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Why did Italian Fascism
survive so long?
This essay was part of my first year course - Mussolini is a fascinating
historical figure, who A.J.P.Taylor dubbed a 'cardboard lion' - in this essay I set out to
explore how a cardborad lion could have stayed in power for so long.
‘Mussolini had one
considerable gift: he was a forceful genius, and all his genius went into words. Fascism
itself was a work of propaganda, not a serious programme’.
A.J.P. Taylor
‘If only we can give them faith that mountains can be moved,
they will accept the illusion that mountains are moveable, and thus an illusion may become
reality’.
Benito Mussolini
Propaganda was at the heart of Fascist Italy, and it was the
propaganda of lies, exaggerations and illusions. Presiding at the head of the Fascist
regime was one man, Benito Mussolini, Il Duce, arguably one of the greatest
propagandists of the twentieth century. The fact that he ruled Italy for as long as he did
bears testament to his remarkable talents. However, when one observer called Mussolini
‘a lion of cardboard’, he summed up perfectly the disparity between the fantasy
of Fascist Italy and the reality, a reality which attempted to break through to the public
on a number of occasions in Mussolini’s rule, but which was ultimately suppressed.
Mussolini, as we shall see, did have some notable policy successes, and these too we must
consider when attempting to discern the reason that a shaky, fundamentally flawed regime
survived twenty years.
The dictatorial regime which the Fascists created benefited from a
number of ways in which it could control and censor what the Italian public heard, and
therefore directly influenced much of what they felt. First and foremost was the
dismantling of real democratic politics : the passing of the Acerbo Electoral Law granted
the party which gained the largest number of votes in a parliamentary election a
two-thirds majority in the Chamber, providing that it polled at least one quarter of the
votes. The Fascists applied a degree of intimidation to the Chamber when it passed the
Bill - armed Blackshirts watched the proceedings from the public gallery - but the role
that this and the spectre of Fascist violence played in determining the outcome should not
be overemphasised. At this stage, there were many who felt that the leadership of
Mussolini offered great potential benefits to the country, and who voted of their own free
will, or abstained, unwilling to participate actively in the erosion of the democratic
process, but not feeling strongly that the Fascists were dangerous, at least not enough to
attempt to hinder their electoral reforms. The next year, the country went to the polls
and duly voted the Fascists into power. Again, there was a degree of intimidation at the
polling station though the presence of Fascist militiamen, but actual violence only took
place in a few isolated incidents. In order to prevent a strong backlash of anti-Fascist
feeling, Mussolini stressed the legitimacy of his government, saying that he could not
endorse the acts of extremists within his organisation. Although the party was never
cleaned of them, care was taken to ensure that die-hards and fanatics were excluded from
power, thus avoiding any violent purges which could cause the public to question the
scruples of its governing party - Fascist Italy had no ‘Night of the Long
Knives’. Mussolini’s security in power was far more tenuous than that of Adolf
Hitler initially, as evidenced by the dangerous situation the Duce found himself in when
the anti-Fascist Giacomo Matteotti was murdered by Fascist extremists in June, 1923. The
fact that Mussolini probably had little or nothing to do with the ordering or execution of
the murder did not stop him experiencing grave doubts about his position, for the outcry
against the killing was enormous, both at home and abroad. This serves to illustrate that
Mussolini, unlike Hitler, was at the start of his rule more subject to the vagaries of
public opinion, and that his party could not act with impunity. The results of this
shameful incident were twofold : firstly, Mussolini implemented a policy which preferred
coercion and persuasion to intimidation. Although, having decided to continue in power, he
addressed the Chamber and told them he would continue to rule ‘with force if
necessary’, by 1927 he informed his prefects that squadrismo was no longer
necessary, and that ‘the period of reprisals, devastation and violence is over’.
The determination to avoid committing violent acts against his own population must surely
have avoided stirring up much potential discontent. While incarceration was still used
liberally, the Duce denied his people of a potential major grievance, preferring to
indoctrinate and impress rather than terrorise.
