Fascist Counter-Revolution: Italy

Introduction

• The unification of Italy was only completed in 1870, and the new state continued to suffer from underlying economic and political weaknesses.
• The First World War placed a great strain on Italy’s economy, and the country experienced bitter disappointment at its treatment under the Versailles settlement.
  • Between 1919 and 1922, Italy saw five different governments, none capable of taking the decisive action the situation demanded.
• In 1919, Benito Mussolini founded the Italian fascist party, which won 35 seats in the 1921 elections.
  • At the same time, a real danger of left-wing revolution seemed to loom; amid an atmosphere of strikes and riots, the fascists staged a “March on Rome,” culminating in King Victor Emmanuel inviting Mussolini to form a government in October 1922 — a position he held until July 1943.

Why Was Mussolini Able to Come to Power?

Disillusionment and Frustration

• In the summer of 1919, a general atmosphere of disillusionment and frustration prevailed across Italy, caused by a combination of factors.

Disappointment at Italy’s Gains from the Versailles Settlement

• When Italy entered the war, the Allies had promised her Trentino, the South Tyrol, Istria, Trieste, part of Dalmatia, Adalia, some Aegean islands, and a protectorate over Albania.
  • Although Italy received the first four of these, the rest were awarded to other states — mainly Yugoslavia — while Albania was left independent.
  • Italians felt cheated, given their valiant wartime efforts and the loss of close to 700,000 men.
• Particularly galling was Italy’s failure to secure Fiume (given to Yugoslavia), even though it had not actually been among the areas originally promised to her.
  • Gabriele d’Annunzio, a famous romantic poet, marched with a few hundred supporters and occupied Fiume before the Yugoslavs could take it.
  • In June 1920, however, after d’Annunzio had held Fiume for 15 months, the new prime minister, Giovanni Giolitti, decided the government’s authority had to be restored and ordered the army to remove him — a risky move, given d’Annunzio’s status as a national hero.
  • The army obeyed, and d’Annunzio surrendered without a fight, but the episode left the government deeply unpopular.

The Economic Effects of the War

• The war’s effects on the economy and standard of living were disastrous.
  • The government had borrowed heavily, particularly from the USA, and these debts now had to be repaid.
  • As the lira declined in value, the cost of living rose sharply.
  • Massive unemployment followed as heavy industry cut back its wartime production levels, leaving 2.5 million ex-servicemen struggling to find work.

Growing Contempt for the Parliamentary System

• Votes for all men and proportional representation were introduced for the 1919 elections.
  • Although this produced fairer representation than the previous system, it resulted in a large number of parties in parliament — following the election of May 1921, for example, at least nine parties were represented, including liberals, nationalists, socialists, communists, the Catholic Popular Party, and the fascists.
  • This made it difficult for any single party to secure an overall majority, making coalition governments inevitable — leading to instability, indecisiveness, and growing public impatience with the system.

A Wave of Strikes in 1919 and 1920

• The industrialisation of Italy in the years following unification had led to the development of a strong socialist party and trade union movement.
  • Their response to the country’s crisis was to organise a wave of strikes in 1919 and 1920, accompanied by rioting, the looting of shops, and the occupation of factories by workers.
  • In the south, socialist leagues of farmworkers seized land from wealthy landowners and set up cooperatives.
• The government’s prestige sank still lower owing to its failure to protect private property; many property owners became convinced that a left-wing revolution was imminent, especially once the Italian Communist Party was formed in January 1921.
  • In fact, by this point the chances of revolution were already receding — the strikes and factory occupations were fizzling out, as workers found it impossible to sustain production under their own control (suppliers refused them raw materials, and they lacked engineers and managers).
  • Indeed, the formation of the Communist Party made revolution less likely still, as it split the forces of the left — though the fear of revolution remained strong regardless.

Mussolini Attracted Widespread Support

• Mussolini and the fascist party appealed to many sections of society, as Mussolini himself claimed his aim was to rescue Italy from feeble government and provide the country with a stable and strong political system.
  • Politically, Mussolini began as a socialist, making his name as a journalist and eventually becoming editor of the socialist newspaper Avanti. He broke with the socialists over their opposition to Italian intervention in the war, and started his own paper, The People of Italy.
• In 1919, he founded the fascist party with a socialist and republican programme, and showed sympathy for the factory occupations of 1919–20.
  • Local party branches were known as fasci di combattimento (“fighting groups”) — the word fasces referring to the bundle of rods with a protruding axe that symbolised the authority and power of the ancient Roman consuls.
  • At this early stage, the fascists were anti-monarchy, anti-Church, and anti-big business.
• The new party won no seats in the 1919 elections; this, combined with the failure of the factory occupations, prompted Mussolini to change course.
  • He recast himself as the defender of private enterprise and property, attracting much-needed financial support from wealthy business interests.
  • Beginning in late 1920, black-shirted fascist squads regularly attacked and burned down local socialist headquarters and newspaper offices, and beat up socialist councillors.
• By the end of 1921, even though his political programme remained vague in the extreme, Mussolini had won the support of property owners in general, who saw him as a guarantee of law and order and a protector of their property — especially after the Communist Party’s formation in January 1921.
  • Having won over big business, Mussolini began making conciliatory speeches about the Roman Catholic Church; Pope Pius XI swung the Church behind him, viewing Mussolini as a useful anti-communist weapon.
  • When Mussolini announced he had dropped the republican element of his programme in September 1922, even the king began to view the fascists more favourably.
• In the space of just three years, Mussolini had swung from the extreme left to the extreme right.
  • Some working-class support nonetheless remained with the fascists, particularly among industrial workers, even as parties of the left retained broader working-class backing.

