20), O.N. acted as a Centro Studi officially devoted to research and study activities. However, the centre was mainly a façade; judicial investigations have revealed that, since the mid-1960s, O.N. was divided into small covert cells entirely dedicated to paramilitary activities (Commissione Stragi, hearing of Guido Salvini, 12 February 1997).

Founded in 1960 by a group of O.N. dissidents, A.N. was not concerned with theoretical issues, being ‘a straightforward action squad, brutal in words and deeds’ (Ferraresi 1988, 81). It was founded on 25 April (Liberation Day), a choice attesting to its loyalty to the R.S.I. militants ‘who had lost and had been betrayed’ (Delle Chiaie, cited by Rao 2006, 94). Several violent confrontations with the authorities led to A.N.’s official dissolution in 1965. However, following the example of O.N., A.N. was reorganized into clandestine cells dedicated to both political and paramilitary activities (Sentenza-Ordinanza 1995, 197–198).

Both movements were involved in the Strategy of Tension, although at different levels, according to investigations. O.N. militants have officially been indicated as the culprits of the bombings in Milan in 1969 (Cento Bull 2007, 43), and in Brescia in 1974 (Ravelli and Cento Bull 2018, 366). A.N. was involved in the attempted Borghese coup of 1970 (Cento Bull 2007, 51). Although neo-fascists do not deny their reliance on political violence, they tend to reject the stragista label, casting the left as the real promoter of the Strategy of Tension (Cento Bull 2007, 158). This counter-narrative consolidates the far-right’s self-marginalization vis-à-vis the democratic state, as well as its scapegoat syndrome. Neo-fascists interpret the numerous trials they were involved in as a persecutory campaign orchestrated by the left, aimed at disempowering and denigrating neo-fascism.

Italian neo-fascism’s transnational trajectories

The memoirs attest to an impressive transnational mobility, which deserves some historical contextualization. As the next sections show, the three militants operated in Spain, Latin America and Angola. Their transnational trajectories should be placed within the context of a wide, loose network, which shaped their political performance and thus potentially impacted upon their militant identities. Spain, Argentina, Chile and Bolivia were not mere safe sanctuaries, where the militants moved to avoid prosecution. Their presence in those countries was a direct consequence of their interaction with the ‘individuals, groups, parties and regimes’ (Albanese and del Hierro 2016, 161) that comprised the transnational fascist network. This originated in the interwar period, through the exchange and cooperation between Spanish far right actors and Italian Fascists. After the fall of Mussolini, ‘Italian and the Spanish extreme right-wing movements managed to maintain contacts’, which were passed on to the neo-fascist generation (Albanese and del Hierro 2014, 85). Italo-Spanish relations represented only ‘a small part of the network’ (83). After the end of WWII, thanks to Franco’s lenient approach, Spain became a safe sanctuary for European Fascist and Nazi militants who feared prosecution in their home countries (Messenger 2014). Members of the Organisation de l'Armée Secrète (O.A.S.), the French paramilitary organization fighting against Algeria’s independence, were also welcome to the sanctuary in the 1960s, thus expanding the network. A further wave of O.A.S. militants moved to Madrid in the mid-1970s. In Lisbon, the militants had set up the Aginter Presse, ‘a fake press agency’ that coordinated covert anti-communist operations in several continents (Albanese and del Hierro 2016, 129). After the fall of Salazar’s regime, the agency’s headquarters were moved to Madrid, which allowed for the involvement of Italian neo-fascist fugitives in their activities. The agency operated also in Africa, supporting the repression of decolonization movements. In the mid-1970s, a group of Italians were sent to Angola to fight against the local movement for national liberation, as briefly mentioned by Concutelli in his memoir. Thus, ‘Spain was a substantial transnational landmark for European neo-fascist activity in the Cold War years’ (Mammone 2015, 43), which provided Italian fugitives’ with several political opportunities.

The militants’ involvement in the transnational network explains their move to Latin America. During the cold war, key Fascist and Nazi figures connected far right militants and movements across different countries. This is the case of Junio Valerio Borghese, the ‘black prince’, former commander of the infamous R.S.I. paramilitary squad Decima Mas. Borghese was a prominent figure for the far right both in Europe and Latin America (Albanese 2021, 130): this explains why in 1974, Augusto Pinochet invited both him and his loyal disciple Delle Chiaie to visit Chile. The following year, a group of O.N. and A.N. militants coordinated – under Delle Chiaie’s leadership – the 1975 attack against the dictator’s opponent Bernardo Leighton and his wife (Ravelli and Cento Bull 2018).³ The couple, exiled in Rome, was shot by Concutelli,⁴ but luckily survived the attack. Nonetheless, the militants were invited to Chile as a reward for coordinating the operation, which opened them the gates to Latin America.

