How far was Mussolini’s rise to power by October 1922, due to the

weaknesses of his opponents?

Mussolini rose to power in 1922, he managed to get there after creating his

Fascist party in 1919. Mussolini managed to get to the position of Dictator with

in two years however, this was not an easy journey it was a very difficult path

with many factors which helped him get into power, for example failures from

other parties and the violence used by the black shirts. Mussolini also used non-

violent propaganda in his parliamentary campaign to promote himself and his

party to the masses.

The first cause for the quick rise power began in 1870, even before the Fascist

Party had been created, after the complete unification of Italy’s states into a

single country, this lead to several problems for the country, the first problem of

the new liberal state was that nobody really had a say in what happened in the

country because only two percent of the population had the vote, this meant that

the whole state was dominated by middle class and wealthy business owners.

The liberals put themselves above the rest of the population because they felt

they were an “educated elite with a great power status” this would cause a great

problem for the Italian government in the future because it would show the flaw

in the Italian political system.

They created the system like this also so they would be the only ones who were

voted into power, this did work for 50 years as they managed to cling on to

power but only with radical change, with the introduction of male suffrage giving
the majority of men over the age of 20 the vote. This may have helped them stay

in power but also created a platform for new parties to easily be created and get

some seats in parliament because of proportional representation. Proportional

representation is when the whole countries votes are added up and then shared

between the party giving a fair view of the peoples votes.

The Italian population did not have a sense of pride for their country because

they had an allegiance to their region. However they saw Mussolini as a

figurehead of the state to be that would have potential to make their country

great. Which is what he managed to achieve. They saw him as someone that

could turn Italy back into a roman empire. This helped him get into power

because it gave him a strong image; he was a strong figurehead of the state.

The church disliked the Liberal Government mainly because they were the ones

that took power after the unification of Italy, which took the churches land, this

benefited the Fascists in two ways, firstly it made the Catholics slightly fonder of

Mussolini because he was a party that supported the Catholic Church. It also

meant that the Liberals were less likely to be able to form a co illation

government than the Fascists would because of the history of the liberal party.

There was a large amount of talk by the people and politicians of Italy about who

was to blame for the First World War and all the misery and problems it caused.

Unfortunately the blame fell on the Liberal government who were in power

during this time. This was the start of numerous parties.

The main problem was debt. Italy had borrowed far more than there economy

could actually support they needed to pay back that money, this meant that there

had to be massive spending cuts. This was a bad thing for the Liberals and made

people blame them. They therefore needed someone to do something about it

because at this time the socialist threat was looking greater than ever before.

Mussolini and his party were therefore another alternative for the people of Italy

to look at. And this party had views and policies that suited most Italians nicely.

The liberal government was changing, they were loosing power and support, in

the period before the fascists got into power there were many more general

elections than usual and nobody could get a majority. This meant a coalition had

to be formed and therefore nothing would ever be decided causing another

general election. This process would happened up until the point where

Mussolini got into power, this helped him gain power because people began to

get fed up with the constant change of government. Most governments were not

in power long enough to get decisions made.

The fascist party was seen to have pros and cons however the pros out weighed

the cons. For example seen to just be there to crush the left therefore others

wanted them in power. Also they had some very positive policy’s for example

policy 12 supported the workers “Workers to have a significant share of the

business worked in” this would have given the workers a much larger incentive

to vote for the fascists over any other party. Even the socialist party didn’t

benefit the workers that much.

The Socialists were making advancements in the Countryside and in the

factories; this scared rich people and let Mussolini appear to be the party who

crushed them. Mussolini went and raided socialist movement rally’s with the

black shirts. This made people grateful and supportive of the party.

The middle class voted for fascism because they knew liberals wouldn’t win

Mussolini was probably one of the main causes for the Fascist party getting in

power for the rise to power of the fascist party.

Mussolini had more power than the rest of the assembly even though he had lack

of support from the members of parliament. Mussolini knew that the best way to

get support and working up through the party would be to take lower but

meaningful jobs. For example before he became prime minister he took the jobs,

minister of the interior and minister of foreign affairs

Doing these Jobs would have given him respect within parliament making it

more likely for him to get into power because he would be dealing with services

like the police and immigration, this would allow him to bring his loyal followers

into the key positions in the police force and then he would have even more

dominance in the streets.

Mussolini also used non-violent propaganda in his parliamentary campaign to

promote himself and his party to the people of Italy. For example Mussolini tried

to make people believe he was like them, he did this by making sure he had

photos taken of him mingling with the people of Italy in plain cloths. For example

he would always be the first person to lay a road stone in a big new project or to

be the first person to plow a field. This made everyone believe that he was one of
the people. However, He was not one of the people he did it only to gain support

for him and his party.

Mussolini had a loyal army called the Squadristi or the Black Shirts these men

were used to bully the opposition into voting and doing, as Mussolini wanted. He

also threatened to march them to Rome if Mussolini was not given prime

minister. Mussolini was given prime minister by the king so therefore the march

did not happen. The bullying used scared many people and secured more votes

for Mussolini’s party. The Squadristi occupied many government buildings in

many towns this made sure that the fascists were in power even though it was

almost a police state.

Mussolini desperately needed as many votes as possible so he turned to the

minority parties supporters to vote for him and gain him the additional votes

needed to make sure he made it to power. The two main groups of voters

targeted were the Church and the Conservatives. Mussolini did this by promising

them things for example he told the church that he would ban contraception and

also have compulsory religious education in all schools. This brought support

form the church, it also removed the majority of support from the churches party

“popolari” which lead to the pope to dismiss the leader Don Sturzo. Mussolini

also tried to gain support from the conservatives he did this by convincing them

that they would not loose their money if the fascists were in power. The
conservatives were scared of the socialist party because they had seen the

outcome of Russia and how the rich had lost everything.

Mussolini was put in power by the king and his advisors. They basically did this

to “shut him up” and stop him from using the black shirts to force people into

voting for him. However they did not intend him to turn Italy into a dictatorship

they thought that they would be able to keep him under control and remove him

if he became too powerful. However before the war when he was sending Italy in

the wrong direction he had too much influence on the people so there was no

way that they could remove him from power. He was removed in 1925 when the

country realized the war was not as grand as they thought it would be and

Mussolini lost support.

In conclusion there were many reasons for Mussolini making it into power and it

wasn’t just down to the weaknesses of his opponents it was also down to

Mussolini’s strengths and the groups of supporters who voted for him for many

different reasons. I think the main reason for the successes of the fascist

movement was down to the wide variety of people the party appealed too.

To be truthful there is no clear reason why he was able to get into power because

without one reason listed above the fascists would not be able to get enough of

the support needed. Therefore it was not just down to the failures of the liberals.