Italian Fascism, 1915–1945 Second Edition Philip Morgan Italian Fascism, 1915–1945 The Making of the 20th Century David Armstrong, Lorna From Versailles to Maastricht: International Lloyd and John Redmond Organisation in the Twentieth Century V.R. Berghahn Germany and the Approach of War in 1914, 2nd edition Raymond F. Betts France and Decolonisation, 1900–1960 John Darwin Britain and Decolonisation: The Retreat from Empire in the Post-War World Ann Lane Yugoslavia: When Ideals Collide Robert Mallett Mussolini and the Origins of the Second World War, 1933–1940 Sally Marks The Illusion of Peace: International Relations in Europe, 1918–1933, 2nd edition Philip Morgan Italian Fascism, 1915–1945, 2nd edition A.J. Nicholls Weimar and the Rise of Hitler, 4th edition R.A.C. Parker Chamberlain and Appeasement: British Policy and the Coming of the Second World War Anita J. Prazmowska Eastern Europe and the Origins of the Second World War G. Roberts The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War Alan Sharp The Versailles Settlement: Peacemaking in Paris, 1919 Zara S. Steiner and Britain and the Origins of the First World War, Keith Neilson 2nd edition Samuel R. Williamson Austria–Hungary and the Origins of the First World War R. Young France and the Origins of the Second World War Italian Fascism, 1915–1945 Second Edition Philip Morgan © Philip Morgan 2004 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. 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This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgement x List of Abbreviations xi Map of Modern Italy xiii Introduction: Locating Fascism 1 Part I The Conquest of Power, 1915–29 11 1 The War, the Post-war Crisis and the Rise of Fascism, 1915–22 13 Politics and society in post-unification Italy 13 The war in Italy 20 ‘1919-ism’ and early Fascism 28 The 1919 elections 32 The biennio rosso and Fiume 37 The Fascist reaction 50 Giolitti and Fascism 56 The transition from movement to party 59 The March on Rome 69 2 Between ‘Normalisation’ and ‘Revolution’, 1922–25 76 The various Fascisms 76 Dictatorship by stealth 80 The conquest of the South and the 1924 election 87 The Matteotti crisis 91 3 The Construction of the ‘Totalitarian’ State, 1925–29 96 ‘Totalitarianism’ 96 The party and the state 98 Syndicates and corporations 105 vii viii CONTENTS The Fascist constitution 109 The conciliation with the Catholic church 112 The revaluation of the lira 115 ‘Ruralism’ and population policy 119 Part II The Fascist Regime, 1929–36 125 4 The Years of the Great Depression, 1929–34 127 The party and the inquadramento of the nation 127 The organisation of the young, welfare and free time 130 The organisation of culture 137 The impact and limitations of ‘totalitarian’ control 145 Corporativism and the Great Depression 156 5 The Creation of the Fascist Empire, 1935–36 162 Imperialism, revisionism and the limits to Fascist foreign policy in the 1920s 162 The ‘totalitarian’ state: internal policy as foreign policy and vice versa 167 The Depression and Fascism’s opportunity 169 The invasion and conquest of Ethiopia 171 Part III Fascist Expansionism at Home and Abroad, 1936–43 177 6 The Axis Connection and the ‘Fascistisation’ of Italian Society, 1936–40 179 The Axis with Germany 179 Making something of the empire 187 Forcing the pace of ‘fascistisation’ 193 Autarky and economic preparation for war 205 ‘Non-belligerency’ and war, 1939–40 209 7 Fascist Italy at War, 1940–43 213 The collapse of Italy’s parallel war 213 The impact of war and the internal crisis of the regime 216 The fall of Mussolini 221 CONTENTS ix 8 The Italian Social Republic, 1943–45 224 The German occupation of Italy and Mussolini’s return 224 ‘A return to the origins’? 