strain on the country's limited economic resources. the
domestic situation in the aftermath of the wardeteriorated further
Public morale was further undermined by the fact that, though Italy had been on the winning side, the victory was ‘mutilated': it had little to show for its sacrifices in terms of territorial gains or the respect afforded it by the triumphant `Great Powers', France, Britain, and the USA. Giolitti
recognized the gravity of the crisis, but his attempt to shore up the liberal system
backfired. The introduction of universal male suffrage brought two new radically
opposed parties into the political arena, the Socialists and the Populars
, both of which achieved promising results in the first post-war
elections. The bid to make the country more democratic had simply made it more
ungovernable, and so allowed for Mussolini to step through and pull Italy from the rubble.
The mounting social distress and public dissatisfaction combined with the
growing paralysis of the parliamentary system to create ideal conditions for political
extremism to thrive.
There was furthermore the ‘Bienno Rosso’ which arose from the aftermaths of the war. Not only did Syndicalists pursue their prewar programme of bringing down the capitalist state through a general strike, but many Marxists saw in the Russian Revolution and the international chaos resulting from the war the sign that the long-awaited collapse of capitalism was actually taking place, and aligned themselves with the Bolshevik (Communist) party in Moscow. The result was therefore the years 1919 and 1920 became known as the `biennio rosso', two years of intense
agitation by the revolutionary left throughout central and northern Italy. By late 1920 the situation could seem to the urban educated classes (`bourgeoisie') to be heading towards a full-scale civil war. The government had so far failed to restore law and order or public confidence, while the only effective barrier against a `Bolshevik' takeover was apparently being provided, not by the police or the army, but by the squadre d'azione. These black-shirted action squads were taking thelaw into their own hands in punitive expeditions against left-wing radicals or their headquarters. It was the rise of squadrismo which marked the establishment of a new force in Italian politics, Fascism - Mussolini had combined an opportunity arisen which had arisen from the war, and combined it with his own, showing to us that perhaps it wasn’t solely an element of the First World War which lead to the appointment of Mussolini.
This initial sign of Mussolini’s personal actions leading to his success grew into a tactical game-plan from Mussolini. This is seen where Mussolini had formed the Fasci di combattimento in Milan in March 1919, but the national elections later that year had only demonstrated Fascism's irrelevance to the political life of the country, but despite this it did show Mussolini’s desire to make his way to political power.
Fortuneately for Mussolini at this stage, with the rise of squadrismo during the biennio rosso the situation changed dramatically. Since each `action squad' was coordinated by a local Fascio and hence connected to the Fascist headquarters in Milan, the spread of squadrismo turned Fascism into a powerful outlet for populist counter-revolutionary and revolutionary passions, especially in areas where the left had its strongholds. Even when the sense of crisis ebbed, the Fascist squads' reputation for ruthless violence had
put their national leader Mussolini in the position to threaten to use them in a coup
against the state so as to secure political power for himself. This he did on 28 October
1922 in what became known as the `March on Rome'. Though in an emergency session
the government decided unanimously to send in the army (which showed no signs of
disloyalty) to put an end to the danger posed by the Blackshirts, the king, Victor
Emmanuel III, decided instead to accede to Mussolini's demands and appointed him
head of a coalition government - Mussolini’s tactics had played on the conditions left by the First World War and evolved to allow him to proceed in such a way that Mussolini went from 0 political power to a solid place within the coalition government. These conditions
it provided the bulk of recruits for Fascism in its formative phase: the Arditi, or elite troops of the Italian army, played a dominant role in leading both the local Fasci and the squads, while their rank-and file were composed largely of demobilized soldiers or patriotic volunteers who been had too
young to be called up. Second, it directly produced both an objective political crisis and
a widespread subjective sense of imminent social breakdown. These combined to
enable extra-parliamentary forces of the left to be perceived as a genuine threat to the
state, and the paramilitary right (i.e. Fascist squadrismo) to pose as the defender of law
and order.
Yet it is important not to overestimate the impact of the war on Mussolini's rise
to power. After all, the structural weaknesses which Italy inherited from the
Risorgimento account both for the inadequacy of its political system in the
period before 1915, and the presence even then of powerful currents of utopianism
about creating a `new state’ which prepared the ground for Fascism. Moreover, the
Split of right and left revolutionary forces, as well the generalized sense of a
crisis of the nation and civilization as a whole, both so important to the rise of Fascism
after 1919, were also fuelled by the Russian Revolution of 1917, which was certainly a
partial consequence of the impact of the First World War in Russia, but not in Italy.
Another factor in Mussolini=s rise was the and to re-enfor Finally it should not be forgotten that had Victor Emmanuel chosen to sign the
emergency decree in October 1922 then Mussolini's gamble would not have paid off.
In short, the First World War provided the necessary, but not the sufficient
conditions, for Mussolini's rise to power. Even after the March on Rome, it was further
miscalculations by parliamentarians and the tacit support of both the Church and the
Monarchy which enabled him to take shrewd advantage of the Matteotti crisis of 1924
and so lay the foundations of an authoritarian (`totalitarian=) state. Only then had
Mussolini=s `rise to power' progressed to the point where he could embark on the
doomed Fascist experiment in the creation of a `new Italy'.
Mussolinis rise to power was undoubtly his own tactical astuteness. He cleverly applied a blend of paramilitary violence and diplomacy, extraparliamentary
and parliamentary tactics, or, as he once put it himself, `legalism and
illegalism', to exploit to the full the opportunities created by the spread of squadrismo,
radically changing policies and resisting several challenges to his leadership on the
was - but clearly without the First World War, this would have most definitely not been a possibility as there simply wouldn’t have been the conditions present for a full Political takeover to take place - as it did so -
by
donfosin (student)
