Caroline RothsteinVerified account

Eventually, in 1938, Mussolini would rid Italy of its parliament. On the whole, Mussolini set out to establish a national identity. In attempting to do so, there were main areas that he focused on: education and the formation of youth organizations,

the media and thus press censorship, economic policies and the establishment of worker organizations and corporations, and most importantly, an aggressive foreign policy.

The education reforms established under Mussolini at first seemed to be essential in his vast, yet amorphous plan. Consequently, changes did not pull through as rapidly and thoroughly as expected.

Government regulation of textbooks and curriculum became widespread as the amount of approved history texts was reduced to one book and starting in 1938, racism was taught openly in the classroom. Altogether, the educational indoctrination was not Mussolini’s most successful,

so he organized his youth outside of the classroom. From ages four to eighteen, children were sectioned into youth organizations under the Opera Nazionale Balilla. The ONB preached a nearly religious devotion to Italy harkening back to Rome’s glory days during the Roman Empire.

The organizations were more successful in some locations than others, but on the whole, whether or not they proved Mussolini’s success, they indicated his impact on society as he left not a citizen untouched and unaffected by his regime.

Mussolini had experience working for a newspaper during his early life and thus saw control of the press as a priority. In 1925, the Volpi incorrectly revalued the lire effecting both imports and exports causing unemployment to rise. The government suspended these statistics.

During the Ethiopian campaign, Ciano established the Ministry for Press and Propaganda to portray the events as more positive than they really were. Yet, the perversion of facts led to even more corruption in the government.

This was the ultimate proof that Italy was not a free society, thus illustrating Mussolini’s negative impact on Italy.

Economically, Mussolini sought to compromise state and private economic enterprises with what he called ‘corporativism.’ His goal was to increase government control without razing private companies.

On the whole, this was ineffective and had only the effect of further complicating the economic situation in Italy. Perhaps what had the most profound impact on Italy was what Mussolini did in terms of agriculture.

Mussolini believed that expanding the grain market would augment commerce. Unfortunately, the increase in grain production cost the decrease of fruit and olive production. Although Mussolini set up public work programs and attempted to perfect transportation with the autostrada

while simultaneously providing the unemployed with jobs, unemployment remained high in the 1930s. What he intended of course to have a positive impact, would eventually have an extremely negative impact as Fascist Italy left the majority of Italy impoverished and unemployed.

Remaining within the confines of the Italian borders, Mussolini sought to expand his empire through providing more land and people. One of his public works programs included draining the Pontine Marshes to have extra fertile land. In terms of boosting the population,

Mussolini spawned the Battle of Births, aiming to double the population. Yet, large families were impossible to produce and maintain in economic crisis, as Mussolini never provided the majority of Italy with proper financial compensations. Not only did his birth plan fail,

but it also presented how degrading Mussolini’s opinion of women was displaying them as objects under the Fascist regime.

While Mussolini’s treatment of women as childbearing homebodies was nearly backed by the Catholic Church and therefore previously instilled in a patriarchal Italian society, he only intensified the dehumanization of women.

In terms of the church, although typically an atheist, Mussolini recognized that positive relations with the church/pope must exist in order to have the whole of Italy behind him. Since the unification of Italy, relations between the church and state had been poor.

Mussolini sought to lessen the friction by means of the Lateran Treaty in 1929. The terms stated that the pope was recognized as the ruler of a Vatican state, a specified area in Rome of less than a square mile. In turn, the pope was expected to recognize the Italian state.

Furthermore, the church received financial compensation for the land that was excluded from the Vatican state. Also, increased influence of the church in Italian life was promised.

Perhaps this was one of the more, and arguably the only, positive impacts that Mussolini would have on Italy. Not only did the treaty settle a half-century long dispute between the church and state, but also it established the Vatican City, which remains an important holy area.

Mussolini’s foreign policy was aggressive and destructive as he aimed to make Italy a great power, renewing the ancient Roman Empire. He involved himself in smaller nations for conquest, attempting to provide Italy with a sense of power and international importance.

For example, in 1923, Mussolini bombarded the small Greek island of Corfu claiming it was compensation for Italians that had been killed mapping the Albanian border. Perhaps more damage was caused when in 1935, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia,

bearing the ideas for expansion and prestige through conquest and colonization in mind. It claimed to be revenge for the Italian defeat in Adowa in 1896, in a hope to currently link the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Somalia.

War in Africa distracted Italy from her own domestic dilemmas. By June 1936, the conquest was complete and Mussolini enthroned Victor Emmanuel as the new emperor. The Ethiopian War gave the illusion that Italy was more powerful under the control of Mussolini.

Mussolini also involved his troops in the Spanish Civil War. However, the ultimate impact that his foreign policy had on Italy was minimal and can only be seen as negative as it would ultimately drive Italy into World War II.

It was the treaty signed with Germany in 1936 and Italy’s entering the war on Germany’s side in 1940 that would destroy Italy and seal Mussolini’s negative impact on the country. Italy was defeated in the war as Allied forces invaded Italy from the south.

Italian forces were left inadequate from both the Ethiopian War and the Italian involvement in the Spanish Civil War. Finally, Victor Emmanuel called for Mussolini to resign in 1943.

After living in northern Italy until the war’s end in a “Fascist Republic” that he had created on German occupied lands, Mussolini was killed trying to escape in 1945 and his corpse was set on display in the center of Milan.

Mussolini had neither a specific nor adequate plan in his attempt to create a Fascist Italy. His impact on the country may be seen as remotely positive and slightly effective in that he established a positive relation between church and state.