Fascism Favorable to Business

Benito Mussolini

Mussolini was supported by the military, the business class, and the liberal right-wing.

In political and social economy, he passed legislation that favored the wealthy industrial and agrarian classes (privatisations, liberalisations of rent laws and dismantlement of the unions)

Mussolini later confessed that a few resolute men could have altered public opinion and started a coup that would have swept fascism away.

The king, fearful of violence from the Fascist squadristi, kept Mussolini in office.

Fearing a revolt by his own militants, Mussolini decided to drop all trappings of democracy.

Mussolini admired The Republic, which he often read for inspiration.^[50] The Republic held a number of ideas that fascism promoted such as rule by an elite promoting the state as the ultimate end, opposition to democracy, protecting the class system and promoting class collaboration, rejection of egalitarianism, promoting the militarization of a nation by creating a class of warriors, demanding that citizens perform civic duties in the interest of the state, and utilizing state intervention in education to promote the creation of warriors and future rulers of the state.^[51] The Republic differed from fascism in that it did not promote aggressive war but only defensive war, unlike fascism it promoted very communist-like views on property, and Plato was an idealist focused on achieving justice and morality while Mussolini and fascism were realist, focused on achieving political goals.^[52]

Definition of FASCISM

1

often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorialleader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

2

: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control fascism and brutality — J. W. Aldridge>

In his summary, the Inspector also notes:

He was the ideal editor of Avanti! for the Socialists. In that line of work he was greatly esteemed and beloved. Some of his former comrades and admirers still confess that there was no one who understood better how to interpret the spirit of the proletariat and there was no one who did not observe his apostasy with sorrow. This came about not for reasons of self-interest or money. He was a sincere and passionate advocate, first of vigilant and armed neutrality, and later of war; and he did not believe that he was compromising with his personal and political honesty by making use of every means – no matter where they came from or wherever he might obtain them – to pay for his newspaper, his program and his line of action. This was his initial line. It is difficult to say to what extent his socialist convictions (which he never either openly or privately abjure) may have been sacrificed in the course of the indispensable financial deals which were necessary for the continuation of the struggle in which he was engaged... But assuming these modifications did take place ... he always wanted to give the appearance of still being a socialist, and he fooled himself into thinking that this was the case.^[32]

Sorel's emphasis on the need for overthrowing decadent liberal Democracy and Capitalism by the use of violence, direct action, the general strike, and the use of neo-Machiavellian appeals to emotion, impressed Mussolini deeply.^[6]

(Karma for the businesses that supported him)

At various times after 1922, 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 was also head of the all-powerful Fascist Party and the armed local fascist militia, the MVSN or "Blackshirts", who terrorised incipient resistances in the cities and provinces. He would later form the OVRA, an institutionalised secret police that carried official state support. In this way he succeeded in keeping power in his own hands and preventing the emergence of any rival.

Between 1925 and 1927, Mussolini progressively dismantled virtually all constitutional and conventional restraints on his power, thereby building a police state.

Local autonomy was abolished, and podestàs appointed by the Italian Senatereplaced elected mayors and councils.

Mussolini wrote to Mori:

"Your Excellency has carte blanche; the authority of the State must absolutely, I repeat absolutely, be re-established in Sicily. If the laws still in force hinder you, this will be no problem, as we will draw up new laws."^[65]

He did not hesitate laying siege to towns, using torture, and holding women and children as hostages to oblige suspects to give themselves up. These harsh methods earned him the nickname of "Iron Prefect". In 1927 Mori's inquiries brought evidence of collusion between the Mafia and the Fascist establishment, and he was dismissed for length of service in 1929. Mussolini nominated Mori as a senator, and fascist propaganda claimed that the Mafia had been defeated.

Economic policy

Mussolini launched several public construction programs and government initiatives throughout Italy to combat economic setbacks or unemployment levels.

The Battle for Wheat diverted valuable resources to wheat production away from other more economically viable crops. Landowners grew wheat on unsuitable soil using all the advances of modern science, and although the wheat harvest increased, prices rose, consumption fell and high tariffswere imposed.^[66] The tariffs promoted widespread inefficiencies and the governmentsubsidies given to farmers pushed the country further into debt.

Mussolini also initiated the "Battle for Land", a policy based on land reclamation outlined in 1928. The initiative had a mixed success; while projects such as the draining of the Pontine Marsh in 1935 for agriculture were good for propaganda purposes, provided work for the unemployed and allowed for great land owners to control subsidies, other areas in the Battle for Land were not very successful. This program was inconsistent with the Battle for Wheat (small plots of land were inappropriately allocated for large-scale wheat production), and the Pontine Marsh was lost during World War II. Fewer than 10,000peasants resettled on the redistributed land, and peasant poverty remained high.

