Benito Mussolini Fascism Essay
WHY DID THE FASCISTS RATHER THAN THE SOCIALISTS OR CATHOLICS REPLACE THE LIBERALS AS THE DOMINANT FORCE IN ITALIAN POLITICS AFTER 1918?
When Benito Mussolini concluded his violent and semi-legal seizure of power in Italy on the 29th October 1922, the Fascist era began in victory as crowds of Blackshirts rushed to the capital to celebrate their leader. The aim of this essay is to explain the Fascists’ rise to power in Italy. Thus, whilst the highly repressive nature of Fascism cannot be understated, this essay will focus solely on Italy before Mussolini seized control. Why was Italy the first European country to succumb to Fascism? What factors in her development meant that people were willing to toss aside liberal parliamentary democracy …show more content…
It is interesting to compare this idea of the ‘mutilated victory’ to the ‘stab-in-the-back myth’ of Weimar Germany, which was used by the Right to pour scorn on Germany’s democratic institutions. Whilst it would be an exaggeration to claim that the ‘mutilated victory’ had the same impact as Germany’s ‘stab-in-the-back myth’, it certainly propagated nationalist currents and showed Italy’s leaders to be “unbending and feckless”9 in their negotiations. Indeed, after his rise to power, Mussolini continued to cite the ‘mutilated victory’ in his Fascist rhetoric.
However, more importantly in my opinion, the end of the war revealed that Italy lacked the diplomatically-savvy leaders because, as “the ruling coalition included many divergent points of view, her traditional system of government made this almost inevitable”.10 The public was confused about national interests and began to question whether the traditional system was really the best, be it the Liberals, the Socialists or the
When Benito Mussolini concluded his violent and semi-legal seizure of power in Italy on the 29th October 1922, the Fascist era began in victory as crowds of Blackshirts rushed to the capital to celebrate their leader. The aim of this essay is to explain the Fascists’ rise to power in Italy. Thus, whilst the highly repressive nature of Fascism cannot be understated, this essay will focus solely on Italy before Mussolini seized control. Why was Italy the first European country to succumb to Fascism? What factors in her development meant that people were willing to toss aside liberal parliamentary democracy …show more content…
It is interesting to compare this idea of the ‘mutilated victory’ to the ‘stab-in-the-back myth’ of Weimar Germany, which was used by the Right to pour scorn on Germany’s democratic institutions. Whilst it would be an exaggeration to claim that the ‘mutilated victory’ had the same impact as Germany’s ‘stab-in-the-back myth’, it certainly propagated nationalist currents and showed Italy’s leaders to be “unbending and feckless”9 in their negotiations. Indeed, after his rise to power, Mussolini continued to cite the ‘mutilated victory’ in his Fascist rhetoric.
However, more importantly in my opinion, the end of the war revealed that Italy lacked the diplomatically-savvy leaders because, as “the ruling coalition included many divergent points of view, her traditional system of government made this almost inevitable”.10 The public was confused about national interests and began to question whether the traditional system was really the best, be it the Liberals, the Socialists or the