Fascist Groups in Italian Universities: An Organization at the Service of the Totalitarian State

Considerable research has been devoted to the complex organization of the Fascist Party in Italy, yet there has been little interest shown in the history of the GUF (Gruppi universitari fascisti), the fascist groups in the universities.' This is particularly surprising if one considers them the keystone of the fascist experiment in totalitarianism. Destined to take over the political and intellectual leadership of the nation, university students represented the elite of the middle class from which fascism derived its social base and were, therefore, of key strategic importance in guaranteeing the vitality and survival of the fascist system.2 But, instead, the approach of historians to the subject of university students during the 20 years of fascism has been focused on the more general theme of the fascist education of the young; this has been studied from two different approaches in terms of methodology and interpretation. The first approach focuses on identifying signs of opposition to the regime from the young, giving rise to what can be called the 'memorialistic interpretation'. It echoes the views of the protagonists of the time who, in retrospect, generally agree that there was widespread 'anti-fascism amongst the blackshirts' or 'unconscious anti-fascism'.3 The experience of the 'generalasione del littorio' was exclusively understood in terms of the notion of a 'long journey through fascism',4 of the young gradually realizing the reactionary nature of the regime and from the mid-1930s slipping into indifference or even opposition to it.5 Historians have associated this interpretation with the political