ABSTRACT

The year 1921 witnessed in Italy the foundation of both the National Fascist Party and the Italian Communist Party, both of which emerged from the troubled postwar climate. Benito Mussolini's government included not only Fascists but also Catholics, Liberals, Democratic Socialists, Nationalists, and two members who represented the armed forces. In a multiparty system of the kind that had existed in pre-Fascist Italy, the argument went, many parties agreed to form a government majority by means of ambiguous compromises that broke down when the first difficulties arose. Fascists argued that if Fascism was a reaction against routine parliamentary politics and government by shifting combinations of parties and groups, the antiparliamentary "revolution" must continue. In 1926 Alfredo Rocco explained his doctrine of Fascism during a speech at Perugia that was approved by Mussolini and published in English by the American journal International Conciliation.