He also combated an economic recession by introducing the "Gold for the Fatherland" initiative, by encouraging the public to voluntarily donate gold jewellery such as necklaces and wedding rings to government officials in exchange for steel wristbands bearing the words "Gold for the Fatherland". Even Rachele Mussolini donated her own wedding ring. The collected gold was then melted down and turned into gold bars, which were then distributed to the national banks.

Mussolini pushed for government control of business: by 1935, Mussolini claimed that three quarters of Italian businesses were under state control. That same year, he issued several edicts to further control the economy, including forcing all banks, businesses, and private citizens to give up all their foreign-issued stocks and bonds to the Bank of Italy. In 1938, he also instituted wage and price controls.

Mussolini's foremost priority was the subjugation of the minds of the Italian people and the use of propaganda to do so. Press, radio, education, films—all were carefully supervised to create the illusion that fascism was the doctrine of the twentieth century, replacing liberalism and democracy.^{[citation needed]} A lavish cult of personality centered on Mussolini was promoted by the regime.

After 1929, Mussolini, with his anti-Communist doctrines, convinced many Catholics to actively support him.

The law codes of the parliamentary system were rewritten under Mussolini. 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 who did not possess a certificate of approval from the fascist party could practice journalism. These certificates were issued in secret; Mussolini thus skillfully created the illusion of a "free press". The trade unions were also deprived of any independence and were integrated into what was called the "corporative" system. The aim (never completely achieved), inspired by medieval guilds, was to place all Italians in various professional organizations or "corporations", all of which were under clandestine governmental control.

Large sums of money were spent on highly visible public works, and on international prestige projects.

Nationalists in the years after the war thought of themselves as combating the both liberal and domineering institutions created by cabinets such as those of Giovanni Giolitti, including traditional schooling.

Mussolini assigned former ardito and deputy-secretary for Education Renato Ricci the task of "reorganizing the youth from a moral and physical point of view".

According to Mussolini: "Fascist education is moral, physical, social, and military: it aims to create a complete and harmoniously developed human, a fascist one according to our views". Mussolini structured this process taking in view the emotional side of childhood: "Childhood and adolescence alike ... cannot be fed solely by concerts, theories, and abstract teaching. The truth we aim to teach them should appeal foremost to their fantasy, to their hearts, and only then to their minds".

The "educational value set through action and example" was to replace the established approaches. Fascism opposed its version of idealism to prevalent rationalism, and used the Opera Nazionale Balilla to circumvent educational tradition by imposing the collective and hierarchy, as well as Mussolini's own personality cult.

In politics, rationalism is a development of the Enlightenment that emphasizes a "politics of reason" centred upon support of the concepts of rational choice and utilitarianism; this has especially been promoted by liberalism.^[1]

Proponents of some varieties of rationalism argue that, starting with foundational basic principles, like the axioms of geometry, one could deductively derive the rest of all possible knowledge. The philosophers who held this view most clearly were Baruch Spinozaand Gottfried Leibniz, whose attempts to grapple with the epistemological and metaphysical problems raised by Descartes led to a development of the fundamental approach of rationalism. Both Spinoza and Leibniz asserted that, in principle, all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be gained through the use of reason alone, though they both observed that this was not possible in practice for human beings except in specific areas such as mathematics.

Rationalism is predicting and explaining behavior based on logic.

In foreign policy, Mussolini soon shifted from the anti-imperialism of his lead-up to power to an extreme form of aggressive nationalism. He dreamt of making Italy a nation that was "great, respected, and feared" throughout Europe, and indeed the world.

Although all of the major European powers of the time had also colonised parts of Africa and committed atrocities in their colonies, theScramble for Africa had finished by the beginning of the twentieth century. The international mood was now against colonialist expansion and Italy's actions were condemned. Retroactively, Italy was criticised for its use of mustard gas and phosgeneagainst its enemies and also for its zero tolerance approach to enemy guerrillas, allegedly authorised by Mussolini.

Spanish Civil War

Main articles: Spanish Civil War and Foreign Involvement andCorpo Truppe Volontarie

Italian military help to Nationalists against the anti-clerical and anti-Catholic atrocities committed by the Republican side worked well in Italian propaganda targeting Catholics. On 27 July 1936 the first squadron of Italian airplanes sent by Benito Mussolini arrived in Spain.^[72] This active intervention in 1936–1939 on the side of Franco in the Spanish Civil War ended any possibility of reconciliation with France and Britain. As a result, his relationship with Adolf Hitler became closer, and he chose to accept the Germanannexation of Austria in 1938 and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1939. At theMunich Conference in September 1938, he posed as a moderate working for European peace, helping Nazi Germany seize control of the Sudetenland. His "axis" with Germany was confirmed when he made the "Pact of Steel" with Hitler in May 1939, as the previous "Rome-Berlin Axis" of 1936 had been unofficial. Members of TIGR, a Slovene anti-fascist group, plotted to kill Mussolini in Kobarid in 1938, but their attempt was unsuccessful.

