A true revolutionary vanguard cannot stand by and watch, dodging in its position. The dispersion of forces would be a lethal luxury. (Quote from the newspaper of the Ordine Nuovo, 1969)
The Centro Studi Ordine Nuovo ("New Order Research Center"; CSON) was a right-wing political and cultural association founded in 1956 by Pino Rauti, a leading figure of the neofascist Italian party Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), after a split occurring in 1954 between the party and its Evolian "spiritualist" camp. It dissolved in 1969.
Split from the MSI and foundation of Centro Studi Ordine Nuovo
In January 1954, during the IV. MSI party congress in Viareggio, Augusto De Marsanich was succeeded by Arturo Michelini as secretary of the MSI. During the congress, Rauti, Angelo Nicosia and Enzo Erra, who were among the best known representatives of the youth group, proposed to move the party to more intransigent positions and to revisit Fascist ideas in a more critical key:1 reconnecting above all with the traditionalist-spiritualist approach of Julius Evola2 and in particular with the essay "Orientamenti" published for the first time in 1950 by the magazine "Imperium".3 After the Congress of Viareggio, Rauti took an extremely critical position towards the new leadership, claiming that the party had lost all revolutionary aspirations.4
In November 1956, Arturo Michelini was again, albeit by a narrow margin, reconfirmed as secretary at the 5th party congress in Milan. In order to oppose his election, the “Evolian camp”, which by now had assumed the name of Ordine Nuovo (ON), presented itself as an ally with the Messina Left but in vain.5 Rauti, driving force of the Evolian current of CSON,6 refusing a strategy of inclusion on ideological grounds,7 left the MSI.8 On January 14, 1957, the CSON leaders sent a harsh letter to the national secretary contesting his course and in fact initiating the split.9
Poster by the Ordine Nuovo calling to vote for Scheda Bianca
The first "historical group" was made up of Rauti, Clemente Graziani, Paolo Signorelli, Stefano delle Chiaie, Giuliano Bracci, Paolo Andriani, Rutilio Sermonti, Bruno Acquaviva, Piero Vassallo, Silvio Adorni, Riccardo e Gastone Romani, Silvio Vitale, Nino Capotondi, Alfio Tagliavia, Stefano Mangiante, Gabriele Troilo, Antonio Lombardo, almost all of whom were from Messina, Sicily. Later also Paolo Signorelli, Giulio Maceratini, Gino Ragno, Marcello Perina and Adriano Romualdi (from Giovane Italia) joined the group.
The Centro Studi Ordine Nuovo had opened its headquarters in Rome in Via di Pietra when it was still an integral part of the MSI, and in a short time several other offices in Italy, which in 1966 had around 3,500 members.10 The Centro Studi Ordine Nuovo engaged strictly in extrapolitical activities.11 The only concession was made to the younger members led by Delle Chiaie who, for the general elections of 1958, launched a campaign in favour of the Scheda Bianca12 party but not under the direct banner of “Ordine Nuovo".11 In 1959 Delle Chiaie, in a controversy with Rauti who did not want to set up the Study Centre as a political movement, quit ON together with other members and formed his own group called "Avanguardia Nazionale Giovanile".
Rauti, of dominant influence of the CSON’s ideological leaning shifted the focus subsequently on other authors of reference, also from abroad, such as the Rumanian fascist leader Corneliu Codreanu (founder of the Iron Guard), and fascist Orientalists such as Giuseppe Tucci, Pio Filippani Ronconi (Legione SS Italiana) and René Guénon. Around that time he began to theorise around the notion “Nation Europe" as counter-weight to the USA-URSS dichotomy,13 and as a concept of a pan-European nationalism, a Eurocentric form of white suprematism, both ideas later picked up by Third Positionists.
Meeting of the Centro Studi Ordine Nuovo.
The Kali Yuga
The transformation into a Study Centre was a literal application of Julius Evola's theses, which advocated an attitude of disdainful rejection of contemporary society considered corrupt and materialistic, which is found in the period of Kali Yuga, a term taken from the Indian tradition, which indicates a period of crisis of traditional values: precisely the world in which we would be living in the contemporary age. According to traditional doctrine, in fact, it would be impossible to make a radical and permanent change to democratic society at this time, making any political commitment useless.
This apolitical approach was the based on the decision, taken since the 1958 general elections to disregard elections altogether.
Symbolism
New Order chose as its symbol the double-bitted axe and as its motto the motto of the SS: "My honor is called fidelity".
The song “La vandeana", an ancient counter-revolutionary ballad, whose refrain is "Swords of the Vendée, scythes (or axes) of the bush, barons and peasants are ready for battle" became the hymn of the Ordine Nuovo in full coherence with the Evolian teaching of defense of monarchic and pre-Jacobin France.
