Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present - The Rise of Fascism Study Guide to Fascist Takeovers

The Rise of Benito Mussolini

• Early Life and Personality Traits:

  • Benito Mussolini was recognized from a young age for qualities that would later define modern strongmen: a violent temperament, extreme opportunism, and an effective way with words.
  • Native to the working-class village of Predappio in the Romagna region of Italy.
  • As a youth, he had already stabbed both a classmate and a girlfriend.
  • As a schoolteacher, he was known for carrying brass knuckles and committing sexual assaults.
  • His future wife, Rachele Guidi, recalled the frightening ferocity of his calls for Socialist insurrection during his early political years.

• Socialist Career and Expulsion:

  • Mussolini was mentored by Angelica Balabanoff, a Russian-born Italian Socialist Party ($PSI$) official, who helped him rise within the Italian left.
  • By $1912$, he was the head of the $PSI$ revolutionary wing and editor of the Socialist newspaper Avanti!.
  • In $1914$, he was expelled from the $PSI$ because he supported Italy's intervention in World War I, a stance that contradicted the Socialist belief that war weakened international worker solidarity.

• The Transition to Fascism:

  • Following his expulsion, he launched the newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia, which served as a laboratory for Fascist ideology.
  • The paper was funded by Italian and foreign industrialists and financiers who benefitted from Italian mobilization in May $1915$.

The Forge of World War I and the Birth of Fascism

• The Context of Total War ($1914-1918$):

  • Fascism emerged from the systemic shock of World War I, the first "total war," which erased the boundaries between civilian and military targets.
  • The war led to the collapse of the Ottoman, Habsburg, German, and Russian empires.
  • The period between $1917$ and $1921$ (including the Russian Revolution) gave rise to both Fascism and Communism.
  • Both systems rejected liberal democracy and emphasized the worship of male leaders who promised to create superior societies through modernity.

• Mussolini's War Experience:

  • Mussolini's active service ended in $1917$ due to wounds sustained during a training exercise.
  • He asserted that the "old men" and old parties would be "swept aside" by the war.
  • He popularized the concept of the "trenchocracy," an elite formed by the experience of combat rather than by aristocratic birth.
  • Influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, he adopted the philosophy: "he whom you cannot teach to fly you must push, that he may fall faster."
  • This pitiless attitude attracted veterans who traded military uniforms for black shirts (Italy) and brown shirts (Germany), bringing the tactics of the battlefield to domestic politics.

Fascist Ideology and the Cult of the Leader

• Ideological Ambiguity:

  • Fascism confused observers by combining opposites: nationalism and Socialism.
  • Mussolini pitched Fascism as "both subversive and conservative": favoring national unity over class conflict, and imperial force over international solidarity.
  • Though the original $1919$ Fascist program included progressive demands like the $8$-hour workday, these were quickly abandoned.

• Social and Political Targets:

  • Reversing female empowerment was a central goal during a time of mass male injury and declining birth rates.
  • Neutralizing workers who were galvanized by the Russian and $1918$ German/Hungarian revolutions.
  • Protecting "White Christian civilization" from the perceived threats of atheistic Communism and the loss of imperial control over people of color.
  • Concerns were amplified by the Versailles Treaty, which deprived Germany of colonies, and the Paris Peace Conference, which recognized the Tripolitanian Republic (the first independent Arab state inside Italian Libya).

• The Cult of Personality:

  • The cults of Mussolini and Hitler in the $1920s$ addressed anxieties regarding the decline of male status and traditional religious authority.
  • Observers like Heinrich Class (Pan-German League) and critic Ugo Ojetti noted that these leaders offered a "world reduced to black and white" and possessed an "absolute faith" in their own powers of persuasion.

Historical Grievances and the Cult of Victimhood

• Strategic Victimhood:

  • Strongmen utilized resentment and humiliation as positive political tools.
  • Hitler used the "stab in the back" myth regarding the Versailles Treaty to blame domestic and foreign elites for Germany's defeat.
  • Mussolini utilized the concept of the "mutilated victory," complaining that despite being on the winning side, Italy was denied territories like the city of Fiume.

• Imagery and Symbolism:

  • Mussolini borrowed several symbols from the imperialist poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, who occupied Fiume in $1919-1920$:
    • The title "Duce" (derived from the Latin Dux for military leader).
    • The black shirt.
    • The Roman salute.
  • Mussolini framed Italy as a "proletarian" nation being victimized and discriminated against by "plutocratic" Great Powers.

