Does Mussolini still come to power in Italy if there is no Bolshevik Revolution in Russia?

[Futurist]

Does Mussolini still come to power in Italy if there is no Bolshevik Revolution in Russia? I know that the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 was one of the major factors behind Mussolini's rise to power in Italy in 1922, but Italy also had other problems in the aftermath of World War I (please see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biennio_Rosso ) and there was also widespread anger in Italy at Italy's "mutilated victory" in World War I, with many Italians believing that Italy should have gotten more at the post-World War I peace talks for Italy's huge sacrifices in World War I, especially (but not only) in human lives.

Anyway, what do you think?

[SloveneLiberal]

Futurist I do not think that he would be able to come to power without red threat. It was crucial that Mussolini and fascists got support from monarchy and other influential circles which felt threaten by communism, socialism and anarchism. You had really big problems during ''Bieno roso''. These circles were thinking they will be able to control fascism also. And in the case of Italy they pretty much did also because king was head of the army forces. It was quite the same also in the case of Hitler in Germany. Yet there miscalculation was made and Hitler soon liberated himself and the Nazi party from control of the old elites. Italy hungry for new colonies joined Hitler in war only when he already won in the western front.

However in Spain it was different. The so called bourgeoisie or part of it needed the help from radical left in fight against fascist attack.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biennio_Rosso

[Futurist]

Futurist I do not think that he would be able to come to power without red threat. It was crucial that Mussolini and fascists got support from monarchy and other influential circles which felt threaten by communism, socialism and anarchism. You had really big problems during ''Bieno roso''. These circles were thinking they will be able to control fascism also. And in the case of Italy they pretty much did also because king was head of the army forces. It was quite the same also in the case of Hitler in Germany. Yet there miscalculation was made and Hitler soon liberated himself and the Nazi party from control of the old elites. Italy hungry for new colonies joined Hitler in war only when he already won in the western front.

However in Spain it was different. The so called bourgeoisie or part of it needed the help from radical left in fight against fascist attack.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biennio_Rosso

I'm just wondering if a failed Bolshevik coup in Russia (akin to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Days ... %20Days%20(Russian%3A%20%D0%98%D1%8E%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B5,against%20the%20Russian%20Provisional%20Government. ) would be enough to make Italians afraid of Communism.

[SloveneLiberal]

Well Italian radical left responsible for ''Biennio Rosso'' surelly got stronger and encouraged by Bolshevik success.

Concerning July 1917 events as i understand the coup was premature, many bolsheviks argued that even in October 1917 it was too early. However specially Lenin pushed it. After Kornilov tried his right wing coup government of Kerenski again allowed Bolshevik party hoping they can be useful against ring-wing threat.

[Futurist]

Well Italian radical left responsible for ''Biennio Rosso'' surelly got stronger and encouraged by Bolshevik success.

So, a Bolshevik success would have been much more emboldening to the Italian success than a Bolshevik failure, correct?

Concerning July 1917 events as i understand the coup was premature, many bolsheviks argued that even in October 1917 it was too early. However specially Lenin pushed it. After Kornilov tried his right wing coup government of Kerenski again allowed Bolshevik party hoping they can be useful against ring-wing threat.

Yep. IMHO, Kerensky should have allied with Kornilov to crush the Bolsheviks. This could have been a Russian equivalent of Germany's Ebert-Groener Pact, but a year earlier.

[SloveneLiberal]

I am pretty much sure success would have been much more emboldening yes.

[Futurist]

I am pretty much sure success would have been much more emboldening yes.

OK; that's what I strongly suspected.

And of course if there is no Fascist takeover in Italy in the 1920s (or later), then the Italian monarchy survives up to the present-day, correct?

[Dili]

In 1936 the Italian Communists tried to push Fascists out of alliance with Monarchy. "Ai Fratelli in Camicia Nera" was the title of the appeal by Togliatti and others saying they would follow the 1919 Fascist Declaration. This was after the entryst attempt by Communist into Fascist Unions failed.
Basically Italian Fascism was an evolved form of Marxism, we can even called it "moderate" -as opposed to extreme form: Communism - with class struggle replaced by corporatism. In the end every Communist regime ends up in a sort of Fascist system since it is not possible to be in class struggle permanently, for that to happen that would mean necessary that Communism would have to have always young leaders.

And of course if there is no Fascist takeover in Italy in the 1920s (or later), then the Italian monarchy survives up to the present-day, correct?

Too much time span to predict that. What would happen to colonies etc? What would be the political movements in West, "sexual revolution". I mean we are always going in some sort of direction.

[SloveneLiberal]

Interesting Dili. So during the Comintern policy of antifascism, Italian communists tried an alliance with fascists if they would leave alliance with monarchy?

It is true that fascists returned to their old more left wing, yet still nationalistic program after 8.9.1943 which we can see from the Verona congress and specially from the Law of socialization of factories in 1944.

[Dili]

Yes, maybe somewhat strangely this period -around 1936- was the high tide of Fascism so the Communists did not had a strong card to play, maybe they wanted to induce such a Fascist enthusiasm that would make them ditch the Monarchy and be a full totalitarian regime where they could get at later . But this is just my speculation.
Nevertheless the Socialist undercurrent in Fascism was always strong and always in tension with conservative faction - there were other factions - more connected to industrials and Monarchy. Niccola Bombacci was always in connection with Mussolini even personally; he was the man behind the law of socialization of factories in RSI effectively its Economy minister, ideologically the idea was even more extreme, everyone that worked had to get some capital in what they worked for. So in theory you could not work in a farm or work in some office if you had no part of it... ideological the objective was to not exist man to man "exploitation" as in Marxist terminology. Of course a disruption like this did not went forward in a war and Germans controlled the things.
But it is a signal that Fascists went Socialist when there was not anymore the need to please the Monarchy since it remained in the South with Allies.
Looking at distance at Mussolini was a sort of Bismarck that moderated the extreme Marxism conflictuality creating several social programs. The industrialists went for it because they got also "social programs" for them: state contracts. Maybe we can call it a Social-Non Democracy.
Some of Italian aircraft failures like the Breda 88 was kept being build for the company and workers to have a job until they could manage to change to licensed aircraft, there were several stories like this.
Also another point is that when IRI was created after the 1929 crash to save several Italian banks and companies Mussolini put as the head Alberto Beneduce, a socialist that had named 2 of his daughters Vittoria Proletaria and Idea Nuova Socialista, just to give an idea how Socialist he was. Nevertheless he maintained usually the head of the companies despite now the capital/debts being in state hands. So when a shipping company was effectively nationalized because could not pay its debts the family that owned it was still managing it afterwards. This was not necessarily a mistake they were still probably the people that know better or less worse the business. So it was a fusion...

A small point about Comintern policy. Soviet Navy was ordering warships in "Fascist shipyards".Taskhent destroyer was ordered before Spanish Civil War and handed over just after it ended. For some reason was being built all along, so there might have been some guarantees between Mussolini and Stalin governments. Ansaldo part of IRI was too helping Soviet Navy in naval weapons, naval construction and fire control.

[Cantankerous]

Even if the Bolshevik Revolution had not happened, Mussolini still would have come to power because he tapped into the frustrations and discontent among unemployed Italians, and one of Mussolini's pledges was to bring jobs back to Italy. Yet Mussolini did not blame an ethnic group for Italy's economic problems while coasting his way to power and did not tie Jews to communism.