Benito Mussolini

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

Fascist dictatorship

At first Mussolini was supported by the Liberals in parliament. With their help, he introduced strict censorship and altered the methods of election so that in 1925–1926 he was able to assume dictatorial powers and dissolve all other political parties.

Related Topics:
1925 - 1926

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Skillfully using his absolute control over the press, he gradually built up the legend of Il duce, a man who never slept, was always right, and could solve all the problems of politics and economics. He introduced the Press Laws in 1925 which stated that all journalists must be registered Fascists. However, not all newspapers were taken into public ownership and Corriere della Sera sold on average 10 times as many copies as the leading Fascist newspaper 'Il Popolo D'Italia'.

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Italy was soon a police state. The assassination of the prominent Socialist Giacomo Matteotti in 1924, began a prolonged political crisis in Italy, which did not end until the beginning of 1925 when Mussolini asserted his personal authority over both country and party to establish a personal dictatorship. Mussolini's skill in propaganda was such that he had surprisingly little opposition to suppress.

Related Topics:
Police state - Socialist - Giacomo Matteotti

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At various times after 1922, Mussolini personally took over the ministries of the interior, of foreign affairs, of the colonies, of the corporations, of the army and the other armed services, and of public works. Sometimes he held as many as seven departments simultaneously, as well as the premiership. He was also head of the all-powerful Fascist party (formed in 1921) and the armed local Fascist militia, the MVSN or Blackshirts that terrorized incipient resistances in the cities and provinces. He would later form an institutionalised militia that carried official state support, the OVRA. In this way he succeeded in keeping power in his own hands and preventing the emergence of any rival. But it was at the price of creating a regime that was overcentralized, inefficient, and corrupt.

Related Topics:
1922 - 1921 - MVSN - OVRA

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Most of his time was spent on propaganda, whether at home or abroad, and here his training as a journalist was invaluable. Press, radio, education, films — all were carefully supervised to manufacture the illusion that fascism was the doctrine of the 20th century, replacing liberalism and democracy. The principles of this doctrine were laid down in the article on fascism, written by Giovanni Gentile and signed by Mussolini that appeared in 1932 in the Enciclopedia Italiana. In 1929, a concordat with the Vatican was signed, by which the Italian state was at last recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, and the independence of Vatican City was recognized by the Italian state.

Related Topics:
Giovanni Gentile - 1932 - Enciclopedia Italiana - 1929 - Vatican - Roman Catholic Church - Vatican City

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Under the dictatorship, the effectiveness of parliamentary system was virtually abolished though its forms were publicly preserved. The law codes were rewritten. All teachers in schools and universities had to swear an oath to defend the Fascist regime. Newspaper editors were all personally chosen by Mussolini himself, and no one could practice journalism who did not possess a certificate of approval from the Fascist party. The trade unions were also deprived of any independence and were integrated into what was called the "cooperative" system. The aim (never completely achieved), inspired by medieval guilds, was to place all Italians in various professional organizations or "corporations", all of them under governmental control.

Related Topics:
Parliamentary system - "cooperative" system

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Mussolini played up to his financial backers at first by transferring a number of industries from public to private ownership. But by the 1930s he had begun moving back to the opposite extreme of rigid governmental control of industry. A great deal of money was spent on highly visible public works, and on international prestige projects such as The Rex, Blue Riband ocean liner http://www.greatoceanliners.net/rex.html, but the economy suffered from his strenuous efforts to make Italy self-sufficient. A concentration on heavy industry proved problematic, because Italy lacked the basic resources.

Related Topics:
Blue Riband - Self-sufficient

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In foreign policy, Mussolini soon shifted from the pacifist anti-imperialism of his lead-up to power, to an extreme form of aggressive nationalism. An early example of this was his bombardment of Corfu in 1923. Soon after this he succeeded in setting up a puppet regime in Albania and in ruthlessly consolidating Italian power in Libya, loosely a colony since 1912. It was his dream to make the Mediterranean mare nostrum ("our sea" in Latin). In 1935, at the Stresa Conference, he helped create an anti-Hitler front in order to defend the independence of Austria. But his successful war against Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935–1936 was opposed by the League of Nations, this eventually led to Hitler seaking an alliance with fascist Italy. His active intervention in 1936-1939 on the side of Franco in the Spanish Civil War ended any possibility of reconciliation with France and Britain. As a result, he had to accept the German annexation of Austria in 1938 and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1939. At the Munich Conference in September 1938 he posed as a moderate working for European peace. But his "axis' with Germany was confirmed when he made the "Pact of Steel" with Hitler in May 1939. Clearly the subordinate partner, Mussolini followed the Nazis in adopting a racial policy that led to persecution of the Jews and the creation of apartheid in the Italian empire. Before this, Jews were not specifically persecuted by Mussolini's government, and were permitted to be high members of the Party. In fact, Mussolini has been said to have saved more Jews than even Oskar Schindler. Later, he would refuse to allow Jews to be deported to concentration camps until Germany occupied Italy during the war (a period depicted in the movie, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis). Members of TIGR, a Slovene anti-fascist group, plotted to kill Mussolini in Kobarid in 1938, but this was unsuccessful.

Related Topics:
Nationalism - Corfu - Albania - Libya - Mediterranean - Stresa Conference - Hitler - Austria - Ethiopia - League of Nations - Franco - Spanish Civil War - France - Britain - Czechoslovakia - Munich Conference - Pact of Steel - Nazi - The Garden of the Finzi-Continis - TIGR - Kobarid

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