The informative Mussolini sketch
continues, with my comments in red.
***
At
various times after 1922, Mussolini personally took over the ministries of the
interior, foreign affairs, of the colonies, of the corporations, of the army
and the other armed services, and of public works. Sometimes he held as many as
seven departments simultaneously, as well as the premiership. (It was his political and administrative misfortune, rather
than an ego trip on his part, that he was unable to delegate these high responsibilities
to competent and reliable agents.)
He was
also head of the all-powerful Fascist party (formed in 1921) and of the
armed local Fascist militia, which terrorized incipient resistances in the
cities and the provinces. In this way he succeeded in keeping power in his own
hands and preventing the emergence of any rival. But it was at the price of
creating a regime that was over-centralized, inefficient, and corrupt. (It may be reasonably argued that diversity results in higher
efficiency. But can diversity be allowed in wartime even in democratic
societies?)
Mussolini
was a passionate public speaker. Most of his time was spent on propaganda,
whether at home or abroad, and here his training as a journalist was priceless.
Press, radio, education, films,--- all were carefully supervised to manufacture
the illusion that Fascism was the doctrine of the 20th
century, replacing liberalism and democracy. The principles of this doctrine
were laid down in the article on Fascism written by Giovanni Gentile and signed
by Mussolini, which appeared in 1932 in the Enciclopedia Italiana. (This is a terribly important document which needs a very
careful study. But how many political scientists of today are even aware of its
existence and availability for study?)
In 1929,
a concordat with the Vatican was signed by which the Italian state was at last
recognized by the Roman Catholic Church and the independence of Vatican City
was recognized by the Italian state. (How ironic
that the modern city-state of Vatican formally owes its existence to
Mussolini’s Fascist regime!)
Under
the dictatorship, the effectiveness of parliamentary system was virtually
abolished, although its forms were publicly preserved. The law codes were rewritten.
Teachers in schools and universities had to swear an oath to defend the Fascist
regime. Newspaper editors were all personally chosen by Mussolini himself,
and no one could practice journalism who did not possess a certificate of
approval from the Fascist Party. The trade unions were also deprived of
any independence, and integrated into the so-called ‘corporative system.’
The aim inspired by medieval guilds but never completely achieved, was to place
all Italians in professional organizations, or corporations, all of them
under governmental control. (It can be argued
that this situation amounts to a normal pledge of allegiance carried too far.
But doesn’t it go without saying that such a situation ought to be carefully
studied and meaningfully applied to modern times?)
Mussolini
at first ingratiated himself with his financial backers by transferring several
industries from public to private ownership. But by the 1930’s he was moving
back to the opposite extreme of rigid governmental control of industry. A lot
of money was spent on highly visible public works, but the economy suffered
from his taxing efforts to make Italy self-sufficient. There was too much
concentration on the heavy industry, for which Italy lacked the basic
resources. (It is most illuminating to compare
this effort under Mussolini in Italy with the parallel effort in the USSR. For
several reasons the comparison ought not to be expanded to include other
countries of the same time frame.)
In
foreign policy, Mussolini quickly shifted from the pacifist anti-imperialism of
his lead-up to power, to an extreme form of aggressive nationalism. An early
example of this was his bombardment of Corfu, in 1923. Soon after this he
succeeded in setting up a puppet regime in Albania and in ruthlessly consolidating
Italian power in Libya, loosely a colony since 1912. It was his dream to make
the Mediterranean a mare nostrum. In 1935, at the Stresa Conference,
he helped create an anti-Hitler front in order to defend the independence of
Austria. (What a delectable irony! The original
Fascist-in-Chief helping create and even participating in, even if for a fairly
short time, what would become known as the anti-Fascist coalition, more
accurately described, of course, as the anti-Hitler coalition.)
But his
successful war against Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935-1936 was opposed by the League
of Nations, and he sought an alliance with Nazi Germany, which had
withdrawn from the League in 1933. (Could the League of Nations have acted
differently, I wonder, just to prevent Mussolini’s alliance with Hitler? Not by
condoning Italy’s Ethiopian war, but by somehow luring El Duce away from Der
Führer?.. Difficult, but perhaps not impossible, to paraphrase a Godfather line.)
His
intervention in 1936-1939 on Franco’s side in the Spanish Civil War
ended any possibility of reconciliation with France and Britain. (Here’s to the late Generalissimo Franco’s staying power!
“Franco’s side” lost, but Franco won…)
As a
result he had to accept the German annexation of Austria in 1938 and also the
dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, in 1939. At Munich, in 1938, he posed as a
moderate working for peace in Europe. (Nota
bene! Once again a sorely lost opportunity for a serious anti-Hitler coalition.
I have a feeling that the Western powers had their wishes set on a
Hitler-Stalin confrontation, and did not want to do anything to prevent what
would become known as World War II…)
To be continued…
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