Mussolini A new life by Nicholas Farrel 2003 480pg

    Mussolini  A new life by Nicholas Farrel 2003    480pg   

This is a revised view of  Mussolini , it tries to portray his more positive aspects  27/2/2017

With the end of WW1 Italy was plunged into rampant inflation, rioting and strikes. Soldiers were kept occupying the territories received but most were kept busy dealing with the unrest. Returning victorious soldiers felt they had no gains from the war. Even though Italy had been united in 1871the war had brought about a unity of classes and dialect divisions.

You had universal suffrage of men over 21 and illiterates over 30.  400 thousand Italians had died in the 1919 flu epidemic.

The government feared a Socialist Revolution as in many cities arson was being used to get workers wage increases, lead by d' Annuncio

Fascism stood for the reincarnation of the Roman Empire. In the 1919 election the Fascist failed to achieve many votes. The church discouraged the public from voting. Fascists decided the socialists were the Russian army camped in Italy.

Blocco National with Mussolini and Giofitti won the election in 1921 defeating the socialists; the aristocrats lost control due to universal manhood suffrage. 

 

In Ravenna celebrating 600 years of Dante death the blackshirts converged. Mussolini declared fascism a political party.

Pope Pius saw fascism as the best chance for peace in Italy.  Victor Emmanuel was hostile to the Vatican and did not like parliament's incompetence. When Mussolini arrived in Rome he was greeted by black shirts. Mussolini was the sole candidate appointed by the king; he was 39 and the youngest PM since unification.

Fascism was between production and workers a third way for the corporate state.  The fascist parish was national.  

The Soviet example shows a new aristocrat replacing the Tsar through "democracy"

Italy had had 3 and a half years of war

        4 years of virtual civil war

        2 years of red violence

        2 years of black violence. Mussolini represented the last chance. 

1922 Luigi Facto became the PM a liberal weak leader with infighting in the party and fascist gangs were creating havoc against socialists and trade unions.  The socialist feebly called for a national strike and this played into Mussolini's hands and people were worried about a revolution.

The march on Rome was by 30thousand mostly unarmed fascist Mussolini and most of them arrived by train.  There was an army garrison that could easily have dealt with this and it was ready. The march on Rome was more of a victory celebration.

The Mussolini government was sworn in and wanted a years emergency powers. He thanked the workers for their support, the King for not unleashing the army in the civil war and God for help that conciliation with the Vatican.

He then sent the marchers home. In parliament were 7 previous liberal  PMs 5 of whom supported him.

 1923 Italian diplomat killed on the Albania/Greek conflict Italy bombed Corfu and invaded then Conference with France and British Ambassidors to arbitrate giving Mussolini prestige and indicating his iridescence in future.

Under Minister Gentili education reforms pleased the Vatican with crucifixes to be put in classrooms barracks courts and contraception to be banned.

They simplify tax reduced national debt, improved public services and railways, reduced beaurocracy and brought internal security and national pride.

 In 1924, 23 list were voted on in the elections and he Fascist won 66.3% liberal, nationalist, and Catholics had joined his list, many as opportunists.  Matteoti the socialist leader claimed the election were a fraud and this caused the fascist party to challenge Mussolini. He sent squadrati to deal with Matteoti but they killed him and as this was leading to Mussolini he declared a dictatorship. Elections were postponed to 1924 and the elections to place in an atmosphere of terror, the elections were rigged but the party was very popular and won 65% of the vote.

When the socialist Matteotti  published a dossiers of fascist crimes abroad that the elections were rigged . meant to ruff him up killed him and the evidence of this lead to Mussolini, later this go out of hand and he made himself dictator. The murderer was put in jail and money was paid to hush the story. Many thought the scandal was so bad it was the end of Mussolini including the fascist but he grabbed power

 

 

The first move to dictatorship was to control the Black Shirt violence , by bringing the squadrati to being part of the militia, so that their allegiance was not longer to their ras. he used them against his opposition but also against the fascist party. The grand council of fascism was a parallel cabinet. He formed a coalition with the nationalists, the Catholics and the liberals to stand against the socialists.

 

1925 Safferetti wrote Dux in Italy. She moved across the road from Mussolini while he was in church negotiations.

In 1926 became the dictator and closed down all political parties except the PNF after 4 assassination attempts and he also used this as an excuse to clamp down on opponents.

Everything in the state nothing outside the state. The word Totalitarian gained widespread usage in Italy at this time. Now the fasces became the state insignia, the axe enclosing the bundle of rods.  After the 4th assassination attempt he tightened his power grip. The special tribunal that lasted 16 years sentenced 4596 to prison but only executed 31

He set up a Ministry of Corporation and it represented both the workers and the state and industrial strife was ended.

His slogan was "If I advance follow me, if I retreat kill me, if I die revenge me. Statute of 1848 he King could only rule by decree through his Prime Minister now Mussolini took this power. Italian in exile who spoke against Mussolini lost their citizenship and property.

Through the prefect of police he ended to the squadratti violence.  Cesare Mori the prefect was appointed and he put an end to the Mafia in Sicily resulting in the fleeing to the mountains or America or landing in jail. Mussolini saw the Mafia as a threat to Fascism and the economy of Sicily developed enormously by not having to pay protection. From America they returned with the Allies in 1943; Lucky Liociano and after that it took till the end of the cold war in 1990 to bring them under control again.

In Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia the police imposed the regime. In Italy the police were controlled by the state and not by the party.

A revalued lira was put on the gold standard. Wheat and sugar imports were taxed and with a new program importation of wheat dropped 75% as home production increased.

The concept of low birth rates in the cities would lead to a decline in the state's power and bachelors between ages 25 and 60 were taxed to give money to childbirth programs.Thus Mussolini had 2 more children, and the Vatican was pleased with this program.  

Railway bridges connected Venice to the railway system and the Milan station is a grandiose project of the Mussolini era.   

While he was a journalist he supported freedom of the press but now he controlled it by various methods, threatening editors and paper sellers who sold non fascist papers and delivery trucks.

Private industry was encouraged but a Ministry of  Corporation was set up and unions were made to work for the good of the state. 

1926 Once Mussolini was dictator he was strong enough to negotiate with the pope secretly  " Questiono Romano"

Fascist you were developed with the slogan "Believe obey fight"  Crucifixes were put into every class room with pictures of the Pope   Fascism "Everything in the State nothing outside the state."

 

5 years after he became PM he brought his wife Rochella to Rome and had a Catholic marriage and baptised the children then had 2 more children and encouraged Italians to have bigger families but at the same time 

1929 Lateran treaty.  The Vatican Independent State came about and Catholicism was defined as the state religion but all other religions would be tolerated and the pope lost all temporal power.  The church agreed to stay out of politics and then could again publish. The church was more anti-Semitic than the Fascists. 

Mussolini however did rule by consent.  In many democracies the government has less than a 50% mandate while Italians were both active and passive supporters and not because they were evil. Parliamentary democracy had failed and only a dictatorship could move the country. The fascist had the better song  Giovanezza and Toscanini refused to play it at concerts and left Italy in 1931.

Arnaldo, his brother a teacher and journalist died in 1931 leaving a great loss to Benito

Fascism was optimistic about the future and exalted values of ancient Rome to make the new man, renovation.   It did not burn books, it exalted the countryside, the Latin Mediterranean and values of the peasants. It stood against bourgeois values but supported the entrepreneurial spirit

Fascist Doctrine was not a layed down dogma and had to be developed and he moved along Gentili wrote about this but they were never able to define it as Marx had defined Communism. His speeches attracted the public but had little content. He himself might have reached a point where he was just using fascism as a tool to hold power.

  The Futurists gave it support.  It was not interested in an official art cult like the Nazis or Bolsheviks. 

1926 Churchill regarded Mussolini as a remarkable man and as Chancellor of the Exchequer agreed to reschedule the Italian war debt from WW1

1926 to 1939  Pontine Marshes this is a vast area south east of Rome that only had 1800 poor farmers suffering from malaria. A national project drained these and 5 towns were build with hundreds of settlers  brought in with vast agriculture.

The ship Rex build in Genoa was the record holder of the fastest passage to NY.  The aeroplane Maachi has the record of the fastest aeroplane in about 1931.

Between 1932 and 1935 Oswald Moselys union of  fascist party was subsidised by Mussolini but once Mosely in 1936 married Diana Mitford in Berlin Mussolini refused to see him.

Mussolini told Ludwig Emil Cohn that there was no such thing as a pure race; it was a spiritual feeling.

By 1930 the squadrati had disappeared and  most political detainees were released.

In 1933 FDR invited Mussolini to Washington as he was worried about Hitler instead Guido Jung, finance minister (Jewish) was sent. Could Italy safeguard world peace??

Edda Mussolini had a relationship with Wallace Simpson, she fell pregnant and had an abortion which left her sterile.

1927 Sport Mussolini became Italy's Number one sportsman, playing tennis, on a white horse driving racing cars. Sport was taken over by the party and YMCA and Catholic clubs were closed and scouts a foreign imitation in 1928. Government sponsored sports clubs were opened and at a boxing club Mussolini's remark " I don't want a nation of mandolin players I want fighters"  Italy won the Mondiale  in 1934 and 1938

Rossi wrote that he moved from cynicism to idealism , impulsiveness to caution, generosity to cruelty, resolution to indecision, moderation to intransigence and this all gave him stronger powers.

D' Annuncia  an influential writer and poet was against any alliance with Germany but he died in 1938

1938, “The Manifesto of the Race

1938 academics had to take the fascist oath and the race laws came about Enro Fermi whose wife was Jewish moved to the States. Schools were brought  under the fascist regime but they failed with the universities. Safratti at this stage left for South America.

When the anti Semitic laws were introduced 10 000 Jews or about a third of the adult Jewish population were members of the PNF. There were only 50 000 Jews in Italy but now refugees were arriving. Jews of mixed marriages were accepted as well as anyone who fought in WW1 or in the Italian army. Jews were not expelled from the PNF and were promoted in the army. The church was part of the problem - you could convert to Catholicism like you could convert to fascism.

1943 After Mussolini was deposed for 20 month that is when the Italians got the worst of fascist militia  under German occupation and the worst atrocities in Italy and the Balkans occurred as shown in "Captain Corelli Mandolin"