Date sent:        Sun, 28 Apr 1996 15:05:23 +0100

Was Mussolini's seizure of power due to his own skill or the
incompetence of his opponents?

On the 23 March 1919 after a series of Communist demonstrations,
the almost forgotten Mussolini decided to attempt to revive his
Fasci movement. A meeting was held in a hall in a Milan and was
attended by some fifty malcontents. From this seemingly small and
insignificant event the  Fascio di Combattimento' (Combat Group)
was born. Initially, it would seem that the Fasci were destined
for failure with none of their candidates (including Mussolini)
winning a single seat in the 1919 elections. How was it that a
party with no clear programme, save a belief in action of some
sort, became a ruling dictatorship little more than ten years
later?

By the end of 1919, Mussolini possessed hardly more than 2% of
the vote in Milan, less than 5000 votes against 170,000 for the
Socialists. Was this a complete disaster? At the time it seemed
so; the Socialists were so confident of their success that they
staged a mock funeral in Milan stopping outside Mussolini's house
to invite him to attend the burial of his party.

Incredibly, by 1921 the membership of this previously tiny group
was to rival the size of the Socialists. How was this achieved?
It was certainly by no easy means; Mussolini's skill and luck
played a vital role, but he was also helped by the seemingly
blind incompetence of his opponents.

Mussolini's path towards the top of Italian Government was
hindered by many forms of opposition. However, most of his
opposition came from the Government and the rival Socialist (PSI)
party. Soon after the summer of 1920 the Fascists and their
opposition inevitably clashed. The fact that Gioletti's
government was faced with « million workers sitting in in
factories showed that Italy was a far from stable country in
1920. Did an opportunity present itself for Mussolini to gain
ground over the Socialist opposition? If it did, Mussolini
certainly did not take it. He was still recovering from his
party's humiliating election defeat.

Eventually the union leaders, evidently surprised by this sudden,
spontaneous revolutionary outburst persuaded the workers to give
in in return for higher wages. Although initially it would seem
that the workers had won, the strikes had sown the seeds of fear
amongst Italy's Socialist opposition. The overall effect of this
was that many of the opponents of Socialism joined Mussolini's
 Fascist' party. The Socialist party by causing the strike had
unwittingly played into Mussolini's hands; although this was due
to their own incompetence and not the skill of Mussolini.
Interestingly, they were later to make exactly the same mistake
again.

The fact that Mussolini's party benefitted greatly by offering
action, showed that political gains could be made from the
weakness of the government and from the unrest of the country.
It was at this point in 1921 that Gioletti began searching for
allies against the Socialists. The Vatican had turned against
him; This was mainly due to the government's proposal to tax the
bonds which were a main form of Church property at the time.

As a result Gioletti decided to use Fascist support against the
Socialists. Why did Gioletti decide to use the Fascist's support
to combat the Socialists, when there were many other safer ways
of doing so? Principally, he believed that he could easily
dominate Mussolini and once in power again he would discard the
 tougher elements' among the Fascists. He made a grave mistake
in believing this. 

In the winter of 1920-21, Mussolini organized his men into
 squadre d'azione' (squads of action) headed by local leaders
( ras') like Balbo in Ferrara and Grandi in Bologna. Primarily,
Mussolini's clever planning was demonstrated by his success: His
initial campaign of violence against the Socialists led to 200
dead and 800 wounded in the period between December 1920 and May
1921. The government, in accordance with its alliance with the
Fascists, did little to prevent the violence, and instead saw it
as a cheap way of curbing the rise of socialism. Even when in the
spring of 1921 the clashes had reached riot proportions, the
government nonetheless decided that they had succeeded in their
aim of disrupting the progress of socialism. Later at the
Socialist party congress in January 1921 the PSI split into a
revolutionary and a reformist wing. This move was welcomed, if
not actually forced by the Fascists. With Socialist support
diminishing rapidly, the Fascists gained a vital foothold in
Parliament. Primarily, this was achieved through the election of
15 May 1921. Because his party offered action, Mussolini gained
from the weakness of the government and from the unrest in the
country. During the election the government used Fascist support
to unseat Socialist and Catholic deputies; this was mainly done
by beating up opponents. Mussolini met little opposition to his
actions; the police and prefects remained neutral or actively
aided the Fascists with transport and arms. The Fascists
performed particularly well in the elections as the figures below
show:



Extreme Nationalists          10
Fascists                 35        Government bloc (184)
National Bloc (Gioletti)      139



Radicals (Liberal Democrats)       68        Potential centrist
 Popolari'                    107       opposition (175)



Reformists               29
Socialists                    123       Left opposition (176)
Communists               15        Total seats (535)
National minorities           9



The Fascists were invited by Prime Minister Gioletti to form a
part of his right-wing electoral alliance, thereby promising
them, for the first time, some influence in the government as
well as in the streets. Gioletti had given the Fascists a chance
to become an accepted political force.  

