How Mussolini's Rise To Power Changed The Course Of Western History

Word Count: 2,320
Mussolini’s rise to power changed the course of western history as it brought about the new political idea of fascism, which would later spread, to Germany, Spain and Portugal. Mussolini’s rise to power is one that is widely debated in history. The strongest claim as to how Mussolini rose to power comes from the idea that the Italian liberal state was to open minded to supporting him and that the workings of its system were flawed allowing him to exploit this for his own gain. This argument is one put forward by historians such as Martin Clark and Antonio Gramsci. However other arguments given by historians such as Martin Blinkhorn claim that the fault should be placed on the socialists and communists for their failed attempted
In 1915 the Italians decided to join the war on the side of Britain and France. This decision to join however caused a rift to be created between the Liberals in the shape of the interventionalists and those arguing for no war. The interventionalists included top Liberal politicians such as Salandra and Orlando and the anti war side of the Liberals was led by Giolitti and also contained a majority of the Liberals. This rift led to the interventionalists feeling closer to the pro war fascist party and so made them cooperative towards them post war ear. The rift caused by the war between the major players in the Liberal parties was never healed and lead to a permanent split between the Liberals leading the two sides neither forming a government together again. The lack of will to work together following the war can also be seen as a major criticism of the Liberal system as the major players in the system could not work together over an issue that had passed almost four years before the March on Rome. This split stopping them working together meant that in 1922 when Mussolini was taking part in his March on Rome no government could be formed which was strong enough to resist him from gaining power. The lack of power shown by the government at the time of the March on Rome is however not caused by the split in the First World War but instead due to the a major weakness in the system of voting in the liberal state. Whilst in power Nitti had introduced the voting system of proportional representation that is meant to allow for a fairer election in which seats are shared according to how much percentage of the votes you gained across the whole country. This system however always leads to coalitions between a few parties as no one party can gain a clear majority. Coalition governments are notoriously weak as any small disagreement can cause to