In a short time, the cultural influence of Ordine Nuovo, with its heroic and aristocratic vision of Evolian type, exerted a strong influence on the young right-wing militants who remained in the MSI14 and who did not stop advocating for its official participation in the youth movement conferences, such as that of Perugia in January 1967 organized by the Fronte universitario d'azione nazionale (FUAN, 1950-1996).15
Paramilitary training
Around 1967, when the regime of the colonels took over Greece, contacts between CSON members and the regime could be established.16
Among the first official visitors to the new Prime Minister Pattakos is Pino Rauti, founder of the Ordine Nuovo movement, a journalist of the extreme right-wing Roman "Il Tempo". Considered a "hardliner" among the neofascists of the Italian Social Movement itself, Rauti violently criticized party leaders who wanted to run for legislative elections: "Democracy is an infection of the spirit," he said. In Athens, Pino Rauti also meets Colonel Agamemnon of the KYP (Greek secret service). In the months that followed, a Greek Embassy official began to extend invitations and hundreds of Italian fascists came to Greece on tourist visits that always ended at a training camp in the north of the country.
Whether these visits had any connection to the subsequent "action" mentioned in an ominous report by a Greek secrete service (KYP) agent, has never been ultimately clarified, nor what that action really was.
In June [1969] ... an important document had been sent to the ambassador of Greece in Rome. It is the copy of a report from a KYP agent in Italy, addressed to the head of the Greek government, revealing close relations between the Greek secret services and the Italian superior officers. The report speaks in clear words, of an "action" to be carried out: 'The only point of contention is regarding the scheduling of precise dates of action. This is because, according to the Italians, they are still on a low organizational level.' The conclusion of the agent: 'Increase the number of citizens who externally demand an improvement of relations with Greece and, internally, long for order and peace.'17
By now it is established that former CSON member Stefano Delle Chiaie was subsequently implicated in a number of terrorist attacks, particularly the bomb attack at Piazza Fontana on 12 December 1969.
We found unambiguous reports and evidence that reveal a collaboration of Giannettini and delle Chaie with several Italian secret services and reveal their joint responsibility for the attack in Milan. According to that, Giannettini was delle Chiaie's liaison with the secret services, who helped him escape after the attack on Piazza Fontana.18 Massimo Theodore – Member of the Parliamentary Investigation Committee
The return to MSI
Pino Rauti with Giorgio Almirante in 1969 on the occasion of his return to the MSI.
With Giorgio Almirante's arrival at the MSI secretariat in 1969, Rauti dissolved the Centro Studi and returned to the party with a small group of other leaders on November 15, 1969.19 Three Ordinovisti entered the national directorate of MSI (Pino Rauti, Giulio Maceratini, Paolo Andriani) while another 11 were co-opted to the central committee (among others Rutilio Sermonti, Gastone Romani, Generoso Simeone, Marcello Perina, Romano Cortellacci and Paolo Signorelli). Shortly before returning to the party, Rauti had written in the periodical Ordine Nuovo that "a true revolutionary vanguard cannot stand by and watch, ducking down in his position. The dispersion of forces would be a lethal luxury". There is a "vital need to enter the window of the system, which we had left through the door, in order to take advantage of the defences that the system offers through the Parliament. And what could the instrument of this insertion be if not the MSI?"20
Movimento Politico Ordine Nuovo under Graziani
Part of the militants opposed the return to the MSI, accusing the MSI of being "enslaved to the bourgeoisie and American imperialism," which on December 21, 1969 gave rise to the Movimento Politico Ordine Nuovo, led by Clement Graziani.21
- 1Adalberto Baldoni, La Destra in Italia: 1945-1969 (Rome: Pantheon, 2000), p. 63.
- 2Piero Ignazi, Il polo escluso. Profilo del Movimento Sociale Italiano, Bologna, il Mulino, 1989, p. 77.
- 3Ibid, see footnote on p. 77.
- 4Baldoni, La Destra in Italia, p. 64.
- 5Antonio Carioti, I ragazzi della fiamma, Mursia, 2011, Milano, p. 209.
- 6Ignazi, Il polo escluso, p. 87-88.
- 7Baldoni, La Destra in Italia, pp. 70-71.
- 8Baldoni, La Destra in Italia, p. 34.
- 9Carioti, I ragazzi della fiamma, pp. 222-223.
- 10Carioti, I ragazzi della fiamma, p. 251.
- 11 a b Carioti, I ragazzi della fiamma, p. 250.
- 12Mario Caprara e Gianluca Semprini, Neri, la storia mai raccontata della destra radicale, eversiva e terrorista, Edizioni tascabili Newton, Roma, 2011, p. 208.
- 13Nicola Rao, La fiamma e la celtica, Sperling, 2006, p. 84.
- 14Piero Ignazi, Il polo escluso, p. 122-123.
- 15Ibid., p. 130.
- 16René Backmann,"OLÊ, OLÁ, O MUSSOLINI TÁ BOTANDO PRÁ QUEBRAR,” EX-, No 8, December 1974, https://www.scribd.com/document/166613605/Jornal-EX-n8-Dezembro-1974. English translation available at http://www.foiaresearch.net/document/rene-backmannole-ola-o-mussolini-ta-botando-pra-quebrar-1974.
- 17Backmann, op. cit.
- 18Kennzeichen D: BND-Schmiergeld," documentary by Egmont Koch and Oliver Schröm, ZDF, 16 February 2000. Partly available on Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqCFYC6nF7I. [02:07.00]
- 19Backmann op. cit.
- 20 Adalberto Baldoni, Il crollo dei miti, Settimo Sigillo, Roma 1996, p. 281.
- 21Adalberto Baldoni & S. Provvisionato, La notte più lunga della repubblica, Serarcangeli Editore, Roma, 1989, p. 43.