Fascist Italian

Italian fascism (), also called 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.

Italian fascism originated from ideological combinations of ultranationalism and Italian nationalism, national syndicalism and revolutionary nationalism, and from the militarism of Italian irredentism to regain "lost overseas territories of Italy" deemed necessary to restore Italian nationalist pride.Aristotle A. Kallis. ''Fascist ideology: territory and expansionism in Italy and Germany, 1922–1945''. London; New York: Routledge, 2000, p. 41. Italian Fascists also claimed that modern Italy was an heiress to the imperial legacy of Ancient Rome, and that there existed historical proof which supported the creation of an Imperial Fascist Italy to provide '' spazio vitale'' (vital space) for the Second Italo-Senussi War of Italian settler colonisation ''en route'' to establishing hegemonic control of the terrestrial basin of the Mediterranean Sea.

Italian fascism promoted a corporatist economic system, whereby employer and employee syndicates are linked together in associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy.Andrew Vincent. ''Modern Political Ideologies''. Third edition. Malden, Massachusetts; Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2009. p. 160. This economic system intended to resolve class conflict through collaboration between the classes.

Italian fascism opposed liberalism, especially classical liberalism, which fascist leaders denounced as "the debacle of individualism".Eugen Weber. ''The Western Tradition: From the Renaissance to the present''. Heath, 1972. p. 791. Fascism was opposed to socialism because of the latter's frequent opposition to nationalism, but it was also opposed to the reactionary conservatism developed by Joseph de Maistre. It believed the success of Italian nationalism required respect for tradition and a clear sense of a shared past among the Italian people, alongside a commitment to a modernised Italy.Claudia Lazzaro, Roger J. Crum. "Forging a Visible Fascist Nation: Strategies for Fusing the Past and Present" by Claudia Lazzaro, ''Donatello Among The Blackshirts: History And Modernity in the Visual Culture of Fascist Italy''. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. p. 13.

Originally, many Italian fascists were opposed to Nazism, as fascism in Italy did not espouse Nordicism nor, initially, the antisemitism inherent in Nazi ideology; however, many fascists, in particular Mussolini himself, held racist ideas (specifically anti-Slavism) that were enshrined into law as official policy over the course of fascist rule. As Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany grew politically closer in the latter half of the 1930s, Italian laws and policies became explicitly antisemitic due to pressure from Nazi Germany (even though antisemitic laws were not commonly enforced in Italy), including the passage of the Italian racial laws. When the fascists were in power, they also persecuted some linguistic minorities in Italy. In addition, the Greeks in Dodecanese and Northern Epirus, which were then under Italian occupation and influence, were persecuted.

Etymology

The Italian term is derived from , meaning 'bundle of sticks', ultimately from the Latin word . This was the name given to political organizations in Italy known as fasci, groups similar to guilds or syndicates. According to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's own account, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action were founded in Italy in 1915. In 1919, Mussolini founded the Italian Fasces of Combat in Milan, which became the National Fascist Party two years later. The fascists came to associate the term with the ancient Roman fasces or , a bundle of rods tied around an axe, an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrate, carried by his lictors. The symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break.

Prior to 1914, the fasces symbol was widely employed by various political movements, often of a left-wing or liberal persuasion. For instance, according to Robert Paxton, "Marianne, symbol of the French Republic, was often portrayed in the nineteenth century carrying the fasces to represent the force of Republican solidarity against her aristocratic and clerical enemies." The symbol often appeared as an architectural motif, for instance on the Sheldonian Theater at Oxford University and on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Principal beliefs

Nationalism

Italian fascism is based upon Italian nationalism and in particular, it seeks to complete what it considers the incomplete project of '' Risorgimento'' by incorporating ''Italia Irredenta'' (unredeemed Italy) into the state of Italy.Terence Ball, Richard Bellamy. ''The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought''. Cambridge University Press, p. 133. The National Fascist Party (PNF) founded in 1921 declared that the party was to serve as "a revolutionary militia placed at the service of the nation. It follows a policy based on three principles: order, discipline, hierarchy".

