The National Fascist Party (, PNF) was a far-right political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian fascism and as a reorganisation of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. The party ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922, when Fascists took power with the March on Rome, until the fall of the Fascist regime in 1943, when Mussolini was deposed by the Grand Council of Fascism. The National Fascist Party was succeeded by the Republican Fascist Party in the territories under the control of the Italian Social Republic, and it was ultimately dissolved at the end of World War II.
The National Fascist Party was rooted in Italian nationalismStanley G. Payne. A History of Fascism, 1914–1945. p. 106.Roger Griffin, "Nationalism" in Cyprian Blamires, ed., World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2006), pp. 451–53. and the desire to restore and expand Italian territories, which Italian Fascists deemed necessary for a nation to assert its superiority and strength and to avoid succumbing to decay.Grčić, Joseph. Ethics and Political Theory (Lanham, Maryland: University of America, Inc, 2000) p. 120. Griffin, Roger and Matthew Feldman, eds., Fascism: Fascism and Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 2004) p. 185. Jackson J. Spielvogel. Western Civilization. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012. p. 935.Il rapporto tra il sindacalismo rivoluzionario e le origini del fascismo: appunti di lavoro, DiacronieAristotle A. Kallis, Fascist ideology: territory and expansionism in Italy and Germany, 1922–1945. London, England, UK; New York City, USA: Routledge, 2000. Pp. 41. Italian Fascists claimed that modern Italy was the heir to ancient Rome and its legacy and historically supported the idea of continued expansion of the Italian Empire to provide spazio vitale ("living space") for colonisation by Italian settlers and to establish control over the Mediterranean Sea.Aristotle A. Kallis. Fascist ideology: territory and expansionism in Italy and Germany, 1922–1945. London, England, UK; New York City, USA: Routledge, 2000. Pp. 50. The party also supported social conservative stances.Mark Antliff. Avant-Garde Fascism: The Mobilization of Myth, Art, and Culture in France, 1909–1939. Duke University Press, 2007. p. 171.Maria Sop Quine. Population Politics in Twentieth Century Europe: Fascist Dictatorships and Liberal Democracies. Routledge, 1995. pp. 46–47.
Fascists promoted a corporatist economic system,Cyprian Blamires. World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2006. p. 535.Robert Millward. Private and public enterprise in Europe: energy, telecommunications and transport, 1830–1990. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, p. 178. whereby employer and employee syndicates are linked together in associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy.Andrew Vincent. Modern Political Ideologies. Third edition. Malden, Massaschussetts, USA; Oxford, England, UK; West Sussex, England, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2010. Pp. 160.Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-1945, University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. This economic system intended to resolve class conflict through collaboration between the classes.John Whittam. Fascist Italy. Manchester, England, UK; New York City, USA: Manchester University Press, 1995. Pp. 160. Moreover, the PNF strongly advocated autarky.L'Italia e l'autarchia, Enciclopedia TreccaniLa politica autarchica del fascismo: tra industria e ricerca scientifica , Il Mondo degli ArchiviFascismo e Autarchia, Fondazione Micheletti1936 – L'autarchia e i surrogati, Biblioteca SalaBorsa
Italian Fascism, similarly to German Nazism, opposed liberalism,Jim Powell, "The Economic Leadership Secrets of Benito Mussolini", Forbes, 22 February 2012Eugen Weber. The Western Tradition: From the Renaissance to the present. Heath, 1972. Pp. 791. but did not seek a reactionary restoration of the pre-French Revolutionary world, which it considered to have been flawed, and not in line with a forward-looking direction on policy. It was opposed to Marxist socialism because of its typical opposition to nationalism,Stanislao G. Pugliese. Fascism, anti-fascism, and the resistance in Italy: 1919 to the present. Oxford, England, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004. pp. 43–44. but was also opposed to the reactionary conservatism developed by Joseph de Maistre.Stanley G. Payne. A History of Fascism, 1914–45. Madison, Wisconsin, USA: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. Pp. 214. It believed the success of Italian nationalism required respect for tradition and a clear sense of a shared past among the Italian people alongside a commitment to a modernised Italy, as well as a solid belief that Italy was destined to become the hegemonic power in Europe.Claudia Lazzaro, Roger J. Crum. "Forging a Visible Fascist Nation: Strategies for Fusing the Past and Present" by Claudia Lazzaro, Donatello Among The Blackshirts: History And Modernity In The Visual Culture Of Fascist Italy. Ithaca, New York, USA: Cornell University Press, 2005. Pp. 13.
The National Fascist Party along with its successor, the Republican Fascist Party, are the only parties whose re-formation is banned by the Constitution of Italy: "It shall be forbidden to reorganize, under any form whatsoever, the dissolved Fascist party."
History Historical background
After World War I (1914–1918), despite the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946) being a full-partner Allied Power against the Central Powers, Italian nationalism claimed Italy was cheated in the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919), thus the Allies had impeded Italy's progress to becoming a "Great Power". Thenceforth, the PNF successfully exploited that perceived slight to Italian nationalism in presenting Fascism as best suited for governing the country by successfully claiming that democracy, socialism and liberalism were failed systems.
