! ^ I i Alexander De Grand Italian Fascism Its Origins & Development I / University of Nebraska Press Lincoln & London T>G- S7/ 9 %=? / Vn A M f Copyright 1982 by the University of Nebraska Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Ubrary Resources First Bison Book printing: 1982 To Alessandro Most recent printing indicated by first digit below: 123456789 10 Ubrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data De Grand, Alexander ]., 1938- Italian Fascism. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Fascism - Italy - History. 2. Italy - Politics and government -1870-1915. 3. Italy - Politics and government -1914-1945. I. Title DG571.D37 320.5'33'0945 81-23132 ISBN 0-8032-1652-1 AACR2 ISBN 0-8032-6553-0 (pbk) ix Introduction Part One The Historical Background, 1870-1922 Qiapter One 3 The Origins of Fascism, 1870-1918 Chapter Two 22 The Postwar Crisis and the Development of Fascism, 1918-22 Part Two The Fascist Regime in Ascendancy, 1922-35 Chapter Three 41 Between Movement and Regime, 1922-25 Chapter Four 58 The Creation of the Regime, 1926-29 Chapter Five 78 The Fascist Regime and the Great Depression, 1929-34 Chapter Six 92 Fascist Foreign Policy, 1922-35 Part Three The Downward Spiral, 1935-45 Chapter Seven 105 Fascism at War: Economy and Society, 1935-43 Chapter Eight 117 The Reorientation of Foreign Policy, 1936-43 Chapter Nine 130 The Italian Social Republic, 1943-45 Chapter Ten 138 The Political Culture of Fascism: Ideologies and Intellectuals Chapter Eleven 154 Conclusion 159 Bibliographical Essay 169 Index Introduction On October 29, 1922, when Benito Mussolini completed his violent, semilegal seizure of power in Italy, the Fascist era began in triumph in front of crowds of blackshirts rushed to the capital to cheer their leader. It ended some twenty-two years later on April 29, 1945, in Piazzale Loreto in Milan, where the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress were hung before quite different crowds, mute evidence that the Fascist experience was indeed over. Between those two fateful moments, Mussolini, the ex-socialist who orchestrated the destruction of the Italian socialist movement, the ex-republican who became an honorary "cousin" of the king, the former antimilitarist who led his coimtry into three useless wars, dominated the spotlight of Europe. Both the man and the regime he led were a mass of contradictions. Fascism defied the efforts of contemporaries to define it, just as, today, it remains at the center of historical debate. Perhaps the soundest advice was given in 1938 by Angelo Tasca, who wrote in his Rise of Italian Fascism that the best way to define fascism was to write its history. But even the ordering of events demands a point of view. The problem of orienta­ tion, if not definition, remains inescapable. Italian fascism was not just a provincial movement in an obscure country, but a phenomenon that exerted an enormous influence on contemporaiy Europe. For many it represented a model of efficiency, a possible remedy for a liberal capitalist system and a democratic political system gone awry. In short, fascism seemed a possible "third way" between capitalism and com­ munism. Leaving aside the excessive praise of its proponents, it can be argued X Introduction Introduction xi that fascism was a doctrine of bourgteis resurgence whose essence was party enemies to regain control over the masses. Thus, the Fascist antiliberalism and antisodalism. The core of its ideology was radical regime experimented with forms of mass action associated with the nationalism, but it borrowed freely from s5mdicalist theory for its left, and with techniques of state intervention in economic and sodal doctrine of representation in society by economic or social function, life developed throughout Europe during World War I and again from socialism for many of its propaganda and organizational tech­ during the depression of 1929. Needless to say, all of this was carried niques, arid from a number of political thinkers for its theory of the out by trial and error, rather than by an overall plan. How fascism political role of elites and their domination of the masses by manipula­ worked in practice must be considered more important than its ideol­ tion of collective psychology. Radical nationalism was a political theory ogy. This study will focus on the nature of fasdsm's constituendes, which developed in Italy in the early twentieth century in response to why they adhered to the movement, what they exf>ected, and how they the rise of socialism. It stressed the organic nation over class as the fared. highest expression of human solidarity; war and imperialism rather The dynamism and contradictions of fascism arose from the different than class struggle as a means of selecting those peoples worthy of aspirations of the various middle-dass groups which espoused it. leadership; and elitism and hierarchy within the nation as an antidote Within the general framework of fascism, programs were advanced to to the leveling aspirations of liberal democracy and socialism. The satisfy the aims of large and small landowners, industrialists, white- ideology of national s)mdicalism was an outgrowth of traditional S)m- collar professionals, small