It identifies modern Italy as the heir to the Roman Empire and Italy during the Renaissance and it promotes the cultural identity of '' Romanitas'' (Roman-ness). Italian fascism historically sought to forge a strong Italian Empire as a Third Rome, identifying ancient Rome as the First Rome and Renaissance-era Italy as the Second Rome. Italian fascism has emulated ancient Rome and in particular, Mussolini emulated ancient Roman leaders, such as Julius Caesar as a model for the fascists' rise to power and Augustus as a model for empire-building. Italian fascism has directly promoted imperialism, such as within the ''Doctrine of Fascism'' (1932), ghostwritten by Giovanni Gentile on behalf of Mussolini:

Irredentism and expansionism

Fascism emphasized the need for the restoration of the Mazzinian '' Risorgimento'' tradition that followed the unification of Italy, that the fascists claimed had been left incomplete and abandoned in the Giolittian-era Italy. Fascism sought the incorporation of claimed "unredeemed" territories into Italy.

To the east of Italy, the fascists claimed that Dalmatia was a land of Italian culture whose Italians ( Dalmatian Italians), including those of Italianized South Slavic descent, had been driven out of Dalmatia and into exile in Italy, and supported the return of Italians of Dalmatian heritage. Mussolini identified Dalmatia as having strong Italian cultural roots for centuries via the Roman Empire and the Republic of Venice.Larry Wolff. ''Venice And the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment''. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. 2002, p. 355. The fascists especially focused their claims based on the Venetian cultural heritage of Dalmatia, claiming that Venetian rule had been beneficial for all Dalmatians and had been accepted by the Dalmatian population. The fascists were outraged when in 1919, after World War I, the agreement between Italy and the Entente Allies to have Dalmatia join Italy made in the 1915 Treaty of London was revoked. The fascist regime supported the annexation of Yugoslavia's region of Slovenia into Italy that already held a portion of the Slovene population, whereby Slovenia would become an Italian province, resulting in a quarter of Slovene ethnic territory and approximately 327,000 out of a total population of 1.3Lipušček, U. (2012) ''Sacro egoismo: Slovenci v krempljih tajnega londonskega pakta 1915'', Cankarjeva založba, Ljubljana. million Slovenes being subjected to forced Italianization.Cresciani, Gianfranco (2004
Clash of civilisations
, Italian Historical Society Journal, Vol. 12, No. 2, p. 4 The fascist regime imposed mandatory Italianization upon the German and South Slavic populations living within Italy's borders.John F. Pollard. ''The Vatican and Italian Fascism, 1929–32: A Study in Conflict''. Cambridge University Press, 1985, 2005. p. 92. The fascist regime abolished the teaching of minority German and Slavic languages in schools, German and Slavic language newspapers were shut down and geographical and family names in areas of German or Slavic languages were to be Italianized. This resulted in significant violence against South Slavs deemed to be resisting Italianization. The fascist regime supported the annexation of Albania, claimed that Albanians were ethnically linked to Italians through links with the prehistoric Italiote, Illyrian, and Roman populations and that the major influence exerted by the Roman and Venetian empires over Albania justified Italy's right to possess it. The fascist regime also justified the annexation of Albania on the basis that''—''because several hundred thousand people of Albanian descent had been absorbed into society in southern Italy already''—''the incorporation of Albania was a reasonable measure that would unite people of Albanian descent into one state. The fascist regime endorsed Albanian irredentism, directed against the predominantly Albanian-populated Kosovo and Epirus, particularly in Chameria inhabited by a substantial number of Albanians. After Italy annexed Albania in 1939, the fascist regime endorsed assimilating Albanians into Italians and colonizing Albania with Italian settlers from the Italian Peninsula to gradually transform it into an Italian land. The fascist regime claimed the Ionian Islands as Italian territory on the basis that the islands had belonged to the Venetian Republic from the mid-14th until the late 18th century.