Lack of Effective Opposition

• The various anti-fascist groups failed to cooperate with one another and made no determined effort to keep the fascists out of power.
  • The communists refused to cooperate with the socialists, while Giovanni Giolitti (Prime Minister from June 1920 to July 1921) called the elections of May 1921 in the hope that the fascists — still unrepresented in parliament — would win some seats and subsequently support his government.
  • He was willing to overlook fascist violence, believing they would grow more responsible once inside parliament.
• However, the fascists won only 35 seats, while the socialists took 123.
  • Clearly, a fascist takeover should never have been in question at this stage — though the number of fascist squads across the country continued to grow rapidly.
• The socialists bear much of the blame for refusing to work with the government to curb fascist violence.
  • A coalition of Giolitti’s nationalist bloc and the socialists could plausibly have produced a reasonably stable government, excluding the fascists altogether.
  • The socialists, however, would not cooperate, prompting Giolitti to resign in exasperation and despair.
  • The socialists instead tried to use the situation to their own advantage by calling a general strike in the summer of 1922.

The Attempted General Strike (Summer 1922) and the ‘March on Rome’

• This strike played directly into the fascists’ hands: they announced that if the government failed to quell it, they would crush it themselves.
  • When the strike collapsed for lack of support, Mussolini was able to present himself as the saviour of the nation from communism, and by October 1922 the fascists felt confident enough to stage their “March on Rome.”
• As roughly 50,000 blackshirts converged on the capital, while others occupied key towns in the north, prime minister Luigi Facta was prepared to resist.
  • King Victor Emmanuel III, however, refused to declare a state of emergency, and instead invited Mussolini — who had remained nervously in Milan — to come to Rome and form a new government, which he duly did, arriving by train.
• Afterwards, the fascists cultivated the myth that they had seized power through a heroic struggle, when in fact it had been achieved legally, through the mere threat of force, while the army and police stood aside.

The Role of the King

• The king made the crucial decision not to deploy the army against the blackshirts, though many historians believe the regular army would have had little difficulty dispersing the disorderly and poorly armed fascist squads, many of whom had arrived by train.
  • The march was, in essence, an enormous bluff that succeeded. The king’s precise motives for avoiding armed resistance remain something of a mystery, as he was reportedly reluctant to discuss them; possible explanations include:
    • a lack of confidence in Prime Minister Facta;
    • doubts over whether the army — given its fascist sympathies — could be relied upon to obey orders; and
    • fear of a protracted civil war should the army fail to crush the fascists quickly.
  • There is little doubt that the king held some genuine sympathy for the fascist aim of providing strong government, and also feared that some generals might force his abdication in favour of his cousin, the Duke of Aosta, who openly supported the fascists.
• Whatever the king’s true motives, the outcome was clear: Mussolini became the first fascist premier in history.

Characteristics of Fascism

• The term “fascist” was later applied to other regimes and rulers — including Hitler, Franco (Spain), Salazar (Portugal), and Perón (Argentina) — even though these movements sometimes differed considerably from the original Italian version.
  • Fascism never produced a great theoretical writer capable of clearly articulating its philosophy, in the way Marx did for communism, which makes it difficult to pin down precisely what it involved.
  • Mussolini’s constantly shifting aims before 1923 suggest his main concern was simply to acquire power; thereafter, he appears to have improvised his ideas as he went along.
• “The Doctrine of Fascism” — an essay attributed to Mussolini and first published in the Enciclopedia Italiana of 1932 — offers the main clue to fascism’s core characteristics, emphasising:
  • nationalism;
  • corporatism;
  • totalitarianism; and
  • militarism.
• Certain basic features eventually emerged as central to the fascism Mussolini had in mind.

A Stable and Authoritarian Government

• The Italian fascist movement arose as a reaction to a crisis situation that had rendered stable democratic government impossible, precisely when strong and decisive leadership was most needed.
  • An authoritarian government would arouse and mobilise the great mass of ordinary people, controlling as many aspects of their lives as possible through strong discipline.
• One expression of this was the “corporate state” — a means of promoting efficiency by establishing a separate organisation of workers and employers for each branch of the economy, with a government official attached to each “corporation.” In practice, it functioned as an effective means of controlling the workforce.