Squadrism and the Transition to Power

• Fascist Combat Leagues ($1919$):

  • Founded during a period of extreme polarization and economic crisis.
  • Between $1919$ and $1921$, nearly $2 \times 10^6$ workers and peasants participated in strikes and occupations.
  • Fascist Squads: Private militias funded by industrial and agrarian bosses to crush labor unrest. They murdered thousands of Socialists and left-leaning priests.
  • In border regions like Trieste, squadrism was characterized by anti-Slav sentiment.

• The Partnership with Conservatives:

  • In the $1921$ elections, independent Fascists received only $0.4 \, \%$ of the vote.
  • However, by joining Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti’s National Bloc coalition, they entered Parliament as the National Fascist Party ($PNF$).
  • The ruling class prioritized taming the left over stopping Fascist violence.

• The Perception of Mussolini:

  • Description: $5$ feet $7$ inches tall, bald head, jutting jaw.
  • Often compared to Maciste, a popular Italian film muscleman.
  • Admirers, such as the young officer Carlo Ciseri, described him as possessing "magnetic" or "electrified" energy.

• The March on Rome (October 28, $1922$):

  • Mussolini did not take power via a coup d'état.
  • King Victor Emmanuel III, who commanded the armed forces, refused to disarm the $30,000$ Fascists and instead appointed Mussolini Prime Minister.
  • American Ambassador Richard Washburn Child assured Mussolini that the U.S. would not object to a Fascist-led coalition.

The Weakening of Italian Democracy ($1922-1924$)

• Authoritarian Strategies:
  • Creation of parallel governance: The Fascist Grand Council and the Voluntary Militia for National Security.
  • Margherita Sarfatti: Mussolini's lover and art critic who polished his image to win over financial elites.
  • Privatization of insurance, electric, and telephone sectors to gain elite favor.
  • Electoral Reform: A law was passed giving any party with over $25 \, \%$ of the vote two-thirds of the parliamentary seats.
  • In the April $1924$ election, Fascists secured $64.9 \, \%$ of the vote through fraud and intimidation.

The Matteotti Crisis and the Consolidation of Dictatorship

• The Challenge of Giacomo Matteotti:

  • Matteotti was a tall, urbane Socialist leader known for his integrity.
  • In May $1924$, he denounced Fascist electoral interference and the slide into "absolutism."
  • He had compiled a dossier on $PNF$ crimes, including bribes from the American Sinclair Oil company (linked to the Teapot Dome Scandal) to Mussolini’s brother, Arnaldo.

• The Murder and Aftermath:

  • On June $10, 1924$, Matteotti was kidnapped on Rome’s Lungotevere and murdered.
  • The killers included Amerigo Dumini (a former squadrist) and were linked to Cesare Rossi, head of Mussolini’s personal secret police.
  • The discovery of the crime led to a massive decline in Mussolini's status; veterans resigned from the party, and rumors of his resignation circulated in December $1924$.
  • Ojetti remarked, "Really, there are two dead men, Matteotti and Mussolini."

• The January $3, 1925$ Speech:

  • Faced with possible impeachment, Mussolini declared a dictatorship.
  • Verbatim Quote: "I, and I alone, assume political, moral, and historical responsibility for all that has happened…. If Fascism has been a criminal association, I am the head of that criminal association…. Gentlemen, Italy wants peace, quiet, work, and calm. .. . We will give it by love, if possible, or by force, if necessary."

• The Laws for the Defense of the State ($1925-1926$):

  • Created the OVRA (Organization for the Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism), a secret police force.
  • Banned political parties and strikes.
  • Mussolini fired magistrates investigating the Matteotti case and pardoned all political criminals in July $1925$.

International Legitimation and the Transition to Nazi Germany

• Economic Support:

  • In $1926$, J.P. Morgan partner Thomas Lamont brokered a $100 \, \text{million}$ loan from the U.S. government to the Mussolini regime, implicitly sanctioning his power grab.

• The Connection to Hitler:

  • By the time conservative Giovanni Giolitti died in $1928$, Mussolini was a total autocrat.
  • Adolf Hitler, initially known as "the German Mussolini," followed a similar trajectory.
  • The Third Reich's transition to dictatorship was accelerated by the Reichstag Fire on February $27, 1933$.
  • While origins are debated, the arrest of Dutch Communist Marinus van der Lubbe provided Hitler the excuse to suspend civil liberties and arrest leftists.