which the dictators in the end committed. Official
Catholic protest tended to be muted (more so
under Pius XII after 1939 than under Pius XI)
though individual priests, including the Pope,
sought to protect persecuted individuals.
The positive contribution of fascism was sup-
posed to be the introduction of the ‘corporate
state’. This was based on the idea that, instead of
being fought out, conflicts of interest were to be
negotiated under the guidance of the state in
bodies known as corporations. Thus, in 1925 the
employers’ federation and the fascist trade unions
recognised each other as equal partners, and cor-
porations to settle differences in many different
branches of industry, agriculture and education
were envisaged. A huge bureaucratic structure
was built up under a Ministry of Corporations.
The industrialists, nevertheless, largely preserved
their autonomy from the state. Not so the repre-
sentatives of labour – labour was now represented
in the corporations by fascist bureaucrats. The
workers were exploited and even their basic
right to move from one job to another without
official permission was taken away. Real wages
fell sharply, and fascism, despite some spectacular
schemes such as the expansion of wheat-growing
in the 1930s, and drainage of marsh land, could
not propel the underdeveloped economy for-
ward. Economically, Italy remained backward
and labour ceased to make social advances. The
increasing fascist bureaucracy, moreover, was
a heavy burden to bear. Massive propaganda
showing happy Italians and the duce stripped to
the waist in the fields might fool foreigners but
could not better the lot of the poor.
The cult of the duce was substituted for
genuine progress. He posed as world leader, as
the greatest military genius and economic sage, as
the man who had transformed the civilised Italian
people into conquering Romans. His conquests
in the 1920s were meagre, however. In Libya and
Somalia his troops fought savagely to reduce
poorly armed tribesmen. After ten years of fight-
ing they were subjected. In no way was this a glo-
rious military episode. In the Balkans and the
Middle East there was little he could do without
British and French acquiescence. He tried in
1923, defying the League of Nations by seizing
the island of Corfu from the Greeks, using as a
pretext the murder of an Italian in Greece. But
Britain and France intervened and, after finding a
face-saving formula, Mussolini had to withdraw.
He did, however, secure Fiume for Italy in the
following year. All in all it was not very heroic.
For the rest, Mussolini unsuccessfully tried to
exploit Balkan differences and sought the lime-
light by signing many treaties. So, abroad, he
was mistakenly judged as a sensible statesman.
Conservatives even admired the superficial order
he had imposed on Italy’s rich and varied life. The
1930s were to reveal to the world what his oppo-
nents in Italy and the colonies had already learnt
to their cost – the less benevolent aspects of
Mussolini’s rule.