Militants’ imagoes in the transnational context: Vinciguerra and Delle Chiaie

Drawing on narrative psychology, the present and following sections analyse how the three militants make sense of their transnational experience. Using McAdams’ life story model of identity, I mainly focus on imagoes, that is, the life story’s main characters that reflect the story-teller’s self-idealization. A life story might rely on more than one dominant imago, and in some cases two or more imagoes can be in open conflict with each other (McAdams 1993, 122). Dominant themes grant self-narratives coherence and meaning, and underpin the personal myths that the narrators construct so as to consolidate their life stories. The imagoes dominating the militants’ life stories, as well as the relevance of certain themes to their narratives, show how the transnational experience shaped their political identities.

The account of his transnational experience is pivotal to Vinciguerra’s life story. His travels across Italy, Spain and Latin America between 1974 and 1979 are narrated as both an adventurous and an inner journey, which leads him to the drastic decision of renouncing his freedom. The account revolves around certain key themes: growing contempt for the neo-fascist milieu, seen as morally corrupted, coward and colluded with the state (Vinciguerra 1989, 10), and a desire for adventure, which ‘has a central role to play in the construction and development of life stories’ (Scheibe 1986, 130). The interplay between these themes underpins his frequent movements across countries, often presented as a drastic rupture with his comrades, a rhetorical choice that fashions his Lone Traveller imago. This is neither a fugitive nor a simple traveller, but a forward-looking individual whose moral integrity guides him away from the intolerable moral decay of his own political milieu, in an attempt to preserve his political and ideological purity. Each imago ‘has a somewhat exaggerated and one-dimensional form’ (McAdams 1993, 122); thus, Vinciguerra describes his journey as a substantially solitary experience (although this is rarely the case), emphasizing – if not exaggerating – moral loneliness.

The narration of his first move to Spain clearly evokes the Lone Traveller imago. Vinciguerra clarifies from the outset that he did not leave Italy out of fear for being arrested: this ‘was not a hurried escape. It was not about running away from a possible detention’ (1989, 15).⁵ Rather, it was lack of trust in his O.N. comrades and a growing sense of isolation within the movement that ‘forced’ him to leave Italy (15). Furthermore, he admits that he had often thought about fighting abroad, particularly in ‘White Africa’, as he defines it. The continent ‘evoked all the adventurous things that you ever dreamt of in your infancy and adolescence’ (10), and thanks to the transnational connections of O.N., moving there was a concrete opportunity. Eventually, though, Vinciguerra renounced this possibility as he genuinely believed it was possible to fight in Italy, to finally liberate it from the republican regime, the U.S. and the N.A.T.O. This is because in 1970, as he sarcastically underlines, he still ignored the fact that his comrades were fighting alongside the same forces he was hoping to defeat (10).

His decision to move to Spain is framed as a leap into the unknown, thus highlighting the theme of adventure:

And so my political experience in Italy ended, after ten intense years, in the solitude of a clandestine departure towards an uncertain future. … I was looking at the future, which was full of mystery. For the first time, I could not make any plans, hypotheses or forecasts … I arrived in Barcelona, Spain … with my false identity document, exhausted and extremely curious about the new environment. (15–17)

After no more than one year Vinciguerra returned to Italy, lamenting the tensions within the Spanish neo-fascist milieu where – as in Italy – ‘braggarts and buffoons’ (1989, 17) dominated. Hence, returning to Italy seemed a coherent choice that preserved his moral integrity. Nonetheless, in 1976 Vinciguerra returned to Spain; due to his conviction for the hijacking of a plane in the north east of Italy, his comrades forced him to again seek refuge in the country, a move that he regretted. ‘I was simply nauseated by the expat [milieu]’ (26), he laconically claims as he vents his feelings about O.N. in Italy. Again, a new move allowed Vinciguerra to break away from an apparently unbearable situation: ‘I left Spain on 1 January 1977 to never come back’ (25). While the theme of moral loneliness is prominent, anecdotes about the dynamic expat community significantly reiterate the adventure theme. In Spain, Vinciguerra recalls, he encountered a ‘heterogenous’ community (19) embodying different political experiences. The narrative tone becomes less vehement and is at times epic. This is evident in the portrait of an Exército de Libertação de Portugal (E.L.P.)⁶ leader, ‘whose main feature was to love, and not metaphorically, nuns’ (20) and in the account of his encounter with several Aginter Presse militants. ‘Ralph’, covert name of the Aginter Presse’s leader Yves Guillou, is accurately portrayed as a ‘traditionalist catholic’, whose involvement in ‘plots’ and ‘subversive activities’ did not prevent him from saying the ‘parachutist prayer every night’ (19). The anecdotes mix personal and political considerations, through which Vinciguerra emerges as an omniscient narrator, who can informedly discuss about the anti-communist struggle across different continents, thanks to his transnational experience. In this sense, they contribute to consolidate the Lone Traveller imago of an experienced militant, whose life story is made unique also by the encounters with notable members of the fascist network (including Borghese and the S.S. colonel Otto Skorzeny).

