Activa JavaScript para disfrutar de los vídeos de la Mediateca.
Fascism in Italy - Contenido educativo
Ajuste de pantallaEl ajuste de pantalla se aprecia al ver el vídeo en pantalla completa. Elige la presentación que más te guste:
Hello class, today I am going to explain the crisis of democracy in Italy and the merge of fascism during the interwar period.
00:00:00
Italy at that moment was the first European country with a parliamentary democracy, where the consequences of the First World War led to a rise in nationalist and authoritarian political movements.
00:00:12
These movements led to the establishment of an undemocratic and dictatorial system that we are going to explain today.
00:00:28
What were the causes of fascism in Italy?
00:00:37
I would say, first of all, the dissatisfaction with the peace agreements which were signed during the First World War.
00:00:42
During this important conflict, Italy signed with the Allies the famous Treaty of London in 1915.
00:00:53
In this treaty, the Allies promised to the Italians the areas of Trentino, Istria together with Trieste, and also the areas of Fiume, which was an important city, and the area of Dalmatia.
00:01:04
But in the end, the Italians were not able to get all these territories that the Allies promised them because they were not able to get Fiume and Dalmatia, which caused widespread dissatisfaction in the country.
00:01:26
This is the first cause.
00:01:50
The second cause was the political instability in the country because the liberal government was in decline and there were five governments only from 1919 to 1922.
00:01:53
So, without doubt, political instability was also a problem. No political party of the monarchy of Victor Emmanuel III was able to win a sufficient majority and as a consequence, as I said before, there were five governments only from 1919 to 1922.
00:02:13
Also, the third cause was the post-war situation because we really need to remember the consequences of the First World War where Mussolini took part. He was also an Italian soldier.
00:02:39
The war caused the human and economic consequences of the war in Italy were very, very important. They were, in reality, extremely severe. Pay attention to the data.
00:02:58
700,000 men were killed. 700,000 Italians were killed in the war. Many factories, many industries were also destroyed. And for many Italians, the cost of living rose and real wages fell. And for this reason, unemployment kept growing.
00:03:18
The post-war situation led to an economic crisis due to the levels of unemployment, inflation, which caused social unrest.
00:03:46
Why? Because there were, at that moment in Italy, many workers' strikes with revolutionary goals encouraged by the Soviet revolution, by the Soviet example, which spread throughout northern Italy above all because there were in northern Italy a lot of factories at that moment.
00:03:58
Some farmers also occupied the land of the big landowners and the workers seized, took over numerous factories. So the situation was like a revolution, like an important revolution, quite similar to the Russian revolution.
00:04:23
And for this reason, all these movements were repressed by the state. But fear of the workers' revolution spread among the more conservative classes. And this is the opportunity that Mussolini took to emerge from the crisis.
00:04:46
So Mussolini took advantage of this situation. He really took advantage of this situation. He was a journalist before the war. Actually, he was a socialist. But he changed his mindset, his mentality during the war.
00:05:13
Benito Mussolini emerged from this situation, from the unstable situation, and in 1919 he created the Fasci. The Fasci, which were known among the people at that moment as the Black Search, because they wore black shirts.
00:05:35
But for the vast majority of the historians, they are known as the Italian Combat Squad.
00:05:57
The Fasci, in 1921, two years later on, became the National Fascist Party. And both movements had a quite similar program.
00:06:06
They wanted to stop the revolutionary movement in Italy. They wanted to quash the socialists, the communists. Both of them wanted to create a strong state to defend their private property.
00:06:24
And also, both of them wanted to develop expansionist foreign policy. They wanted to bring back the territories from the Roman Empire.
00:06:41
They wanted to take over again the Mediterranean Sea and spread the Italian territories over Africa, as you can see here, and also over some parts of Europe. They wanted definitely to make Italy great again.
00:06:57
So both movements, as I said before, wanted to stop the workers' movement among socialists and communists, whose leader was Antonio Gramsci.
00:07:18
So, from the very beginning, the fascist movement received the help from large landowners, the bourgeoisie, the Catholic Church, and also the help from the king, Victor Emmanuel III.
