The Rise of Fascism in Italy

History 409 Term Paper 1

By: Jakob Ostwald 20045931

Fascism in Italy was able to grow from its humble foundation in 1919 to take power in

Rome by 1922. This rapid change occurred mainly because of political compromises in an

uncertain time and because of the use of violence by fascists to eliminate opposition. The

political and economic issues that were created and exacerbated by World War One exposed

the flaws of the current Italian government. The pressures of industrialization, urbanization

and uneven development led to the creation of a working-class proletariat that began to

demand political concessions from the established order. Additionally, without a strong

unifying force holding Italians together, most were focused on issues within their own

provinces or economic classes. Government did little to remedy the growing divisions across

Italy, and many people were willing to listen to increasingly radical ideologies that promised to

solve their problems. One of these ideologies, socialism, pledged to completely end private

property and to focus on getting the wealthy to return their wealth to the people, as they

believed that their wealth was ill gotten in the first place. This ideology and the support it had

was sufficiently frightening to the middle and upper classes that they began to look for any

alternatives to the ‘revolution’ that was being preached. Simultaneously there were some

veterans of the First World War who detested the socialists to such an extent that they began

to organize and then violently attack the socialists. These people called themselves fascists,

and they ultimately came to represent the interests of the upper and middle classes through

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their opposition to socialism and because of the support given to them by the wealthy.

Without other political options to resist the rise of socialism, and when given the opportunity to

benefit from fascism, the upper and middle classes in Italy began to support the fascists.

For their part, the fascists relied on controlled violence, quickly crippling socialist

leadership and morale while not losing any support in the process. Fascist leaders such as Italo

Balbo, Dino Grandi and Benito Mussolini all directed and sometimes participated in violence

against socialists. The ability to quickly move their most ardent followers, the Blackshirts, from

place to place allowed the fascists to attack and intimidate socialists and anyone else who

opposed them. A fascist takeover in Italy was far from inevitable, however, as an ability to

violently attack their opponents did not ensure a path to power for the fascists in Italy. Yet the

failures of their opponents to organize and resist the fascists – politically or otherwise – and the

political compromises that were made with the fascists let them rise to the top. Mussolini as

well as other fascists leaders such as Italo Balbo formed a cut of personality around themselves

and rallied fanatical support from key groups, most notably the rural middle class.i Additionally,

political promises made by the fascist groups and their immediate execution solidified their

claim to legitimate authority, as the fascist began to address the issues of their supporters.

Through the combination of a weak existing order, frightening and unrealistic rhetoric from the

socialists, the use of violence and opportunistic support from the upper class, Italian fascists

were able to rise from a fringe movement into a position of political primacy by 1922.

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 Fascism was able to rise so be successful in part because nationalism had not been well

established in the relatively new nation of Italy. The formation of Italy as a nation state was a

complicated and drawn-out process that lacked a defining event that could unite the people of

Italy together symbolically.ii Unlike the unification of Germany with their spectacular victory

over the French in the Franco-Prussian war in 1871, Italians did not immediately have anything

to feel proud about. The victories that the Kingdom of Sardinia won against the Austrians to

acquire Lombardy and Venetia were done with the help of the great powers; France in 1859

and Prussia in 1866.iii While these were important events towards the political unification of

Italy, they did very little to further Italian nationalism.iv To make matters more complicated,

the entirety of Southern Italy was united under the banner of Giuseppe Garibaldi who wanted

to form a republic. v Garibaldi sacrificed his vision of a republic in order to complete the

unification of Italy, proclaiming Victor Emmanuel II King of Italy in 1860. vi Far from uniting

Italians, the unification of North and South reaffirmed the differences between the two regions.

