Lost in the Labyrinth: a Dialogue with Andrea Colombo on the Ideological Tribulations of Modern Writers

Robert Lazu Kmita: Dear Andrea, first of all, thank you for agreeing to engage in this discussion on topics that are both challenging and important. Over the years, you have dedicated substantial volumes to controversial authors from the period of the two world wars. Whether in the form of chapters in your synthesis, I Maledetti. Dalla parte sbagliata della storia (The Cursed Ones. On the Wrong Side of History, Lindau, 2017), or as standalone works like the monograph entirely dedicated to Ezra Pound (Il Dio di Ezra Pound. Cattolicesimo & religioni del mistero – The God of Ezra Pound: Catholicism & Mystery Religions, Ares, 2011), you have delved into the thoughts of thinkers and authors tormented by the contradictions of the modern world. What were the beginnings and, especially, the intellectual-spiritual motivation behind your interest in such “cursed” (It. maledetti) authors?

Andrea Colombo: The motivations that led to my work on I maledetti date back to my high school years. Having grown up in a very left-wing family, I was intrigued by the fact that many great writers and artists supported the “other side” of the political spectrum, namely fascism and Nazism. During these formative years, my attention was focused mainly on four writers: Pound, Evola, Marinetti, and Céline. I was surprised to learn that such innovative, progressive, and original writers sided with regimes widely considered reactionary, retrograde, and aggressively brutal, led by evil dictators. In reality, fascism and National Socialism were distinguished by various revolutionary elements, along with anti-modern tendencies, which is why they attracted such diverse personalities as Marinetti, the founder of Futurism, and traditionalist thinkers like Julius Evola. Over time, I deepened my knowledge of this “forbidden” cultural world.

I immersed myself into the complexity of these authors. I translated into Italian Pound’s Abc of Economics and his controversial speeches of World War II from Radio Rome, where the propaganda that the poet made for fascism clearly emerges. It was a bizarre propaganda though, made of quotes from Confucius, Joyce, Chesterton, among other things, in what almost came to be a series of “Cantos for the people,” without the obscurities of his major poetic work. Although the driving force that animated Pound was pacifism, this radio speeches caused him a lot of trouble: an indictment for treason and consequent confinement in a criminal mental hospital, in order to avoid the electric chair.

In more recent years, I was very impressed by the early writings of Emil Cioran, before he became the renowned standard-bearer of contemporary nihilism. In his youth, Cioran admired Nazi Germany (as well as Stalin’s Russia) and sympathized with the peculiar Romanian mystical fascist movement known as the “Iron Guard.” These discoveries eventually inspired me to write a book of portraits of remarkable figures who found themselves on the wrong side of history—The Cursed Ones. I endeavored to put myself in their shoes, refraining from judgment and simply trying to understand the fascist temptation that captivated many culturally significant personalities, from T.S. Eliot to Mircea Eliade, and from Martin Heidegger to Elisabeth Nietzsche.

Robert Lazu Kmita: I am very curious to find out, from someone who has studied such authors in detail, whether there is a common basis for their attraction to far-right movements. Was this, then, a strictly personal—let’s say “biographical”—stray on their part, or was it determined by certain factors—objective and especially subjective—shared by all the authors you have studied? Did the far right political spectrum offer them something that was missing from the mainstream politics of their era? On the other hand, knowing Catholic “reactionary” authors who were always firmly against the far right movements and parties, can we consider those you named “reactionary”?

Andrea Colombo: First of all, if we have to identify one common element among many of these authors, I would mention the First World War as a turning point in history. Not only did the main protagonists of the fascist and Nazi movements, Mussolini and Hitler, fight in the trenches, but several writers, such as Marinetti, Wyndham Lewis, Céline, and Gottfried Benn, were directly involved in that immense bloodbath. Marinetti and the Futurists believed that from the ruins of that dramatic experience, a new world and a new kind of man would be born. The dictatorial regimes established in Italy and Germany provided a romantic imagery, a worldview that seemed to give rise to ideals with which men and women engaged in the arts, literature, and music could identify. Furthermore, the narratives of an eternal Rome in the case of fascism, and of the superiority of the Aryan-Germanic race in the case of Nazism, were promoted by some intellectuals searching for new myths rooted in an ancient past.

