Mussolini's Seizure of Power
Mussolini's Seizure of PowerOn the 23 March 1919 after a series of Communist
demonstrations, the almost forgotten Mussolini decided to attempt to
revive his Fasci movement. A meeting was held in a hall in a Milan and
was attended by some fifty malcontents. From this seemingly small and
insignificant event the Fascio di Combattimento' (Combat Group) was
born. Initially, it would seem that the Fasci were destined for
failure with none of their candidates (including Mussolini) winning a
single seat in the 1919 elections. How was it that a party with no
clear programme, save a belief in action of some sort, became a ruling
dictatorship little more than ten years later? By the end of 1919,
Mussolini possessed hardly more than 2% of the vote in Milan, less
than 5000 votes against 170,000 for the Socialists. Was this a
complete disaster? At the time it seemed so; the Socialists were so
confident of their success that they staged a mock funeral in Milan
stopping outside Mussolini's house to invite him to attend the burial
of his party. Incredibly, by 1921 the membership of this previously
tiny group was to rival the size of the Socialists. How was this
achieved? It was certainly by no easy means; Mussolini's skill and
luck played a vital role, but he was also helped by the seemingly
blind incompetence of his opponents. Mussolini's path towards the top
of Italian Government was hindered by many forms of opposition.
However, most of his opposition came from the Government and the rival
Socialist (PSI) party. Soon after the summer of 1920 the Fascists and
their opposition inevitably clashed. The fact that Gioletti's
government was faced with � million workers sitting in in factories
showed that Italy was a far from stable country in 1920. Did an
opportunity present itself for Mussolini to gain ground over the
Socialist opposition? If it did, Mussolini certainly did not take it.
He was still recovering from his party's humiliating election defeat.
Eventually the union leaders, evidently surprised by this sudden,
spontaneous revolutionary outburst persuaded the workers to give in in
return for higher wages. Although initially it would seem that the
workers had won, the strikes had sown the seeds of fear amongst
Italy's Socialist opposition. The overall effect of this was that
many of the opponents of Socialism joined Mussolini's Fascist' party.
The Socialist party by causing the strike had unwittingly played into
Mussolini's hands; although this was due to their own incompetence and
not the skill of Mussolini. Interestingly, they were later to make
exactly the same mistake again. The fact that Mussolini's party
benefitted greatly by offering action, showed that political gains
could be made from the weakness of the government and from the unrest
of the country. It was at this point in 1921 that Gioletti began
searching for allies against the Socialists. The Vatican had turned
against him; This was mainly due to the government's proposal to tax
the bonds which were...
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