Italian fascism
Italian fascism (Italian: fascismo italiano), also classical fascism and Fascism, is the original fascist ideology, which Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini developed in Italy. The ideology of Italian Fascism is associated with a series of political parties led by Mussolini: the National Fascist Party (PNF), which governed the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, and the Republican Fascist Party (PFR), which governed the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945. Italian fascism also is associated with the post–war Italian Social Movement (MSI) and later Italian neo-fascist political organisations.
"Fascist era" redirects here. For the fascist calendar, see Era Fascista. For the Italian fascist regimes, see Fascist Italy and Italian Social Republic.
Italian fascism originated from ideological combinations of ultranationalism and Italian nationalism, national syndicalism and revolutionary nationalism, and from the militarism of Italian irredentism to regain "lost overseas territories of Italy" deemed necessary to restore Italian nationalist pride.[1] Italian Fascists also claimed that modern Italy was an heiress to the imperial legacy of Ancient Rome. That there existed historical proof that supported the creation of an Imperial Fascist Italy to provide spazio vitale (vital space) for the Second Italo-Senussi War of Italian settler colonisation en route to establishing hegemonic control of the terrestrial basin of the Mediterranean Sea.[2]
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.[3] This economic system intended to resolve class conflict through collaboration between the classes.[4]
Italian fascism opposed liberalism, especially classical liberalism, which fascist leaders denounced as "the debacle of individualism".[5][6] Fascism was opposed to socialism because of the latter's frequent opposition to nationalism,[7] but it was also opposed to the reactionary conservatism developed by Joseph de Maistre.[8] 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.[9]
Originally, many Italian fascists were opposed to Nazism, as fascism in Italy did not espouse Nordicism nor, initially, the antisemitism inherent in Nazi ideology; however, many fascists, in particular Mussolini himself, held racist ideas (specifically anti-Slavism[10]) that were enshrined into law as official policy over the course of fascist rule.[11] As Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany grew politically closer in the latter half of the 1930s, Italian laws and policies became explicitly antisemitic due to pressure from Nazi Germany (even though antisemitic laws were not commonly enforced in Italy), including the passage of the Italian racial laws.[12] When the fascists were in power, they also persecuted some linguistic minorities in Italy.[13][14] In addition, the Greeks in Dodecanese and Northern Epirus, which were then under Italian occupation and influence, were persecuted.[15]