Male: In the last video we left off in 1922
in October where you have several hundreds
of thousands of fascists march on Rome,
which causes the King to put Benito Mussolini
in power and this picture right over here is
from Mussolini coming to power from the
march on Rome and not only does he get appointed
as Prime Minister, but he has dictatorial powers
for one year.
Those dictatorial powers are also backed up
with the Blackshirts,this loose band, kind of
a paramillitary group.
So he uses his powers and the fact that he has
his own force so to speak to continue to just
secure more and more power under him
over the next few years.
By 1923 he makes the Blackshirts actually become
a formal national militia, essentially
the volunteer militia for national security.
In Italian the acronym is the MVSN.
So, the Blackshirts become formalized
as the MVSN.
He also gets Parliament or gets the legislature
to pass what's known as the Acerbo Law
or Acerbo Law.
I'm sure I'm mispronouncing it.
Acerbo Law.
This is an interesting one because this is a law
that allowed whichever majority party,
whatever the largest party in the Deputy of Ministers,
whatever the largest party in Parliament is
that party, as long as they get more than 25% of the vote,
they will get 2/3s of the seats in Parliament.
This is strange because traditionally
in a Parliamentary system if you got ...
Let's say you were the largest party
and you got 26% of the vote, you still would not
have enough seats to govern properly.
You would have to form a coalition with
several other parties so that you could
essentially form a government.
But this is saying whoever gets the plurality of votes,
whoever gets the most votes without necessarily
being a majority, they will be by default
become a majority.
And you could imagine why the fascists wanted this to happen.
They felt that they could get 25% of the votes,
one maybe through popular support
but also with the help of the coercive tactics
of the Blackshirts and then that would give
them stronger control in the legislature.
Now, the big question is is why would the
legislature pass this?
Because at this point the fascists were not
the dominant party.
They did not have a majority in the legislature.
In fact, this was why they wanted to pass a law
because they didn't have a majority.
And once again it's one of those questions
of history.
Some would say that people were enamored
with the fascists.
They were enamored with Mussolini.
They were eager to have strong leadership.
They didn't want this government of coalitions.
They wanted one government to be able
to take action.
On the other side when the votes were happening
you actually had Blackshirts in the room.
One argument is that there was also
an element of pure intimidation.
But needless to say the Acerbo Law actually passed.
There is irony here because it was unnecessary.
In 1924 when you actually have elections
you have the fascists getting 2/3s of the vote.
Fascists get 2/3 of the vote.
Now, many today and many in Italy at the time felt
that this was a fraudulent election.
They felt the reason why the fascists were
able to get so many votes is because
they were able to intimidate folks.
They were able to commit fraud during the election.
They were able to kind of throw other votes out,
and one of the most outspoken individuals
when it came to criticizing the fascists
and their tactics of coming to power was
Giacomo Matteotti.
He wrote a book about the fascists.
He gave two really strong speeches
in the Deputy of Ministers where he talks about
or the Chamber of Deputies I should say,
where he talks about the corruption
and the violence of the fascists.
A few days after giving those speeches he gets
killed by Blackshirts.
So, he gets actually quite violently murdered
by Blackshirts, and this puts Mussolini
at least initially in a bit of a bind.
He doesn't want to look like a thug,
someone who goes out and just murders people.
It's not clear that he actually, Mussolini,
was involved in this in any way,
but his followers had committed this act.
To protest against the murder of Giacomo Matteotti
you actually have the entire socialist party
boycotts Parliament.
This was known as the Aventine Secession
or at least the 20th century Aventine Secession.
Aventine Secession.
It's called the Aventine Secession because if you go
back to Roman times 2500 years ago
you had the Plebeians secede out of protest
from harsh rule and they go to the Aventine Hill.
So, it was named after that same idea.
The whole reason why the socialists did this is they
hoped that by boycotting Parliament
that that would convince the King to get rid
of Benito Mussolini.
Mussolini, as I say, he's also in a bind.
He doesn't know quite what to do,
and on top of all of this the Blackshirts
are telling him, "Look, if you don't take
control of the situation, if you don't become
a strong ruler we're going to do it without you.
We might even overthrow you Mr. Mussolini."
In 1925, early 1925, Mussolini makes his famous
January speech.
1925, his famous January speech.
This is normally viewed as the formal start
of his absolute dictatorship.
In this Mussolini, instead of the Aventine Secession
somehow undermining Mussolini's power
because the King did not dismiss Mussolini
it actually strengthened Mussolini's power.
He used that as a pretext.
He said, "Look, all of these deputies they've
decided not to show up at Parliament.
They've essentially given up their seats,
and he bans, he bans the Italian Socialist party.
He embraces the Blackshirts.
He takes responsibility for them.
He doesn't take responsibility directly
for Giacomo Matteotti's murder,
but he takes responsibility for the Blackshirts,
and he gives in kind of classic Mussolini style
a somewhat convoluted argument about how strength
and violence is going to give stability to the Italian people.
Obviously he is an amazing orator.
He's very charismatic.
This essentially gives him the control he needs,
and by the end of 1925 you have the Christmas Eve Law
that's passed by Parliament that esentially puts
no checks on Mussolini's power,
and as you go then into 1926 they more,
and more, the fascists under Mussolini take
absolute control, absolute power of Italy.
So in 1926 they're banning other parties.
So, other parties are banned.
They're starting to force people to become
members of the fascist party if they want
roles in the government or even in any type of institution.
They're starting to take control of the press.
They're starting to have a very strong
state police architecture.
If this looks familiar based on what we studied
about the Nazis it's not a coincidence.
Hitler, he admired Mussolini.
In fact, Mussolini's march on Rome inspired
Hitler to attempt his Beer Hall Putsch in 1923.
A lot of these tactics that brought Mussolini
to power you see kind of a parallel in what brought
Hitler to power only about seven years later.