My main question is : How did Mussolini rise to power in Italy ? And the following 2 sub-questions will help me answer it: What was Mussolinis ideology ? How did Mussolini build his dictatorship?

GCSE History

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini

His Excellency Benito Mussolini, Head of Government, Duce of Fascism, and Founder of the Empire

Yeming Rouw

V3D

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Birth of Fascism

3. March to Roma

4. Way to dictatorship

5. Bibliography

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini

His Excellency Benito Mussolini, Head of Government, Duce of Fascism, and Founder of the Empire

Introduction

A little introduction on the reason why and how I picked Mussolini to be my main subject of this essay. I got this very educational assignment from my history teacher, with the task to find an interesting topic in the history of the 20th century. I’d came across several major events and important people, which one of them was Mussolini. Mussolini’s name sounded very familiarly to me and when I read about him I was very interested, so that is why.

Here is some information about Benito Mussolini:

Benito Mussolini, born in a Italian workers family, was the founder of fascism. He was as Italian Politician and led the National Fascist Party. Mussolini was inspired by his father who was a nationalist. He is one of the founders of fascism. He studied for teacher but due his affaires with ladies he had a very short career. Later Mussolini volunteered in the Italian Navy. Later he found work as a political journalist. He used this network later on in his premiership.

Benito Mussolini has been a very important switch in Human History, he had influenced Adolf Hitler and together there wanted to make a new “Roman Empire.” In the following thesis I will briefly write about, “how Mussolini came to power” and a little about his younger each. The time where people had big influences on him and how.

For this essay I am going to use questions which I will explain and answer. My main question is :

“ How did Mussolini rise to power in Italy ? ”

And the following 2 sub-questions will help me answer it:

“ What was Mussolini’s ideology ?”

“ How did Mussolini build his dictatorship?”

Benito Mussolini: The Birth of Fascism

Mussolini is the oldest of three kids who was born on the 29th of July 1883 in Predappio which was part of the North-East region of Mid-Italy which is called Romagna. In the early formation of Benito's character four factors are outstanding: the influence of his native, Romagna, a land of restlessness and rebellion, once called the Sicily of con

tinental Italy; the ideology of his father, a village blacksmith, atheist, and convinced revolutionary; the middle-class heritage and devout Catholicism of his mother, a gentle elementary school teacher; and the distressing poverty of the people around him, shared from time to time by his own family. In his earlier years he was a very aggressive boy who fought a lot which nearly caused him to quit school at an earlier age. Benito studied for teacher but due affairs with ladies this career come to a fast end. The ideology of socialism interested him very much, that’s why he joined the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano, PSI). The PSI was overall, a revisory party but had also a Marxist part. Mussolini ditched with the Marxist and turned his back to revisory socialism. Benito got away to Switzerland because he wanted to avoid his conscription. He went to Switzerland without any idea what to do. He ended up homeless. When he got caught by the police and sat in jail for three days, he changed his mind and found help at some Italian Socialists. Mussolini was deported to Italy and volunteered for military service. Finally Mussolini found a job in 1906 as an editor for the newspaper: L'Avvenire del Lavoratore ("The Future of the Worker"). It was very easy to make contact with irredentist politician and journalist Cesare Battisti, who offered him a job as writer/editor for Battisti’s newspaper called Il Popolo ("The People"). In 1915 he became father of a son.

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After the first World War, Mussolini was heavily wounded. Italy as a country was shaking, like every other country. Hundred thousands of people died, national debt was very high and scarcity was a main problem. The socialists wanted revolution and others wanted rebuilt. This was the moment where it begun for Mussolini. On March 23, 1919, Mussolini decided to attempt to revive his Fasci movement. A meeting was held in a hall in Milan and was attended by some fifty malcontents. From this seemingly small and insignificant event the Fascio di Combattimento' (Combat Group) was born. Eventually everyone thought that his Fasci would be a failure. Because of the elections in 1919, none of the applicants won a single seat in the parliament. By the end of 1919, Mussolini received hardly more than 2% of the votes in Milan, less than 5000 votes against 170,000 for the Socialists. How could such a party without a comprehensible program and peoples trust become a dictatorship ten years later ? This was the moment where fascism was created, Italy was a very unstable country in 1920. Fascism supported nationalist sentiments such as a strong unity, regardless of class, in the hopes of raising Italy up to the levels of its great Roman past. Mussolini gained a lot of support with his manifesto, “The Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle“, published in June 1919. The manifesto told the people what the fascist party tries to reach. It was divided in 4 main sections: Political problems, Social Problems, Military problems and Financial problems. Some quotes:

Political

“A minimum age for voting in electorate of 18 years; that for the office holders at 25 years.”

Social

“A minimum wage”

“A modification of the insurance laws to invalidate the minimum retirement age; we propose to lower it from 65 to 55 years of age”

Military

“ Nationalization of all the arms and explosives factories “

Financial

“ A strong progressive tax on capital that will truly expropriate a portion of all wealth

A group of Fascists started to wear blackshirts, as a symbol for Fascism. He also brought back the Roman salute. It was a recognition of Fascism. They did this with the goal of restoring order to the streets of Italy with a strong hand. Later Hitler copied this salute and the black shirts became brown.

The Fascist party grew so fast that they got the recognition as “ National Fascist Party “ In 1921, Mussolini was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time along with 35 other party members.