Were these authors “reactionary”? It is hard to say. Marinetti, Pound, and Céline certainly were not; on the contrary, they were avant-gardists in every sense. It is a different matter when considering writers like T.S. Eliot, who, in the 1920s and early 1930s, was very close to the far-right movement of Action Française, or Roy Campbell, who praised Franco’s victory over the Republican red coalition in the Spanish Civil War: they had a more “reactionary” view of politics, even though their poetic style was modernistic. Meanwhile, the anti-modern vision of the philosopher Julius Evola was so radical that he hoped for a return to paganism. Nevertheless, all these writers reacted against what they considered to be a dead world: that of 19th-century liberalism.

Robert Lazu Kmita: What were the features of 19th-century liberalism that distinguish it from 20th-century liberalism and the current one? And why did the world of that era—so poetically and strikingly illustrated by Dickens’ novels—need to be replaced through a totalitarian world? By the way, did these authors – or at least some of them – perceive from the beginning the presence of dictatorial premises in the political movements they embraced?

Andrea Colombo: 19th-century liberalism, the “era of good feelings”, of unlimited progress and democratic liberties, seemed to shatter under the impact of the massacres of World War I. For many intellectuals who lived in that time, the liberal perspective was not only an unachievable utopia but also a mask for a reality of injustices, monopolies, and the dominance of a cynical oligarchy driven by gold and greed. As Pound pointed out in a radio speech from Radio Rome aired in March 1943, titled Usurocracy: “After Waterloo, no power had withstood the power of the usurers.” For this reason, some writers and artists believed they were witnessing the dawn of a brand-new age, where strong, anti-liberal regimes would emerge, led by exceptional individuals who were almost incarnations of the Nietzschean superman: Il Duce and Der Führer.

Iron-fisted, dictatorial states were seen as capable of galvanizing the masses, overcoming class differences, and unifying the nation under the banners of Blood and Soil. Many were fascinated by what appeared to be a Third Way between capitalistic liberalism and communism. It was destined to become a tragic dream, however, and the cruel awakening in the ashes of Europe in 1945 revealed the true nature of those regimes. For a naive fascist sympathizer—but a pacifist at heart—like Ezra Pound, the defeat of the Axis forces was a shocking experience, as reflected in his masterwork written in captivity, The Pisan Cantos. The illusion became a nightmare—Pound’s Inferno:

“The enormous tragedy of the dream in the peasant’s bent shoulders /

Manes ! Manes was tanned and stuffed, /

Thus Ben and la Clara a Milano /

by the heels at Milano” (Canto LXXIV).

The image of Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, hanging upside down in Milan marked the end of the fascist regime, while the poet who sang the glories of dictatorship ended up in a cage in a concentration camp in Pisa.

Robert Lazu Kmita: Although each of the mentioned authors deserves a separate discussion, the limited space does not allow us to do so. Therefore, I propose that we limit ourselves to the one to whom you dedicated an entire monograph, Ezra Pound. What was the intellectual background that prepared the ground for Pound’s adherence to Nazism? And how deep and extensive was, in fact, this adherence?

Andrea Colombo: The case of Ezra Pound is significant because, even though he never wore the black shirt or the brown one and was not a member of the Italian Fascist Party, he nevertheless became a tool of the Mussolinian propaganda machine. There are many reasons for this endorsement of a dictatorship by a poet considered an innovator and an original voice in the cultural world. One reason is biographical: after spending several years in London and Paris, Pound decided in 1924 to move to a small town on the Italian Riviera called Rapallo. He loved Italian culture and enjoyed the quiet life of a seaside location, where he played tennis with his friends, swam in the Mediterranean, corresponded with other writers he supported, like T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, and worked on his never-ending Cantos, a historical poem that he considered to be a Divine Comedy for modern times. He did not have any significant contact with fascist authorities apart from a brief meeting with Mussolini in 1933, recorded in the Cantos. The poet was very impressed by the strong, charismatic personality of the Duce and began to write letters to Italian hierarchs and to Mussolini himself, proposing bizarre monetary reforms that were obviously never taken into consideration by the Italian regime. However, Pound’s admiration for the social reforms of the fascist state, in line with his socialist viewpoint, gradually led him to become a propagandist for the Italian dictatorship in various journals and books. He unrealistically thought that both the fascist and Nazi regimes would eventually implement those economic reforms that he held dear, such as stamp scrip money or social credit, and abolish taxation.

