The Kingdom of Italy was governed by the National Fascist Party from 1922 to 1943, with Benito Mussolini as prime minister transforming the country into a totalitarian dictatorship. The Fascists crushed political opposition, while promoting economic modernization, traditional social values, and a rapprochement with the Catholic Church. They also promoted imperialism, resulting in the expansion of the Italian Empire.
According to historian Stanley G. Payne, "[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 foreign policy, Mussolini ordered the pacification of Libya against rebels in the Italian colonies of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (eventually unified in Italian Libya), inflicted the bombing of Corfu, established a protectorate over Albania, and annexed the city of Fiume into Italy after a treaty with the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The second phase (1925–1929) was "the construction of the Fascist dictatorship proper". The third phase (1929–1935) saw less interventionism in foreign policy. 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, ending in military defeat, while the sixth and final phase (1943–1945) was the rump Salò Government under German control.
Italy was a leading member of the Axis powers in World War II, battling with initial success on several fronts. However, after the German-Italian defeat in Africa, the successes of the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front, and the subsequent Allied landings in Sicily, King Victor Emmanuel III successfully overthrew and arrested Mussolini. The new government signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943. Germany seized control of the northern half of Italy and rescued Mussolini, setting up the Italian Social Republic (RSI), a collaborationist puppet state which was ruled by Mussolini and Fascist loyalists. This period also marked the beginning of the Italian Civil War, as Italian resistance groups and co-belligerent forces fought against German troops and RSI forces until 1945.
Mussolini was captured and killed by the resistance on 28 April 1945, and hostilities ended the next day. Shortly after the war, civil discontent led to the 1946 institutional referendum on whether Italy would remain a monarchy or become a republic. Italians decided to abandon the monarchy and form the Italian Republic, the present-day Italian state.
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 totalitarian state was officially declared in the Doctrine of Fascism of 1935:
With the concept of totalitarianism, Mussolini and the Fascist regime set an agenda of improving Italian culture and society based on ancient Rome, personal dictatorship and some futurist aspects of Italian intellectuals and artists. Under Fascism, the definition of the Italian nationality was to rest on a militarist foundation and the Fascist's "new man" ideal, in which loyal Italians would rid themselves of individualism and autonomy and see themselves as a component of the Italian state and be prepared to sacrifice their lives for it. Under such a totalitarian government, only Fascists would be considered "true Italians", and membership and endorsement of the Fascist Party was necessary for people to gain "Complete Citizenship"; those who did not swear allegiance to Fascism would be banished from public life and could not gain employment.Gentile, p. 81. The Fascist government also reached out to Italians living overseas to endorse the Fascist cause and identify with Italy rather than their places of residence.Gentile, p. 146. Despite efforts to mould a new culture for fascism, Fascist Italy's efforts were not as drastic or successful in comparison to other one-party states like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in creating a new culture.Pauley, p. 108.
Mussolini's propaganda idolized him as the nation's saviour, and the Fascist regime attempted to make him omnipresent in Italian society. Much of Fascism's appeal in Italy was based on Mussolini's popularity and charisma. Mussolini's passionate oratory and the personality cult around him were displayed at huge rallies and parades of his Blackshirts in Rome, which served as an inspiration to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany.
The Fascist regime established propaganda in newsreels, radio broadcasting and a few feature films deliberately endorsing Fascism. In 1926, laws were passed to require that propaganda newsreels be shown prior to all feature films in cinemas.Pauley, p. 109. 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. Women were to attend to motherhood and stay out of public affairs. in
General elections were held in the form of a referendum on 24 March 1929. By this time, the country was a single-party state with the National Fascist Party as the only legally permitted party. Mussolini used a referendum to confirm a fascist single-party list. The list put forward was ultimately approved by 98.43% of voters. The universal male suffrage, which was legal since 1912, was restricted to men who were members of a trade union or an association, to soldiers and to members of the clergy. Consequently, only 9.5 million people were able to vote.
