How did Giolotti's government shape Italy's political situation 1911-14

Question 1

Who was Giolitti?

Answer 1

• Most prominent politican of liberal era.
• PM on five separate ocassions whose ideas shaped Italy - appt in 1911 for the fourth time.
• Master of the policy of transformiso.
• Kept files on the weaknesses of every deputy in the Italian Parli.
• Cynical about politics - believed all opponents could be transformed into political allies if they were offered the right deal.

Question 2

Giolotti’s goals

Answer 2

• Making Italy a more modern, industrialised and successful country where the masses could be unified by shared values and a faith of liberal ideas in parliament.
• Programme to achieve this focused on gaining support from the three key oppositional forces to Liberal Italy: Socialists, Catholics and nationalists.

Question 3

Giolitti and the Socialists

Who were the PSI?

Answer 3

• Socialist Party - one of the few formal parties which quickly developed into a powerful political institution.
• 1900 GE = achieved 32/508 deputies.
• 1913 GE = 79/508 deputies.
• Membership grew = by 1902, 250k industrial workers joined socialist federations and 218k workers joined agricultural cooperations formed in 1910.

Question 4

Giolitti and the Socialists

What contributed to the growth of socialism in Italy?

Answer 4

• Mirrored by Italy’s industrialisation, as population in major northern cities expanded due to mass internal migration.
• Urbanisation - the mixing of Italians encouraged the dissemination of political thought/engagement and increased literacy = encouraged socialism’s growth as a means for working-class advancement.

Question 5

Giolitti and the Socialists

Who led the PSI and what did they promoted?

Answer 5

• Led by Turati - supported by several academically educated intellectuals who distrusted liberals’ ability to achieve Risorgimento - believed only socialism could solve political corruption, rural poverty and the widening gap between the ruling classes and the masses.
• More active than the PLI in taking their messages to the poor, holding public meetings in cafes.
• Promoted education to enable the poor to challenge the political order, working to encourage greater school attendance and providing books.

Question 6

How did Giolitti view the socialists and what did he do?

Answer 6

Opposition which could be dealt with through transformiso - absorbing the socialist deputies into the political system by offering social reforms. Examples include:

• Compulsory accident insurance in industrial work paid by the employer.
• Introducing a maternity fund (1903).
• Non-intervention in labour disputes and the establishment of arbitration courts to settle pay disputes, lowering the need for strike action in 1906.

Question 7

Was the social reforms successful in dealing with the Socialists?

Answer 7

• Won support from moderates like Turati until 1912 but he struggled to win over the entire PSI - split between reformers (willing to collaborate to bring gradual change) and the maximalists.
• Maximalists despised the lib state + opposed T’s reformism, believing it undermined the party and prevented real reform.
• Despite G’s social policies, not winning all the PSI undermined his key aim of transformismo and the compromise led to conflict with the anti-socialist Catholic Church and nationalists.

Question 8

Giolitti and the Catholic Church

Answer 8

• Recognised the Church’s power and influence - extremely careful in his dealings with this institution.
• Relationship rested on previous policies (no Catholic engagement in Politics) implemented since 1904 = announced that the Church and State were ‘two parallel lines which should never meet’ and seemingly should be kept separate.

Question 9

Was the relationship with the Church successful?

Answer 9

To an extent, being the first Italian PM to win the organised Catholic vote - achieved in a similar way to his ‘absorption of the socialists’, offering policies and compromises. As previously, Pope Leo XII announced in 1981 that Catholics shouldn’t participate in politics - relaxed by Pope Pius X in 1904.

Question 10

What type of policies did Giolitti offered to the Church and their collaboration?

Answer 10

• Allowed a divorce bill to ‘silently disappear from parliament’.
• Promoted Catholic interests in areas such as education.
• In 1909, the Pope encouraged Italians to vote in around 150 constituencies the PSI were likely to win.
• Upon becoming PM in 1911, the Catholic-Liberal cooperation was most evident locally, where the Catholics were part of governing coalitions in Turin, Bologna, Florence and Venice.
• Church grew its political influence through youth movements and sports clubs from 1904-11 = gained considerable sway of the popular vote, especially in the North.

Question 11

What was Giolitti not prepared to do for the Church?

Answer 11

• Happily used the Catholics to improve his parli majority but wasn’t prepared to actively court a greater link.
• Prioritising the socialists’ support, as he didn’t wish to jeopardise this by offering concessions the Church if it would imperil his programme.
• No concessions offered on Roman territory - not solving the Roman Question which plagued Italy.

Question 12

Giolitti and the Nationalists

Who were they and how did nationalism grow in Italy?

Answer 12

• Largest threat was nationalists.
• Organised Italian nationalism as a political force barely existed in 1908 but became a largely influential movement after the ‘failure’ of Risorgimento, defeat at the Battle of Adwa, the country’s weakness as a world power and forced emigration to search for a better life/.

Question 13

What were the values of the nationalists?

Answer 13

• Anti-socialist and anti-liberal.
• Only through aggressive foreign policy, expanding Italy’s power in Africa and claim the irrendete lands, could Italy assert itself as a world power - linking all Italians.
• Unite all classes within their patriotism and belief that the nation was superior, sweeping away the decedeant liberal order which failed to uphold the potential of risorgimento.

Question 14

When did nationalism emerge as a political party?

Answer 14

• ANI inagurated in 1910 - led by Corradini.
• Considered a dynamic force which Gio struggled to deal with.

Question 15

What was Giolitti’s relationship with the nationalists like?

Answer 15

• Not overtly positive at first, seeing Giolotti as everything weak and corrupt about Italy (disliked the work with socialists and needed to be overthrown).
• Giolotti’s attempt to boost Italian support for his leadership through a liberal programme of reform and economic modernisation FAILED mainly because nationalism had a greater attraction than liberalism in its more patriotic message - promised to unite the Italians under a powerful and assertive Italy.
• 1911 = changed paths - embracing nationalism by expanding Italy’s empire in North Africa through the invasion of Libya.