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Benito Mussolini: Power
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As Prime Minister, the first years of Mussolini's rule were characterized by a right-wing coalition government composed of Fascists, nationalists, liberals and even two Catholic ministers from the Popular Party. The Fascists made up a small minority in his original governments. Nonetheless, Mussolini's domestic goal was the eventual establishment of a totalitarian state with himself as supreme leader (Il Duce) a message that was articulated by the Fascist newspaper Il Popolo which was now edited by Mussolini's brother Arnaldo. To that end, Mussolini obtained dictatorial powers for one year. He favored the complete restoration of state authority, with the integration of the Fasci di Combattimento into the armed forces (the foundation in January 1923 of the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale) and the progressive identification of the party with the state. 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).[6]
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Mussolini had become a member of the Socialist Party in 1900 and had begun to attract wide admiration. In speeches and articles he was extreme and violent, urging revolution at any cost, but he was ... well spoken. Mussolini held several posts as editor and labor leader until he emerged in the 1912 Socialist Party Congress. He became editor of the party's daily paper, Avanti, at the age of twenty-nine. His powerful writing injected excitement into the Socialist ranks. In a party that had accomplished little in recent years, his youth and his intense nature was an advantage.
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At first Mussolini was supported by the Liberals in parliament. With their help, he introduced strict censorship and altered the methods of election so that in 1925–1926 he was able to assume dictatorial powers and dissolve all other political parties. Skillfully using his absolute control over the press, he gradually built up the legend of Il duce, a man who never slept, was always right, and could solve all the problems of politics and economics. Italy was soon a police state. The assassination of the prominent Socialist Giacomo Matteotti in 1924, began a prolonged political crisis in Italy, which did not end until the beginning of 1925 when Mussolini asserted his personal authority over both country and party to establish a personal dictatorship. But Mussolini's skill in propaganda was such that he had surprisingly little opposition to suppress.
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During the chaos that gripped Italy after the war, Mussolini's influence grew swiftly. Into an army of supporters who wore black shirts (the symbolic uniform of anarchists) he recruited discontented Socialists, veterans, the unemployed - all the dissidents who believed that only a ruthless dictator could revitalize Italy. By 1922 crowds of peasants were spellbound by his magnetism and oratory and his backers were powerful enough to force King Victor Emmanuel III to bow before a Fascist march on Rome to seize the government. The king named Mussolini prime minister, Italy's youngest ever. He then became dictator and was called Il Duce (The Leader).
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Once in power, Mussolini attacked the problem of survival. With accomplished tact, he set general elections, violated their constitutional norms freely, and concluded them in 1924 with an absolute majority in Parliament. But the assassination immediately thereafter of the Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti, a noted opponent, by Fascist hirelings suddenly reversed his fortunes, threw his regime into crisis, and nearly toppled him. Mussolini... recouped and with his pivotal speech of Jan. 3, 1925, took the offensive. He suppressed civil liberties, annihilated the opposition, and imposed open dictatorship. Between 1926 and 1929 Mussolini moved to consolidate his regime through the enactment of "the most Fascist laws" (le leggi fascistissime).
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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 ... 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.
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