Another major factor that tainted the potential joy of unification was the occupation of Rome

and the Papal States in 1870. It necessary to capture Rome with force – 68 people died –

making it clear in Italy and across the Catholic world that this occupation was not welcome. vii

This was a divisive event as Italians were forced to question which they valued more, their

newly formed nation or their faith. This demonstrated that the unification and formation of the

Kingdom of Italy did not strengthen Italian nationalism with everyone, rather it increased it with

those who had benefited and decreased it with those who had not.viii Italian nationalists,

primarily from the urban North, were keen to embrace the new ‘Great Power’ status that Italy

had, and urged the new King Umberto to expand Italy’s colonial empire. ix In 1896 Italy was

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embarrassed by their defeat at Adwa against the native Ethiopians, which quickly brought the

dreams of Italian nationalists back in touch with reality. In 1911 Italy again tried to increase the

size of their colonial empire and invaded Ottoman Libya, eventually capturing it as well as the

Dodecanese Islands in 1912. Despite the success of the Italo-Turkish war in acquiring colonies

for Italy, the conflict proved costly and demonstrated that Italian troops were not as effective

as the nationalists thought they were.x By 1912, Italian nationalists still had little success to

unite the nation behind and were still looking to complete the unification of the Italians by

taking Istria and Dalmatia from Austria-Hungary. Italian nationalists were looking for a major

war through which they could hope to win these last territories of the Italian homeland and

also to unite the Italian people through the struggle of the war itself.

The significance of the First World War on the rise of Fascism cannot be understated.

The greatest war in human history until this point, the impact of the First World War was felt

across Italy. Out of a total population of about 35 million in 1914 Italy mobilized 5.6 million

men, or 16% over the course of the war. xi This meant that almost a third of the entire male

population of Italy served in the army in some capacity during the war. Out of the 5.6 million

who were mobilized, 650,000 died and another 947,000 were wounded during the war.xii The

total number of casualties for Italy exceeded two million, representing nearly 40% of those who

served and 6% of the total population of the country.xiii Most of the fighting during the war had

taken place in the Alps, making life difficult for the soldiers stationed there. The impact of the

experience of the war on those who fought in it as well as the loss of so many people

reverberated throughout Italian society. Everyone was affected by the war, and no one was

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made better off. Stanley Payne describes that the war saw a widespread discrediting of the

existing leadership, the growth of state power and a new acceptance of violence. xiv During the

war and in the immediate aftermath the rise of Lenin and the Armenian Genocide also became

known to more people, and it demonstrated to the more radical that it was possible for the

state to declare an entire group of people within its borders as ‘enemies’ but also that it could

conceive of eliminating them. xv Altogether the war experience for Italy, as well as most other

countries that fought in it, was fundamentally transformative and destabilizing. Gone was the

trust in a system of government that sent millions to die for little discernable gain, while those

who sought to replace it now had new confidence in the ability of the state to achieve their

radical ambitions. For the rise of fascism in Italy, the First World War set in place many of the

dilemmas that fascism would promise to solve, as well as motivating them to do so.

The circumstances into which fascism formed in Italy were unique because of the lack of

a significant political ‘right’. The First World War had cost Italy dearly, in terms of manpower

but also in terms of prestige and purpose, discrediting those who got Italians into it. Italians

had fought and died yet saw no benefits from their efforts. The peace at Versailles also

humiliated the Italians, even though they had joined the victorious allies, they were not given

the territory that they were promised when they joined the war.xvi The Treaty of London that

brought Italy into the war in 1915 secretly promised to cede parts of the Austro-Hungarian

Empire to the Kingdom of Italy including the entirety of Dalmatia.xvii This was sufficiently

enticing to the Italian leadership to get them involved in the war, however in 1917 the

Bolsheviks got their hands on the treaty and published it.xviii Whether it was the

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embarrassment of this agreement being published, or if the Great Powers never intended to

give Italy these territories was irrelevant because the powers did not give Italy significant parts

of what they had promised. This only further reduced confidence in the Kingdom of Italy, which

had been lacking even before the failures of the First World War.xix Unlike other European

nations, Italians had relatively little in their past that could bind them together. xx In order to

see the most recent example of a unified Italy, one had to look back all the way to Ancient

Rome. Even the events of the relatively recent unification of Italy were not caused by the

nationalism or patriotism of common people. xxi This absence of a shared history between all

Italians made appeals to the nationalism relatively ineffective. This lack of national unity, at

least in the collective imagination made events like the military defeat in Ethiopia in 1896 or the

struggles of The First World War sore spots on the Italian psyche instead of the rallying points

that they could have been.xxii The major implications of this in the rise of fascism were twofold.

