Mussolini & Italian Fascism

							Mussolini & Italian Fascism
Fascist Fallout from WWI
Young Mussolini

• Strong Italian nationalist, wanted
  Italy in WWI.
• Fought in WWI, outraged at
  Versailles treaty (Italians snubbed).
• 1919—Organizes his first
  paramilitary organization.
Postwar Italy
• Economic depression in cities, high
  unemployment.
• Socialists urge strikes, land reform.
• Peasants attacked landlords, trying
  to take land.
• Parliamentary governments are
  ineffective to fix problems.
• Fascist “Black Shirts” and Socialists
  fight in cities & countryside.
 Fascists Take Power
• Mussolini promises restoration of land
  and order.
• “Black Shirts” break up strikes and
  attack union halls.
• Wishes to recreate Roman Empire &
  Italian grandeur.
• Black Shirts march on Rome (like Red
  Shirts), Mussolini appointed premier
  & emergency powers for a year (1922).
Mussolini Consolidates Power
• Reduced parliamentary power.
• Dissolved labor unions.
• Abolished political parties.
• Denounced democracy as a sham.
• Proclaims himself as Duce (leader).
• Creates Fascist organizations (women,
  opera, bowling…etc.)
• 22 “Corporations” organized by occupation
• Declares “third path” (neither capitalism
  nor Marxism).
Put a lid on it!
• No real advances or reforms made in
  economy or countryside.
• Mussolini gets great press for
  “making the trains run on time.”
• Concordat signed with Vatican gains
  support from peasants, papacy.
• Monarchy remained in place.
• Made Italy feel self-confident again.