Politics
Pre-WW1
WW1
Post-WW1
click to edit
Risorgimento
Both Liberal Parties and Right parties (including he Church) went against the Italian state
Trasformismo
From 1890-1904 catholics were given a vote as fear of socialist rise. Papacy simmered opposition on liberal parties for same reason.
The Italian government spent more on the war than it had in the previous 50 years. The war debt, food shortages, bad increases and significant inflationary increases effectively bankrupted the country, with an estimated half a million civillians dying.
Terra irredenta; Italy's ideal of colonisation and desire to become an European power, talking example from Germany in 1871.
Mussolini enlisted in the Italian army during World War I in 1915. Before being dismissed due to a battle wound, he fought on the front lines and rose to the rank of corporal.
By 1918, Mussolini had returned to the press and was calling for a dictator to take control of Italy.
WW1 was a very significant hit on Italian politics because with the cost it served, the concrete result was 0. Stopping Germany was relatevily useless for Italy.
Mussolini took to his advantage the occasion of a very hard poverty spread throughout the Italian civilians, which fell to the first window of opportunity.
Italy's acquisition of Massawa in 1885; first step to colonialism. Later gains eritrea in 1890. Italy contended Somaliland with Abyssinia.
Mussolini merged the numerous fascist organisations into a national organisation named Fasci Italiani di Combattimento after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and his displeasure with it.
The Italian Fascists courted veterans of the war and incited violence against leftists. In his newspaper offices, Mussolini kept firearms and explosives.
Italy won against Turkey in 1912 and gained Libya, this was done to prevent French further influence simultaneous with Italy's expansion
Mussolini ran as the Fascist candidate in a general election, but was defeated by the Socialists. Mussolini was arrested two days later for allegedly collecting guns to topple the government. The next day, he was freed without charge.
In 1921, in the midst of rising violence and disorder, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy dissolved Parliament. The Fascists won a landslide victory in the elections, with Mussolini being elected as a deputy in Parliament. The name of the party was changed to Partito Nazionale Fascista.
Postwar socialism
In Italy the socialist movement developed greatly during the postwar period and had a significant role in the shaping of Italy’s identity. Socialist ideas were more widespread during this time, specifically among the working and lower classes, as a result of the social and economic struggles present which in the case of the latter were worsened by the expenses of the First World War
Nationalism during the Italian unification
Unification had to be based on a strong monarchy, and in practice that meant reliance on Piedmont (the Kingdom of Sardinia) under King Victor Emmanuel II (1820–1878) of the House of Savoy. Count Cavour (1810–1861) provided critical leadership.
deals made amongst politicians to alternate political control thanks to unstable politics.
Count Camillo Benso of Cavour embraced the idea of Trasformismo. He was a Historical right wing supporter to the unification of Italy
Another major change after the unification in the political climate was the acquisition of colonies. Italy wanted to increase its status among European nations by acquiring a colonial empire in Africa.
WW2
The death of Benito Mussolini, the deposed Italian fascist dictator, occurred on 28 April 1945, in the final days of World War II in Europe, when he was summarily executed by an Italian partisan in the small village of Giulino di Mezzegra in northern Italy.
Successor to Camillo of Cavour, Agostino Depretis the left wing prime minister of 1884 perfected Trasformismo in Italy.
Almost all parliament members approved the 1861 constitutional solution, and few objected to foreign and colonial policy, which was, in any event, carried out by foreign ministers and prime ministers with little regard for parliament.
Because there were rarely substantial disagreements among the leading lawmakers, Trasformismo became the standard mode of conducting legislative business.
The French occupation of Tunisia 1881 caused Italy to join the Triple Alliance the following year, in order to avoid political isolation.
In 1924, Mussolini ordered fresh elections for the Italian parliament. The election was characterized by intimidation and fraud. Mussolini's Fascist Party received 66 percent of the vote, together with a minor ally party.
Mussolini prohibited public protest meetings and suppressed opposition media after the election. Except for his own Fascist Party, he proclaimed other political parties illegal. He made labor unions and strikes illegal. He also formed the Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Antifascism, a political police squad. Mussolini's directives were rubber-stamped by a Fascist Grand Council, which rendered parliament obsolete.
After the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy and the end of World War II, Italian politics and society were dominated by Christian Democracy (DC), a broad-based Christian political party, from 1946 to 1994. From the late 1940s until 1991, the opposition was led by the Italian Communist Party (PCI).