Extreme Nationalism

• Nationalism is often described as fascism’s defining feature — well supported in Mussolini’s essay, though he generally preferred to speak of “the state” rather than “the nation.”
  • The state lay at the very heart of Fascism. As Mussolini wrote: “The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative.”
  • The doctrine emphasised the rebirth of the nation after a period of decline, building up the greatness and prestige of the state, with the implication that one’s own nation was superior to all others.

Rejection of Individualism and the Absolute Primacy of the State

• Fascism opposed all individualistic abstractions rooted in 18th-century materialism.
  • Explicitly anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stressed the primacy of the state, accepting the individual only insofar as his interests coincided with those of the state.
  • The state guaranteed the country’s internal and external safety, while also safeguarding and transmitting the spirit of the people as elaborated through the ages in its language, customs, and faith.
  • The state passed down to future generations the memory of those who had laid down their lives to ensure its safety or obey its laws, setting them up as examples for future ages — the state was thus not only the present, but the past, and above all, the future.

A One-Party State Was Essential

• There was, in this view, no place for democratic debate, since it made decisive government impossible and impeded progress; only fascism could provide the dynamic action needed to guarantee Italy’s great future.
  • This also entailed the cult of a great, charismatic leader who would guide and inspire the nation toward greatness.
  • Mussolini did not see himself as a mere prime minister or president — instead he adopted the title il Duce (“the Leader”), much as Hitler styled himself the Führer.

Anti-Communism

• Fascism was especially hostile to communism, which explains much of its popularity with big business and the wealthy.

Elitism

• Salvation from mob rule and the destruction of the existing social order, on this view, could be achieved only through an authoritarian leader who embodied the nation’s highest ideals — the leader conceived as hero or superman.
  • Fascist party members were regarded as the elite of the nation, with great emphasis placed on the cult of the leader, who would win mass support through thrilling speeches and skilful propaganda.

A Totalitarian System of Government

• Totalitarianism is a political system in which the state recognises no limits to its authority, striving to regulate every feasible aspect of public and private life.
  • This kind of government sought to arouse and mobilise the great mass of ordinary people, controlling and organising as many aspects of their lives as possible through strong discipline, in the name of promoting the greatness of the state.
• Fascists believed in strict press censorship: anti-fascist newspapers and magazines were either banned or had their editors replaced with fascist loyalists, while radio, film, and theatre were controlled in the same manner. The fascists also closely supervised education.

Economic Self-Sufficiency (Autarky)

• Economic self-sufficiency was considered important to building the greatness of the state.
  • The government was expected to direct the nation’s economic life — not through Marxist-style state ownership of factories and land, but through corporatism, reflecting fascism’s particular hostility to communism.

Use of Propaganda

• Uniforms, marches, songs, and displays were all used to demonstrate that fascism represented a completely new and dynamic alternative to the “boring, old-fashioned” traditional parties, and to mobilise mass support behind the heroic leader.
  • Fascists were required to wear uniforms, and new textbooks were written to glorify the fascist system.
  • Children and young people were compelled to join government youth organisations, which indoctrinated them in the “brilliance of the Duce” and the glories of war.
• The other central message was total obedience to authority, deemed necessary since everything was framed in terms of struggle — captured in the slogan “Believe, obey, fight!”

Militarism and Social Darwinism

• In domestic affairs, the fascists were prepared to use extreme violence against opponents; Mussolini himself suggested an aggressive foreign policy would follow, once remarking: “Peace is absurd: fascism does not believe in it.”
  • Hence the fascists fostered the myth of having seized power by force, even though Mussolini had in fact been invited to form a government by the king. They tolerated violent treatment of opponents and critics, and pursued an aggressive foreign policy.
• The doctrine of “survival of the fittest” (Social Darwinism) and the necessity of struggle for life were applied by fascists to the life of the nation-state.
  • Peaceful, complacent nations were seen as doomed to fall before more dynamic ones, making struggle and aggressive militarism a leading characteristic of the fascist state — with imperialism the logical outcome of this doctrine.

Radicalism

• Fascism, though a movement of the right, was a movement of the radical right rather than the reactionary right.
  • It was authoritarian in nature and sought to suppress socialism and liberalism, but did so in pursuit of a new national order, rather than to turn the clock back to an era when Italy was ruled by feudal elites, kings, and popes.