Needless to say, none of these measures were taken by the Mussolinian or the National Socialist states. But Pound still believed in them, against all evidence. We must also consider that the enemies of those dictatorships, the British Empire and Wall Street, were also the enemies of the poet, as he was heavily influenced by conspiracy theories against banks and bankers in general. In Pound’s tragic fascist illusion, another element must be taken into account. As an American patriot, even though he lived most of his life in Europe, he considered himself to be a Jeffersonian. At the same time, he was drawn towards Chinese culture, and Confucian philosophy in particular. Now, it’s well known that Jefferson was for minimum government and the least possible interference of the state in society and in the lives of individuals. On the contrary, Confucian thought advocates for maximum state control and allows no space for individual and private initiative. As a matter of fact, today’s “mandarins” of the CCP are loyal followers of the totalitarian Confucian tradition, disguised as “communism.”

In 1935, Pound published a paradoxical book titled Jefferson and/or Mussolini, where he makes a comparison between the two statesmen. But how is it possible to compare the great American president of the “Tree of Liberty” to the fascist dictator who declared, “All in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State”? Mission impossible. In fact, the statism of the fascist regime was much closer to Roosevelt’s New Deal and to Stalin’s Russia than to the libertarian spirit of the American Revolution. This obvious contradiction emerges in Pound when, for example, in a 1943 speech from Radio Rome, he says:

“America anarchy and Italian fascism, being in perfect accord about the desirability of personal autarchy.”

But that “accord” was only in Pound’s mind, not in reality. The fascist regime was “Confucian,” totalitarian, and socialist in its own way; surely not libertarian in the American, Jeffersonian sense of the word. It is precisely Confucian thought, not the Jeffersonian spirit, that brought Pound towards fascism. The collaboration with an enemy radio in times of war and the objective legal case of Pound’s treason followed a deeper motivation and was rooted in his Confucian heart, which prevailed over the Jeffersonian tradition of his fathers and grandfathers.

Robert Lazu Kmita: Since the end of the 19th century, the doctrine of “art for art’s sake”—commonly referred to as aestheticism—has taken hold, and not merely through Oscar Wilde’s famous preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). And yet, through significant figures in the history of modern literature and poetry, such as Ezra Pound, we are confronted with evidence of an implicit but radical denial of the reality of aestheticism. For many of the writers and poets you mentioned were not only inconsistent with this program, but succumbed to lethal ideologies. How can this contradiction between the proliferation of aestheticism and the alignment of great writers and poets with the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century be explained? And, ultimately, what do you think—does “art for art’s sake” truly exist?

Andrea Colombo: In Men Without Art (1934), Wyndham Lewis states:

“Art for art’s sake, of Walter Pater, has nothing to do with art–it is a spectator’s doctrine, not an artist’s: it teaches how to enjoy, not how to perform. I am a performer.”

For artists and writers involved in propaganda, the priority is action; it is the attempt to change the world in accordance with a certain ideology, using the tools of words and paintings. It is not beauty in itself that matters, but its utility. Aestheticism is considered a thing of the past, a relic of the decadent bourgeois world, a disease of the mind: sentimentalism and the idea of Platonic beauty must be banned in the hard Machine Age sung by the futurists in black (or red, Soviet) shirts. Even writers far from the futurist mentality, like Pound, fell under the spell of this cult of action. When asked in the 1950s why he supported one of his American followers, John Kasper, who fought in favor of segregation against the Civil Rights movement in the Southern States of the U.S., along with the Ku Klux Klan, the poet said: “Well, at least he is doing something.” The figure of the detached intellectual, who lives in his ivory tower and watches the world go by, is exactly what these writers and painters despised. For them, the writer, just like any other member of the national community, must join the fray, get their hands dirty, and fight in the trenches—not only in a metaphorical way. Marinetti, at the age of 66 and already seriously ill, volunteered for the Russian Front in 1942. When he returned home, he wrote several poems exalting the heroism of the Italian soldier in that difficult field of war.

