Benito Mussolini

:For other people called Mussolini, see Mussolini (disambiguation).

Birth of Fascism

The word "Fascio" had existed in Italian politics for some time. A section of midget revolutionary syndicalists broke with the Socialists over the issue of Italy's entry into the First World War. Mussolini agreed with them. These syndicalists formed a group called Fasci d'azione rivoluzionaria internazionalista in October 1914. Massimo Rocca and Tulio Masotti asked Mussolini to settle the contradiction of his support for interventionism and still being the editor of Avanti and an official party functionary in the Socialist Party. (1) Two weeks later, he joined the Milan fascio. In November, 1914, supported by his then mistress Margherita Sarfatti, he founded a new newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia, (The Italian People) and the prowar group Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria. Mussolini was attracted to fasces, the ancient Roman symbol of the life-and-death power of the state, bundles of the lictors' rods of chastisement which, when bound together, were stronger than when they were apart — reflecting the intellectual debt that fascism owed to socialism and presaging the symbolism of the renewed Roman imperium Mussolini promised to bring about. Mussolini claimed that it would help strengthen a relatively new nation (which had been united only in the 1860s in the Risorgimento), although some would say that he wished for a collapse of society that would bring him to power. Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance, thereby allied with Imperial Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It did not join the war in 1914 but did in 1915 — as Mussolini wished — on the side of Britain and France.

Related Topics:
Fascio - Syndicalists - First World War - 1914 - Massimo Rocca - Tulio Masotti - Milan - November - Margherita Sarfatti - Fasces - Lictor - Socialism - Risorgimento - Triple Alliance - Austro-Hungarian Empire - 1915

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Called up for military service, Mussolini was wounded in grenade practice in 1917 and returned to edit his paper. Fascism became an organized political movement following a meeting in Milan on March 23, 1919 (Mussolini founded the Fasci di Combattimento on February 23, however). After failing in the 1919 elections, Mussolini at last entered parliament in 1921. The Fascisti formed armed squads of war veterans called squadristi to terrorize socialists and communists. The government seldom interfered. In return for the support of a group of industrialists and agrarians, Mussolini gave his approval (often active) to strikebreaking, and he abandoned revolutionary agitation. When the liberal governments of Giovanni Giolitti, Ivanoe Bonomi, and Luigi Facta failed to stop the spread of anarchy, and after Fascists had organised the demonstrative and threatening Marcia su Roma ("March on Rome") (October 28th 1922), Mussolini was invited by Vittorio Emanuele III to form a new government. He became the youngest Premier in the history of Italy on October 31.

Related Topics:
Political movement - Milan - March 23 - 1919 - February 23 - 1921 - ''squadristi'' - March on Rome - October 28 - 1922 - Vittorio Emanuele III - Italy - October 31

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Although many people believe that Mussolini became prime minister because of the march on Rome, this is not true. The King, Victor Emmanuel III, knew that if he did not choose a government under either the Fascist or Socialist party, Italy would be in a civil war in the near future. So, he asked Mussolini to become Prime Minister. This cancelled the need for the march on Rome, but all of the fascists were already coming, from all around Italy. He knew he could not send them back, so he decided to go on with the march, even though he did not need it.

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Mussolini's Fascist state, established nearly a decade before Adolf Hitler's rise to power, would provide a model for Hitler's later economic and political policies. Both a movement and a historical phenomenon, Italian Fascism was, in many respects, an adverse reaction to both the perceived failure of laissez-faire economics and fear of international Bolshevism (a short-lived Soviet was established in Bavaria just about this time), although trends in intellectual history, such as the breakdown of positivism and the general fatalism of postwar Europe were also factors. Fascism was a product of a general feeling of anxiety and fear among the middle-class of postwar Italy, arising out of a convergence of interrelated economic, political, and cultural pressures. Italy had no long-term tradition of parliamentary compromise, and public discourse took on an inflammatory tone on all sides.

Related Topics:
Adolf Hitler - Laissez-faire - Bolshevism - Intellectual history - Positivism

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Under the banner of this authoritarian and nationalist ideology, Mussolini was able to exploit fears in an era in which postwar depression, the rise of a more militant left, and a feeling of national shame and humiliation stemming from its 'mutilated victory' at the hands of the World War I peace treaties seemed to converge. Italian influence in the Aegean and abroad seemed impotent and disregarded by the greater powers, and Italy lacked colonies. Such unfulfilled nationalistic aspirations tainted the reputation of liberalism and constitutionalism among many sectors of the Italian population. In addition, such democratic institutions had never grown to become firmly rooted in the young nation-state. And as the same postwar depression heightened the allure of Marxism among an urban proletariat even more disenfranchised than their continental counterparts, fear regarding the growing strength of trade unionism, communism, and socialism proliferated among the elite and the middle class .

Related Topics:
World War I - Power - Marxism - Trade union - Communism - Socialism

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Fascism emerged as a "third way" — as Italy's last hope to avoid imminent collapse of 'weak' Italian liberalism or communist revolution. While failing to outline a coherent program, it evolved into new political and economic system that combined corporatism, nationalism, and anti-communism in a state designed to bind all classes together under a capitalist system. It was a new capitalist system in which the state seized control of the organization of vital industries. The appeal of this movement, the promise of a more orderly capitalism during an era of interwar depression, however, was not isolated to Italy, or even Europe.

Related Topics:
Corporatism - Nationalism

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