Main articles: Rome-Berlin Axis and Pact of Steel

Mussolini and Adolf Hitler in Munich, June 1940.

The relationship between Mussolini and Adolf Hitler was a contentious one early on. While Hitler cited Mussolini as an influence and expressed privately great admiration for him,^[73] Mussolini had little regard for Hitler, especially after the Nazis had assassinated his friend and ally,Engelbert Dollfuss the Austrofascist dictator of Austria in 1934.

Mussolini during this period rejected biological racism, at least in the Nazi sense, and instead emphasized "Italianizing" the parts of the Italian Empire he had desired to build.

He declared that the ideas of Eugenics and the racially charged concept of an Aryan nationwere not possible.

(It's so ironic that the biggest jerk-offs are the ones so concerned with being superior.)

Mussolini was particularly sensitive to German accusations that the Italians were a mongrelized race. He retaliated by mockingly referring to the Germans' own lack of racial purity on several occasions.

"...a Germanic race does not exist. Various movements. Curiosity. Stupor. We repeat. Does not exist. We don't say so. Scientists say so. Hitler says so." —Benito Mussolini, 1934 (Oooh. Burn, Hitler) “ [When the] city dies, the nation — deprived of the young life-blood of new generations — is now made up of people who are old and degenerate and cannot defend itself against a younger people which launches an attack on the now unguarded frontiers [...] This will happen, and not just to cities and nations, but on an infinitely greater scale: the whole White race, the Western race can be submerged by other coloured races which are multiplying at a rate unknown in our race. —Benito Mussolini, 1928.” (typical double-talk.) By 1938, the enormous influence Hitler now had over Mussolini became clear with the introduction of the Manifesto of Race. The German influence on Italian policy upset the established balance in Fascist Italy and proved highly unpopular to most Italians, to the extent that Pope Pius XII sent a letter to Mussolini protesting against the new laws. It has been widely speculated that Mussolini's reasoning to adopt the Manifesto of Race in 1938 was merely tactical, in order to strengthen Italy's relations with Germany. In 1937, the Muslims of Libya presented Mussolini with the "Sword of Islam" while Fascist propaganda pronounced him as the "Protector of Islam."[84] After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he declared war on the United States on 11 December 1941.[93] An interesting evidence regarding Mussolini's response to the attack on Pearl Harbor comes from the diary of his Foreign Minister Ciano: "A night telephone call from Ribbentrop. He is overjoyed about the Japanese attack on America. He is so happy about it that I am happy with him, though I am not too sure about the final advantages of what has happened. One thing is now certain, that America will enter the conflict and that the conflict will be so long that she will be able to realize all her potential forces. This morning I told this to the King who had been pleased about the event. He ended by admitting that, in the long run, I may be right. Mussolini was happy, too. For a long time he has favored a definite clarification of relations between America and the Axis". The Italian home front was also in bad shape as the Allied bombings were taking their toll. Factories all over Italy were brought to a virtual standstill due to a lack of raw materials, as well as coal and oil. Additionally, there was a chronic shortage of food, and what food was available was being sold at nearly confiscatory prices. Mussolini's once-ubiquitous propaganda machine lost its grip on the people; a large number of Italians turned to Vatican Radio or Radio London for more accurate news coverage.

Discontent came to a head in March 1943 with a wave of labor strikes in the industrial north—the first large-scale strikes since 1925.[99] Also in March, some of the major factories in Milan and Turin stopped production to secure evacuation allowances for workers' families. With several of his colleagues close to revolt, Mussolini was forced to summon the Grand Council of Fascism.

Building a dictatorship

Assassination attempts

Mussolini's influence in propaganda was such that he had surprisingly little opposition to suppress. Nonetheless, he was "slightly wounded in the nose" when he was shot on 7 April 1926 by Violet Gibson, an Irish woman and daughter of Baron Ashbourne.^[59] On 31 October 1926, 15-year-old Anteo Zamboni attempted to shoot Mussolini in Bologna. Zamboni was lynched on the spot.^[60][61] Mussolini also survived a failed assassination attempt in Rome by anarchist Gino Lucetti,^[62] and a planned attempt by the Italian anarchist Michele Schirru,^[63] which ended with Schirru's capture and execution.^[64]

Mussolini regarded his time at a religious boarding school as punishment, compared the experience to hell, and "once refused to go to morning mass and had to be dragged there by force.

