Patterns of Prejudice, 2016

Vol. 50, Nos. 4–5, 478–494, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2016.1243662

Evola’s interpretation of fascism and moral

responsibility

ELISABETTA CASSINA WOLFF

ABSTRACT The ideological influence that several right-wing radical thinkers exercised
on the Norwegian ‘lone wolf’ terrorist Anders Behring Breivik raises the question of
how far a writer can be held responsible for acts of terrorism s/he may have
influenced. Italian history provides a vital lesson in this respect: namely, the role
played by the Italian traditionalist Julius Evola in the crucial passage from Fascism
to neo-fascism. After reviewing Evola’s ideological development, Wolff then analyses
Evola’s influence on a young generation of neo-fascists in Italy. Another relevant
topic is the ideological continuity between Fascism and neo-fascism identified here,
as centred on Evola’s view of ‘general fascism’ as the Traditional right.

KEYWORDS extremism, Fascism, ideology, Julius Evola, neo-fascism, radical right,

Tradition

O n 24 August 2012, the ‘lone wolf’ Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring

Breivik was convicted of the terrorist attacks in Oslo and on Utøya
Island that claimed a total of seventy-seven lives on 22 July 2011.1 In court
he accepted the verdict, but said he had acted in defence of western civiliza-
tion as a member of an (unproven organization called the) Order of Knights
Templar. From an intellectual point of view, one intriguing aspect of that tre-
mendous tragedy was the ideological influence that several authors, contem-
porary analysts and bloggers had had on Anders Behring Breivik.2 Indeed,
over a period of years, Breivik had drawn inspiration from a very selective
choice of texts in order to justify a world vision that ultimately led to his
murderous acts. One important inspiration, for example, was the young
Norwegian blogger Peder Jensen, alias ‘Fjordman’. Major parts of Breivik’s
1,518-page compendium, entitled ‘2083: A European Declaration of Indepen-
dence’—which was posted online only a few hours before the attacks—are
attributed to ‘Fjordman’. Even though Jensen was one of Breivik’s key influ-
ences, he refused to appear in court. Nonetheless it was clear that Peder
Jensen, to a considerably greater degree than Breivik, was linked to the

1 For a comprehensive analysis of this event, see Svein Østerud (ed.), 22. juli: forstå,
forklare og forebygge (Oslo: Abstrakt forlag 2012).
2 Øystein Sørensen, ‘En totalitær mentalitet: det ideologiske tankegodset i Anders
Behring Breiviks manifest’, in Anders Ravik Jupskås (ed.), Akademiske perspektiver på
22. juli (Oslo: Akademika forlag, 2013), 103–14.
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 ELISABETTA CASSINA WOLFF 479

informal, transnational and web-based counter-jihad network that incited hate

against both Muslims and political opponents on the left, often by drawing
arguments from a well-known and time-worn repertoire of sources.3
In broader and more historical terms, to what extent can a writer—an intel-
lectual, an ideologue, a blogger—holding ideas that contradict European
values, rooted in a modern and enlightened vision of the world, be held respon-
sible for acts of terrorism? The latter may be undertaken in the writer’s name
but without his or her endorsement or the practical engagement of that
person. In order to address this question, this article deals with the role
played by the Italian traditionalist thinker Giulio Cesare Andrea (Julius)
Evola (1898–1974), especially with regard to the crucial transition between
Mussolini’s war-time Fascism and post-war neo-fascism.4 Unlike other promi-
nent Fascist intellectuals, who were largely forgotten in the post-war period, a
great interest in Evola persisted after 1945. He became an icon for those who
saw in his theories true fascist doctrine. In neo-fascist circles, during the 1970s,
he was compared to the Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse, ‘only better’.5
Attesting to Evola’s continued popularity is an immense bibliography of his
works.6 The debate around his ‘moral and political’ responsibility for terrorist
actions perpetrated by right-wing extremist groups in Italy between 1969 and
1980 began as soon as Evola died in 1974 and have not yet come to an end. On
the one hand, Evola’s philosophy has been viewed as the inspiration for 1970s
right-wing Italian terrorism.7 On the other hand, he is often presented as an
‘apolitical’ writer, more committed to a detached criticism of the modern
world than to political engagement.8 Given these debates, Evola currently

3 See Paul Jackson, ‘The licence to hate: Peder Jensen’s fascist rethoric in Anders Breivis’s
manifesto 2083: A European Declaration of Independence’, Democracy and Security, vol. 9,
no. 3, 2013, 247–69.
4 For a short biography on Evola, see Francesco Ingravalle, ‘Julius Evola’, in Roberto
Esposito and Carlo Galli (ed.), Enciclopedia del pensiero politico: Autori, concetti, dottrine,
2nd edn (Rome and Bari: Editori Laterza 2005); see also Francesco Germinario, ‘Evola,
Giulio Cesare’, in Sergio Luzzatto and Victoria de Grazia (ed.), Dizionario del fascismo, 2
vols (Turin: Einaudi 2002–3), vol. 1, 497–8; and Luca Lo Bianco, ‘Evola, Giulio Cesare
Andrea’, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
Treccani 1993), vol. 43, 575–81.
5 Giorgio Almirante, secretary of the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), in
1974, quoted in Giorgio Galli, La destra in Italia (Milan: Gammalibri, 1983), 38.
6 Two recent excellent works on Evola are, respectively, in Italian and in English: Fran-
cesco Cassata, A destra del fascismo: profilo politico di Julius Evola (Turin: Bollati Borin-
ghieri 2003); and Paul Furlong, Social and Political Thought of Julius Evola (London and
New York: Routledge 2011).
7 Franco Ferraresi and Marco Revelli (eds), The Radical Right in Italy (London: Polity Press
1987); see also Franco Ferraresi, Threats to Democracy: The Radical Right in Italy after the
War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1996).
8 See Adriano Romualdi, Julius Evola: l’uomo e l’opera [1968], 3rd edn (Rome: Giovanni
Volpe Editore 1979); Gianfranco de Turris (ed.), Testimonianze su Evola (Rome: Edizioni
Mediterranee 1973); and Gianfranco de Turris, Elogio e difesa di Julius Evola: il barone e i
terroristi (Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee 1997).
480 Patterns of Prejudice

has no fixed place in the official culture of contemporary Italy, even if he lives
on via republications and new editions of his work. Academics like Roberto
Melchionda and Piero di Vona still treat Evola as a philosopher who advanced
‘principles’ on a ‘ideal and spiritual’ level, rather than as an author whose
ideas had a direct and discernible political application. For there can be no
doubt that Evola is still being read, commented upon, and hailed within
far-right subcultures in Italy and abroad, especially in Russia and Eastern
Europe. This article correspondingly focuses on the way in which Evola’s
philosophy—as expressed through his unjustly neglected journalism—meta-
morphosed into the new political context of post-war Italy. All the same, it
will argue that the inner core of his political philosophy remained unchanged,
even if some specific topics disappeared from his post-war writings. Evola’s
writings from the late 1940s and early 1950s therefore represent a crucial
moment in the development of neo-fascist ideology. As such, they mark the
ideological starting point of the post-war political phenomenon that became
known as the radical right.