This Lone Traveller imago is undermined by a key subtheme that runs throughout his autobiography: his friendship with Delle Chiaie. In Barcelona, Vinciguerra was introduced to the A.N. leader, who had a poor reputation among O.N. militants because of his alleged connections with the intelligence. Ignoring these rumours, Vinciguerra established a long-lasting friendship with Delle Chiaie, which led him to join A.N. in the summer of 1974. After his arrest, he would take it upon himself to clear Delle Chiaie’s name before every Court he was summoned to (1989, 116), which is illustrative of Vinciguerra’s loyalty to his friend. The positive emphasis on this relationship does not diminish the theme of loneliness underpinning the narrative of his transnational experience. Delle Chiaie represents a moral compass only at an individual level and this does not change Vinciguerra’s negative view of the neo-fascist milieu, including – in the long run – his ‘new’ A.N. comrades. This emerges clearly from his account of the Latin American experience, significantly introduced as ‘an adventure’ (26).

Vinciguerra moved to Chile with a group of A.N. militants, who employed them in his secret police, the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (D.I.N.A.)⁷ When D.I.N.A. was dismantled in 1977, the group was suddenly deprived of its safe status.⁸ Vinciguerra emphasizes that Chilean authorities were particularly interested in his presence in the country: ‘The Policia Internacional … becomes morbidly interested in me, repeatedly summoning and controlling me, and performing stakeouts’ (1989, 28–29). As Delle Chiaie was not in Chile, Vinciguerra was seemingly left alone to deal with the authorities and coordinate the group’s escape to Argentina: ‘I managed to get them out via the southern border of Chile, in a rather adventurous manner’ (28–29). Thanks to the support of two unnamed friends, Vinciguerra crossed the Andes with an Indian guide, ‘without money or documents’ (29). The account of the adventurous crossing of the Chilean border and the journey to Buenos Aires reiterates the adventurous theme and attests to Vinciguerra’s attempt at narrating his life story as a heroic odyssey.

In Argentina, he was the only group member authorities were interested in (1989, 39); they were allegedly collaborating with Italy towards his arrest, an element that suggests the presence of a wider ‘conspiracy’. Retrospectively, Vinciguerra highlights that the Argentinean Navy General Emilio Massera was – alongside notable members of Italian state sectors – a member of the masonic lodge P2,⁹ which was allegedly involved in the Strategy of Tension. Being one of the few neo-fascists to have rejected collaboration with state sectors, in Argentina Vinciguerra was therefore in the spotlight, whereas his comrades were living undisturbed (29). The Argentinian experience is pivotal to illuminate the collusion of neo-fascism with state sectors within the context of the Strategy of Tension (18–19), with only Delle Chiaie and a few others remaining ‘innocent’ in this regard. Hence, the anti-state feeling becomes intertwined with a contempt for the neo-fascist milieu, which dominates Vinciguerra’s account of his transnational experience and corroborates the theme of moral loneliness. The cowardliness and untrustworthiness of his comrades in Argentina is cleverly exaggerated by contrasting it with the coherence and transparency of a Peronist couple, who temporarily hosted him in Buenos Aires despite his fugitive status: in their home, ‘everything was clean and pure’ (37).

