You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Italian. (October 2019)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
All 535 seats in the Chamber of Deputies 268 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
General elections were held in Italy on 6 April 1924 to elect the members of the Chamber of Deputies. [1] They were held two years after the March on Rome, in which Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party rose to power, and under the controversial Acerbo Law, which stated that the party with the largest share of the votes would automatically receive two-thirds of the seats in Parliament as long as they received over 25% of the vote. [2]
Mussolini's National List (an alliance of Catholic, liberal, and conservative political parties) used intimidation tactics against voters, [2] resulting in a landslide victory and a subsequent two-thirds majority. This was the country's last multi-party election until the 1946 Italian general election.
On 22 October 1922 Benito Mussolini, the leader of the National Fascist Party, attempted a coup d'état (titled by the Fascist propaganda as the March on Rome) in which around 30,000 Italian fascists took part. The quadrumvirs leading the Fascist party, General Emilio De Bono, Italo Balbo (one of the most famous ras), Michele Bianchi, and Cesare Maria de Vecchi, organized the march while Mussolini stayed behind for most of the march; Mussolini allowed pictures to be taken of him marching along with the Fascist marchers. Generals Gustavo Fara and Sante Ceccherini assisted to the preparations of the March of 18 October. Other organizers of the march included the Marquis Dino Perrone Compagni and Ulisse Igliori.
On 24 October 1922, Mussolini declared before 60,000 people at the Fascist Congress in Naples: "Our program is simple: we want to rule Italy." [3] The Blackshirts occupied some strategic points of the country and began to move on the capital. On 26 October, former Prime Minister of Italy, Antonio Salandra, warned the incumbent Prime Minister Luigi Facta that Mussolini was demanding his resignation and that he was preparing to march on Rome. Facta did not believe Salandra and thought that Mussolini would govern quietly at his side. To meet the threat posed by the bands of Fascist troops now gathering outside Rome, Facta (who had resigned but continued to hold power) ordered a state of siege for Rome. Having had previous conversations with King Victor Emmanuel III about the repression of Fascist violence, he was sure the King would agree. [4] Instead, the King refused to sign the military order. [5] On 28 October, the King handed power to Mussolini, who was supported by the military, the business class, and political right. [6]
While the march itself was composed of fewer than 30,000 men, the King feared a civil war as he did not consider strong enough previous government, and Fascism was no longer seen as a threat to the establishment. Mussolini was asked to form his cabinet on 29 October while some 25,000 Blackshirts were parading in Rome. Mussolini legally reached power in accordance with the Statuto Albertino, the Italian constitution. The March on Rome was not the conquest of power which Fascism later celebrated but rather the precipitating force behind a transfer of power within the framework of the constitution. This transition was made possible by the surrender of public authorities in the face of Fascist intimidation. Many business and financial leaders believed it would be possible to manipulate Mussolini, whose early speeches and policies emphasized free market and laissez-faire economics. [7]
While Mussolini appointed an economic liberal minister to the economy, this changed as the Great Depression affected Italy along with the rest of the world starting in 1929, and Mussolini responded to it by increasing the role of the state in the economy to avoid a banking crisis. [8] Back in October 1922, even though the coup failed in giving power directly to the Fascist party, it nonetheless resulted in a parallel agreement between Mussolini and the King that made Mussolini the head of the Italian government. A few weeks after the election, Giacomo Matteotti, the leader of the Unitary Socialist Party, requested during his speech in front of the Parliament that the elections be annulled because of the irregularities. [9] On June 10, Matteotti was assassinated by the Blackshirts and his murder provoked a momentary crisis in the Mussolini government. The opposition parties responded weakly or were generally unresponsive. Many of the socialists, liberals, and moderates boycotted Parliament in the Aventine Secession, hoping to force the King to dismiss Mussolini.[ citation needed ]
On 31 December 1924 Blackshirt leaders met with Mussolini and gave him an ultimatum—crush the opposition or they would do so without him. Fearing a revolt by his own militants, he decided to drop all trappings of democracy. [10] On 3 January 1925, Mussolini made a truculent speech before the Chamber of Deputies in which he took responsibility for squadristi violence but did not mention the assassination of Matteotti. [11] This speech usually is taken as the beginning of the Fascist dictatorship because it was followed by several laws restricting or canceling common democratic liberties, all rubber-stamped by a Fascist-controlled Parliament.