00:07:33
However, now we are going to explain how it was possible for the fascists to rise to power.
00:07:57
And I would say that in the elections in 1922, the fascists did it badly because they only got 22 deputies out of a 500-deputy parliament.
00:08:06
So, in reality, they did it badly in the general elections because they only got 22 deputies out of a 500-deputy parliament. It was a very bad result.
00:08:31
But the liberal government at that time was completely unable, they were not able to control the strikes which were organized by the trade unions, by the socialists, together with the anarchists.
00:08:49
Who were the ones who managed to bring back the order? Exactly, the black shirts. And for this reason, Mussolini took advantage of this moment, and despite his defeat in the general elections, he claimed the power.
00:09:09
And in order to increase the pressure over the government, here we have the main figure in the liberal government, Antonio Salandra. Exactly, in order to increase the pressure over the government, he organized the March on Rome.
00:09:32
When many, many black shirts from all over Italy marched on the city of Rome to claim the power. The fascist propaganda said that, in reality, 300,000 black shirts from all over Italy marched on the city of Rome to get the power.
00:09:54
But now we know that this figure, this data, was completely unreal. It was from the Italian, from the fascist propaganda, because in reality only 25,000 black shirts marched on the city of Rome, above all from northern Italy.
00:10:21
Here we have the figure of Mussolini when he was crossing the city of Bologna together with other black shirts. And what was the result of the March on Rome? As a result of the March on Rome, Mussolini became the Prime Minister of Italy.
00:10:47
Vittorio Emanuele III gave in and finally, due to the pressure from the fascists, he named Mussolini as the Prime Minister.
00:11:09
So, from 1922 to 1924, Mussolini, in theory, maintained the liberal system, but in reality he changed quickly. He turned the country into a fascist dictatorship and he got complete control.
00:11:25
For example, in the elections of 1924, this is the moment that he announced the establishment of an authoritarian regime, because actually he gave the order to kill, to assassinate his main rival, the socialist Antonio Matteotti.
00:11:51
So, when Matteotti was assassinated, Mussolini didn't have any rival to implement an authoritarian regime. Actually, he rolled out the Rocco laws, which allowed them to create an authoritarian regime in Italy.
00:12:17
From that moment, Mussolini had complete control over the country. There were no freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, or freedom of association.
00:12:43
Obviously, political parties were banned, their leaders were persecuted and imprisoned, and parliament was replaced with the Chamber of Fascism, which was composed only with followers of the fascist regime.
00:12:55
The fascists also controlled the economy. They advocated a self-sufficient economic policy, the autarky, that we talked about before.
00:13:19
And the state used the party to get strict control over the society, including all aspects of social life and the media, such as the radio, newspapers, the cinema.
00:13:31
And also an extremely conservative view of the family and the role of women was imposed, like in Nazi Germany later on.
00:13:51
Exactly. Mussolini took advantage of this moment. He created a secret police to control all aspects of the Italian social life.
00:14:05
Exactly. He developed the propaganda and the censorship to explain and to impose his ideas over the Italians. He explained them what to say or what to think, and he didn't have any problem to implement propaganda all over the country.
00:14:19
Here we have several examples. Quino Salvato Italia, El Fascismo. He gave also a card and also a book to the youth movement, which was called the Balillas.
00:14:47
Here we have several examples in Italy and also in the future Italian colonies, but all these policies brought the Second World War. This is another story that I will explain very soon. Thank you for your attention and bye bye.
00:15:04
- Autor/es:
- Luis Horrillo Sánchez
- Subido por:
- Luis H.
- Licencia:
- Todos los derechos reservados
- Visualizaciones:
- 271
- Fecha:
- 24 de abril de 2023 - 21:02
- Visibilidad:
- Público
- Centro:
- IES CERVANTES
- Duración:
- 15′ 30″
- Relación de aspecto:
- 1.83:1
- Resolución:
- 3840x2100 píxeles
- Tamaño:
- 53.46 MBytes