To the west of Italy, the fascists claimed the territories of Corsica, Nice and to the south claimed the territories of Malta and Corfu due to the presence of Corsican Italians, Niçard Italians, Maltese Italians, Corfiot Italians and Savoyard Italians. During the period of Italian unification in 1860 to 1861, Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, who was leading the unification effort, faced opposition from French Emperor Napoleon III who indicated that France would oppose Italian unification unless France was given the County of Nice and Savoy that were held by Piedmont-Sardinia, as France did not want a powerful state having control of all the passages of the Alps. As a result, Piedmont-Sardinia was pressured to concede Nice and Savoy to France in exchange for France accepting the unification of Italy. The fascist regime produced literature on Corsica that presented evidence of the ''italianità'' (Italianness) of the island.Davide Rodogno. ''Fascism's European Empire: Italian Occupation during the Second World War''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. p. 88. The fascist regime produced literature on Nice that justified that Nice was an Italian land based on historic, ethnic and linguistic grounds. The fascists quoted medieval Italian scholar Petrarch, who said: "The border of Italy is the Var; consequently Nice is a part of Italy". The fascists quoted Italian national hero Giuseppe Garibaldi, who said: "Corsica and Nice must not belong to France; there will come the day when an Italy mindful of its true worth will reclaim its provinces now so shamefully languishing under foreign domination". Mussolini initially pursued promoting annexation of Corsica through political and diplomatic means, believing that Corsica could be annexed to Italy through first encouraging the existing autonomist tendencies in Corsica and then the independence of Corsica from France, that would be followed by the annexation of Corsica into Italy.

To the north of Italy, the fascist regime in the 1930s had designs on the largely Italian-populated region ( Swiss Italians) of Ticino and the Romansch-populated region of Graubünden in Switzerland (the Romansch are a people with a Latin-based language).John F. L. Ross. ''Neutrality and International Sanctions: Sweden, Switzerland, and Collective Security''. ABC-CLIO, 1989. p. 91. In November 1938, Mussolini declared to the Grand Fascist Council: "We shall bring our border to the Gotthard Pass". The fascist regime accused the Swiss government of oppressing the Romansch people in Graubünden. Mussolini argued that Romansch was an Italian dialect and thus Graubünden should be incorporated into Italy. Ticino was also claimed because the region had belonged to the Duchy of Milan from the mid-fourteenth century until 1515, as well as being inhabited by Italian speakers of Italian ethnicity. Claim was also raised on the basis that areas now part of Graubünden in the Mesolcina valley and Hinterrhein were held by the Milanese Trivulzio family, who ruled from the Mesocco Castle in the late 15th century. Also during the summer of 1940, Galeazzo Ciano met with Hitler and Ribbentrop and proposed to them the dissection of Switzerland along the central chain of the Western Alps, which would have left Italy also with the canton of Valais in addition to the claims raised earlier.McGregor Knox,
Mussolini Unleashed, 1939–1941: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy's Last War
'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 138.

To the south, the regime claimed the archipelago of Malta, which had been held by the British since 1800.Juliet Rix. ''Malta''. Bradt Travel Guides. 2010. pp. 16–17. Mussolini claimed that the Maltese language was a dialect of Italian and theories about Malta being the cradle of the Latin civilization were promoted. Italian had been widely used in Malta in the literary, scientific and legal fields and it was one of Malta's official languages until 1937 when its status was abolished by the British as a response to Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. Italian irredentists had claimed that territories on the coast of North Africa were Italy's Fourth Shore and used the historical Roman rule in North Africa as a precedent to justify the incorporation of such territories to Italian jurisdiction as being a "return" of Italy to North Africa. In January 1939, Italy annexed territories in Libya that it considered within Italy's Fourth Shore, with Libya's four coastal provinces of Tripoli, Misurata, Benghazi and Derna becoming an integral part of metropolitan Italy.John Wright. ''History of Libya''. Oxford University Press. 2012, p. 165. At the same time, indigenous Libyans were given the ability to apply for "Special Italian Citizenship" which required such people to be literate in the Italian language and confined this type of citizenship to be valid in Libya only. Tunisia that had been taken by France as a protectorate in 1881 had the highest concentration of Italians in North Africa and its seizure by France had been viewed as an injury to national honour in Italy at what they perceived as a "loss" of Tunisia from Italian plans to incorporate it. Upon entering World War II, Italy declared its intention to seize Tunisia as well as the province of Constantine of Algeria from France.

To the south, the fascist regime held an interest in expanding Italy's African colonial possessions. In the 1920s, Italy regarded Portugal as a weak country that was unbecoming of a colonial power due to its weak hold on its colonies and mismanagement of them and as such Italy desired to annexe Portugal's colonies.Lucas F. Bruyning, Joseph Theodoor Leerssen. ''Italy – Europe''. Rodopi, 1990. p. 113. Italy's relations with Portugal were influenced by the rise to power of the authoritarian conservative nationalist regime of Salazar, which borrowed fascist methods, though Salazar upheld Portugal's traditional alliance with Britain.

