Callum Goddard 2/2/06
Why Did Mussolini become Prime Minister in 1922?
In 1922 Mussolini became Prime Minister on 29th of October 1922 after his fascist supporters marched on Rome. Although this event happened directly before Mussolini became Prime Minister there are other reasons as to why Mussolini was able to become Prime Minister.
Socialists and Squadristi
The socialists proved a threat to the Liberal government as they gained the majority in the 1919 elections and then in the 1920 elections. Fascism though proved to be an effective weapon against the socialists mainly due to the fascist squads. The fascist squads reacted violently towards socialism attacking and rioting against them, the fact that a group was taking effective action against the socialists was an important factor as this meant many more people began to support fascism. Support was further gained by fascists Black Shirts in that they reduced the effectiveness of the socialist strikes by taking over operations of public services and railways which were affected due to the strike in order that they could run as normal. So this was yet another way in which the fascism gained support through actions against socialists. The support flourished and to some fascism proved to be the solution to socialism and as the support for fascism grew it also increased the likelihood for Mussolini to become Prime Minister.
The Liberal Weakness
The threat of socialism not only provided a means for fascists to act upon something that worried many people thereby gaining the movement support, but it also highlighted the weakness within the Liberal government. There had already been a long standing weakness within the Liberal government due to the way in which it worked through transformismo. Governments were unstable, and eventually, no matter how skilled the Facta was at using transformismo, it would all become too much and the government would collapse. There were also problems with Giolitti and Salandra as both were unable to work well with each other due to the long term rivalry which existed between them. The collapse of governments happened fairly regularly, but with the socialists gaining the majority of seats, the already unstable system was further weakened as the liberals no longer had the majority and so had to form an alliance with the catholic party to gain a slight majority. With the way fascism was gaining support due to its effective dealings against the socialists many liberals therefore thought that absorbing a fascist party into the existing system would be a good idea. Many of the liberals and Italian intellectuals believed fascism deserved a chance and that it would breathe new life into the old system, deal with the socialism threat and then be integrated into the existing system. Blinkhorn supports this idea stating ‘fascism owed its accession to power largely due to conservative forces’ as the conservative forces wanted to integrate fascism into the liberal system which contributed to Mussolini becoming Prime Minister.
