Unlike Nazi Germany, the process from conservative government to dictatorship was slow and gradual in Italy so that it has been defined a "soft" dictatorship.

One first thing that needs to be noticed is that, unlike Hitler's, Mussolini's political, economical and militar goals were never set in stone. Since his early years as a journalist, Mussolini always tried to use the opportunities he had to serve his own ambition. He did not change this approach when he came to power, treating the grand politics as a following to the question: does this make me stronger?

It does not mean that he did not follow certain sets of principles, but they were rather personal beliefs and not political or ethical.

At the same time another thing that you need to understand is that Mussolini was especially fond of micro-managing. Even during the war he spent a good part of the day personally rewriting the headlines of the newspapers. He craved control over everything and generally believed that the people around him were quite incompetent (thus actually alienating the most competent ones).

This is necessary to understand why many of the steps taken by Mussolini were not exactly following a specific long term goal but mostly looking forward to acquire more personal power and more control over society.

Given this premise, let's start from the beginning.

In 1922 the political situation in Italy was tense: large strikes, growing extreme left and right movements made very hard to keep a stable government. We can argue that the majority of the population wanted a strong, stable government. But Giolitti was old and many saw him as a leftover from the pre-war period.

Therefore, when Mussolini made his march on Rome, the king appointed him Presidente del Consiglio after being assured of the general support of the military to his decision.

In the following years Mussolini tried to rewrite this event as some sort of coup d'etat against the old powers and even, to some extent, against the king. In reality he was able to choose the exact moment to act. He was indeed very worried that the king would appoint Giolitti. In fact he feared that the old statesman would have acted strongly against them, forcing the military to choose between the government and Mussolini: in Mussolini's own words they would have been screwed.

So he acted fast and gained control of the parliament.

At this point, nothing really extraodinary had happened. The weak Facta government was replaced by a right-wing coalition led by a new figure and supported by the king and the military. Some people even hoped for reforms, given Mussolini's socialist past.

Only political opposers of the right, like communists, were worried at this point. Even Giolitti was adamant that this course of events was fine: he famously stated the parliament could not give the country a government, so the country made one for herself.

In the following two years some laws were passed, that we can consider ordinary buisness to some extent - at least they were percieved that way by the population.

What is more interesting is the fact that Mussolini started to turn his Militia (black shirts) into a regular, legitimate force. This wasn't really liked by the military which was extremely jelous of its role and tradition; but mostly tolerated as a measure to integrate anti-communist forces in the offical apparatus of the state and possibly moderate their excesses.

Unfortunately this was not Mussolini's intention. As I stated before he did not like the military or the king and he did not trusted them. He therefore hoped to limit their power wherever he could. He also started to think about the possibility to build a strong leadership government where he did not need the parliament's support any longer. So he started to put this ideas out on the newspapers more and more.

At this point things seem still to be fine. Unless you are politically committed. In that case you might think very wrong that the guys that had thrashed your meeting, beaten you and threatened to kill you are now rewarded by being paid by the state.

Still you would be part of a, forcedly silent, minority.

This is until the new elections of april 1924. The fascist party won a significant majority (they were still a sort of coalition). The oppositions, every day growing weaker, denounced the results. Indeed the militia made some efforts to put the voters on the right track.

Were these elections irregular? By modern standards yes but the fascist victory was probably legitimate. Again most of the people did not see a great problem with this. Italy was a young nation where many valued stability and safety over rights they had never had a chance to exert (the 20-30 years old were born during a period of autorithary governments, then grew up amidst social conflicts and later fought in the war, never experiencing the kind of political partecipation that we can now).

These protests were to force Mussolini's hand again though. Giacomo Matteotti, who had denounced the results of the elections, suddently disappeared. He was found a few days later dead - killed by those militia members that were now being integrated in the state forces.

Mussolini was not happy. He was exposed to the king, who now could have had an excuse to dismiss him, while also being pushed by his own party's extreme elements to strenghten his hold on the government. He had to act and again he choose the right time: 3 janaury 1925 he made a speech tho the parliament where he famously said: if Fascism is a criminal organization, than I am the laeader of this criminal organization and added that he could have the chamber entirely dismissed and that he was only tolerating its existence.

Now, these are the words of a dictator rather than these of a prime minister; sanctioning political murder and threatening to erase the last place for political dissent.

At this point, the not fascist part of the population was worried. This was an extreme event, even if somehow downplayed by the press and was to remain the biggest taint to Mussolini's rulership until WW2 in the eye of the average citizen.

But Mussolini was wise enough to avoid such an event to happen again. He took care of the last oppositions carefully, by simply sending them away, keeping them silent, seizing control of the newspapers, movies, etc. Putting at the same time loyal people in the right places.

