The industrialists, landlords and other property holders were very discontent with the government. As were many other Italians. Whilst this was going on Mussolini became editor of the socialist paper Avati. However Mussolini was never a convinced socialist. The views he expressed in his newspaper were not consistent. When Archaism was popular amongst the Italian workers Mussolini advocated anarchist ideas in his newspaper. This seemed to indicate that he was an opportunist. He was very interested in winning followers and getting power for himself.
In 1915 the socialist Party for favouring war attacked Mussolini. He left the Socialist party and severed as a soldier until he was wounded. After his recovery, he returned to Milan as an editor off his own newspaper ‘ The people of Italy’. By the end of war, through his editing, Mussolini had learnt the power of propaganda in mustering support from the masses.
In March 1919, Mussolini formed the Milan Fascio. It had no clear-cut programme except a belief in action. It only had vague ideas about the radical reforms. For propaganda purpose, Mussolini advocated universal suffrage, the abolition of the Senate, and land for the peasants, improvement of workers conditions and a storing foreign policy. It seemed that Mussolini had completely lost his earliest socialist thought. The property class however did not like his radical party programme. In the elections of November 1919 for Chamber of Deputies, Mussolini and his associates failed to win a seat for themselves.
However Mussolini did start to gain support. Because of ex-soldiers dislike of the Liberal Government Mussolini was able to establish the Fascio di Combattimento. This was a movement, not a party and they sought support from all patriotic Italians. Mussolini also gained support due to that fact that Mussolini was a brilliant orator. He appealed to all sections of society. ‘ Particular as the population as a whole were weak minded and uneducated’. Mussolini also influenced people through his newspaper, II Popolo D’ Italia. Mussolini attracted people because off its radical socialists ideas but then soon changed its policy to one of extreme anti socialism and in April 1911 Fascists burnt the Avanti Offices. They also engaged in other acts of violence against the Socialists such as pouring caster oil over them and simply beating them up. Other fascist’s squadrisms as well as Fascio Di Combattimento did this. Both of these were completely independent on Mussolini movement and Mussolini himself. By late 1920 Fascism had really taken off, attracting not just wealthy but the Bourgeoisie and also shareholders as well as the people who were hostile towards the socialist.
With some support from the property class, Mussolini formed the National Fascists party in 1921. In the elections of May 1921, Fascists were able to gain 35 seats out of 355 a great gain from 18 months ago but still a rarely small number. Mussolini again changed tactics in May 1921 to suit different circumstances with the aim of seizing politic power at the earliest opportunity.
After his success in May Mussolini became more anti- Bolshevik than ever in order to win more support from property class. He stopped attacking the Monarchy, the Catholics and the capitalists. He promised a strong government, which could suppress the socialists’ disturbances and strong foreign policy, which could bring national glory to Italy. As a result of Mussolini new tactics, finances poured in from thee industrialists. Leading to huge rise in rise in Fascists membership.
An important step in the growth of the Fascist Party, and therefore inevitably in why Mussolini was able to come to power, came from the Italian church. Even today Italy, and the Pope is an extremely significant centre of world religion and Mussolini realised that it would be to his advantage to gain the support of the church. This was achieved easily as the church was highly anti-socialist for the reason that socialism is centred on equality and is therefore against the idea of religion. In fact, such was the scale of anti-socialism within the church that the Pope told Catholics not to vote for the popular catholic party (the PPI), but to support the Fascist party instead in order to keep socialism out of government.
Now that Mussolini had such wide scale support he knew that he would be able to seize power. The Fascists planned the take-over of local governments and a March on Rome. However this was not necessary as on October 29th 1922 King Victor Emmanuel invited Mussolini to form a government. It is interesting to note that the lack of unity within the liberal government finally brought about their downfall, as one of the leading men in the government at the time, Solandra asked the King specifically to offer Mussolini the job as Prime Minister simply because he wanted to prevent one of his liberal colleagues, Giolitti, from becoming it.
In conclusion to this essay i Mussolini was able to come to power in 1922 primarily because of his ability to influence people, and because he could to intimidate them. Mussolini won support from key areas, such as the church, the monarchy and the economic elite and using this support to crush socialism. However there were many other factors that caused the Fascists rise to power in 1922. War is one of the main factors. The people disliked the government in both foreign and domestic affairs. The government failed to sort out the problems that were caused by war. The treat of a socialist revolution made many Italians desire for a strong government, which could impose law and order in the country, and Mussolini offered this. And finally the liberal government and King Victor Emmanuel feared Fascism less than Socialist revolution and they capitulated at the threat of a March on Rome.