Another protagonist of those years, the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio—whose story is somehow linked to fascism—was a very popular figure. He was an adventurous pilot in World War I, where he lost an eye in combat, and then occupied with some nationalist troops the disputed city of Fiume (now in Croatia). There he established a republic that lasted only one year, founded on socialist, libertarian, and corporatist principles that anticipated in some ways the fascist revolution of 1922. For that political experiment, D’Annunzio was joined by many futurists led by Marinetti, anarchists, and nationalists; he was also supported by Mussolini. This image of the “soldier poet,” of romantic origin, is key to understanding the overcoming of the concept of a “pure” intellectual. In a world dominated by ideologies—red, black, or “pink,” as represented by current Woke culture—the men and women of letters must be militant and engage in battle against the enemy of the moment. This approach sometimes results in masterpieces of violent controversy, like the infamous anti-Jewish pamphlets by Céline (Bagatelles pour un massacre and L’École des cadavres), visionary fascism like Cioran’s The Transfiguration of Romania, or bizarre Confucian and pacifist manifestos like Pound’s radio speeches; but many times it ends up as mediocre propaganda, as seen in many futurist poems that glorify Mussolini’s exploits or in academic paintings from National Socialist art (which are very similar to Stalin’s “socialist realism”).

Robert Lazu Kmita: In I Maledetti, you discussed in detail the political temptations of Romanian authors such as Emil Cioran and Mircea Eliade. To them, we could add other important creators from the same culture—perhaps even the most important ones: for example, the prolific novelist Mihail Sadoveanu (1880–1961) and, of course, the brilliant poet Tudor Arghezi (1880–1967), who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965. Both aligned themselves with the communist regime—although it is difficult to prove whether they did so out of deep conviction or merely opportunistically, to gain certain advantages.

I confess that I read their literary works with pleasure, just as I often delight in Pound’s poems. This has often made me wonder: how does ideological affiliation affect talent, literary genius? I ask you, then, the same question: how did Pound’s political affiliations influence his creative capacity? On the other hand, could the pettiness of these affiliations serve as both a powerful motivation (and a severe warning) for us, those who write poetry and literature today, to completely avoid politics? Personally, I feel inclined toward this conclusion whenever I acutely realize that, in reading Pound, I am engaging with an errant poet who admired and followed a destructive ideology.

Andrea Colombo: Fascism and Nazism, at the beginning, were not thought of as destructive ideologies. They were perceived as movements that saved Italy and Germany from communism and economic depression. In fact, it is their element of reconstruction and national renaissance that attracted the masses and many intellectuals as well. Only when the news of the violent discrimination against Jews in Germany started to spread, and especially when the brutality of Operation Barbarossa—the invasion of Russia in 1941—was there for all the world to see, did Nazism (not so much Fascism, which was considered a more humane and less totalitarian regime) begin to be seen as a destructive (and self-destructive for the whole of Europe) force. Many intellectuals who supported those regimes, like movie director Leni Riefenstahl, did not believe that Nazis could have perpetrated atrocities against innocent people, including women and children. When they found out, many of them were shocked. Some, like Lorenz, Eliade, and Cioran, tried to erase every trace of their embarrassing past. Others, like Hamsun, Pound, Heidegger, and Riefenstahl, paid their debt with imprisonment, censorship, and loss of prestigious positions.

In some of their works, the presence of ideology is evident, such as in Riefenstahl’s movie Olympia or in some of Marinetti’s later poems. In others, like Heidegger’s philosophical publications or Hamsun’s novels, it is less so. The case of Ezra Pound is more complex. In his poetic Opus Majus, the Cantos, references to fascism are scarce. Mussolini appears in Canto XLI where Pound recalls the words said by the Duce (the Boss) in his 1933 meeting at Palazzo Venezia:

“ ‘Ma questo,’ said the Boss, ‘è divertente,’ catching the point before the aesthetes had got there.”

