Essay on "Mussolini's Foreign Policy"

Essay 12 pages (4013 words) Sources: 7

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Mussolini's Foreign Policy Goals

Because of the atrocities of Hitler's anti-Semitic reign in Eastern Europe and his stated goal of world domination, many people assume that world domination is a recurrent theme in fascist foreign policy. Certainly fascist or totalitarian governments, with their strict adherence to the ideal that there is only one way to appropriately to do things, do lend themselves to world-domination ideals. However, they are not the only types of governments to do so. After all, Imperial England was not ruled by a fascist government, but managed to achieve a significant amount of world domination. Therefore, it is important to look at Mussolini's own stated foreign policy goals before determining whether or not he was successful in achieving any of them, and whether any of those successes lasted after his defeat in World War II.

There is no question that Mussolini advocated a strong foreign policy. In fact, while his early political goals were subject to a significant amount of vacillation, depending on the prevailing political climate, the one thing that remained constant was his belief that Italy should pursue a strong foreign policy. For Mussolini, this meant that Italy should take an expansionist approach to foreign policy. To make that possible, Mussolini increased the size of the Italian army from 175,000 to 275,000 men.

He needed the increased army because he did want to expand into the rest of Europe. It is impossible to surmise why Mussolini wanted to expand Italy, but even a cursory knowledge of Roman history reminds one that the Roman Empire was certainly Italy's golden age. "Mussolini wanted to establish in the Mediterranean a modern Roman Empire, rivaling that of the ancient Caesars."

He realized that an expansionist foreign policy was necessary to accomplish that goal, because, even when Italy entered into a war as an ally to the winning side, its weak foreign policy reputation meant that it did not receive its promised spoils of war. In addition, Italy was a poor country, and expansionist policies would permit it to acquire more land and other raw materials to support its people and increase industry. Furthermore, "Fascist doctrines preached national glory. Italians should expand to show their national greatness."

Of course, cynical observers might suggest that Mussolini's fascination with an expansionist foreign policy was because it detracted people from a declining domestic situation. However, while foreign wars almost certainly did distract Italians from domestic conditions, the reality is that Mussolini advocated a strong foreign policy position for a significant time before coming into power, when distracting people from miserable domestic conditions would not have been politically beneficial. As a result, it is probably unwise to dismiss Mussolini's foreign policy interests as distractions or diversions for the Italian people.

In order to understand Mussolini's foreign policy goals, it is important to understand something about Italian history. Italy, as it is known today, only began to exist in 1870, when Italy was unified. Italy began with a constitutional monarchy that was patterned after Great Britain's. However:

democratic traditions failed to develop in Italy because the government was controlled by corrupt politicians, called the party bosses. They controlled the elections by bribing the voters. Once they were in power, they were more interested in making personal gains for themselves than in solving the social and economic problems of the people. As a result, by 1914 Italy remained a poor and backward country. The franchise was limited to 2.5 per cent of the population until after the election of 1913. Industrial progress was slow. Moreover, Italy was poor in natural resources and lack of fertile land. Many of the farm labourers were landless and were often unemployed. Thus millions of Italians were forced to emigrate abroad.

Italy also failed in its endeavors to emulate Great Britain as a colonial power. Part of this may have been due to the fact that, by the late 1800s / early 1900s, the days of imperialism were coming to an end, or it may have been due to a failure of leadership in Italy. Regardless of the reason, Italy was unable to colonize Abyssinia. "Because of its lack of success in both domestic and foreign affairs, the parliamentary government became a symbol of decadence and corruption -- it was neither trusted nor respected by the people."

This situation was exacerbated by Italy's entrance into the First World War. Rather than gaining the large territorial settlement it expected when entering into the war, Italy only received a portion of the territories it was promised when it decided to enter into the war. As a result, many Italians viewed their country as weak in foreign policy.

Because of dissatisfaction with Italy's foreign and domestic policies, many Italians began to support the Socialist Party and the Catholic Popular Party, which substantially changed the structure of Italian government. Furthermore, labor strikes in the country helped redistribute labor and wealth. Despite those successes, the Socialists were unable to seize power in Italy. As a result, the Socialist Party split into factions, including the Communist Party. The Fascists, led by Mussolini, used the threat of communist revolution to take over Italian politics. Mussolini had socialist political origins, and had a history as a journalist, editor, and socialist agitator. However, Mussolini did not adhere to the structure of socialism. On the contrary, he seemed to advocate the ideas that were the most popular among the Italian workers. "This seemed to indicate that he was an opportunist, very interested in winning followers and power for himself."

This inconsistency has also made it difficult to determine Mussolini's foreign policy goals. In fact, when Mussolini founded the Milan facio in March 1919, it had no clear-cut goals except for a belief in action and a stated goal of strong foreign policy.

However, when Italy was driven from Fiume at the end of 1920, many Italians began to believe that Italy would have to develop strong foreign policy. In 1921, Mussolini formed the National Fascist Party, and began to quickly amass power in the Italian government. One of the ways he did so was to tout his ideas about a strong foreign policy, which "could bring national glory to Italy."

Soon, the Fascists, the Socialists, and the Communists were literally at war, with laborers in different groups declaring strikes and generally plunging the country into domestic chaos. Mussolini seized that opportunity to march upon Rome and virtually forced the Italian king to name him the Prime Minister.

To understand Mussolini's foreign policy, it is also important to understand his domestic policy. Fascists believed that constitutional monarchies or other forms of democracy were bound to fail, and, therefore, parliamentary democracy had to be discarded:

In the words of Mussolini, national strength was conceived qualitatively and not quantitatively. For the strength of the nation, it should be ruled by a well-disciplined party elite, which, under the guidance of an inspired and unquestioned leader, would restore order and stability for the nation and lead it forward to greatness.

Mussolini advocated state control of economics, and also state control of both assembly and thought. Mussolini stressed the over-arching important of the state, and advocated the ideal that each individual place the state above themselves. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Mussolini's ultimate foreign policy goal was to "revive the glories of the old Roman Empire."

While that goal may not have been literal world-domination, the breadth and span of the Roman Empire, given the technology of its day, has rarely been accomplished by other societies. It would not be erroneous, then, to assume that Mussolini wanted to dominate as much of the globe as he possibly could, and he adopted an "expansionist foreign policy from the beginning of his rule."

Mussolini was a failure in his domestic policy. His programs aimed at improving financial conditions for the average Italian actually resulted in a decrease in the Italian standard-of-living. However, by the time his programs were revealed as failures, Mussolini had already accomplished a totalitarian takeover of the government. Dissent was not permitted. The secret police and other governmental organizations suppressed dissent in the adults, and a government-controlled media strictly monitored what news Italians received. Furthermore:

Through education, school children were indoctrinated with Fascist ideas. They were told that "Mussolini is always right. Millions of them were recruited into the youth organizations of the party. In 1931, university professors were forced to swear an oath of loyalty to fascism and to teach according to its principles.

However, by the late 1920s, Mussolini began to see the need for Catholics to support his regime, because the vast majority of Catholics were Italian. Moreover, Catholics had banded together in religious political groups prior to Mussolini's takeover of the Italian government, which had to make him aware of the possibility that they would do so again. As a result, Mussolini engaged in his first successful foray into foreign policy. When Mussolini entered into the government, there was a long-standing rift between the Papacy and the Kingdom of… READ MORE

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