Racism

Until Benito Mussolini's alliance with Adolf Hitler, he had always denied any antisemitism within the National Fascist Party (PNF). In the early 1920s, Mussolini wrote an article which stated that Fascism would never elevate a " Jewish Question" and that "Italy knows no antisemitism and we believe that it will never know it" and then elaborated "let us hope that Italian Jews will continue to be sensible enough so as not to give rise to antisemitism in the only country where it has never existed". In 1932 during a conversation with Emil Ludwig, Mussolini described antisemitism as a "German vice" and stated: "There was 'no Jewish Question' in Italy and could not be one in a country with a healthy system of government". On several occasions, Mussolini spoke positively about Jews and the Zionist movement. Mussolini had initially rejected Nazi racism, especially the idea of a master race, as "arrant nonsense, stupid and idiotic". During the holocaust Fascist Italy, as well as the occupation zones in Greece, France and Yugoslavia, remained comparatively safe areas for both local Jews and refugees from other countries, until the Italian surrender in September 1943.

In 1929, Mussolini acknowledged the contributions of Italian Jews to Italian society, despite their minority status, and believed that Jewish culture was Mediterranean, aligning with his early Mediterraneanist perspective. He also argued that Italian Jews were natives to Italy, as they had been living in the Italian Peninsula since Roman times.Neocleous, Mark. ''Fascism''. Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. p. 35 Initially, Fascist Italy did not enact comprehensive racist policies like those policies which were enacted by its World War II Axis partner Nazi Germany. Italy's National Fascist Party leader, Benito Mussolini, expressed different views on the subject of race throughout his career. In an interview conducted in 1932 at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, he said "Race? It is a feeling, not a reality: ninety-five percent, at least, is a feeling. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today". By 1938, however, he began to actively support racist policies in the Italian Fascist regime, as evidenced by his endorsement of the " Manifesto of Race", the seventh point of which stated that "it is time that Italians proclaim themselves to be openly racist", although Mussolini said that the Manifesto was endorsed "entirely for political reasons", in deference to Nazi German wishes. The "Manifesto of Race", which was published on 14 July 1938, paved the way for the enactment of the Racial Laws. Leading members of the National Fascist Party (PNF), such as Dino Grandi and Italo Balbo, reportedly opposed the Racial Laws. Balbo, in particular, regarded antisemitism as having nothing to do with fascism and staunchly opposed the antisemitic laws.Claudio G. Segrè. ''Italo Balbo: A Fascist Life''. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999. p. 346. After 1938, discrimination and persecution intensified and became an increasingly important hallmark of Italian Fascist ideology and policies. Nevertheless, Mussolini and the Italian military did not consistently apply the laws adopted in the Manifesto of Race. In 1943, Mussolini expressed regret for the endorsement, saying that it could've been avoided. After the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, the Italian Fascist government implemented strict racial segregation between white people and black people in Ethiopia.

Totalitarianism

In 1925, the PNF declared that Italy's fascist state would be totalitarian. The term "totalitarian" had initially been used as a pejorative accusation by Italy's liberal opposition that denounced the fascist movement for seeking to create a total dictatorship. However, the fascists responded by accepting that they were totalitarian, but presented totalitarianism from a positive viewpoint. Mussolini described totalitarianism as seeking to forge an authoritarian national state that would be capable of completing ''Risorgimento'' of the ''Italia Irredenta'', forge a powerful modern Italy and create a new kind of citizen – politically active fascist Italians.

The ''Doctrine of Fascism'' (1932) described the nature of Italian fascism's totalitarianism, stating the following:

American journalist H. R. Knickerbocker wrote in 1941: "Mussolini's Fascist state is the least terroristic of the three totalitarian states. The terror is so mild in comparison with the Soviet or Nazi varieties, that it almost fails to qualify as terroristic at all." As example he described an Italian journalist friend who refused to become a fascist. He was fired from his newspaper and put under 24-hour surveillance, but otherwise not harassed; his employment contract was settled for a lump sum and he was allowed to work for the foreign press. Knickerbocker contrasted his treatment with the inevitable torture and execution under Stalin or Hitler, and stated "you have a fair idea of the comparative mildness of the Italian kind of totalitarianism".

However, since World War II historians have noted that in Italy's colonies Italian fascism displayed extreme levels of violence. The deaths of one-tenth of the population of the Italian colony of Libya occurred during the fascist era, including from the use of gassings, concentration camps, starvation and disease; and in Ethiopia during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and afterwards by 1938 a quarter of a million Ethiopians had died.