Catholic Church
In 1870, the newly formed Kingdom of Italy annexed the remaining Papal States, depriving the Pope of his temporal power. Relations with the Catholic Church improved significantly during Mussolini's tenure. Despite earlier opposition to the Church, after 1922 Mussolini made an alliance with the Catholic (Italian People's Party). In 1929, Mussolini and the papacy came to an agreement that ended the bitter standoff between the Church from the Italian government going back to 1860. The Orlando government had begun the process of reconciliation during World War I and the Pope furthered it by cutting ties with the Christian Democrats in 1922.Smith, Italy, pp. 40–443. Mussolini and the leading Fascists were anti-clericals and atheists, but they recognized the advantages of warmer relations with Italy's large Catholic element.
The Lateran Accord of 1929 was a treaty that recognized the Pope as the head of the new city-state of Vatican City within Rome, which gave it independent status and made it an important hub of world diplomacy. The Concordat of 1929 made Catholicism the sole religion of the State (although other religions were tolerated), paid salaries to priests and bishops, recognized religious marriages (previously couples had to have a civil ceremony) and brought religious instruction into the public schools. In turn, the bishops swore allegiance to the Italian Fascist régime, which had a veto power over their selection. A third agreement paid the Vatican 1.75 billion lire (about $100 million) for the seizures of Church property since 1860. The Catholic Church was not officially obliged to support the Fascist régime and the strong differences remained, but the general hostility ended. The Church especially endorsed foreign policies such as support for the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War and for the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Friction continued over the (Catholic Action) youth network, which Mussolini wanted to merge into his Fascist youth group. In 1931, Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical ("We do not need") that denounced the regime's persecution of the Church in Italy and condemned "pagan worship of the state".
Clerical fascism
The 1929 treaties with Mussolini partially recovered the Papacy's spiritual primacy in Italy, making the Pope sovereign in the Vatican City state, and restoring Catholicism as the state religion. In March 1929, a nationwide plebiscite was held to publicly endorse the Treaty. Opponents were intimidated by the Fascist régime, the Catholic Action party instructed Catholics to vote for Fascist candidates, and Mussolini claimed that the only "no" votes were of those "few ill-advised anti-clericals who refuse to accept the Lateran Pacts". Nearly 9 million Italians voted (90% of the registered electorate), and only 136,000 voted "no". The Lateran Treaty remains in place today.
In 1938, the Italian Racial Laws and the Manifesto of Race were promulgated by the Fascist régime, designed to outlaw and persecute both Italian Jews and Protestant Christians,; especially Evangelicals and Pentecostals.
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 personally admitted professor Vito Volterra, a famous Italian Jewish mathematician, into the Pontifical Academy of Science."Scholars at the Vatican". Commonweal, 4 December 1942, pp. 187–188.
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 puppet-state following the Armistice of Cassibile. 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. 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.
Mussolini was overthrown in July 1943, the Germans moved to occupy Italy, and they also commenced a round-up of Jews. Thousands of Italian Jews and a small number of Protestants died in the Nazi concentration camps. Six thousand Jews, Slovenians, and Italian Resistance were murdered and incinerated at the only concentration camp in Italy, San Sabba Rice Mill. in Trieste.
Antisemitism
Until he formed his alliance with Hitler, Mussolini always denied the existence of antisemitism within the National Fascist Party. In the early 1920s, Mussolini wrote an article which stated that Fascism would never elevate a "Jewish Question" and the article also stated that "Italy knows no antisemitism and we believe that it will never know it" and then, the article elaborated "let us hope that Italian Jews will continue to be sensible enough so as not to give rise to antisemitism in the only country where it has never existed". In 1932, during a conversation with Emil Ludwig, Mussolini described antisemitism as a "German vice" and stated: "There was 'no Jewish Question' in Italy and could not be one in a country with a healthy system of government". On several occasions, Mussolini spoke positively about Jews and the Zionist movement.Zimmerman, p.160 Mussolini had initially rejected Nazi racism, especially the idea of a master race, as "arrant nonsense, stupid and idiotic".