Traditionalism and racism

Evola is a multifaceted author, one who can be studied within the disciplines
of art, literature, philosophy or western history and political doctrine, and
even by those interested in existentialism, spirituality and mysticism. More
forensically, this article treats Evola as primarily a political philosopher,
especially after he started to contribute to Giuseppe Bottai’s Critica fascista in
the 1930s. From 1934 to 1943, Evola was also responsible for ‘Diorama Filoso-
fico’, the cultural page of Il Regime Fascista, the daily newspaper owned by
Roberto Farinacci. In the same period, he regularly published in Giovanni Pre-
ziosi’s La Vita Italiana and Carlo Costamagna’s Lo Stato. The 1934 publication of
his Rivolta contro il mondo moderno (Revolt against the Modern World, hereafter
Rivolta) made him widely known in Italian intellectual circles. Moreover, the
work is a milestone among intellectual productions from the radical right.9
Rivolta contains the major themes that later characterize Evola’s work, even
taking into account the slight transformations that occur after 1945. Evola’s
intention was to lead a revolt against the modern world: against rationalism
and the Enlightenment, positivism, egalitarianism and democracy. In
Rivolta, he expressed a new—or rather to say, a very old—vision of the
world: a pre-1789 world, based on absolute power, castes and elitist values.
A central theme here is ‘Tradition’ (always written with the capital letter),
from the Latin tradere, meaning to convey, deliver or transfer from generation
to generation. For Evola, Tradition is spiritual energy comprised of elements

9 Julius Evola, Rivolta contro il mondo moderno (Milan: Hoepli 1934); subsequent references
are to Julius Evola, Rivolta contro il mondo moderno, 4th edn (Rome: Edizione Mediterra-
nee 1998).
 ELISABETTA CASSINA WOLFF 481

that transcend the course of history: ideas of authority, hierarchy, discipline

and order, but also those of individuality, spirituality and qualitative differen-
tiation (that is, inequality between people alongside solidarity in a society that
is hierarchically organized). Tradition therefore embraces, according to Evola,
a set of virtues: honour, courage, loyalty, obedience and sacrifice.10 A historical
reference is, for example, the Middle Ages, when an elite of warriors—the
Knights Templar—cultivated these virtues and, in the name of the Christian
Church, defended Europe against Islamic imperialism. Evola, and those sub-
sequently inspired by him, finally perceived Tradition to be a category
enabling an interpretation of the world. This starkly contrasts with the per-
missive ‘modern’ attitude: too open to tolerance, and based on the belief
that people are both equal and deserve to be responsible for their own lives.
A concept that is closely related to Tradition is Imperium, literally ‘empire’
but used by Evola, according to the original meaning in Latin, as a
synonym of ‘authority’ or ‘the responsibility and right to rule absolutely’.11
In Rivolta, as in Evola’s post-war writings, the modern notion of history as a
linear and progressive process—the ‘myth of progress’—is replaced by a sense
of irreversible decadence. Evola’s belief was that the world, after thousands of
years of decay, stood at the brink of a ravine.12 He read the whole of western
history, over the centuries, first and foremost as an inexorable ‘decline of the
idea of State’,13 that is, a gradual loss of respect for power and authority.
This gradual loss of respect, according to Evola, began when a state system
based on hierarchy was replaced by a contract-based state system. This
baleful development first emerged in the free cities of northern Italy, continued
during the Reformation, was confirmed by the revolutions in 1789, in 1848 and
in 1917, and ultimately came to a head with the establishment of two new,
exemplary modern civilizations: the liberal democratic one modelled on the
United States, concerned with all individuals’ rights; and the Communist
one with its model in the Soviet Union, wholly occupied by materialism.14
The 1934 appearance of Rivolta separated Evola from mainstream Italian
ideological currents whose origins lay in the Risorgimento (Mazzini’s
democracy, nationalism, socialism and liberalism), but also from key ideologi-
cal currents within Fascism (revolutionary syndicalism, national socialism,
corporatism, squadrismo and nationalism). Yet Rivolta was immediately recog-
nized by Mircea Eliade and other intellectuals who allegedly advanced ideas

10 Evola, Rivolta, 306–21.

11 Julius Evola, ‘Il senso dell’imperium’, Imperium, vol. 1, no. 1, May 1950; Julius Evola,
‘Impero e civiltà, Imperium, vol. 1, no. 2, June 1950; Julius Evola, ‘Imperium, simboli
e persone’, La rivolta ideale, 18 January 1951, in Julius Evola, I testi de La rivolta ideale
(Padua: Edizioni di Ar 2003), 50–1.
12 Arthos [i.e. Julius Evola], ‘La storia e il suo senso’, Meridiano d’Italia, 30 October 1949, in
Julius Evola, I testi del Meridiano d’Italia (Padua: Edizioni di Ar 2002), 42.
13 Evola, ‘Il senso dell’imperium’. Translations from the Italian, unless otherwise stated,
are by the author.
14 Evola, Rivolta, 379–98.
482 Patterns of Prejudice