Inevitably, the growing bitterness towards his comrades pushed Vinciguerra to leave Argentina: ‘I was nauseated by that world [the neo-fascist milieu]’ (1989, 48), echoing the words that motivated his departure from Spain. The plan was to move to Iran via Europe, where he would have supported the Islamic revolution, pursuing again the adventure element. After returning to Europe, though, his plan changed due to his ‘loyalty and camaraderie’ (51) towards Delle Chiaie, who asked his support in relaunching a political movement in Italy. The lack of enthusiasm for this project on behalf of his A.N. comrades led to another drastic turn in Vinciguerra’s odyssey, who realized that ‘this world [A.N.] was no longer my world’ (54). Left without a mission to pursue and inevitably alone, he decided to turn himself in:

I couldn’t see myself as a mercenary, least of all as a criminal who steals and sometimes kills to secure his survival or ‘freedom’. … I no longer believed in that fight [the transnational fight], and being a fugitive only to avoid imprisonment was a compromise that I did not want to accept. It would have implied coming to terms with my conscience in the name of a right to ‘freedom’ which, to me, meant definitely more than just living outside the walls of a prison, as it is normally interpreted. (1989, 54)

Vinciguerra’s personal myth recalls a Homeric odyssey. The hero travels to several destinations before coming home, only to realize that freedom is an inner condition; the transnational adventure therefore has a transformative impact on his identity. His struggle is inevitably solitary, due to the moral decay surrounding him, which is conveyed by his Lone Traveller imago. The narration of his encounters with foreign militants and locals in Spain and Latin America consolidates the adventurous theme of his life story: Vinciguerra’s political choices are unquestionable in that they are the outcome of a unique lived experience. His personal myth is further consolidated by the choice to sacrifice his personal liberty in exchange for moral freedom, a turn echoing the emphasis neo-fascism places on self-sacrifice. His drastic choice was by no means motivated by a desire to pay for his crimes; he renounced his personal liberty so as to defend himself and a few loyal comrades from the ‘infamous’ allegation of collusion with the state. The transnational experience paved the way for such decision.

Delle Chiaie’s account is marked by the theme of ‘exile’, as he conveniently defines his seventeen years of fugitiveness (Delle Chiaie et al. 2012, 162, 326). Exile underpins his two imagoes: the Exiled Militant and the Transnational Warrior. The Exiled Militant is the victim of a corrupted system. In the aftermath of the 1969 bombing in Milan, he and other A.N. militants were ‘trapped’ into a ‘cobweb that would take nineteen years to destroy’ (107), namely a court case postulating their involvement in the massacre. Delle Chiaie was in fact interrogated a few days after the massacre, suggesting that his arrest was forthcoming. Notwithstanding his hesitation, he left Italy in the summer of 1970 under pressure by both his comrades and his lawyers, who believed that it would have taken only a few months to prove his innocence; this marked the beginning of a seventeen-year long ‘exile’. Accordingly, Delle Chiaie presents himself as the victim of a political plot that stained his reputation for decades by labelling him as a terrorist, as well as keeping him away from his loved ones. This point is often reiterated throughout his autobiography, as the account of his mother’s death demonstrates. The woman passed away in 1973, while he was in Spain and therefore unable to say goodbye: ‘it was only sixteen years later, after being released from prison, that I was finally able to visit my mother’s grave’ (185–186). This episode summarizes the ‘exile tragedy’ in Delle Chiaie’s life story. Significantly, the book’s final chapter is titled ‘Return to Italy’; at the outset, he laconically stresses that it took him ‘seventeen years’ to finally ‘return home’ (309).

It is worth underlining that Delle Chiaie managed to return to Italy on several occasions during his ‘exile’, crossing borders clandestinely and holding meetings with his comrades in Rome, as his autobiography reveals. Nonetheless, he conveniently emphasizes the exile theme, as this grants his life story meaning and coherence, and reinforces another key theme in his autobiography: the stigmatization of the state’s crusade against him and his comrades. The magistracy’s interest in his activism is interpreted as a form of deliberate persecution against A.N., with exile being part of a strategy to annihilate him and his comrades, ‘persecuted and defeated also through homicide, imprisonment, exile and defamation’ (299) because of their ideas. Whilst this narrative presents Delle Chiaie as a victim and his exile as an unbearable condition that has been imposed on him, a parallel narrative emerges that frames the exile as a political opportunity. Here, the adventurous element is predominant and allows Delle Chiaie to construct the imago of a Transnational Warrior who confidently moves across countries to pursue his revolutionary dream. Echoing Vinciguerra’s frustration with the national context, Delle Chiaie explains how he realized, in the late 1960s, that any political action deprived of an international scope would have been ineffective (161). This led him to establish contacts with several international actors, but it was ‘the exile [that] represented a chance to apply this experience [the Italian experience] to my international activity’ (162). The positive framing of the exile theme is representative of the key role the transnational experience played in shaping Delle Chiaie’s life story and, in turn, his identity. While the Exiled Militant imago is mainly beneficial to his self-portrayal as a martyr persecuted by ‘great powers’ (Cento Bull 2007, 139), the Transnational Warrior imago implies a pro-active actor who turns a negative condition into an opportunity. In this sense, the ‘adventure’ theme is pivotal to his life story, as the account of his transnational ‘missions’ is narratively framed as an adventure.

