seats) and the Socialists (156), were both inca-
pable of providing the basis of a stable coalition
with the Liberal and Nationalist parties to the left
of centre or the right of centre. The Socialists
were divided between the communists and the
more moderate socialists in 1921. Since 1919
neither wing wished to collaborate with govern-
ment and both spoke the language of revolution.
The Catholic Popular Party had been formed with
the tacit support of the Pope to fight socialism.
But it was not a class party. The majority were
genuinely reformist, advocating the distribution
of the landed estates to the peasantry. It was a
mass party relying on the support of the agricul-
tural labourer in the south, just as the Socialist
strength lay in the industrial towns of the north.
But the Popular Party also included conservative
and extreme-right supporters. Their support of
government policies was accordingly unpre-
dictable. The five governments between 1918 and
1922 were consequently faced with parliamentary
paralysis and no sound base on which to build a
majority. Giovanni Giolitti dominated the last
years of Italian parliamentary life.
Against the Catholics and Socialists, Giolitti
enlisted the help of Mussolini’s Fascists who, in
the elections of May 1921, with his electoral
support, gained thirty-five deputies out of more
than 500. It was a modest parliamentary begin-
ning for the Fascists. But, without Giolitti,
Mussolini and his party would have remained a
negligible constitutional force. In the streets,
however, the Fascists had already made their vio-
lence felt. They flourished on the seed-bed of
industrial and agricultural discontent. There was
large-scale post-war unemployment. On the land
the peasantry took possession of uncultivated
parts of the large landed estates. In the towns mil-
itant unionism demanded higher wages and in
some instances in 1920 occupied factories. It was
not the beginning of revolution.
Higher wages were conceded, the standard of
living of the urban worker rose appreciably
despite higher prices. Real wages were between a
quarter and a third higher in 1922 than in 1919,
and by the autumn of 1922 unrest subsided. It
was at this point that Mussolini came to power,
claiming to have saved the country from the
imaginary threat of Bolshevism and offering
fascism as an alternative.
Mussolini succeeded in attracting attention to
himself in his pose as statesman and duce. He
made Italy seem more important in international
affairs than its weak industrial resources and mil-
itary strength warranted. It was an image built up
with skill to mislead a gullible world. The success
of fascism lay largely in creating such myths
which, after 1925, became identified with the
public personality Mussolini created of himself.
Benito Mussolini was born to ‘proletarian’
parents on 29 July 1883 in the small town of
Predappio in the poor east-central region of Italy,
the Romagna. His father was a blacksmith and
named his son Benito after the Mexican revolu-
tionary leader Juarez. From youth onwards,
Mussolini admired rebellious violence against the
‘establishment’ of schoolmasters; and as he
became older he rebelled against the better off
and privileged. He experienced poverty, and his
hatred of privilege turned him into an ardent
socialist. He left Italy and spent some time in
Switzerland under socialist tutelage. He then
accepted both the internationalist and pacifist
outlook of the socialists. Yet in 1904 he returned
to Italy to serve his obligatory time in the army
and clearly enjoyed army life and discipline. It was
the first and not the only inconsistency in his
development. For a time he took a post as a
teacher. But above all Mussolini saw himself as a
socialist political agitator. He rose to prominence
in the pre-war Italian Socialist Party, belonging
to the most extreme revolutionary wing. He
denounced nationalism as a capitalist manifesta-
tion and was briefly imprisoned for his activities
in seeking to hinder the war effort during Italy’s
Libyan war with Turkey, 1911–12. His impris-
onment brought him into favour with the revo-
lutionary socialists who controlled the Socialist
Party in 1912. They appointed Mussolini to the
editorship of Avanti, the socialist newspaper.
Consistency and loyalty to friends and princi-
ples was not a strong trait in Mussolini. War, that
is international violence, later attracted him.
Mussolini was no pacifist by nature. All went well
with his efforts as a socialist editor until shortly
1
ITALY AND THE RISE OF FASCISM 145