associated with Tradition.15 Evola was considered, especially after 1945, the
most important Italian theoretician of the so-called Conservative Revolution.16
There is no doubt that he was familiar with contemporary books, as he
admitted after 1945: he read Der Untergang des Abenlandes by Oswald Speng-
ler,17 La Crise du monde moderne by René Guénon,18 and Der Mythus des 20. Jahr-
hunderts by Alfred Rosenberg.19 Yet, when turning to his intellectual output
during the 1930s, it seems unclear whether or not he can be identified,
strictu sensu, as a Fascist. Evola never joined the Partito Nazionale Fascista
(National Fascist Party). In fact, he criticized the Fascist regime shortly after
the March on Rome,20 and continued in this vein regarding both Benito Mus-
solini’s dictatorship and Nazi Germany in the 1930s, largely due to their popu-
list and pseudo-socialist nature. He stood instead for a Traditionalist
interpretation of politics or, better, the updating of a reactionary right-wing
world view, inspired by aristocratic, monarchical and military (Prussian)
ideals.21
As long as Evola described the western world in pessimistic terms, as in
decline, he was kept at a distance by Fascist officials. Two ideological ten-
dencies predominated in Mussolini’s regime, and both supported modernity
and progress, albeit in different ways: a pragmatic and nationalist right (Gio-
vanni Gentile, Giuseppe Bottai, Luigi Federzoni, Giacomo Acerbo, Dino
Grandi) and a syndicalist left (Edmondo Rossoni, Ugo Spirito, Sergio Panun-
zio). Regarded with suspicion by the Fascist leadership, Evola remained a
‘lonely exponent of radical right-wing Fascism with a Traditionalist vision of
the world’.22 By the end of the 1930s, Evola’s theories on race and Semitism

15 Mircea Eliade’s review of Evola’s Rivolta (1934) can be found in Julius Evola, Rivolta
contro il mondo moderno (Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee 2003), 445–6. See also Francesco
Cassata, La difesa della razza: politica, ideologia e immagine del razzismo fascista (Turin:
Giulio Einaudi Editore 2008), 151–89; and Renato Del Ponte, ‘Gli orizzonti europei
del tradizionalismo nel “Diorama filosofico” (1934–1943)’, in Mario Bernardi Guardi
and Marco Rossi (eds), Delle rovine e oltre: saggi su Julius Evola (Rome: Pellicani 1995),
167–97.
16 See Armin Mohler, Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918–1932: Grundriss ihrer
Weltanschauungen (Stuttgart: Belser 1950), 21, 241–2; and Marcello Veneziani, La rivolu-
zione conservatrice in Italia: genesi e sviluppo della ‘ideologia italiana’ fino ai nostri giorni
(Milan: Sugarco 1994), 214.
17 Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abenlandes: Umrisse einer Morphologie der Welt-
geschichte (Munich: Beck 1922–3).
18 René Guénon, La Crise du monde moderne (Paris: Editions Bossard 1927). The Italian
edition was translated by Evola as La crisi del mondo moderno (Milan: Hoepli 1937).
19 Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Hoheneichen-Verlag 1930).
20 Julius Evola, ‘Stato, potenza, libertà’, Lo stato democratico, 1 May 1925.
21 It remains a paradox that Evola, at the time Rivolta was published, was expelled from
the army for not having respected the rules of a duel; see Dana Lloyd Thomas, Julius
Evola e la tentazione razzista: l’inganno del pangermanesimo in Italia (Mesagne: Sulla
rotta del sole, Giordano Editore 2006), 63–4.
22 Francesco Germinario, Razza del sangue, razza dello spirito: Julius Evola, l’antisemitismo e il
nazionalismo (1930–43) (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri 2001), 24 (emphasis in the original).
 ELISABETTA CASSINA WOLFF 483

attracted Mussolini’s attention, leading to three essays over the late 1930s and
early 1940s: Tre aspetti del problema ebraico, Il mito del sangue and Sintesi di dot-
trina della razza.23 Around the time of Italy’s Race Laws, in 1938, his articles
were published in La difesa della razza, a periodical devoted entirely to racial
topics, edited by Telesio Interlandi, an intransigent Fascist, racist and
antisemite.24
In Italy, Evola launched what he called ‘totalitarian’ or ‘Traditional’ racism,
inspired by Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss’s book Rasse und Seele.25 According to
this doctrine, superior races were made up of people with specific biological
properties, in keeping with anthropological racism, but people, at the same
time, with ‘spiritual’ characteristics: men able to show a strong character,
able to govern themselves and master their own passions, and who would
‘naturally’ follow the values of Tradition. Evola intended this totalitarian
racism to provide guidelines for the selection of a super-race capable of dom-
inating the world: a combination of the Aryan-German and the Roman race.26
Evola’s antisemitism was just as totalitarian.27 The Jews were stigmatized, not
as representatives of a biological race, but as the carriers of a world view, a
way of being and thinking—simply put, a spirit—that corresponded to the
‘worst’ and ‘most decadent’ features of modernity: democracy, egalitarianism
and materialism.
Evola’s ‘totalitarian’ or ‘spiritual’ racism was no milder than Nazi biological
racism. It actually implied far greater consequences because it discriminated
not only against the Jews, but all representatives of the modern western
world. Evola’s ambition was to elaborate an Italian version of racism and anti-
semitism, one that could be integrated into the Fascist project to create a New
Man. Placed in an Italian context, Evola’s totalitarian racism was supposed to

23 Julius Evola, Tre aspetti del problema ebraico: nel mondo spirituale, nel mondo culturale, nel
mondo economico sociale (Roma: Edizioni Mediterranee 1936); Julius Evola, Il mito del
sangue (Milan: Hoepli 1937); Julius Evola, Sintesi di dottrina della razza (Milan: Hoepli
1941).
24 The articles have been collected in Julius Evola, I testi de La difesa della razza, ed. Pietro Di
Vona (Padua: Edizioni di Ar 2001); and Julius Evola, La nobiltà della stirpe (1932–1938),
La difesa della razza (1939–1942), ed. Gian Franco Lami (Rome: Fondazione Julius Evola
2002).
25 Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss, Rasse und Seele (Munich: J. F. Lehmanns 1926).
26 Julius Evola, ‘I tre gradi del problema della razza’, La difesa della razza, vol. 2, no. 5, 5
January 1939; Julius Evola, ‘Andare avanti sul fronte razzista’, La difesa della razza,
vol. 4, no. 8, 20 February 1941; Julius Evola, ‘Le selezioni razziali’, La difesa della
razza, vol. 4, no. 12, 20 April 1941; Julius Evola, ‘Diseguaglianza degli esseri umani’,
La difesa della razza, vol. 4, no. 22, 20 September 1941; Julius Evola, ‘La razza e i
Capi’, La difesa della razza, vol. 4, no. 24, 20 October 1941; Julius Evola, ‘Razza,
eredità, personalità’, La difesa della razza, vol. 5, no. 11, 5 April 1942.
27 On Evola’s ‘totalitarian’ antisemitism, see Francesco Cassata, ‘Antisemitismo e cospira-
zionismo (1933–1943)’, in Cassata, A destra del fascismo, 271–320; Gianni Scipione Rossi,
Il razzista totalitario: Evola e la leggenda dell’antisemitismo spirituale (Soveria Mannelli:
Rubettino 2007); and Francesco Germinario, Razza del sangue, razza dello spirito: Julius
Evola, l’antisemitismo e il nazionalsocialismo (1930–43) (Turin: Bollati Boringhiere 2001).
484 Patterns of Prejudice

