Mussolini’s first two years in power

1. Mussolini’s first two years in power Bryant

2. Forming government • At age 39, Mussolini was the youngest Prime Minister in Italy. • He had to be careful since there were less Fascists in parliament. • Mussolini’s first step was to make a government to please everyone. He did this by giving jobs to not only Fascists, but also to other parties. • He kept the best jobs for himself, though.

3. Two weeks after being put in power, Mussolini made a long bullying speech about how he could shut parliament down if he wanted to. • Despite many protests, Mussolini asked to have full power for an entire year. • The majority voted in his favor. • Mussolini then went to a conference in Lausanne, Switzerland to get respect from his fellow leaders. • Many ridiculed him and journalist Ernest Hemingway noted that Mussolini had been reading a book upside down at the conference.

4. Mussolini increases his power • After the conference, Mussolini began using his power. • He turned the fascist militia into his own private army (the MVSN) to do his dirty work for him. • Mussolini ordered the police to arrest all his political enemies. Soon, thousands of them had been locked up. • And since Mussolini owned them, the police could do nothing about the violence being carried out by the MVSN.

5. He also used his power to gain support from the Pope by increasing the pay of priests, banning obscene books, teaching religion in school and making swearing a criminal offense. • Mussolini also gained support from the business men of Italy by decreasing taxes on the rich. • He also improved the public transport so that the trains would always run on time.

6. August 1923: an Italian general is killed in Greece while making maps. • Despite the Greek government had nothing to do with this, Mussolini demanded an apology and a 50 million lire fine. • The Greeks refused, so the Italian navy attacked the Greek island of Corfu killing many people (including children) and driving many out of their homes. • The Greek government eventually gave in to Mussolini’s demands.

7. 1924 elections • After a year in office, Mussolini felt confident to hold a general ellection. • First he introduced the Acerbo Law, which meant that the party that received the most votes would receive 2/3 of the seats at parliament. That way the Fascist could guarantee a majority in parliament even if they did not get the most votes. • The elections took place in March 1924.

8. Mussolini stated that “a good beating never does any harm”, so Socialist politicians were promptly beaten, tortured, and terrorized. • The Facists rigged the election in many towns by confiscating voting cards from opponents and then using them. They put the names of dead people on the cards and pretended to be them. • They even stole ballot boxes.

9. When the elections were over, the Acerbo law became unnecessary since the Fascists won 65% of the votes. • Facists: 374 seats • Other parties: 180 seats