new perspective for modern history students

The many problems and failures

of Liberal Italy led the establishment
to turn to Mussolini
Dr John Pollard. Trinity Hall, Cambridge

ummary: At first sight it seems puzzling that

S Mussolini came to power so long before Hitler.
After all, conditions seemed far more likely to
produce a revolution in Germany rather than Italy
in the early 1920s. Nevertheless, Italians had
significant economic and nationalistic grievances,
the Communists appeared to pose a real threat
and constitutional change helped to destabilise the
existing system. There was virtually a civil war in
the provinces and the Italian establishment was
willing to co-operate with the Fascist party in
October 1922, when Mussolini became prime
minister. Nevertheless, this early, unplanned
accession to power helped to shape the nature
of the Fascist regime over the next period.

Questions to consider
Why, at first sight, might it seem that Germany
and not Italy was ripe for revolution in 1919-23?
How severe were the various problems that faced
Italy in the immediate post-war period?
Do you accept the interpretation that the Fascists
seized power at the local level but were presented
with it at the national?
Why did establishment figures believe they could
control Mussolini in October 1922?
Which features of Fascist rule in 1922-29
stemmed from the nature of Mussolini’s This cartoon from Germany, after the 1929 Lateran Treaty with the
accession to power? papacy depicts the King, Victor Emmanuel III, begging Mussolini
for some restoration of authority such as that accorded to the Pope

O
NE OF THE QUESTIONS WHICH STUDENTS most emerged as an ideology and movement only in the
frequently ask is, ’Why did Mussolini and twentieth, and then only after the First World War. It
Italian Fascism come to power so much more could therefore be argued that it did not have the experi-
quickly than Hitler and German National Socialism?’. It ence and tradition required of a political movement to
is a good question. Both Mussolini’s Fascist movement win power. On the other hand, maybe Italian Fascism’s
and Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ party very newness was an advantage, that made it difficult
(originally the DAP) were founded early in 1919, yet for other Italian politicians to understand it, and to
whereas Mussolini had been appointed prime minister appreciate the danger which it posed to the existing par-
of Italy on 29 October 1922, Hitler did not achieve the liamentary institutions in Italy. Giovanni Giolitti, who
equivalent German office of Chancellor until 31 January had been prime minister several times since 1892,
1933. In this article, therefore, I shall answer the question included the Fascists in his electoral bloc in 1921; and
as completely as possible. In addition, I shall briefly con- even though the Fascists managed to win 35 seats in
sider what the consequences of Italian Fascism’s early Parliament as a result, he dismissed Fascism as ‘fire-
rise to power were to be for the regime which was sub- works’ that would soon burn out.
sequently established.
A comparison with the German Nazis
The rise of Italian Fascism A further puzzle is the fact that, arguably, conditions in
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the speed of Germany in the early 1920s provided a more promising
Fascism’s rise to power is the fact that it was an almost scenario for a fascist movement to come to power than
entirely new political ideology and movement. In fairness, so in Italy. Germany was a defeated nation, humiliated by
was German National Socialism. Whereas movements the imposition of the Versailles Peace Settlement, and
such as liberal democracy, socialism and communism all the territorial and economic losses which that entailed,
existed in some form in the nineteenth century, fascism and many German people blamed the politicians of the

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democratic parties for an alleged ‘stab in the back’ of the

