How World War I Contributed to Italian Fascism - Essay Example

How World War I contributed to Italian Fascism Fascism is a form of political governance where the holds absolute power over its subjects, based on a dictatorial and totalitarian culture of administration. Fascism imposes the will of the single powerful individual upon the subjects, with the help of a powerfully constituted police and army system that is loyal to the leader. Fascism emerged in the period following the end of World War I, simultaneously becoming an ideology that was shared in Italy, Germany and even Japan. However, Italian Fascism can be attributed to the efforts of Benito Mussolini, who was opposed to the ideologies of socialism, liberalism and communism. Therefore, when the war broke out, he advocated for Italy to support France by becoming its ally, since he observed that once France was defeated in the war, then liberty will come to an end in Europe (Popkin, 42). When there seemed to be no signs of Italy agreeing to act as fast as he expected, he joined the France regiments and went to the fore front where he fought the battle against the French enemies. By the close of the First World War, the minds of many people had changed, due to the impacts that the war brought about. The war was not anticipated to take that long, and the economic impacts it caused in Europe were unanticipated. Therefore, the experiences that the young men had obtained from the First World War, notably the trench fighting technique, which Benito Mussolini dubbed technocracy (Griffin, 28), inspired the young minds to break up with the traditional ideologies of socialism, communisms and liberalism. According to Griffin, the trench experience had “forged a heroic, youthful elite class,” which sought to break out with the old order and establish new generational aspirations (Griffin, 28). Thus, following the first world war, Italy emerged as still a constitutional monarchy, but it had already accumulated huge debts, generated high inflation and the state of unemployment in the country had grown worse (Conrad, 55). Therefore, the new generational change against socialism and liberalism started to gain momentum, by showing people the need for change in the systems of administration and governance, promising the people more radical political changes, which would rescue the nation from the terrible situation it was in (Levi, 33). Therefore, the First World War was fundamental to the rise of Italian Fascism, for several reasons. First, the economic state of Italy was devastated during the war, with its expenditure rising two folds than it had been experienced for the past decades. Therefore, the state of poor economic state and the growth of nationalism that was highly promoted by the war took center stage, towards creating a state of unrest among the people, mostly the young generation, which had developed war experiences and felt that war was pivotal for accomplishing transformation and change. The state of unrest gave Benito Mussolini an opportunity to advance his campaign against socialism and liberalism, which he portrayed as the major cause of the terrible economic, inflation and unemployment situation that Italy was experiencing, by claiming that such ideologies were not fit to revive Italy (Conrad, 40). Thus his ideological perspective and incitement to the people caused a stir and a state of unrest, leading to riots and strikes in the whole of Italy. This acted as a platform for Mussolini to accelerate his ideology of transformation, making him join the Fascist Party, which soon made him its leader (Griffin, 33). He overhauled the whole party system and instilled more fascist discipline, creating his brigade, which he used to increase the state of unrest, by sending it to riot against the communists. This way, Benito Mussolini had already started achieving his desire of generational change, through leadership transformation, where socialism and liberalism would be replaced by Fascism. Secondly, the role of the First World War in Italian Fascist ideology was the creation of veterans and the consequent veteran movements. During the First World War, many soldiers who went to the war were either killed or went back home maimed, injured and disabled. Thus, the “committee of action, led by disabled and wounded servicemen” subsequently emerged (Griffin, 28). Therefore, the veterans played first hand role in aiding the termination of socialism and liberalism, and their replacement with fascism. This was achieved through having some veterans join the leftist movements and the others joining the rightist, while yet another group posed as combatant veterans (Levi, 46). The reorganizations sought to pool together and energize the tempo for which the fascism ideology would sweep over the rest of the ideologies, through its ability to mobilize more people into buying its ideas, more than any other form of ideology. With the poor state of the Italian economy, and with the high desire of the people to see change occur in the way the country was addressing the current problems, the fascist ideology gained even more strong grounds. This was a commitment to “achieve a shift in the equilibrium of the society,” (Griffin, 29). The ideology of fascism advocated for the strategy of spreading chaos in the