First, it meant that there was no strong tradition of Italian nationalism to draw support from or

appeal to, and at the same time meant that there would be much less opposition to

overturning the existing order. Roger Eatwell explains in his book about the history of fascism

that “fascism was successful where the mainstream right was weak.” xxiii This was true in Italy,

as not only nationalism but also conservatism failed to establish themselves as significant

political forces in the twentieth century. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, it meant

that Italians were exceptionally receptive to the class-based appeal of socialism and Marxism in

the absence of any national appeal.

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 The leadership of the fascist party in Italy was significantly influenced by both the rise of

socialism and the impacts of the First World War. Benito Mussolini was a socialist journalist for

the Avanti! Newspaper from 1901 to the start of the First World War and was politically active

this whole time.xxiv Dino Grandi was another significant leader in Italian fascism to be attracted

to the political left before the war, yet he swiftly changed course after meeting Mussolini in

1914.xxv Charles Delzell also comments on Mussolini’s time with the Avanti! that his writing

came to have a much more violent tone after the beginning of the war. xxvi He was eventually

fired from the Avanti! And shunned by his fellow socialists for his support of the war, and

instead he turned towards nationalism as something that transcended class.xxvii Mussolini had

begun to see the commonalities between Italians as more important than the commonalities

between workers, especially in the face of foreign pressure prompting him to support a hybrid

of nationalism and socialism.xxviii This change was significant because it came at a time when

nationalism was at an all-time high in Italy during the beginning of the war, well before the full

consequences had to be felt. Joining as a soldier in 1915, Mussolini was wounded in 1917 and

the overall effect of the war on Mussolini was immense. No longer did Mussolini believe in

socialism, and he declared in 1919 that “Socialism as a doctrine was already dead”. xxix

Mussolini had clearly made up his mind against the socialists, and his violent tendencies would

lend themselves perfectly to the formation of a fascist Italy.

Beyond the identity issues of Italy in 1919, the economic and political issues were also

piling up, enticing people towards socialism. The war had not affected all parts of the country

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equally, and the North continued to develop economically while the South lost manpower.xxx

Even before the First World War many Italians were emigrating out of the country, especially in

Southern Italy.xxxi Campania saw nearly one million people emigrate between 1901 and 1915,

and through this same period more than half of all emigrants from Italy lived south of Rome

despite the fact that the majority of Italians lived in the North.xxxii The development in the

North also did not benefit all equally, as industrialization of both urban and rural jobs began to

create a class of people who had no consistent employment and had to work for a daily wage –

the proletariat. Paul Corner explains that the rise of this group began as early as 1872 in the

province of Ferrara as the result of industrialization in agriculture, and this continued and

became more pronounced in other provinces as well.xxxiii For example Lombardy saw significant

growth in its urban population especially in Milan, which was largely the result of

industrialization in the countryside.xxxiv The development of this class, particularly in rural areas

was incredibly destabilizing, as this least privileged group of people now had the largest political

voice through the electoral process.xxxv This political reality was slower to dawn upon the

traditional upper classes as the franchise in Italy was more than doubled in 1912, and the full

political ramifications of this were still being felt. In addition to the franchise officially

expanding, The Catholic Church finally gave its blessing for Italians to vote in elections after

condemning it since the occupation of the Papal States in 1870. xxxvi The major consequences of

these two things (industrial development and expanded franchise) were that the socialist party

and socialism in general became much more significant politically. In the 1919 elections the

Socialist Party won 156 seats and received a third of the popular vote, with almost all of

Northern Italy electing socialist representatives.xxxvii In the 1921 elections the Socialist Party still

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received one quarter of the popular vote, more than that of any other party. xxxviii This

demonstrates that socialism in Italy was a major political force, especially in the dramatic

landscape of industrialization in Northern Italy.