In August, 1992, the ruling leftist party called in a strike in the nation. Musslini was furious and issued that the had to end the strike, or otherwise the Fascists Party would do. On October 24, 1922 there was a big meeting of fascists in Napels as a demonstration against the government. Bennito Mussolini said that the National Fascists Party was ready to rule the state. The Government didn’t react on this instead they frequently called out a election straight away. The Fascist Party knew it was hard to rule the legal way…

March to Rome

On the same day, 24th of October there was a secret meeting between the most important Fascist leaders. There had been made a very big decision, the March to Rome would be 4 days later on the 28th of October. Meanwhile, the Fascists, who had occupied the Po plain, took all strategic points of the country. On October 26, former prime minister Antonio Salandra warned current Prime Minister Luigi Facta that Mussolini was demanding his resignation and that he was preparing to march on Rome. However, Facta did not believe Salandra and thought that Mussolini would govern quietly at his side. The king was willing to give the power to Mussolini because he was scared and didn’t want a coup. The Vatican, i.e. the Pope, also agreed. It was first the idea to march from Napels to Rome this would helped Mussolini to promote his fasci and show his army. But instead of marching to Rome the most part went by train to a Roman-Suburb and marched a little walk to Roma itself. He inflated the figures from the reality of a few hundred black-shirts to a mythical army of 300,000 fascists led by him in person on horseback. After arrival in Rome, Mussolini told the King that he wanted the power or he would commit a coup otherwise. To prevent this, King Victor Emanuel III gave Mussolini the assignment to form a cabinet. Mussolini fulfilled this task by forming a preponderance cabinet and the King appointed him as prime minister.

Way to dictatorship

After the march to Rome, Bennito Mussolini was appointed to be Prime Minister. But his government contained a mixture of men with different political beliefs. He changed a lot of peoples believe with his great oral speeches and to get support from the Roman Catholic Church religious education was made compulsory in all elementary schools. He made known a Fascist Grand Council which would decide the program for Italy without asking the non-fascists in the government first. In February 1923, Mussolini and the Fascist Grand Council introduced the Acerbo Law. This law changed election results. Now if one party got just 25% (or more) of the votes cast in an election, they would get 66% of the seats in parliament. But how could the members of the Parliament agreed this law, which would eventually made an end of their political career when they were not Fascists? In the Parliament hall there were a lot of Fascists Armed Thugs watching the votings, they could tell exactly who voted for or against the law. The warning was clear, if you voted for the law you was fine. If you did not, you were assuredly in danger.

As the thugs did beat up oppositions it didn’t stop Giacomo Matteotti from publicly carping on Mussolini. When Matteotti was murdered, certainly by fascists, there was a very devastating uproar as Matteotti was the leader of the Socialist Party. A number of non-fascist politicians walked out of Parliament in protest at the murder. This gesture only served to play into Mussolini’s advantage as it got rid of more parliamentary opposition. Any critics of Mussolini were beaten up and newspapers that were not supportive of the Fascists were shut down. In January 1925, Mussolini said the following:

"I declare….in front of the Italian people……that I alone assume the political, moral and historic responsibility for everything that has happened. Italy wants peace and quiet, work and calm. I will give these things with love if possible and with force if necessary."

In November 1926, all non-supporting political parties and opposition newspapers were banned in Italy. Mussolini even changed the constitution, as he had al parliamentary seats available this was possible. He introduced a diarchy. This was a system in were a country was ruled by two political heads. In Italy’s case, Benito Mussolini and the King, Victor Emmanuel. This system led Mussolini actually to be the most powerful man in Italy.

Conclusion

As I mentioned in the beginning of my thesis, I made this thesis about Benito Mussolini bases on a research question. I have tried to explain and tell the story on how Benito Mussolini has raised to power in Italy and briefly explained this with the help of two sub questions.

Mussolini’s mind of thinking was in his youth already very much influenced of the way he was been raised as a child. He got away to Switzerland on a very young age. Mussolini had hardly anybody there to support him, so he looked for help and ended up with some Italian Socialists which also had a lot of influences on him, this is how Benito Mussolini’s character/mind was formed. Mussolini played a very smart game on his way to power in Italy, sometimes with a bit of violence though.

Nowadays Italian people don’t want to remind of Mussolini because he did a lot of harsh stuff to everyone who opposed him.
I have learned a lot about Mussolini due this project, and there for I want to

Thank the best, greatest, most brainy teacher in the universe: Jeroen Rikkerink !

Bibliography

1. Mussolini

Contributors: Laura Fermi

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Place of Publication: Chicago

Publication Year: 1966

Mussolini, Laure Fermi; University of Chicago Press, 1966; p. 11

Wikipedia [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Political_journalist_and_soldier ] 14-02-’09

Wikipedia [ ] 14-02-’09

Flunking Fascism 101 [ ] 13-02-’09

Benito Mussolini “ Il Duce “ [ http://www.comandosupremo.com/Mussolini.html ] 15-02-’09

Mussolini, Laure Fermi; University of Chicago Press, 1966; p. 161

BBC News History [ ] 15-02-’09

History learning site [ ] 15-02-’09

Wikipedia [ ] 15-02-’09

Best professors/teachers in the World, Yeming Rouw; Uitgeverij Malmberg, Rotterdam, 2008 p, 1

My main question is : How did Mussolini rise to power in Italy ? And the following 2 sub-questions will help me answer it: What was Mussolinis ideology ? How did Mussolini build his dictatorship?

This is a preview of the whole essay

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