merchants, and businessmen. Each part of dicaUst theory that based the struggle for revolutioriciry change on the the middle dass had its own brand of fascism as the movement formed worker imions, or syndicates, rather than on the socialist party. The between 1919 md 1922. Many of these fosdsms were mere pragmatic national S3mdicalists argued that Italy could be organized as a society of positions that sought to defend vested interests, whereas others had producers which transcended any particular dass. Mixed syndicates more intellectual substance. composed of manual workers, technical personnel, and management It is important to keep in mind the distinction between the Fasdst would be the basis for a new political and economic order dedicated to movement and the regime. Initially, fascism as a movement was far the achievement of maximum national expansion at home and abroad. broader and more varied than was the disdplined and authoritarian like all definitions, these leave out almost as much as they include. regime. Hie Fasdst movement, which became the National Fascist The great problem is to bridge the gap between what the Fascists said party (PNF) in 1921, was more than just a reaction to ffie threat of they wanted to do and what they actually did. The difficulty is greater sodalist-inspired revolution, although fascism would have been im­ in the case of fascism because it was a vague, composite ideology that possible without the radicalization of Italian politics after World War I evoked different responses at various times from even ffie Fascists emd the Bolshevik Revolution. The Fascist movement arose to crush the themselves. The following pages are an effort to set fascism in its Italian basis of sodalist power that threatened the establidied order in Italy context as a movement quite distinct from German nazism and current between 1918 and 1920, butfasdsm was also designed to offer various Third World developmental dictatorships. Italy's Fascist regime was middle-dass groups a vehide for long-range political action, some­ essentially a conservative response to a crisis within Italian capitalism thing the parties of pre-Fasdst Italy were imprepared to do. and to a breakdown of the liberal parliamentary system that had Through a series of compromises and adjustments carried out be­ developed in the nineteenth century. But fascism was more than tween 1922 and 1929, the Fascist regime distributed power and deter­ traditional authoritarianism, which had been and still is content to call mined how the aims of each of its component parts would be satisfied. out the army to dear the piazza. The Italian Fasdsts were convinced This was done by defining a semiautonomous sphere for each major that simple repression in a highly politicized sodety would be difficult. interest group. In short, a series of fascisms was institutionalized into Thqr sought to use many of the techniques developed by their Socialist fiefdoms. I have called this multiplidty hyphenated fascism because a ! xU Introduction modifier (Catholic, monarchist, syndicalist, nationalist) was often added to define more precisely where individuals and groups stood within the regime. This view of fascism as a kind of modem feudalism runs counter to the image of unity and solidarity which the Fascists tried to convey. But, however complicated the distribution of power within the regime, fascism was dearly dominated by conservative social and economic forces. Its concrete actions respected the status quo. Fasdsm in Italy was a rightist approach to the problem of con­ trolled change in an era of mass politics. The following chapters will establish a theoretical framework for the analysis of Italian fasdsm (Qiapter One), trace the seizure of power (Chapter Two), the consolidation of the didatorship (Chapter Three), the creation of the system of "fiefdoms" (Chapter Four), the impact of Part One the depression on the Fascist regime (Chapter Five), Fasdst foreign The Historical policy (Chapter Six), the economic and sodal development of late fascism (Chapter Seven), the Italo-German alliance and World War II Background (Chapter Eght), and the Italian Sodal Republic (Chapter Nine). Ideol­ ogy and political culture will receive separate treatment in a conduding 1870-1922 chapter. The antifasdst Resistance, which is so important for Italian history after 1943, will appear only occasionally, as it affected the ftmctioning and choices of the regime. I have kept footnotes to a minimum, but references to further readings and to theories of fascism can be found in the bibliographical essay at the condusion of the text. I wish to thank colleagues and friends who offered their time, counsel, and critidsm: Marion S. Miller of the University of Ulinois, Chicago Cirde; Philip V. Cannistraro of Florida State University; Qaudio Segrfe of the University of Texas; Anthony Cardoza of Loyola University (Chicago); David Miller and Anne Freedman of Roosevdt University; Umberto Giovine and Dana Willetts of Milan, Italy; Eileen Kennedy; and Linda De Grand. I would also like to thank Dr. John Baylor, whose timely intervention made completion of this work pos­ sible. t Chapter One The Origins of Fascism I 1870-1918 Italian Fascism was like a large