The Warrior imago reflects an agentic character, who seeks to ‘conquer, master, control, overcome, create … explore … win’ (McAdams 1993, 134). It parallels the Greek god Ares, ‘the impetuous and courageous warrior’ whose main purpose is ‘to make war of one kind or another’ (136). Similarly, Delle Chiaie’s Warrior imago sees the transnational experience as ‘a revolutionary path’ (2012, 271), hence inherently conflictual. This imago outlines a personal myth that rarely sees him as a victim of events, but rather as the protagonist of several adventures. His involvement in the 1980 Bolivian coup is illustrative in this sense. In 1979, some ‘Bolivian comrades’ asked him to support a ‘revolutionary plan’ (239); this led to his collaboration with the military junta, which overturned the newly elected president Hernan Siles Suazo in the summer of 1980. In his view, the coup was a popular and peaceful ‘revolution’, warmly welcomed by most of the population (245). He therefore enthusiastically supported it, even suggesting that the ‘President’ establish a Department of Psychological Action to coordinate propaganda actions and media control, which he ended up coordinating. This episode is illustrative of the Transnational Warrior’s agentic features; his critical thinking and transnational reputation allowed him to transfer his revolutionary know-how to other countries upon request of local actors. While emphasis is primarily placed on the positive outcome of his intervention, the narrative remains one of conflict. In Bolivia, Delle Chiaie and his comrades were allegedly exposed to the abusing power of the U.S., which – alongside ‘international economic powers’ – politically boycotted the Bolivian ‘revolution’ (252). Hence, the Bolivian adventure was marked by the totalizing fight against ‘Western imperialism’ (259), with the indigenous population opposing great foreign powers. This scenario clearly evokes Delle Chiaie’s ‘domestic’ battle for Europe’s ‘independence’, with A.N. being opposed to both superpowers: ‘Our goal was an independent Europe … a third force in opposition to the two imperialist blocs’ (19). The ‘anti-imperialist’ struggle that he claims to have fought in Bolivia is therefore consistent with his third force project, in which he involved other Latin American countries.

The account of his encounter with Pinochet further consolidates the Transnational Warrior imago. In 1974, Pinochet invited Delle Chiaie and Junio Valerio Borghese to Chile. During the visit, the Transnational Warrior illustrated his third force project to the General, auspicating a collaboration between ‘nationalist forces’. Pinochet backed this proposal with enthusiasm, paving the way for a long-lasting relationship (2012, 190–191). The pragmatic transnational warrior is clearly identifiable here, as Delle Chiaie dealt confidently with the Chilean dictatorship, even advising it on the structure of its political police: ‘with the colonel [Jorge Carrasco] we prepared a draft of what would eventually become the D.I.N.A. … and we suggested a symbol for its logo’ (191). Once again, the Transnational Warrior – with his impressive ‘revolutionary’ background – offered his Latin American interlocutors vital strategical advice.

The Exiled Militant and the Transnational Warrior imagoes are potentially in conflict, as they interpret the exile theme in opposite terms. The Warrior’s agentic features seem to undermine Delle Chiaie’s self-portrayal as a scapegoat, which in turns underpins his Exiled Militant imago. While there is no need to solve the conflict between the two imagoes, it is worth noting that both give Delle Chiaie’s life story coherence and moral integrity. The Exiled Militant serves his sentence with courage and abnegation, whereas the Transnational Warrior turns exile into an opportunity to export his third force project. In both cases, there is no negotiation or capitulation; the Italian state apparatus is the main enemy, and it is only Delle Chiaie’s personal stamina that allows him to survive seventeen years of ‘exile’. The two imagoes are pivotal to his personal myth, and they significantly dominate his autobiography, outlining a life story informed by abnegation, courage and adventure. Hence, the account of his transnational experience is essential for the construction of Delle Chiaie’s life story and political identity.

