ABSTRACT
Mussolini's aim was to regenerate Italy, and to create a new Fascist élite. If this was to be achieved, Italian youth had to be Fascistised, thus the domestic emphasis in the 1930s was on youth. As with any totalitarian régime, the battle to win the hearts and minds of Italy's young people was a lynch-pin of Fascist strategy. Liberal democracy had done little for women so the hope was that Mussolini, with his search for consensus, might do more. Mussolini made immense efforts to portray an image of Italian greatness, and the memory of Ancient Rome was constantly traded on in the régime's propaganda. Some streams in Fascism demanded spiritual revival based on the concept of a 'New Rome'. A Fascist diplomat, Cantalupo, who returned to Italy in 1936 after a three-year foreign tour, noted that Mussolini seemed to be living in a world of his own which had little to do with Italian reality.