Corporatism

• Mussolini himself remarked: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
  • The corporate state held that private enterprise in production was the most effective and useful instrument in the nation’s interest; since private production was deemed a matter of national concern, enterprise organisers remained responsible to the state for the direction given to production.
  • State intervention in economic production arose only where private initiative was lacking or insufficient, or where the state’s political interests were directly involved — such intervention could take the form of control, assistance, or direct management.
• The Fascist government believed in cooperation between employers and workers, aiming to end class warfare through what became known as the corporate state.
  • Fascist-controlled unions held the sole right to negotiate on behalf of workers, and both unions and employers’ associations were organised into corporations expected to work together to settle disputes over pay and working conditions.
  • Strikes and lockouts were both prohibited.

How Mussolini Tried to Introduce the Fascist State

• There was no sudden transformation of the system of government and state institutions; at first, Mussolini was merely the prime minister of a coalition cabinet in which only four of twelve ministers were fascists, requiring him to proceed cautiously.
  • The king, however, had granted him special powers lasting until the end of 1923 to deal with the crisis.
  • His blackshirt private army was legalised, becoming the National State Voluntary Militia (MVSN).
• The Acerbo Law (November 1923) changed the rules governing general elections: from then on, the party winning the most votes would automatically be awarded two-thirds of the seats in parliament.
  • As a result of the following election (April 1924), the fascists and their supporters won 404 seats, while the opposition parties managed only 107.
  • This right-wing success can be explained partly by a general public desire for strong government after the weak minority governments of previous years, but a good deal of violence and fraud during the election also prevented many people from voting freely.
• Beginning in the summer of 1924, using a mixture of violence and intimidation — and aided by divisions among his opponents — Mussolini gradually reshaped Italian government and society along fascist lines.
  • At the same time, he consolidated his own hold over the country, a process largely complete, at least politically, by 1930.
  • Even so, he appears to have had no genuinely “revolutionary” vision for improving Italy; his main interest remained simply the expansion of his own personal power, by whatever methods suited the moment.

Only the Fascist Party Was Allowed

• Persistent opponents of the regime were exiled or murdered — the most notorious case being that of Giacomo Matteotti, the socialist leader in the Italian parliament, who was stabbed to death after delivering a speech complaining of fraud and violence in the 1924 election and demanding that the result be declared invalid.
  • Later, another opposition leader, the liberal-conservative Giovanni Amendola, was beaten to death by fascist thugs.
• The fascists’ popularity slumped dramatically in the aftermath of these outrages, and the party seemed at risk of splitting, as many moderates felt matters had gone too far.
  • However, nobody proved willing to take the lead in uniting the opposition against the fascists, and Mussolini survived — partly because he was still seen as a safeguard against a communist or socialist takeover.
• After 1926, once Mussolini felt more secure, violence diminished considerably, and the Italian system was never as brutal as the Nazi regime in Germany.

Further Constitutional Changes

• Additional changes to the constitution followed:
  • the prime minister (Mussolini) became responsible only to the king, not to parliament (1925);
  • the prime minister gained the power to rule by decree, meaning new laws no longer required parliamentary debate (1926); and
  • the electorate was reduced from around 10 million to 3 million (restricted to the wealthiest).
• Although parliament continued to meet, all important decisions were now taken by the Fascist Grand Council, which always did as Mussolini instructed — in effect, Mussolini, who now adopted the title il Duce, had become a dictator.

Changes in Local Government

• Elected town councils and mayors were abolished, with towns instead run by officials appointed directly from Rome.

Education Supervised

• Education in schools and universities was closely supervised.
  • Teachers were required to wear uniforms and swear an oath of loyalty to the regime, while new textbooks were written to glorify the fascist system.
  • Children were encouraged to criticise any teacher who lacked enthusiasm for the party.
• Children and young people were encouraged to join government youth organisations, with branches for both boys and girls aged 6 to 21, organising sports and military parades.
  • A special organisation for young boys aged 6 to 8, known as the “Sons of the Wolf,” similarly sought to indoctrinate them with the brilliance of the Duce and the glories of war.
  • From 1937, membership of one of these organisations became compulsory.
  • The central message remained total obedience to authority, framed as necessary since everything was viewed in terms of struggle — “Believe, Obey, Fight!”

Employment Policies: Corporatism

• (Already discussed above under the Characteristics of Fascism.)

An Understanding Reached with the Pope

• The Papacy had remained hostile to the Italian government since 1870, when all territory belonging to it (the Papal States) had been incorporated into the new Kingdom of Italy.
  • Although he had been sympathetic to Mussolini in 1922, Pope Pius XI disapproved of the fascist government’s growing totalitarianism.
  • Mussolini — probably an atheist himself — was nevertheless well aware of the Roman Catholic Church’s power, and worked hard to win over the Pope, who, as the Duce well knew, was obsessed with the fear of communism.
• The result was the Lateran Treaty of 1929, under which:
  • Italy recognised Vatican City as a sovereign state;
  • paid the Pope a large sum in compensation for his losses;
  • accepted Catholicism as the official state religion;
  • made religious instruction compulsory in all schools; and
  • left the Church free to continue its spiritual mission without government interference.
  • In return, the Papacy recognised the Kingdom of Italy and promised not to interfere in politics.
• Some historians regard the healing of this long breach between Church and State as Mussolini’s most lasting and worthwhile achievement.

