Question

Describe fascism and how it took root in Italy

Answer 1

Italian Fascism (Italian: fascismo italiano), also known simply as Fascism (Italian: fascismo), is the original fascist ideology as developed in Italy. The ideology is associated with a series of three political parties led by Benito Mussolini: the Fascist Revolutionary Party (PFR) founded in 1915,[1] the succeeding National Fascist Party (PNF) which was renamed at the Third Fascist Congress on 7–10 November 1921 and ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943 and the Republican Fascist Party that ruled the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945. Italian Fascism is also associated with the post-war Italian Social Movement and subsequent Italian neo-fascist movements.

Italian Fascism was rooted in Italian nationalism, national syndicalism and the desire to restore and expand Italian territories, which Italian Fascists deemed necessary for a nation to assert its superiority and strength and to avoid succumbing to decay.[2] Italian Fascists also claimed that modern Italy is the heir to ancient Rome and its legacy and historically supported the creation of an Italian Empire to provide spazio vitale ("living space") for colonization by Italian settlers and to establish control over the Mediterranean Sea.[3]

Italian Fascism promoted a corporatist economic system whereby employer and employee syndicates are linked together in associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy.[4] This economic system intended to resolve class conflict through collaboration between the classes.[5]

Italian Fascism opposed liberalism, especially classical liberalism that Mussolini and Fascist leaders denounced as "the debacle of individualism",[6] but rather than seeking a reactionary restoration of the pre-French Revolutionary world, which it considered to have been flawed, it had a forward-looking direction.[7] It was opposed to Marxist socialism because of its typical opposition to nationalism,[8] but was also opposed to the reactionary conservatism developed by Joseph de Maistre.[9] It believed the success of Italian nationalism required respect for tradition and a clear sense of a shared past among the Italian people, alongside a commitment to a modernised Italy.[10]