As a youth, Rauti volunteered for the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana of the Italian Social Republic before briefly going into exile with the Spanish Foreign Legion.

[6] Alongside his political career Rauti was also the subject of a series of allegations linking him to the terror campaigns associated with the strategy of tension.

[9] The Treviso magistrates brought Rauti to trial in 1972 over possible involvement in the Piazza Fontana attack but ultimately he was acquitted due to a lack of evidence.

[13] Some documents have also claimed that Rauti was either a 'contact' or a paid informer for the head of the Servizio Informazioni Difesa, which was itself linked to the strategy of tension.

Rauti's move was condemned by Clemente Graziani, who continued to lead a rump Ordine Nuovo outside the MSI although the two men actually remained close associates.

[17] Rauti's position within the MSI was strengthened in 1977 when the main moderate faction broke away to form a new party, National Democracy.

Continuing to present a policy platform based on the ideas of Evola, Rauti also demonstrated elements of Nouvelle Droite thinking, having been converted to ethnopluralism and support for nationalism in the developing world.

Fini looked to the success of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the Front National in France and, seeking to utilise the template they had established, sought to make opposition to immigration the central policy of the MSI.

[20] As leader Rauti sought to underline the party's fascism as being a radical revolutionary creed that, he argued, should not be considered right-wing.

[24] Rauti stood down as leader in 2002 in favour of Luca Romagnoli, who immediately adopted a policy of seeking to work with Silvio Berlusconi's House of Freedoms coalition.