He believed that science had proven there was no God, and that the historical Jesus was ignorant and mad. He considered religion a disease of the psyche, and accused Christianity of promoting resignation and cowardice.

"In Nietzsche he found justification for his crusade against the Christian virtues of humility, resignation, charity, and goodness."^[112] He valued Nietzsche's concept of the superman, "The supreme egoist who defied both God and the masses, who despised egalitarianism and democracy, who believed in the weakest going to the wall and pushing them if they did not go fast enough."

Mussolini would try to win popular support by appeasing the Catholic majority in Italy.

Under the Lateran Pact, Vatican City was granted independent statehood and placed under Church law—rather than Italian law—and the Catholic religion was recognized as Italy's state religion.^[116] The Church also regained authority over marriage, Catholicism could be taught in all secondary schools, birth control and freemasonry were banned, and the clergy received subsidies from the state, and was exempted from taxation.

(and the Church sells out)

Pope Pius XI praised Mussolini, and the official Catholic newspaper pronounced "Italy has been given back to God and God to Italy."

(Sooo blatant.)

In 1938 Mussolini began reasserting his anti-clericalism. He would sometimes refer to himself as an "outright disbeliever," and once told his cabinet that "Islam was perhaps a more effective religion than Christianity" and that the "papacy was a malignant tumor in the body of Italy and must 'be rooted out once and for all', because there was no room in Rome for both the Pope and himself."^[119] He would publicly back down from these anti-clerical statements, but continued making similar statements in private.

Mussolini's widow, Rachele, stated that her husband had remained "basicallyirreligious until the later years of his life.

Audisio was the communist partisan commander who was reportedly given the order to kill Mussolini by the National Liberation Committee. When Audisio entered the room where Mussolini and the other fascists were being held, he reportedly announced, "I have come to rescue you!... Do you have any weapons?" He then had them loaded into transports and driven a short distance. Audisio ordered, "Get down"; Petacci hugged Mussolini and refused to move away from him when they were taken to an empty space. Shots were fired and Petacci fell down. Just then Mussolini opened his jacket and screamed, "Shoot me in the chest!" Audisio complied and shot him in the chest. Mussolini fell but did not die and was breathing heavily.

Audisio went near and he shot one more bullet in his chest. Mussolini's face looked as if he had significant pain. Audisio said to his driver, "Look at his face, the emotions on his face don't suit him."

On 29 April 1945, the bodies of Mussolini, Petacci, and the other executed Fascists were loaded into a moving van and trucked south to Milan. There, at 3:00 am, they were dumped on the ground in the old Piazzale Loreto. The piazza had been renamed "Piazza Quindici Martiri" in honor of 15 anti-Fascists recently executed there.^[125]

After being shot, kicked, and spat upon, the bodies were hung upside down on meathooks from the roof of an Esso gas station.

His oldest son, Benito Albino Mussolini, from his marriage with Ida Dalser, was ordered to stop declaring that Mussolini was his father and in 1935 forcibly committed to an asylum in Milan, where he was murdered on 26 August 1942 after repeated coma-inducing injections.^[43] Actress Sophia Loren's sister, Anna Maria Scicolone, was formerly married to Romano Mussolini, Mussolini's son. Mussolini's granddaughter Alessandra Mussolini was a member of the European Parliament for the far right party Alternativa Sociale and currently serves in the Chamber of Deputies as a member of the ruling People of Freedom.

Mussolini's National Fascist Party was banned in the postwar Constitution of Italy, but a number of successor neo-fascist parties emerged to carry on its legacy. Historically, the strongest neo-fascist party was MSI (Movimento Sociale Italiano), which was declared dissolved in 1995 and replaced by the National Alliance, which distanced itself from Fascism (its leader Gianfranco Fini once declared that Fascism was "an absolute evil"). These parties were united under Silvio Berlusconi's House of Freedoms coalition and in 2009 a broad based group of right-wing parties, including Gianfranco Fini's National Alliance and Alessandra Mussolini's Azione Sociale, were merged to create The People of Freedom party led by Prime Minister Berlusconi.

(people will never learn.)

A comic strip ran in the British comic The Beano entitled Musso the Wop. This strip which ran from 1940 to 1943 featured Mussolini as an arrogant buffoon.

