Fascist Italy
Kingdom of Italy Regno d'Italia (Italian) | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1922–1943 | |||||||||||
Motto: FERT (Motto for the House of Savoy) | |||||||||||
Anthem: (1861–1943) Marcia Reale d'Ordinanza ("Royal March of Ordinance") (1924–1943) Giovinezza ("Youth")[a] | |||||||||||
Capital and largest city | Rome | ||||||||||
Common languages | Italian | ||||||||||
Religion | Roman Catholicism | ||||||||||
Demonym(s) | Italians | ||||||||||
Government |
| ||||||||||
Victor Emmanuel III | |||||||||||
Prime Minister and Duce | |||||||||||
• 1922–1943 | Benito Mussolini | ||||||||||
• 1943 | Pietro Badoglio[1] | ||||||||||
Legislature | Parliament | ||||||||||
Senate | |||||||||||
Chamber of Deputies (1922–1939) Chamber of Fasces and Corporations (1939–1943) | |||||||||||
History | |||||||||||
31 October 1922 | |||||||||||
29 August 1923 | |||||||||||
11 February 1929 | |||||||||||
14 April 1935 | |||||||||||
1935–1936 | |||||||||||
1936–1939 | |||||||||||
7–12 April 1939 | |||||||||||
22 May 1939 | |||||||||||
10 June 1940 | |||||||||||
27 September 1940 | |||||||||||
25 July 1943 | |||||||||||
3 September 1943 | |||||||||||
Area | |||||||||||
1938 (including colonies)[2] | 3,798,000 km2 (1,466,000 sq mi) | ||||||||||
Population | |||||||||||
• 1936 | 42,993,602 | ||||||||||
Currency | Lira (₤) | ||||||||||
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Fascist Italy is a term used to describe the
According to Payne (1996), "[the] Fascist government passed through several relatively distinct phases". The first phase (1922–1925) was nominally a continuation of the parliamentary system, albeit with a "legally-organized executive dictatorship". In 1923, Italy launched the Second Italo-Senussi war. The second phase (1925–1929) was "the construction of the Fascist dictatorship proper". During the third phase (1929–1935), the fascist Italian regime perpetrated the Libyan genocide. The fourth phase (1935–1940) was characterized by an aggressive foreign policy: the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, which was launched from Eritrea and Somaliland; confrontations with the League of Nations, leading to sanctions; growing economic autarky; the invasion of Albania; and the signing of the Pact of Steel. The fifth phase (1940–1943) was World War II itself which ended in military defeat, while the sixth and final phase (1943–1945) was the rump Salò Government under German control.[3]
Italy was a leading member of the
From that point onward the country descended into
Culture and society
After rising to power, the Fascist regime of Italy set a course to becoming a one-party state and to integrate Fascism into all aspects of life. A
The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people.
— Doctrine of Fascism, 1935[4]
With the concept of totalitarianism,
Mussolini's
The Fascist regime established propaganda in newsreels, radio broadcasting and a few feature films deliberately endorsing Fascism.[10] In 1926, laws were passed to require that propaganda newsreels be shown prior to all feature films in cinemas.[11] These newsreels were more effective in influencing the public than propaganda films or radio, as few Italians had radio receivers at the time. Fascist propaganda was widely present in posters and state-sponsored art. However, artists, writers and publishers were not strictly controlled: they were only censored if they were blatantly against the state. There was a constant emphasis on the masculinity of the "new Italian", stressing aggression, virility, youth, speed and sport.[12] Women were to attend to motherhood and stay out of public affairs.[13]
Roman Catholic Church
In 1870 the newly formed
The
Clerical fascism
The papal spiritual rule over Italy was restored by the Italian Fascist régime (albeit on a greatly diminished scale) in 1929 as head of the Vatican City state;[17] under Mussolini's dictatorship, Roman Catholicism was declared the State religion of Fascist Italy.[17][20] In March 1929, a nationwide plebiscite was held to publicly endorse the Treaty. Opponents were intimidated by the Fascist régime: the Catholic Action instructed Italian Roman Catholics to vote for Fascist candidates to represent them in positions in churches and Mussolini claimed that "no" votes were of those "few ill-advised anti-clericals who refuse to accept the Lateran Pacts".[21] Nearly 9 million Italians voted (90 percent of the registered electorate), and only 136,000 voted "no".[22] The Lateran Treaty remains in place to this day.