Not another ‘national-tourist’: Concutelli’s autobiography

Concutelli’s account of his transnational experience differs strikingly from those of Vinciguerra and Delle Chiaie, raising some interesting points about the impact it has had on neo-fascists. Concutelli moved to Spain in 1976,¹⁰ before joining some comrades in Angola, where he fought against the Angolan Liberation Movement (Sentenza Ordinanza 1998, Sec. 59). Nonetheless, the militant does not disclose much about this experience in his autobiography, with only a very short chapter being devoted to it. His concise account, and some caustic comments disseminated across the book, outline an overall negative take on the transnational experience and on neo-fascist fugitives, whom he defines as ‘national-tourists’ (Concutelli and Ardica 2008, 126).

The dominant imago in Concutelli’s life story is the Warrior. Like Delle Chiaie, he depicts himself in agentic terms, emphasizing his role in driving the reorganization of O.N. in the early 1970s: ‘I was the Movimento Politico Ordine Nuovo. … I was the brains and the brawn. The general and the soldier’ (106). While dominant throughout the autobiography, the agentic narrative is significantly less prevalent in the few pages focused on the transnational experience. Firstly, Concutelli does not explain his decision to move abroad: this was allegedly due to legal troubles, but this is never made explicit. Consequently, leaving Italy is neither perceived nor emphasized as a life-changing moment, as it was in Vinciguerra’s case. Secondly, and most importantly, his transnational adventure is not driven by his initiative. It was in fact Delle Chiaie who escorted him to Spain; as he was understandably nervous about travelling with false documents, the A.N. leader confidently reassured him throughout the trip (92). In Spain, Concutelli was enlisted by other comrades fighting in Angola,¹¹ but he was not enthusiastic about it:

The same comrades involved me in a minor conflict happening in a country that was not Spain. A conflict that, within a few days, turned into a real war. After spending months at the frontline, I managed to get out of there alive and I decided that it was time to return to Italy. (93)

Not only was the Angolan experience dangerous, but it also had little relevance to Concutelli’s life story. The ‘general’ who – in the previous pages – illustrates how he drove his movement towards the armed struggle was evidently subordinated to others in Angola. The only episode that seems to reinstate Concutelli’s agency is his stop in Nice on his way back to Italy, for a Rolling Stones concert (94). This, he argues, was a much-needed distraction from the troubled Angolan experience. Significantly, this anecdote interrupts the passive narrative of the transnational experience as something that merely ‘happened’ to the teller.

Concutelli is not elusive about his misdoings, as the book provides a rather detailed account of some of the crimes he committed. Hence, the concise account of his transnational experience, and particularly of the Angolan mission, is not an attempt at eluding his involvement in violent episodes. The fact that the latter experiences are not relevant to his life story can be explained by considering two elements. Firstly, Concutelli’s relationship with the expat milieu was explicitly tense:

There was a widespread climate of suspicion. No one trusted anyone. Comrades considered each another potential adversaries for survival, accommodation, food and hierarchies within the organization. I did not bond with anybody. (93)

Concutelli does not conceal his opinion of the A.N. militants, depicted as obsessed with control, keen on ‘sullying anyone and anything’ (178) and possibly colluded with the secret services (93). Furthermore, considering Delle Chiaie’s leadership of the expat community, Concutelli’s contempt for the ‘expats’ could be read as mainly referring to A.N. Nonetheless, Concutelli is also disappointed with O.N.’s historical leaders, most of whom had moved abroad and had lost touch with those who had bravely decided to remain in Italy: a divide that caused several problems within the movement (128). Although he never explicitly blames his leaders for having left Italy, he significantly uses the contemptuous ‘national-tourists’ label to define the O.N. ‘expats’. Occasional references to the expat milieu across the autobiography further stress his disdain: ‘why should we care about Francisco Franco’, he provocatively asks, and risk to be beaten up to defend him (50)? This sarcastic reference is to the Italian neo-fascists’ collaboration with Franco, which he considers both ideologically inconsistent and dangerous. He similarly condemns those militants ‘who worked for the colonels of some South American country, under the heels of a military junta’, but who were still financially supported by their comrades in Italy (204): these, too, fall under the ‘national-tourists’ label. In sum, the first element explaining the limited relevance of the transnational experience to Concutelli’s life story is his contempt for the expat milieu, with no distinction being made between A.N. and O.N. militants.

