We explain what the Mussolini government was, its characteristics and historical context. The key facts of this government and the foundations of fascism.
What was the Mussolini government?
Benito Mussolini ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 when it was dismissed by King Víctor Manuel III. The Mussolini government was the first fascist regime in Europe, and influenced other extreme right -wing experiences (generically grouped under the term “fascists”), such as the Nazi dictatorship in Germany.
Mussolini founded the National Fascist Party in 1921 And he took power in 1922 through a kind of coup d’etat, called march on Rome. Since then, he exercised A dictatorial power which was characterized by authoritarianism, the corporate organization of the State, the persecution of political opposition, violence, censorship and propaganda focused on the cult of the leader (called “duce”, that is, leader). The ideology of fascism was characterized by nationalism, anti -communism, anti -liberalism and antiparliamentarism.
The Mussolini government It emerged in the interwar period, when much of Italian society was disagreement with the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles (1919) and feared the advance of communism. In addition, the economic crisis of the early twenties had stimulated distrust of liberal and parliamentary governments.
During World War II, Mussollini’s Italy allied with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime and with the Empire of Japan . Mussolini was dismissed and made prisoner by decision of the King in 1943, but was rescued by the Germans and proclaimed the Italian Social Republic (better known as the Republic of Saló) in northern Italy, which functioned as a puppet state of the Nazis until the defeat against the allies became imminent. Mussolini tried to escape and was shot in April 1945 by communist partisans.
- See also: Armistice from Italy (1943)
The historical context
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) He began his political life affiliated with the Italian Socialist Party . He directed the newspaper Avanti!, Official body of the party, until in 1914 he was expelled for his ideas favorable to Italian intervention in World War I (contrary to the neutrality promoted by the party).
In November 1914 he founded the periodic Il Popolo d’Halia which manifested his militaristic line and featured financing from the French government. When the kingdom of Italy entered the war in 1915, an ally of the entrance, Mussolini served in the front until he was injured in 1917. This experience exacerbated his nationalism and encouraged his claim of combatants, life in the trenches and the group spirit.
After ending the First World War, Almost all of Europe was devastated and indebted, and Italy was no exception . This generated poverty and lack of employment, which caused strikes, land and disturbance occupations. The discontent in the Italian population was channeled in some cases by the socialists and other more radicalized left sectors.
Fascism acquired many followers among those who, in addition to holding liberal politicians and bourgeois parliamentarism for the economic crisis, were recognized in a nationalist discourse that claimed that the progress of socialism and communism had to be prevented (which had triumphed in the Russian revolution of 1917 and that it was growing in Italy).
In addition, this nationalist speech He held the allied powers and the Italian liberal government for the “mutilated victory” because at the Paris Peace Conference that followed at the end of the war, Italy did not see all its territorial claims recognized, despite having lost more than half a million combatants. The fascist movement created by Mussollini expressed and inflamed these ideas, fears and dissatisfactions.
The foundation of the National Fascist Party
In the context of postwar economic and political crisis, the figure of Benito Mussolini, a charismatic leader who adopted a nationalist discourse and In 1919 he created a political group called Fasci Italiani di Combattimento whose program combined nationalism with social claims.
When the Fasci obtained a poor result in the November 1919 elections, their leadership hardened their anti -communist position, and the group began to use the Violence against political adversaries especially against strikers or militants of the Socialist Party and other union or left forces. This won the support of some industrial and landowner sectors that feared the advance of communism.
In May 1921, Mussolini was elected deputy for a right -wing coalition and, in November of the same year, reorganized the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento and founded, from them, The National Fascist Party . Violence against strikers and socialists increased, starring paramilitary groups known as “black shirts” (which grouped war veterans, unemployed and other supporters of the fascist ideology). The fascists called this “fascist revolution” process.
- See also: Italian fascism
The beginning of the Mussolini government
In October 1922, the march on Rome occurred : A large group of “black shirts”, which responded to the authority of Mussolini, marched to Rome to demand Víctor Manuel III, king of Italy, the formation of a fascist government.
