dissident Pino Rauti by remaining within the party. Like Rauti, however, he became increasingly influenced in his thought by Julius Evola, even hailing the philosopher as "our Marcuse – only better". In his role as leader of the internal opposition Almirante was not averse to employing the tactics of the Blackshirts, and indeed in 1968 he was one of three leaders of a 'punitive expedition' against student radicals at the Fine Arts Department at the University of Rome. However, Almirante and some 200 followers were routed and in the end were protected by the police. Return to the leadership Almirante regained the leadership of the party in 1969 following the death of Michelini. By now his own opinions had shifted somewhat towards a more moderate position as he soon declared his own support for democracy. On this basis he aimed to attract more conservative elements to the MSI, while simultaneously passing reforms that strengthened the power of the party secretary in order to pre-empt opposition from the radical tendency with which he had been associated. He also sought to 'historicise' fascism and dropped the more overt references to the ideology from MSI propaganda and rhetoric, notably shelving the black shirt and the Roman salute. His new policy, known as the strategia del doppio binario (double track strategy), was not aimed at making the MSI more palatable to the Christian Democrats, as had been the plan of his predecessor, but rather to move the MSI into that party's ideological space and so challenge them directly for the leadership of the right. Almirante felt that by placing anti-communism at the heart of the MSI's appeal the party could attract both its existing followers and more moderate conservatives and could in time rival Christian Democrats as the main party of the right. As part of this policy he brought in a number of disparate rightist groups, merging the MSI with the Italian Democratic Party of Monarchist Unity, readmitting the hard-line splinter group Ordine Nuovo (New Order), and adding establishment figures such as Admiral Gino Birindelli and General Giovanni de Lorenzo as members. However, the policy floundered as the MSI made few inroads into Christian Democrat support and instead pushed the mainstream right towards an accommodation with the Italian Communist Party. As a consequence some of the moderate faction split off to form the National Democracy in 1977. Despite the policy's failure to deliver