Totalitarianism of the Right?:

Interwar Europe, 1918-1939

Rise of Fascism in Italy

• WWI spoils disappointed many Italians

• Russian Revolution inspired many workers and socialists

• Pope allowed Catholics to go into politics

• “Two Red Years,” 1919-1920 Great instability Workers took over some factories

Benito Mussolini, 1883-1945

Il Duce (The Leader)Black ShirtsFascism: • extreme militaristic

nationalism• contempt for electoral

democracy and liberalism

• natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites

• individual interests subordinated to the good of the nation

Fasces = strength in unity

Mussolini’s rise to power

• Two Red Years• Mussolini portrayed himself as

the ‘man of order’• March on Rome (October 1922)• King Victor Emmanuel III (r.

1900-46) forced to make Mussolini Prime Minister

Consolidation of Power

• Giacomo Matteotti (socialist leader killed in 1924)

• Mussolini used killing to crack down: changed election law curbed Parliament’s

powers censored press and

academic publications assumed dual role as

PM and ‘Il Duce’

Mussolini’s policies

• Lateran Agreement (1929):• Gave Vatican City independence• Financial support• Roman Catholicism as official religion• Pope agreed to urge Italians to support

Mussolini and fascists

• Corporatism between socialism and capitalism

• Sexism: women as mothers and sexual objects

Totalitarianism

• Mussolini: “Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” (1926)State to pervade all aspects of society

• The nation mobilized but obedient to THE LEADER

• BUT: Fascist Italy was not very totalitarian, compared to USSR and Nazi Germany