The disillusionment of the working classes in Northern Italy was not uniquely recognized

by the socialists, however, nor was Italian ‘socialism’ a clear or unified idea. Huge variation in

the interests and messages expressed by socialists across the country ensured both high levels

of support locally, and very little agreement nationally. As socialists catered their platforms to

their area, the sheer diversity of Italy and Italian provinces made achieving any consensus

almost impossible. This was especially true when looking at Italy as a whole, as nearly all of

Northern Italy had much stronger support for the socialists than the South, with the exception

of Apulia. Another factor working against the unity of the socialists in Italy was the difference

between urban and rural socialism, with the latter focused upon the collectivization of

agriculture.xxxix Despite their lack of unity, the fundamental message of the socialists resonated

with many people and generated a lot of support. This was support was recognized across

Italian society, and even “some of the new nationalists took an interest in the socialist

propaganda”.xl By this comment Eatwell was referring to the increased attention to the issues

of the poor by those would have called themselves ‘nationalists’, as fascism in Italy had not yet

fully formed. Mussolini also would have understood the socialist appeal, especially since he

had been a socialist reporter before the First World War.xli The popularity and appeal of the

socialists was clear by 1920, yet they did not have enough support to completely take over, as

they remained largely a party of the Northern Italian poor.

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This rise of support for socialism, coupled with the extreme rhetoric used generated significant

opposition in the upper classes of Italian society. Throwing around ideas like abolishing private

property and adopting communal agriculture à la Russian Bolsheviks terrified the middle and

upper classes.xlii They saw a frightening movement rising with no clear way to stop or moderate

it. This political uncertainty was quickly joined by economic uncertainty in rural areas as

demand for many agricultural exports plummeted in 1920.xliii This uncertainty combined with

the fear of the socialist agenda put the upper classes into a unique position that they had not

often found themselves in before; they were vulnerable. Both politically and economically, the

well-off were beginning to imagine scenarios akin to the contemporary Russian Revolution and

the guillotines of France. The sense of upper-class vulnerability was made worse by the

government consistently siding with unions and workers in disputes.xliv This was to be expected

in provinces with socialist leadership, however governments of many other political stripes

would placate labour in this way as well.xlv Strikes were rampant both in the cities of Northern

Italy as well as in the countryside, with some of them turning violent. xlvi To many, this was clear

evidence that the government was losing control of the situation.

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 Into this vacuum of authority stepped a ragtag group of war veterans, promising to

resist the socialists. Most early fascists were veterans of World War One, a fact that was

important because it allowed them to easily be ‘wrapped up in the flag’ for public opinion.

Mussolini had long since abandoned and condemned socialism, while other fascists like Italo

Balbo were eager to fight those who had denounced the war effort. The fascists initial

successes relied heavily on the support of the wealthy in Italy, especially those in the

countryside. The fascists were able to win the support of the upper class so quickly because of

the opportunity that they presented to the wealthy. The socialists, whether knowingly or not,

were forcing business to make a choice: either pay the costs of accepting their demands or pay

the costs of refusing them. The introduction of the fascists onto the stage altered this dilemma,

as now businesses could choose to pay the fascists to fight the socialists.xlvii While this did not

help to solve any of the underlying issues of Italian society, this decision was made much easier

by the socialist rhetoric that railed against private property, making it clear to the upper-classes

that there could be no middle ground reached with the radicals. There was no moderate force

that could hope to ‘meet in the middle’ of these two extremes, either politically or

economically. Giovanni Giolitti, the Prime Minister of Italy was unable to placate the socialists

though his reforms and also because of his reluctance to confront the fascists. The mass of day

labourers and the upper classes of society had no starting point to begin negotiations of any

peaceful transfer of wealth or the creation of a welfare state. The decision of many businesses

and wealthy people to support the fascists does not explain the effectiveness and speed of their

rise, however, and the fascists themselves must be given significant credit for their ability to

exploit this uncertain situation.

