Benito Mussolini: “The Doctrine of Fascism”

Context

By the early 1930s, when the encyclopedia version of Mussolini’s essay on Fascism appeared, Italy had experienced more than sixty years of turbulent history. Italy as a culture was very old, but as a modern, unified nation it was quite new. The country had originally been unified under the Roman Empire, but from the fifth century on it had been invaded and governed in parts by the Normans, French, Spanish, North Africans, and Austrians until the middle of the nineteenth century. When not under foreign rule, cities such as Florence, Milan, and Venice were independent and separate city-states, some with their own colonies. Even the pope was a temporal ruler, with a domain that included a very large portion of the Italian peninsula and not merely Vatican City.

The unification of Italy, the Risorgimento, began with the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and continued to the early 1870s, when Italy became a unified and relatively cohesive entity. In 1915 Italy entered World War I, fighting costly and traumatic battles on the border with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy’s participation until late 1918 was marked by a string of defeats. Although Italy was on the side of the war’s victors, it did not receive the territorial gains the Allies promised in 1915, specifically the cities of Fiume and Trieste. The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, was signed in 1919. This treaty, confirmed by the subsequent treaties of Saint-Germain and Trianon, gave the promised cities to the newly formed Yugoslavia, leading to great bitterness toward the Allies. Italians felt as though they had suffered defeat and been betrayed.

Thus, the situation in post–World War I Italy was marked by the effects of war losses, severe economic difficulties, resentment toward the Allies, and fear of Socialism, workers’ movements, and Bolshevism (Communism) from the newly born Soviet Union. The fact that a Communist government assumed power in Hungary in 1919 (albeit for only four months) did nothing to reassure Italians. Both domestic and international developments led many to desire stability and even a degree of authoritarianism to guarantee it.

Political activity on the part of both the left and right in postwar Europe increased dramatically. Many parties that came into being after the war eventually went out of existence for a variety of reasons. Some, however, became strikingly successful, including Italy’s Fascist Party, founded in Milan by Mussolini in 1919. Mussolini’s organization attracted attention and support from across the social and intellectual spectrum. His supporters and followers ranged from intellectuals such as Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile to armed bands of thugs known as squadristi or “Blackshirts,” who terrorized political opponents.

Within three years of founding the Fascist Party, Mussolini was Italy’s prime minister. In just over two years—a period of street fights, parliamentary debate, and political maneuvering—he gained control of the press, consolidated his hold on power, and began both the militarization and the extensive public works projects that would characterize Italian Fascism.

Italy was the first but not the only country to have a Fascist government. It was not only the philosophy but also the term itself that originated there. The term Fascism has its origins in Roman history. In the time of the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire, magistrates were accompanied by bodyguards known as lictors. The badge of office for these guards was an ax with several wooden rods (each known as a fascis). These rods, bound together, formed a symbol of strength and one that was considered quite appropriate as a symbol of Fascism in twentieth-century Italy.

As a political phenomenon, Fascism dominated Europe in the period between the two world wars (1919–1939). It existed in some form in nearly every European country. Fascist parties (or parties that bore a great similarity to them) were found in Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, Greece, Yugoslavia (particularly in Croatia), and Poland, among others. Fascism bore some similarities to the major rival ideology of the day, Communism. In both cases, individual liberty and options were subordinate to the needs of the state. Both used a form of ideology to provide a doctrinal background to justify policies. Freedom of expression in both was curtailed, and a significant degree of control was imposed on most aspects of life. While both enforced conformity, both also held themselves as a means of advancing and improving life.

The two ideologies, though, had significant differences. For Fascists, the ideology was more flexible (or more subject to changes in circumstances) and less important than was the case for Communists. For Fascists, the practical application of what was to be done to assert and maintain control took priority over doctrinal or ideological issues. Fascism’s policy toward industry and commerce was quite different from that of either capitalism or Communism. Sometimes referred to as a “third way,” the Fascist approach was to let private ownership stand but to regulate business to ensure that it met the needs of the state.

Further, Fascism was highly nationalistic, unlike Communism’s international emphasis in the 1930s. While the Communist International—an international Communist organization founded in Moscow, Russia, in 1919 and sometimes called the Third International—was active in many countries and did not shy away from subversion or espionage, the Soviet Union by the late 1920s had abandoned the concept of world revolution. Instead, it concentrated on internal development. The nationalism that was so much a part of Fascism in different countries incorporated the goal of expanding national boundaries. The goal of that type of expansion was notably absent in the Soviet Union until it signed the Non-Aggression Pact with Germany in 1939.

The nationalist emphasis and national characteristics and culture contributed to making each type of Fascism different. Spanish Fascism was different from Polish or Greek or Italian Fascism. These differences were significantly greater than the differences between the Communist parties from the same countries. More significant may have been differences existing within individual Fascist movements. Because of a lesser dependence on dogma and a greater reliance on practical politics, individual Fascist organizations had internal organizational differences and, more commonly, inconsistent policies. That tendency was noted especially in Italy, where Fascism began.