tree whose roots found nourishment and were entwined deep in the soil of modem Italy. To find these roots it is necessaiy to examine the economic and social stmcture of Italy after 1870 to understand which elements tmder certain circumstances fa­ vored the fascist movement and brought it to power. One of the central problems of Italian political development after 1870 has been the relationship between the political, social, and eco­ nomic elite groups, who created the unified state, and the mass of society, which was poor, ilHteiate, and excluded finm meaningful participation in national politics. This violent contrast between the elite and the mass provided much of the drama of Italian history aird has figured as a central theme in Italian political and social thought. Italian politics can be described in terms of four groups: the political dass, dominant interest groups, the intermediate eKte, and the mass base. The political dass (classe politica) refers to those members of parliament and of government who manage public a^irs on the highest level. Dominant interest groups {class dirigente) are the leading representatives of organized social and economic forces—landowner arjd industrial assodations, the military, the Catholic Church. The intermediate elite is composed of those who link the political dass and the dorrunant interest groups with the rest of sodety: estate managers, industrial managers, teachers, dvil servants, union officials, jour­ nalists. Socially, their members are part of the middle and lower bourgeoisie. Finally, the rtrass base has an urban sector of white- and blue-collar workers, artisans, small businessmen, unskilled marginal 4 The Historical Background, 1870-1922 The Origins of Fascism 5 workers, and the unemployed, and a rural sector of small farmers, suited to a political class divided more by local interest than by ideol­ renters, sharecroppers, landless peasants, and migrant workers. As the ogy- following chapters will show, a crisis in the relationship between and The major challenge facing the Italian political class was that of within each of these levels of Italian society led to the Fascist regime. transforming Italy into a modem society able to compete with the other great powers of late-nineteenth-century Europe. Such a transformation inevitably placed new burdens on the political leadership, which was The Italian Political Class from Unification to 1900 forced to accommodate the demands of rising social forces for a voice in public afeirs. An electoral reform in 1881 admitted large numbers of United Italy resulted from the victory of French and Piedmonteseforces shopkeepers and some skilled workers to the voting roUs, but many of over Austria in 1859. In 1860 the Republican Giuseppe Garibaldi the new voters were influenced by the radical republican movement, conquered the southern Kingdom of the Two Sicilies but ceded these once led by the prophet of democratic nationalism, Giuseppe Mazzini. territories to the Piedmontese House of Savoy, which became the The decades after 1881 saw the growth of Radical and Republican party ruling dynasty of united Italy. The process of territorial consolidation contingents in parliament, as well as the development of a socialist was completed with the addition of Venice, taken from Austria in 1866, movement. Control by the traditional political class appeared to be and of Rome, which passed from papal control in 1870. The new state, seriously threatened for the first time, during the 1890s, by political which emerged eifter centuries of division into city-states and minor scandal, economic depression, and labor uruest. When the Italian kingdoms, was organized on two contrasting but complementary Socialist party (PSI) was formed in 1892, the political elite, imder the leadership of prime ministers Francesco Crispi, Antonio Di Rudini, principles, each compensating for the’ defects of the other and both working to provide a political system that functioned reasonably well and Luigi Pelloux, reacted to unrest and nascent proletarian opposition until the outbreak of World War I. The first principle weis centralized by banning the Socialist party and using the police and army to administration on the model of France. Italy, governed from Rome suppress agitation by workers and peasants. This purely repressive through an appointed bureaucracy, offered few concessions to regional solution, applied between 1893 and 1899, divided the political class and autonomy. The second was a pariiamentary system, built on the pro­ worried modem-minded industrialists, because it seemed at odds vincial and communal loyalties that had controlled political life from with developments elsewhere in Europe, where the extension of politi­ the Middle Ages to 1860. In the Italian parliamentary system the cal rights was linked with economic progress. Thus, when repression failed in 1900 because of the determined opposition of a coalition of government, headed by the prime minister, rested on a parliamentary majority composed of a number of parties and groups that before middle-class liberals and radicals and reformist socialists, there was a World War I often had a regional, rather than an ideological, base. general consensus that a