Latest / The Story of Italy: Rome, Renaissance, and the Birth of Modern Europe — Fexingo History / Benito Mussolini and the Rise of Italian Fascism
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've covered a lot of ancient Rome — sewers, triumphs, the whole republican system. But I think it's time we jump forward a bit, to something that shaped modern Italy in a really dramatic way: the rise of Benito Mussolini and Italian Fascism. Luna: Oh, that's a big leap. From the Roman Republic to the 1920s. Lucas: It is, but the echoes are there. Mussolini actually liked to invoke the glory of ancient Rome — he saw himself as a new Caesar. And the context is crucial: after World War I, Italy was a mess. Millions of soldiers came home to unemployment, inflation, and a government that seemed paralyzed. There was this widespread fear of a Bolshevik-style revolution, and the old liberal elite just couldn't hold things together. Luna: Sounds like a perfect storm for someone like Mussolini. Lucas: Exactly. Mussolini started out as a socialist — he was even editor of Avanti!, the socialist newspaper. But during the war, he broke with the party and campaigned for Italian intervention. After the war, he founded the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, essentially a paramilitary group that used violence against socialists and striking workers. And a quick honest thing — a handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making this many of these. Luna: Yeah, it's wild that something like this is listener-funded without any ads. So these blackshirts — they were basically street fighters? Lucas: Pretty much. They were called squadristi — armed groups that broke up strikes, attacked socialist offices, and intimidated local governments. And they grew fast. By 1922, Mussolini's Fascist Party had about 300,000 members. The liberal government under Prime Minister Luigi Facta was weak and indecisive. And that's when Mussolini decided to make his move. Luna: The March on Rome, right? Lucas: Right. In October 1922, tens of thousands of blackshirts converged on Rome from all over Italy. Facta wanted to declare a state of siege and have the army disperse them. But King Victor Emmanuel III — who had the power to do that — refused to sign the order. We're not entirely sure why. Maybe he feared a civil war, maybe he thought Mussolini could be controlled. Either way, the king invited Mussolini to become prime minister. Mussolini took a train from Milan to Rome, and the 'march' was almost bloodless. He was 39. Luna: So the king basically handed him power? Lucas: Effectively, yes. And once in power, Mussolini moved quickly to consolidate control. In 1923, he passed the Acerbo Law, which gave the party that won the most votes — as long as it was at least 25% — two-thirds of the seats in parliament. In the 1924 election, Fascist squads intimidated voters and rigged the results. Then came the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, a socialist deputy who denounced the fraud in parliament. He was kidnapped and killed by Fascist thugs. The outcry was huge, but Mussolini managed to survive it, and by 1926 he had outlawed all other political parties. Luna: That's chilling. So from that point, it's a full dictatorship. Lucas: Pretty much. Mussolini called himself Il Duce — the leader. He controlled the press, created a secret police called the OVRA, and built a cult of personality. He gave speeches from the balcony of Palazzo Venezia in Rome, overlooking the Piazza Venezia. And he made a big show of restoring order — the trains ran on time, as they say. But the cost was terrifying. One of his most significant moves was the Lateran Treaty of 1929 with the Vatican. It recognized the independence of Vatican City and gave the Church financial compensation for the loss of the Papal States. In return, the Church officially endorsed the Fascist regime. That gave Mussolini huge legitimacy with Italy's Catholic majority. Luna: So the Church essentially made him respectable. Lucas: Exactly. And Mussolini used that. He also wanted to build an empire — he invaded Ethiopia in 1935, using poison gas and bombing civilians. That brought him closer to Hitler, even though he initially had reservations about the Nazis. But by the late 1930s, Italy was firmly in the Axis. And that led to disaster: World War II, military defeats, Allied invasion, and ultimately Mussolini's overthrow in 1943. He was rescued by German paratroopers, set up a puppet state in northern Italy, and was finally captured and executed by partisans in 1945. His body was hung upside down at a gas station in Milan. Luna: A grim end. It's amazing how quickly it all collapsed. Lucas: It is. And so much of it traces back to that moment in 1922 when the king didn't act. It's a reminder of how fragile democracy can be when its defenders lose their nerve. And it's still a sensitive subject in Italy today — there are still people who see Mussolini as a strong leader who made the trains run on time, ignoring the violence and oppression of his regime. Luna: I think a lot of people don't realize how much of his image was manufactured — the whole Duce persona. Lucas: Right, it was a masterclass in propaganda. His speeches were staged, his shirtless photos were carefully posed to look like a Roman athlete. He even had his own 'Mussolini look' — the bald head, the strong jaw. And he controlled every aspect of media. But the reality was a regime that imprisoned thousands of political opponents, forced women back into the home with policies to boost the birth rate, and eventually allied with one of history's greatest monsters. It's a cautionary tale about the allure of strongman politics. Luna: It really is. And it makes you think about how the past echoes into the present. Lucas: Absolutely. That's probably the most important lesson of studying history — seeing the patterns repeat. Well, that's a sobering place to leave it. But it's a chapter of Italian history that really shaped the country we know today, from its constitution to its relationship with the European Union. Luna: Thanks for walking us through it, Lucas. It was a lot, but it's so important. Lucas: My pleasure. And if you want to dive deeper, we can always do a follow-up on the Resistance or the post-war Republic. But for now, I think that's a good place to stop.