In 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference, the Allies compelled the Kingdom of Italy to yield to Yugoslavia the Croatian seaport of Fiume (Rijeka), a mostly Italian city of little nationalist significance, until early 1919. Moreover, elsewhere Italy was then excluded from the wartime secret Treaty of London (1915) it had concorded with the Triple Entente,The Fascist Experience by Edward R. Tannenbaum, p. 22 wherein Italy was to leave the Triple Alliance and join the enemy by declaring war against the German Empire and Austria-Hungary in exchange for territories at war's end, upon which the Kingdom of Italy held claims (see ).
In September 1919, the nationalist response of outraged war hero Gabriele D'Annunzio was declaring the establishment of the Italian Regency of Carnaro. To his independent Italian state, he installed himself as the Regent (Leader) and promulgated the (Charter of Carnaro, 8 September 1920), a politically syncretic constitutional amalgamation of right-wing and left-wing politics – anarchist, proto-fascist and democratic republican ideas – which much influenced the politico-philosophic development of early Italian fascism. Consequent to the Treaty of Rapallo (1920), the metropolitan Italian military deposed the Regency of D'Annunzio on Christmas 1920. In the development of the fascist model of government, D'Annunzio was a nationalist and not a fascist, whose legacy of political–praxis ("Politics as Theatre") was stylistic (ceremony, uniform, harangue and chanting) and not substantive, which Italian fascism artfully developed as a government model.Roger Eatwell, Fascism: A History (1995)p. 49
Founded in Rome during the Third Fascist Congress on 7–10 November 1921,S. William Halperin (1964). Mussolini and Italian Fascism. Princeton, New Jersey: D. van Nostrand Company. . p. 34.Charles F. Delzell, edit., Mediterranean Fascism 1919-1945, New York, NY, Walker and Company, 1971, p. 26 the National Fascist Party marked the transformation of the paramilitary into a more coherent political group (the had been founded by Mussolini in Milan's Piazza San Sepolcro on 23 March 1919).
The Fascist Party was instrumental in directing and popularising support for Mussolini's ideology. In the early years, groups within the PNF called Blackshirts () built a base of power by violently attacking socialists and their institutions in the rural Po Valley, thereby gaining the support of landowners. Compared to its predecessor, the PNF abandoned republicanism to turn decisively towards the right-wing of the political spectrum.
March on Rome
On 28 October 1922, Mussolini attempted a coup d'état, titled the March on Rome by Fascist propaganda, in which almost 30,000 fascists took part. The quadrumvirs leading the Fascist Party, General Emilio De Bono, Italo Balbo (one of the most famous ras), Michele Bianchi and Cesare Maria de Vecchi, organised the March while the stayed behind for most of the march, though he allowed pictures to be taken of him marching along with the Fascist marchers. Generals Gustavo Fara and Sante Ceccherini assisted the preparations of the March of 18 October. Other organisers of the march included the Marquis Dino Perrone Compagni and Ulisse Igliori.
On 24 October 1922, Mussolini declared before 60,000 people at the Fascist Congress in Naples: "Our program is simple: we want to rule Italy".Carsten (1982), p.62 Meanwhile, the Blackshirts, who had occupied the Po plain, took all strategic points of the country. On 26 October, former prime minister Antonio Salandra warned current prime minister Luigi Facta that Mussolini was demanding his resignation and that he was preparing to march on Rome. However, Facta did not believe Salandra and thought that Mussolini would govern quietly at his side. To meet the threat posed by the bands of fascist troops now gathering outside Rome, Facta (who had resigned the next day on 29 October 1922 but continued to hold power) ordered a state of siege for Rome. Having had previous conversations with the king about the repression of fascist violence, he was sure the king would agree.Chiapello (2012), p.123 However, King Victor Emmanuel III refused to sign the military order.Carsten (1982), p.64 On 30 October, the King handed power to Mussolini, who was supported by the military, the business class, and the right-wing part of the population.
The march itself was composed of fewer than 30,000 men, but the King in part feared a civil war since the had already taken control of the Po plain and most of the country, while fascism was no longer seen as a threat to the establishment. Mussolini was asked to form his cabinet on 31 October 1922, while some 25,000 Blackshirts were parading in Rome. Mussolini thus legally reached power in accordance with the Statuto Albertino, the Italian Constitution. The March on Rome was not the conquest of power which fascism later celebrated, but rather the precipitating force behind a transfer of power within the framework of the constitution. This transition was made possible by the surrender of public authorities in the face of fascist intimidation. Many business and financial leaders believed it would be possible to manipulate Mussolini, whose early speeches and policies emphasised free market and laissez-faire economics.Carsten (1982), p.76 This proved overly optimistic, as Mussolini's corporatist view stressed total state power over businesses as much as over individuals, via governing industry bodies ("corporations") controlled by the Fascist party, a model in which businesses retained the responsibilities of property, but few if any of the freedoms.