The problem with totalitarian regimes is that people tend to be less than forthcoming with their thoughts - on the other hand, the Regime was fairly invested in knowing their thought, so that we have at least a wealth of police reports and circulars to the various authorities. It's worth reminding though that all those instruments of investigation into the people's mind were devised to read certain things and, in fact, to ignore others.
And we should also keep in mind that there was an organic component to the surface militarization of Italian society during the 1930s; a component that ran a bit deeper and made an eventual war - if not necessary to the degree it had become with the Nazi economical policies in Germany - at least a realistic outcome.
If we go through the evolution of the Regime approach to the industrial and productive world, we see a few tendencies at work in parallel:
A progressive restriction of the Italian economical space - the anti-inflation choice of Quota 90 in 1927 paired with the subsequent economical crisis of 1929 had not helped the penetration into foreign markets; the limitations imposed on the buying power of the working classes had not really favored the development of internal demand - as a result internal competition had to be solved politically, organically, that is through forms of semi-cartelization; hence point 2
A constant quid pro quo between the Regime and the industrial world, with the government acting as organizer and supervising force over such "national groups" - created usually through shared participations of pre-existing groups - that were allowed to operate in conditions of substantial monopoly, in exchange for the acceptance of some forms of political subordination.
An increased attention and increased presence of the Regime, driven by the previous two points, within those sectors that were more essential to the national life; and consequently a closer co-dependence between the larger groups and the political authorities.
The formation of large industrial collective participation - state driven groups (the traditional example would be the IRI) that the government was committed both economically and politically to support and had, absent substantial infrastructural or foreign demand, their natural productive outlet in an increase of war expenditure.
The “autarchy” choice which compounded on those pre-existing patterns by favoring a long term evolution of the economical sector in a direction that made private initiative closely related to functions of state administration. That is promoted the formation of a class of managers-state functionaries.
In this sense it's not surprising that Italy had been involved in two significant conflicts already before WW2 broke out: the Ethiopian War of 1935-36 and the Spanish Civil War of 1937-38. In both those circumstances, the Italian people (and that's with the exclusion of those exiles who were obviously critical of the Regime and its wars, without them being any less "Italian people") – at least according to the information available to the Regime – had followed the path of least resistance. They had looked more favorably to conflicts with favorable outlooks and reacted positively to positive events, and negatively to negative ones.
This may sound obvious, but it is – and was for the authorities – evidence that there was no substantial political resistance to the Regime, that is no opposition driven by political considerations. If we follow the 1936 relation prepared by the Head of Public Security, Arturo Bocchini for the Ministry of Interior (Mussolini), we can see how the anti-fascist activities of political nature were less related to the recent conflict and more to the polarization of the European politics during the previous years; and how nonetheless those activities were considered an issue of mere public security, rather than a political one.
the Ethiopian enterprise had no impact in favor of the anti-fascist parties, but rather exalted and strengthened the Italian patriotic spirit [and yet] the victories of the “popular fronts” in the French and Spanish elections and then the Spanish civil war have created an undeniable repercussion in those portions of the Italian people who have not given their complete intimate adhesion to the Regime. Such eventuality not only did not escape the observation of the police but had in fact been foreseen since the early voices of the affirmation of the extreme parties abroad [with the OVRA and police forces proceeding to necessary arrests] Given the abundant and continuous movement of Italians [especially] towards and from France, and given that any direction of a motion against the Regime comes from the anti-fascist centers in foreign countries, the police forces have been careful in their surveillance of those centers and in general of the behavior of the emigrants. I have thus been able to ascertain that a large number of exiles […] have enlisted in the ranks of the Spanish red militias and enact an intense propaganda action to push others to enlist. We have had symptoms of such attempts extending into the Kingdom as well, especially towards qualified workers, not only by means of political arguments but also with enticing promises of reward. [The various observations and necessary arrests] have showed nonetheless that the impact of such attempts has been extremely limited. [Also] as a consequence of the Spanish events, a new form of anti-fascist propaganda has appeared during last year [1936], aimed at the Italians living within the Kingdom, since the Barcelona radio has begun broadcasting news, speeches and debates in Italian [there again the police had given instructions to make impossible to receive them]. [In summary] the communist propaganda has not enjoyed, taken as an organization activity, better success than during the previous years. There has been instead a larger number of individual subversive manifestations, enacted through loud cries, private chatter and wall graffiti [the authorities of public security had a very keen eye for subversive activities and would record even very minor incidents – but, as is the case here, they would not take them as manifestations of political dissent but more of a generic dissatisfaction with the Regime], no doubt due to the repercussions of the Spanish civil war and the other turns of events in favor of the extreme parties abroad. […]
The relations of the following years 1937-39 showcase similar objects of attention for the public force – but they generally agree that the anti-fascist activities had decreased in parallel with the growing difficulties of the Spanish republicans and a general phase of stasis of the “subversive” activities promoted by the exiles, by this time more invested into the upkeep of a minimal degree of political continuity within the country, than into hopes of shaking the foundations of the Regime.
To get a more accurate picture of the situation, it is worth following De Felice:
If one assumes Bocchini's point of view and looks at the issue taking as decisive factor the disturbance of public order and the attitude of the large masses of citizens towards the Regime within the public sphere, then the picture painted by the four relations is substantially accurate […]: 1) substantial absolute tranquility within the country 2) a few incidents and a few episodes of unrest, work related […] and motivated by economical factors 3) [those] mostly between the second half of 1936 and the first one of 1937; […] decreasing noticeably after the salary increase of April 1937 4) throughout the whole time span nothing led to believe that the popular sentiments towards the Regime had changed.
And yet, if one takes a point of view […] more properly historical […] it becomes necessary to establish the quality of such tranquility, its features and the repercussions in the attitude of the Italians towards the Regime. That's the only way to understand why, despite the presence of strong internal tensions, public order remained absolutely normal, discontent towards the policies of the Regime did not evolve into political opposition and the anti fascist activities […] remained for the matter of the Regime's solidity irrelevant – this notwithstanding, many things under the apparent tranquility of the country were changing […] After the period of enthusiasm and the hopes raised by the victorious Ethiopian campaign, the second half of the 1930s was marked by a progressive growth of discontent and concern over the policies of the Regime and a parallel fragmentation of the basis of popular consensus. [Which almost all observers] account for with the hostility and fear […] especially over the foreign policy of the Regime [with] the development of closer relations with Germany, a process that the vast majority of Italians considered unnatural and likely to provoke a war in the future as well as behind the totalitarian involution of the Regime.
Notably, De Felice himself – and other historians in more recent times – have moved away from the idea that the more authoritarian face of Fascism during the late 1930s was a consequence of its alignment with Nazi Germany. This perception though, was widespread at the time; and while it did not result in a political opposition to the Regime, it certainly created an atmosphere of concern over its long term goals – a concern that connected in part with the discontent driven by the new economical difficulties.