Propaganda and Censorship

• Great importance was attached to propaganda in the effort to win the Italian people over to fascist values and culture.
  • The government sought — with some success — to maintain close control over the press, radio, theatre, and cinema. Strict press censorship was enforced: anti-fascist newspapers and magazines were banned, or had their editors replaced with fascist loyalists.
  • A Ministry of Popular Culture was established in 1937 to coordinate the campaign to spread the fascist message — perhaps suggesting the effort had, until then, been less successful than hoped.
• The dominant themes were the cult of Mussolini as hero and man of action, invariably shown in uniform, and the celebration of military greatness.
  • People were bombarded with slogans such as “Mussolini is always right,” while the military glories of ancient Rome were constantly extolled, implying that fascism would bring similar military glory.

Racial Policy

• For much of his time in power, Mussolini showed little genuine interest in questions of race.
  • He had shown no earlier signs of anti-Jewish sentiment, and had even at times encouraged Zionism, believing it might prove useful in embarrassing the British.
  • Many leading fascist party members were Jewish, and Mussolini repeatedly insisted there was “no such thing” as a Jewish problem in Italy — indeed, he was openly critical of Nazi anti-Semitism.
• At the same time, he had claimed certain races were superior to others, suggesting that Italians belonged to an “Aryan” race superior to Spaniards and Greeks, as well as to Africans in the Italian territories of Abyssinia and Libya.
  • As late as September 1937, he continued to insist Jews posed no problem in Italy.
• In the summer of 1939, however, Mussolini abruptly announced the introduction of anti-Jewish laws modelled on the Nazi laws — a sudden reversal that shocked many, given his earlier pronouncements.
• The reasons for this change included:
  • the hostile reception from France and Britain to Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, and their imposition of economic sanctions, which pushed Mussolini toward an alliance with Hitler;
  • the Rome–Berlin Axis understanding reached with Hitler in 1936, followed by the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany and Japan in 1937, directed against communism;
  • a four-day visit to Germany in 1937, after which Mussolini recognised the political expediency of aligning Italy as closely as possible with Germany; and
  • the eventual full alliance with Germany through the Pact of Steel, signed in May 1939 — as Mussolini moved toward this alliance, he moved quickly to emulate Hitler, in what amounted to a cynical, tactical decision.
• A further motive lay in Italy’s African territories (Abyssinia and Libya): it was considered important for Italians to emphasise their domination over Africans and Arabs, showing the respect Mussolini believed was due to a “superior” race.
  • In July 1938, the Charter of Race was published, declaring Arabs, Africans, and Jews to be inferior races.
  • Mussolini began by urging that Jews not be employed, and that those already employed be dismissed; the press was then instructed to report that Jews had improperly gained influential positions that needed to be reversed before they “sent Italy into decline.”
• This policy proved unpopular with the general public, and when the Pope protested strongly, the press was ordered to print articles justifying the persecution of Jews while ignoring the Pope’s objections.
  • Although the fascists knew the Nazis were systematically murdering Jews, they nonetheless ordered thousands of Italian Jews deported to Germany — again a deeply unpopular policy, with some officials sabotaging or simply refusing to carry out these orders.

How Totalitarian Was Mussolini’s System?

Unable to Create a Complete Totalitarian System

• Despite his efforts, Mussolini did not succeed in creating a fully totalitarian system in the strict Fascist sense of “no individuals or groups not controlled by the state,” nor was his system as all-pervasive as the Nazi state in Germany.
  • A more accurate description of Mussolini’s system would be authoritarian rather than fully totalitarian.

The King Remained Influential

• Mussolini never entirely eliminated the influence of the king or the pope.
  • Despite the cult of Mussolini as il Duce, the king remained head of state, and it was he who was able to dismiss Mussolini in 1943.

The Pope Remained Powerful

• The Roman Catholic Church remained an extremely powerful institution, providing the Italian people with an alternative focus of loyalty.
  • Mussolini could not sideline it entirely, and several clashes occurred between the two even after the Lateran Treaty; the Pope became highly critical of Mussolini once he began persecuting Jews in the later 1930s.

Many Critics Survived

• Many historians, philosophers, and professors remained constant critics of fascism and yet survived — apparently because Mussolini feared hostile foreign reaction should he have them arrested.
  • Such critics would certainly not have been tolerated under Nazi Germany.