He seems to imply that the Italian dictator is better than the literary critics in understanding his Cantos, which are defined as “divertenti,” or “fun to read.” More specifically “fascist” are the two Cantos written in Italian at the beginning of 1945: Canto LXXII dedicated to Marinetti, who just died in December 1944 and was buried in Milan with full state honors by the Social Republic of Mussolini; and Canto LXXIII that tells the tragic story of a girl from Romagna who was raped by Canadian troops and killed some Allied soldiers in a suicide mission by blowing herself up on a mine. I already mentioned the Pisan Cantos with the hanging of Mussolini in Piazzale Loreto, but the protagonists of his epic historic poem are others: Confucius, Mencius, the Ghibelline Renaissance warlord Sigismondo Malatesta, John Quincy Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. This is as far as Pound’s poetry goes. However, in his economic essays and contributions to periodicals—especially from 1935 to 1945—references to fascism are frequent and always positive.

Robert Lazu Kmita: Dear Andrea, you have sketched a broad and complete picture of the profile of certain intellectuals who allowed themselves to be “charmed” by the allure of some leaders and destructive ideologies. Did this not happen against the backdrop of the absence of true Christian faith—i.e., Catholic faith—from their hearts? Wasn’t it precisely this void that was filled by the ideologies to which they aligned themselves?

Andrea Colombo: We must keep in mind that in the 1920s and 1930s of the last century, Europe was still a Christian continent, even if the process of secularization, especially among the political and cultural elites, had been underway for some time. The plan of revolutionaries, Masons, and socialists to eradicate Christianity from the hearts of the people failed, at least for the time being. As far as intellectuals are concerned, I think we have to distinguish among the different situations. Elisabeth Nietzsche, for example, was a devout Lutheran. When her brother became seriously ill, she took care of him, and when he died, she arranged to have a religious funeral for the philosopher of the “death of God.” She was drawn toward Nazism in the last years of her life not only because Hitler greatly admired the works of her brother but also because she saw in National Socialism a bulwark against communism and a defender of true Germanic values.

We also have cases of sincerely Catholic writers, like Ada Negri, Giovanni Papini, and Roy Campbell, who embraced fascism, which they saw as perfectly compatible with their faith. The Italian poetess Ada Negri, who, like Mussolini, came from a very poor background, saw in the social reforms of the regime (public health care, demographic measures in favor of large families, and so on) a way of helping people in need—the proletariat and the peasantry—in an evangelical spirit. Papini was a longtime friend of Il Duce, and in his youth, before his conversion to Catholicism, he shared the same Nietzschean, individualistic, and patriotic ideology as the Italian dictator. Campbell, who witnessed the horrors perpetrated by Republican troops against priests, nuns, and civilians during the Spanish Civil War, considered Franco the savior of Catholic civilization in this tormented country.

Let’s not forget that both Mussolini and Hitler signed a Concordat with the Catholic Church. Then there are cases of atheists like Céline, Cioran, and Heidegger; however, it’s difficult to deduce that Nazism filled a void for them. Céline was such a strong personality that for him Nazism represented just a means to get rid of all unwanted elements, especially his arch-enemies: the Jews. Cioran had already developed a pessimistic misanthropy in his youth; he believed that a violent and militaristic dictatorship served to keep at bay a humanity he despised. He hoped for a purifying bloodbath that would erase the ancestral vices of Romanians; that was to be for him the destructive “transfiguration” of his homeland. Heidegger, in 1933 when he joined the Nazi Party, had already written his masterpiece Being and Time, which is a milestone of atheistic contemporary thought. His membership is thus a result of a personal path; in his unpublished notes from this time (recently printed as The Black Notebooks), a revolutionary outlook on political issues emerges—very close to the left wing of the Nazi-Bolshevik faction.

Pound, on his part—paraphrasing his friend T.S. Eliot—ran after strange gods, especially Confucius and pagan deities. We also find fully fledged neo-pagans like Evola; however, they reflected a minority within this world. Hitler never took seriously the pagan ruminations found in Rosenberg’s Myth of the 20th Century. The Führer was much closer to a eugenic positivist approach regarding race—like future Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz—who, as a young Wehrmacht doctor on the Eastern Front, applied it on unfortunate prisoners of war.

