A former volunteer for Benito Mussolini's Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Italian Social Republic; 1943-45), Pino Rauti was a leading figure among post-World War II Italy's neo-fascist far right community.
In 1956, at the Movimento Sociale Italiano's (Italian Social Movement, MSI) fifth national congress in Milan, he and eighty-seven followers resigned from the MSI to pursue an "Ordine Nuovo" (New Order, ON), inspired by the philosophy of Julius Evola and committed to building a society and culture based on the values of tradition, hierarchy, and discipline. David Broder has described Rauti as a "self-styled 'anti-bourgeois' fascist," who followed Evola's notion of "spiritualist racism" in which an elite warrior caste would build a superior civilization (Broder 2023: 57). In 1956, Rauti formally established the Centro Studi Ordine Nuovo (New Order Study Center, CSON), which served as a space for discussing and disseminating far-right ideology in Italy. The CSON quickly evolved into a right-wing, extra-parliamentary organization, with members concentrated primarily in Rome, Milan, Padua, and parts of Sicily. Opposed to the more moderate political program of the MSI's Secretary, Giorgio Almirante, this group openly embraced violence as a means to reach the ON's objectives. CSON had confirmed links to state agencies in Italy, making it more than just an right-wing think-tank. CSON collaborated with Italy's Defence Information Service, a secret service branch for national defense which was, like CSON's members, deeply anti-communist.
As Elisabetta Cassina Wolff has demonstrated, Rauti's influence extended internationally (Wolff 2019: 71). Rauti was a member of the right-wing neo-fascist organizations Jeune Europe (Young Europe), which was based in Belgium, and Nouveaux Ordre Européen (New European Order), which was headquartered in Switzerland. Taken together, these two organizations, along with CSON, functioned loosely as a transnational network of European neo-fascists during the Cold War years, all of whom were prepared to carry out acts of terrorism in support of their far-right agendas.
In 1995, Rauti founded Movimento Sociale Fiamma Tricolore (Social Movement Tricolor Flame) in response to the establishment of Gianfranco Fini's Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance) – a national conservative political party, which emerged following the collapse of the MSI in the same year.
Given his ties to classical far-right values and ideas, and his staunch opposition to the MSI's ideological shift towards a moderate conservatism, Rauti is often celebrated by today's Italian far-right community as an unwavering neo-fascist patriarch. He is particularly revered among Italy's far-right youth groups, including Blocco Studentesco (Student Bloc), Lotta Studentesca (Student Struggle), Gioventù Nazionale (National Youth), and Azione Studentesca (Student Action), each of which are represented by various materials in this collection (Fig. 5).
This poster features a photograph of Rauti speaking at a political rally, with the words "Andare oltre" (Go Further) appearing below. "Go Further" was the name given to the political faction Rauti led within the MSI during the late 1980s (Rauti 1979). In 1987, at the MSI's fifteenth national congress in Sorrento, an event focused on determining the party's succeeding Secretary, six groups put forward their proposals for the future vision of the party and its ideological principles. Rauti's group, "Go Further," opposed Almirante's line and had a strong base of support among the MSI's neo-fascist youth groups. As Giovanni Tassani has shown, this faction sought to attract workers disaffected with the country's left-wing political organizations through its emphasis on social issues, and to engage in a broader dialogue on ethical and spiritual questions with Catholics frustrated by the Christian Democrats (Tassani 1990: 131).
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