Why did Mussolini come to Power in 1922? How did Mussolini consolidate his position by 1926?

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History L6 HL                                  Written by:

                              Igor Knezevic

Why did Mussolini come to Power in 1922? How did Mussolini consolidate his position by 1926?

After the unification of Italy in 1870 the country was run by a series of liberal governments.  The period between 1870 and 1922 was an era that faced major problems- poverty, unemployment, a lack of national identity and perhaps most significantly of all, the First World War.  The Liberal government were extremely ineffective in solving these problems, which caused unrest within the population.  There was also a severe lack of unity within the government and a lot of internal political conflict.

However, the Liberal government were not only ineffective, they were unpopular.  For example, the government attempted to solve the problem of the lack of natural resources and military strength by forming a triple alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, who were traditionally Italy’s greatest enemy, and the people resented this.  This gave rise to unrest among the people, leading to the development of socialism, despite attempts to ban it.  

All the above points served only to aid Mussolini in his rise to power and the government’s weaknesses provided a platform on which his popularity could grow and as editor of a socialist newspaper he was able to influence people’s opinions a great deal.

The single most significant factor in the ending of Liberal Italy is the First World War.  As Lee described it, it took Italy from ‘instability to crisis.’  Despite the fact that Italy was victorious, the treaty of Versailles treated Italy badly.  The Italians gained a little territory around the Adriatic and didn’t get a share of the German colonies in Africa.  For this reason Italy’s gain from the war was described as a ‘mutilated victory’ and the liberals were blamed for their failure to gain more land.  Demobilised soldiers felt betrayed by the peace terms and were ready to support the dynamic nationalism of the Fascists.  One nationalist, D’Annunzio took 2,000 men into the city of Fiume and took charge there.  His liking for drama and publicity was not lost on another enemy of liberalism – Mussolini.  Mussolini watched D’Annunzio very closely during his period in charge of Fiume (which only lasted a year).  He greatly admired D’Annunzio, mainly for his confidence and drama.

Because of the ex-soldiers’ dislike of the liberal government, Mussolini was able to use them to establish the Fascio di Combattimento.  This was a movement, not a party and they found support from all patriotic Italians.  Its popularity also raised from the fact that Mussolini was a brilliant orator – possibly the finest in twentieth century European history, and that he appealed to all sections of society, particularly as the population on the whole were weak-minded and uneducated.  Furthermore, Mussolini influenced people greatly through the pages of his new newspaper, Il Popolo d’Italia.  Mussolini was clever in the way that he attracted people to the movement because of its radical socialist ideas but then soon changed its policy to one of extreme anti-socialism and in April 1919 Fascists burnt the Avanti! offices (Mussolini’s former newspaper) and engaged in other acts of violence against socialists, such as pouring Castor Oil over them and simply beating them up.  This was done not only by the Fascio di Combattimento but by other fascist squadrismo, completely independent of Mussolini’s movement, although their leaders the ras realised the importance of Mussolini, particularly because of his newspaper. This is a further and very important reason why Mussolini was able to come to power – the fear his opposition held not just for his movement, but for Mussolini himself.  By late 1920 Fascism had really taken off, attracting not just the wealthy but the bourgeoisie and also sharecroppers as well, all of whom were hostile towards socialism.

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The movement was also able to grow due to the support from the rural and industrial elite.  These groups also appreciated the weakness of the liberal government and the threat of socialism and so gave money to support the fascist movement – this further persuaded the group to move more to the right of the political spectrum.  

However, in a modern western society, it is highly improbable that a simple movement of anti-socialists could come to power.  Mussolini realised this, and so he formed the National Fascist Party in an effort to become more respectable, and to ...

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Spelling, punctuation and grammar are all fine and I would advise candidates to echo certain aspects of this essays structure; notably the distinct paragraphs which make it easy to follow. Overall, a solid essay which would achieve good marks no doubt.

Detailed yet concise. The exploration of various factors is weighted fairly between narrative, analysis and judgement which is effective. This candidate chooses a wide berth of reasons for Mussolini's rise to power and consequent consolidation, whilst providing his own opinion on their significance with own knowledge and reasoning,

A very detailed response which examines various points regarding the two given questions. One should note that only one of these (rise or consolidation) would be likely to come up in the AS exam so don't panic! However, this candidate does explore reasons and continues to evaluate their greater significance as is advised.