ABSTRACT
Despite its victory in 1918, Italy was shaken by instability and crisis as Italian public opinion was increasingly frustrated with the outcomes of the Great War. Fascism was born within this tense post-war context, when Benito Mussolini constituted the Fasci di Combattimento in Milan on 23 March 1919. Mussolini had dabbled in left-wing radicalism before the First World War, but then during the war he merged his socialist experience with radical nationalism. The fascist movement was part of a wide body of nationalist groups and movements that included the legionaries of Gabriele D’Annunzio in Fiume and the Italian Nationalist Association founded in 1910. The fascist movement, which initially started as a ‘neither left nor right’ experiment mixing both left and right radicalism, increasingly represented a wide spectrum of radical right and conservative positions, aiming to establish a post-liberal political and social order.
