Critically evaluate the successes and failures of Mussolini's domestic policies in Italy between 1922 and 1939.

Jānis Lasmanis 11. sb

Critically evaluate the successes and failures of Mussolini’s domestic policies in Italy between 1922 and 1939.

The time period between 1922 and 1939 in Italy was the dictatorship of Mussolini. As a dictator Mussolini radically changed the government policies trying to improve the welfare and economic stability, and also to strengthen his power by influencing public mood. Some of his policies were successful, some were failures, but when Mussolini started to cooperate with Hitler he significantly lost the popularity and could not maintain power for much longer. Mussolini’s domestic policies can be divided in two sectors – economic policies and social policies. So this essay will evaluate how successful were these policies and how successful was Mussolini in achieving them.

        Mussolini regarded himself as an emperor or duce, he was really obsessed with trying to reform Italy as an empire just as huge and powerful as it was several centuries ago. He wanted Italy to become self – sufficient and self determined, so there had to be made huge reforms in economic policies. Although most of his economic policies were unconsidered and thus failed still he did much for Italy’s economic improvement. First of all Mussolini significantly improved the private sector businesses by imposing the “laissez faire” policy thus decreasing the balance of payment deficit. Government also supported the industries by subsiding them and thus significantly increasing the output. All this turned even more effective as the overall European economy was experiencing the growth as there was greater stability after World War 1. Mussolini also tried to reform the agricultural policy. As he was trying to make Italy an self – sufficient state he did not want to be economically dependant on other countries imports. He ordered the farmers to grow wheat, so they could provide the country with it by themselves without importing the wheat. This was not a good idea – the Italy’s climate was not beneficial for the wheat and it would be much more effective to grow vegetables and fruits and import the wheat. Although the wheat imports significantly decreased during the thirties still the farmers were unsatisfied and did not gain as much profit as they could. Other Mussolini’s failure was the money reform. He revaluated the Lira and announced it almost two times more valuable than the British pound. This did a really harmful effect on the Italian exports as the expenditures for exporting the goods were not covered by the profit gained. It significantly harmed the industry and thus Italy also became more vulnerable through the Great Depression. Although he managed to reduce the unemployment to some extend still the people were unsatisfied because of his other unsuccessful decisions that did much damage to Italy’s economy.