contribute to a ‘purification process’ that would precede this new type of

human being.28 A selection of ‘Aryan-Nordic’ leaders would have formed
an imaginary Ordine Fascista dell’Impero Italiano (Italian Imperial Fascist
Order), which both politically and militarily would have imitated Heinrich
Himmler’s SS in Germany.29 Given such views, it should come as no surprise
that, by the end of the 1930s, Evola was fully committed to political engage-
ment. In turn, Mussolini was fascinated by Evola’s ‘spiritual’ racism.30 There
are references to Evola’s concept of race in the so-called manifesto della razza,
published in July 1938, that introduced the Race Laws that were enacted
three months later.31 In Article 7 we find the use of the adjective ‘Aryan-
Nordic’. In Articles 7 and 10 we come across the phrase ‘psychological charac-
teristics’. However, il Duce opted for Nazi-style biological racism, which
inspired the racial laws from October 1938 and paved the way for the persecu-
tion of Italian Jews.32
Evola spent the following years giving speeches in Germany. Recent publi-
cations have revealed his links to SS circles, even if he was, in truth, only tol-
erated by Heinrich Himmler and generally considered a ‘fanatical visionary’
or a ‘Utopian’ by Nazi leaders.33 In September 1943 Evola, together with Gio-
vanni Preziosi, Roberto Farinacci, Alessandro Pavolini and Renato Ricci were
among the welcoming party greeting Mussolini at Hitler’s headquarters after
il Duce had been rescued from prison. This serves to confirm how close Evola
was to leading Fascist circles during the war. Nevertheless, he kept his dis-
tance from the Repubblica Sociale Italiano (RSI), 1943–5, and later expressed
only contempt for the experiment, which he considered too leftist.34 He
opted instead for collaboration with German intelligence in Italy.35 After the

28 Evola, ‘Andare avanti sul fronte razzista’.

29 Evola, Sintesi di dottrina della razza, 144, 170–1.
30 Evola referred to conversations with Mussolini in three articles published after 1954:
Julius Evola, ‘Mussolini e il razzismo’, Meridiano d’Italia, vol. 6, no. 49, 16 December
1951, in Evola, I testi del Meridiano d’Italia, 105–6; Julius Evola, ‘Il mito della nuova
Italia’, Meridiano d’Italia, vol. 6, no. 50, 23 December 1951, in Evola, I testi del Meridiano
d’Italia, 107–8; and Julius Evola, ‘Sangue e spirito’, Meridiano d’Italia, vol. 6, no. 51, 30
December 1951, in Evola, I testi del Meridiano d’Italia, 109–11.
31 ‘Manifesto degli scienziati razzisti’, Giornale d’Italia, 15 July 1938.
32 Elisabetta Cassina Wolff, ‘Biological racism and anti-Semitism as intellectual construc-
tions in Italian Fascism: the case of Telesio Interlandi and La difesa della razza’, in Anton
Weiss-Wendt and Rory Yeomans (eds), Racial Science in Hitler’s New Europe (Lincoln and
London: University of Nebraska Press 2013), 175–99.
33 Gianfranco de Turris and Bruno Zoratto (eds), Julius Evola nei rapporti delle SS, docu-
ments trans. from German by Nicola Cospito (Rome: Fondazione Julius Evola 2000);
Bruno Zoratto (ed.), Julius Evola nei documenti segreti dell’Ahnenerbe, documents trans.
from German by Nicola Cospito (Rome: Fondazione Julius Evola 1997); Nicola
Cospito and Hans Werner Neulen (eds), Julius Evola nei documenti segreti del Terzo
Reich (Rome: Settimo Sigillo 1986); and Lloyd Thomas, Julius Evola e la tentazione raz-
zista, 89–98, 177.
34 Julius Evola, Il cammino del Cinabrio (Milan: Vanni Scheiwiller 1972), 162.
35 Lloyd Thomas, Julius Evola e la tentazione razzista, 233.
 ELISABETTA CASSINA WOLFF 485

occupation of Rome by the Allies, he moved first to Berlin and later to Vienna,
where he studied confiscated Masonic and Jewish documents provided by SS
officials.36 In 1945 he was partially paralysed during a Soviet bombing raid on
Vienna, and remained disabled thereafter. Yet, by that time, a new intellectual
phase in his life had begun, one closely connected to Italy’s transition from
Fascist regime to emergent neo-fascism during the Cold War. While still in
hospital in 1948, in fact, Evola received a visit from a group of young neo-fas-
cists. They had been volunteer soldiers for Mussolini’s Salò as teenagers,
leading to time in prison after the end of the war. It was there that they had
discovered Rivolta contro il mondo moderno.37

Evola’s interpretation of Fascism as Traditional right

The young Salò veterans were hardly enthusiastic about the attempts in Italy
to revitalize Fascism. The new neo-fascist party, Movimento Sociale Italiano
(MSI, Italian Social Movement)—which tried to camouflage its ideological
link to Fascism before 1945—got about 2 per cent of the votes in the 1948
national elections, entering the Chamber of Deputies with six representatives
thanks to a proportional electoral system without a threshold. Until 1956 two
currents dominated the party: a left-wing one whose representatives were
concerned with corporative democracy, social policies and Italy’s neutrality
in foreign policy; and a right-wing current that was moderate, pragmatic,
willing to cooperate with the governing party, Democrazia Cristiana (Christ-
ian Democracy), and keen to put Italy in the European Community and
NATO. Both MSI wings were interested in showing respect for the new demo-
cratic rules adopted by the Italian Republic.38
Several of the youngest neo-fascists (Pino Rauti, Enzo Erra, Fausto Gianfran-
ceschi, Primo Siena, Silvio Vitale, Roberto Mieville and Giulio Caradonna)
rejected both currents. To hear them tell it, reading the last chapter in
Rivolta was a revelation.39 These young neo-fascists, moreover, sought to
appropriate and update Evola’s conclusions: the Second World War was the
last, desperate attempt by the Axis to restore Traditional values in Europe,
as against a coalition of allied countries opting for modernity. Fascinated by
Evola’s philosophy, they remained attached to fascism as a ‘general concept’

