March on Rome

Background[edit]

In March 1919, Benito Mussolini founded the first Italian Fasces of Combat (FIC) at the beginning of the so-called Red Biennium, a two-year long social conflict between the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and the liberal and conservative ruling class. Mussolini suffered a defeat in the election of November 1919.^[3]


During the "two red years", there were numerous strikes, protests against rises in the cost of living, occupations of factories and land by industrial workers or agricultural laborers, and other types of clashes between socialists on one side and landowners and business owners on the other side.^[4] The government tried to play the role of neutral mediator, which dissatisfied both sides.^[5] Local elites felt themselves vulnerable and began to establish an alliance with the small Fascist movement, which contained many veterans of World War I and had a reputation for violence, in the hope of using Fascist paramilitary squads to destroy socialist organizations.^[6]


Since 1919, Fascist militias, known as squadristi or "Blackshirts" due to their uniforms, had been attacking socialist politicians and militants. In August 1920, the Blackshirt militia was used to break the general strike which started at the Alfa Romeo factory in Milan, while in November 1920, after the assassination of Giulio Giordani (a right-wing municipal councillor in Bologna), the Blackshirts were active in the suppression of the socialist movement, which included a strong anarcho-syndicalist component, especially in the Po Valley.


Local elections in 1920 were won by the socialists in many towns, cities and villages across Italy, and in response Fascist militias attacked union organizers and municipal administrators, making it difficult for local governments to function.^[7] A local deputy from the town of Budrio sent a telegram to the prime minister in October 1921 to report that the Fascists had effectively taken over, that "unions and socialist clubs [were] ordered to dissolve themselves within 48 hours or face physical destruction" and that the "life of the town is paralysed, authorities impotent".^[8] Similar situations also occurred in other towns across Northern and Central Italy from 1920 to 1922.^[9] The police repeatedly failed to intervene against Fascist violence, and in some cases police officers openly supported the Fascists and supplied them with weapons.^[10]


In the 1921 general election the Fascists ran within the National Blocs of Giovanni Giolitti, an anti-socialist coalition of liberals, conservatives and fascists. The Fascists won 35 seats and Mussolini was elected in the Parliament for the first time.


After a few weeks, Mussolini withdrew his support for Giolitti and his Italian Liberal Party (Partito Liberale Italiano, PLI) and attempted to work out a temporary truce with the Socialists by signing the so-called "Pact of Pacification" in the summer of 1921. The Pact led to many protests by the radical members of the Fascist movement, led by local leaders like Roberto Farinacci, who were known as Ras. In July 1921, Giolitti attempted to dissolve the Blackshirts, but he failed; while the Pact with the Socialists was nullified during the Third Fascist Congress on 7–10 November 1921, during which Mussolini promoted a nationalist program and renamed his movement National Fascist Party (PNF), which enrolled 320,000 members by late 1921.^[11]


In August 1922, an anti-fascist general strike was organized throughout the country by the socialists. Mussolini declared that the Fascists would suppress the strike themselves if the government did not immediately intervene to stop it, which enabled him to position the Fascist Party as a defender of law and order.^[12] On 2 August, in Ancona, Fascist squads moved in from the countryside and razed all buildings occupied by socialists.^[12] This was then repeated in Genoa and other cities.^[12]


In Milan, on 3 and 4 August, there was street fighting between socialists and fascists; the fascists destroyed the printing presses of the socialist newspaper Avanti! and burned its buildings.^[12] Then, with the support of local business owners, they took over local government and expelled the elected socialist administration from the town hall.^[12]


The Italian national government in Rome did nothing to react to these developments, and its inaction prompted Mussolini to begin planning a march on Rome.^[12] From their new power base in Milan, the Fascists gathered the financial support of large companies who were determined to fight against "strikes, bolshevism and nationalization".^[13] A delegation from the General Confederation of Italian Industry met with Mussolini two days before the March on Rome.^[14] Also a few days before the march, Mussolini consulted with the U.S. Ambassador Richard Washburn Child about whether the U.S. government would object to Fascist participation in a future Italian government and Child gave him American support. When Mussolini learned that Prime Minister Luigi Facta had given Gabriele D'Annunzio the mission to organize a large demonstration on 4 November 1922 to celebrate the national victory during the war, he decided to immediately implement the March.^[15]