new effort had to be made to broaden the base The political class of united Italy reflected the dominant economic of the political system. and social position of agriculture. It was a much narrower elite, how­ ever, than might have been tire case if most practicing Catholics had not withdrawn from political life to protest the Italian seizure of Rome Italian Dominant Interest Groups and from the pope in 1870. Political control by the landed elite was pro­ Economic Development, 1870-1914 tected by voting arrangements that kept the vast majority of Italians from exercising tiie franchise. Italian parliamentary liberalism became Before 1900 Italy remained a largely agrarian society. The legacy of the an ideal way to broker between regional interests. Trasforrmsmo, as the wars of national unification between 1859 and 1870 was a staggeringly system of shifting persorral and political alliances was called, was well large national debt and a budget deficit that threatened to drive the 6 The Historical Background, 1870-1922 The Origins of Fascism 7 new state into bankmptcy. Available public funds were used to build financing on the German model, were introduced into Italy. The the infrastructure of roads and rails that were required for further leadership of these highly concentrated banking and industrial com­ growth. Although part of this investment capital came from foreign bines urgently pressured the state for tariff protection, purchases, and banks, a great percentage had to come from the agrarian sector in the other subsidies. form of heavy taxes that fell hardest on an already impoverished Thus, between 1860 and 1914 Italy entered a transitional preriod in peasantry. The initial process of state building increased the alienation which major shifts in economic, religious (the alienation of Catholics of workers and peasants from a state which offered them no voice and from the new state), and social power were taking place. Tension few tangible benefits. In fact, during the years immediately following existed between regions and between representatives of more estab­ unification, whole provinces of southern Italy were put under martial lished interests and new groups of industrial and agrarian entre­ law to repress a wave of social banditry that cost as many lives as the preneurs. Such shifts inevitably produced stress between the domi­ earlier campaigns against Austria. nant interests and the political dass, which was reflected in the succes­ The process of state construction also strained regional loyalties. The sion of crises during the 1890s. North tended to benefit most from public and private investment. Itafy also tended to follow the pattern of other industrial nations in Favored by ties to European markets and control over the state ma­ which the dominant interest groups organized into ever more specific chinery, northern industry and agriculture increased their lead over the economic assodations to act as pressure groups on the political struc­ more backward South. In short, Italian economic growdi was marked ture. At no time, however, before World War I did dissatisfaction with by great inequities between classes and regions. the activities of the political dass reach the pxrint that the leaders of But, even in the North, industrialization was slow. Protective tariffs industry and agriculture felt the need to intervene directly in the were introduced in 1878 and gradually increased after 1887. Despite political process. Only after 1918, faced with the threat of revolution, this protection, industry had to struggle to overcome a late start and did Italy's economic elite reluctantly seek new pxrlitical leaders who lack of raw materials. In fact, while the gap between ffte North and the could restore a workable relationship between the political dass and South increased between 1860 and 1900, so too did the distance be­ the dominant interest groups. tween advanced industrial Europe and Italy. Only with the remarkable surge forward after 1898 did Italy achieve a long pseriod of sustained economic growth. Between 1896 and 1908, the growffi rate ranged from Intermediate Elites in Prefasdst Italy 5 to 8 percent annually. Agriculture made great progress in the rich Po Valley, where the introduction of new techniques and a reorganization The intermediate elite groups—all those who have a managerial func­ of the agricultural labor force significantly increased grain production. tion in sodety, transmit orders or ideas, enforce disdpline or organize Industry achieved even more impressive results, as emphasis shifted services—are of vital importance for the study of Italian fascism. The from textiles to three new growth areas: steel and related mechanical Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsd called them "organic intellectuals." industries, chemicals, and electricity. He believed that essential sodal and economic forces create aroimd Italy's expansion resembled that of other late-nineteenth-century themselves intermediate categories that explain or justify the needs of developing cotmtries. There was a high degree of concentration and the dominant interests to the rest of sodety. These organic intellectuals cartelization, a close connection between great banks