Italian Fascism - Essay Example

Italy, like the other new nations of the 1860s—Germany, Japan, Hungary, and Romania—was a latecomer to international competition and, like all the other new nations save Germany, faced daunting problems of internal development and modernization. After its most serious effort at imperial expansion had ended in a humiliating defeat at Adowa in 1896, for a number of years the Italian government prudently avoided major new international involvement. The economic growth of the first years of the new century was, however, accompanied by an increase in nationalist and imperialist sentiment, primarily among sectors of the middle classes and the intelligentsia.
     The word "fascism" is traditionally associated with Germany of 1933 – 1945. This is due to the traditional point of view that the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini represented a single force that appeared to withstand communist ideology in the European countries. Mussolini and Hitler had several common features though even the main adversary of European fascism  - the Comintern – claimed that German fascism had more common with Soviet communism than with Italian fascism. Italian fascism had become the first experiment of a governing authority with "a non-communist party of a new type" and in this sense, it was a forerunner of the world fascism. (Christopher Hibbert, 24-35) So Italian regime wasn’t clearly fascist, though it was totalitarian. And I will prove this in my essay.
      Mussolini had a very clear objective to create a non-communist though totalitarian regime, which he had characterized in very strict wording: "Everything in the state, nothing out of the state". The plan was to convert governing authorities by national principle and for this purpose, it was important to win over population. Thus the corporate system was created, one of the main distinguishing features of Italian totalitarianism. The Law, known as the "Labor Charter", banned all non-fascist trade unions, which were considered a threat to total unification, and established corporations instead of them. The new organizations were not trade unions even to some extent. They became the main "underwater belt" of Italian totalitarianism. First of all, corporations inscribed in the population of Italy significantly lightened total control over the masses and helped to conserve the political activity of the population, involved in the right direction. Secondly, corporations began to play the role of buffer in the political life of Italy – the point was that all candidates to the Italian parliament were proposed by corporations, besides the Superior Corporate Fascist Council, that replaced the government of Italy, approved or rejected each candidature.  In such a situation institutitution of government elections still existed but it had little sense. Thirdly, corporations were to solve the most important problem for totalitarian regime - control over the economy. In Italy unlike in Russia economy wasn’t nationalized. (Jeffrey T. Schnapp, 151-153) Corporations included not only workers but also entrepreneurs, who were to follow totalitarian discipline and didn’t have economic freedom. There were 22 corporations in different branches of the Italian economy by 1932. That let the Italian totalitarian government:

• Interfere in the economy, which nominally was free from state influence;
• Mobilize population, e.g. "battles for harvest», when the Italian population was exploited in agricultural works;
• Solve economic problems with political methods.

Comparing Italia to Russia and Germany we can't say that it was a typical totalitarian regime as it was in the above-mentioned countries: from 1926 to 1932 Special Court-Martials of Italy convicted only seven death sentences to political criminals. 12000 persons were considered to be not guilty after arrest; it was never possible in communist Russia and fascist Germany. One of the most widely spread ways of political brutality was the public and violent feeding of political opponents with castor oil, subsequently, all opponents gained freedom and such repressions were harmful only to the credibility of a political opponent and not to his health. Once Mussolini was asked, why political opponents were not shot, he answered: "We are not in Russia". Therefore Italia was the only fascist country where opposition existed on a legal basis.
    Despite all controversy of totalitarianism in Italy, it managed to co-exist with traditional branches of governing authorities such as monarchy, Catholic Church, and aristocracy. Italian fascism overlayed the established traditional life of rural Italy, especially in small towns and villages that were not involved in industrialization processes. It had never tried to destroy traditions, as did Bolshevism in Russia, instead, it adapted a new ideology to the traditional social organization. (George P. Blum, 123-127)
    We can make a conclusion that fascist Italy was the first experiment to create a totalitarian community of non-communist type. But this experiment succeeded only partially. Though Mussolini very actively used the words "totalitarian state", if one compares Italian fascism with Soviet communism and German National Socialism, he will definitely doubt about fascist essence of totalitarian Italy. Read More