Origins of Fascism
><' -3::> " ORIGINS OF FASCISM by Sr. M. EVangeline Kodric, C.. S .. A. A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette Unive,r s1ty in Partial FulfillmeIlt of the Re qUirements for the Degree of Master of Arts M1lwaukee, Wisconsin January, -1953 ',j;.",:, ':~';'~ INTRODUCTI ON When Mussolini founded the Fascist Party in 1919, he " was a political parvenu who had to create his ovm ideological pedigree. For this purpose he drew upon numerous sources of the past and cleverly adapted them to the conditions actually existing in Italy during the postwar era. The aim of this paper 1s to trace the major roots of the ideology and to in terpret some of the forces that brought about the Fascistic solution to the economic and political problems as t hey ap peared on the Italian scene. These problems, however, were not peculiar to Italy alone. Rather they were problems that cut across national lines, and yet they had to be solved within national bounda ries. Consequently, the idea that Fascism is merely an ex tension of the past is not an adequate explanation for the coming of Fascism; nor is the idea that Fascism is a mo mentary episode in history a sufficient interpr etat ion of the phenomenon .. ,As Fascism came into its own , it evolved a political philosophy, a technique of government, which in tUrn became an active force in its own right. And after securing con trol of the power of the Italian nation, Fascism, driven by its inner logic, became a prime mover in insti gating a crwin of events that precipitated the second World War.
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