Narrator: Benito Musssolini's rise to power
in the early 1920s in Italy is a fairly rapid,
and from historical perspective, fairly surprising one.
To give some context, as late as 1915,
(writing) 1915, he had recently been ousted
from the Italian Socialist Party based on his decent
over whether Italy should enter the war.
The official stance of the party is that
World War I is an imperialist war,
that Italy had no business entering it,
that Italy should stay neutral,
but you had more nationalist elements in the party
and Mussolini was one of them.
He says, no this is Italy's chance for glory,
this is Italy's chance to build its empire.
So, in 1915 he's ousted from the Socialist Party
and he decides to start his own group
called the Fasci d'azione rivoluzionaria
and I talk about that in the video on fascism,
but it was often referred to as the Milan fascio
(writing) the Milan fascio
which was a group that was strongly nationalist
that was pro entering the war.
Italy does eventually enter the war,
not necessarily because of these guys,
this was still a fairly insignificant organization.
The reason why I'm mentioning it is it shows
Mussolini even before the war was showing these
very strong nationalistic tendencies
and this tendency to start organizations
that were pro-nationalist and he tended to call
them fasci.
He get's this notion of fasci ...
The term had been used well before Mussolini
for a kind of league of revolutionaries,
league of people who are looking to
take action on something.
Then he enters into the war as a soldier
and then exiting the war in 1919,
he decides to reorganize or to start leading
a group again.
This time he calls it the Fasci di Combattimento.
(writing) Fasci di Combattimento, battimento
which could literally be translated as
the league of combatants.
This isn't even a formal party at this point of time,
it's really a collection of a couple of hundred people.
The estimates I've seen is about 200 individuals
who group together.
What unifies them is a strongly anti-socialist ideology.
There's an irony here because Mussolini
was in the socialist party before the war,
but is a strongly anti-socialist ideology
and a strongly nationalist ideology.
To understand where this strong anti-socialist
or anti-Bolshevik ideology came from you have to
understand the context of Italy and Europe
of that time.
You have to remember that the Russian Empire
fell during World War I, it was now run by
the communists.
You have a fear that that is going to spread
throughout Europe.
You have the leading party in Italy at the time
is the Italian Socialist Party,
you have a left-leaning government.
There is a desire to react against that seeming spread
of socialism or of communism.
These guys don't view it as hey let's meet together
and talk about and maybe try to run for elections.
They want to actively coerce people.
They want to actively intimidate people
and these groups that would rise out of this,
that would be strongly anti-socialist
and the anti left-leaning government
they would wear these black shirts
and they were often called The Black Shirts.
Which I wont write in black because then you
wouldn't see it, so I'll write in this blue color.
(writing) These Black Shirts.
These were very loosely organized bands,
they were often called fasci,
it would often be young men who would gather
together in towns throughout Italy
and say we believe in this anti-socialist ideology,
we want to take up arms and intimidate socialist,
intimidate people on the left.
So, you have these Black Shirts,
this paramilitary group starting to arise.
In 1919, I want to emphasize, very small,
very, very small, very, very insignificant,
but their influence grows.
You have more and more of these fasci forming
throughout Europe.
Not through Europe, throughout Italy.
This is very appealing to, especially young boys
in Italy.
Mussolini, himself, is a very inspiring orator.
He's kind of this larger than life personality.
Sometimes what he says didn't necessarily make
complete logical sense, but it really appealed
to people's emotions, that he was a strong leader,
that someone that they would actually want to follow.
In two short years you forward to 1921,
(writing) 1921.
This Fasci di Combattimento had now morphed
into a real national party, it's now ...
and they renamed themselves the nationalist
or the National Fascist Party.
(writing) Fascist Party.
Obviously it wasn't called that in Italian.
In Italian it was the Partito Nazionale Fascista
and Mussolini is the leading figure here.
He gets elected to the Chamber of Deputes.
(writing) Chamber of Deputes
along with several other fascists,
but they're still a fairly small party.
Although they've already now they're gaining steam,
they're becoming mainstream, but even though
they're becoming more mainstream they still haven't
given up their use of force and their use
of intimidation.
Then we forward to 1922 and all of this is happening
quite rapidly, but by 1922 Italy is not in
a good situation.
People aren't happy with the left-leaning government,
they feel that it's weak, that it's not able
to turn the economy around, that it's not able
to bring order, that the extreme left is having
too much power, that they're too many strikes,
that the country isn't being run properly;
the middle class and the elite aren't happy with this.
So, the fascists are getting more and more
and more followers.
One, kind of you could say civilian followers,
but they're also getting more and more fasci
that are forming.
They're showing that their use of violence
actually can sometimes get goals that the weaker
government couldn't get, they were able to break
strikes in 1922 with the perception that
that was helping to bring order.
So, by October of 1922,
(writing) by October of 1922,
you have Mussolini at this head,
he has this conference of 40,000 fascists
and they essentially come to the idea that they
need to march on Rome, to bring order to Italy,
that they should demand, they should demand
a stronger government.
(writing) So, in October you have a march on Rome
and I've seen several accounts of the size
of this march on Rome, but the numbers
that I've seen is on the order of 200,000.
(writing) 200,000 fascists march on Rome.
This essentially causes the current government
to be ... the Prime Minister to be ousted
and the King appoints Mussolini as Prime Minister.
(writing)So, Mussolini, Mussolini is now
the Prime Minister.
So this is a super rapid ascend,
really based on peoples' unhappiness with the
left-leaning government, peoples' desire
for a strong leader, Mussolini's kind of
charisma.
Every picture you see of him he has these
really stern looks, he has this impression of a really
strong figure.
Not only did he become Prime Minister,
but he's able to get dictatorial powers.
The legislator actually gives him dictatorial powers
for a year.
(writing) Dictata-, dictatorial powers
for one year, so you can't, at this point
call him the dictator.
We'll see that that's going to come in a few years,
but he's granted, essentially, absolute control.
He can pass laws at will and it's an interesting
question of history of why at this point
the legislator was willing to give him dictatorial
powers and why the King was fine with this
fairly strong character being Prime Minister
with dictatorial powers.
My understanding is, and I'm curious to see
what you guys say in the message boards,
is that it really was around ...
people were desire ... on one level there was a desire
especially amongst the middle class
and the elite, of having this strong leader,
of maybe someone who could bring order
and pride to the country.
Then on top of that he was backed up by these,
he was backed up by the Black Shirts,
this paramilitary group that was dispersed
throughout Italy that could intimidate his opponents.
You could imagine some legislators were actually
keen to support a strong leader after many years
of weak leadership, but on top of that
they probably felt intimidated into giving
Mussolini these absolute powers.