Mussolini and the birth of fascism

Question 1

What was M the editor of?

Answer 1

Il Popolo d’Italia (The people of Italy)

Question 2

What did he have in common with D’Annunzio?

Answer 2

His contempt for liberalism and hatred of socialism

Question 3

What caused M to renounce his former socialist beliefs?

Answer 3

The war had convinced him that Italy needed a regime that would end the struggle between the social classes and unlike the liberals provide dynamic leadership on both the domestic and foreign policy stage

Question 4

What did he begin to claim about his newspaper from July 1918?

Answer 4

That it was the newspaper of combatants and producers, by producers he meant soldiers, farmers and factory workers

Question 5

What did he try and contrast these people with?

Answer 5

What he regarded as the parasitic groups in Italian economy: businessmen who had made vast profits from wartime contracts, socialists who had opposed the war and liberal politicians

Question 6

What had M come to realise he must do by early 1919?

Answer 6

Convert his rhetoric into action

Question 7

What did he then do in March 1919?

Answer 7

Called the inaugural meeting of a new movement, the fasci di combattimento, or combat groups

Question 8

How many people came to Milan for the meeting?

Answer 8

Around 100

Question 9

List the wide range of political views they represented

Answer 9

They included nationalists, republicans, anarchists, radical poets and painters

Question 10

What did republicans look to do at this time?

Answer 10

Abolish the monarchy

Question 11

Describe anarchist beliefs at this time

Answer 11

They opposed both strong central government and capitalism, arguing that political and economic power should be held by the workers and peasants, organised at a local level

Question 12

What brought these men who had little in common together?

Answer 12

Their hatred of the liberal state and their contempt for socialist class struggle rhetoric

Question 13

What did they manage to do despite their differences?

Answer 13

Draw up a political programme

Question 14

What did this political programme contain?

Answer 14

Demands for an expansionist Italy and leftists statements of intent

Question 15

Give some of these leftists statements of intent

Answer 15

• New national assembly set up
• Abolition of the monarchy and an Italian republic in its place
• Abolition of all titles of nobility
• Suppression of all major companies, and of all speculation by banks and stock exchanges
• Control and taxation of private wealth
• Confiscation of unproductive income like rent
• Workers have a significant share in the profits of the business they work in

Question 16

What did the early fascist movement lack?

Answer 16

The cohesion to form a disciplined party

Question 17

How does D’Annunzio’s occupation of Fiume in late 1919 prove this?

Answer 17

Because it was another tiny grouping of radical agitators

Question 18

What was Mussolini’s early prominence down to?

Answer 18

His aggresive journalism in Il Popolo d’Italia rather than his self proclaimed position as the leader of fascism

Question 19

Where did proof of the movement’s failure seem to come?

Answer 19

In the Nov 1919 GE

Question 20

Why did the movement appear to be doomed following the GE?

Answer 20

• M failed to become a deputy
• Polled 5,000/270,000 votes in Milan, performing dismally everywhere
• Not a single seat was won
• Only 4000 declared fascist supporters by the end of the year

Question 21

How was the movement saved following this?

Answer 21

He was saved by the government’s failure to convince conservative Italians that it could deal with the supposed socialist threat

Question 22

What was the consequence of this for the movement?

Answer 22

After being near oblivion in late 1919, they became a powerful political force over the following year