The effectiveness of any social reform promoted during fascist rule - as long as the worker's conditions are concerned - was minimal. To show this, I will start with some data.

 

The index of monthly real salary for industrial workers, estimated over life cost can be traced this way:

Year	Real salary
1913	100.0
1921	127.0
1928	100.0
1929	99.0
1930	97.4
1931	98.7
1932	100.0
1933	105.1
1934	106.1
1935	95.1
1936	92.7
1937	98.8
1938	100.8

 

For agrarian workers in a comparable time span we find:

Year	Salary
1919	163
1924	124.2
1925	121.4
1926	113.5
1927	122.0
1928	122.7
1929	119.5
1930	119.2

 

I can not move forward before pointing out that the standard for these data is not as good as it would be for modern stats. These are data taken by the fascist organizations themselves - and often inconsistently between different "trade unions". To my knowldge there was not at the time a single organization tasked with such surveys.

I think in any case that it is difficult to argue against the general trend: worker's conditions were best during the years of the biennio rosso 1919-21 when they had the most leverage. During fascism on the other hand their ability to support their demands had almost entirely vanished.

Fascism had indeed adopted a series of policies which - if phrased often to suggest an impartial attitude from the government - ended up working in favor of the owners.

The leggi fascistissime in the 1925-26 marked a transition from the traditonal economic policy of De Stefani to a more definitive authoritarian policy. Among them we find the abolition of any non explicitly fascist trade union and the reintroduction of the felony of work strike (which had been abolished in Italy in 1889). Lockout was also forbidden but - with salaries de facto controlled by the government - there was hardly any case when this rule had to be enforced.

 

In principle, corporativism was supposed to be the bridge between workers and owners - in the fascist doctrine the syntesis to couterpoint the traditional marxist anthitesis of class struggle - but it ended up depriving the workers of any legitimate way to push forward their demands.

They were generally unable to choose their representatives in the corporations, and moreso these corporations had far less influence on the government than the government had on them.

The solution of social issues was therefore reduced to two actions from the government: a large program of public works to reduce unemployment, direct assistance towards unemployed and impoverished workers.

Within these frame the corporations and the worker's representatives mostly resorted to address their issues directly in letters to the Duce, asking for food, better work conditions, longer hours if not better wages and so on. These letters ended in the river of paper directed to Mussolini - we have indeed a remarkable number of these letters, telegrams, etc. often concerned with the most trivial matters.

And it must be noted that Mussolini - who never refused a chance to micromanage something - was generally ready to take care of the most serious issues; once for example ordering that not only rice but also pasta and milk had to be given to unemployed men with children.

 

Now, I believe that another point must be addressed concerning corporativism. And I will try to be short.

There is a lot written about corporativism during the fascist rule. It may seem therefore that this was a very important point for the establishment; but it was not really so.

With the consolidation of his power, Mussolini had largely restrained any criticism of the regime; more so he had removed the places and channels to put forward this criticism. This was ultimately a major issue for the regime.

Even "true fascist" suffered the lack of a proper way to address those social reforms and improvements that had been a part of the fascist beginnings. But it was extremely hard to develop any reform if the issues leading to these reforms could not be openly addressed, if not at risk of political downfall. This situation worsened with the regime's maturity to the point of reaching ridicule.

One example, not directly connected with corporativism. During the African Campaign, at a certain point, the old general Gariboldi is said to have complained that he had not been promoted to Marshal - a fact which forced him to treat with his german counterpart as a subordinate rather than as an equal. This sounds like a quite stupid thing to take issue about but the question is: which other way could he complain about what he percieved as the italian army's subordination to german strategy? Was he supposed to write a letter to Mussolini?

 

The absence of the usual ways to express criticism and support reforms forced everybody to seek alternative ways.

Mussolini had always been happy to welcome a moderate degree of discussion on his own ground: newspapers. He had done so since his years as director of Avanti!. This was a way to control and channel the various new instances to a place where he knew he was better than the others.

Still you could not be published with open criticism. Corporativism offered a wonderful way out of these troubles: it was a founding element of fascism (in principle), the regime praised its success in fixing the economy even in spite of the 1929 crisis, it was the third way between socialism and capitalism, the overcoming of centuries of social struggle.

Noone could complain if you said that corporativism was great! And so they did.

Often when a fascist leader, intellectual or member of the establishment - even at very small, local level - wants to address the lack of progress of Fascism with regards to the workers conditions and related social issues, this is done not by criticizing but by praising corporativism. The argument often follows the tune of we need more corporativism or we have not yet established corporativism at full within society.

There is no doubt that Mussolini understood their meaning, even when the true issue ended up diverging from the workers condition in itself.

 

Sources: De Felice, Mussolini

 

Edit: Italy underwent a process of revaluation of the lira in the late 1920s. This makes the data about salaries even harder to put together. The economics is not my strongest but I believe it should be known when addressing this kind of data.