ABSTRACT
Considering the uncertainties of the previous two years, the speed with which the dictatorship, once launched, was cemented during 1925-6 was remarkable. The process was both punctuated and assisted by four unsuccessful but highly convenient assassination attempts against Mussolini. The total power effectively granted to him by a law of December 1925 was reinforced by a battery of repressive measures. Political opposition and free trade unions were banned; the free press surrendered to a combination of censorship and Fascist takeover; elected local governments were replaced by appointed officials known as podestà; and the essentials of a police state were created by extending the government’s powers of arrest and detention, increasing the scope of the death penalty, introducing a special court for political ‘crimes’, and forming a ‘secret’ police force, the OVRA (Organizzazione Vigilanza Repressione dell’ Antifascismo).
