ABSTRACT
The fascist form of rule involved three closely related factors: the role of the supreme leader; highly informal and unsystematic constitutional and institutional practice; and a constantly shifting party-state relationship. Both regimes were personal dictatorships in which the supreme leader was the ultimate arbiter. Mussolini was far more involved in the ordinary processes of governing, at least through the early 1930s, than was Hitler. In fact, at various times the Duce personally held several important Cabinet Ministries: the War, Navy and Air Force Ministries from 1925 to 1929 and again from 1933 to 1943, the Foreign Ministry from 1924 to 1929 and from July 1932 to June 1936, the Interior Ministry from October 1922 to June 1924 and from November 1926 to July 1943, the Ministry of Corporations from July 1926 to September 1929 and from July 1932 to June 1936. Because of this accumulation of offices an incredible amount of material passed through the Duce’s secretariat, even to decisions on when the Rome traffic police might switch to summer uniforms. But supervision of ministerial bureaucracy was only part of the problem. Mussolini had contempt for and distrusted his subordinates. Unlike Hitler who allowed prominent Nazis to build political and economic power centres (Göring in the Four Year Plan and in his vast holding company, Fritz Todt in construction, Himmler in the police and the SS), the Italian leader pushed aside anyone in the party who threatened to develop an independent political base.