Failure of the Corporative System

• The corporative system succeeded neither in controlling production nor in eliminating class warfare.
  • On the whole, big industrialists made only token gestures of submission, effectively buying their freedom from the fascist state through generous subscriptions to Fascist party funds.
  • Most important economic decisions were taken by the government in consultation with business leaders, with workers themselves having very little say.
  • It was workers who bore the concessions — agreeing not to strike and giving up their own trade unions — while big employers retained considerable freedom of action.
• In practice, the corporate state amounted to little more than a propaganda exercise and a means of controlling the workforce.
  • As far as the general population was concerned, most were prepared to tolerate fascism while it appeared to deliver benefits, but grew weary of it once its inadequacies were exposed by failures during the Second World War.

What Benefits Did Fascism Bring for the Italian People?

A Promising Beginning

• Much of fascist policy centred on the economy, though Mussolini himself knew very little about economics.
  • The overriding drive was for self-sufficiency (autarky), considered essential for a “warrior-nation” — a great nation, in this view, must not depend on others for vital commodities like raw materials and food.
  • Mussolini liked to frame policy in terms of struggle, hence the various “Battles” — for the lira, for wheat, and for births.
• The early years appeared successful, at least according to government propaganda: industry was encouraged through government subsidies where necessary, and iron-steel production, artificial silk production, and hydro-electric output all increased through the 1930s.

The ‘Battle for the Lira’

• Mussolini believed Italy needed a strong currency to be a strong state, and revalued the lira at 90 to the pound sterling, instead of 150, in 1926.
  • This produced mixed results: it helped some industries, notably steel and chemicals, by making imported raw materials cheaper, but made Italian exports more expensive on world markets, reducing orders — particularly in the cotton industry — and led to wage reductions for workers.

The ‘Battle for Wheat’

• This policy encouraged farmers to concentrate on wheat production and raised tariffs on imported wheat, as part of the broader drive for self-sufficiency.
  • Results were again mixed: by 1935, wheat imports had been cut by 75%, bringing Italy close to self-sufficiency in wheat production — a policy popular with the wealthy cereal-growing farmers of the north, though it produced unexpected side effects, discussed below.

The ‘Battle for Births’

• Launched in 1927, this campaign aimed to increase the birth rate.
  • Mussolini believed a population of 40 million was too small for a country aspiring to great-power status, as it would simply not yield enough soldiers.
  • The target was to double the birth rate by 1950, to be achieved by:
    • taxing unmarried men heavily;
    • offering tax relief and workplace promotion to men with large families;
    • paying generous family allowances; and
    • imposing severe penalties for abortion.
  • Mussolini specified 12 children as the ideal family size.
• This proved to be one of Mussolini’s complete failures — young married couples evidently did not find the incentive package attractive, and the birth rate actually fell.

A Programme of Land Reclamation

• Launched in 1928, this involved draining marshes, irrigation, and forest planting in mountainous areas, again as part of the drive to improve agricultural yields.
  • The great showpiece of this effort was the reclamation of the Pontine Marshes near Rome.

A Public Works Programme

• An extensive public works programme was designed, among other things, to reduce unemployment.
  • It included the construction of motorways, bridges, blocks of flats, railway stations, sports stadiums, schools, and new towns on reclaimed land, alongside a start on electrifying main railway lines — giving rise to the famous fascist boast that Mussolini “had made the trains run on time.”
• Even Italian sportsmen prospered under fascism — the national football team won the World Cup twice, in 1934 and 1938.

The ‘After-Work’ (Dopolavoro) Organisation

• The Dopolavoro (“after-work”) organisation provided Italians with leisure activities: cheap holidays, tours, and cruises, alongside control of theatres, dramatic societies, libraries, orchestras, brass bands, and sporting organisations.
  • Mobile cinemas were provided, doubling as useful vehicles for propaganda, while very poor families could receive welfare support through Dopolavoro.
• All this was designed, in part, to compensate workers for the loss of their trade unions and the right to strike, and it proved genuinely popular — though as a propaganda exercise, it failed to generate any genuine enthusiasm for the fascist system itself.

Foreign Policy

• To promote Italy’s image as a great power, Mussolini pursued an assertive foreign policy, though he grew considerably more cautious through the later 1920s and early 1930s.
  • In many ways, however, the early promise of Mussolini’s rule was never fully realised.

Unsolved Problems

• Even before Italy became involved in the Second World War, it was clear that fascism had failed to solve many of the country’s underlying problems.

Little Progress on Italy’s Raw Material Shortage

• By 1940, it was clear Italy had failed to become self-sufficient in coal, oil, and steel — essential prerequisites if Mussolini was serious about waging war.
  • Despite a modest increase in iron and steel production, Italy could not even match a small state like Belgium.
  • This failure left Italy increasingly economically dependent on Nazi Germany.

