After his appointment as Prime Minister, Mussolini first expanded his position of power against the actual and potential opposition (including the entry into force of an “Enabling Act” on December 3, 1922). While the socialists and communists (A. Gramsci) stood against Mussolini from the beginning, the bourgeois forces (including the PPI) initially took part in his government, since they saw the fascist movement as a useful force for calming the domestic political situation. With the establishment of the Milizia volontaria per la Sicurezza nazionale (German Voluntary Militia for National Security) in January 1923, Mussolini soughtto control or intimidate his opponents (including powerful provincial leaders of the fascist movement “Ras”) and outside his movement. A new electoral law (Legge Acerbo, November 1923), according to which the strongest party should receive two thirds of all parliamentary seats with at least a quarter of the votes, ensured the fascists a clear majority in the Chamber of Deputies in the April 1924 elections. After the murder of the socialist MP G. Matteotti (June 10, 1924), the fascist movement found itself isolated within the party field. With the departure of the socialist, PPI and some of the liberal MPs from parliament (June 27, 1924, Aventinians) a rejection front (anti-fascism) formed from almost all non-fascist political forces in the country. The expectation of overthrowing Mussolini and restoring legal security failed because of the reluctance of the Crown, but also because of the extensive inactivity of the Aventinians themselves “Law on the Powers of the Government”, January 1926) enacted Mussolini after a brief hesitation, decided on the way to an open dictatorship and fascization of the political system. The responsibility of the head of government (Capo del Governo) to parliament was lifted. The civil liberties, especially the right of assembly and association as well as the freedom of the press, were abolished. As part of the “Law for the Defense of the State” (November 1926), a “special court” for “political crimes” was established. Mussolini was created with the establishment of a political secret police, the OVRA 1927 another instrument to secure his dictatorial rule. The repressive potential of the German People’s Court and the Gestapo was by no means achieved by them, and there were no concentration camps to eliminate real and possible opponents in fascist Italy. The parties – with the exception of the PNF – were banned in 1926, and members of the parliament were stripped of their seats; a number of political personalities were banished (e.g. C. Levi) or fled abroad, some died as a result of fascist acts of violence (for example G. Amendola, Piero Gobetti [* 1901, † 1926])). In accordance with the block election law of 1928, a purely fascist parliament met after the 1929 elections. For more articles about Italy and Europe, please follow Neovideogames.
With the elevation of the Fascist Grand Council (Gran consiglio del fascismo), originally the leading organ of the PNF, to the rank of state organ and its Secretary General to the rank of minister (May 1928), Mussolini achieved a close intermeshing of party and state, but at the same time disempowered the party as independent acting political organization in favor of his personal position of power as “Duce del Fascismo”. This corresponded to the form of a public Duce cult, which was particularly evident during the tenure of party secretary Achille Starace (* 1889, † 1945) from 1931 to 1939 was driven excessively. In the development phase of the fascist state, Mussolini purposefully initiated a rapprochement with the Catholic Church. With the Lateran Treaty (February 11, 1929) he sought to solve the Roman question with considerable concessions from the Italian state: The Vatican City was recognized as an independent, neutral state under the sovereignty of the Pope, at the same time a concordat was reached on the relationship between state and church closed. Towards the end of the 1920s, fascist rule under the sign of the Führer principle had developed into a personal dictatorship of Mussolini. In its partly by G. Gentile written “Doctrine of Fascism” published in 1932, he officially summarized his ideological ideas of the corporate social system and the totalitarian state. With the labor constitution of April 3, 1926 (“Carta del lavoro”, entered into force on April 21, 1927), the Mussolini government laid the foundations of state-controlled collective labor relations, prohibiting strikes and lockouts; The trade unions were replaced by syndicates in which the supremacy of the fascists was secured in terms of personnel. In industry, state holding companies (AGIP, IRI) have been established and cartels have been promoted. In 1934 the syndicates of employers and workers were grouped into 22 overarching corporations. In 1937 the unified youth organization controlled by the state party, Renato Ricci [* 1896, † 1956] as the largest and most important organization since 1926). The school constitution of 1939 was supposed to direct the school system in the fascist sense. With the replacement of the House of Representatives by the Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni (law of October 1938), corporatism became a state principle. The last-mentioned developments were part of a surge in radicalization that was also to be seen in the context of escalating foreign policy; by Mussolini intentionally, it was practiced especially by the rising fascists of the “second generation” – in part in open antagonism with fascist leaders from the years of the movement and the building of dictatorship. This fascist radicalization also included an adaptation of anti-Semitic ideas that were by no means under direct German influence, which until then had played no role in fascism, but were implemented in anti-Jewish legislation (civil disenfranchisement with partial exceptions) in autumn 1938. This discrimination, together with the other radicalizations, and the rapprochement with National Socialist Germany in 1938/39 then gradually waned the great consensus with the regime, as it had been observed during the Abyssinian War.