36 Mauro Raspanti, ‘Evola a Vienna 1944–45’, 86, paper given at the conference ‘Il colla-
borazionismo intellettuale in Europa’, Fondazione Luigi Micheletti, Brescia, 21–2
November 1996; see also Marco Tarchi, ‘Julius Evola e il fascismo: note su un percorso
non ordinario’, in Marino Biondi and Alessandro Borsotti (eds), Cultura e fascismo: let-
teratura arti e spettacolo di un ventennio (Florence: Ponte alle Grazie 1996), 123–42 (138).
37 Nicola Rao, Neofascisti! La destra italiana da Salò a Fiuggi nel ricordo dei protagonisti (Rome:
Settimo Sigillo 1999), 39–52.
38 On Italian neo-fascist ideology, see Elisabetta Cassina Wolff, Starting from the End:
Fascist Ideology in Post-War Italy (1945–1953) (Oslo: Acta Humaniora 2008).
39 Rao, Neofascisti!, 39–52.
486 Patterns of Prejudice

or as a universal set of values. Their dialogue with il Maestro lasted until

Evola’s death in 1974. By then, a whole generation of Italian neo-fascists had
visited his Roman apartment in Corso Vittorio Emanuele. He was the most
important reference point for many naive and impressionable young men—
most were no older than twenty and had experienced little more than war
and civil war—who at the time were moving in and out of the neo-fascist
environment.
Evola opted to publish in the new magazines edited by young neo-fascists in
the post-war period. In the 1950s, he contributed with three articles to Imper-
ium (1950–1, 1954), a periodical that even in the title referred to one of Evola’s
most important keywords. In 1950 he published Orientamenti in Imperium,40
and later his anonymously authored Carta della Gioventù appeared in Cantiere,
active between 1950 and 1952.41 At the same time he had articles published in
other neo-fascist newspapers, including Meridiano d’Italia and La rivolta ideale.
By 1964 Evola revised and published these articles as single volumes: Gli
uomini e le rovine from 1953,42 Cavalcare la tigre from 1961,43 and Il fascismo:
saggio di un’analisi critica dal punto di vista della destra from 1964.44 Revealingly,
the opening of Orientamenti is in keeping with Evola’s previous literary works:

it is useless to give oneself illusions through the chimeras of whatever opti-

mism: today we find ourselves at the end of a cycle. . . . And the movement
of this fall, its speed, its steep incline, has been called ‘progress’. . . . The only
thing that matters is this: today we are in the middle of a world of ruins. We
should ask ourselves: are there still any men remaining on their feet amid
the ruins? Is there anything they must, they can, still do?45

After the Second World War Evola was convinced that it was necessary,
once and for all, to provide ideological guidelines so that the younger gener-
ation could learn to stand among the ruins of the modern world. He urged
them to show the strength and the courage of true ‘legionnaires’ who ‘are
able to choose the toughest way, those who dare to go to war even when
they know that the battle is lost’.46 There is no doubt he was referring precisely

40 Julius Evola, Orientamenti [1950], ed. Franco Freda (Padua: Edizioni di Ar 2000).
41 [Julius Evola], ‘Per una Carta della Gioventù’, Cantiere, vol. 2, no. 3, March–April 1951.
42 Julius Evola, Gli uomini e le rovine (Rome: Edizioni dell’Ascia 1953); subsequent refer-
ences are to Julius Evola, Gli uomini e le rovine (Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee 2002).
43 Julius Evola, Cavalcare la tigre (Milan: Vanni Scheiwiller 1961); subsequent references are
to the English version, Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul,
trans. from Italian by Joscelyn Godwin and Constance Fontana (Rochester, VT: Inner
Traditions International 2003).
44 Julius Evola, Il fascismo: saggio di un’analisi critica dal punto di vista della destra (Rome:
Volpe 1964); the second edition, Il fascismo visto dalla destra. Note sul Terzo Reich
(Rome: Volpe 1970); subsequent references are to Julius Evola, Fascismo e Terzo Reich
(Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee 2001).
45 Evola, Orientamenti, 17–18.
46 Ibid., 19.
 ELISABETTA CASSINA WOLFF 487

to those young volunteers from Salò who were now looking for new objec-
tives. The ‘real men’ were the ‘true leaders’ (uomini guida), who were able to
command with natural authority.47 They were to be organized as an elite,
not a party but a movement whose members shared a certain style, a
certain view of the world.48 From 1945 the issue of race disappeared from
Evola’s writings. Nonetheless his ongoing intellectual concerns remained
unchanged: anthropological pessimism, elitism and contempt for the weak.
The doctrine of the Aryan-Roman ‘super-race’ was simply transformed into
a doctrine of the ‘leaders of men’, while the Ordine Fascista dell’Impero Ita-
liano was simply relabelled the Ordine, or ‘male society’: no longer with refer-
ence to the SS, but to the mediaeval Teutonic Knights or the Knights Templar,
already mentioned in Rivolta.
The ‘real men’ in post-war Italy, according to Evola, were supposed to
embody Tradition’s ideals. These ‘soldiers’ were going to learn about
fascism, an idea that, after the Second World War, Evola still distinguished
from the Fascist regime. To Evola fascism meant, first and foremost, Imperium,
that is, the concept of authority and command. It also meant Right, that is, not
the liberal capitalist right that takes care of individual interests or classes, and
not plutocracy either, but a Traditional Right that has its roots in the ‘hier-
archic, aristocratic and feudal civilization’.49 It was a truly anti-democratic
attitude that Evola was advocating, even after the defeat of Nazism-
Fascism. Moreover, fascism in Evola’s interpretation was related to the idea
of an ‘organic’ state that, within given hierarchies, allowed for individual
responsibility. Evola was strongly opposed to the idea of an ‘ethical state’
(stato etico) to ‘educate’ the masses; instead, an aristocratic elite was needed
—not necessarily made up of aristocrats or technocrats—the ‘real men’ who
were able to lead. Finally, Evola’s concept of the Right was further connected
to the idea of the Nation, albeit not defined in terms of territory, ethnicity or
language. Rather, it was a ‘qualitative and anti-democratic myth’.50 The ‘spir-
itual Nation’ was made up of all those who identify with the idea of the
Right,51 who cherish the same view of life and abide by the same inner
rules. It was therefore meant to consist of all those who believe in Tradition
and belong to the same Order. This perception of ‘nation’ became especially
popular among European far-right radicals who, in the 1950s and 1960s,
had no chance of gaining power in their respective countries and thus
sought legitimacy by making contacts across borders.

