“Nazi” vs “Zionist”. The clash between Sforzini and Lavarini, who wants to rewrite history, plays out in Vannaccia’s chat rooms

Vannacciani disagrees. “You’re a genuine Nazi,” writes Luca Sforzini, editor-in-chief of Rinascimento Nazionale, the think tank close to the general. “I’m not a liberal, Atlanticist, Zionist ‘lackey’ like you… I don’t take it as an insult,” replies Roberto Jonghi Lavarini, the dark soul of Futuro Nazionale, who, in the “Vannacci: Last Hope” chat group, glorifies the twenty-year Fascist era. Such is the debate amongst Vannacci’s followers: are they too Fascist, or not Fascist enough? 

The debate between fascists and a few (rare) anti-fascists within the FN, which has been going on for some time, was sparked by the words of Carmelo Burgio, the mayoral candidate chosen by Roberto Vannacci for Milan, who is accused of ‘failing to appreciate the work of fascism’. The chat discussion was inflamed by the revisionist tirade of the ‘black baron’ Lavarini, a well-known figure in Milan’s neo-fascist circles: ‘The day will come when serious scholars will be able to speak freely about European history, the Second World War and the great European national-popular revolution... Since 1945, history has been written and taught by the ‘liberating’ victors, the very same people who have treated us, ever since, as a cultural, political and economic colony… We do not want an American right wing but a European one; we do not want to be good butlers or waiters, but the masters in our own home.” However, among Vannacci’s supporters are the descendants of those who fell victim to fascism: “Yes, the regime that passed the racial laws and deported half my family.” And what does Vannacci think? He shrugs it off, playing it down as he often does when it’s pointed out to him that his party has a problem with those nostalgic for Mussolini. On the other hand, even the Military Union has lodged a complaint with the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office accusing Vannacci’s supporters of undermining the constitutional order. They refer in particular to the party’s manifesto. “Vannacci isn’t a fascist, but the party must stop appearing to be one. Draw a line under it and start afresh,” commented Sforzini himself. Because the complaint raises “a political problem”. Another one, following the internal debate within FN on the very programme’s content, raised by Sforzini himself. The editor-in-chief of Rinascimento Nazionale would like to look to the future, to the challenges posed by AI. Whereas the party programme proposes “bans and moral prescriptions”. A not-even-veiled attack on the ideologue Lorenzo Gasperini, who is too conservative. A sort of Vannacci-style culture war, to which the only thing missing was Lavarini’s ‘black quota’: quite a circus.