ABSTRACT
Economic changes drastically affected the country's political and social life. Writing in Critica Sociale, Filippo Turati argued that the increasing industrialization of society was the basic cause of socialism, a gradual development about which parties could do very little. The political stabilization achieved by Giolitti until 1913 has been cited as the most important ingredient in the remarkable economic development that Italy achieved in the decade before First World War. The series of technical changes cited in the discussion have as their premise the political advances made during the Giolittian era. The Socialist vote in favor of the Zanardelli-Giolitti cabinet in June 1901 firmly established the "liberal springtide" in the country. Turati believed Italian politics to be vulnerable to reactionary lurches and strongly denounced the Socialist culture of violence. The gap between North and South increased in the early twentieth century, representing a major failure of the Giolittian era.