Corporatist economics

Italian fascism promoted a corporatist economic system. The economy involved employer and employee syndicates being linked together in corporative associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy. Mussolini declared such economics as a " Third Alternative" to capitalism and Marxism that Italian fascism regarded as "obsolete doctrines". For instance, he said in 1935 that orthodox capitalism no longer existed in the country. Preliminary plans as of 1939 intended to divide the country into 22 corporations which would send representatives to Parliament from each industry.

State permission was required for almost any business activity, such as expanding a factory, merging a business, or to fire or lay off an employee. All wages were set by the government, and a minimum wage was imposed in Italy. Restrictions on labor increased. While corporations still could earn profits, Italian fascism supported criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers as illegal acts it deemed as prejudicial to the national community as a whole.

Age and gender roles

The Italian fascists' political anthem was called '' Giovinezza'' (Youth).Mark Antliff. ''Avant-Garde Fascism: The Mobilization of Myth, Art, and Culture in France, 1909–1939''. Duke University Press, 2007. p. 171. Fascism identifies the physical age period of youth as a critical time for the moral development of people that will affect society.

Italian fascism pursued what it called "moral hygiene" of youth, particularly regarding sexuality.Maria Sop Quine. ''Population Politics in Twentieth Century Europe: Fascist Dictatorships and Liberal Democracies''. Routledge, 1995. pp. 46–47. Fascist Italy promoted what it considered normal sexual behaviour in youth while denouncing what it considered deviant sexual behaviour. It condemned pornography, most forms of birth control and contraceptive devices (with the exception of the condom), homosexuality and prostitution as deviant sexual behaviour. Fascist Italy regarded the promotion of male sexual excitation before puberty as the cause of criminality amongst male youth. Fascist Italy reflected the belief of most Italians that homosexuality was wrong. Instead of the traditional Catholic teaching that it was a sin, a new approach was taken, based on the contemporary psychoanalysis, that it was a social disease. Fascist Italy pursued an aggressive campaign to reduce prostitution of young women.

Mussolini perceived women's primary role to be childbearers while men were warriors, once saying that "war is to man what maternity is to the woman".Bollas, Christopher, ''Being a Character: Psychoanalysis and Self-Experience'' (Routledge, 1993) , p. 205. In an effort to increase birthrates, the Italian fascist government initiated policies designed to reduce a need for families to be dependent on a dual-income. The most evident policy to lessen female participation in the workplace was a program to encourage large families, where parents were given subsidies for a second child, and proportionally increased subsidies for a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth child.McDonald, Hamish, ''Mussolini and Italian Fascism''. Nelson Thornes. 1999. p. 27. Italian fascism called for women to be honoured as "reproducers of the nation" and the Italian fascist government held ritual ceremonies to honour women's role within the Italian nation.Mann, Michael. ''Fascists''. Cambridge University Press. 2004. p. 101. In 1934, Mussolini declared that employment of women was a "major aspect of the thorny problem of unemployment" and that for women working was "incompatible with childbearing". Mussolini went on to say that the solution to unemployment for men was the "exodus of women from the work force".Durham, Martin, ''Women and Fascism''. Routledge. 1998. p. 15. Although the initial Fascist Manifesto contained a reference to universal suffrage, this broad opposition to feminism meant that when it granted women the right to vote in 1925 it was limited purely to voting in local elections, and only applied to a small section of the female population. Furthermore, this reform was quickly made redundant as local elections were abolished in 1926 as a part of the .

Tradition

Italian fascism believed that the success of Italian nationalism required a clear sense of a shared past amongst the Italian people along with a commitment to a modernized Italy. In a famous speech in 1926, Mussolini called for fascist art that was "traditionalist and at the same time modern, that looks to the past and at the same time to the future".

