FASCISM. – A political movement founded by Benito Mussolini (q.v.). The origins of Fascism go back to the period immediately preceding the First World War: to the internal conflicts within Italian socialism and to the emergence within it of new tendencies; to the crisis of public opinion in the country over the war between the Central Powers (toward which Italy, despite having concluded the Triple Alliance, demanded the satisfaction of extensive territorial aspirations for the completion of national unity); and to the contrast between two mentalities and two customs—one of which saw in the peaceful evolution of political situations the sole source of all civil progress, while the other viewed war, violence, and the school of physical courage as the highest values. In that climate of conflict, the political vocation of the founder of the Fascist movement took shape, his choice tending toward profoundly innovative solutions: syndicalist socialism, the overturning of alliances, and intervention in the war to secure through sacrifice those aspirations that seemed capable of being satisfied through diplomatic compromise.
With the end of the 1914–18 war, the enthusiasm aroused by victory and the disappointments suffered in the peace negotiations, the return of combatants to civilian occupations, and the demobilization of large-scale war industries had generated further conflicts and discomforts in Italian public opinion. Into these conflicts and discomforts the Fascist movement inserted itself; founded in Milan in March 1919, it claimed both the necessity of governmental action to defend Italy’s contribution to the war and the need for an orderly return to work for veterans.
Around these two themes, men of diverse backgrounds and preparation readily gathered—and in fact did gather—many of whom seemed to adhere to the new political movement not out of conscious rational motives but rather out of enthusiasm for the bold actions dictated by its leader, the unscrupulous manner in which it attacked the entire political world (which seemed irredeemably alien to the Italian youth raised in war), and the opportunity to perpetuate in civilian life the discipline and camaraderie acquired in their formative years. This indistinct and predominantly critical program, moreover, enabled Fascism to secure the support of forces that could provide it with greater political experience and financial resources.
The caliber of the men who composed the Fascist movement, their aspirations, and the immediacy of their actions soon positioned Fascism as the strongest element of reaction against the spread of socialism. To counter the violence, strikes, and disorders that, buoyed by the victories in Russia, socialists had unleashed across the country, action squads were formed; and, with a previously anti-socialist orientation, in the May 1921 general elections Fascism allied with other right-wing parties and secured its first parliamentary representation. With this initial electoral affirmation, the movement expanded from the major industrial cities of northern Italy to central and southern Italy, transforming itself from an elite movement (as it liked to describe itself) into a mass organization and party: the first labor unions emerged, propaganda spread to the countryside, and the movement structured itself as the National Fascist Party.
Strengthened by its new organization and by its successes in cities and rural areas against socialism, the Fascist Party demanded active participation in governing the country; upon the refusal of the governing majority, it resolved to exert resolute pressure to achieve its goal. The October 1922 demonstrations (culminating in the March on Rome) led the king to entrust Mussolini with forming a cabinet. Thus began the history of Fascism in power: initially in coalition with other political forces and later alone.
At this point, the history of Fascism as a political movement appears to merge with the history of the Fascist state—the state that Fascism had taken over and guided through its own men. The internal political disputes (from the Matteotti affair to the doctrine of the war in Abyssinia; from the alliance with the navy to the war outside it) were, more than disputes within the party, conflicts and divisions within the Italian political class in power.
Once in power, Fascism actively turned to the reform of the state and Italian public life, as well as to foreign and colonial policy, translating into action the impulses that had guided it from its inception: the affirmation of a strong state at home and abroad, and the recognition of labor’s role within discipline and order.
In this spirit, Fascism initiated the constitutional transformation of the state with the proclamation of the “Charter of Labor” as the fundamental law of labor; with the creation of the Grand Council of Fascism (an organ comprising the highest hierarchies of Fascism and the government, thereby ensuring the institutional connection between party and state); with the appointment of the Fascist secretary as Minister of the Kingdom; and finally with the abolition of the Chamber of Deputies and the establishment of a Chamber of Fasces and Corporations composed of representatives of Fascist political organizations and production organizations. These transformations were accompanied by extensive legislative activity, which, among other things, implemented reforms of the civil code, civil procedure, criminal law, and criminal procedure.
Alongside these reforms, which aimed at a profound transformation of the liberal and secular state that Fascism had inherited upon assuming power, must be noted the conclusion of the Lateran Treaty and the Concordat with the Holy See: the former resolved the Roman Question with the recognition of the State of the Vatican City; the latter sought to regulate the conditions of religion and the Catholic Church in Italy, abandoning state secularization and activating Article 10 of the Albertine Statute, thereby paving the way—even in Italian legislation—for what is the right and mission of the Church. This was to lead to an entire orientation aimed at recognizing the prerogatives and mission of the Catholic Church, particularly in the so-called mixed matters, after their respective boundaries had been defined.
The Fascist state, thus conceived, was to guide Italy through the difficult years of the 1930s, when the regime had to contend not only with the task of managing an increasingly cumbersome state apparatus—with its vast array of services and functions—but also with the consciousness of the values of the Italian nation in the world.
These two guiding principles of Fascism (the critique of liberal society and democratic institutions, and the valorization of national tradition) were such that they seemed easily exportable beyond Italy: thus, in the interwar period, Fascist and Fascist-derived movements emerged across Europe (Germany, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Romania, Greece) and beyond (Turkey, Argentina, Brazil). This expansion of Fascism beyond Italy’s borders reveals that, apart from the intrinsic value of its formula, it presented itself as an attempt to overcome a crisis that was unfolding between 1920 and 1940.