226 The Italian civil war 229 Conclusion 233 Notes 240 Select Bibliography 244 Index 252 Acknowledgement I am particularly grateful to Tony Mason, who offered to read the chapters of the original edition as they were written, and did so speedily, giving not only comment and encouragement but also good advice on how to make the text more manageable and readable. x List of Abbreviations AOI Africa Orientale Italiana [Italian East Africa] CIL Confederazione Italiana del Lavoro [Italian Confederation of Labour (Catholic trade union organization)] CGL Confederazione Generale del Lavoro [General Confederation of Labour (Socialist trade union organization)] CLNAI Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale per Alta Italia [Committee of National Liberation of Northern Italy (the organisation coordinating the political and military activities of the anti-Fascist Resistance)] CONFAG Confederazione dell’Agricoltura [Confederation of Agriculture (the umbrella organisation of landowners and farmers associations)] CONFINDUSTRIA Confederazione dell’Industria Italiana [Italian Industrialists Confederation] EOA Ente Opere Assistenziali [Agency for Welfare Activities (Fascist party social welfare organisation)] ERR Ente Radio Rurale [Rural Radio Agency] FIOM Federazione Italiana Operai Metallurgici [Italian Federation of Metalworkers (CGL-affiliated national metalworkers trade union)] FISA Federazione Italiana Sindacati Agricoltori [Italian Federation of Farmers’ Syndicates (Fascist union of farmers)] GIL Gioventù Italiana del Littorio [Italian Youth of the Lictors (Fascist party youth organisation)] GUF Gioventù Universitaria Fascista [Fascist University Youth (Fascist students organisation)] xi xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS INCF Istituto Nazionale di Cultura Fascista [National Institute of Fascist Culture] IRI Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale [Institute for Industrial Reconstruction] MVSN Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale [Voluntary Militia for National Security] ONMI Opera Nazionale di Maternità ed Infanzia [National Mother and Child Agency] ONB Opera Nazionale Balilla [National Balilla Organisation (Fascist children and youth organisation)] OND Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro [National Afterwork Organisation (Fascist leisure and recreational organisation)] OVRA Organizzazione per la Vigilanza e la Repressione Antifascista [Organisation for the Surveillance and Repression of Antifascism (the Interior Ministry’s secret police branch)] PCF Parti Communiste Français [French Communist Party] PFR Partito Fascista Repubblicano [Republican Fascist Party] PNF Partito Nazionale Fascista [National Fascist Party] PPI Partito Popolare Italiano [Italian Popular Party (Catholic)] PSI Partito Socialista Italiano [Italian Socialist Party] RSI Repubblica Sociale Italiana [Italian Social Republic] Modern Italy This page intentionally left blank Introduction: Locating Fascism What is ‘new’ about this revised edition of Italian Fascism 1915–1945, which was first published in 1995? Well, the title, for a start. The Fascist movement was formed in 1919. But the starting date for the book has been pushed back to 1915 to reflect the origins of Fascism as a political movement in the interventionist campaign to bring about Italy’s entry to the First World War, Mussolini’s own transition from Socialist to ‘Fascist’ during the period of interventionism and the war itself, and the importance of the war experience to setting Fascist goals and ‘values’. This will emerge more emphatically in Chapter 1, as will an attempt to deal with what some intellectual historians see as the emergence of a kind of ‘prehistoric’ generic fascism and Italian Fascism from the pre-war European matrix of non-conformist ideas and movements. This mainly historiographical introduction is also new and should have appeared in the first edition. The historiography of Italian Fascism deserves a book of its own, and, thankfully, the Australian historian, Richard Bosworth, has already written one.1 Although obvious and self- evident, it is worth reminding the British, American, and even Australian, readers of this book, that their countries have not lived through the breakdown of democratic politics, and fascist dictatorship leading to war, defeat and foreign occupation, as people did in Italy and Germany between 1918 and 1945. Coming to terms with their countries’ recent nightmarish past was, and to some extent still is, an open wound, or at least a raw nerve, for Italians and Germans since 1945. This has meant that historical narratives and interpretations of Italian Fascism and German Nazism have always had a political edge and relevance far greater than, for instance, the argument among British historians about both the morality and practicality of the British government’s ‘appease- ment’ of the fascist dictators in the late 1930s, opened up by A.J.P. Taylor’s book on the origins of the Second World War.