The second development was of huge significance to the continuation
of the Fascist regime : the censorship of the press. After the Matteotti murder, those
newspapers not already in Fascist hands had raised a huge amount of fuss. Had it not been
for them, a large part of the public would not have known about the affair. Mussolini,
himself a talented journalist and newspaper editor, made sure that those papers not
unquestioningly loyal to the Fascist regime were either placed under the control of loyal
editors, or had their publication suspended by a decree which Mussolini enacted specially
for the purpose. From this point on, the press became the most important tool for shaping
Italian public opinion, and its portrayal of Mussolini and his policies and reforms must
have engendered a great deal of loyalty in the majority of the people towards their flawed
leader. Pictures of him were always in the papers - here he was working in the fields,
there he was with his children as the good family man, or flying his private plane. His
face was everywhere, as were his words : he wrote articles for the papers, and they
covered the details of his speeches and activities exhaustively. They also reported the
news as formulated by Mussolini, who spent at least two hours on dealing with affairs
related to the press every day, even during his worst foreign policy crises - the opinions
of the press followed those of the Duce as closely as possible, for he alone dictated the
‘news’ agenda. Of course, given Mussolini’s habit of contradicting himself
over policy from one week to the next, so the papers contradicted themselves, and the
people seemed not to notice. The press was an extremely effective means of controlling
Italian public opinion, and as a propaganda tool it was in the hands of one of the best
propagandists of the age. Along with censorship of all other publications - novels, etc. -
we may perhaps find one reason why Mussolini and his party were able to retain almost
unquestioned domestic control, and actually receive huge popular support.
The manipulation of the media was a large part of the formula for
indoctrination and (mis)information, but it would have had much less effect if the leader
of the Fascist party had been a lesser man. His undoubted skills as a writer and orator
bound them to him personally, rather than to the Fascist party as a whole. If the Fascists
were unpopular for a particular policy, most would not blame Mussolini personally, because
they considered him separately from the organisation which had brought to power. What
follows is an example of one of Mussolini’s rousing speeches, following the
‘fall’ of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) to Italian troops :
‘"Blackshirts of the Revolution, Italian men and women at
home and throughout the world, hearken: a great event has been accomplished. The destiny
of Abyssinia has been sealed today in the fourteenth year of the Fascist era. Every knot
has been cut by our shining sword, and the Abyssinian victory will remain in the history
of our country, complete and pure like the legionari who have fallen. Italy has her
Empire...."
His final words were lost in a wild torrent of cheers, in the
swelling, repetitive, undulating chant, "Duce! Duce! Duce!", in the
screams of hysterical women, in the shouts of adoration and protestations of loyalty to
death.’
Taken from Christopher Hibbert’s Benito
Mussolini - The Rise and Fall of Il Duce
If we contrast this rousing statement with the reality of the
Italian invasion of Ethiopia, we should see Mussolini’s flair for delusion, be it of
his subjects or himself, illustrated to the full. The invasion was a badly planned and
co-ordinated shambles which foundered on the drive into the heartland of the country
through lack of petrol and supplies. Italian casualties were light on the Italian side,
largely because most of their troops in the line were black subjects of Italy from Libya,
Italian Somaliland or Eritrea. While the invasion did gain control of the cities,
including the capital Addis Ababa, it failed to secure the countryside due to inadequate
men and equipment, and the Italians resorted to terror tactics and the use of poison gas
to maintain control. Not only did Mussolini portray this as a monumental victory for the
country, but led his people to believe it would be an economic asset, rather than the huge
drain on Italian coffers which it actually was. Mussolini also failed to mention in this
speech the economic sanctions imposed upon Italy by the League of Nations, which, although
not comprehensive and therefore not crippling, nonetheless hardly assisted what was a
fundamentally weak and under-developed economy. That this approach to the truth was used
as a matter of course, and reinforced through a controlled press, makes it obvious that
grounds for popular discontent were held back from all but a few of Italy’s
inhabitants.
Mussolini actively selected his subordinates to complement the cult
of personality he was building up around himself. One of their prime qualifications was to
be uncharismatic, and to enhance the desirability of Mussolini in the eyes of the people.
If any general or politician looked to be cultivating too high a profile, he would be
almost immediately reassigned by a jealous Duce. For this reason, the public never had a
chance to see anybody who they felt might be a better leader, a better general, a better
economist or diplomat than Mussolini. The fact that he took so much of the responsibility
of government upon himself meant that he kept a tight rein on most of his administration,
and ensured that his ministers and staff were all working towards a common goal (although
that goal could change on a whim). Mussolini could say without fear of contradiction that
he was Italian Fascism, and that the government of the state depended upon him.
