How successful were Mussolini's domestic policies?

119933.doc? Adam Harris

How successful were Mussolini’s domestic policies?

Mussolini’s domestic policies can be summed up in to two groups, Fascist Policies and Non-Fascist policies. To simply say that the fascist policies were unsuccessful, while the Non-Fascist policies were quite successful and popular amongst the Italians, would be right, because of poor political incentives, and arrogant views. However, the surprising thing is that Mussolini stayed in power for so long, so we have to ask ourselves why.

When Mussolini came in to power, he surprised and upset many fascists, by leaving non anti-fascist civil servants in their jobs with the majority becoming fascist members so they could get promoted. He also left the army largely untouched, and pleased many groups, most importantly the rich and the church. Mussolini wanted to create a dictatorship, and have support from the people who have large influence over the people. He also doubled journalist wages, and guaranteed job security, so as to gain political support.

Mussolini tried to consolidate power by removing the decision making power of the parliament, who were not disbanded until 1939. Mussolini basically abolished local governments and replaced the politicians with loyal fascists. However, Mussolini had such control over the fascists, that even loyal fascists, were not allowed to make decisions. Mussolini also removed hostile and independent judges, and sometimes intervening in cases. With so much power, Mussolini was in affect a dictator, who had total control over Italy.

Mussolini gave himself important senior positions, which led to work not getting thoroughly done, as Mussolini was lazy. This did lead to important decisions being made in a hurry. However, Mussolini was still popular in Italy after some extreme propaganda. He compared the fascist dictatorship to the success of the old Roman Empire, and gaining much support from the Italians.

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One of the main reasons Mussolini got in to power was because of the poor economic climate in Italy. Mussolini, who knew little about economy, had four phases to his knew economy. He started by hiring an economics professor, de Stefani as the new Finance Minister. His main aim was to gain business support, so left taxes low, so stop inflation. This proved a big hit amongst the Italians, as it led to prosperity. In 1925, Mussolini felt secure about his position as ‘Il Duce’ so decided to intervene in the economy, and started by firing de Stefani. He later went on to revalue the lire. However this led to exports becoming more expensive, and damaged the economy by increasing inflation. All this changed however in 1931. In 1931 the ‘Great depression’ affected 2 million people. Mussolini did his best to bring recovery to the Italians, by creating public works schemes, and putting support in to the banks. His policies meant that Italy came out of the depression better than most countries, and his public support increased.

From 1935 onwards, Mussolini concentrated on war, and tried to create ‘Autarky’ (self-sufficiency). However this failed, and Italy was dependant on Germany during the war. Mussolini economic policies led to some success, in winning backing from businesses and bringing prosperity to Italy. However, their fascist policy, autarky failed.

Mussolini gained a lot of support from the church after making a deal with the pope, Pius XI, that the pope would support the fascists, and accept that Rome was the capital of Italy. In return, the Catholic religion officially became the national religion. Religious Education was made compulsory in schools, contraception was banned, and the church controlled divorce. This meant that many Catholics supported the fascists, as the Pope was pro Fascist.

Other domestic policies such as the corporate state, women’s position in society and youth and leisure activities differed in success.

Mussolini wanted to create a ‘third way’ between socialism and capitalism, where there would be no class conflict. However this led to the end of trade unions, and the new unions had fascist officials. The ‘third way’ was a failure that led to real wages falling by 10% and was highly unpopular amongst workers.

The Fascists had traditional ideas about women, and believed that the role of the women was to have children. They set up incentives to couples, so that the more children a couple had the less tax they had to pay. Bachelors and men without children could not get promotion in jobs. This policy failed, as instead of raising by 20 million the birth rate slowly started falling. More generally, women had limited employment opportunities, and the Fascists tried to control female appearance by imposing laws and dress codes. However most women ignored this rule.

One area that was slightly successful was the youth policies. The fascists tried to indoctrinate children with Fascist views and with the belief that Mussolini was Il Duce. However the success is difficult to calculate, as while the younger children may have been successful, there were rival youth groups, and after 1945, fascism disappeared.

One extremely popular policy was the leisure policy. This had little Fascist propaganda involved with it. The Dopolavro, provided leisure activities, such as sport and cinema. It provided cheap entertainment. However, any attempts to change people’s lifestyles, such as the fascist salute, failed miserably.

In general Mussolini was probably popular with most Italians before WWII because of propaganda, political stability, economic prosperity. However, when Mussolini made policies with fascist ideals, they were highly unpopular and failed.