Mussolini and Fascism

Patricia Knight

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136477577
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia del mundo

The early twentieth century in Italy was a crucial period in its history. Mussolini and Fascism surveys all the important issues and topics of the period including the origins and rise of Fascism, Mussolini as Prime Minister and Dictator, the Totalitarian state, foreign policy and the Second World War. It also examines how Italian Fascism compared to other inter-war dictatorships.

1

LIBERAL ITALY AND THE ORIGINS OF FASCISM

BACKGROUND NARRATIVE

Following Italian unification in 1870, a Piedmontese statesman commented, ‘we have made Italy – now we must make Italians’.¹ This would prove to be a difficult task since unification owed little to Italian nationalist feeling and much more to the diplomacy of the north Italian state of Piedmont and the intervention of foreign powers. Most Italians had played no part in the Risorgimento and were not enthusiastic about the new state. Different regions had little in common and resented the imposition of Piedmontese institutions and customs. Regional dialects were widely spoken (Italian as a language hardly existed outside literature), and illiteracy rates were high.

A striking feature of the new Italy was the contrast between north and south. Northern Italy, with its proximity to the rest of Europe, had seen the beginnings of commercial and industrial activity, together with the emergence of thriving towns and cities. Southern Italy, on the other hand, was overwhelmingly rural, isolated and impoverished. Over much of the provinces of Naples and Sicily bandits, brigands and the mafia continued their depredations largely unchecked. The plight of the south was only partly alleviated by emigration, itself a result of poverty; altogether, between 1870 and 1914 more than five million Italians migrated, mostly bound for the USA or South America, while others went as temporary workers to neighbouring Austria, Switzerland or France.

The new Italian state was a constitutional monarchy with power residing mainly in parliament, though the King (Victor Emmanuel II to 1878, Humbert 1878–1900 and Victor Emmanuel III from 1900) controlled foreign policy and the armed forces and appointed the Senate (the upper house). Members of the Chamber of Deputies came mainly from the landowning and wealthy middle classes. Most described themselves as ‘liberals’, but they represented regional and local interests rather than political viewpoints, and formed factions around the leading politicians in return for favours or patronage. Till the turn of the century there were no organized political parties. Though governments changed frequently they were mostly permutations of the same small group of politicians, a process known as the trasformismo (transformism). Political life was dominated by influential figures such as Agostino Depretis between 1876 and 1887, Francesco Crispi from 1887 to 1896, and Giovanni Giolitti who was Prime Minister for most of the period between 1903 and 1914.

Before 1912 the franchise was very limited. Initially, only about 2 per cent of Italians (mainly the upper and middle class) had the vote, which was restricted by a property tax, an age qualification and literacy tests. The qualifications were relaxed in 1881 but most Italians were still disenfranchised. Politicians were reluctant to grant political rights to a largely illiterate peasant population and not till 1912 was adult male suffrage effectively introduced, when all men who had either passed a literacy test or completed national service were given the vote. Up to 1914 elections were characterized by bribery and intimidation, practices made possible by the small electorate. Most Italians (even those who could vote) took little interest in politics and were alienated by the prevailing corruption and patronage, and the self-interest of politicians.

All post-unification governments had to contend with the hostility of the Roman Catholic Church. Unification, culminating in the occupation of Rome, had deprived the Papacy of its territories (the Papal States) and of political power, and successive popes refused to be reconciled to the new state, preferring to remain ‘prisoners in the Vatican’. Liberalism, the creed to which most Italian politicians subscribed, was condemned in the Syllabus of Errors in 1864 and Catholics were forbidden to play any part in politics. Since Catholicism was the religion of the overwhelming majority of Italians, and the clergy wielded considerable influence, especially in rural areas, the Church’s attitude reinforced the prevailing political apathy. The conflict was exacerbated by the anti-clericalism of most Liberal politicians who aimed to reduce the influence of the Church by introducing secular education and civil marriage. This antagonism between Church and state was still largely unresolved in 1914.

Compared with most of western Europe, the Italian economy was underdeveloped in 1870. Italy lacked raw materials such as coal, as well as adequate rail and road communications. In 1871, 70 per cent of the population earned their living in agriculture, and the proportion was still 57 per cent in 1914. Landholdings varied, with some relatively prosperous peasant proprietors in north and central Italy, but most workers on the land were extremely impoverished, the worst-off being the labourers on the large estates, or latifundia, in the south.

