Everything in the State, nothing outside the State

A History of Fascism – Part 1

At its core, the very origin of the word “fascist” is pretty bland – it’s an evolution of the Italian words for “group” or “bundle.” A member of a political party (fascio, “bundle” or “league”) was called a fascista. Benito Mussolini’s “combat group” was called “Fasci di Combattimento” which, according to the History Channel, means “Fighting Bands.” The words themselves are hardly sinister, but the ideology that birthed the movement is.

In ancient Rome, the lictor – a civil servant who “summoned & punished offenders” for their magistrate – carried with them a 5-foot long bundle of rods with a protruding ax head. It was a symbol of justice & punishment known as the fasces. Benito Mussolini would adopt the fasces as a symbol for his political party – it was to signify unity under a singular authority.

“[Fascism] has chosen as its emblem the Lictor’s rods, the symbol of unity, strength, and justice.”
The Doctrine of Fascism, Benito Mussolini (1932)

While the words “nazi” and “fascist” have become largely interchangeable in the decades following the second World War, they were, initially, representative of separate political parties in post-World War I Germany and Italy. Although there are some differences to the core tenets of the parties, they share enough similarities – with Adolph Hitler having been inspired by Mussolini’s Fascist party when establishing the philosophy behind his Nazi movement – that it isn’t entirely necessary to, at least in the scope of this article, dive into those nuances. A crude comparison could be made between the Labour Party of the UK and the Democratic Party of the US or the Conservative Party of the UK and the Republican Party of the US. Different systems of government in different nations with similar underlying principles.

When looking at the history surrounding World War II, it’s easy to ask the question, “How could this have happened? How could a people have so willingly fallen prey to such an ideology?” And I think the answer is often obscured by our dehumanization of these historic villains. I think to fully understand the how, we need to be able to understand the who. While it is unquestionable that they committed horrific crimes against humanity, the retroactive assignment of villain has hampered our understanding of how a nation could fall for such an inhuman ideology. We’ve come to understand that they weren’t people, they were monsters. Fascists. Nazis. We don’t see them as proud nationalists with a cause of restoring glory to their countries, because we are now well aware of the horrors that were committed in this pursuit, but they were. They called themselves “patriots.”

Benito Mussolini, from his humble beginnings, had violent tendencies at a young age; he was expelled from a boarding school at the age of 10 after stabbing another student and was suspended from another at the age of 14 for another stabbing. Despite these troubles, he has still been attributed as being intelligent. After graduating, he would go on to teach for a short period before leaving Italy for Swtizerland (1902 – 1904) where he’d contribute to the Socialist newspaper L’Avvenire dei Lavoratori (The Worker’s Future). As an author, he promoted violent action from workers in response to labor disputes.

Mussolini would later return to Italy and become a leader of the Italian Socialist Party. In Italy, he would write for the Socialist paper Avanti! and initially supported anti-militaristic views regarding Italy’s involvement in World War I. However, this was a fickle conviction as he would soon change his tune to advocate involvement in WWI. His fervent opposition to neutrality and support of Italian involvement in WWI would lead to his expulsion from the Italian Socialist Party. Mussolini followed his newly christened convictions into the Italian Army during the war.

“From today onward we are all Italians and nothing but Italians. Now that steel has met steel, one single cry comes from our hearts—Viva l’Italia! [Long live Italy!]”
Il Popolo d’Italia, Benito Mussolini

After returning to Italy when he was wounded in the war, he no longer held the socialist views with which he was raised. He continued to propose violent ideologies and would even promote the idea of a “ruthless and energetic” dictatorial leader capable of restoring Italy’s former glory: The Roman Empire.

The fallout from the Treaty of Versailles was a turning point for Italy following WWI. During the war, Italy abandoned the Triple Alliance of the Central Powers and joined with the Allied Powers with the Treaty of London. This pact brought Italy into the war with the promise of large amounts of land for Italy’s support in the Allied Power’s efforts. Italy’s intentions for joining the Allied forces in the war, imperial expansion, were betrayed when they were not given the territories they were initially promised. The lives of Italian soldiers lost in the war, the economic devastation, and the political fallout the Italian people suffered from the war was, in the simplest sense, the spark that lit the fires of Fascist revolution in Italy.

The cost of the war was disastrous for Italy – over a half million soldiers dead, nearly a million more wounded, and economic devastation their lasting legacy in victory. Socialists in parliament who opposed the war were the source of scorn for returning soldiers feeling abandoned and the citizenry who believed in territorial expansion. The Italian writer and veteran Gabriele D’Annunzio coined the phrase “vittoria mutilata” (mutilated victory) to describe the feeling of betrayal at the denial of the territorial gains they believed they were entitled for their efforts in Allied victory.