Robert Lazu Kmita: As we conclude our dialogue, for which I thank you once again, I cannot help but ask: how do things stand today with the writers/intellectuals en vogue, such as Michel Houellebecq, Mircea Cărtărescu, Ishiguro Kazuo—or any other notable figures you wish to mention? And what message would you convey, considering everything you’ve said, to contemporary Catholic writers and poets?

Andrea Colombo: In my opinion Michel Houellebecq’s Submission is an emblematic case. It’s a very well written book, with a captivating plot, but is Islam our mortal enemy as the author seems to imply? I don’t think so. I prefer to underline the responsibilities of the suicidal tendencies prevalent in our own Western World: open border policies, politically correct ideology and censorship, LGBTQ+ agenda against the traditional family, critical race theory, cancel culture–all these are elements that undermine at the root our civilization. As far as mass immigration goes, is it really that bad if the communities of foreigners keep hold on their traditions, beliefs and customs? Is it better, for us and for them, if they lose their religious and cultural identity and fall into criminality, drug and alcohol abuse?

Why their Imams despise us? Because we lost our identity and beliefs and live in a completely depraved way. They would respect more a true Christian or a hard nationalist, straight-backed and strongly convinced of their truths–how can they respect that “fluid” human being, glued to the smart(dumb)phone, those effeminate men and masculine women that pack our cities? It is not a mere coincidence that Houellebecq is an atheist: for him, and for many neocons and the so called “right wingers” anti-Islamists of today, “Western Culture” is synonymous with free love, the “right” of killing babies in the womb, drug and alcohol abuse and similar “conquests” of the modern world. For them Islam is “medieval” because Muslims, unlike most “updated” Christians, still have strong beliefs, a defined set of rules and are willing to fight, also violently, to defend their faith.

At the same time, we know all too well that the “freedom” flaunted by progressives, globalists and liberals really convey an inhuman and pervasive dictatorship, much more subtle and effective than the past totalitarian regimes. The model is China; the goal is total control of both the population’s mind and body through omnipotent Big Tech digital tools, and we are almost there, as revealed during the Covid pandemic madness. Remember what the “liberal” and “progressive” Trudeau did in Canada, or what the “democratic” governors did in the U.S. during those crazy, unbelievable years. And what “labour” P.M. Starmer is doing today to crash dissent in Great Britain. Total dictatorship. In this context, any political or cultural voice that dares to challenge the system of total digital control is brutally silenced. And this also includes writers and artists who try to go against the grain.

There are some pockets of resistance, especially in the United States, while Europe seems to be totally lost. But for the time being, in a world that has been completely standardized from one end of the planet to the other, thanks to global Internet brainwashing, there is really no difference between a girl living in Moscow and one in Singapore or Buenos Aires—they all “think” in the same way. Cities full of treasures from the past, like Venice or Edinburgh, have become museums for fools who see but don’t understand what they superficially admire: mass tourism is just another aspect of triumphant globalization. Churches are no longer holy places where one can pray or meditate; instead, they have become cultural sites where, with the appropriate app, you pay a ticket to enter and see the paintings and sculptures housed inside. And finally, in this extreme phase of decadence of every civilization, where are the writers and artists? Have we reached the point foreseen by Wyndham Lewis of Men without Art?

Andrea Colombo is a professional journalist, translator and writer based in Milan, Italy. His published books include: I maledetti dalla parte sbagliata della storia (Lindau, Torino 2017), which contains sixteen portraits of intellectuals and artists who sided with fascism; Il Dio di Ezra Pound (Ares, Milano 2011), which focuses on the links between the American poet and Catholicism; and Guarire l’anima: Itinerari dello spirito (Mondadori, Milano 2000), a literary and mystical journey to some of the main centers of Catholic spirituality in Italy. He translated into Italian Why I Am a Catholic by G. K. Chesterton, Christian Reflections by C. S. Lewis, Confessions of a Convert by R. H. Benson and Radio Speeches of World War II by Ezra Pound.

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