The Matteotti crisis was a political confrontation in Fascist Italy between liberals and the government after the assassination of socialist opposition deputy Giacomo Matteotti on 10 June 1924 by Benito Mussolini's secret political police. The crisis threatened Mussolini's political power but ended with his consolidation as Italy's dictator.[1]
The assassination of Giacomo Matteotti sparked widespread criticism of Fascism and of the Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. In the days following Matteotti's disappearance, it became clear Matteotti had been assassinated on the order of people at the top of the regime, prompting the outrage of the opposition. Within a fortnight of the murder the judge appointed to investigate the crime, Mauro Del Giudice, had ordered the arrest of high-profile members of Mussolini's inner circle and questions were asked about Mussolini's personal involvement.
In those weeks "Fascism fielded an articulated series of misdirections, obstructions of justice and red herrings, to declare the moral question closed".[2] After a few weeks of confusion, Mussolini gained a favourable vote from the Senate of the Kingdom.
All opposition parties then united to agree to abandon Parliamentary proceedings until the government had clarified what had happened to Matteotti in what became known as the Aventino Secession. This was an attempt to give strength to the "moral question" that would point to public disapproval of fascism but also to put pressure on the King to dismiss Mussolini.
However, Victor Emmanuel III refused to act, since the Government was supported by a large majority of the Chamber of Deputies and almost all the Senate of the Kingdom. Moreover, he feared that compelling Mussolini to resign could be considered a coup d'état that eventually could lead to a civil war between the Army and the Blackshirts.[3]
However, during the summer, the trial against Matteotti's alleged murderers and the discovery of the corpse of Matteotti once again spread rage against Mussolini – newspapers launched fierce attacks against him and the fascist movement.
On 13 September, a fascist deputy, Armando Casalini, was killed on a tramway in retaliation for Matteotti's murder by the anti-fascist Giovanni Corvi[it].
During the autumn of 1924, the extremist wing of the Fascist Party threatened Mussolini with a coup and dealt with him on the night of San Silvestro in 1924. Mussolini devised a counter-manoeuvre, and on 3 January 1925, he gave a famous speech both attacking anti-fascists and confirming that he, and only he, was the leader of Fascism. He challenged the anti-fascists to prosecute him and claimed proudly that Fascism was the "superb passion of the best youth of Italy" and grimly that "all the violence" was his responsibility because he had created the climate of violence. Admitting that the murderers were Fascists of "high station", as Hitler later did after the Night of the Long Knives, Mussolini rhetorically claimed fault, stating "I assume, I alone, the political, moral, historical responsibility for everything that has happened. If sentences, more or less maimed, are enough to hang a man, out with the noose!" Mussolini concluded with a warning: Italy needs stability and Fascism would assure stability to Italy in any manner necessary.[4][5] The speech is considered the beginning of the dictatorship in Italy.
Aftermath
Five men (Amerigo Dumini, the operational leader of the Fascist secret police; Giuseppe Viola, Albino Volpi, Augusto Malacria, and Amleto Poveromo) were arrested a few days after the kidnapping. Another suspect, Filippo Panzeri, fled from arrest. Only three men (Dumini, Volpi and Poveromo) were convicted in 1926 and shortly after released under an amnesty approved the previous summer by the Mussolini government.
Before the trial against the murderers, the High Court of the Senate started a trial against general Emilio De Bono, commander of the Fascist paramilitary Blackshirts (MVSN), but he was discharged: even after this trial the investigation records were kept strictly secret, to the point that, during the flight from the advancing Allied troops in 1944, the fascist leaders stole its documents and took them to Northern Italy, where they were recovered at the end of the Second World War.[6]
After the Second World War, in 1947, the trial against Francesco Giunta, Cesare Rossi, Dumini, Viola, Poveromo, Malacria, Filippelli and Panzeri was re-opened. Dumini, Viola and Poveromo were sentenced to life imprisonment.
In none of these three trials was evidence declared of Mussolini's involvement,[7] due to trial extinction for the death of the defendant.
Mussolini's alleged involvement
The involvement of Benito Mussolini in the assassination is much debated. Historians have suggested different theories over the years.
The first important biographer of Mussolini, Renzo De Felice, was convinced that the Duce was innocent. De Felice argued that Mussolini was a political victim of a plot, and almost surely he was damaged by the crisis that followed the murder. Many fascists left the Party, and his government was about to collapse. Aiding him were Aurelio Lepre and Emilio Gentile, who also believed in the Duce's innocence. However, De Felice did not have a chance to study many documents pertaining to the inquest over the murder which were not easily available at the time of his research. [8]
The former socialist and anti-fascist journalist Carlo Silvestri in 1924 was a harsh accuser of Mussolini; later, when he joined the Italian Social Republic, he affirmed that Mussolini had shown him the papers for the Matteotti case,[9] and eventually he changed his mind.[10] Silvestri started defending Mussolini and suggested that Matteotti was killed by a plot, in order both to damage Mussolini's attempt to raise a leftist government (with the participation of Socialists and Popolari) and to cover some scandals in which the Crown (with the American oil company Sinclair Oil) was involved.[citation needed]
John Gunther wrote in 1940 that "Most critics nowadays do not think that the Duce directly ordered the assassination ... but his moral responsibility is indisputable", perhaps with underlings believing they were carrying out Mussolini's desire by performing the kidnapping and murder on their own.[4] Other historians, including Justin Pollard and Denis Mack Smith, also thought the assassination was probably not ordered by Mussolini.
Mauro Canali suggested in 1997 that Mussolini probably did order the murder, as Matteotti uncovered and wanted to make public incriminating documents proving that Mussolini and his associates sold Sinclair Oil Corporation exclusive rights to all Italian oil reserves.[11] Judge Giovanni Spagnuolo, in relation to the business clue linked to the Sinclair Oil agreement, added in his 1946 indictment - refuting it in detail - that this "hypothesis clashes with the most elementary logic".[12]
In May 2024, Giorgia Meloni said in the 100 year anniversary of his death, that Matteotti was killed by a Fascist squad, but did not mention Mussolini's responsibility.[13]
↑ See F. Andriola, Mussolini, prassi politica e rivoluzione sociale, Rome, 1981.
↑ Mauro Canali, "The Matteotti Murder and Mussolini: The Anatomy of a Fascist Crime", (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)
↑ These papers were captured by partisans with the other documents of Mussolini. The folders with Matteotti's files were sent from Milan to Rome, but they never arrived. R. De Felice, Mussolini il Fascista, Einaudi, p. 601 footnote
↑ Carlo Silvestri, Matteotti, Mussolini e il dramma italiano, Cavallotti editore 1981, p. XXIII
↑ Mauro Canali, "Il delitto Matteotti. Affarismo e politica nel primo governo Mussolini", (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1997) (new edition 2004)
↑ Marzio Breda e Stefano Caretti, Il nemico di Mussolini: Giacomo Matteotti, storia di un eroe dimenticato, Solferino, 2024, p. 197.
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