Public support, while heavily influenced by a manipulated media, and
by the Duce’s ‘cult of personality’, was not based completely on mindless
adulation for the leader of the country. Both the policies and achievements of the
Fascists were significant, and of course when a policy was successful it was inflated
further by the media, when unsuccessful it was used as a chide to the people or blamed on
enemies at home or abroad, thus extracting the maximum political capital either way.
Support among the top ranks of society was based partly on a fear of socialism and of any
kind of left-wing revolution. Mussolini was seen as a man who could achieve what weak
liberal governments had failed to do - ensure the social status quo, provide strong
government and build up Italy’s profile and status abroad. Thus, Mussolini was
welcomed by them as being the one to breathe new life into Italy. The Duce’s status
among the working classes, both the industrial labourers and the agricultural workers in
the semi-feudal south of the country, relied more upon the propaganda which was his
especial talent, but his policies did bring some improvements into the lives of these
people as well. The ‘Battle for Grain’ that Mussolini initiated resulted in
genuine improvements in the efficiency of agriculture, and deficits in the running of both
the rail and postal services were transformed into profits, much to the pride of the
Italian people. Huge public works projects were implemented, although during the war years
their consumption of huge quantities of money and raw materials was to be rued. Everything
was turned into a battle : ‘the battle of the lira’ and ‘the battle of the
Pontine Marshes’ to name but two examples. This tactic aroused Italy’s fighting
spirit, and stimulated support for projects in which people would have had far less
interest had they been referred too in mundane terminology. Mussolini’s constant
reminders that he was ‘a man of the people’, a reference to his modest petite
bourgeoisie origins, must surely have endeared him to many, and there is little doubt
that many bore a genuine adoration for him - after his execution at the end of the war by
Italian partisans, there were those who were willing to shoot at his body where it hung in
the Piazale Loreto in Milan, but many more who openly wept for the man who had managed to
govern them without interruption for twenty years, an unprecedented feat in Italian
politics.
Economically, Mussolini had very little by way of a calculated
economic policy when he came to power, except to balance the budget and stabilise the
economy. This was partly due to his ideological confusion - once a socialist, now a
Fascist who recognised the importance to the state and economy of industrial stability and
a lack of labour disputes, his policies were frequently confused and often (as was the
case with most of his policies in all areas of government) contradictory. As usual, he
managed to conceal the fact, and actually brought industry and government into a
profitable and cordial relationship, while managing still to placate the workers and avoid
industrial unrest. By granting significant powers and recognition to the powerful
CGII,
the Confederation of Italian Industry, he rallied industrialists behind him, and this body
ensured through tight control that the whole of the industrial sector was united. While
the government and the CGII did not always agree (their most notable disagreement being
over Mussolini’s lira 90 project for currency stabilisation), they nonetheless
solved each others problems : the businessmen had the ability to seriously influence
economic policy to the benefit of all major firms, while Mussolini had a completely
self-regulating industrial sector which willingly subordinated the interests of individual
firms to the common good. Between them, the CGII and the government managed to remove the
problem of industrial unrest. By moving all workers into Fascist labour unions, making
both strike action and lock-outs illegal, and ordering that all labour disputes be
arbitrated by special conciliation services, they effectively neutered the labour
movement, without making it feel as if it had been neutered. This owes much to the
influence of Rossoni, and influential labour leader who brought his followers inside the
Fascist Party in 1922. Although he fought against abolition of the right to strike, he
failed, and the Fascists used him to control the unions, taking advantage of his influence
with the workers and his genuine socialist principles. Mussolini’s monetary policy
was less impressive, and he used all of Italy’s foreign currency reserves to fund his
ambitious schemes. He quite failed to grasp some of the realities of Italy’s economic
situation, namely that she was not self-sufficient in grain production, and that she was
greatly dependent upon imports of hydrocarbons for fuel and power - he persisted in
believing that, should petrol imports cease, Italy could immediately develop known
reserves of low-grade lignite to satisfy all of her energy needs. Such wishful thinking
was typical of Mussolini.
In relations with the Vatican, he managed to improve a situation
which had been poor since Italian unification, when Rome was made the capital of the
united Italy and the Pope was deprived of his temporal powers. Despite the fact that
Mussolini was in reality an atheist, his public image made him out to be a practising
Catholic, and in 1929 he signed the agreement known as the Lateran Pacts with the Vatican.
