In the chaotic situation which prevailed in the post-war period many came to believe that a Soviet style revolution was possible in Italy. Others tired of what they saw as the lawless activity of industrial workers and peasants, both led by the Socialist Party and--after its
foundation in 1921-- the Communist Party of Italy.

As the post-war governments found it difficult to establish order or to carry out necessary reforms, those who felt threatened gave up hope for governmental solutions and began to rely on their own resources. In their attempts to dislodge peasant squatters and to disrupt
urban workers, they came to depend increasingly on black-shirted squads of Benito Mussolini’s combat groups (fasci di combattimento), the first of which was formed in Milano on March 21, 1919. 

During 1921-1922, the Italian political situation worsened. Parliament, which accurately represented the lack of consensus in the country, found it impossible to cobble together cabinets with any staying power. Meanwhile, the Fascist movement grew stronger and
gained support among a number of important groups: landlords, industrialists, small shopkeepers, and even some sectors of the peasantry and industrial workers. These latter were disillusioned by the infighting between the increasingly fragmented socialists and the
communists; torn by internecine struggles, these parties could not adequately defend the interests of the working classes. Most important, Fascism gained support among those powerful institutions most concerned with promoting stability in the state: the police, the army, and the royal family. 

In these conditions, Mussolini’s threat to march on Rome in October 1922 were taken seriously. Historians still debate the precise role of Victor Emanuel III and his advisors in this crisis, but the King chose not to counter Mussolini’s threat with force. On 31 October
1922 he gave Mussolini the task of forming a cabinet, effectively making him prime minister. 

For more than two years Mussolini served in the capacity of prime minister in a strictly legal sense. Yet he strove to consolidate his power, especially by persecuting the socialists and communists and by promoting a new electoral law that abolished proportional
representation, the Acerbo Electoral Law. On the basis of this new structure and with the violence of the Black Shirts during the ensuing elections, Mussolini and his parliamentary allies managed to win a striking victory. But the assassination of the socialist Giacomo Matteoti, who had criticized the Fascist violence threatened to erode Mussolini’s power. 

On 3 January 1925 he accepted moral responsibility for Matteoti’s murder and began to create a new, totalitarian state. 

The lectures and readings will go deeper into these themes, analyzing more closely Mussolini’s consolidation of power and the institutions through which he ruled.