In 1938, the
In January 1939, The Jewish National Monthly reported "the only bright spot in Italy has been the Vatican, where fine humanitarian statements by the Pope have been issuing regularly". When Mussolini's anti-Semitic decrees began depriving Jews of employment in Italy, Pius XI, on his own initiative, admitted professor Vito Volterra, a famous Italian Jewish mathematician, into the Pontifical Academy of Science.[27]
Despite Mussolini's close alliance with Hitler's Germany, Italy did not fully adopt Nazism's genocidal ideology towards the Jews. The Nazis were frustrated by the Italian authorities' refusal to co-operate in the round-ups of Jews, and no Jews were deported prior to the formation of the Italian Social Republic following the Armistice of Cassibile.[28] In the Italian-occupied Independent State of Croatia, German envoy Siegfried Kasche advised Berlin that Italian forces had "apparently been influenced" by Vatican opposition to German anti-Semitism.[29] As anti-Axis feeling grew in Italy, the use of Vatican Radio to broadcast papal disapproval of race murder and anti-Semitism angered the Nazis.[30]
Mussolini was overthrown in July 1943, the Germans moved to occupy Italy, and commenced a round-up of Jews. Thousands of Italian Jews and a small number of Protestants died in the Nazi concentration camps.[23][26]
Antisemitism
Until
In 1929, Mussolini acknowledged the contributions which Italian Jews had made to Italian society, despite their minority status, and he also believed that Jewish culture was Mediterranean, aligning his early opinion of Italian Jews with his early Mediterraneanist perspective. He also argued that Jews were natives of Italy, after living on the Italian Peninsula for a long period of time.[35][36] In the early 1930s, Mussolini held discussions with Zionist leadership figures over proposals to encourage the emigration of Italian Jews to the mandate of Palestine, as Mussolini hoped that the presence of pro-Italian Jews in the region would weaken pro-British sentiment and potentially overturn the British mandate.[37]
On the issue of antisemitism, the Fascists were divided on what to do, especially with the rise of Hitler in Germany. A number of Fascist members were Jewish and Mussolini affirming that he himself was a Zionist,[38] but to appease Hitler antisemitism within the Fascist Party steadily increased. In 1936, Mussolini made his first written denunciation of Jews by claiming that antisemitism had only arisen because Jews had become too predominant in the positions of power of countries and claimed that Jews were a "ferocious" tribe who sought to "totally banish" Christians from public life.[39] In 1937, Fascist member Paolo Orano criticized the Zionist movement as being part of British foreign policy which designed to secure British hold of the area without respecting the Christian and Islamic presence in Palestine. On the matter of Jewish Italians, Orano said that they "should concern themselves with nothing more than their religion" and not bother boasting of being patriotic Italians.[40]
The major source of friction between National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy was Italy's stance on Jews. In his early years as Fascist leader, while Mussolini harbored racial stereotypes of Jews, he did not hold a firm stance on Jews and his official stances oscillated and shifted to meet the political demands of the various factions of the Fascist movement, rather than having any concrete stance.[41] Of the 117 original members of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento founded on 23 March 1919, five were Jewish.[42] Since the movement's early years, there were a small number of prominent openly antisemitic Fascists such as Roberto Farinacci.[43] There were also prominent Fascists who completely rejected antisemitism, such as Italo Balbo, who lived in Ferrara, which had a substantial Jewish community that was widely accepted and suffered few antisemitic incidents.[44] Mussolini initially had no antisemitic statements in his policies.[45] However, in response to his observation of large numbers of Jews amongst the Bolsheviks and claims (that were later confirmed to be true) that the Bolsheviks and Germany (that Italy was fighting in World War I) were politically connected, Mussolini made antisemitic statements involving the Bolshevik-German connection as being "an unholy alliance between Hindenburg and the synagogue".[45] Mussolini came to believe rumors that Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin was of Jewish descent.[45] Mussolini attacked the Jewish banker Giuseppe Toeplitz of Banca Commerciale Italiana by claiming that he was a German agent and traitor of Italy.[46] In an article in Il Popolo d'Italia in June 1919, Mussolini wrote a highly antisemitic analysis on the situation in Europe involving Bolshevism following the October Revolution, the Russian Civil War and war in Hungary involving the Hungarian Soviet Republic.[46] In June 1919, Mussolini wrote on Il Popolo d'Italia:
If Petrograd (Pietrograd) does not yet fall, if [General] Denikin is not moving forward, then this is what the great Jewish bankers of London and New York have decreed. These bankers are bound by ties of blood to those Jews who in Moscow as in Budapest are taking their revenge on the Aryan race that has condemned them to dispersion for so many centuries. In Russia, 80 percent of the managers of the Soviets are Jews, in Budapest 17 out of 22 people's commissars are Jews. Might it not be that bolshevism is the vendetta of Judaism against Christianity?? It is certainly worth pondering. It is entirely possible that bolshevism will drown in the blood of a pogrom of catastrophic proportions. World finance is in the hands of the Jews. Whoever owns the strongboxes of the peoples is in control of their political systems. Behind the puppets (making peace) in Paris, there are the Rothschilds, the Warburgs, the Schiffs, the Guggenheims who are of the same blood who are conquering Petrograd and Budapest. Race does not betray race ... Bolshevism is a defense of the international plutocracy. This is the basic truth of the matter. The international plutocracy dominated and controlled by Jews has a supreme interest in all of Russian life accelerating its process of disintegration to the point of paroxysm. A Russia that is paralyzed, disorganized, starved, will be a place where tomorrow the bourgeoisie, yes the bourgeoisie, o proletarians will celebrate its spectacular feast of plenty.[46]
This statement by Mussolini on a Jewish-Bolshevik-plutocratic connection and conspiracy was met with opposition in the Fascist movement, resulting in Mussolini responding to this opposition amongst his supporters by abandoning and reversing this stance shortly afterwards in 1919.[45] In reversing his stance due to opposition to it, Mussolini no longer expressed his previous assertion that Bolshevism was Jewish, but warned that—due to the large numbers of Jews in the Bolshevik movement—the rise of Bolshevism in Russia would result in a ferocious wave of anti-Semitism in Russia.[45] He then claimed that "anti-Semitism is foreign to the Italian people", but warned Zionists that they should be careful not to stir up antisemitism in "the only country where it has not existed".[45] One of the Jewish financial supporters of the Fascist movement was Toeplitz, whom Mussolini had earlier accused of being a traitor during World War I.[47] Early on there were prominent Jewish Italian Fascists such as Aldo Finzi,[47] who was born of a mixed marriage of a Jewish and Christian Italian and was baptized as a Roman Catholic.[48] Another prominent Jewish Italian Fascist was Ettore Ovazza, who was a vocal Italian nationalist and an opponent of Zionism in Italy.[49] 230 Italian Jews took part in the Fascists' March on Rome in 1922.[42] In 1932, Mussolini made his private attitude about Jews known to the Austrian ambassador when discussing the issue of the antisemitism of Hitler, saying: "I have no love for the Jews, but they have great influence everywhere. It is better to leave them alone. Hitler's anti-Semitism has already brought him more enemies than is necessary".[45]
At the 1934 Montreux Fascist conference chaired by the Italian-led Comitati d'Azione per l'Universalita di Roma (CAUR) that sought to found a Fascist International, the issue of antisemitism was debated amongst various fascist parties, with some more favorable to it and others less favorable. Two final compromises were adopted, creating the official stance of the Fascist International:
[T]he Jewish question cannot be converted into a universal campaign of hatred against the Jews ... Considering that in many places certain groups of Jews are installed in conquered countries, exercising in an open and occult manner an influence injurious to the material and moral interests of the country which harbors them, constituting a sort of state within a state, profiting by all benefits and refusing all duties, considering that they have furnished and are inclined to furnish, elements conducive to international revolution which would be destructive to the idea of patriotism and Christian civilization, the Conference denounces the nefarious action of these elements and is ready to combat them.[50]
Italian Fascism adopted antisemitism in the late 1930s and Mussolini personally returned to invoke antisemitic statements as he had done earlier.[51] The Fascist regime used antisemitic propaganda for the Spanish Civil War from 1937 to 1938 that emphasized that Italy was supporting Spain's Nationalist forces against a "Jewish International".[51] The Fascist regime's adoption of official antisemitic racial doctrine in 1938 met opposition from Fascist members including Balbo, who regarded antisemitism as having nothing to do with Fascism and staunchly opposed the antisemitic laws.[44]
In 1938, under pressure from Germany, Mussolini made the regime adopt a policy of antisemitism, which was extremely unpopular in Italy and in the Fascist Party itself. As a result of the laws, the Fascist regime lost its propaganda director,
Antisemitism was unpopular throughout Italy, including within the Fascist Party. Once when a Fascist scholar protested to Mussolini about the treatment of his Jewish friends, Mussolini is reported to have said: "I agree with you entirely. I don't believe a bit in the stupid anti-Semitic theory. I am carrying out my policy entirely for political reasons".[54]
Education
The Fascist government endorsed a stringent education policy in Italy aiming at eliminating illiteracy, which was a serious problem in Italy at the time, as well as improving the allegiance of Italians to the state.