Independent the influence of Italian government, D’Annunzio acted on his frustration by organizing a small militia to besiege the city of Fiume – a territory that D’Annunzio believed that Italy had been entitled due to the large population of Italians within the city. Their march on the city was successful and the D’Annunzio declared the city a free state over which he ruled for a period of about 15 months.

This act of bold nationalistic defiance inspired Mussolini in his rise to power. He would adopt D’Annunzio’s “mutilated victory” in his rhetoric and employed it as a point of contention against the Socialists in parliament who, he felt, allowed such a betrayal.

In the years following the Great War, Italy was suffering a major economic crisis. Italian currency had lost around eighty percent of its value in less than a decade, property values had plummeted, manufacturers were bankrupt and out of business, and unemployment soared as soldiers returned home. Displaced Italians seized land, public services were disrupted and frequently stopped as a result of organized strikes while worker unions argued for higher wages.

Amidst all of this, Mussolini continued his crusade against the Socialist Party. He crafted a narrative of a return to greatness – the return of the Roman Empire – as a platform for his Fascist party. He encouraged violence against those who opposed his ideologies; violent clashes between Mussolini’s supporters – the Blackshirts – weren’t uncommon as strikes, riots, and looting continued throughout these “two red years.” In fact, in April 1919, supporters of Mussolini’s ideologies burned down the offices of Avanti! – the Socialist paper where Mussolini previously wrote as a young Socialist – killing four people. These violent conflicts weren’t the only vehicle on road to power, however, despite their instrumentality in propagating further discord throughout Italy.

The post-war economic downturn, ongoing political splintering within the Italian parliament, and dissatisfaction with the denied territorial gains resulted in Italy’s Prime Minister, Giovanni Giolitti, losing a great deal of his support. In a desperate push for parliamentary majority in the 1921 general election, Giolitti invited Mussolini’s Fascist party into the National Blocs coalition of political parties. Despite the Fascist party’s relatively small presence in the Italian parliament (35 of the 535 parliamentary seats), Mussolini and his Fascist party gained a legitimate voice in the nation’s politics.

Fascist militants continued to band together in post-war Italy and were often enlisted by industrialists and landowners to break up strikes and dismantle unions with police assistance. The disbandment of unions and persistent attacks on Socialists and any who opposed the Fascists further fractured Italy’s parliament. The police, army, and middle class of Italy favored Mussolini’s opposition to the labor unions and Socialist party. In October of 1922, Mussolini’s supporters, organized in their resolve, began their March on Rome. Fearing a civil war or military opposition, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy had hoped he could rein in Mussolini constitutionally; the King refused to impose martial law against the organized Fascists and, instead, requested Mussolini organize a new government. On October 31, 1922, Benito Mussolini would officially become the Prime Minister of Italy.

It is incredibly important to emphasize the concept of a return to greatness – the rebuilding of a former empire as a point of national pride when discussing the rise of fascism. The idea of a New Rome Empire, or Third Rome, was integral to the proliferation of fascism in Italy, just as the idea of the greatness of the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire were a driving force behind Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich. Anything less was weakness, and it was that perception of weakness that Mussolini used to criticize the opposing political parties and rally support. The proposal of a restoration of a lost empire is a great driving force to give a struggling people a sense of purpose under which they can unify.

Jingoism, described by Encyclopedia Brittanica as “an attitude of belligerent nationalism, or a blind adherence to the rightness or virtue of one’s own nation… simply because it is one’s own,” is, indeed, a form of patriotism. It was this blind adherence that drove nations to align themselves with the tyrants of history we rightfully vilify. But where we now see tyrants and monsters, they saw themselves as heroes – it was the outcome of the subsequent wars that solidified their vilification in our history books.

The simplest condensation of these events could be: A country entered in a war effort with the promise of land for victory. After the war, they didn’t receive the land they were promised, inflation resulting from the war devastated the economy, and rampant unemployment fragmented political parties and popular opinions. This turmoil gave way to a bunch of pissed off nationalists who thought their country was the best to gain a political platform and make the argument that the rest of the world wasn’t treating them right. Ongoing labor disputes and political division allowed a unified minority to seize control of the nation with the promise of restoring the mythic greatness of a past empire.

In my next posts, I will discuss the rise of fascist ideologies in post-World War Germany and the defining principles of fascism.

https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/wwi/italy

https://www.notablebiographies.com/Mo-Ni/Mussolini-Benito.html

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mussolini-founds-the-fascist-party

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/benito-mussolini-declares-himself-dictator-of-italy

https://www.history.com/news/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-mussolini

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benito-Mussolini

https://www.britannica.com/place/Italy/Economic-and-political-crisis-the-two-red-years

https://www.britannica.com/place/Italy/The-Fascist-era

https://www.britannica.com/event/Fiume-question

https://www.britannica.com/topic/jingoism

https://www.britannica.com/topic/lictor