As previously mentioned, Concutelli was the executor of the attempted Leighton murder in 1975. He did this regardless of his contempt for those who had worked ‘under the heels of a military junta’. Significantly, he does not mention this incident in his autobiography, an omission that conveniently corroborates his distance from those who had notoriously collaborated with foreign actors. The troubled relationship between Concutelli and A.N. explains this omission: admitting his involvement in the attack would evidently be detrimental to his Warrior imago. Firstly, it would imply having obeyed to Delle Chiaie’s orders, who was the trait d’union between the Italians and Pinochet. Secondly, it would associate him to those ‘national-tourists’ he strongly despised, hence undermining the coherence of his life story. Finally, since Concutelli was never convicted for this crime there was no pressure to discuss his involvement in it. Hence, downplaying the transnational experience does inform Concutelli’s life story with meaning, which leads me to explore the second element explaining his detachment from this experience. The autobiography clearly outlines his political identity: from the outset, he claims that he was a Fascist (Concutelli and Ardica 2008, 35). The previously mentioned sense of marginalization – alongside state repression – triggered in Concutelli a strong desire for revenge. Recalling the Liberation, he claims to have been ‘the son of those days. The days of rage and hatred’ (23), echoing Delle Chiaie’s feelings. In the long run, the paths taken by the two militants clearly diverge. While the A.N. leader embraced an internationalist political approach, abandoning his bitterness about the 1945 defeat in order to fight on other fronts, Concutelli’s focus remains domestic; rage against the state underpins his life story persistently, driving his ‘tragic and total choices’ (19). The ideological footprint crucially gives his life story meaning and determines the focus of his fight, which is necessarily domestic: ‘I killed out of choice, driven by an ideology that, at that time, was … total and totalizing’ (1). The increasing repression faced by neo-fascists is presented as the main trigger for his choice to engage in armed struggle, but he sees a clear continuity between the post-war generation and the Fascist one:

I heard Emilio Santillo saying on the radio that within a few months, in Italy, nobody would ever talk about the neo-fascist threat again. I took it as a declaration of war, as a challenge, while the black shirts’ anthem was echoing in my ears: ‘To arms! We are Fascists!’ They were pushing us towards the blindest fanaticism. (70–71)¹²

The democratic regime was like ‘a squid’, ‘suffocating’ and ‘annihilating’ neo-fascism (73). These feelings demonstrate that Concutelli’s struggle is embedded in the domestic context because it is precisely this context that shaped his political identity. The ‘general’ could only perform his act in Italy, as this was where the real fight was happening: a point that further justifies his negative take on the militants collaborating with foreign regimes, who had allegedly turned their back on their comrades. Therefore, despite the opportunity to embark on a transnational adventure, his agentic features could only emerge within the Italian context, because it was this context that sparked his rage and desire for revenge. Angola and Spain are evidently a digression in his life story; his agentic features almost vanish in these countries, and no relevant imago emerges. By attacking the expat community, Concutelli strengthens his Warrior imago, which is prominent in the narrative of his domestic experience. Hence, although the transnational experience has little impact on his life story, it indirectly contributes to reinforce his domestic Warrior imago.

Neo-fascist selves in a transnational context

Concutelli and Delle Chiaie’s leadership roles, and Vinciguerra’s unique trajectory as a ‘prisoner for freedom’ make the focus on their self-narratives relevant to broader analyses of transnational neo-fascism. The voices of militants from different movements who commemorated Delle Chiaie – who died in 2019 – attest to the relevance of his transnational experience for the neo-fascist galaxy.¹³ Hence, while the three militants’ experience cannot be deemed fully representative of the whole neo-fascist galaxy, their life stories are illustrative of the way in which this heterogeneous milieu made sense of its transnational dimension. In this sense, my focus throws further light on neo-fascism’s transnationalism.

The key element that highlights the impact of the transnational experience upon neo-fascist identity is the way in which militants used it to challenge their ‘domestic’ self-portrayal as marginalized actors. While in Italy the militants saw themselves as a warrior elite who ‘continued the fight while knowing that the battle was lost’ (Cento Bull 2008, 590), the transnational context opened new political opportunities. In countries like Spain, Chile and Bolivia, the battle was not yet lost, and could be fought without facing the threat of prosecution, alongside ‘friends’ who did not despise Fascism and its legacy. While Vinciguerra’s myth is that of a Homeric hero overcoming several obstacles to preserve his purity, Delle Chiaie is a transnational ‘revolutionary’ hero. It is in the transnational context that militants could emerge as ‘real’ warriors, which had proved impossible in Italy. Both militants’ life stories are enriched by their interaction with notable right-wing militants and leaders actively involved in the anti-communist struggle, within the loose transnational fascist network. This bears relevance to the whole neo-fascist galaxy. Their transnational trajectories demonstrate that while neo-fascism was allegedly marginalized in Italy, it still represented a valid ally to several international leaders, as Delle Chiaie's narrative of the Chilean and Bolivian experience shows. In this sense, the two autobiographies show that the transnational experience allowed neo-fascists to overcome their political marginalization, reinventing themselves as warriors who could finally demonstrate their heroic vocation to the world.