Intellectual talent in Italy was rewarded and promoted by the Fascist government through the Royal Academy of Italy which was created in 1926 to promote and coordinate Italy's intellectual activity.[57]
Social welfare
A major success in social policy in Fascist Italy was the creation of the
Another organization the Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB) was widely popular and provided young people with access to clubs, dances, sports facilities, radios, concerts, plays, circuses and outdoor hikes at little or no cost. It sponsored tournaments and sports festivals.[62]
Between 1928 and 1930 the government introduced pensions, sick pay and paid holidays.[63] In 1933, the government established unemployment benefits.[63] At the end of the 1930s, 13 million Italians were enrolled in the state health insurance scheme and by 1939 social security expenditure accounted for 21 per cent of government spending.[64] In 1935, the 40-hour working week was introduced and workers were expected to spend Saturday afternoons engaged in sporting, paramilitary and political activities.[65][66] This was called Sabato fascista ("Fascist Saturday") and was aimed mainly at the young; exceptions were granted in special cases but not for those under 21.[66] According to Tracy H. Koon, this scheme failed as most Italians preferred to spend Saturday as a day of rest.[66]
Police state and military
For security of the regime, Mussolini advocated complete state authority and created the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale ("National Security Volunteer Militia") in 1923, which are commonly referred to as "
To combat
Women
The Fascists paid special attention to the role of women, from elite society women to factory workers[74] and peasants.[75] Fascist leaders sought to "rescue" women from experiencing emancipation even as they trumpeted the advent of the "new Italian woman" (nuova italiana).[76] The policies revealed a deep conflict between modernity and traditional patriarchal authority, as Catholic, Fascist and commercial models of conduct competed to shape women's perceptions of their roles and their society at large. The Fascists celebrated violent "virilist" politics and exaggerated its machismo while also taxing celibate men to pay for child welfare programs. Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and the resulting League of Nations sanctions shaped the tasks assigned to women within the Fascist Party. The empire and women's contribution to it became a core theme in Fascist propaganda. Women in the party were mobilized for the imperial cause both as producers and as consumers, giving them new prominence in the nation. The Fascist women's groups expanded their roles to cover such new tasks as running training courses on how to fight waste in housework. Young Italian women were prepared for a role in Italy's "place in the sun" through special courses created to train them for a future as colonial wives.[77]
The government tried to achieve "alimentary sovereignty", or total self-sufficiency with regard to food supplies. Its new policies were highly controversial among a people who paid serious attention to their food. The goal was to reduce imports, support Italian agriculture and encourage an austere diet based on bread, polenta, pasta, fresh produce and wine. Fascist women's groups trained women in "autarkic cookery" to work around items no longer imported. Food prices climbed in the 1930s and dairy and meat consumption was discouraged, while increasing numbers of Italians turned to the black market. The policy demonstrated that Fascists saw food—and people's behavior generally—as strategic resources that could be manipulated regardless of traditions and tastes.[78]
Economy
Mussolini and the Fascist Party promised Italians a new economic system known as
The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the most effective and useful instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that private organisation of production is a function of national concern, the organiser of the enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction given to production. State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management.[79]
Fascists claimed that this system would be egalitarian and traditional at the same time. The economic policy of corporatism quickly faltered; the left-wing elements of the Fascist manifesto were opposed by industrialists and landowners who supported the party because it pledged to defend Italy from socialism, and corporatist policy became dominated by the industries. Initially, economic legislation mostly favoured the wealthy industrial and agrarian classes by allowing privatization, liberalization of rent laws, tax cuts, and administrative reform; however, economic policy changed drastically following the
