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Italian fascism: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Italian fascism
In 1915, a political organization known as the Fasces of Revolutionary Action was founded in Italy, marking the birth of a movement that would eventually consume the Mediterranean. This group took its name from the ancient Roman fasces, a bundle of wooden rods tied around an axe, which symbolized the authority of a civic magistrate. While the symbol had previously been used by left-wing and liberal movements to represent solidarity, the fascists repurposed it to denote strength through unity, arguing that a single rod was easily broken but the bundle was unbreakable. Benito Mussolini, who would become the dictator known as Duce, established the Italian Fasces of Combat in Milan in 1919, transforming these early groups into the National Fascist Party two years later. The movement began as a left-nationalist and anti-clerical force, blending ultranationalism with revolutionary syndicalism to create a unique ideology that claimed to be the heir to the Roman Empire. Mussolini's early rhetoric was not initially focused on racial purity or the extreme antisemitism that would later define the regime, but rather on restoring Italian pride and reclaiming territories deemed lost to foreign powers. The fasces became the central visual identity of the state, appearing on everything from government buildings to the national flag, serving as a constant reminder of the regime's claim to absolute authority and the necessity of collective submission to the state.
The Myth of the Third Rome
Italian fascism sought to complete the incomplete project of the Risorgimento by incorporating Italia Irredenta, or unredeemed Italy, into the state. The regime identified modern Italy as the Third Rome, following the First Rome of antiquity and the Second Rome of the Renaissance, and promoted a cultural identity known as Romanitas. Mussolini emulated ancient Roman leaders like Julius Caesar and Augustus, using their rise to power and empire-building as models for his own political career. The fascists claimed Dalmatia as a land of Italian culture, arguing that Venetian rule had been beneficial for all Dalmatians and that the region had been unjustly taken from Italy after World War I. They also claimed the Ionian Islands, which had belonged to the Venetian Republic from the mid-14th until the late 18th century, and sought to annex territories in Switzerland, including the Italian-speaking region of Ticino and the Romansch-populated Graubünden. To the south, the regime claimed the archipelago of Malta, asserting that the Maltese language was a dialect of Italian and that the islands were the cradle of Latin civilization. The fascist government also viewed North Africa as Italy's Fourth Shore, annexing Libya in 1939 and making its four coastal provinces integral parts of metropolitan Italy. This expansionist policy was driven by the Doctrine of Fascism, which called for spazio vitale, or vital space, to provide room for Italian settler colonization and establish hegemonic control over the Mediterranean basin.
When was the Italian Fasces of Revolutionary Action founded?
The Italian Fasces of Revolutionary Action was founded in 1915. This political organization marked the birth of the movement that would eventually consume the Mediterranean.
What date did the Racial Laws begin the persecution of Italian Jews?
The Racial Laws enacted on the 11th of November 1938 began the persecution of Italian Jews. This shift was driven by political pressure from Nazi Germany and the endorsement of the Manifesto of Race.
When did the March on Rome take place?
The March on Rome took place from the 27th to the 31st of October 1922. During this event, King Victor Emmanuel III withdrew his support of Prime Minister Luigi Facta and appointed Benito Mussolini as the sixth Prime Minister of Italy.
When was the Lateran Treaty signed between Mussolini and the Vatican?
Mussolini concluded the Church-State conflict with the Lateran Treaty in February 1929. This agreement established the Vatican City microstate in Rome and introduced religious education into all state-funded schools.
When did the Italian surrender occur during World War II?
The Italian surrender occurred on the 8th of September 1943. Until this date, Fascist Italy remained a comparatively safe area for Jews and refugees despite the Racial Laws enacted in 1938.
Which countries adopted ideologies inspired by Italian fascism?
Italian fascism inspired movements in Brazil, Argentina, Romania, Russia, the Netherlands, Spain, and Yugoslavia. The Brazilian Integralist Action and the Argentine Fascist Party adopted similar ideologies, creating a global network of movements that drew inspiration from the Roman revival.
Until the alliance with Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini had consistently denied any antisemitism within the National Fascist Party, stating in 1922 that Italy knew no antisemitism and would never know it. He described antisemitism as a German vice and argued that there was no Jewish Question in Italy, a country with a healthy system of government. In 1932, he told a journalist that race was a feeling, not a reality, and that biologically pure races could not be shown to exist. However, by 1938, the regime had actively supported racist policies, endorsing the Manifesto of Race, which stated that it was time for Italians to proclaim themselves openly racist. This shift was driven by political pressure from Nazi Germany, and the resulting Racial Laws enacted on the 11th of November 1938 began the persecution of Italian Jews. Leading members of the party, such as Italo Balbo, reportedly opposed these laws, viewing antisemitism as having nothing to do with fascism. Despite the laws, Mussolini and the Italian military did not consistently apply them, and Fascist Italy remained a comparatively safe area for Jews and refugees until the Italian surrender on the 8th of September 1943. The regime also implemented strict racial segregation in Ethiopia after the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, and the deaths of one-tenth of the population of the Italian colony of Libya occurred during the fascist era, including from the use of gassings, concentration camps, starvation, and disease.
