Mussolini

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Mussolini Italian Fascism

• Fascist Fallout from WWI

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Young Mussolini

• Strong Italian nationalist, wanted Italy in WWI.
• Fought in WWI, outraged at Versailles treaty
  (Italians snubbed).
• 1919Organizes his first paramilitary
  organization.

3
Postwar Italy

• Economic depression in cities, high unemployment.
• Socialists urge strikes, land reform.
• Peasants attacked landlords, trying to take land.
• Parliamentary governments are ineffective to fix
  problems.
• Fascist Black Shirts and Socialists fight in
  cities countryside.

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5
Fascists Take Power

• Mussolini promises restoration of land and order.
• Black Shirts break up strikes and attack union
  halls.
• Wishes to recreate Roman Empire Italian
  grandeur.
• Black Shirts march on Rome (like Red Shirts),
  Mussolini appointed premier emergency powers
  for a year (1922).

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Mussolini Consolidates Power

• Reduced parliamentary power.
• Dissolved labor unions.
• Abolished political parties.
• Denounced democracy as a sham.
• Proclaims himself as Duce (leader).
• Creates Fascist organizations (women, opera,
  bowlingetc.)
• 22 Corporations organized by occupation
• Declares third path (neither capitalism nor
  Marxism).

7
Put a lid on it!

• No real advances or reforms made in economy or
  countryside.
• Mussolini gets great press for making the trains
  run on time.
• Concordat signed with Vatican gains support from
  peasants, papacy.
• Monarchy remained in place.
• Made Italy feel self-confident again.

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