After the Great Depression hit the world economy in 1929, the Fascist regime followed other nations in enacting protectionist tariffs and attempted to set direction for the economy. In the 1930s, the government increased wheat production and made Italy self-sufficient for wheat, ending imports of wheat from Canada and the United States.[82] However, the transfer of agricultural land to wheat production reduced the production of vegetables and fruit.[82] Despite improving production for wheat, the situation for peasants themselves did not improve, as 0.5% of the Italian population (usually wealthy) owned 42 percent of all agricultural land in Italy[83] and income for peasants did not increase while taxes did increase.[83] The Depression caused unemployment to rise from 300,000 to 1 million in 1933.[84] It also caused a 10 percent drop in real income and a fall in exports. Italy fared better than most western nations during the Depression: its welfare services did reduce the impact of the Depression.[84] Its industrial growth from 1913 to 1938 was even greater than that of Germany for the same time period. Only the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian nations had a higher industrial growth during that period.[84]
Italy's colonial expansion into Ethiopia in 1936 proved to have a negative impact on Italy's economy. The budget of the colony of Italian East Africa in the 1936–1937 fiscal year requested from Italy 19.136 billion lire to be used to create the necessary infrastructure for the colony.[85] Italy's entire revenue that year was only 18.581 billion lire.[86]
Technology and modernization
In 1933, Italy made multiple technological achievements. The Fascist government spent large sums of money on technological projects such as the construction of the Italian ocean liner
Foreign policy
Stephen Lee identifies three major themes in Mussolini's foreign policy. The first was a continuation of the foreign-policy objectives of the preceding Liberal regime. Liberal Italy had allied itself with Germany and Austria and had great ambitions in the Balkans and North Africa. It had been badly defeated in Ethiopia in 1896, when there was a strong demand for seizing that country. Second was a profound disillusionment after the heavy losses of the First World War. In the eyes of many Italians the small territorial gains from Austria-Hungary were not enough to compensate for the war's terrible costs, especially since countries, such as Poland and Yugoslavia, who contributed far less to the allied victory but received much more. Third was Mussolini's promise to restore the pride and glory of the old Roman Empire.[90]
Mussolini promised to revive Italy's status as a
Africa
Colonial efforts in Africa began in the 1920s, as civil war plagued
Negotiations on expanding the borders of the colony of Libya took place with the British government. The first negotiations began in 1925 to define the border between Libya and British-held Egypt. These negotiations resulted in Italy gaining previously undefined territory.[92] In 1934, once again the Italian government requested more territory for Libya from British-held Sudan. The United Kingdom allowed Italy to gain some territory from Sudan to add to Libya.[92]
In 1935, Mussolini believed that the time was right for Italy to invade
Race Laws
Until 1938, Mussolini had denied any antisemitism within Fascist Italy and dismissed the racial policies of Nazi Germany. However, by mid-1938 Hitler's influence over Mussolini had persuaded him to make a specific agenda on race, the Fascist regime moved away from its previous promotion of colonialism based on the spread of Italian culture to a directly race-oriented colonial agenda.
In 1938, Fascist Italy passed the
Fascist rule in its Italian colonies differed from region to region. Rule in
Fascist Italy embraced the "Manifesto of the Racial Scientists" which embraced biological racism and it declared that Italy was a country populated by people of Aryan origin, Jews did not belong to the Italian race and that it was necessary to distinguish between Europeans and Jews, Africans and other non-Europeans.[101] The manifesto encouraged Italians to openly declare themselves as racists, both publicly and politically.[102] Fascist Italy often published material that showed caricatures of Jews and Africans.[103]
In
Balkans
The Fascist regime also engaged in interventionist foreign policy in Europe. In 1923, Italian soldiers captured the Greek island of Corfu as part of the Fascists' plan to eventually take over Greece. Corfu was later returned to Greece and war between Greece and Italy was avoided. In 1925, Italy forced Albania to become a de facto protectorate which helped Italy's stand against Greek sovereignty. Corfu was important to Italian imperialism and nationalism due to its presence in the former Republic of Venice which left behind significant Italian cultural monuments and influence, though the Greek population there (especially youth) heavily protested the Italian occupation.
Relations with France were mixed: the Fascist regime consistently had the intention to eventually wage war on France to regain Italian-populated areas of France,[106] but with the rise of Hitler the Fascists immediately became more concerned of Austria's independence and the potential threat of Germany to Italy, if it demanded the German-populated areas of Tyrol. Due to concerns of German expansionism, Italy joined the Stresa Front with France and Britain against Germany which existed from 1935 to 1936.