This is also the time when he feels confident enough to start taking care of his own party. The fascist movement was born out of a lot of different issues: WW1 veterans, nazionalists, socialists, conservatives all merged together over a confused political program. Many of them were now demanding that those issues were addressed by the government. But Mussolini did not want to use his leverage to pay those dividends, rather he hoped to keep pushing to reorganizing the Italian State around himself. So he started to emarginate the left of his party (the sindacalist wing) and to dismiss the old conservatives (except the ones that were still too useful like Dino Grandi or Volpi di Misurata).

Unlike what happened in Germany, this was done very gradually and Mussolini displayed as great an ability in handling the little politics as he was later to display an inability in handling the grat ones.

We then arrive to 1929. The Matteotti murder is almost forgotten and the average citizen probably thinks of it as a sad hiccup in the building of a stable country, where he could live a decent, if not perfect existence.

Mussolini feels strong enough to arrange a new election where you can vote yes or no th the fascist party. To make the choice easier the vote is not secret and the process is handled by the militia. In any case the success is staggering and he feels legitimately that the country is behind him.

Now, this was not really a strong support but kind of a weak one, where most of the people were ok-ish with him and his party. The weaknes of this support will show later with the effects of Mussolini's foreign policy's blunders.

At this point anyway, Mussolini starts to behave openly as a dictator. Everybody knows that he is the duce. An basically if you asked a kid who commands in Italy, he would answer: il Duce and not the king.

Kids are thought in school silly poems about him Duce, Duce sei la luce..., they take part to activities arranged by the party. The have meetings and vacations for workers, parades and marches. Sport became important and social life was encouraged within the space porvided by the party.

But do the people understand this is a dictatorship, in the sense we can understand it today? Most of the things they experience are good. They have a decent wage, movies, entertainment, sports and vacations subsidied by the government. New buildings are made and many cultural figures support fascism - the ones who don't are rarely heard in Italy or dismissed as naysayers.

I do not suggest this to be the kind of fanatical support many dictators aim for. Bu rather people weren't too worried as long as things went fine.

Again we need to understand that Italians had never experienced the kind of political life or tradition of the UK, or the set of deeply rooted principles of the US; this despite having prominent political figures who were champions of democratic ideals and polular partecipation. So to many having the king as chief, or Mussolini with the king was not a big difference.

Things were going to change later.

Ok, this is not exactly my area of expertise, which is why I am also paging /u/kieslowskifan , /u/AlviseFalier and /u/Quirite

Edit: Also see /u/Klesk_vs_Xaero 's post in this thread for a much more in-depth answer.

I think one important thing to keep in mind here was that Mussolini and his party was called fascist and proclaimed fascism but lacked something akin to a very concrete plan on how the fascist state would look like. Despite all ideological bravado and all proclamations, they were the first who created the state that called itself fascist as the new alternative to democracy and socialism. In short, a lot of what we associate with the fascist state and with fascism did develop over time and was not implemented right away. I am not familiar enough with the historiography on the subject to be able to say if there was a "grand plan" of Mussolini but most of the literature on fascism I am familiar with makes the point that they were figuring stuff out over time.

The Christmas law is one example for that. Another would be the wave of emergency decrees instituted in 1926 which for example lead to the arrest of Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci at the time was still in parliament as a member of the communist delegation and yet he was still arrested and all opposition parties and the freedom of the press abolished.

Another important step was the Doctrine of Fascism in 1935. In this essay, first published in 1932, Mussolini (who claimed full credit despite parts being written by philosopher Giovanni Gentile) describes what fascism is and how it will be implemented. Here for example, we have Mussolini making the claim that fascism is "the third way", which is an essential component for the self-understanding of fascist models:

Granted that the 19th century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the 19th century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State.

It was also in this essay that Mussolini proclaimed the "totalitarian state", another key concept of political fascism of the first half of the 20th century:

The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people.

To attempt to answer your question: From studying especially left-wing theoreticians, the Italian fascist state was quickly classified as something new resp. as a new form of capitalist dictatorships. This can be gleaned from among others Gramsci's early writings during fascism. As for the general populace, there seems to have been the realization that something new was happening from the very start but the realization on how radically new these concepts were came only with their development over time such as when the political changes in 1925/26 took place and especially when a complete remodeling of the state began with the fascist doctrine in 1935.

Sources:

• Antonio Gramsci: Zu Politik, Geschichte und Kultur. Hrg. von Guido Zamis, Leipzig 1980.

• Laqueur, Walter. 1966. Fascism: Past, Present, Future, New York: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

• Paxton, Robert O. 2004. The Anatomy of Fascism. New York.

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