This was the first and only multi-party general election held under the terms of the Acerbo Law. The Acerbo Law had been adopted by Parliament in November 1923 and stated that the party gaining the largest share of the votes—provided they had gained at least 25 percent of the votes—gained two-thirds of the seats in parliament. The remaining third was shared amongst the other parties through proportional representation. [12]
Party | Ideology | Leader | Status before election | |
---|---|---|---|---|
National List (LN) | Fascism | Benito Mussolini | Government | |
Italian People's Party (PPI) | Christian democracy | Alcide De Gasperi | Government | |
Unitary Socialist Party (PSU) | Social democracy | Giacomo Matteotti | Opposition | |
Italian Socialist Party (PSI) | Socialism | Tito Oro Nobili | Opposition | |
Communist Party of Italy (PCdI) | Communism | Antonio Gramsci | Opposition | |
Italian Liberal Party (PLI) | Liberalism | Luigi Facta | Government | |
Democratic Liberal Party (PLD) | Social liberalism | Francesco Saverio Nitti | Government | |
Italian Republican Party (PRI) | Republicanism | Eugenio Chiesa | Opposition | |
Social Democracy (DS) | Social liberalism | Giovanni Antonio Colonna | Government |
Party | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
National List | 4,305,936 | 60.09 | 355 | +250 | |
Italian People's Party | 645,789 | 9.01 | 39 | −69 | |
Unitary Socialist Party | 422,957 | 5.90 | 24 | New | |
Italian Socialist Party | 360,694 | 5.03 | 22 | −101 | |
National List bis | 347,552 | 4.85 | 19 | New | |
Communist Party of Italy | 268,191 | 3.74 | 19 | +4 | |
Italian Liberal Party | 233,521 | 3.26 | 15 | −28 | |
Democratic Liberal Party | 157,932 | 2.20 | 14 | −54 | |
Italian Republican Party | 133,714 | 1.87 | 7 | +1 | |
Social Democracy | 111,035 | 1.55 | 10 | −19 | |
Peasants' Party of Italy | 73,569 | 1.03 | 4 | New | |
Lists of Slavs and Germans | 62,491 | 0.87 | 4 | −5 | |
Sardinian Action Party | 24,059 | 0.34 | 2 | New | |
National Fasces | 18,062 | 0.25 | 1 | New | |
Total | 7,165,502 | 100.00 | 535 | 0 | |
Valid votes | 7,165,502 | 94.10 | |||
Invalid/blank votes | 448,949 | 5.90 | |||
Total votes | 7,614,451 | 100.00 | |||
Registered voters/turnout | 11,939,452 | 63.78 |
Region | First party | Second party | Third party | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Abruzzo-Molise | LN | PSU | PLD | |||
Apulia | LN | PLI | PCdI | |||
Basilicata | LN | PLD | DS | |||
Calabria | LN | PLD | DS | |||
Campania | LN | PLD | PSU | |||
Emilia-Romagna | LN | PPI | PSU | |||
Lazio | LN | PPI | PSI | |||
Liguria | LN | PSU | PPI | |||
Lombardy | LN | PPI | PSU | |||
Marche | LN | PPI | PSU | |||
Piedmont | LN | PLI | PSU | |||
Sardinia | LN | PSdA | PPI | |||
Sicily | LN | PSDI | PLD | |||
Trentino | LN | PPI | SeT | |||
Tuscany | LN | PSU | PPI | |||
Umbria | LN | PPI | PSI | |||
Veneto | LN | PPI | PSI | |||
Venezia Giulia | LN | PPI | SeT |
Victor Emmanuel III, born Vittorio Emanuele Ferdinando Maria Gennaro di Savoia, was King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. A member of the House of Savoy, he also reigned as Emperor of Ethiopia (1936–41) and King of the Albanians (1939–43) following the Italian invasions of Ethiopia and Albania. During his reign of nearly 46 years, which began after the assassination of his father Umberto I, the Kingdom of Italy became involved in two world wars. His reign also encompassed the birth, rise, and fall of the Fascist regime in Italy.
Giovanni Giolitti was an Italian statesman. He was the prime minister of Italy five times between 1892 and 1921. He is the longest-serving democratically elected prime minister in Italian history, and the second-longest serving overall after Benito Mussolini. A prominent leader of the Historical Left and the Liberal Union, he is widely considered one of the most wealthy, powerful and important politicians in Italian history; due to his dominant position in Italian politics, Giolitti was accused by critics of being an authoritarian leader and a parliamentary dictator.
Giacomo Matteotti was an Italian socialist politician and secretary of the Partito Socialista Unitario. He was elected deputy of the Chamber of Deputies three times, in 1919, 1921 and in 1924. On 30 May 1924, he openly spoke in the Italian Parliament alleging the Italian fascists committed fraud in the 1924 general election, and denounced the violence they used to gain votes. Eleven days later, he was kidnapped and killed by the secret political police of Benito Mussolini.
The March on Rome was an organized mass demonstration in October 1922 which resulted in Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party ascending to power in the Kingdom of Italy. In late October 1922, Fascist Party leaders planned a march on the capital. On 28 October, the fascist demonstrators and Blackshirt paramilitaries approached Rome; Prime Minister Luigi Facta wished to declare a state of siege, but this was overruled by King Victor Emmanuel III, who, fearing bloodshed, persuaded Facta to resign by threatening to abdicate. On 30 October 1922, the King appointed Mussolini as Prime Minister, thereby transferring political power to the fascists without armed conflict. On 31 October the fascist Blackshirts paraded in Rome, while Mussolini formed his coalition government.