The Fascist regime held negative relations with Yugoslavia, as they long wanted the implosion of Yugoslavia in order to territorially expand and increase Italy's power. Italy pursued espionage in Yugoslavia, as Yugoslav authorities on multiple occasions discovered spy rings in the Italian Embassy in Yugoslavia, such as in 1930.[106] In 1929, the Fascist government accepted Croatian extreme nationalist Ante Pavelić as a political exile to Italy from Yugoslavia. The Fascists gave Pavelić financial assistance and a training ground in Italy to develop and train his newly formed fascist militia and terrorist group, the Ustaše. This organization later became the governing force of the Independent State of Croatia, and murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Roma during World War II.[107]
After Germany annexed
Spain
In 1936 in Spain, the Fascist regime made its most significant pre-war military intervention. The
Germany
When the Nazi Party attained power in Germany in 1933, Mussolini and the Fascist regime in public showed approval of Hitler's regime, with Mussolini saying: "The victory of Hitler is our victory".
Hitler and the National Socialists continued to try to woo Mussolini to their cause and eventually Mussolini gave financial assistance to the Nazi Party and allowed National Socialist paramilitaries to train in Italy in the belief that despite differences, a nationalist government in Germany could be beneficial to Italy.[106] As suspicion of the Germans increased after 1933, Mussolini sought to ensure that Germany would not become the dominant nationalist state in Europe. To do this, Mussolini opposed German efforts to annex Austria after the assassination of fascist Austrian President Engelbert Dollfuss in 1934 and promised the Austrians military support if Germany were to interfere. This promise helped save Austria from annexation in 1934.
Public appearances and propaganda constantly portrayed the closeness of Mussolini and Hitler and the similarities between Italian Fascism and German National Socialism. While both ideologies had significant similarities, the two factions were suspicious of each other and both leaders were in competition for world influence. Hitler and Mussolini first met in June 1934, as the issue of Austrian independence was in crisis. In private after the visit in 1934, Mussolini said that Hitler was just "a silly little monkey".
After Italy became isolated in 1936, the government had little choice but to work with Germany to regain a stable bargaining position in international affairs and reluctantly abandoned its support of Austrian independence from Germany. In September 1937, Mussolini visited Germany in order to build closer ties with his German counterpart.[112] On 28 October 1937, Mussolini declared Italy's support of Germany regaining its colonies lost in World War I, declaring: "A great people such as the German people must regain the place which is due to it, and which it used to have beneath the sun of Africa".[113]
With no significant opposition from Italy, Hitler proceeded with the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria in 1938. Germany later claimed the Sudetenland, a province of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by Germans. Mussolini felt he had little choice but to help Germany to avoid isolation. With the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, the Fascist regime began to be concerned about the majority ethnic German population in South Tyrol and whether they would want to join a Greater Germany. The Fascists were also concerned about whether Italy should follow National Socialist antisemitic policies in order to gain favor from those National Socialists who had mixed feelings about Italy as an ally. In 1938, Mussolini pressured fellow Fascist members to support the enacting of antisemitic policies, but this was not well taken as a number of Fascists were Jewish and antisemitism was not an active political concept in Italy. Nevertheless, Mussolini forced through antisemitic legislation even while his own son-in-law and prominent Fascist Count Galeazzo Ciano personally condemned such laws. In turn for enacting the extremely unpopular antisemitic laws, Mussolini and the Fascist government demanded a concession from Hitler and the National Socialists. In 1939, the Fascists demanded from Hitler that his government willingly accept the Italian government's plan to have all Germans in South Tyrol either leave Italy or be forced to accept Italianization. Hitler agreed and thus the threat to Italy from the South Tyrol Germans was neutralized.
Alliance with Germany
As war approached in 1939, the Fascist regime stepped up an aggressive press campaign against France claiming that Italian people were suffering in France.
