The Dynamics of Fascism 1009Italian dictator was an actor, and the balconies from which he thundered
speeches were his stage.
Mussolini planned an army of “eight million bayonets” and an air force
that would “blot out the sun.” But despite the dictators attempt to project
an image of fascism that emphasized youthful physical vigor, relatively lit
tle military training actually took place in Italy. The Italian army remained
beset by inadequate command structures and poor training.
The Duce took over the most important operations of the state and was
like an orchestra conductor trying to play all of the instruments at once.
He warned ministers not to disagree with him because they might divert
him “from what I know to be the right path—my own animal instincts are
always right.” Officials reported only what they thought Mussolini wanted
to hear. The gap between Mussolini's assessment of Italy's military strength
and reality widened.
Mussolini treated domestic policy as an afterthought, once claiming that
“to govern [Italy], you need only two things, policemen, and bands playing
in the streets.” Yet while it is easy to emphasize the farcical aspects of
Mussolini’s rule, in Italy, as in other fascist states, there was nothing com
ical about the brutality of the police or about his provocative foreign policy,
which made Europe an increasingly dangerous place.
In order to placate a potentially powerful source of opposition, Mussolini
made peace with the Catholic Church, which had previously denounced
the regime after fascist squads smashed Catholic workers' cooperatives along
with similar Socialist organizations. In 1929, the Duce signed the Lateran
Pacts with the Church, a concordat that left the Vatican an independent
papal enclave within Rome. In exchange, the papacy for the first time offi
cially recognized Italy’s existence. The Italian dictator returned religious
instruction to all schools, and banned freemasonry, literature that the
Church considered obscene, the sale of contraceptives, and swearing in
public. Mussolini won further Church support with his pro-natal campaign
(which included a tax on “unjustified celibacy”), vague statements about the
importance of the family, measures limiting Protestant publications, and
fulminations against women participating in sports. The Duce now had his
grown children baptized and his marriage recognized by the Church, ten
years after his civil marriage to a wife with whom he no longer lived. Pope
Pius XI called Mussolini “the man sent by Providence.”
Like Hitler and Stalin, Mussolini sought to eliminate the boundary
between private and public life. He wanted the “new Italian woman” to
espouse the values of, and serve, the nationalist state. With the fascist
motto, “Everything within the State, nothing outside the State,” he viewed
the family as an essential component of fascism. “The Nation is served
even by keeping the house swept. Civic discipline begins with family disci
pline,” advised an Italian children's book. But fascism could never over
come the inevitable tensions between family obligations and what fascists
considered national duties. Mussolini and the fascists believed they were