The transnational experience further radicalized the militants. Both Vinciguerra’s and Delle Chiaie’s narratives exacerbate the neo-fascist anti-state feeling: not only were militants exiled in their own homeland, but some of them also had to leave to avoid prosecution for crimes they claimed to have not committed. Despite their self-imposed exile, the state continued hunting them in a seemingly endless crusade against neo-fascism. Delle Chiaie’s account of exile as inhumane punishment and Vinciguerra’s reconstruction of the transnational plots staged to arrest him are illustrative in this sense. These narratives conveniently exaggerate the portrayal of the ‘persecution’ against neo-fascism, which in the transnational context becomes borderless and therefore even more vicious. Neo-fascism’s victimhood narrative (Cento Bull and Cooke 2013, 157) is not an element of novelty. However, the exaggerated narrative of the state’s borderless persecution against single neo-fascist militants further demonstrates its state’s moral corruption, an element that potentially consolidates neo-fascism’s scapegoat syndrome. In this sense, the two militants’ narratives are relevant to the whole neo-fascist galaxy.

While not lending itself to a broad analysis of the transnational experience’s impact upon neo-fascist identity, Concutelli’s autobiography throws light on the role group relations played in the transnational context. The tense relations between O.N. and A.N., and the distance between Concutelli and ON’s historical leaders, justify his understatement of the transnational experience. Hence, the transnational context exacerbated the tensions that already existed in Italy, thus preventing those who did not accept new leadership and group dynamics (such as Delle Chiaie’s dominance over the ‘expat’ community) from enjoying the political opportunities offered by the new context.

To conclude, my analysis demonstrates that the militants’ transnational trajectories had the potential to substantially impact on the neo-fascist self. While the interplay of individual and group dynamics makes each life story unique, I have shown that – other than being further radicalized – in the transnational context neo-fascist militants re-invented themselves in agentic terms, an opportunity that – in their view – could not be seized in Italy. This makes their individual experiences relevant to the neo-fascist galaxy, and allows me to shed further light on the transnational dimension of neo-fascism in the cold war.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Galadriel Ravelli

Galadriel Ravelli is a Lecturer in Italian Politics and Society at the University of Bath. She obtained her PhD from the University of Bath in 2018, with a thesis exploring the transnational trajectories of Italian neo-fascism in the cold war. Her current research focuses on the transnational activism of Italian and European neo-fascist militants in the 1970s and 1980s.

Notes

1. Concutelli’s autobiography was co-authored with Giuseppe Ardica. Delle Chiaie’s autobiography was written in collaboration with Massimiliano Griner and Umberto Berlenghini. Both texts are written in the first person and are here treated as autobiographies, as suggested by previous analyses of co-authored texts dealing with identity issues (Glynn 2009; Cento Bull and Cooke 2013).

2. All translations from Italian sources are mine.

3. In 1975, the two movements merged in an attempt to launch an attack on the state (Sentenza Ordinanza 1983, 51). The Leighton attack should be viewed in this context.

4. In 1989, Concutelli was acquitted from the charge of executing attack against Leighton and his wife due to lack of evidence. In the early 1990s, members of D.I.N.A. were convicted for having instigated the attack. Evidence gathered by the Prosecutor’s Office in this sense confirms that Concutelli did indeed shoot at the couple, but he could not be tried again due to procedural issues (Procura della Repubblica di Roma 1995, 1–2).

5. The reference is to his involvement in the Peteano massacre (1972).

6. A right-wing group challenging the democratic transition in Portugal.

7. National Intelligence Directorate.

8. Due to the junta’s internal problems, after the DINA’s dismantlement the group was no longer welcome.

9. See Lewis (2002, 183).

10. The dates in his autobiography are different.

11. Although the country’s name is absent from the text, it is mentioned in a footnote.

12. Santillo was head of the Anti-Terrorism Unit between 1974 and 1975.

13. ‘He kept himself together … while bravely accepting … the burden of a very tough militancy’, Bruno Esposito, former member of the M.S.I., stated (Fascinazione 2019b). ‘A piece of Italian neo-fascist history has passed away’, said a former member of Meridiano Zero, Rainaldo Graziani (Fascinazione, 2019b). ‘A comrade who dearly paid his political credo has died’, a former member of A.N., Mario di Giovanni, announced.