T IMELINE Mussolini and the rise of Itallian
front-line soldiers. In a few weeks it had also gone
through a traumatic political change, from a semi- Fascism
autocratic form of monarchical government - Kaiser 1919 March Foundation of the first fascio, nucleus
Wilhelm II had extensive powers and was a reassuring of the Fascist movement, in Milan
father-figure - to a fully-fledged democratic republic 1920 Summer Occupation of the factories
with votes for women. Add to this the privations and 1920 Autumn ‘Agrarian Fascism’ takes off as a
starvation endured by the German people thanks to the mass movement in the small towns
Allies’ continuation of the blockade during the early and countryside of northern and
part of 1919; the fear of Bolshevism provoked by the central Italy
Russian Revolution of 1917 and, nearer home, by vari- 1921 May Mussolini and 35 other Fascists are
ous attempted Communist seizures of power in the elected to Parliament
Ruhr, Saxony and Bavaria; then the experience of hyper- 1922 Oct Mussolini gives his ultimatum to the
inflation of 1923 when you needed a barrow-load of authorities in Rome
marks to buy a loaf of bread, and you have the ‘Weimar Organisation of the Fascist March on
syndrome’ (after the name given to the new form of the Rome
German state from 1919 onwards), the classic set of con- Mussolini forms a government
ditions in which fascist movements flourished and in 1923 Jan The Fascist squads are absorbed into
which some came to power. So, in theory at least, a national militia with an oath of
National Socialism should have come to power in allegiance to Mussolini
Germany in the early 1920s … July The electoral law is changed
1924 April The Fascist-based electoral alliance
The Italian situation wins a parliamentary majority
June Matteotti crisis
Italy, on the other hand, was a victorious not defeated 1925 Jan Mussolini announces that he will
power at the end of the First World War, and had create a dictatorship
acquired, not lost, territory as a result. Italy had not gone 1926 Non-Fascist parties, trade unions and
through dramatic institutional change: its major institu- newspapers banned
tions had not collapsed in the wake of war as in 1927 New electoral law
Germany and Austria-Hungary, not to mention Russia 1929 Signing of the Lateran Pacts with the
in 1917. It remained a constitutional monarchy with an Church
essentially parliamentary form of government. It was
suffering from the usual economic and social problems
created by the First World War, but they were not as torate, to a fully-fledged system of parliamentary
serious as those in Germany, and though many Italians democracy in which the bulk of the seats in Parliament
were worried by the threat of Bolshevism, the were now held by modern, mass political parties.
Communists in Italy made no serious attempt to seize As a result of the introduction of proportional represen-
power. So why did Mussolini and Fascism come to tation, the electoral system whereby the numbers of
power so quickly? seats which a party gains in Parliament is in direct pro-
In the first place, though Italy had been victorious portion to the percentage of votes which it wins in the
in the First World War that victory had been painfully country as a whole, the dominant parties in the Italian
earned. Even worse, many Italians believed that they Parliament after 1919 elections were the Socialists and
had been cheated by their Allies - Britain, France and the the Catholic People’s party with 150 and 100 seats
USA - of just territorial gains, especially from the respectively, out of 500. It now became very difficult to
German and Turkish empires, at the Paris Peace manage a parliamentary system of government: the
Conference of 1919. A particular grievance was the fact Socialists, who believed that a proletarian revolution
that the town of Fiume (now Rijeka in Croatia), with a was just around the corner and that ‘all we have to do is
slender Italian-speaking majority, had been awarded to wait’, refused to participate in government at all and
the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia and not to Italy. This though the People’s party did do so, the uneasy alliance
prompted Gabriele D’Annunzio, a war-time hero to lead between the MPs of that party and the liberal-conserva-
a group of Italian ex-commando troops, the arditi, to tive political leaders like Nitti, Giolitti and Bonomi was
seize Fiume by force in 1920. So many Italians talked bit- like mixing oil and water. The MPs of the People’s party
terly about their ‘mutilated victory’ and the right-wing had very clear principles and precise ideas about which
parties in Italy, the Nationalists and Fascists, made a lot policies were needed to deal with Italy’s problems,
of political capital out of blaming this on the weakness whereas the other political leaders preferred compro-
of the ruling liberal-conservative politicians. mises, concessions and shady deals: one might even say
Though Italy did not experience the trauma of that their priority was hanging on to power itself. In the
dramatic and sudden political change that happened four years between the end of the war and Mussolini’s
elsewhere in Europe at the end of the First World War, it appointment as prime minister there were no less than
did go through a process of political transition in the six short-lived, unstable coalition governments, each less
early 1920s, from a system of parliamentary government able than the previous one to deal with Italy’s serious
dominated by small cliques using traditional methods to problems. It could thus be argued that parliamentary
manipulate both members of Parliament and the elec- government had effectively broken down before

