First, some quick background: Italy was not in a happy place after the First World War. The War had been sold to the people as a means to bring national honor, and had instead broken the spirit of the nation. While Italy found herself on the side of the victors, it was viewed that the sacrifices of the nation were not properly rewarded. Desertion was high, and a sizable amount of the military deserted at points with the socialists pushing heavily for soldiers to actively seek defeat on the battlefield. They became known as disfattisti, but whom the right wing and eventually the Fascists would brand vigliacchi - cowards.

John Foot sums up what the so-called Great War meant to the nation quite well in his excellent work Italy's Divided Memory:

For the socialist and anarchist left, and also for many Catholics, the war had been a “useless slaughter,” as Pope Benedict XV called it in 1917. For the nationalists, many of whom were to become fascists, the conflict had been heroic and glorious. These two visions of the past, and of the world, clashed in every corner of the country.

##Fascism in power

“Fortunately the Italian people were not yet accustomed to eat much…it feels deficiency and suffering less.” — Benito Mussolini, December 1930

One of the main avenues in which the Fascists rose to power was in controlling the public memory of the First World War and casting themselves in the better light. Nationalists seized upon the notion and national depression faced by the country with the disastrous defeat at Carporetto^1 and proclaimed that the left were disfattisti of the ilk that Lenin called for in Russia. The left meanwhile proudly wore that badge , and viewed the disaster at Carporetto as a sign of a revolutionary class struggle. Antiwar monuments sprung up throughout Italy, as the more left leaning and socialistic cities and states celebrated the new peace^2. Unfortunately, the left's notion was a political miscalculation as the Fascists were able to recast the memory of the war as a clash between those who had run away, and those who had fought.

Mussolini’s first words on taking power in October 1922 to Victor Emmanuel III were “I bring you the Italy of Vittorio Veneto” - the site of Italy's defeat of Austria-Hungary that in effect ended the Austro-Hungarian Empire^3. A monument war ensued, concurrently with Fascisms rise that saw the destruction of every antiwar monument, and monument to peace. The official state memory was to be that the war was heroic, necessary, and to be repeated as needed.

Something to remember is that Benito Mussolini was not a meek kitten that carefully crafted a rise to power, and led the Italian people towards an end goal of Fascism. The Italian nation did not wake up one morning and realize they were living under an authoritarian regime^4. To an extent Mussolini ran the Italian populace over in an attempt to beat the citizenry into a consensus. The fact that Mussolini distrusted his own party gives a clue to how the Italian people themselves would bear the force of his greatest mistakes in an almost ruination of the country^5. Italy has consistently eschewed notions of a ‘common national character’ - and the Fascists were keen to take advantage of these differences. There has very rarely been an ‘Italian’ way of doing things as regionality was enforced by the nation states that had grown out of the Longobardi empires. Most attempts pre-Fascism were concerned with building Italy from above as an attempt to establish a state upon what was already there. From the Risorgimento the State had been deciding what was Italian, and what wasn’t. Famously the language decided upon by the State was not the language spoken by the majority of the populace

This conflict between what is, and more importantly, what isn’t carried its way through to Mussolini’s schism with the Socialists during the First World War. To Mussolini, and later to the Fascists, Italy was to be made through deeds and deeds alone. There was not an Italian character, instead an Italian character needed to be made. This is summed up by Mussolini's words itself:

“The war is an exam for populations ... the war must reveal Italy to the Italians…only in this way, can Italians be proud to be Italian, only the war can make the ‘Italians’ which D’Azeglio wrote about. Or the Revolution.”^6

The Fascists famously attempted to tie their party - and the current Italy - to the great Roman Empire of the past. Unfortunately the ties that the Fascists tried to create to the Romans were superficial at best. Their understanding of their ‘Roman’ ancestors were just a myth that the Fascists derived so as to enforce their own power^7. These myths were enforced upon the scholars of the State to be taught as fact as the Fascists subverted the faculty of ancient schools. By 1931 to hold work as an academic required an oath of loyalty to the Fascist party. Those that did not were either deported (if foreign), stripped of their salary and titles, and often subject to mob violence incited by students which was encouraged by local party prefects. With the establishment of the Fascist Academy, the Party was able to standardize what the purpose of academia would be: to “preserve for our intellectual life in national character according to the genius of our race, and to favor in expansion abroad.”

While initially popular (and continuing popular until Italy's disastrous attempt at Empire Building with the second World War) one of the ways that the Fascists kept power was by directly controlling their citizenry. This manifested itself in "Battles for Grain" and "Battles for Birth." Both failed horribly. Consumer prices rose expeditiously (leading to the quote I started this section with). With consumer prices skyrocketing, the Fascists attempted to correct this course by forcing the populace to work more for less wages. The previous eight hour work day, fought for by the unions and syndicates in the years proceeding Fascism, was increased to a nine hour day. Protections for women and children in the workplace were stricken, with Mussolini laughing at the idea of the Italian woman having a right to work, or vote. With Italy entering into an economic slump before the world depression of the 1930s, the vital dollars brought by tourism and luxury item trade declined as well. The Fascist Party, ever concerned with the image they projected, diverted money from subsidizing farmers to subsidizing the military and automobile industry. Despite the fact that Italian grain cost 50% more than American imports, the Party (and thus the state) continued to depend on the importation of 95% of the country’s oil, coal, and metal.

In an attempt to prevent an exodus of the Italian peasantry (which in areas of the South would continue to live in cave dwellings until well after the Fascist age) into the cities, the Party instituted laws in 1930 that made it impossible for workers to move except via the authority of the area prefect. As these prefects were directly appointed by the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo the party had effectively instituted an enforced feudalism on it’s people. With so many Italians now tied to land, it was inevitably overworked and irreparably damaged, leading to a depression in the vital Italian exports of olives and olive oil. Life in the cities were no better, as an exploding population fostered an undercurrent of Marxism that Mussolini saw the party ‘above.’ In 1926 the ‘Rocco Law’ would ban organized strikes and lock outs^8, effectively leaving unions toothless in a battle against harsh corporate overlords who were now personally beholden to Mussolini and the Party.

And if this didn't work to silence the opposition? Outright murder was employed, with over 3,000 political opponents eliminated openly in the eyes of the public^8. To further the insanity, the Fascists openly murdering political opponents was successfully manipulated by Mussolini into strengthening his support with both the public - and most importantly King Victor Emmanuel III^9. When political parties were finally ousted after the failed assassination attempt on the Duce in Bologna in 1928, Mussolini had long since effectively been a dictator.

To solidify how complete Mussolini, and Fascisms, power was over the country he completed a move in December of 1928 which was among the smartest moves he ever completed. He did this by moving the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo from just the highest committee of the party, into an actual organ of the state. The GCF alone would have the power to not just choose the Party Secretary/Prime Minister - taking this power away from the King - but also the King's line of succession. As Mussolini himself retained the right to call the Counsel he had effectively turned himself into a dictator as he controlled what it could, or could not do. Even more importantly prior to 1926 the membership was appointed at the annual meeting of the PNF. After this all members were selected 'from above' with Mussolini remarking that, "I superuomini si elegono" ("Supermen elect themselves.")

By the end of the 1920s, while there were missteps, Mussolini had complete control - in theory - over every aspect of the State, Government, and Monarchy. The populace either actively supported the Fascists, or were repressed into keeping their mouths shut with the club and castor oil.