Evaluate Mussolini’s rule between 1922 and 1940.
Between the years of 1922 and 1940 Benito Mussolini managed to gain control of state, and become one of the most popular leaders of Italian history.
In order to accomplish his goals Mussolini adopted various methods, in particular his domestic policies, social, economical and political. His social policies were used to gain the support of the masses and therefore strengthen his rule. In this aspect Mussolini accomplished astonishing success being able to rally the support of even the most doubtful Italians and of groups who’s last thought was to joining the fascist movement e.g. the church. Of course behind this success there is a catch, he accomplished his success through promises of unification of the country and the hope to become a self-sufficient in the future, an autarky. In order to achieve this he went into a series of attainments, which we refer as the “battles”. To begin with Mussolini decided to start a program of mass production of grain in order to “free” Italy from foreign grain imports, the battle of grain; as cause of this Italy’s production of grain rose but whilst farmers concentrated on grain other necessary weeds and meats were forgotten and decreased in production so as the imports of grain fell the imports of other supplementary goods rose especially goods like fertilizers. Therefore Italy never became an autarky.
The next battle that Mussolini began is known as the battle of the lira. Mussolini decided revaluate the lira, the Italian currency, in order to fight the inflation and in 1927 he set the lira at 90 to a pound which was the value in 1922. This created a devastating effect for the Italian economy who’s exports decreased drastically and export based industries such as the textile suffered deeply from this revaluation the only industries that benefited from it were import based industries such as the steel industry who need cheap raw materials and could now