Rise of Fascism in Italy

Rise of Fascism in Italy

1. Pre-Fascism

   • Timeline
     • 1861- The unification of Italy, also known as the Risorgimento, sees the consolidation of different states of the peninsula into a single state under King Victor Emmanuel II.
     • 1871 - Unification is completed by the capture of Rome and its designation as the capital of the modern state of Italy.
     • 1915 - Italy enters World War One on side of Allies.
     • 1919 - Italy gains Trentino, South Tyrol and Trieste from Austria-Hungary under the post-war peace treaties.
   • Italian Socialist Party
     • Economy
       • Italy had emerged from World War I in a poor and weakened condition and, after the war, suffered inflation, massive debts and an extended depression. By 1920, the economy was in a massive convulsion, with mass unemployment, food shortages, strikes, etc. That conflagration of viewpoints can be exemplified by the so-called Biennio Rosso (Two Red Years).
     • World War I tore the party apart. The orthodox socialists were challenged by advocates of national syndicalism, who called for revolutionary war to liberate Italian-speaking territories from authoritarian Austrian Empire control and force the government by threat of violence to create a corporatist state. The national syndicalists intended to support Italian republicans in overthrowing the monarchy if such reforms were not made and if Italy did not enter the war together with the Allied Powers and their struggle against the Central Empires, seen as the final fight for the worldwide triumph of freedom and democracy.
     • The dominant internationalist and pacifist wing of the party remained committed to avoiding what it called a bourgeois war. The PSI's refusal to support the war led to its national syndicalist faction either leaving or being purged from the party, such as Mussolini who had begun to show sympathy to the national syndicalist cause. A number of the national syndicalists expelled from the PSI later joined Mussolini's Italian fascist revolutionary movement in 1914, including the Fasces of Revolutionary Action in 1915 (later Italian Fasces of Combat). During the Third Fascist Congress in late 1921, Mussolini turned the Fasces of Combat into the National Fascist Party.
     • Foreign Policy
     • Domestic {Social}
     • Politics

2. Fascist Rule 1922-1945

   • Economy
     • Mussolini appointed Alberto De' Stefani, a man with free market economic views, as his Minister of Finance. De' Stefani simplified the tax code, cut taxes, curbed spending, liberalized trade restrictions and abolished rent controls. These policies provided a powerful stimulus.
   • Politics
   • Education and Work
   • Foreign Policies
   • Domestic {Social}
   • Military

3. How did it happen