ABSTRACT
BENITO MUSSOLINI WAS NAMED president of the council by King Victor-Emmanuel III on 28 October 1922 following the March on Rome, which was essentially a coup d'état. After removing the most extremist Fascists, Mussolini tried to normalize the regime by appointing a government composed of Liberals, Democrats, and Catholics. However, after only two years, he wanted to give the regime a more authoritarian character by changing electoral laws, substituting the majority system for the proportional system. His “national lists” received 65 percent of the vote in the legislative elections of 6 April 1924. Not all Italians had been made subservient to the regime. The Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti was assassinated in June 1924 because he had criticized the fraud that had marked the elections. The opposition parties, disagreeing among themselves, left Parliament, seceded, and essentially withdrew from the political process. Mussolini, assuming the entire responsibility for Matteotti's assassination, turned the regime in an authoritarian direction in January 1925. The legge fascistissime (most extreme Fascist laws) reinforced the powers of the head of the government. Strikes were forbidden and unions suppressed, with the exception of the Fascist union. The regime installed a one-party system, drew up an election list, and created the Fascist Great Council, whose powers were more extensive powers than those of Parliament, as well as a special tribunal made up of military men to try political crimes.
