The 19th century was a time of unification and centralization for the countries of Italy and Germany. Unification was a very controversial subject in Italy at the time because people’s opinions varied with residency, social class, religious affiliation, gender, occupation, and ideological outlook. Residency, occupation, and political power affected the point of views of the authors the most in the documents. Besides the debate of whether or not Italy should be unified, questions regarding how Italy would become centralized or why Italy should not be unified were a major factor when determining the future of Italy. For example, if Italy were to be unified, would the political system be a republic or monarchy.
Q7. The Fascist nations were extremely powerful during their time, along with the strong leadership they provided. Fascism is a political movement which promotes extreme forms of militarism and nationalism. It includes the denial of individual rights and dictatorial one-party rule. Fascism has several characteristics; for example, social, chief examples, basic principles, political, economic, and cultural characteristics.
The people of Italy and Mussolini himself wanted to boost Italy’s national prestige. Their prestige had been damaged during the first Italian-Ethiopian War when Italy became the first European country to lose to an African nation. Italy’s modernized military allowed for a swift victory. The win over Ethiopia allowed Mussolini to rebuild Italy with the natural resources that the country had available (Document 6). Benito Mussolini gained the support of many Italians from his encouraging and motivating
The cartoon displayed the nationalist ideology of Germany and their desire to pin the blame on the people they deemed inferior or outsiders such as Jewish people. Document A, Benito Mussolini’s The Definition of Fascism written in 1932 described Fascism from the eyes of a Fascist leader. The document laid out the positives of Fascism explained that Fascism was the best government for the people. Mussolini wanted to make the Mediterranean an Italian lake and unite all Italian people. These nationalist sentiments garnered him significant support and gave rise to his fascist regime.
When considering Italy after its formation as nation-state in the late 19th century, it has never been required to change by other countries. However, throughout the entire history Italian territory has faced many invasion and battles which have influenced it. But unfortunately, this country has also been involved in cruel events for the purpose of conquering new lands. Some of the most recent terrible actions done by this country were the conquest of African colonies during the Fascism. Indeed, the purpose of these mission in Africa were to destroy other countries such as Libya and Eritrea in order to provide benefits to Italians.
The Italian peninsula was politically fragmented and divided, with no strong central government. This division made it difficult for Italy to compete on the international stage, and left it vulnerable to foreign interference and aggression. Italian unification became a pressing issue in the mid-19th century, as the country faced internal turmoil and external threats (Pearson, 22.3). The Italian unification movement was driven by a coalition of liberal and socialist political groups, who sought to create a unified Italian state based on democratic principles.
After being drafted into the Italian army, Mussolini organized a fascist movement in the city of Milan. It was a group of street fighters who all wore black shirts. They called themselves “Blackshirts” and they beat up socialists and communists. On March
Have you ever heard the saying that Fascism and Communism are two sides of the same coin? These ideologies flourished during the first half of the 20th century and influenced several European states which followed the two ideologies. Fascism was imposed in order to promote powerful and permanent nationalism within a totalitarian state led by a dictator which is ready to engage in conflict internally and with its neighbors. The doctrine of Fascism was drafted in 1919 by Giovanni Gentile and adopted by Mussolini (Mussolini is considered the founder of fascism). Gentile stated, “Everything for the state; nothing against the state” (Heywood, Politics 48).
Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were similar in that both were dictatorships. Both Mussolini and Hitler came to power through legal means and believed that people were divided into either inferior or superior races. For example, Hitler was obsessed with the Aryan race and called for the genocide of Jews during WWII. In addition, both Mussolini and Hitler favored the wealthy, believed that an individual was meaningless and must submit to the decisions of their leaders, and aimed at self-sufficiency so that each could survive entirely without international trade. Furthermore, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy “had aimed for prestige and power for their countries, and brought instead humiliation and destruction” (Tarr, R.,
376) This description of Fascism indicates a government that is involved in the lives of its citizens to an extreme degree. By illustrating the government as a “powerful form of personality”, Mussolini alludes to the Fascist characteristic of organicism, where the state is seen as an organic whole being. Mussolini continues his
Fascism and communism are both types of totalitarian style governments that had a great influence on the 20th century. Communism involved the emphasis on the common good by seizing private property and distributing it among the masses in order to create state-owned property, whereas fascism involved the complete rule of a dictator by forcibly suppressing the opposition with an emphasis on nationalism and sometimes racism. The most popular example of communism was the Soviet Union, but many smaller countries possessed the Soviet Union’s communist influence. The two most popular examples of fascist style governments include Hitler’s Nazism in Germany, which had an emphasis on racism, and Mussolini’s fascist state in Italy. Although many countries pursued communist style governments, fascism had a greater impact and
Fascism is ideology which often uses totalitarianism and nationalism methods. The fascist leaders made people are the subject to the government, and limit the independency of the people, in order to gain the better for the nation. This is somehow similar to absolutism of western Europe during 17th and 18th century. Absolutism had given the monarch absolute power to rule over people, while fascism had given the leader and the nation the power to rule over the people of the state. Moreover, fascism had denied the democratic parliament system, and had only allowed the “elite” to rule over the country.
In 1919, Benito Mussolini described fascism as “A movement that would strike against the backwardness of the right and the destructiveness of the left.” That “Fascism sitting on the right, could also have sat on the mountain of the center… These words in any case do not have a fixed and unchanged: they do have a variable subject to location, time and spirit. We don’t give a damn about these empty terminologies and we despise those who are terrorized by these words.” Fascism came into prominence in the early 20th-century Europe. It originated in Italy during World War I.
During the inter-war period (1920-1939), totalitarian ideas, Fascism and Nazism developed rapidly in Italy and Germany respectively. Fascism comes from an ancient Latin word fasces, which is referred to an axe tied with rods. It represents a symbol of authority in ancient Rome and became the symbol of Fascist party which rose in power in Italy in 1922. While Nazism rose in Germany in 1933, whose name came from the Nazi party, National Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei). They threatened world peace and became an important factor of the outbreak of the WW2.
In fact, when Mussolini founded the Milan facio in March 1919, it had no clear-cut goals, except for a belief in action and a stated goal of strong foreign policy (Duggan, 2013). However, when Italy was driven from Fiume at the end of 1920, many Italians began to believe that Italy would have to develop strong foreign policy. In 1921, Mussolini formed the National Fascist Party and began to quickly amass power in the Italian government. One of the methods he did so was to tout