47 Julius Evola, ‘Partito e movimento’, Meridiano d’Italia, 7 January 1951, in Evola, I testi del
Meridiano d’Italia, 90.
48 Arthos [i.e. Julius Evola], ‘Verso l’élite di un fronte ideale’, Meridiano d’Italia, 18 Septem-
ber 1949, in Evola, I testi del Meridiano d’Italia, 37–8.
49 Evola, Il cammino del Cinabrio, 12.
50 Arthos [i.e. Julius Evola], ‘Doppio volto del nazionalismo’, Meridiano d’Italia, 13
November 1949, in Evola, I testi del Meridiano d’Italia, 46.
51 Julius Evola, ‘Idea e patria’, Meridiano d’Italia, 19 March 1950, in Evola, I testi del Meri-
diano d’Italia, 65.
488 Patterns of Prejudice

The political model Evola selected after 1945 was neither Mussolini nor
Hitler. On the one hand, the Italian philosopher, during conversations with
the young neo-fascists, cited a number of references to contemporaneous
European military and political elites: the German SS, the Spanish Falange
of José Antonio Primo de of Rivera, the Romanian Legion of Corneliu Zelea
Codreanu, Knut Hamsun, Vidkun Quisling, Leon Degrelle, Drieu La Rochelle,
Robert Brasillach, Maurice Bardèche and Charles Maurras.52 Yet, on the other
hand, he referred to well-known, long-dead representatives of the anti-demo-
cratic European tradition in his articles: Plato (with reference in particular to
The State), Dante (with reference in particular to Monarchia), de Maistre,
Donoso Cortés, Bismarck, Metternich, Mosca, Pareto and Michels.53
It was about believing in fascism in the sense of the Right as a reaction
against a modern world rooted in liberalism, materialism, hedonism and
individualism. By equating fascism and the Right meant that Evola was react-
ing against the values of the French Revolution. It was about believing in
fascism as a new myth of the twentieth century or as a cultural revolution.
Evola’s interpretation of fascism as a new revolutionary cultural paradigm
of Traditional values in Il fascismo visto dalla destra—actually already published
as articles from the 1950s onwards—was released at the same time as George
Mosse’s theory of fascism as an ideological revolution against materialism and
liberalism.54
A growing number of neo-fascists in Italy joined this third current within
Italian neo-fascism: a so-called intellectual-aristocratic, radical right-wing
faction (‘radical elitists’) inspired by Evola.55 Many were members of the
MSI, although some remained unaffiliated on principle, feeling the party
was too closely associated with the democratic system. This current stood
for open resistance to the modern world’s values, against international Com-
munism as well as Americanism. It must be noted, however, that this third
current of Italian neo-fascism was the most active in bonding with similar
milieux in foreign countries. But, above all, this movement was to be respon-
sible for the training of future leaders. Indeed, several politicians in post-war
Italy occupied high positions, like the one-time mayor of Rome, Gianni
Alemanno, who came from the Tradition current of the MSI. The young
neo-fascists of the post-war years were fascinated by the anti-democratic atti-
tude, and adopted as their motto: ‘In truth, we represent the stark categorical

52 Interview with Pino Rauti, in Francesco Giorgino and Nicola Rao, L’un contro l’altro
armati: dieci testimonianze della guerra civile (1943–1945) (Milan: Mursia 1995), 42–3.
53 Julius Evola, ‘La legge contro le idee’, Meridiano d’Italia, 23 September 1951, in Evola, I
testi del Meridiano d’Italia, 103–4; and Julius Evola, ‘Il coraggio di dirsi antidemocratici
non equivale necessariamente a dichiararsi fascisti’, La rivolta ideale, 17 January 1952,
in Evola, I testi de La rivolta ideale, 56–8.
54 George L. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1964).
55 Giorgio Pini, ‘Prima le idee’, Meridiano d’Italia, vol. 6, no. 39, 7 October 1951, quoted in
Wolff, Starting from the End, 251.
 ELISABETTA CASSINA WOLFF 489

definitive antithesis to the world of democracy and the Immortal Principles of

1789.’56
They identified themselves with the Knights Templar that Evola had
described. They thought they had a lot in common: moral integrity, ideal-
ism, sense of sacrifice, determination, pride of belonging to a minority of
the ‘chosen’. They thought they were the ‘real men’ able to stand among
the ruins, according to Evola’s metaphor. They were, in reality, often fana-
tics on Italy’s neo-fascist scene, as they personally confirmed: ‘We might
say, a legion of true fanatics. For it is fanaticism that the revolution needs
today.’57
Evola’s deep elitism is reflected in countless quotations in articles from neo-
fascist texts derived from the philosopher, such as the following:

Therefore, it is clear that a truly revolutionary idea must above all re-establish
the spiritual principle of the few and of the best, and it must give command to
an aristocracy of thought and of character both in the organization of the pol-
itical sphere and of the economic sphere.58

Committed resistance against the modern world was identified as a show-

down with the new democratic system in Italy, said to be led by ‘petty pol-
iticians’ failing to act in the nation’s interest. These young neo-fascists chose
to support ‘a project of total opposition to the mentality, the people and the
institutions’ that had influenced the transition from the Fascist regime to the
democratic republic. Their ‘revolutionary solution’ was to get rid of an
entire political class and replace it with the new leaders.59
Who was the main enemy in the post-war democratic system? Evola had,
in the interwar period, been as critical of the Jews as he was against both the
United States and the Soviet Union: all resulting from the French Revolu-
tion, and all materialistic. In the post-war period, he shifted focus, with
much greater attention directed towards international Communism. His
critique of the modern world was turning into criticism directed at the
‘materialist’ Marxist culture that was allegedly invading Italian univers-
ities, as well as existentialism and psychiatry. When it came to ideological
opposition to Marxism, both Evola and the young neo-fascists gathered
around him were aware of the support they could find in the Vatican.
This was an ally that, in this instance, would not be the Roman Catholic
Church—which was in the process of moving towards the Second
Vatican Council (1962–5), towards tolerance and moderation—but an ideal-
ized and mythic traditionalist church of the past, one still keen to combat
modernity.