Given the pressure, and perhaps due to the support that the fascist movement had between various social sectors, or even for fear of a civil war, The monarch refused to declare the state of siege and, in changed, He gave Benito Mussolini the command of the country : He appointed him president of the Council of Ministers and entrusted the task of forming a new cabinet. The “black shirts” paraded triumphantly through Rome and Mussolini settled in the city to direct their government from there.
Initially, Mussolini formed a cabinet in which the members of the National Fascist Party were a minority. Anyway, obtained d Parliament Power Powers to (according to the speech of the time) “restore order” in Italy. In 1923, he achieved the promulgation of a new electoral law that allowed him to obtain the parliamentary majority in the 1924 elections.
DEa little, Mussolini was disarming democratic institutions . In 1924, Giacomo Matteotti, a socialist deputy who had denounced the violence of fascism, was kidnapped and killed by fascist groups. Mussolini answered the accusations of the opposition with measures that reinforced their power and gave rise, from 1925, to a dictatorship:
- He concentrated more faculties in the person of Mussolini, who became head of government, prime minister and secretary of state, and could approve norms without the need for parliamentary approval
- abolished the right to strike
- annulled press freedom
- persecuted the political opposition
- dissolved political parties and unions
- established a corporate state model, for which the State controlled fascist unions and their relationship with businessmen, through the Ministry of Corporations
- favored the fusion between fascist party and state
- He promoted the cult of the personality of the duce (the leader).
Main facts of the Mussolini government
Some of the main events that characterized the government of Benito Mussolini in Italy were:
- 1922 – The march on Rome . Mussolini urged his followers to march to Rome. There King Víctor Manuel III ceded to the pressures and appointed President of the Council of Ministers Benito Mussolini, who received from Parliament Power Powers to restore order in Italy.
- 1923 – Acerbo Law . A law was promulgated that, presented by Deputy Giacomo Acerbo on the initiative of Mussolini, modified the conditions of the parliamentary elections, so that it favored the obtaining of the majority by fascism. In addition, in this year the “black shirts” were formalized through the creation of the voluntary militia for national security.
- 1924 – Matteotti’s elections and matter . Thanks to Acerbo Law, Mussolini obtained most in parliamentary elections. In addition, the socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti was kidnapped and killed by fascist groups.
- 1925 – The dictatorship . Mussolini gave a speech in front of the Parliament in which he announced the beginning of a dictatorial government. Between 1925 and 1926 laws were created that threatened against the right to freedom of expression and the right to strike. In addition, the unions already dissolved the opposition political parties and the national work contracts and the Opera Nazionale Dopolavo were created (government agency and fascist unions for the recreational organization of the workers). At an economic level a campaign was developed to increase wheat production and achieve self -sufficient Italy (known as the “battle of wheat”).
- 1926 – The attack against Mussolini . On April 7, an Irish woman named Violet Gibson tried to kill Benito Mussolini with a revolver after a speech in Rome. The bullet touched her nose and caused minor injuries. In this year the Opera Nazionale Balilla, an organization for the indoctrination and physical training of children and adolescents, was also created.
- 1928 – The Great Fascist Council . Although it already existed as an organ of the National Fascist Party, this year it was constituted as the main state agency of Mussolini’s government, which was responsible for controlling and choosing all government representatives.
- 1929 – Lateran’s pacts . The Italian State signed together with representatives of the Holy See a pact in which the independence of the city of the Vatican was declared (since then constituted as a state of the city of the Vatican) and Catholicism was established as the official religion of Italy. This closed decades of conflict between the Italian State and the Papacy, and gave the fascist regime the support of some Catholic sectors.