streets, while still posing as the steward of law and order. This strategy started paid off, when more and more people were mobilized against the socialism and liberalism ideologies that were characteristic of the monarchy rule (Popkin, 12). The middle class and those who suffered the blunt of the unemployment and inflation state caused by the First World War, turned to the Fascists as the saviors of the situation, while severing their links with the communists, whom they perceived as no longer a worthwhile solution to their problems (Griffin, 22). Thirdly, the role played by the First World War in advancing the Fascists ideology was giving firsthand experience to the proponents of this ideology. Benito Mussolini and the other veteran soldiers who had fought the First World War had obtained firsthand experience in war and military techniques, which were necessary to fuel their ideology and bring it to fruition (Marx and Engels, 60). Thus, with the experience that Benito Mussolini had obtained from the French rightists political group, he managed to create his brigade, the Combatant group (Popkin, 20). This group attracted mainly the war veterans and other pro-war socialists, who believed that to overthrow the socialist and liberalism systems and replacement them with fascism, was not possible without combatant activities (Griffin, 26). Therefore, the combatant group was characterized by the love for war action and the symbolic representation of an organized military combatant character, which entailed wearing a uniform that comprised of a black T-shirt, with their veteran symbol. All these experiences were drawn from the participation of the soldiers in the First World War, which gave them the brevity and the drive to keep advancing towards achieving generational change, which they deemed the ultimate solution to the country’s poor economic, political and social state. For them, revolutionary war was the only way out of the dysfunctional regime (Griffin, 32). Therefore, the experience borrowed from the war enabled the fascists to organize themselves in the way they had seen the combatant military soldier do, during the war, while fuelling a progressive nationalistic ideology of working towards national pride. Thus, the motivation of the fascists was not material wealth, but the reconstruction of Italy into a formidable force, which would match Britain and other European powers, since Italy had emerged as a weak nation during the war (Marx and Engels, 68). The desire to show the world that Italy was another force that could command its position in military combat drove the ideology of fascists towards aggression and combat, as opposed to the socialism and liberalism ideologies (Conrad, 51). Thus,” the war would rejuvenate Italy, enrich her with men of action and would force her to live on her own national forces” (Griffin, 26). Italian Fascism and its war ideologies were not any different from the German fascism ideologies. “German too was griped with the force of irresistible nationalism insurgence,” (Griffin,104). The devastating impacts of the war on Germany, and the consequent emergence of Germany as the loser in the war, owing to the fines and the war reparations that it was required to pay, left it more wounded than it had joined the war. This state that Germany was in fueled the state of national uprising, which did not find any other ideology that could nurture such progressive and aggressive determinations to fight for its place and recover its dignity, other than in fascism (Levi, 30). Thus, based on the World War I experiences and impacts, which left Germany’s economy devastated and its population poor, with no jobs and no god livelihoods, the Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, who was a great supporter of the fascists ideology accelerated its campaigns for regime change, and eventually took over power (Griffin, 106). He advanced the fascist ideology of war and combatant strategy by building up strong police and army forces, to help regain the dignity of Germany in Europe, through the German revolution (Griffin, 114). Conclusion The First World War played a great role in advancing the Fascist ideology, both in Italy and Germany. The ideology was advanced through a military combatant build-up, as well as fighting the socialism, liberalism and communists ideologies, which were perceived as ineffective in advancing nationalism and spirited revolution, which would translate into generational and regime changes. These moves were propagated by the devastating economic and social effects of the war, the unemployment and its consequent people starvation and unrest, as well as the combatant experiences obtained during the war. Thus, the First World War was instrumental in advancing Fascism. Works Cited Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Norton Publisher. 1990. Print. Conrad, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. New York: Oxford Publisher. 2001. Print. Griffin, Roger. Fascism. New York: Oxford Publisher. 1995. Print. Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1995. Print. Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick. The Communist Manifesto. New York: Bedford. 1848. Print. Popkin, Jeremy. A Short History of the French Revolution. New York: Prentice Hall. 2005. Print. Read More