The economy of southern Italy continued to stagnate, but following unification the north underwent an industrial revolution. In the 1880s, the triangle bounded by Milan, Turin and Genoa experienced a boom in textiles, iron, steel and shipbuilding, the latter underpinned by government expenditure on the navy. The years 1887–95 were marked by a depression with banking failures and financial scandals, but from 1896 industry expanded again.

Industrial development brought with it a larger urban working class and also problems of overcrowded slum housing, long hours of work in factories and poor working conditions. Trade unions had increased their membership to 250,000 by 1900, and in the decade before 1914 social unrest escalated with industrial action culminating in a two-day general strike in the so-called ‘red week’ in June 1914. In 1892 a Socialist Party (PSI after the Italian initials) was founded, led by Filippo Turati. The left was divided between reformist Socialists, who advocated working legally through parliament, and revolutionaries, anarchists and syndicalists, who favoured direct action, including strikes and demonstrations, to overthrow the government. However, till shortly before the First World War, the reformist Socialists predominated and gained a number of seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Meantime, in the 1890s, partly to counteract Socialism but also in recognition of the need for social reforms, Pope Leo XIII lifted the ban on Catholic participation in politics. This paved the way for the eventual emergence of a Catholic political party (the Popolari, founded at the end of the First World War) and of Catholic trade unions. Most Italian governments countered unrest with repression, but from 1903 Giolitti took a more conciliatory approach, introducing social legislation and observing neutrality in labour disputes. He also attempted to integrate the new groups, the Socialists and Catholics, and on the right wing the Nationalists, into the political system, an experiment still underway in 1914.

Following unification, Italy expected to be treated as a great power, on an equal footing with the other major European states. Its foreign policy was largely determined by relations with France and Austria, the two powers on its northern frontier. A main objective of all Italian governments was to complete the process of unification by acquiring ‘unredeemed Italy’, Italian-speaking territory in the Tyrol and on the Adriatic coast which was still part of the Austrian empire. Friendship with France was therefore advisable as a counterweight to the Austrians. However, from the 1880s Italian politicians were also intent on colonial expansion, this being the period when possession of an overseas empire was considered an essential prerequisite of great-power status. Conflict with France over Tunisia in North Africa led Italy, in 1882, to join Germany and Austria in the Triple Alliance, which was directed against both France and Russia. This alliance was renewed periodically and was still in existence when war broke out in 1914.

Italy was largely left behind in the scramble for Africa where there was little territory still available. Having failed to acquire Tunisia, it finally obtained a foothold on the East African coast in Somaliland and Eritrea in 1885. It then advanced into Abyssinia, but met with a disastrous defeat by the Abyssinians at the Battle of Adowa in 1896. In 1911 Libya was occupied, the result of an earlier agreement with France.

When, in August 1914, Germany and Austria went to war with Britain, France and Russia, Italy at first remained neutral. It disregarded its alliance with Austria on a technicality but the real reasons were anti-Austrian feeling over ‘unredeemed Italy’ and fear of naval attack by Britain, on whom the Italians depended for trade and imports of coal. Most deputies and majority public opinion, including Liberals, Catholics and Socialists, were opposed to entering the war. But by 1915 there was a growing vociferous minority of Nationalists and others (including the King) in favour of joining the allied side, arguing that otherwise Italy would be shown to be a second-rate power and would fail to get a share of the spoils. They staged a number of noisy demonstrations and as a result of this ‘intervention crisis’ Italy entered the war in what the interventionists dubbed ‘Radiant May’ in 1915. In April it had signed the secret Treaty of London with the Entente powers, by which it was promised Trente, the south Tyrol, Trieste and Dalmatia from Austria, and more vaguely, colonies and territory from the Ottoman Empire.