Traditional symbols of Roman civilization were utilized by the fascists, particularly the fasces that symbolized unity, authority and the exercise of power.Claudia Lazzaro, Roger J. Crum. "Forging a Visible Fascist Nation: Strategies for Fusing the Past and Present" by Claudia Lazzaro, ''Donatello Among The Blackshirts: History And Modernity in the Visual Culture of Fascist Italy''. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. p. 16. Other traditional symbols of ancient Rome used by the fascists included the she-wolf. The fasces and the she-wolf symbolized the shared Roman heritage of all the regions that constituted the Italian nation. In 1926, the fasces was adopted by the fascist government of Italy as a symbol of the state.Denis Mack Smith. ''Italy and its Monarchy''. Yale University Press, 1989. p. 265. In that year, the fascist government attempted to have the Italian national flag redesigned to incorporate the fasces on it. This attempt to incorporate the fasces on the flag was stopped by strong opposition to the proposal by Italian monarchists. Afterwards, the fascist government in public ceremonies rose the national tricolour flag along with a fascist black flag. Years later, and after Mussolini was forced from power by the King in 1943 only to be rescued by German forces, the Italian Social Republic founded by Mussolini and the fascists did incorporate the fasces on the state's war flag, which was a variant of the Italian tricolour national flag.

The issue of the rule of monarchy or republic in Italy was an issue that changed several times through the development of Italian fascism, as initially the fascist movement was republican and denounced the Savoy monarchy.John Francis Pollard. ''The fascist Experience in Italy''. Routledge. 1998. p. 72. However, Mussolini tactically abandoned republicanism in 1922 and recognized that the acceptance of the monarchy was a necessary compromise to gain the support of the establishment to challenge the liberal constitutional order that also supported the monarchy. King Victor Emmanuel III had become a popular ruler in the aftermath of Italy's gains after World War I and the army held close loyalty to the King, thus any idea of overthrowing the monarchy was discarded as foolhardy by the fascists at this point. Importantly, fascism's recognition of monarchy provided fascism with a sense of historical continuity and legitimacy. The fascists publicly identified King Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of a reunited Italy who had initiated the ''Risorgimento'', along with other historic Italian figures such as Gaius Marius, Julius Caesar, Giuseppe Mazzini, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, Giuseppe Garibaldi and others, for being within a tradition of dictatorship in Italy that the fascists declared that they emulated. However, this compromise with the monarchy did not yield a cordial relationship between the King and Mussolini. Although Mussolini had formally accepted the monarchy, he pursued and largely achieved reducing the power of the King to that of a figurehead. The King initially held complete nominal legal authority over the military through the '' Statuto Albertino'', but this was ended during the fascist regime when Mussolini created the position of First Marshal of the Empire in 1938, a two-person position of control over the military held by both the King and the head of government that had the effect of eliminating the King's previously exclusive legal authority over the military by giving Mussolini equal legal authority to the King over the military. In the 1930s, Mussolini became aggravated by the monarchy's continued existence due to envy of the fact that his counterpart in Germany Adolf Hitler was both head of state and head of government of a republic; and Mussolini in private denounced the monarchy and indicated that he had plans to dismantle the monarchy and create a republic with himself as head of state of Italy upon an Italian success in the then-anticipated major war about to erupt in Europe.

After being removed from office and placed under arrest by the King in 1943, with the Kingdom of Italy's new non-fascist government switching sides from the Axis to the Allies, Italian fascism returned to republicanism and condemnation of the monarchy. On 18 September 1943, Mussolini made his first public address to the Italian people since his rescue from arrest by allied German forces, in which he commended the loyalty of Hitler as an ally while condemning King Victor Emmanuel III of the Kingdom of Italy for betraying Italian fascism. On the topic of the monarchy removing him from power and dismantling the fascist regime, Mussolini stated: "It is not the regime that has betrayed the monarchy, it is the monarchy that has betrayed the regime" and that "When a monarchy fails in its duties, it loses every reason for being. ... The state we want to establish will be national and social in the highest sense of the word; that is, it will be fascist, thus returning to our origins". The fascists at this point did not denounce the House of Savoy in the entirety of its history and credited Victor Emmanuel II for his rejection of "scornfully dishonourable pacts" and denounced Victor Emmanuel III for betraying Victor Emmanuel II by entering a dishonourable pact with the Allies.

The relationship between Italian fascism and the Catholic Church was mixed, as originally the fascists were highly anti-clerical and hostile to Catholicism, though from the mid to late 1920s anti-clericalism lost ground in the movement as Mussolini in power sought to seek accord with the Church as the Church held major influence in Italian society with most Italians being Catholic. In 1929, the Italian government signed the Lateran Treaty with the Holy See, a concordat between Italy and the Catholic Church that allowed for the creation of a small enclave known as Vatican City as a sovereign state representing the papacy">Vatican City"> ...