Fascism
In the years immediat¬ely after the First World War, a promising new era of democracy seemed to be unfolding. The autocratic regimes in Russia, Germany and Austria, were all overthrown and replaced by republics. The seven newly created states in Europe all adopted the republican form of government. Democracy seemed triumphant in the post-war world. Yet within two decades, many democratic countries in Europe were taken over by some kind of dictatorship. Italy became a fascist state.
Italy achieved her unification in 1870. She had a constitutional monarchy like that of Great Britain, but democratic society 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 achieving personal gains for themselves than in solving the social and economic problems of the people. As a result of this political corruption, Italy remained a poor country. Industrial progress was slow. Italy was poor in natural resources and lack of fertile land. Many of the farm laborers were landless and were often unemployed, so millions of Italians were forced to emigrate.
The Italian government was faced with many new problems after the First World War. The first one was the Italian dissatisfaction with the territorial settlement made at the Paris Peace Conference. Most of the Italians had expected a big territorial gain when they entered the war. According to the Treaty of London, Italy was promised: Trentino, Trieste, Southern Tyrol, Istria, Dalmatia, the coastal districts of Albania, a share in the division of the Ottoman Empire and of the German colonies in Africa. Although the Italians fought bravely and lost 600,000 men, the territories that surrendered to Italy in the Pairs Peace Conference were not as many as had originally been promised.
Italy was a poor nation. She could only...
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