56 Tagline for the journal Asso di bastoni, published on the masthead of all the 1950 issues.
57 Enzo Erra, ‘Stile’, Imperium, vol. 1, no. 4–5, August–September 1950.
58 Fabio de Felice, ‘Selezione’, La Sfida, vol. 1, no. 2, 16 January 1948, 14.
59 ‘Asso’, ‘Gli ex fascisti’, Asso di bastoni, vol. 3, no. 21, 21 June 1950, 2.
490 Patterns of Prejudice

Yet how would their resistance against the modern world ‘bleed through’
in concrete terms? Evola was doubtful that the MSI could manage such a
task. Instead, in 1953, Evola explained in clear words what political strategy
he preferred, namely, to take lessons from the Communist Party.60 The Com-
munists were well organized, having not only votes but also money and
assets, as well as the support of a foreign superpower. They could tell the
difference between tactics and strategy. They could be loyal to their ideology
so that no doubts could be raised when it came to their target. At a time when
Evola was still engaged in Italian politics, he urged the MSI’s party leaders to
be more determined and ready for ‘action’. One can speculate about the type
of action Evola intended: was it politically legitimate or violent, within or
outside parliament? There is no concrete indication in his publications
from the early 1950s. In contrast, visitors to his dark apartment in Rome
have asserted that the philosopher once claimed that ‘violence was the
only possible and reasonable solution’.61 Nonetheless, Evola specified in
his published texts that an uncompromising stance by a neo-fascist party
would have brought with it the risk of being split or thrown out of the con-
stitutional system. The philosopher suggested, therefore, that waiting and
preparing was the best strategy.
At the end of the 1950s, Evola had abandoned any political engagement.
He no longer believed that political action could rescue Italy—or the
western world—from atrophy and degeneration. At the time, Italy was
experiencing an ‘economic miracle’, which showed all the traits of a decay-
ing civilization: materialistic values and consumerism prevailing over Tra-
ditional values.62 He concluded that the Right was incapable of reversing
such a degenerative process. This was affirmed in his 1961 political testa-
ment Ride the Tiger.63 There, Evola argued that the fight against modernity
was lost. The only thing a ‘real man’ could just do was to ride the tiger of
modernity patiently: ‘Thus the principle to follow could be that of letting
the forces and processes of this epoch take their own course, keeping
oneself firm and ready to intervene when “the tiger, which cannot leap on
the person riding it, is tired of running”.’64 He chose, in other words, a
sort of inner journey and ‘inner emigration’ from the world—using an
expression borrowed from Heidegger—that removed him completely from
active political engagement. However, he did not exclude the possibility of
action in the future.

60 Julius Evola, ‘Imparare dal comunismo’, Meridiano d’Italia, 12 April 1953, in Evola, I testi
del Meridiano d’Italia, 150–1.
61 Giulio Salierno, ‘Il maestro’, in Giulio Salierno, Autobiografia di un picchiatore fascista
(Turin: Einaudi 1976), 143.
62 Franco Ferraresi, ‘Julius Evola: Tradition, reaction, and the radical right’, European
Journal of Sociology, vol. 28, no. 1, 1987, 107–51 (131).
63 Evola, Il cammino del cinabrio, 215; Evola, Ride the Tiger, 2–7.
64 Evola, Ride the Tiger, 10.
 ELISABETTA CASSINA WOLFF 491

The FAR trial

Young neo-fascists, directly or indirectly linked to the circle around Evola,

were behind some of the first attempted bombings in post-war Italy in the
years 1949–50. The trial of thirty-six young neo-fascists took place in 1951.65
Evola was also arrested in May 1951 and charged with promoting the
revival of the Fascist Party, a punishable crime under Law no. 1546 of 3
December 1947 (Article 1), and of glorifying Fascism, also a punishable
offence under the same law (Article 7).66 He was remanded in custody for
six months. In terms of Evola’s role in the bombing, prosecutors in the trial
linked ‘ideological interaction to terrorist actions’ in their speeches. The
Italian philosopher defended himself in court, stating that his intellectual pro-
duction belonged to a long tradition of anti-democratic writers who certainly
could be linked to fascism—at least fascism interpreted according to certain
(Evolian) criteria—but who certainly could not be identified with Fascism,
namely, the Fascist regime under Mussolini. If he was going to be tried for
‘praise of Fascism’, he concluded, then it was necessary for Dante Alighieri
and several others to be condemned too. Evola then declared that he was
not a Fascist but a ‘superfascist’.67 It is unclear whether this meant that
Evola was placing himself above or beyond Fascism.
Judges who only a few years earlier had operated under the Fascist regime
agreed with his argument that an anti-democratic ideological stance could not
be criminally responsible for practical crimes. Evola’s stance was judged as no
more than personal opinions based on ‘an ethical, heroic and spiritual atti-
tude’.68 Of the 36 defendants, 23 were acquitted and 13 were sentenced to a
few months in prison. Evola was acquitted of all charges.69 The trial in 1951
might have been a missed opportunity to stop the development of the most
radical wing of Italian neo-fascism in its nascent phase. Instead, the many
far-right elements involved came away with boosted confidence. This is not
to say that Evola should necessarily have been penalized for actions that he
had not committed. Rather, the court’s mild punishments signalled tolerance

65 The so-called FAR or Fasci di Azione Rivoluzionaria were a neo-fascist political move-
ment founded officially in the autumn of 1946 and dissolved in 1947; the name was
erroneously attributed to the group Legione nera (Black Legion) by investigators in
the trial that became known as the ‘FAR trial’ in the early 1950s. See Marco Iacona,
‘Julius Evola e le vicende processuali legate ai FAR (1951–1954)’, Nuova Storia Contem-
poranea, vol. 13, no. 3, 2009, 129–52; and Antonio Carioti, Gli orfani di Salò: il ‘Sessantotto
nero’ dei giovani neofascisti nel dopoguerra 1945–1951 (Milan: Mursia 2008), 224–54.
66 Evola was arrested for the ‘crime of opinion (reato di opinione)’ under the so-called
Scelba Law of 3 December 1947.
67 Julius Evola, ‘Autodifesa’, in Evola, Fascismo e Terzo Reich, 167–76 (172–4). This text was
first published in L’Eloquenza, no. 12, November–December 1951, and summarized the
speech Evola delivered in court. See aksi Evola, ‘Il coraggio di dirsi antidemocratici non
equivale necessariamente a dichiararsi fascisti’.
68 Evola, ‘Autodifesa’, 168.
69 Iacona, ‘Julius Evola e le vicende processuali legate ai FAR (1951–1954)’, 144.
492 Patterns of Prejudice