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 The speed and degree of the fascist’s successes must be attributed to two main factors,

their use of violence, and their ability to claim legitimacy. The violence that they used was

ruthless but also calculated. Fascists used trucks given to them by the wealthy to mobilize huge

numbers into rural towns, then they would assault the most important socialists of the town

and destroy their headquarters there.xlviii This allowed the fascists to put on a huge show of

force (for these rural communities) and do it with unmatched speed, giving the socialists little

chance to resist.xlix In addition to their successful use of violence, the fascists were able to win

the battle of public opinion, with few shedding tears for the brutalized socialists. l When

socialists did fight back, the fascists were able to honor their fallen with huge burial ceremonies

that helped them garner the image of valiantly protecting Italy from the scourge of socialism.li

The fascist’s success in this area relied completely on the negative image of socialism at the

time, to which Italian socialists did no favours. For example, in the province of Ferrara where

the socialists had come to power through elections, they soon became unpopular both with

their supporters and their opponents. lii The socialists lost support with the former because of

their failure to follow through on their grand revolutionary promises, and they were feared and

detested by the latter for their radical promises.liii The fascists were also able to improve their

legitimacy through their land reform programs, which promised to give people the opportunity

to earn their own fortune. liv This reform directly attacked the socialist base of support in rural

areas and in comparison to the socialists lofty and unrealistic promises appeared to be a

reasonable and tangible policy. lv This policy was also popular with the wealthy landowners, as

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they simply needed to lease the land to sharecroppers (ensuring they did not lose too much

value) while it also promised to provide a buffer to socialist inclinations of the poor. lvi The

success of this policy in theory and then in practice in 1921 served to legitimize the fascist

party.lvii The fascists had just done what governments in Italy had failed to do for years: they

offered tangible benefits to most people through successful policy.

The successes of the fascists in the rural North of Italy quickly snowballed, eventually

culminating with the march on Rome in 1922 when the fascists took complete power. The

fractured provincial politics of 1920s Italy made it possible for fascism to quickly ‘spread’ from

one province to another, as squads would drive from one town to the next. lviii As fascism

became more prominent in 1921 and especially 1922, Mussolini began to do all he could to

make the party appear reformed and more appealing to moderates.lix Once Mussolini believed

that he had enough support he organized a demonstration in Rome, from which he hoped to

achieve power. He did not attend this demonstration himself, however, a testament to the

fragility of the situation and the possibility that Italy may have still been able to steer itself away

from the fascist path.lx Despite the delicacy of the situation, or perhaps because of it, King

Victor Emmanuel III decided to give Mussolini power instead of fighting him and the fascists.lxi

This reluctance to contend with the issues of the day that Victor Emmanuel had was illustrative

of the rise of fascism overall. Fascism rose when neither the left, the right or even the middle

would come to grips with the realities of Italy’s problems. For example, the agrarian reforms

that the fascists enacted were an example of compromise that pleased most people, but that

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was only in comparison to what their alternatives were. The landowners knew that

sharecropping was fundamentally less effective than large industrial agriculture, and the

sharecroppers knew that leasing land was not going to be a good long-term solution. This was

but one of many examples of the expedient compromises that the fascists in Italy made that

allowed them to achieve power but did not improve the lives of many Italians. This is why

Alexander de Grand called Italian fascism a “system of collective irresponsibility”, and its rise

should be seen in this light as well.lxii

Fascism in Italy was able to succeed and rise to power through a combination of political

compromise, the use of violence, and the failures of both the existing order and also of Italian

socialists. The failures of previous governments coupled with the problems of the Great War

reduced faith in the status quo. Into this vacuum, socialism began to take hold, however the

failures of the socialists to unify or to do what they set out to made people dissatisfied and

made the upper classes frightened. To combat the rise of socialism war veterans, with support

from the wealthy began to violently attack and supress socialists. As these fascists began to get

more support, they made effective political compromises that achieved results in the short

term and allowed them to gain enough legitimacy to achieve power. Through the successive

failures of political groups and the savvy of the fascists, they were able to maneuver into power

with little resistance.

