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Fascism (in Italian, fascismo), capitalized, refers to the authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy in 1922-1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. The name comes from fascio, which may mean "bundle", as in a political group, but also fasces, the Roman authority symbol of a bundle of rods and axe-head.

The word fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling most evident aspects of Mussolini's, that exalts nation and often race above the individual and uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition, engages in severe economic and social regimentation, and espouses violent nationalism and racism (ethnic nationalism).

Practice of fascism

Examples of fascist systems include Nazi Germany and Spain under Francisco Franco, in addition to Mussolini's Italy.

Fascism in practice embodied both political and economic practices, and invites different comparisons. Writers who focus on the politically repressive policies of fascism identify it as one form of totalitarianism, a description they use to characterise not only Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, but also communist countries such as the Soviet Union, Communist China and Cuba (although the Soviet Union opposed the self-described fascist states of Italy and Germany during World War II, and fascists and communists identify each other as enemies).

However, some analysts point out that some fascist governments were arguably more authoritarian rather than totalitarian. There is almost universial agreement that Nazi Germany was totalitarian. However, many would argue that the governments of Franco's Spain and Salazar's Portugal, while Fascist, were more authoritarian than totalitarian.

Writers who focus on economic policies of state intervention in the market and the use of state apparatuses to broker conflicts between different classes make even broader comparisons, identifying fascism as one form of corporatism, a political outgrowth of Catholic social doctrine from the 1890s, with which parallels have been drawn embracing not only Nazi Germany, but also Roosevelt's New Deal United States and Juan Peron's populism in Argentina.

Italian Fascism

Founded as a nationalist association of World War I veterans in Milan on 23 March 1919, with the name of Fasci di Combattimento (fighting fasces), it soon issued a manifesto that included socialist and anti-catholic themes. Mussolini's fascist movement converted itself into a national party (the Partito Nazionale Fascista) after winning 35 seats in the parliamentary elections of May 1921. Consensus was received by different classes and for vary and sometimes contrasting reasons: despite what in manifesto and in early propaganda, sections of the middle class were fearful of socialism and communism, as well as landowners and industrialists, saw in Fascism a potential defence against repetition of the September 1920 factory occupations. Workers, on the other side, expected fascism would have practiced what in its manifesto, against those ones. So, as some observers happened to note, Fascism was born in a general consensus of a general social competition among classes. Describing initial Fascism as a right-wing movement is not generally considered correct, though this is true for its latter history; some authors prefer to underline the possibility that initial Fascism just found a way to reach the power and then gradually turned to positions which could effectively grant it the preservation of power. Due to the wide consensus (whatever made of) in the years of the March on Rome, and the sudden difference from the previous political assets, Fascism is academically recorded as a revolution.

Mussolini assumed the premiership of a coalition government in October 28 1922, after the fascist "March on Rome".

The transition to outright dictatorship was more gradual than in Germany a decade later, though in July 1923 a new electoral law all but assured a fascist parliamentary majority, and the murder of the Socialist deputy Matteotti eleven months later showed the limits of political opposition. By 1926 opposition movements had been outlawed, and in 1928 election to parliament was restricted to fascist-approved candidates.

About religion, an act is notably to be considered: the 1929's "Concordato" between Italian State and the Holy See (Vatican - Roman Catholic Curch). By this act it was finally agreed that State and Church would have been definitely separated, in order to have a "free cult in free state" (libera Chiesa in libero Stato), each one with its competence, without interferences; the Popes' temporal power was ended after some 15 centuries of domain on central Italy. Fascism however protected Catholic Church ensuring its concrete freedom of cult.

Trade unions and employers' associations were reorganised by 1934 into 22 fascist corporations combining workers and employers by economic sector, whose representatives in 1938 replaced the parliament as the "Chamber of Corporations": power continued to be vested in the Fascist Grand Council, the ruling body of the movement.

The 1930s saw some economic achievements as Italy recovered from the World Depression: the draining of the malaria-infested Pontine Marshes south of Rome was one of the regime's proudest boasts. But international sanctions following Italy's invasion (October 1935) of Ethiopia, followed by the government's costly military support for Franco's Nationalists in Spain, undermined growth despite successes in developing domestic substitutes for imports (Autarchia).

International isolation and their common involvement in Spain brought about increasing diplomatic collaboration between Italy and Nazi Germany, reflected also in the fascist regime's domestic policies as the first anti-semitic laws were passed in 1938. But Italy's intervention (8 June 1940) as Germany's ally in World War II brought military disaster, from the loss of her north and east African colonies to U.S. and British invasion of first Sicily (July 1943) and then southern Italy (September 1943).

Dismissed as prime minister by King Victor Emmanuel II on 25 July 1943 and subsequently arrested, Mussolini was freed in September by German paratroopers and installed as head of a puppet "Italian Social Republic" at Salò in German-occupied northern Italy. His association with the German occupation regime eroded much of what little support remained to him, and his summary execution (28 April 1945) by northern partisans was widely seen as a fitting end against the backdrop of the war's violent closing stages.

After the war the remnants of Italian fascism largely regrouped under the banner of the "Italian Social Movement" (MSI), merging in the 1990s with former adherents to Democrazia Cristiana (then dissolving) in the "National Alliance" (Alleanza Nazionale), which proclaims its committment to constitutionalism, parliamentary government and political pluralism.

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