Failure of the ‘Battle of Wheat’

• Although the “Battle of Wheat” was nominally a victory, it was achieved only at the expense of dairy and arable farming, whose output declined.
  • The southern Italian climate was far better suited to grazing and orchards than to wheat cultivation, which would have proven considerably more lucrative for farmers.
  • As a result, agriculture remained inefficient, and farm labourers remained the poorest class in the country, with their wages actually falling during the 1930s.
• Italy retained what is known as a “dualist economy” — an industrial and comparatively prosperous north, alongside a largely agricultural, backward, and poverty-stricken south.
  • In 1940, the wealthiest 1% of the population still owned 40% of all the land.
  • The broader drive for self-sufficiency proved a dismal failure overall, causing an unpopular shortage of consumer goods and greatly increasing Italy’s national debt.

The Great Depression and Economic Problems

• The Great Depression, beginning in 1929 with the Wall Street Crash, made matters considerably worse.
  • Exports fell further and unemployment rose, yet the Duce refused to devalue the lira until 1936. Instead, wages and salaries were cut; although the cost of living was falling due to the Depression, wages fell even further than prices, leaving workers with a real fall in income.
  • Particularly frustrating for industrial workers was their inability to protest, since strikes remained illegal and the unions weak.
• The economy was further hampered by the League of Nations sanctions imposed on Italy after the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and some banks fell into difficulty as struggling manufacturers proved unable to repay their loans.

Failure in Social Services

• Another notable failing was in social services, with nothing approaching a genuine “welfare state” ever established.
  • There was no official government health insurance until 1943, and only an inadequate unemployment insurance scheme, which remained unimproved even during the Depression.

An Inefficient and Corrupt Regime

• The regime proved inefficient and corrupt, with many of its policies never fully carried out.
  • Despite all the publicity surrounding land reclamation, for instance, only about one-tenth of the programme had been completed by 1939, and immense sums of money disappeared into the pockets of corrupt officials.
  • Part of the problem lay in Mussolini’s own insistence on doing everything himself, refusing to delegate in his pursuit of total control — while he issued a constant stream of orders, he had no reliable means of verifying that they were actually carried out.

Opposition and Downfall

• After the initial flush of enthusiasm for Mussolini and his new system, the average Italian appears to have felt little lasting benefit from the regime, with disenchantment likely setting in well before the Second World War began.
  • Even so, there was surprisingly little overt opposition to Mussolini, for several reasons:
    • it was difficult to organise opposition within parliament;
    • heavy punishments awaited opponents and critics; and
    • fear of the political police tended to drive serious opposition underground, though this police apparatus was considerably less repressive and brutal than Hitler’s Gestapo.
  • Italians also had a long tradition of accepting political developments with a minimum of fuss and a good deal of resignation.
• The government continued to control the media, which persistently portrayed Mussolini as a hero.
  • Despite mounting problems, Mussolini could usually count on the support of the traditional elites — the king, the aristocracy, and wealthy landlords and industrialists — who continued to view him as their best insurance against the communists.

Why Was Mussolini Eventually Overthrown?

• Entry into the Second World War on Germany’s side proved a disastrous mistake.
  • The majority of Italians opposed it; they had already disapproved when Mussolini began dismissing Jews from important positions in 1938, and increasingly felt Italy was becoming a mere German satellite.
  • While the takeover of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) had been popular, the Second World War was an entirely different matter.
• Mussolini had failed to modernise the Italian economy sufficiently to sustain a prolonged war: the army remained equipped with obsolete rifles and artillery, with only about a thousand planes and no heavy tanks.
  • The declaration of war on the USA (December 1941) horrified many of Mussolini’s right-wing supporters, such as industrialists and bankers, who resented the tighter economic controls that wartime conditions brought.
  • As for the general public, Mussolini had never succeeded in converting them to his ambitions for European war and conquest — all the propaganda invoking the glories of ancient Rome had failed to arouse any genuine fighting spirit or military enthusiasm.
• The general public suffered growing hardships: taxes were raised to fund the war, food rationing was introduced, inflation soared, and real wages fell by roughly 30%.
  • After November 1942, British bombing raids struck major cities, and by March 1943, unrest had erupted into strikes in Milan and Turin — the first since 1922.
• A string of military defeats followed a handful of early successes, culminating in the surrender of all Italian troops in North Africa (May 1943).
  • Mussolini himself seemed to have lost his touch, suffering from a stomach ulcer and severe nervous strain; his main response was simply to dismiss ministers who had criticised him.
• The breaking point came with the Allied capture of Sicily (July 1943).
  • Many fascist leaders themselves recognised the futility of continuing the war, but Mussolini refused to make peace, as this would have meant deserting Hitler.
  • The Fascist Grand Council ultimately turned against Mussolini, and the king dismissed him; nobody moved to save him, and fascism disappeared.