World War II
Italy's military and logistical resources were stretched by successful pre-WWII military interventions in
Italy joined the war as one of the
However, Italy's conquests were always heavily contested, both by various insurgencies (most prominently the
The northern half of the country was occupied by the Germans with the cooperation of Italian fascists and became the
Anti-fascism against Mussolini's regime
In Italy, Mussolini's
The
Concentrazione Antifascista Italiana (English: Italian Anti-Fascist Concentration), officially known as Concentrazione d'Azione Antifascista (Anti-Fascist Action Concentration), was an Italian coalition of Anti-Fascist groups which existed from 1927 to 1934. Founded in Nérac, France, by expatriate Italians, the CAI was an alliance of non-communist anti-fascist forces (republican, socialist, nationalist) trying to promote and to coordinate expatriate actions to fight fascism in Italy; they published a propaganda paper entitled La Libertà.[126][127][128]
Many Italian anti-fascists participated in the Spanish Civil War with the hope of setting an example of armed resistance to Franco's dictatorship against Mussolini's regime; hence their motto: "Today in Spain, tomorrow in Italy".[131]
Between 1920 and 1943, several anti-fascist movements were active among the
During
Historiography
History of Italy |
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Italy portal |
Most of the historiographical controversy centers on sharply conflicting interpretations of Fascism and the Mussolini regime.[138] The 1920s writers on the left, following the lead of communist theorist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), stressed that Fascism was a form of capitalism. The Fascist regime controlled the writing and teaching of history through the central Giunta Centrale per gli Studi Storici and control of access to the archives and sponsored historians and scholars who were favorable toward it such as philosopher Giovanni Gentile and historians Gioacchino Volpe and Francesco Salata.[139] In October 1932, it sponsored a large Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution, featuring its favored modernist art and asserting its own claims to express the spirit of Roman glory.[140]
After the war, most historiography was intensely hostile to Mussolini, emphasizing the theme of Fascism and totalitarianism.[141] An exception was historian Renzo De Felice (1929–1996), whose Mussolini's Biography, four volumes and 6,000 pages long (1965–1997) remains the most exhaustive examination of public and private documents about Italian Fascism and serves as a basic resource for all scholars. De Felice argued that Mussolini was a revolutionary modernizer in domestic issues, but a pragmatist in foreign policy who continued the Realpolitik policies of liberal Italy (1861–1922).[142] In the 1990s, a cultural turn began with studies that examined the issue of popular reception and acceptance of Fascism using the perspectives of "aestheticization of politics" and "sacralisation of politics".[143] By the 21st century, the old "anti-Fascist" postwar consensus was under attack from a group of revisionist scholars who have presented a more favorable and nationalistic assessment of Mussolini's role, both at home and abroad. Controversy rages as there is no consensus among scholars using competing interpretations based on revisionist, anti-Fascist, intentionalist or culturalist models of history.[144]
See also
- Fascist and anti-Fascist violence in Italy (1919–1926)
- Italian Fascism
- Mussolini Cabinet
- European interwar dictatorships
References
- ^ After the Fall of the Fascist Regime In Italy and Mussolini's fall from power. King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Badoglio as the new Prime Minister of Italy in July 25,1943.
- ISBN 9780521785037. Retrieved 2 October 2016.
- ^ Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 (1996) p. 212
- ^ Mussolini, Benito. 1935. Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions. Rome: Ardita Publishers. p. 14.
- ^ Pauley, Bruce F (2003) Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century Italy, Wheeling: Harlan Davidson, Inc., p. 107.
- ^ Gentile, Emilio. The Struggle For Modernity Nationalism Futurism and Fascism (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), p. 87.
- ^ Gentile, p. 81.
- ^ Gentile, p. 146.
- ^ Pauley, p. 108.
- ^ Federico Caprotti, "Information management and fascist identity: newsreels in fascist Italy". Media history (2005) 11@3 pp: 177–191.
- ^ Pauley, p. 109.
- ^ Gigliola Gori, "Model of masculinity: Mussolini, the 'new Italian' of the Fascist era". International journal of the history of sport (1999) 16#4 pp: 27–61.
- ^ Lesley Caldwell, "Madri d'ltalia: Film and Fascist Concern with Motherhood". in Zygmunt G. Bara'nski and George N. Yannopoulos, eds. Women and Italy: Essays on Gender, Culture and History (1991) pp: 43–63.
- ^ Italy, 24 May 1929: Fascist single list Direct Democracy (in German)
- ^ Smith, Italy, pp 40–443.
- ISBN 978-0-521-26870-7.
- ^ ISBN 0-8386-3988-7.
Bibliography
- ISBN 0-00-216305-5.
- ISBN 978-1-4299-0036-2.
Further reading
- Alonso, Miguel, Alan Kramer, and Javier Rodrigo, eds. Fascist Warfare, 1922–1945: Aggression, Occupation, Annihilation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).
- Baer, George W. Test Case: Italy, Ethiopia, and the League of Nations (Hoover Institution Press, 1976).
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