Primarily, Prime Minister Gioletti must be held responsible as
one of the main reasons for Mussolini gaining another chance to
fight for power. As Mussolini's Fascist Party grew, so seemingly
did the incompetence of Gioletti. He became increasingly
dependent upon the Fascists to take direct and often brutal
action against the unions and peasant leagues. His unorthodox
methods were careless, unparliamentary and were to be extremely
self-destructive. It seemed that Gioletti and his government had
lost the will to govern the country and its people.

>From May to July 1921 Gioletti was to govern on the basis of this
coalition. However, within a year there were to be thirteen
different groups in Parliament. Since the parliament fell into
three approximately equal groupings, the Fascist's thirty-five
seats were crucial to the stability of the government. If the
Fascists defected to the opposition, government would have been
very difficult.

The knowledge that the Fascists had become a powerful force in
government took Mussolini by surprise. His immediate reaction to
this situation was to become a respectable participant in
government. In doing this, he signed a  peace treaty', and a
 pact of pacification' with the Socialists to end their mutual
violence. However, his lieutenants in the provinces disliked and
disagreed with his curb on their power. In actual fact Mussolini
resigned as leader for a brief period of time; however in
November he accepted their demands for continued hostility and
tore up the pact.

The economic conditions of the 1920's did much to encourage
support for extremist parties; both the Fascists and the
Socialists benefitted greatly. This was mainly due to Italy's war
debts and problems of reconstruction, as well as the devaluation
of the lire. The working-class voter's wage remained at pre-war
levels while prices increased everywhere. This resulted in
increasing support for the left-wing parties who, the working-class voters hoped, would
press for wage claims.

In some cases, they took action on their own behalf by striking
or occupying factories. It was to be Mussolini's skill that was
to gain him support from these actions. The strikes had raised
the spectre of revolution, and this in turn, increased the
attraction of the Fascists to the middle-class population and
those who feared socialism. It was Mussolini's policies of firm
action to prevent revolution that many Italians saw as the only
alternative to Bolshevism. 

The period from December 1921 to November 1922 was to see the
overall demise of the Socialist and government opposition to
Mussolini. During this period, Fascist thuggery became ever more
efficient, claiming 3000 lives of the Socialist supporters, with
only 300 Fascist fatalities. Finally, on 26 June 1921 Gioletti's
incompetence caught up with him; he was forced to resign due to
Fascist opposition in Parliament. A combination of Mussolini's
opportunism and skill, and Gioletti's inadequacy to govern Italy
had resulted in Gioletti's resignation.

His successor was to be Ivanoe Bonomi, who was a reformist
Socialist, and formed a government with Radical and  Popolari'
support. His choice of parties was rather dangerous to his
political position as one was clerical and the other anti-clerical. He did not last long,
and within four weeks the King had asked Luigi Facta to head the new Italian government. 

A famous historian, Denis Mack Smith, has described him as
follows  ... a timid, ignorant provincial lawyer who had risen
in politics by seniority alone. His appointment was at first
taken almost as a joke...'. Deserted by the  Popolari' in the
summer of 1922, he lost his Prime-ministerial position; however,
he soon became Prime Minister again on 1 August when no other
could be found. Fortunately for Mussolini, Facta did not provide
any form of powerful opposition towards him or his party's
actions. 

The very day that Facta formed his new ministry in government,
the unions began a general strike. The strike was called in an
effort to force the government to halt the Fascist violence; in
particular it was a protest against Balbo's actions in Romagna.
Unfortunately for the Socialists, they played into Mussolini's
hands, for yet again the problem of a socialist revolution was
raised. Mussolini cleverly showed the public that he was the man
to restore order while in the background he made use of his
disorderly supporters. The strike collapsed after one day, and
Mussolini and his Fascists gained increasing support. The once
strong socialist opposition had disintegrated into a weak,
disorganized group of individuals; Mussolini had succeeded in
removing an important part of the opposition.

