13.3 Fascism in Italy

Read the following section and answer the questions that follow. 
Fascism in Italy

Terms, People, and Places
Benito Mussolini
Black Shirts
March on Rome
totalitarian state
fascism

A New Leader
In the early 1920s, a new leader named Benito Mussolini arose in Italy. The Italian people were
inspired by Mussolini’s promises to bring stability and glory to Italy.
“[Only joy at finding such a leader] can explain the enthusiasm [Mussolini] evoked at gathering after gathering, where his mere presence drew the people from all sides to greet him with frenzied acclamations. Even the men who at first came out of mere curiosity and with indifferent or even hostile feelings gradually felt themselves fired by his personal magnetic influence. . . .”
—Margherita G. Sarfatti, The Life of Benito Mussolini

Fascism in Italy
“I hated politics and politicians,” said Italo Balbo. Like many Italian veterans of World War I, he had come home to a land of economic chaos and political corruption. Italy’s constitutional government, he felt, “had betrayed the hopes of soldiers, reducing Italy to a shameful peace.” Disgusted and angry, Balbo rallied behind a fiercely nationalist leader, Benito Mussolini. Mussolini’s rise to power in the 1920s served as a model for ambitious strongmen elsewhere in Europe.

Mussolini’s Rise to Power
When Italy agreed to join the Allies in 1915, France and Britain secretly promised to give Italy certain Austro-Hungarian territories. When the Allies won, Italy received some of the promised territories, but others became part of the new Yugoslavia. The broken promises outraged Italian nationalists.
Disorders within Italy multiplied. Inspired in part by the revolution in Russia, peasants seized land, and workers went on strike or seized factories. Amid the chaos, returning veterans faced
unemployment. Trade declined and taxes rose. The government, split into feuding factions, seemed powerless to end the crisis.

A Leader Emerges 
Into this turmoil stepped Benito Mussolini. The son of a socialist blacksmith and a teacher, Mussolini had been a socialist in his youth. During the war, however, he rejected socialism for intense nationalism. In 1919, he organized veterans and other discontented Italians into the Fascist party. They took the name from the Latin fasces, a bundle of sticks wrapped around an ax. In ancient Rome, the fasces symbolized unity and authority.
Mussolini was a fiery and charismatic speaker. He promised to end corruption and replace turmoil with order. He also spoke of reviving Roman greatness, pledging to turn the Mediterranean into a “Roman lake” once again.

Mussolini Gains Control 
Mussolini organized his supporters into “combat squads.” The squads wore black shirts to emulate an earlier nationalist revolt. These Black Shirts, or party militants, rejected the democratic process in favor of violent action. They broke up socialist rallies, smashed leftist presses, and attacked farmers’ cooperatives. Fascist gangs used intimidation and terror to oust elected officials in northern
Italy. Many Italians accepted these actions because they, too, had lost faith in constitutional government.
In 1922, the Fascists made a bid for power. At a rally in Naples, they announced their intention to go to Rome to demand that the government make changes. In the March on Rome, tens of thousands of Fascists swarmed towards the capital. Fearing civil war, King Victor Emmanuel III
asked Mussolini to form a government as prime minister. Mussolini entered the city triumphantly on October 30, 1922. He thus obtained a nominally legal, constitutional appointment from the king to lead Italy.

Mussolini’s Rule
At first, Fascists held only a few cabinet posts in the new government. By 1925, though, Mussolini had assumed more power and taken the title Il Duce (eel DOO chay), “The Leader.” He suppressed rival parties, muzzled the press, rigged elections, and replaced elected officials with Fascist supporters. In 1929, Mussolini received support from Pope Pius XI in return for recognizing Vatican City as an independent state, although the pope continued to disagree with some of Mussolini’s goals. In theory, Italy remained a parliamentary monarchy. In fact, it was a dictatorship upheld by terror. Critics
were thrown into prison, forced into exile, or murdered. Secret police and propaganda bol-
stered the regime.

State Control of the Economy 
To spur economic growth and end conflicts between owners and workers, Mussolini brought
the economy under state control. However, he preserved capitalism. Under Mussolini’s
corporate state, representatives of business, labor, government, and the Fascist party controlled industry, agriculture, and trade. Mussolini’s system favored the upper classes and industrial leaders. Although production increased, success came at the expense of workers. They were forbidden to
strike, and their wages were kept low.

The Individual and the State
In Mussolini’s new system, loyalty to the state replaced conflicting individual goals. To Fascists, the glorious state was all-important, and the individual was unimportant except as a member of the state. Men, women, and children were bombarded with slogans glorifying the state and Mussolini. “Believe! Obey! Fight!” loud-speakers blared and posters proclaimed. Men were urged to be ruthless, selfless warriors fighting for the glory of Italy. Women were pushed out of paying jobs. Instead, Mussolini called on women to “win the battle of motherhood.” Those who bore more than 14 children were given a medal by Il Duce himself.
Shaping the young was a major Fascist goal. Fascist youth groups toughened children and taught them to obey strict military discipline. Boys and girls learned about the glories of ancient Rome. Young Fascists marched in torchlight parades, singing patriotic hymns and chanting,
“Mussolini is always right.” By the 1930s, a generation of young soldiers stood ready to back Il Duce’s drive to expand Italian power.

