The setting for fascism: liberal Italy, 1861-1915

The Risorgimento –

It led to exaggerated expectations for Italy, both in terms of wealth and power.

It created a socio-political system riddled with weaknesses – a limited monarchy, a liberal-parliamentary constitution and a highly centralised administration in a country lacking a national consciousness.

The legacy of Italian unification –

Piedmontisation: Piedmont is seen to have taken over Italy.

National consciousness is uneven and is often very low.

There are alternative loyalties: fallen dynasties and historic regions.

A weak democracy –

A small m/c electorate: 0.5m out of a total population of 32m.

An even smaller ‘political class’, i.e. those active in politics.

Elections were characterised by bribery, manipulation and coercion.

Whilst politics was characterised by power cliques and corruption.

Catholics, annoyed by the loss of the Papal States and the occupation of Rome, largely withdrew from politics in 1870.

PR was introduced in 1919.

Frustrated ambitions: ‘the least of the great powers’ –

The debt owed to France and Prussia.

Economic backwardness.

The unredeemed lands – Trent and Trieste (still Austrian).

Imperial setbacks in North Africa.

Social changes in north Italy –

Agricultural advances creating a new class of rich agrarians, estate managers and rural labourers.

Rapid industrialisation creating an upper m/c, a lower m/c and a w/c.

Backwardness in southern Italy –

A growing gap.

Social and political inactivity or emigration.

Political changes –

Electoral reform in 1881 which increased the m/c vote in the cities. This resulted in the radicalisation of Italian politics – republicanism, socialism, trade union activity, whilst Catholics re-enter politics in response to right-wing materialism and ‘godless’ socialism. Also, the divide grows between city and countryside, and north and south.

The conservative reaction failed to bring about a return to a more authoritarian system of government.

Giolitti’s attempts to “save” liberalism: Appeasing socialism by an impartial attitude to trade disputes. Appeasing Catholics by reducing secularism. The 1912 electoral reform tripled the size of the electorate –  now 9 million, including almost all adult males. Whilst the Libyan War, 1911, appeased conservatives and Nationalists but angered socialists (including Mussolini).

Critics of liberalism, however, remained: Gabriele D’Annunzio attacked liberal decadence and advocated violence. The Italian Nationalist Association was founded in 1910 laid the blame for Italy’s weak economy and poor international standing on the weakness and corruption of its political class and the divisive and ‘ignoble socialism’. They advocated authoritarian government, unrestrained capitalism and imperialism. Whilst Revolutionary Syndicalism rejected political parties and parliamentary democracy in favour of revolutionary trade unionism.

The Libyan War was costly in economic terms and in Italian lives, whilst total success proved elusive. National humiliation and the rise of socialism inspired a vociferous minority of Italian intellectuals to attack liberalism. The Italian Nationalist Association, formed in 1910, became the means by which they could articulate their discontent.