Roberto Farinacci was a leading Italian fascist politician and important member of the National Fascist Party before and during World War II, as well as one of its ardent antisemitic proponents. English historian Christopher Hibbert describes him as "slavishly pro-German".
Luigi Facta was an Italian politician, lawyer and journalist and the last prime minister of Italy before the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini.
Giacomo Acerbo, Baron of Aterno, was an Italian economist and politician. He is best known for having drafted the Acerbo Law that allowed the National Fascist Party (PNF) to achieve a supermajority of two-thirds of the Italian Parliament after the 1924 Italian general election, which saw intimidation tactics against voters.
The history of fascist ideology is long and it draws on many sources. Fascists took inspiration from sources as ancient as the Spartans for their focus on racial purity and their emphasis on rule by an élite minority. Researchers have also seen links between fascism and the ideals of Plato, though there are key differences between the two. Italian Fascism styled itself as the ideological successor to Ancient Rome, particularly the Roman Empire. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's view on the absolute authority of the state also strongly influenced fascist thinking. The 1789 French Revolution was a major influence insofar as the Nazis saw themselves as fighting back against many of the ideas which it brought to prominence, especially liberalism, liberal democracy and racial equality, whereas on the other hand, fascism drew heavily on the revolutionary ideal of nationalism. The prejudice of a "high and noble" Aryan culture as opposed to a "parasitic" Semitic culture was core to Nazi racial views, while other early forms of fascism concerned themselves with non-racialized conceptions of their respective nations.
The Aventine Secession was the withdrawal of the parliament opposition, mainly comprising the Italian Socialist Party, Italian Liberal Party, Italian People's Party and Italian Communist Party, from the Chamber of Deputies in 1924–25, following the murder of the deputy Giacomo Matteotti by fascists on 10 June 1924.
Italian fascism, also classical fascism and Fascism, is the original fascist ideology, which Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini developed in Italy. The ideology of Italian Fascism is associated with a series of political parties led by Mussolini: the National Fascist Party (PNF), which governed the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, and the Republican Fascist Party (PFR), which governed the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945. Italian fascism also is associated with the post–war Italian Social Movement (MSI) and later Italian neo-fascist political organisations.
General elections were held in Italy on 16 November 1919. The fragmented Liberal governing coalition lost the absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies, due to the success of the Italian Socialist Party and the Italian People's Party.
The National Fascist Party was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian fascism and as a reorganisation of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. The party ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 when Fascists took power with the March on Rome until the fall of the Fascist regime in 1943, when Mussolini was deposed by the Grand Council of Fascism. The National Fascist Party was succeeded by the Republican Fascist Party in the territories under the control of the Italian Social Republic, and it was ultimately dissolved at the end of World War II.
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian dictator who founded and led the National Fascist Party (PNF). He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922, until his deposition in 1943, as well as Duce of Italian fascism from the establishment of the Italian Fasces of Combat in 1919, until his summary execution in 1945. As a dictator and founder of fascism, Mussolini inspired the international spread of fascist movements during the interwar period.
The Kingdom of Italy witnessed significant widespread civil unrest and political strife in the aftermath of World War I and the rise of Italian fascism, the far-right movement led by Benito Mussolini, which opposed the rise at the international level of the political left, especially the far-left along with others who opposed fascism.
General elections were held in Italy on 24 March 1929 to elect the members of the Chamber of Deputies. By this time, the country was a single-party state with the National Fascist Party (PNF) as the only legally permitted party.
Cesare Rossi was an Italian fascist leader who later became estranged from the regime.
The Acerbo Law was an Italian electoral law proposed by Baron Giacomo Acerbo and passed by the Italian Parliament in November 1923. The purpose of it was to give Mussolini's fascist party a majority of deputies. The law was used only in the 1924 general election, which was the last competitive election held in Italy until 1946.
Events from the year 1922 in Italy. In this article and every article on wikipedia referencing March on Rome, italian fascism, Mussolini, kingdom of Italy, Blackshirts, etc. the date is given as 1922 rather than 1932. Britannica.com also uses 1922.
The National List also known as Listone was a Fascist and nationalist coalition of political parties in Italy established for the 1924 general election, and led by Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister of Italy and leader of the National Fascist Party.
The Commemorative Medal of the March on Rome was a decoration granted by the Kingdom of Italy to recognize the October 1922 March on Rome. The march pressured the Italian government into appointing Benito Mussolini prime minister of Italy and began Fascist rule and what the National Fascist Party deemed the "Era Fascista".