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difficult and, by October 1922, Mussolini and the Fascists
Words and concepts to note
were ready for their ‘March on Rome’.
DAP: the German Workers' party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), a
forerunner of the Nazi party
Woodrow Wilson: the American President in 1913-21 who The March on Rome
hoped that the First World War would lead to a greater The events of October 1922 deserve close, detailed
acceptance of democracy. scrutiny. On 24 October, in an atmosphere of crisis, with
continuing Fascist violence in the provinces and paraly-
Mussolini came to power in October 1922. sis in Parliament, Mussolini publicly warned that if the
Certainly, Italy in the early 1920s suffered from seri- Fascists were not given the power they demanded they
ous economic problems, like high levels of unemploy- would take it by force. By now, both the Socialist party
ment resulting from the rapid demobilisation of millions and the People’s party were badly split and thus unable
of troops and the slowness to return to a peacetime to offer serious opposition to the rise of Fascism. The
economy, and inflation, which principally hit the middle King was in despair at the situation in Parliament where
classes. The failure to resolve these problems under- the leading politicians seemed unwilling or unable to
mined the Italian people’s faith in the political parties form a stable government. But as the columns of Fascist
and in democracy itself. squadristi marched on Rome from a number of neigh-
But the aspect of the Italian political situation in the bouring provincial towns, Mussolini wisely stayed at
early 1920s, which the Fascists were able to most success- Fascist party headquarters in Milan. Maybe he was
fully exploit in their rise to power, was the fear of afraid that it would all go wrong and that it was best to
Bolshevism. Historians of Italy talk about its ‘Red Two be as close to the Swiss border in case it did? And being
Years’, that is from the end of the war in November 1918 in Milan heightened the psychological drama: the King’s
until roughly the autumn of 1920. What they mean is that representatives had to plead with him on the telephone
in Italy in this period experienced an upsurge of working to come down to Rome to negotiate with other political
class militancy - strikes, bread riots, the sporadic violence leaders. Thus, the fact that he journeyed overnight by
of Socialist activists against political opponents and, train has led some historians of Italy to call Fascism’s
most importantly, occupations of the land and factories. rise to power the ‘sleeping-car revolution’.
This was a result of the radicalising effects of the experi-
ence of the war, Woodrow Wilson’s calls for democracy
and the impact of the Russian Revolution, on the Italian
The consequences of a rapid rise to power
working classes. The upsurge reached its peak in the So Mussolini and the Fascists, like Hitler and the Nazis
summer of 1920 when workers occupied the engineering 11 years later, gained power in a legal, constitutional
factories of the northern Italian cities of Milan, Turin and way. But whereas the Nazis were the largest party in the
Genoa during an industrial dispute. German Reichstag in 1933, the Fascists were a minor
party in the Italian Parliament. Their ascent to power,
therefore, depended very substantially upon the attitude
Agrarian Fascism of the Italian establishment - leading liberal-conservative
The dispute ended peacefully in September, thanks to politicians, the monarchy, the armed forces, the Catholic
Giolitti’s low-key approach, but it left many people in Church and the business and landowning elites. As Alan
Italy feeling angry and threatened and though, paradox- Cassels says in his book, Fascist Italy, by 1922 all of the
ically, the end of the occupation meant the beginning of various elements in the establishment were willing to co-
the decline in working-class power, they were still fear- operate with Fascism, largely because of their disillusion-
ful that a revolution might take place in Italy. In particu- ment with parliamentary government and their fear of
lar, they felt a lack of confidence in government. Bolshevism. And like the clique clustered around
Mussolini and the Fascists cashed in on these feelings, President Hindenberg in 1933, the Italian establishment
particularly in the countryside of northern and central were confident that they could control the political
Italy where the battle between the large landowners, on upstarts whom they had allowed into government, along
the one hand, and the peasant leagues and agricultural with their violent followers. We all know now, of course,
trade unions on the other, was becoming more acute. that they were wrong. But their mistake is understand-
This situation provided Fascism with its opportunity to able: as said previously, Fascism was a new political
become a mass movement and eventually enter force, and it would take some years before politicians,
Parliament. In the two-period from autumn 1920 to political scientists and historians would fully grasp its
autumn 1922, thousands of men flocked to join the move- violent, unshakeably determined lust for power.
ment, while Fascist fighting squads took the sides of the The speed of Italian Fascism’s rise to power had
landowners and other middle-class elements in these some serious consequences, both short and long term.
areas and defeated the peasant leagues and trade unions Because he came to power so quickly, Mussolini did not
by burning their offices, assaulting and intimidating have the time to bring the provincial leaders of the
their members and, in some cases, killing their leaders. It Fascist movement, the so-called ‘ras’ like Farinacci in
would therefore be no exaggeration to say that Fascism Cremona, Scorza in Lucca and Balbo in Ferrara, firmly
seized power by force at a local level in northern and cen- under his control. During the consolidation of Fascist
tral Italy before it was given power at a national level in power after October 1922, he spent as much time doing
October 1922. What was effectively a civil war in the this as bringing the institutions of the State under Fascist
provinces made parliamentary government even more domination. Indeed, it was only in 1927 that the State’s

