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Essay on Fascism

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On the 23 March 1919 after a series of Communist demonstrations, the almost forgotten Mussolini decided to attempt to revive his Fasci movement. A meeting was held in a hall in a Milan and was attended by some fifty malcontents. From this seemingly small and insignificant event the Fascio di Combattimento' (Combat Group) was born. Initially, it would seem that the Fasci were destined for failure with none of their candidates (including Mussolini) winning a single seat in the 1919 elections. How was it that a party with no clear programme, save a belief in action of some sort, became a ruling dictatorship little more than ten years later? By the end of 1919,
Mussolini possessed hardly more than 2% of the vote in Milan, less
than …show more content…

Interestingly, they were later to make exactly the same mistake again. The fact that Mussolini's party benefitted greatly by offering action, showed that political gains could be made from the weakness of the government and from the unrest of the country. It was at this point in 1921 that Gioletti began searching for allies against the Socialists. The Vatican had turned against him; This was mainly due to the government's proposal to tax the bonds which were a main form of Church property at the time. As a result Gioletti decided to use Fascist support against the Socialists.
Why did Gioletti decide to use the Fascist's support to combat the
Socialists, when there were many other safer ways of doing so?
Principally, he believed that he could easily dominate Mussolini and once in power again he would discard the tougher elements' among the Fascists. He made a grave mistake in believing this. In the winter of 1920-21, Mussolini organized his men into squadre d'azione' (squads of action) headed by local leaders ( ras') like Balbo in Ferrara and
Grandi in Bologna. Primarily, Mussolini's clever planning was demonstrated by his success: His initial campaign of violence against the Socialists led to 200 dead and 800 wounded in the period between
December 1920 and May 1921. The government, in accordance with its alliance with the Fascists, did little to prevent the violence, and instead saw it as a cheap way of

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