This was a genuine policy coup, solving a problem which had been dividing Italy since
1870. Although relations after the Pacts were actually at their most turbulent, they had
settled down after 1931, and Mussolini recognised the territorial integrity of the Vatican
City, while he presided over a regime officially recognised by one of the most powerful
churches in the world. In a deeply Catholic country, this reconciliation between church
and state must have solved a dilemma which had no doubt troubled many Italians, and in
doing so no doubted rallied extra support for Mussolini from among his people.
Foreign policy, coupled with perhaps the largest quantities of
propaganda employed in any field of policy, also played its part in ensuring longevity.
The constant talk of a new Roman Empire mirrored closely Hitler’s allusions to the
past in christening his regime the Third Reich - both were designed to appeal to their
countrymen by evoking past glories. In practical terms, Mussolini’s actions towards
creating an Empire involved the conquests of Ethiopia and Albania; both were economically
underdeveloped, the conquest of both created a considerable strain on the Italian
exchequer, and neither had much to offer to its conqueror. As we have seen above, such
facts would not stop Mussolini from extolling Italy’s achievements. Political capital
was also gained from the central role that Mussolini perceived that he had played in the
various international negotiations taking place during the inter-war years - the Locarno
Treaties, the Munich agreements, etc. - although his role was frequently not as central as
he made out. The Second World War was the undoing of Mussolini, and marks the point at
which he found it increasingly difficult to sway the Italian people into unconditional
support. It was the only time, however, when he failed to extract the maximum political
capital from his achievements in the field of foreign policy.
The success and longevity of the Fascist regime under Mussolini must
also be considered in terms of the failure of others. Firstly, there was the failure of
the King to repress the Fascists in 1922. The army and police in Rome could easily have
dispersed the militiamen who camped on the outskirts of the city, yet no orders were
issued. Mussolini’s use of the threat of violence went unimpeded. The church also
reached an accommodation with Mussolini, thus conferring upon his government a great deal
of legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. Most importantly, there was the
failure of the international community to act against Mussolini, even when he began his
often barbaric campaigns of conquest on the African continent and in the Balkans. Here
Mussolini benefited from the dangerous international situation - Britain and France, the
two European great powers, were more concerned with the rise of National Socialism in
Germany from 1933 onwards to spare much time for a relatively tame and unthreatening
regime. Thus, when Ethiopia was invaded, no military action was taken despite the threat
to British and French colonies nearby. Indeed, many foreign leaders had a great admiration
for Mussolini, including Churchill - their failure was not only the failure to act, but
the failure to recognise Mussolini for the man he really was. Due to his relations with
Hitler, in fact, the Allies considered Mussolini to have a restraining influence on Hitler
- it is easy to see why having him on friendly terms was important to them for the
delicate negotiations taking place in Munich. The irony is that had Mussolini not thrown
in his lot with Hitler in the Second World War, he would probably have been welcomed by
the Allies, and, notwithstanding the threat of German invasion, could well have survived
the war intact.
When reading a chronological history of the final years of Fascist
Italy, it becomes almost painful to be informed of delusion after delusion which affected
Mussolini’s policy making : he believed that his armed forces were far larger than
they actually were, that they needed no plans for the outbreak of war, that Italian
industry would cope even with negligible supplies of hydrocarbons. The list is long, many
of the delusions fundamental to the downfall of the Duce and his government. Eventually,
Mussolini fell prey to his own propaganda - for years the press had been touting the
ability of the Italian fleet to sink the British Mediterranean force without any trouble,
and so Mussolini came to believe this too. It was this relentless stream of fabrication,
half-truth and propaganda which had, fundamentally, kept him in power for such a length of
time. Although he did have some successes in his policies, his propaganda machine proved
that they were not strictly necessary - they could be fabricated, and they often were. The
reason that the Italian Fascist state fell when it did was because Mussolini’s
delusions and confused ideology led him into alliance with Hitler, and his country was
militarily defeated. Perhaps the question we should be asking is this : why did Italian
Fascism not last longer? The reason is because of Mussolini’s decline as a strong and
informed governor of his country. The answer to the question of why Italian fascism lasted
as long as it did, then, must be based around that party’s leader. Mussolini, who by
the sheer force and splendour of his political and military vision, and through his
talents as a propagandist and orator, was the sole driving force behind the Fascist party;
it was he who propelled Fascist Italy from 1922 to 1943, and it was also he who propelled
it towards its death in World War Two. Ultimately, the rise and fall of Fascist Italy
becomes synonymous with the rise and fall of one great but tragically flawed man.
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