Rise of Italian

Fascism

• Il Ducé and Italy, 1919-1939

Origins of Italian Fascism

• Problems of WWI: irredenta, inflation, ideology

• Fear of Communism: braccianti, strikes

• Mussolini = the answer

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)

• Grew up in red zone of Emilia-Romagna• Named after Juarez, grew up a socialist• Editor of Avanti• Nationalist and supported Italy’s intervention in WWI• Fought in WWI• Complete the “Risorgimento”• Modernize Italy• Formed paramilitary groups: squadristi into fasci to fight

strikers• His fasci sacked the Avanti offices• Mussolini still harbored some socialist views.

Gaining Popularity

• Strict party discipline• No. 1 enemy was Bolshevism• Acquire political power for Fascist Party• Glorification of his own military prowess• Corporatism• Futurism in the Arts• Refused to serve as a cabinet member in

existing government

March on Rome (29 Oct. 1922)

• 300,000 Fascist Party members in Spring 1922

• Staged March on Rome with complicity of King Victor Emmanuel II. (M. took train into Rome so he could be part of march.)

• Mussolini allowed to form government; conservatives believed they could control him.

In Power

• Murder of Giacomo Matteoti• 1925—given dictatorial powers• Enjoyed support from Big Business and Church

(Lateran Accords—1929)• Appeared to make trains run on time—public

works, Dopolavoro recreation program for workers, morale, and militarization.

• Stresa Conference (1935) and evolving foreign policy.

• Ethiopian Invasion (1935)• Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)

Inspecting the Troops

Spanish Civil War

• tensions between industrial democratic peoples and supporters of agrarian feudalism

• regional independence movements (especially in Catalonia and Basque territory) vs. nationalism

• dispute over the role of the Church

Spanish Civil War

• 1931 – monarchy fails to put down a revolt in Morocco people revolt because they perceive the government to be weak

• a republic is established• the republican government separates church and

state – very controversial• right and left camps

– workers were upset that the government was not more radical so they rioted

– right wing reaction, esp. from Spanish fascists known as the Falange

– left wing groups banded together in a Popular Front movement

– Popular Front wins control of the government (1936)

Spanish Civil War

• Popular Front reforms– divide up some large estates– force industrialists to take back workers who

had been dismissed for striking– close Catholic schools

• these reforms lead the army to attempt a coup (1936)– Mussolini had been secretly encouraging this– July 12 - a monarchist leader is murdered by a

republican– July 17 – army revolts saying that the

government can’t guarantee safety and security

Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

• the war should have ended quickly

• prolonged, in part, by– Fascist and Nazi

support of the Nationalists

– Communist support of the Loyalists

an opportunity

to test weapons

Condor Legion• Hitler sent his

famous “Condor Legion”

• a group of skilled pilots with new planes that were skilled at dive bombing

over Guernica (at right)

Picasso: Guernica , 1937

Atrocities on Both Sides

Loyalists murder priests and nuns

Rome-Berlin Axis, Oct. 1936

• “Rome and Berlin to be points on an axis around which the rest of events in Europe will turn.”

• Mussolini, who had opposed earlier threat of Anschluss, supported Hitler’s 1938 political unification with Austria.