- 1935 – Territorial expansion . Mussolini longed to recover the greatness of the Roman Empire and make Italy a world power. He declared war on Ethiopia (Abyssinia), which linded with the Italian colonial territories of Eritrea and Somalía, and conquered it after eight months of Ethiopian resistance. Thus the Italian Empire was born. This earned the Mussolini government criticism and economic sanctions by the Nations Society, so Italy abandoned this organism in 1936. Thus relations with Nazi Germany began, which supported the Italian expansion in Africa and formed with Italy the Roma-Berlin Axis (1936).
- 1936-1939-Intervention in the Spanish Civil War . Both the German and the Italian government collaborated with the nationalist side of Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). The most prominent events were the bombing of Guernica (1937) and the bombings of Barcelona (1938), in which aircraft of the German Condor Legion and the Italian Legionary Aviation participated.
- 1938 – Racial laws . Mussolini’s relationship with Hitler led to the adoption of a set of racial laws inspired by the ideas of the Nazi leader about the superiority of the Aryan race, who had the objective of persecuting minorities in Italy, mainly to people of Jewish ancestry.
- 1939 – The annexation of Albania and the steel pact . The Italian government had joined the Antikomintern pact previously signed by Germany and Japan and, in 1939, its armed forces occupied the territory of Albania and attached it to the kingdom of Italy. That same year, the military alliance with Germany was formalized through the steel pact (1939), and a year later, already started World War II, with Germany and Japan through the tripartite pact (1940).
- 1939 – World War II . At the beginning of the war, Italy remained in a neutral position because it did not have the necessary preparation to enter the contest, but in 1940, when the German triumph seemed imminent, the Italian government declared war on France and England. After his defeats in Africa, Italy had to resort to the military support of Germany, which also avoided the failure of the Italian invasion of Greece. In 1941, Italy declared war to the United States, which had just entered the contest, but from now on the Italian military failures continued and, in 1943, the Allied forces invaded Sicily and Southern Italy.
- 1943 – The end of the Mussolini government . Due to the bad results in the war, the loss of territories and the military casualties, King Víctor Manuel III dismissed and arrested Benito Mussolini, who was later rescued by the Germans.
- 1943 – The Italian Social Republic . After being released by the Nazis, Mussolini de facto ruled northern Italy from the town of Saló (that’s why this government was known as the Republic of Saló), under the watchful eye of Germany, whose army occupied the territory. This government concluded when Mussolini tried to flee and was captured and executed by a group of partisans on April 28, 1945.
The end of the Mussolini government
On July 9, 1943, the allies began the invasion of Sicily and Southern Italy. On July 19, 1943, The allies bombarded the city of Rome And, given this situation and in front of the imminent Italian defeat in the war, King Víctor Manuel III dismissed and arrested Mussolini on July 24. On September 3, 1943, the armistice between Italy and the allies was signed.
However, a few days after his capture, Mussolini was released by the Germans and, From 1943 to 1945, the Italian Social Republic ruled (Republic of Saló) In northern Italy, controlled by the German army. This new fascist government, which had Mussolini as head of state, was a “puppet state”, since it was subordinated to the decisions made by the German government, whose armed forces occupied the region.
When the end of World War II, and before the imminent defeat of Germany and the advance of the Allied forces in Northern Italy, Mussolini tried to flee. On the way to the Swiss border, Mussolini and his lover, Clara Petacci, along with a group of fascists, were intercepted by communist partisans in Dongo, in the province of how. Mussolini and Petacci were transferred to Giulino di Mezzegra (a small town in the province of how) and shot April 28, 1945.
- Totalitarianism
- Fascism
- Tyranny
References
- Bobbio, N. (2006). Essays on fascism. Editorial UNQ/Prometheus.
- Foot, J. & Hibbert, C. (2022). Benito Mussolini. Britannica Encyclopedia. https://www.britannica.com
- Gentile, E. (2005). The Italian pathway to totalitarianism. Party and State in the fascist regime. 21st century.
- SOUCY, R. (2022). fascism Britannica Encyclopedia. https://www.britannica.com
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2018). Benito Mussolini. Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org
