Everything about Italian Fascism totally explained
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For the party of Mussolini, see National Fascist Party. » For the two Italian states called "Fascist Italy", see Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946) and Italian Social Republic
For the general overview of fascism, see Fascism. » For the range of scholalry debate, see Definitions of Fascism.
Italian Fascism (in
Italian,
fascismo) was the
authoritarian political movement which ruled
Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of
Benito Mussolini. German
Nazism, under
Adolf Hitler, was inspired by Italian Fascism but only came to power ten years later in 1933. Similar movements appeared throughout the world including
Europe,
Japan, and
Latin America between
World War I and
World War II. Although
Fascism, strictly speaking, refers only to Italian fascism, the word is often used to describe similar ideologies and movements. Italian Fascism is often considered to be a proper noun and thus denoted by a capital letter "F", whereas generic fascism is conventionally represented with the lower-case character "f". Italian Fascism is considered a model for other forms of fascism, yet there's disagreement over which aspects of structure, tactics, culture, and ideology represent a "fascist minimum" or core.
Doctrine
Fascism combined elements of
corporatism,
nationalism,
militarism, anti-
liberalism and
anti-Communism. After
World War II, several authors forged the concept of
totalitarianism to refer both to Fascism and
Nazism and, in some cases,
Stalinism (although the latter point, in particular, has been controversial). Another central theme of Italian fascism was the struggle against what it described as the corrupt "
plutocracies" of the time, France and Britain in particular.
Fascist philosopher
Giovanni Gentile wrote in 1932, in the
Enciclopedia Italiana, an article titled "
The Doctrine of Fascism," which has been later attributed to
Benito Mussolini. Gentile had previously coined the term "
statolatry" to refers to his doctrine. In this 1932 article, written a year before
Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Fascism is described as a system in which:
"the resolute negation of the doctrine underlying so-called scientific and Marxian socialism" [...] and as rejecting in democracy
"the absurd conventional lie of political equalitarianism, the habit of collective irresponsibility, the myth of felicity and indefinite progress". finding ways to unite Labour and Capital to prevent
class war. In 1926 he created the National Council of Corporations, divided into guilds of employers and employees, tasked with managing 22 sectors of the economy. The guilds subsumed both labor unions and management, and were represented in a chamber of corporations through a triad comprised of a representative from management, from labour and from the
Partito Nazionale Fascista. Together they'd plan aspects of the economy for mutual advantage. The movement was supported by small
capitalists, low-level
bureaucrats, and the
middle classes, who had all felt threatened by the rise in power of the Socialists. Fascism also met with great success in rural areas, especially among farmers, peasants, and in the city, the
lumpenproletariat.
Establishment of the Fascist state
Mussolini's fascist state was established more than a decade before
Hitler's rise to power (
1922 and the
March on Rome). Both a movement and a historical phenomenon, Italian Fascism was, in many respects, an adverse reaction to both the apparent failure of
laissez-faire economics and fear of
Communism.
Fascism was, to an extent, a product of a general feeling of anxiety and fear among the
middle class of postwar
Italy. This fear arose from a convergence of interrelated
economic,
political, and
cultural pressures. Under the banner of this
authoritarian and
nationalistic ideology, Mussolini was able to exploit fears regarding the survival of
capitalism in an era in which postwar
depression, the rise of a more militant left, and a feeling of national shame and humiliation stemming from Italy's 'mutilated victory' at the hands of the
World War I postwar peace treaties seemed to converge. 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.
This same postwar depression heightened the allure of Marxism among an urban proletariat who were even more disenfranchised than their continental counterparts. But fear of the growing strength of
trade unionism, Communism, and
socialism proliferated among the
elite and the middle class. In a way, Benito Mussolini filled a
political vacuum.
Fascism emerged as a "third way" — as Italy's last hope to avoid imminent collapse of the 'weak' Italian
liberalism, and Communist
revolution.
