1. Mussolini Rise to Power
Il Duce
Mussolini Rise to Power

2. Italy during the 1920s & 1930s

3. What was Italy like during the 1920s & 1930s?
Democracies had been weakened by WWI and Great Depression
Many workers are crippled by WWI or unemployed
Italy feels cheated by Versailles Treaty
Many businessmen are worried about the communists seizing power
Led by a King-Victor Emmanuel III

4. Who was Benito Mussolini?
Son of a Communist blacksmith and a school teacher
Named after Mexican Revolutionary

5. Continued… Communist Newspaper editor
WWI veteran (wounded himself with a hand grenade)
(against war 1911, then pro-Allies in WWI)

6. How does he become Il Duce (“the Leader”)?
Politician who founded the Fascist Party in 1919
What is Fascism?

7. What is Fascism? Fascism: Political Party Advocates totalitarianism
Extreme Nationalism
The State is more important than the individual like Communism
-but doesn’t call for state ownership of property

8. Slogans: “Believe, Obey, Fight”
“The Country Is Nothing Without Conquest”

9. What changes did Mussolini promise?:
He promised :
To revive the economy and rebuild the Armed Forces
Anti-communist
Anti-democracy

10. Industrialist picked him as the lesser of two evils
Monarch or Fascist?
Created the “Black Shirts” (Fascist Thugs)
Mussolini’s private army (thousands)
beat & sometimes killed communists and political rivals.

12. How does he seize power? 1922-
30,000 to 40,000 Fascists march from Milan to Rome and demanded that Mussolini be named Prime Minister of Italy.
The King of Italy was worried that the Fascist would start a civil war so he agreed
Mussolini therefore took power “legally.”

13. Fascists
Fascists

14. What did Mussolini do while in power?
Wanted to rebuild Italy into the Roman Empire
Outlawed strikes
Censored the press
Allied with industrialists and large land owners
Built a strong military
Started public works project to help during the Depression
Secret police jailed opposition leaders
(Summarize 2 or 3 of these facts in your notes)

18. Il Duce (1922 to 1945)
1st of the three great dictators of Europe to come to power
But Mussolini never had absolute and total control over his nation like Stalin or Hitler.