and the new are necessary for the smooth op>eration of sodety. They provide the industrial sectors, and a parallel link between the banks, industry, and middle-level p>ersonnel for the political parties, labor unions, and the state. By the 1890s, new banking institutions, like the Banca Com- business. They are the journalists, teachers, md professionals who merdale (1894) and the Credito ItaUano (1895), geared to industrial transmit ideologies. At the lowest level they are the estate managers 8 The Historical Background, 1870-1922 The Origins of Fascism 9 and shop foremen who keep production going by enforcing work cal lines (loyalty to professions, institutions, or careers rather than to discipline. In short, the intermediate elite serves as the link between dass) which in the case of fasdsm led them to seek out corporative the mass base and both the dominant interests and the political class. solutions to political problems. The steady growth of the lower-middle class, the seedbed of the Similar tensions existed in rural Itafy cis well. Rapid economic growth intermediate elite of both left and right, has been a major social created a fundamental disruption of pe£isant society. A new dass of tendency of twentieth-century Italy. Between 1901 and 1921 gains were rural entrepreneurs and estate stewards developed who were deter­ made in the numbers of white-collar workers in state and private mined to maintain control of the work force as they introduced new bureaucracies, teachers, small businessmen, and merchants. Even agricultural and marketing techniques. Opposed to these plans were a peasant proprietors, who had declined somewhat in numbers at the growing number of landless day laborers in the key areas of advanced beginning of the century, increased rapidly during and just after World agriculture, such as the Po Valley. Although most of central and south­ War I. ern Italy changed more slowly before the war than did the North, This growth was not without problems, however. Italy was pro­ events in the Po region indicated that this would be only a temporary ducing large numbers of highly educated people for a society with a respite. Efforts by the Catholic peasant leagues to organize sharecrop­ relatively low level of economic development and a high rate of illiter­ pers and for the Socialist peasant unions to organize the growing acy. From the 1880s onward there existed a chronic surplus of high numbers of poor day laborers and teruuit farmers introduced an explo­ school and university graduates. Traditionally, the Italian middle class sive element into the countryside. New intermediate elite groups of had protected itself by using its monopoly over education as a route to p>easant organizers were emerging in rural areas as peut of a network of upward mobility. Reliance on education in the context of a relatively labor unions and cooperatives. The failure of the liberal state to inte­ traditional economy led to an excess of professionals, from lawyers to grate a large part of the northern agricultural population into the engineers and architects. Competition for any white-collar position existing social and political institutions led to the creation of organiza­ was fierce, and the government was the employer of last resort. Faced tions outside of and hostile to the state and to the emergence of new with increasingly difficult conditions in the labor market, the Italian leaders for the excluded sectors of the mass base. The continued growth middle class viewed control of the political system as essential to of peasant unions and cooperatives was a barometer of the revolution­ maintaining its competitive position. The growing demands of the ary potential of Italian society. Signs of confrontation between militant elite of organized workers for political power represented a direct threat peasant and landowner associations were evident before 1914, and the to middle-class status. situation erupted into open warfare between 1918 and 1920. From 1900 to 1922 large numbers of middle-class intermediate elite groups responded to the pressures of unemplo)rment and potential proletarianization by using ideology as a weapon. Youth movements, The Mass Base like those of nationalism and fascism, were perfect examples of protest directed at the current political leadership that was held responsible for Within the broad urban and rural categories of the mass base are the crisis. Whatever the importance they gave to social and economic several social classes and occupational, geographic, and religious sub­ programs, Italian youth protest movements proposed alternative divisions. Each individual belongs to several of these categories methods of selecting a political dass and of linking it with the mass (unions, professional organizations, churches, neighborhood groups, base. But, as the Italian sodologist Paolo Sylos Labini has pointed out, recreational organizations) and is linked to the dominant interests by intermediate elites are normally extremely conscious of their economic means of a direct relationship with the intermediate elites (union or social function. They envisage solidarity along vertical or hierarchi­ officials, managers, clergy). During periods of upheaval, such as mas­