The Making of a Totalitarian State
In totalitarian Italy, Mussolini's government tried to dominate every part of the lives of Italians. Mussolini's totalitarian state became a model for others, although his rule in Italy was not as absolute as that of Stalin in the Soviet Union or Adolf Hitler in Germany. Still, all three governments shared the following basic features: 
(1) a single-party dictatorship with blind obedience to a single leader, 
(2) state control of the economy, 
(3) use of police spies and terror to enforce the will of the state, 
(4) government control of the media to indoctrinate and mobilize citizens through propaganda, 
(5) use of schools and youth organizations to spread ideology to children, and 
(6) strict censorship of artists and intellectuals with dissenting opinions.

The Nature of Fascism
Mussolini built the first totalitarian state. In this form of government, a one-party dictatorship attempts to regulate every aspect of the lives of its citizens. Other dictators, notably Stalin and Hitler, followed Mussolini’s lead. Mussolini’s rule was fascist in nature, as was Hitler’s, but totalitarian governments rise under other kinds of ideology as well, such as communism in Stalin’s Soviet Union.

What Is Fascism? 
Historians still debate the real nature of Mussolini’s fascist ideology. Mussolini coined the term, but fascists had no unifying theory as Marxists did. Today, we generally use the term fascism to describe any centralized, authoritarian government that is not communist whose policies glorify the state over the individual and are destructive to basic human rights. In the 1920s and 1930s, though, fascism meant different things in different countries.
All forms of fascism, however, shared some basic features. They were rooted in extreme nationalism. Fascists glorified action, violence, discipline, and, above all, blind loyalty to the state. Fascists also pursued aggressive foreign expansion. Echoing the idea of “survival of the fittest,”
Fascist leaders glorified warfare as a noble struggle for survival.
Fascists were also antidemocratic. They rejected faith in reason and the concepts of equality and liberty. To them, democracy led to corruption and weakness and put individual or class interests above national goals. Instead, fascists emphasized emotion and the supremacy of the state.

Fascist Enterprises 
Mussolini started a large-scale public works program that included agricultural and architectural restoration projects. Roads, schools, and train stations were built, trees planted, and
archaeological sites financed. One of Mussolini’s most successful projects was the drainage of several hundred thousand acres of marshland to help Italy win “the battle for wheat” and end its dependence on imported grain. The increase in farmland boosted wheat production by about 30 percent. Mussolini also directed the construction of a network of highways. With the help of private businesses, the first one was completed in 1924.
However, not all end results matched Mussolini’s grand initial claims. Many projects were left unfinished, and huge sums of money lined the pockets of corrupt officials in charge of overseeing the programs. Still, few people blamed Mussolini.

The Appeal of Fascism 
Given its restrictions on individual freedom, why did fascism appeal to many Italians? First, it promised a strong, stable government and an end to the political feuding that had paralyzed
democracy in Italy. Mussolini projected a sense of power and confidence at a time of disorder and despair. Mussolini’s intense nationalism also revived national pride.
At first, newspapers in Britain, France, and North America applauded the discipline and order of Mussolini’s government. “He got the trains running on time,” admirers said. Only later, when Mussolini embarked on a course of foreign conquest, did Western democracies protest.

Fascism Compared to Communism 
Fascists were the sworn enemies of socialists and communists. While communists worked for international change, fascists pursued nationalist goals. Fascists supported a society with
defined classes. They found allies among business leaders, wealthy land-owners, and the lower middle class. Communists touted a classless society. They won support among both urban and agricultural workers.
Despite such differences, the products of these two ideologies had much in common. Both drew their power by inspiring a blind devotion to the state, or a charismatic leader as the embodiment of the state. Both used terror to guard their power. Both flourished during economic hard times by promoting extreme programs of social change. In both, a party elite claimed to rule in the name of the national interest.

Looking Ahead
Three systems of government competed for influence in postwar Europe. Democracy endured in Britain and France but faced an uphill struggle in hard times. Communism emerged in Russia and won support elsewhere. In Italy, fascism offered a different option. As the Great Depression
spread, other nations—most notably Germany—looked to fascist leaders.

( vocab ) Benito Mussolini

( vocab ) Black Shirts

( vocab ) March on Rome

( vocab )  totalitarian state

( vocab ) fascism

( checkpoint ) How did postwar disillusionment contribute to Mussolini’s rise?

( checkpoint ) How did the Fascist party transform Italy’s government and economy?

( checkpoint ) Describe the similarities between fascism and communism.

( assessment ) What problems did Italy face after World War I? How did these problems help
Mussolini win power?

( assessment ) Describe one of Mussolini’s economic or social goals, and explain the actions he took to
achieve it.

( assessment ) List two similarities and two differences between fascism and communism.

( assessment ) Mussolini said, “Machines and women are the two main causes of unemployment.”
(a) What do you think he meant? (b) How did Mussolini’s policies reflect his attitude toward women?

( objectives ) Describe how conditions in Italy favored the rise of Mussolini.

( objectives ) Summarize how Mussolini changed Italy.

( objectives )  list the values and goals of fascist ideology.

( objectives ) Compare and contrast fascism and communism.

( focus question ) How and why did fascism rise in Italy?