The Corporatist State and Economic Battles
The Italian fascists' political anthem was called Giovinezza, or Youth, and the regime identified the physical age period of youth as a critical time for the moral development of people that would affect society. Fascist Italy pursued what it called moral hygiene of youth, particularly regarding sexuality, condemning pornography, most forms of birth control, homosexuality, and prostitution as deviant sexual behavior. The regime regarded the promotion of male sexual excitation before puberty as the cause of criminality amongst male youth and took a new approach to homosexuality, viewing it as a social disease rather than a sin. Mussolini perceived women's primary role to be childbearers, once saying that war is to man what maternity is to the woman. In an effort to increase birthrates, the government initiated policies designed to reduce a need for families to be dependent on a dual-income, offering subsidies for a second child and proportionally increased subsidies for a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth child. In 1934, Mussolini declared that employment of women was a major aspect of the thorny problem of unemployment and that for women working was incompatible with childbearing. The solution to unemployment for men was the exodus of women from the work force, and the regime held ritual ceremonies to honor women's role within the Italian nation. Although the initial Fascist Manifesto contained a reference to universal suffrage, the broad opposition to feminism meant that when
The Cult of Youth and the Family
it granted women the right to vote in 1925, it was limited purely to voting in local elections and only applied to a small section of the female population.
The relationship between Italian fascism and the Catholic Church was mixed, as originally the fascists were highly anti-clerical and hostile to Catholicism, though from the mid to late 1920s anti-clericalism lost ground in the movement. In February 1929, Mussolini concluded the unresolved Church-State conflict of the Roman Question with the Lateran Treaty, establishing the Vatican City microstate in Rome. The papacy recognized the state of Italy in exchange for diplomatic recognition of the Vatican City, the introduction of religious education into all state-funded schools, and 50 million pounds sterling that were shifted from Italian bank shares into a Swiss company. Not long after the treaty was signed, Mussolini was almost excommunicated over his determination to prevent the Vatican from having control over education. The Pope protested Mussolini's pagan worship of the state and the imposition of an exclusive oath of obedience that obligated everyone to uphold fascism. Mussolini, who had declared in his youth that religion was a species of mental disease, wanted the appearance of being greatly favored by the Pope while simultaneously subordinate to no one. The regime also maintained a complex relationship with the monarchy, as Mussolini tactically abandoned republicanism in 1922 to gain the support of the establishment. King Victor Emmanuel III held legal authority over Mussolini, and the King could dismiss the Prime Minister, which he did in 1943. Mussolini pursued reducing the power of the King to that
The Pact with the Pope and the King
of a figurehead, creating the position of First Marshal of the Empire in 1938 to give himself equal legal authority over the military.
After World War I, Italian nationalism claimed that Italy was cheated in the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and the Allies had impeded Italy's progress to becoming a Great Power. The fascist leader Mussolini took matters in hand, combating social discontent, strikes, and insurrections with the Blackshirts, paramilitary squads of First World War veterans and ex-socialists. The violence between socialists and the mostly self-organized squadristi militias had increased so dramatically that Mussolini was pressured to call a truce to bring about reconciliation with the Socialists. The Liberal government preferred fascist class collaboration to the Communist Party of Italy's class conflict, and Mussolini launched the March on Rome from 27 to the 31st of October 1922 to oust Prime Minister Luigi Facta. On the 28th of October, King Victor Emmanuel III withdrew his support of Facta and appointed Mussolini as the sixth Prime Minister of Italy. The March on Rome became a victory parade, and the fascists believed their success was both revolutionary and traditionalist. In 1924, the National Fascist Party won the election with 65 percent of the votes, but Deputy Giacomo Matteotti formally accused the party of electoral fraud and denounced Blackshirt political violence. On the 10th of June 1924, the Ceka, a party secret police modeled on the Soviet Cheka, assassinated Matteotti, and the five men arrested were sentenced to five years' imprisonment but served only eleven months before being freed under amnesty. When
The March on Rome and the Rise of Violence
the King supported Mussolini, the socialists quit Parliament in protest, leaving the fascists to govern unopposed.
The fascist government's model was very influential beyond Italy, with many political scientists and philosophers seeking ideological inspiration from the Italian experiment during the interbellum period. Mussolini's establishment of law and order was praised by Winston Churchill, Sigmund Freud, George Bernard Shaw, and Thomas Edison as the fascist government combated organized crime and the Sicilian Mafia. Italian fascism was copied by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party, the Russian Fascist Organization, the Romanian National Fascist Movement, and the Dutch fascists, who were based upon the Verbond van Actualisten journal. The Sammarinese Fascist Party established an early fascist government in San Marino, and their politico-philosophic basis was essentially Italian fascism. In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Milan Stojadinović established his Yugoslav Radical Union, wearing green shirts and Šajkača caps and using the Roman salute. In Switzerland, pro-Nazi Colonel Arthur Fonjallaz of the National Front became an ardent Mussolini admirer after visiting Italy in 1932 and advocated the Italian annexation of Switzerland. The country hosted two Italian politico-cultural activities: the International Centre for Fascist Studies and the 1934 congress of the Action Committee for the Universality of Rome. In Spain, the writer Ernesto Giménez Caballero called for the Italian annexation of Spain, led by Mussolini presiding over an international Latin Catholic empire, before progressing to being closely associated with Falangism. The influence of Italian fascism extended to the Americas, where the Brazilian Integralist Action and the Argentine Fascist Party
The Global Shadow of the Blackshirts
adopted similar ideologies, creating a global network of movements that drew inspiration from the Roman revival and the authoritarian state model.