In this fluid situation, Mussolini took advantage of the opportunity and, rapidly abandoning the early syndicalist and
republican program, put himself at the service of the antisocialist cause. The fascist
militias, supported by the
wealthy classes and by a large part of the state apparatus which saw in him the restorer of order, launched a violent offensive against the syndicalists and all political parties of a socialist or
Catholic inspiration, particularly in the north of Italy (Emiglia Romagna, Toscana, etc.), causing numerous victims though the substantial indifference of the forces of order. These acts of violence were, in large part, provoked by fascist
squadristi who were increasingly and openly supported by
Dino Grandi, the only real competitor to Mussolini for the
leadership of the fascist party until the Congress of Rome in 1921.
The violence increased considerably during the period from 1920-1922 until the
March on Rome. Confronted by
these badly armed and badly organized fascist militias attacking the
Capital,
King Victor Emmanuel III, preferring to avoid any spilling of blood, decided to appoint Mussolini, who at that moment had the support of 35 deputies in
Parliament,
President of the Council. Victor Emmanuel continued to maintain control of the
armed forces: if he'd wanted to, and he did consider it, he'd have had no difficulties in booting Mussolini and the completely inferior fascist forces out of Rome. Therefore, it isn't appropriate to refer to Mussolini's rise as a "
coup d'état" since he obtained his post legally with the blessing of the
sovereign of the nation.
Rule
As Prime Minister, the first years of Mussolini's reign were characterized by a coalition government composed of nationalists, liberals and populists and didn't assume dictatorial connotations until the assassination of
Matteotti. In domestic politics, Mussolini favoured the complete restoration of State authority, with the integration of the
Fasci di Combattimento into the armed forces (the foundation in January 1923 of the
Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale) and the progressive identification of the Party with the State. He supported the wealthy industrial and agrarian classes through the introduction of legislation that provided for privatization, the liberalization of rent laws, and the banning of unions.
In June of 1923, a new majoritarian electoral law - the Acerbo Law - was approved which assigned two thirds of the seats in Parliament to the coalition which had obtained at least 25% of the votes. The Acerbo Law was punctually applied in the elections of
6 April 1924, in which the fascist "listone" obtained an extraordinary success, aided by the use of shenanigans, violence and intimidatory tactics against opponents.
The assassination of the socialist deputy
Giacomo Matteotti, who had requested the annulment of the elections because of the irregularities committed, provoked a momentary crisis of the Mussolini government. The weak response of the opposition (the
Aventine Secession), incapable of transforming their posturing into a mass antifascist action, wasn't sufficient to distance the ruling classes and the Monarchy from Mussolini who, on
3 January 1925, broke open the floodgates and, in a famous discourse in which he took upon himself all of the responsibility for the assassination of Matteotti and the other squadrist violence, proclaimed
a
de facto dictatorship, suppressing every residual liberty and completing the identification of the Fascist Party with the State.
From 1925 until the middle of the 1930s, fascism experienced little and isolated opposition, although that which it experienced was memorable, consisting in large part of communists such as
Antonio Gramsci, socialists such as
Pietro Nenni and liberals such as
Piero Gobetti and
Giovanni Amendola.
While failing to outline a coherent program, fascism evolved into a new political and economic system that combined corporatism, totalitarianism, nationalism, and anti-Communism in a state designed to bind all classes together under a capitalist system. This was a new capitalist system, however, one in which the state seized control of the organization of vital industries. Under the banners of nationalism and state power, Fascism seemed to synthesize the glorious Roman past with a futuristic utopia.
Despite the themes of social and economic reform in the initial
Fascist manifesto of June 1919, the movement came to be supported by sections of the middle class fearful of socialism and communism. Industrialists and landowners supported the movement as a defense against labour militancy. Under threat of a fascist
March on Rome, in October 1922, Mussolini assumed the premiership of a right-wing coalition
Cabinet initially including members of the pro-church
Partito Popolare (People's Party). In April 1926 the
Rocco Law outlawed
strikes and
lockouts and suppressed trade-unions, replaced by Fascist syndicates grouped into corporations. Headed by
Arturo Bocchini, the
OVRA secret police was created in September 1926, and the
Casellario Politico Centrale filing system on political opponents generalized. In October 1926 a "
Law for the Defense of the State" banned all political parties apart of the Fascist Party, established a Special Tribunal for the Security of the State and reinstated the
death penalty. Furthermore, in September 1928 a new electoral law decreed that the whole composition of parliament should be determined by the
Fascist Grand Council headed by Mussolini.