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provincial governors, could report that the local organi-

sations of Fascism had ceased violence and were obedi-
ent to the State. So, ironically, Mussolini had to seize
state power in order to bring his unruly followers to
heel! Nor did the very short time between the founding
of the first fascio in March 1919 and Mussolini’s appoint-
ment in October 1922 give the Fascists time to develop a
full-blooded ideology before they came to power: there
was to be no clear enunciation of its ideas until the pub-
lication of Mussolini’s article ‘The Doctrine of Fascism’
in the Enciclopedia Italiana in 1932. Neither did it allow
time to build a proper party machine, complete with
youth organisations and cadres of specialised officials
ready to take over the appropriate parts of government,
as the Nazis were able to do in Germany after 1933.
The Fascist party’s lack of a strong parliamentary
position and widely-based popular support meant that
they were obliged to rely upon other parties, and this
nearly meant the end for them in June 1924 when the
suspicion that Mussolini was involved in the murder of
the Socialist leader, Giacomo Matteotti, gave rise to pop-
ular revulsion against the Fascist government. In the The Socialist Matteotti’s death in 1924, and the question of the
longer term, it meant that the whole Fascist regime, con- extent of Mussolini’s involvement in it, remained an issue.
structed after 1922, was essentially a hybrid of the old This cartoon, published after the Italian invasion of France, 1940,
and the new, a compromise between Fascism and the suggests that many more Italians will die from Mussolini’s deeds
establishment - what the deceased Italian historian FURTHER READING: P. Morgan, Italian Fascism, 1919-1945, Macmillan,
Alberto Aquarone has described as the ‘block of consen- 1995; P. Morgan, Italy 1915-1940, Sempringham, 1998 and
sus’. Only when Mussolini reached an agreement with J.F. Pollard, The Fascist Experience in Italy, Routledge, 1998.
the Church in the Lateran Pacts of 1929 could the
process of the consolidation of Fascist power be said to ON www.history-ontheweb.co.uk/Study Centre there are 19 articles
have been complete. Whereas it took six and a half on Modern Italian History. From August 2004 access to the Study
years, from October 1922, for Mussolini to establish his Centre will be restricted to schools/colleges with an eLC elegible
dictatorship, it took Hitler just over 18 months, from his Licence.
appointment as Chancellor until his swearing in as Mussolini and the Rise of Italian Fascism by John Pollard
Führer und Reichskanzler in August 1933, following © new perspective 2004
Hindenberg’s death, to consolidate Nazi power.
The rapid rise to power meant a long-term weak- John Pollard has retired as Professor of Modern European History
ness for the Fascist regime, the survival of elements in at Anglia Polytechnic University and is now Fellow in History at
the ‘block of consensus’ beyond Mussolini’s control. Trinity Hall College in the University of Cambridge. He has written
When those elements became disillusioned by extensively on the history of both modern Italy and the papacy: his
Fascism’s unending string of military defeats, culmi- latest work, Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy: the Finances
nating in the Allied invasion of Sicily, it was not diffi- and Financiers of the Vatican, 1850-1950 will be published by CUP in
cult for the King, backed by the armed forces, to 2004. He is currently researching the ideology of present-day
overthrow Mussolini on 25 July 1943. fascist and national socialist movements.

Follow Italy’s History in the Fascist era in a brilliant unit text

written for AS/A students by Dr Philip Morgan.
Ital y 1915-1940
‘This is an immensely enjoyable book. Complex issues are presented
in a way that is immediately accessible to A-Level students …
a masterly account.’ Allan Ward, Mark Rutherford College.
Further acclaimed Sempringham titles
Sempringham books, only £6.95,
Students’ Handbook
The Good History

are available from bookshops or

Eastern Europe

(post free) direct from the publisher.

1918-1953

1916-1940

Sempringham, PO Box 248, Bedford MK40 2SP

Britain

Tel. 01234 267856 E-mail. [email protected]

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