Soviet and Russian Historiography of Fascist Italy: ABrief Review

The history of the study of fascist Italy in our country has 100 years. This period can bedivided chronologically into two unequal parts. The first is Soviet, when the MarxistLeninist approach prevailed, and the second is modern Russian, the main feature ofwhich is the variability of approaches, as well as the access to declassified documentsfrom Soviet archives as a result of the '' archival revolution ''. Over the past century, Soviet and Russian researchers have achieved great success in studying the internal andforeign policy of the fascist regime, the regime ' s relationship with various social strataof Italian society, it ' s relations with traditional institutions such as the church, or themonarchy; the participation of fascist Italy in World War II, the resistance movement; trends in the Italian historiography of fascist Italy. The study of the phenomenon offascism is of great practical importance, both from the point of view of the study of massmovements and totalitarian regimes of the first half of the twentieth century, as well asfrom the point of view of the genesis of the Second World War, but also in the context ofexposing the criminal nature of fascism and countering its revival in the form of neofascist movements. This article does not pretend to be a comprehensive coverage ofRussian historiography, but it attempts to highlight the main issues that Soviet andRussian historians have been working on for a last century.