The regime's most lasting political achievement was perhaps the
Lateran Treaty of February 1929 between the Italian state and the
Holy See. Under this treaty, the
Papacy was granted temporal sovereignty over the
Vatican City and guaranteed the free exercise of Roman Catholicism as the sole state religion throughout Italy in return for its acceptance of Italian sovereignty over the Pope's former dominions. It must be said that some (not all) laws of the lateran treaty where kept alive until 1984, when all of the lateran treaty was fully dismissed.
In the 1930s, Italy recovered from the
Great Depression, and achieved economic growth in part by developing domestic substitutes for imports (
Autarchia). The draining of the malaria-infested Pontine Marshes south of Rome was one of the regime's proudest boasts. But growth was undermined by international sanctions following Italy's October 1935 invasion of
Ethiopia (the
Abyssinia crisis), and by the government's costly military support for
Franco's Nationalists in
Spain.
See Economy of Italy under Fascism, 1922-1943 for further information.
The moderate Socialist
Carlo Rosselli was assassinated in 1937 in France by members of the
Cagoule terrorist group, probably on orders of Mussolini himself.
Invasion of Ethiopia
The
invasion of Ethiopia (formerly
Abyssinia) was accomplished rapidly (the proclamation of Empire took place in May of 1936) and involved several atrocities such as the use of
chemical weapons (
mustard gas and
phosgene) and the indiscriminate slaughter of much of the local population to prevent opposition.
Fascism and anti-Semitism
The Fascists passed anti-Semitic laws in autumn 1938, which excluded foreign Jews, prohibited all Jews from teaching and excluded them from the Fascist Party. Legislation enacting
racial discrimination were progressively put in place, in accordance to the "
scientific racism" theories upheld in Fascist political reviews, such as
La Difesa della Razza. Jews were excluded from the military and from the administration, while an "
aryanisation" of Jewish goods was put in place — actually, an
expropriation of their goods. An anti-Semitic
hate campaign was put in place, while the legislation was strictly applied. As it had little or nothing to do with them, neither the monarchy nor the Church protested against the latter.
Many authors have interpreted these anti-Semitic laws as an imitation by Mussolini of
Nazi racist legislation. However, historian Marie-Anne Matard-Bonucci (2007) has upheld, to the contrary, the idea that anti-Semitism founded its roots in the Fascist movement itself: with the establishment of the Fascist state and Mussolini's anthropological project of creating a "new (Italian) man," the needs arose of creating the figure of the "anti-Italian," symbolized by the Jewish people. "The persecution of the Italian Jews was one of the inner components of the totalitarian logic," thus wrote Matard-Bonucci.
50,000 Jews then lived in Italy. Despite this anti-Semitic policy, Mussolini didn't implement an extermination program similar to Hitler's decision, the so-called "
Final Solution to the Jewish Problem." Thus, 3/4 of the Italian Jews survived World War II. 8,000 Jews died in
extermination camps, deported by Nazis, but only after Italy's switch to the Allied side and during the
Salo Republic starting in December 1943. The country also hosted the International Centre for Fascist Studies (CINEF) and the 1934 congress of the Action Committee for the Universality of Rome (CAUR), two Italian-led initiatives.
In
Spain early fascist writer
Ernesto Giménez Caballero called for Italy to annex Spain in his 1932 book
Genio de España, with Mussolini at the head of an international Latin
Roman Catholic empire. He would later become more closely associated with
Falangism, leading to his ideas of Italian annexation being put aside.
Fascist mottos and sayings
Me ne frego, "I don't give a damn": the Italian Fascist motto
Libro e moschetto - fascista perfetto, "The book and the musket - make the perfect Fascist."
Viva la Morte, "Long live death (sacrifice)."
The above mentioned Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato, "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State."
Credere, Obbedire, Combattere ("Believe, Obey, Fight")
Se avanzo, seguitemi. Se indietreggio, uccidetemi. Se muoio, vendicatemi, ("If I advance, follow me. If I retreat, kill me. If I die, avenge me")Further Information
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