Mussolini imposed aspects of a totalitarian regime in Italy by eliminating legal political opposition, passing authoritarian laws, and controlling aspects of daily life. However, Italy was not a fully totalitarian state as the King still held power, conservative classes were not purged, and control was not total over all aspects of society and the economy. Mussolini's regime was an attempt at totalitarianism within the constraints of Italy's existing power structures.

1. Mussolini and Totalitarianism
Molly Cros, Ryan Fernandez,
Natalie Viera

2. Totalitarianism
● Totalitarianism is a form of government that theoretically permits no individual
freedom, and that seeks to subordinate all aspects of the individual’s life to the
authority of the government.
● The leadership of such a state claims exclusive right to govern the country on
behalf of a party or an ideology.
● This leadership attempts, and ideally achieves, to permeate all aspects of daily life
through the establishment of controlling and restrictive mechanisms over social,
political, industrial, military, and economic matters.
● The decision-making process is highly centralized, as so is political control.

3. Totalitarianism
● Opposition to the state is suppressed through the use of violence, and the
underlying basis for the state’s control is the subservience of the individual to the
state; this usually leads to and justifies the curtailing of fundamental liberal
freedoms.
● Totalitarianism also implies that the will, needs, and desires of the state and the
individual are one and the same, that there exists a certain level of popular
support for not merely tolerance of the state.

4. How Mussolini met the criteria
● Mussolini’s Italy was dominated by one party, the Fascist party, which was led by
one leader, Mussolini.
● Opposition was suppressed, although torture and execution were uncommon;
Mussolini preferred either exiling dissidents to remote villages in the backward
countryside or transporting them to prisoner camps.
● Mussolini also had great powers over this party, almost to the extent that many
people would argue that the party had no part to play in the running of the
country, and it was all Mussolini and his ways. He decided that he wanted to run
the country himself, and that the party was no longer good for anything else than
doing his dirty work.

5. How Mussolini met the criteria
● Mussolini’s Italy had a terrorist police force and this police force was put to good
use by Mussolini. The secret police’s name was OVRA and they operated
independently of the regular police force, and on average had 20,000 actions to
deal with each week.
● Mussolini was a very good propagandist. He encouraged the Italian population
that he was the right man for the job in the first place, albeit through force as well,
but once he was in power, everything that Mussolini wanted the people to see
were the only things that people did see.He also had all all anti views and the
abolition of all opposition destroyed.

6. How Mussolini met the criteria
● Things such as the art people were allowed to produce was carefully monitored,
and Mussolini would read every paper to check that there was no opinions within
it that should not be there. This also leads back to the idea of an official ideology
which was being rammed home into the minds of the Italian people, through the
mass media and communication, and helped the state to last under Mussolini’s
rule for as long as it did.
● Mussolini described the totalitarian state as, “All within the state, none outside
the state, none against the state.”

7. How Mussolini didn’t meet the criteria
● The existence of alternative bodies that claimed citizens’ loyalty conflicts with the
idea of a totalitarian state, such as the church, the military, and the King
● The Church’s influence was not suppressed for fear of upsetting people, and
Mussolini had to keep the support of the King and military
● The King had the power to dismiss Mussolini
● The armed forces pledged their allegiance to the monarchy, not Mussolini
● Mussolini had to constantly try to keep the support of different groups, meaning
he didn’t have control of them
● Essentially, Mussolini’s rule was NOT totalitarian, but an attempt at it within the
confines of a power acquired lawfully

8. To What Extent Did Mussolini Impose a Totalitarian
Regime on the Italian people?
Historical Interpretations
● M.Gall, in Mussolini’s Italy (1973), considers the regime to be “thoroughly fascist”
and to have profoundly infused everyday life so that “special supervision was the
fate...of all Italians.”
● However, historians studying totalitarian states in 1930’s Europe and setting
fascist Italy alongside Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union have usually
concluded that Mussolini’s regime was the least totalitarian of the three.
● In Modern Italy (1996), Martin Clark views the attempts of the Italian fascist
regime to control the lives of its citizens and is unimpressed by its efforts.

9. To What Extent Did Mussolini Impose a Totalitarian
Regime on the Italian people?
Mussolini did to an extent impose a totalitarian regime on the italian people by
eliminating all legal ways for expressing disagreement like
● Physically preventing any of the opposition deputies who withdrew from the
Chamber in the Aventine Secession in 1924 (was the withdrawal of the Italian
Socialist Party from the Italian Chamber of Deputies following the murder of
Giacomo Matteotti)
● Closing down opposition newspapers or fascist supporters bought them
● Authorizing police in 1926 to banish undesirables to remote areas; opposition
party members being the main victims in this case
● Passing laws to close down both the opposition parties and non-fascist trade
unions

10. To What Extent Did Mussolini Impose a Totalitarian
Regime on the Italian people?
Mussolini also imposed a totalitarian regime through legal basis with
● The new office of “head government” being created for Mussolini because he was no
longer accountable to parliament except the king alone
● The Grand Council of the Fascist Party was given state responsibility of approving the
list of candidates in parliamentary elections and to nominate Mussolini’s successor to
challenge any future monarchy
● A Law for the Defense of the State - anyone accused of political crimes would be tried by
the Special Tribunal operated according to military law
● The Fascist Party Statute which ensured that the party did not have an independent
existence outside Mussolini’s authority
● The Roco Law- required all labor relations to be controlled by fascist syndicates
The rapid introduction of these measures ended any hope of independent political challenge

11. To What Extent Did Mussolini Impose a Totalitarian
Regime on the Italian people?
Other ways Mussolini imposed his totalitarian Regime was through
● Corporate State
● Propaganda
● Press Censorship
● Leisure and education

12. To What Extent Did Mussolini Impose a Totalitarian
Regime on the Italian people?
However it is also argued that Italy was never under a fully totalitarian regime under
Mussolini because
● Mussolini was technically never all powerful because the King remained
● Did not completely control leisure time
● Old power structures remained intact
- No attempt to purge conservative classes
- Controlled labor, however, businesses were self- regulating
- No land reform
- Lateran Agreement establishing the Vatican as an independent state
● No ruthless police state
● Racial persecution established much later about alliance with Germany