Mussolini had a number of mistresses among themMargherita Sarfatti and his final companion, Clara Petacci. Furthermore, Mussolini had innumerable brief sexual encounters with female supporters as reported by his biographer Nicholas Farrell.^[108]

For two years, Mussolini lived in Gargnano on Lake Garda in Lombardy during this period. Although he insisted in public that he was in full control, he himself knew that he was little more than a puppet ruler under the protection of his German liberators—for all intents and purposes, the Gauleiter of Lombardy.^[101] After yielding to pressures from Hitler and the remaining loyal fascists who formed the government of the Republic of Salo, Mussolini helped orchestrate a series of executions of some of the fascist leaders who had betrayed him at the last meeting of the Fascist Grand Council. One of those executed included his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano. As Head of State and Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Italian Social Republic, Mussolini used much of his time to write his memoirs. Along with his autobiographical writings of 1928, these writings would be combined and published by Da Capo Press as My Rise and Fall. In an interview in January 1945, a few months before he was captured and executed by Italian anti-fascist partisans, he stated flatly: "Seven years ago, I was an interesting person. Now, I am little more then a corpse." He continued:

“	Yes, madam, I am finished. My star has fallen. I have no fight left in me. I work and I try, yet know that all is but a farce... I await the end of the tragedy and – strangely detached from everything – I do not feel any more an actor. I feel I am the last of spectators.	”
—Benito Mussolini, interviewed in early 1945 by Madeleine Mollier.[107]

(You reap what you sow)

Contents of the Fascist Manifesto

Universal suffrage polled on a regional basis, with proportional representation and voting and electoral office eligibility for women;

Proportional representation on a regional basis;

Voting for women (which was opposed by most other European nations);

Representation at government level of newly created national councils by economic sector;

The abolition of the Italian Senate (at the time, the senate, as the upper house of parliament, was by process elected by the wealthier citizens, but were in reality direct appointments by the king. It has been described as a sort of extended council of the crown);

The formation of a national council of experts for labor, for industry, for transportation, for the public health, for communications, etc. Selections to be made of professionals or of tradesmen with legislative powers, and elected directly to a general commission with ministerial powers (this concept was rooted in corporatistideology and derived in part from Catholic social doctrine).

In labour and social policy, the manifesto calls for:

• The quick enactment of a law of the state that sanctions an eight-hour workday for all workers;
• A minimum wage;
• The participation of workers' representatives in the functions of industry commissions;
• To show the same confidence in the labor unions (that prove to be technically and morally worthy) as is given to industry executives or public servants;
• Reorganisation of the railways and the transport sector;
• Revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance;
• Reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55.

In military affairs, the manifesto advocates:

• Creation of a short-service national militia with specifically defensive responsibilities;
• Armaments factories are to be nationalised;
• A peaceful but competitive foreign policy.

In finance, the manifesto advocates:

• A strong progressive tax on capital (envisaging a “partial expropriation” of concentrated wealth);
• The seizure of all the possessions of the religious congregations and the abolition of all the bishoprics, which constitute an enormous liability on the Nation and on the privileges of the poor;
• Revision of all contracts for military provisions;
• The revision of all military contracts and the seizure of 85 percent of the profits therein.

The manifesto thus combined elements of contemporary democratic and progressive thought (franchise reform, labour reform, limited nationalisation, taxes on wealth and war profits) with corporatist emphasis on class collaboration (the idea of social classes existing side by side and collaborating for the sake of national interests; the opposite of the Marxist notion of class struggle).

Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialistperspective.

Marx's notion of class has nothing to do with social class in the sociological sense of upper, middle and lower classes (which are often defined in terms of quantitative income or wealth). Instead, in an age of capitalism, Marx describes an economic class.

Marx talks mainly about two classes that include the vast majority of the population, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

Marxist analysis of society identifies two main social groups:

• Labour (the proletariat or workers) includes anyone who earns their livelihood by selling their labor power and being paid a wage or salary for their labor time. They have little choice but to work for capital, since they typically have no independent way to survive.
• Capital (the bourgeoisie or capitalists) includes anyone who gets their income not from labor as much as from the surplus value they appropriate from the workers who create wealth. The income of the capitalists, therefore, is based on their exploitation of the workers (proletariat).

Marx thought that this conflict was central to the social structure of capitalism and could not be abolished without replacing the system itself. Further, he argued that the objective conditions under capitalism would likely develop in a way that encouraged a proletariat organized collectively for its own goals to develop: the accumulation of surplus value as more means of production by the capitalists would allow them to become more and more powerful, encouraging overt class conflict. If this is not counteracted by increasing political and economic organization by workers, it would inevitably cause an extreme polarization of the classes, encouraging the revolution that would destroy capitalism itself.