of these violent neo-fascists, as well as of Evola’s anti-democratic and elitist

ideas. Evola may not have been punishable for the crimes on trial, but was
he completely without responsibility?
In 1956 Pino Rauti, the editor of Imperium, left the MSI to form the move-
ment Ordine Nuovo (ON, New Order), taking with him a radical group of
Evola’s followers. Both the movement and the popular journal Ordine Nuovo
(1955–65) were expressions of an internal opposition that set young neo-fas-
cists against the more moderate MSI leadership. Ordine Nuovo kept its dis-
tance from the MSI until 1969, when Rauti decided to rejoin the party. At
the same time, it maintained relations with both European neo-Nazism and
the Italian secret services.70 Throughout, Evola’s philosophy played a central
role. This was confirmed by one of its leaders: ‘Our work since 1953 has
been to translate Evola’s teaching into direct political action.’71 According to
Franco Ferraresi, the ON was among the ‘historical groups’ of the extra-parlia-
mentary Italian radical right that represented the trait d’union between the
right-wing neo-fascism of the 1940s and the right-wing terrorism of the
1980s.72

From Fascism to neo-fascism: a man apart

This article’s historical exploration has problematized the relation between

right-wing radical ideology and right-wing extremist acts. On the whole, in
Italian historiography, ‘radical’ is used synonymously with ‘extreme’, but it
is important to make a distinction, at least in theory. The radical right refers
to ideological opposition, that is, to anti-democratic thought without direct
involvement in practical political action. In contrast, the extreme right refers
to violent and armed opposition, namely, to anti-democratic attitudes trans-
lated into political action. In practice, in the Italian context, where neo-
fascist militants were in the past engaged in both ideological and political
activity, the distinction seems to be of little relevance. Yet, in terms of moral
responsibility for terrorist acts, a distinction between a radical ideological
stance and an extreme practical attitude is quite important.
Julius Evola had been a major figure of the right throughout the pre-war
period, separate and in some ways at odds with the Fascist Party, but in a
sense ‘fascist’ in the lower-case meaning of the term. After the war, and for
at least two generations of far-right militants, he became something of a
guru, and inculcated in them his views on the role of violence (though publicly
taking a less extreme stance). Influenced by him, they saw themselves as

70 Franco Ferraresi, ‘The radical right in post-war Italy’, Politics and Society, vol. 16, no. 1,
1988, 71–119; see also Franco Ferraresi, ‘La destra eversiva’, in Franco Ferraresi and
Marco Revelli (eds), La destra radicale (Milan: Fetrinelli 1984), 62–71.
71 Clemente Graziani, Processo a Ordine Nuovo, processo alle idee (Rome: Edizioni di ON
1973), 27, 30; see also Ferraresi, ‘The radical right in post-war Italy’, 84.
72 Ferraresi, ‘Julius Evola’, 135.
 ELISABETTA CASSINA WOLFF 493

belonging to a minority of the ‘chosen’ who stood out against ‘the world of
democracy and the Immortal Principles of 1789′. Under his influence, they
undertook a series of terrorist attacks on society. In the trial of these young
men in 1951, the prosecutors linked ‘ideological interaction to terrorist
actions’. Evola was, however, let off, the judges concluding that he had
merely produced opinions based on ‘an ethical, heroic and spiritual attitude’.
When defending Evola as an ‘apolitical’ writer, reference is often made to
the work Ride the Tiger from 1961, in which Evola declares that, faced with
general processes of moral and political dissolution, the only sensible attitude
is apoliteia.73 This entails a total detachment ‘from everything that is “politics”
today’, while remaining faithful to oneself.74 Yet, after 1945, as this article has
argued, forced by the radically altered political context, Evola merely changed
the exterior wrapping, not the inner core, of his message. For, in reality, as
Anna Jellamo declared in 1984, Evola’s apoliteia in Ride the Tiger was in truth
only ‘an adjustment and improvement’ to his ‘warrior theory’.75 Furthermore,
based on his post-war journalism, Evola provided tactical guidelines to his fol-
lowers. His message was strongly political in as much as it clearly referred to
an existing political context that Evola wished to overturn. There is indeed a
development in Evola’s intellectual production, from a Utopian vision of the
world during the 1930s to a more realistic description of post-war modernity.
This message gained relevance in post-war Italy, where the dominance of capi-
talist and Communist forces was overwhelming.
Concepts from his 1953 book, Gli uomini e le rovine, played a central role for
the post-war radical right: Tradition, unbroken men, legionary spirit, aristo-
cracy, hierarchy, elite rule, political warriors, holy war. These ideas can still
be readily found in today’s far-right discourses. To be sure, Evola was a
genuine maître à penser; but we may question the moral influence of his intel-
lectual contribution. As radical intellectual, theorist of Tradition, ‘spiritual
racist’, anti-egalitarian, anti-liberal and anti-democratic author, Evola cannot
be held directly and juridically responsible for terrorist acts perpetrated by
extremist militants on the far right. However, is it possible to make a clear dis-
tinction, a quantum leap, between meta-political and political, or is any intel-
lectual thought nothing more than the theoretical transcription of (possible)
political action? Faced with the Italian racial laws at the end of the 1930s
and with the terrorist actions of the 1970s and 1980s, Evola’s responsibility
is indeed moral and historical.

Elisabetta Cassina Wolff is Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer in Modern

and Contemporary History) at the University of Oslo. Her works deal with
Italian Fascism, neo-fascism and Italian political culture. She has also

73 De Turris, Elogio e difesa di Julius Evola, 126.

74 Evola, Ride the Tiger, 173.
75 Anna Jellamo, ‘Julius Evola, il pensatore della tradizione’, in Ferraresi and Revelli (eds),
La destra radicale, 237.
494 Patterns of Prejudice

written extensively on political developments in Italy after the fall of Christian

Democracy. She recently published L’inchiostro dei vinti: stampa e ideologia neo-
fascista 1945–1953 (Milan: Mursia 2012) and Italias politiske historie, 476–1945
(Oslo: Cappelen Akademisk 2016). Email: e.c.wolff@iakh.uio.no
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