There were still a number of potential obstacles to Mussolini.
The most obvious were the King and the army (who were controlled
by the government). By October 1922 the government had virtually
broken down, and much of Italy was in political disarray. Facta
suggested that the entire cabinet should resign, but when his
idea was turned down, he started to plan a coalition with the
Fascists. It is interesting to note that the troops were still
loyal to the King; there can be little doubt that a firm
government could have crushed any armed attempt against the
regime. Mussolini was well aware of this, and concentrated his
efforts on political manoeuvre. He demonstrated his
perceptiveness of the political situation when he realised that
the Facta government was helpless and thinking in terms of a
coalition.

Taking advantage of the situation, Mussolini met with the leaders
of the various Fascist groups. Action was planned for 28 October
on lines that had been worked out earlier. Three concentration
points were selected which the groups were to reach by any means
of transport and so avoid the chance of an early clash with the
army. Such a clash was to be avoided at all costs and army units
were to be treated with courtesy and friendliness. Again this was
clever decision-making by Mussolini, who realised the potential
threat presented by the army. 

After a series of parades and speech-making to gather support,
Mussolini presented his demands to the government. In essence
they were simple; there was to be a new cabinet with at least six
Fascist ministers in important posts. On the 25 October Mussolini
left for Milan while the Party Congress continued to distract the
government's attention. 

In reply to Mussolini's demands, the Facta cabinet responded
surprisingly slowly; they were convinced that they had plenty of
time in hand. Eventually, they decided that the answer would be
in the form of a new coalition which would include a number of
Fascists. However, confusion and disorganisation reigned as
members of the cabinet continued to scheme. With this in mind,
Facta decided to resign, though his cabinet still ran the
government until a new leader could be chosen.

It is difficult to find sound reasoning behind Facta's
resignation; his resignation can be described as little more than
a blunder. It did nothing but highlight the weakness of the
cabinet and the instability of the government. Initially, it
seemed to succeed; in view of his resignation, the Fascist
leaders hesitated as to whether or not their plans should go
ahead for 28 October. However, unfortunately for the government,
the Fascist party machine could not be halted and local units
began to requisition trains and borrow arms from friendly
military units.

Eventually, Facta was persuaded to return and to declare a state
of siege in Rome. Facta, now becoming increasingly worried about
the fascist threat, was reluctant to take such action. Instead,
he went to the King to ask for a proclamation declaring a state
of emergency. This would have enabled the army to have been
called out against the Fascist columns. However, the King rightly
feared civil war, and doubted Facta's ability to control the
situation. He was approached twice, but both times he refused to
sign a proclamation. Facta's reputation had been damaged so much,
that even the King had little trust left for him.

Mussolini having realised that there would be an armed clash,
increased his demands. Again, this turned out to be a well
considered and successful plan. On 29 October Rachele Mussolini
received a telephone message from Rome, requesting the presence
of Mussolini at the palace. At noon, Mussolini received a
telegram; Mussolini was to form a government. It was not long
before Mussolini had formed a moderate cabinet containing only
four Fascist ministers. He was secure in the knowledge that he
had the nations support for a government which was prepared to
act. In addition, he knew that he had virtually no opposition,
and had the support of the King, the army, and the industrialists
as well as the loyalty of his Fascist followers.

In conclusion, then, to what extent can we attribute Mussolini's
seizure of power to his own skill or the incompetence of his
opponents? In view of his own skill, Mussolini's career has been
presented as one of  blunder and bluff'. However, the 1920's was
a period in which  bluff' was more suited to success. It is also
true to say that undoubtedly Mussolini helped the Fascist party
into power through his own skill. 

Although initially, the Fascist party had widespread but
unorganised support, Mussolini brought a certain national
structure and identity to the party. His first contribution was
the organisation of the party, making it a movement as well as
a party, and therefore making it a viable choice in an election.
Secondly, Mussolini brought home the importance of opportunism
and action as opposed to inactivity and fixed ideologies. As S.
Lee argues, Mussolini was strongly inclined to intuitive
behaviour and projected himself as a flexible pragmatist. This
allowed him to make full use of the chaotic conditions in Italy,
and considerably increased the Fascist party's fortunes.

However, we must also consider that to a certain extent, the
opposition's continued failures and misjudgments almost pushed
Mussolini into power. We must also take account of the fact that
Mussolini certainly had his fair share of luck - a prime example
is the King's refusal to declare a state of emergency, which
would have allowed the army to attack the Fascists. 

However, it was his ability to act out the role of the Italian
people's dream leader that gave him the most success. He played
upon the post-war crisis, and made it appear that Fascism was the
only way in which socialism would be smashed, and Italy's society
and status would be rebuilt. To the Italian people, Mussolini was
the great leader they had been desperately searching for - the
leader who was going to make Italy a great power, and a respected
force in the world.
