What type of government did mussolini run

A lavish cult of personality centered on the figure of Mussolini was promoted by the regime. At various times after , Mussolini personally took over the ministries of the interior, foreign affairs, colonies, corporations, defense, and public works. Sometimes he held as many as seven departments simultaneously as well as the premiership. He would later form the OVRA, an institutionalized secret police that carried official state support. He thus succeeded in keeping power in his own hands and preventing the emergence of any rival.

All teachers in schools and universities had to swear an oath to defend the fascist regime. Newspaper editors were all personally chosen by Mussolini and no one without a certificate of approval from the fascist party could practice journalism. The aim never completely achieved , inspired by medieval guilds, was to place all Italians in various professional organizations or corporations under clandestine governmental control.

In his early years in power, Mussolini operated as a pragmatic statesman, trying to achieve advantages but never at the risk of war with Britain and France.

An exception was the bombardment and occupation of Corfu in , following an incident in which Italian military personnel charged by the League of Nations to settle a boundary dispute between Greece and Albania were assassinated by Greek bandits. At the time of the Corfu incident, Mussolini was prepared to go to war with Britain, and only desperate pleading by Italian Navy leadership, who argued that Italian Navy was no match for the British Royal Navy, persuaded him to accept a diplomatic solution.

As such, Mussolini believed that an alliance with Germany was preferable to an alignment with Britain and France as it was better to be allied with the strong instead of the weak.

At the Munich Conference in September , Mussolini continued to pose as a moderate working for European peace while helping Nazi Germany annex the Sudetenland.

The Axis agreement with Germany was strengthened by the Pact of Steel signed on May 22, , which bound Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in a full military alliance.

Mussolini agreed with Gentile that the strong nations of the world had a natural right to subdue and rule the weak. Mussolini glorified military values like physical strength, discipline, obedience, and courage. In , Mussolini ordered the invasion of Ethiopia, a poor African country that had once humiliated Italy in battle. Seeking revenge, Mussolini used planes, artillery, and poison gas against tribesmen with old muskets.

Mussolini announced to cheering crowds that the Roman Empire was back. Mussolini, however, delayed joining Hitler until Nazi troops were just about to defeat France in June Mussolini then decided to invade Greece. But his army was beaten badly and had to be rescued by German troops.

The harsh winter and Soviet guerilla fighters killed huge numbers of German and Italian soldiers. The Italian people had had enough and abandoned Il Duce. King Victor Emmanuel ordered the arrest and imprisonment of Mussolini after his own Grand Council voted for him to resign. German commandos, however, helped him escape to Germany. Mussolini returned to Italy and established a new fascist regime in the north near Milan, an area that the Germans had occupied.

But he was merely a puppet of the Nazis. When the Allies neared Milan, Mussolini tried to escape. But anti-fascist Italian fighters captured and shot him on April 28, Mussolini inspired others to develop their own versions of fascism. In , Francisco Franco established the Spanish state with some fascist elements. Other fascist or fascist-like regimes rose and fell in Japan, Argentina, South Africa, Greece, and Iraq among other countries.

Fascist movements took root even in democracies. Today, variations of fascism live on in a number of military dictatorships around the world. These groups typically preach ultranationalism and spew hatred of racial or ethnic minorities.

While the idea of a unified nation under a fascist state probably died with Mussolini, the extreme racist forms of fascism, empowered by the Internet, are alive and well throughout the world. Why did Gentile and Mussolini believe that war was an essential part of the fascist state? Layton, Julia. The terms have lost much meaning, other than as insults. Even scholars have difficulty in agreeing on a definition of fascism. But as the article notes, scholars do agree on several common characteristics of fascism.

In this activity, you are going to use these characteristics to judge whether particular governments are fascist. Form small groups and review the characteristics of fascism at the beginning of the article. Each group should discuss and decide each of the hypothetical cases below whether each is an example of a totally, mostly, somewhat, or non fascist state.

Case 1: The government of Surs is ruled by one party, whose council of selects the supreme leader. The people vote in other elections, but only one person is on the ballot for each office, as the party nominates all those running.

The supreme leader has complete control of the society. The government owns all the major businesses and runs them in the name of the people. Religious worship is discouraged: No party member belongs to a religious organization.

The prisons are filled with political prisoners. Case 2: The supreme leader of Railkine makes most political decisions and heads the armed forces.

The Assembly of Religious Leaders elects him from the clergy and may remove him. It also approves all candidates running for parliament. The assembly may also veto laws passed by parliament if they go against religious law. The supreme leader has outlawed political parties, closed newspapers, imprisoned dissenters, banned other religions, suppressed minorities, put requirements on how women should dress, and even outlawed dancing.

The supreme leader is building up the military and neighboring countries fear that Railkine will invade and impose its form of government.

Case 3: New Sed is a country with a parliament and a strong tradition of political and religious freedom. Soon after, several Italian cities were seized by Fascist squads, who also burned down Communist and Socialist offices. In October , Mussolini threatened to march on Rome to take control of the government through violent force if it was not handed over.

The government was slow to act, eventually dispatching troops, though Fascists had already seized control of some local governments. He dissolved the government and asked Mussolini to form a new one. Mussolini did not become a dictator overnight, but a speech he gave to the Italian parliament on January 3, asserting his right to supreme power is generally seen as the effective date that Mussolini declared himself dictator of Italy.

Soon after, the Italian parliament made suspicion of being anti-Fascist punishable by imprisonment without trial. The next year police rounded-up Socialists, and the government restricted their publishing activities. A Socialist deputy plotted to assassinate Mussolini, but the betrayal of a friend led to his arrest just before the attempt.

Several other assassination attempts followed. In , Fascists created a youth group called the Opera Nazionale Balilla, pressuring children to join. The Catholic Boy Scouts were dissolved and the formation of other youth groups became illegal. The same year, all Communist members of Parliament were arrested, and all Socialist members expelled.

Anyone who could not be prosecuted for a crime was detained for up to five years and placed in island internment camps. Cinemas were required to screen government propaganda in the form of newsreels. Fascists owned 66 percent of the newspapers and controlled reporting, issuing daily editorial guidelines and threatening editors with arrest. The Order of Journalists was created and membership was mandatory.

Newspapers were allowed to criticize the government as long as they generally expressed support. Mussolini wrote an article in that aligned Italians with the German concept of the Aryan race. When anti-Jewish laws began to appear in Italy, Germany felt they were weak, but Mussolini was prepared to increase their severity as needed. Soon after, Mussolini called for the expulsion of foreign Jews from Italy.

Soon Holland and Belgium also fell to Hitler. Japan would join in September of with the signing of the Tripartite Pact. Italy declared war on France and Great Britain on June 10, By , after years of fighting in World War II , Italy was viewed by its own citizens as losing the war. On July 25, , Mussolini was voted out of power by his own Grand Council, arrested after a visit with the king and sent to the island of La Maddalena.

When Italy accepted the terms of secret peace talks with the Allies, Hitler ordered German forces into Italy, which resulted in two Italian nations, one occupied by Germans. Allied forces barreled through Italy in June