One of those advocating intervention was Benito Mussolini, at that time a leading member of the revolutionary wing of the Socialist Party. Mussolini was born in 1883 in the Romagna in central Italy. After some unsuccessful attempts at teaching, he eventually became a left-wing agitator and journalist, first in Austrian-ruled Tyrol, then in Forlì in the Romagna where he established himself as a leading revolutionary and opponent of the Libyan war. Mussolini’s main talents lay in journalism and in 1912 he moved to Milan to become editor of the main Socialist newspaper, Avanti. Initially he followed the Socialist Party line of opposition to the European war but by October 1914 he was advocating intervention, writing: ‘Do we wish to be – as men and socialists – inert spectators of this grandiose drama. Or would we prefer to be, in some way, its protagonists?’² His change of attitude is explained by Martin Blinkhorn who considers that Mussolini’s socialism stemmed from hatred of ‘liberal Italy’s narrow ruling class as much as the capitalist system, and his goal [was] revolution itself rather than the particular kind of post-revolutionary society desired by most fellow socialists’.³ Mussolini seems to have seen the war as the precursor to a revolution which would bring the working class to power. In any case he had always favoured violence and direct action over legal methods. But support for the war led to his expulsion from the Socialist Party and loss of his editorship of Avanti. Therefore, in 1915 he started a new paper Popolo d’Italia, financed both by Italian interventionists and the French government.

The war proved a lot less rewarding for Italy than expected. Militarily, it was not a success; Italian troops made little headway against the Austrians in the Alps and in October 1917 were defeated with great casualties at the Battle of Caporetto, though this was partly reversed in a victory at Vittorio Veneto in the closing stages of the war. Of the 5.9 million Italians conscripted, half a million were killed and one million wounded. Meanwhile, at home, though war industries boomed, most Italians faced food shortages, high prices and falling standards of living.

ANALYSIS (1): BY 1914 DID THE ITALIAN STATE EXHIBIT MORE WEAKNESSES THAN STRENGTHS?

Italy on the eve of the First World War was not without strengths. The regime had survived for over forty years without serious crisis and some progress had been made in ‘making Italians’. The differences between states and regions, so marked in 1871, had been partly broken down, at least in north and central Italy, and steps had been taken to create a national economy with improved road and rail communications. Advances had also been made in education and literacy. The Church had become more conciliatory and Catholics were now allowed to vote and become deputies. Within the limitations of the trasformismo system, politics seemed to function reasonably well. After 1912 the franchise compared favourably with that of most other European states at the time. The new forces, Socialists, Catholics and Nationalists, while they threatened to upset the liberal status quo, offered the prospect of a more modern party system and greater political choice.

Though the country as a whole was still largely agricultural, there had been significant expansion of industry in northern Italy, featuring cars, engineering, electricity and chemicals, and the emergence of large firms such as Fiat and Pirelli. True, there were many accompanying social problems, but after 1903 Giolitti had introduced some much needed reforms, for example in improving employment conditions and abolishing child labour; he spent more on public works and took an even-handed approach to industrial disputes. Strikes and social unrest were not necessarily more disruptive or threatening than in other European states at the time and in spite of a lack-lustre foreign and imperial policy, Italy was to be on the winning side in the First World War.

However, these advantages were more than offset by numerous weaknesses. Italy was still in many respects a ‘political expression’. In particular, the north–south divide was as great as ever. Unification had, if anything, worsened the plight of the southern provinces by the introduction of heavier taxes and the abolition of internal customs duties which had ruined traditional industries such as silk. Industrial development was largely confined to northern Italy. Illiteracy, which had almost been eliminated in northern Italy by 1914, was still 45 per cent in the south. Successive governments had been unable to address the ‘southern problem’ successfully.

Quite apart from this, Italy as a whole in 1914 was far from being a modern economy. Most of the population still earned their living on the land. Agriculture depended mainly on cereals and some cash crops such as fruit but, from the 1880s, grain production had suffered from competition from imports from North America. Some modernization had taken place, but traditional agricultural methods were still widely used, especially in the south. In industrial production and other economic indices, Italy lagged well behind most of its neighbours, as can be seen in Source E on p. 12.

Though the Church’s attitude had softened...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• List of illustrations
• Series preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Liberal Italy and the origins of Fascism
• 2 The rise of Fascism: Italy from 1919 to 1922
• 3 From Prime Minister to dictator, 1922 to 1926
• 4 A totalitarian regime? Mussolini and the Fascist state
• 5 ‘Transforming Italy’: how successful were Fascist economic and social policies?
• 6 ‘Great, respected and feared’: how successful was Mussolini’s foreign policy from 1922 to 1938?
• 7 ‘A brutal friendship’? the German alliance, war and Mussolini’s downfall
• 8 Fascism and Nazism
• Notes
• Select bibliography
• Index