Verdict on Italian Fascism

• This remains a highly controversial topic within Italy, where memories of personal experience remain strong. Two broad interpretations of the fascist era exist:
  • that it was a temporary aberration in Italian history, the work solely of Mussolini himself; or
  • that fascism grew naturally out of Italian history, with the environment and circumstances shaping its rise and success, rather than the reverse.
• Most historians today accept the second theory — that the roots of fascism lay within traditional Italian society, and that the movement matured in the particular circumstances following the First World War.
  • Italian historian Renzo de Felice argued that fascism was primarily a movement of an “emerging middle class” seeking to challenge the traditional liberal ruling class for power, claiming the movement achieved a great deal — particularly the modernisation of Italy’s economy, which had been very backward in 1918.
  • British historian Martin Blinkhorn, by contrast, disputes this economic claim, arguing that de Felice paid insufficient attention to “the negative and brutal side of Fascism.”

Revisionist Historians’ Views

• Revisionist historians portray Mussolini as an inspirational leader who could do little wrong until his fatal mistake of entering the Second World War.
  • On this view, Mussolini not only saved Italy from anarchy and communist subversion, but his domestic policies brought genuine benefits to the Italian people and raised their living standards.
  • Other genuine successes cited include the ending of the historic quarrel between the Roman Catholic Church and the Italian state.
• Revisionists also suggest that had Britain and France handled Mussolini with greater care between 1935 and 1940, he might have been persuaded to join the Allied side in the Second World War.
  • After all, in 1934, when Hitler made his first attempt to take over Austria, Mussolini was the only European leader to stand up to him — the Second World War might conceivably have been avoided, had Mussolini not been alienated by Britain’s dismissal of fascism as merely “a short-term moral infection.”

Comparison Between Nazism and Fascism

• There is sometimes confusion between the terms “Nazism” and “fascism.” Mussolini founded the first fascist party in Italy; the term was subsequently applied — not always entirely accurately — to other right-wing movements and governments.
  • In practice, each variant of so-called “fascism” possessed its own distinct features; in the case of the German Nazis, there were many similarities to Mussolini’s fascist system, but also important differences.

Similarities

• Both movements were intensely anti-communist, drawing solid support across all social classes precisely because of this stance.
• Both were anti-democratic, attempting to build totalitarian states that controlled industry, agriculture, and the population’s way of life, thereby limiting personal freedom.
• Both pursued national self-sufficiency and emphasised the close unity of all classes working together toward these ends.
• Both emphasised the supremacy of the state, were intensely nationalistic, glorified war, and cultivated the cult of a hero-leader who would guide the nation’s rebirth from its troubles.

Differences

• Depth of penetration: Fascism never seemed to take root in Italy as deeply as the Nazi system did in Germany.
• Efficiency: The Italian system proved considerably less efficient than its German counterpart.
  • Italy never came close to achieving self-sufficiency and never eliminated unemployment, which in fact rose; the Nazis, by contrast, succeeded in eliminating unemployment, though they too never achieved complete autarky.
• Brutality: The Italian system was never as ruthless or brutal as the German one, and did not produce mass atrocities — though it did include unpleasant incidents such as the murders of Matteotti and Amendola.
• Nationalism and racism: Fascism was fuelled by nationalism, but did not reject other nationalities outright, provided they accepted the culture and language of “the superior Italian nation.”
  • Mussolini focused on territorial expansion rather than the creation of an ethnically “pure” Italian state; Italian fascism was not particularly anti-Jewish or racist until 1938, when Mussolini finally introduced anti-Semitic laws and declared Italians descendants of an “Aryan race” (a shift that coincided with his growing alignment with Hitler) — a move widely perceived at the time as un-Italian, and even un-Fascist.
• The state as the highest idea: Where Fascism glorified the state as the highest ideal, Nazism instead considered “Aryanism” paramount, viewing the state merely as living space for “the master race,” which needed to incorporate the entire geopolitical area inhabited by ethnic Germans.
• Religious policy: Mussolini proved considerably more successful than Hitler in his religious policy, following his 1929 agreement with the Pope.
• Constitutional positions: The two regimes’ constitutional arrangements differed significantly — the monarchy remained in place in Italy, and though Mussolini normally ignored Victor Emmanuel, the king played a decisive role in 1943 when Mussolini’s critics turned to him as head of state, formally announcing Mussolini’s dismissal and ordering his arrest.
  • Unfortunately for Germany, there was no equivalent figure capable of dismissing Hitler.
• Corporatism: The Fascists supported corporatism, whereas the Nazis rejected it, even as they supported state intervention in the economy and cultural production.
  • The Nazis viewed modernism as a sign of cultural degeneration, promoting “healthy” art that reinforced Nazi doctrine, whereas the Italian Fascists did not restrict artistic expression, instead encouraging creativity rather than mandating any single Fascist style.
• Class system and social mobility: Nazism treated the class-based society as an enemy, seeking to unify the population along racial rather than class lines, whereas Fascism sought to preserve the existing class system.
  • The Fascists were broadly accepting of social mobility, while the Nazis remained opposed to it.