Italy - The Rise of Fascism
Weaknesses of the Liberal State

 Long Term pre conditions (e.g. Italian political system)
 Medium Term accelerators (e.g. WWI)
 Short term deciders (e.g. The March on
Rome)

 Where does Fascism come from?
 What was Italy like in the 19th Century?
 What were the main weaknesses of unified
Italy? (Political/ Economic/ Religious /
Social)
 Who opposed Liberal Italy?

 Must have an understanding of the nature of
Italy in the previous century.
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The divide between ‘real’ and ‘legal’ Italy
(ruled versus rulers)
 Weaknesses of the Liberal state
 Impact of WWI
 Fascism was not inevitable but impossible without the above factors

 Risorgimento
 The Real / Legal Italy
 Narrow Franchise
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‘Transformismo / Clientelism’ politics - corruption in public life
 North- South divide

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Had moved from a collection of states or Kingdoms with absolute rulers to a constitutional monarchy- a king with parliament
Unification process- the ‘risorgimento’ was dominated by the educated and the wealthy - elites who saw ‘Liberalism’ as a way of securing their own power- a large majority of Italians (the real Italy) do not identify with the new state.
Rural population nearing 60%
Price of unification was high taxation
Papal (Pope) hostility towards the new Liberal State (90% Catholic)
North/ South Divide- South overwhelmingly agricultural- soil worn out, badly run inefficient estates
Social unrest frequent- particularly in the South
Foreign Policy- Inferiority Complex (Battle of Adowa 1896)

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Gulf between ‘Real’ and ‘Legal’ Italy not bridged- failure by the government to tackle the deep rooted cause of social unrest in the
South.
South feels it has been conquered rather than united to the rest of
Italy - the use of the military against the ‘Great Brigandage’ contributes to this.
Constitution based on Piedmont- accusations of a
‘Piedmontization’ of the new Italy
Politically unrepresentative- the new constitution is based on a very narrow franchise- 2% of Italians have the vote
Tiny political class ruled Italy which prevents the development of a party system- different shades of Liberalism

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 Weakness of the political system- coalition governments formed politicians resort to ‘transformismo’ the bribing of opponents to get majorities. This was happening at a local level with ‘clientelism’the winning of votes through the distribution of favours.
30 different Prime Ministers between 1869-1922
Parliament had little prestige
Highly centralised system of government - old prefectures provincial governments were retained in order to maintain control- actually would be tailor made for the fascists to take control.

 Italy economically underdeveloped
 1880 Figures-
 Under 10,000 km of railways
 Emigration 1 million (mainly to USA)
 Low yields in agriculture
 90% of South has no roads
 Average of 70% illiteracy rate
 Few navigable rivers

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Pope extremely hostile to the new Liberal Italy- the papal states of central Italy had been incorporated into the unified nation. The
Pope therefore lost all his ‘temporal’(political) power
Pope refused to recognise the new state of Italy- this continued until 1929
Also issued a decree (Non Expedit) saying that Catholics should take no part in the political life of Italy
This further reduced the already narrow franchise (number of people voting)
Clergy and laity were naturally suspicious of the new state and and its treatment of the Church- were more likely to be attracted to a more authoritarian settlement.

 The End of the Century Crisis
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Development of an active, vocal working class
A) Italian Socialist Party (PSI)
B) Revolutionary Syndicalists
C) Social Catholicism
D) Nationalists
E) Futurists
Growth of a number of groups who are antagonistic towards Liberalism