The Matteoti crisis put Mussolini in a very powerful position with a great excuse to keep the opposition out of parliament. Other factors such as the acerbo laws, legge fascitisme, control of the squadristi/ras and the role of the king. The actions of the elites and the Catholic Church contributed greatly to giving Mussolini the opportunity to gain dictatorial powers. The elites are a group in Italian society who had a lot of money and therefore power. For years under the liberal government the elites had benefited from the system of trasformismo.
Mussolini used changes in the law to strengthen his grip on Government in Italy. In December the Fascist Grand Council was created.This council was given a lot of power over the government in Italy such as; the power to elect fascist party deputies, the power to elect the heir to the throne and successor of the prime minister. This therefore secured the fascists hold over government, even if Mussolini resigned or was voted out. The black shirts were made into an official militia, giving Mussolini more power to control the streets and therefore the people. The Civil Service of Italy, which ran the country’s affairs, was gradually filled with fascists so there was no obstruction to Mussolini’s policies.
It could be argued that Mazzini’s ideas were the main reason for the slow progress of national unity in Italy in the years 1815-48. A key point to this reason is that Mazzini’s ideas held no interest to the majority of the Italian population. One of Mazzini’s beliefs was that ‘every man is equal’ and is a reason why he was very unpopular with the middle, upper and aristocratic members of society as they did not wish to lose their power influence or money. This made it difficult for Mazzini to obtain national unification as a majority of powerful and influential people in Italy were against his ideologies; this meant that the progress of national unification was very slow as a large amount of people opposed his views. He also wanted a strong central government and believed this could be achieved through a series of revolutions.
Overall, all these policies somewhat increased political unity, albeit temporarily, as they widened the electorate and allowed the Italian masses the chance to vote in a majority government. However, despite this, Italy still remained largely politically divided. The Libyan invasion of 1911 divided both the right wing/nationalist interventionists (who became more
There were virtually no coal supplies, prices increased, some industries hit and the domestic production was only one fifth of what was needed. This hit the Italian people hard and did not improve their standard of living. In fac, it made it worse. One of Mussolini’s economic policies was the ‘battles’. There were four main ‘battles’; The Battle for Grain, Battle For the Lira, Battle for Births and Battle of the Marshes.
This proved a problem for the newly formed government as Italy was a predominantly Catholic country and many Italians were devoted to the Pope. The power of the Pope at that time was huge and though there would have been a few who didn’t listen to the pope, many would have done. The lack of support from the church was a significant weakness in the new liberal government and increased the government’s already minimal respect. Additionally the North South divide was influential on the lack of success for the liberal government. Italy was divided in terms of wealth; the south was poor and the north wealthy.
The ideas of Young Italy were to spread from Marseilles in France, which was Mazzini’s base, to Piedmont, the Papal States and Tuscany. In Piedmont the journal, ‘Young Italy’ was widely read and many readers supported the idea of a national revolution, however, the attempts at revolutions failed. Although Young Italy failed in some aspects, nationalist feelings had spread across Italy, therefore encouraging other nationalists to stand up. Young Italy was a failure, as all the national revolutions which were supposed to unify Italy never happened. In 1833 the proposed army coup was detected before it began, however Charles Albert was enraged by the intended revolution, and 12 members of Young Italy were executed, and 67 members were arrested.
People started seeing more and more of the Nazi regime and this gained more votes through the propaganda which was widespread throughout Germany. Goebbels released a campaign which allowed Hitler to travel to different parts of Germany to give speeches via an aircraft; these speeches enabled Hitler to convince the public to vote for him and the Nazi's being the right party to vote for. In this case the popular support for Hitler and the Nazi's arose through propaganda and this is an important reason why he became Chancellor as without the support needed, it would have been hard for him to become Chancellor if he lacked the support of the Nation which he
To what extent was fascist control of Italy 1925-1943 the result of the effective use of propaganda? Mussolini used propaganda to expand his control over the Italian people. However, there are other factors to consider, including, Mussolini’s economic policies, his good relationship with the traditional elites and the use of repression. Firstly, Mussolini used The Cult of the Duce as propaganda to gain support, this method of propaganda was at its highest in 1930. Mussolini was often photographed with Lions to show his power and authority, this metaphor helped him to control the Italian population, as they believed that he was their fearless leader.
Indeed he was the ideal person to represent the Nazi Party in this way. As well as Hitler’s personality, his extreme political ideas were very popular. For example his idea of an Aryan race (master race) was very popular due to the fact he led people to believe that the Aryan race is what will make Germany one of the most powerful and strongest countries in the world by having genetically superior.