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Endnotes

i Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. Pg. 54

ii Eatwell, Fascism. Pg. 32
iii Lucy Riall, The Italian Risorgimento. Pg. 34
iv Eatwell, Fascism. Pg. 32
v Lucy Riall, The Italian Risorgimento. Pg. 34
vi Lucy Riall. Pg. 62
vii Lucy Riall. Pg. 77
viii Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. Pg. 94
ix Payne. Pg. 95
x Beehler, The History of the Italian-Turkish War, September 29, 1911, to October 18, 1912. By Commodore W.H.

Beehler. Pg. 3
xi “Casualties of World War I”; Archives, “The National Archives - Homepage.”
xii “Casualties of World War I.”
xiii “Casualties of World War I.”
xiv Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. Pg. 79
xv Payne. Pg. 79,80
xvi Payne. Pg. 81
xvii Renzi, “In the Shadow of the Sword. Italy’s Neutrality and Entrance into the Great War.” Pg. 6
xviii Renzi. Pg. 6
xix Eatwell, Fascism. Pg. 32
xx Eatwell. Pg. 32
xxi Eatwell. Pg. 32
xxii Eatwell. Pg. 34
xxiii Eatwell. Intro
xxiv Delzell, Mediterranean Fascism, 1919-1945. Pg. 4
xxv “Fascist Foreign Policy of the Decisive Weight during the Cabinet of Dino Grandi (1929-1932) - Queen’s

University.”
xxvi Delzell, Mediterranean Fascism, 1919-1945. Pg. 14
xxvii Gregor, Young Mussolini and the Intellectual Origins of Fascism. Pg. 191
xxviii Gregor. Pg. 192
xxix “Salon.Com News | ‘We’re All Fascists Now.’”
xxx Eatwell, Fascism. Pg. 51
xxxi “Emigrazione Italiana: Il Più Grande Esodo Della Storia Moderna - Emigrati.It.”
xxxii “Emigrazione Italiana: Il Più Grande Esodo Della Storia Moderna - Emigrati.It.”
xxxiii Corner, Fascism in Ferrara, 1915-1925 / by Paul Corner. Pg. 2
xxxiv Morgan, The Fall of Mussolini.
xxxv Lyttelton and Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power. Pg. 41
xxxvi De Grand, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany the “Fascist” Style of Rule.
xxxvii Steffen Kailitz, “Elections in Europe. A Data Handbook.”
xxxviii Steffen Kailitz.
xxxix Eatwell, Fascism. Pg. 33
xl Eatwell. Pg. 34
xli Delzell, Mediterranean Fascism, 1919-1945. Pg. 3
xlii Eatwell Pg. 53; Corner, Fascism in Ferrara, 1915-1925 / by Paul Corner. Pgs. 83, 105
xliii Corner, Fascism in Ferrara, 1915-1925 / by Paul Corner. Pg. 110
xliv Corner. Pg. 108
xlv Corner. Pg. 108
xlvi Corner. Pg. 103
xlvii Corner. Pg. 126
xlviii Corner. Pg. 134

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xlix Corner. Pg. 137
l Corner. Pg. 117
li Corner. Pg. 117
lii Corner. Pg. 137
liii Corner. Pg. 137
liv Corner Pg. 146; Eatwell Pg. 56, Fascism; De Grand, Italian Fascism. Pg. 21
lv Corner, Fascism in Ferrara, 1915-1925 / by Paul Corner. Pg. 151
lvi Corner. Pg. 147
lvii Eatwell, Fascism. Pg. 61
lviii Corner, Fascism in Ferrara, 1915-1925 / by Paul Corner. Pg. 137
lix Eatwell Pg. 61, Fascism; De Grand, Italian Fascism. Pg. 33
lx De Grand, Italian Fascism. Pg. 36
lxi De Grand. Pg. 36
lxii De Grand. Pg. 21

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