How far do you agree, that the Bienno Rosso was the most important reason for Mussolini and Fascism's rise to power in Italy, 1919-22?Sherin Zoubi 12BBMussolini and the fascists managed to rise to power and take control of Italy in 1922. Mussolini's rise to power took place mainly due to a combination of conditions that characterized the liberal Italian state, which existed before his take over. The main factors that led to Mussolini's rise to power were the impact of the First World War, the weaknesses of the Risorgimento, the Biennio Rosso , the elite's support for the Fascist Party, and the March on Rome. All of these factors contributed to Mussolini and the fascist's rise to power. ...view middle of the document...
Mussolini had been expelled from the socialist party (PSI) in 1914 due to his new nationalist beliefs, and in 1915 he created the fascist party. In 1917 Italy had experienced a major defeat at Caporetto. In 1919 during the after war negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles, Italy was left with only about half of the territories that it was promised at the Treaty of London in 1915 despite being on the winning side. This condition became known as "mutilated victory". The discontent of the mutilated victory had generated strong nationalist beliefs in the Italians, and as a result of that more people became supportive of fascism. This was a major condition that allowed fascism to enter the Italian political spectrum, which was the first fundamental step that allowed Mussolini to seize power.The First World War caused the birth of Mussolini's Fascist movement by changing his views from socialist to nationalist, and then it also created discontent of Italians due to the Mutilated victory. The mutilated victory had created strong nationalism, and therefore increasing support for the Fascist Party.Another condition that allowed Mussolini to rise to power was the weaknesses of thel iberal state. After the unification of Italy in 1817, the new liberal state created had been suffering from poverty and lack of nationalism, and then its conditions had been worsened by the impact of the First World War. Due to these main weaknesses of the liberal state, popular dissatisfaction and opposition were being faced.The Italian liberal state was created by the elite and politicians, without involving the mass of the Italian people. People were unified into a state and had to pay taxes to it and serve its military, without actually feeling a sense of belonging or having called for the formation of the state themselves. This created great disunity between the Italians and weakened nationalism. Problems such as geographical divisions making communication between Italians hard, the Catholic Church strongly opposing the new liberal state, and the great economical differences between North and South were stopping Italy from becoming a more united nation. The main political alignments of the newly unified Italy were the liberalists, socialist and the Catholic Church supporters and they all had different views and opposed each other. When Giolitti was in power he tried to win over all the key groups in order for them to accept and support the liberal state, however he was unable to do so because in trying to please one section he would end up alienating the other.During the years of the liberal system the development of industry in the North led to the founding of trade unions and cooperative organizations, which then resulted in a significant growth of socialism.The First World War had started reinforcing nationalism, and a desire of great achievements and glory for the nation. These sudden nationalist beliefs created among the Italians of the Risorgimento were made stron...
