A Rectangular Plot

 

The fallacy is to believe that under a dictatorial government you can be free inside.

—George Orwell

This fascist coup attempt was so effectively hushed up that it doesn’t even have a proper catchy name. I’d certainly never heard of it. Most call it the Business Plot, a name that has the pizzazz of a lump of coal. To understand this plot we have to go back to its progenitor, the rise of Benito Mussolini. 

Shockingly, Mussolini started his political career as a socialist, a left wing extremist. Back in 1912, while in his early 30’s, Mussolini was the editor for Avanti! (meaning forward), the daily newspaper of Italy’s Socialist Party. He was soon expelled, though, for his support of Italy entering World War I. 

In 1914, Mussolini founded a new journal, Il Popolo d'Italia (meaning The People of Italy) which was a far right, pro-war newspaper. With the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 and Socialists gaining power in Italy after WWI, some wealthy and middle-income Italians began to panic as the political landscape shifted from conservative to liberal, “from right to left.” Mussolini began to promote conservatives taking control of the government by force, and people began to listen. 

In 1919, Mussolini created the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, meaning Fascist Italian Combat Squads. This group engaged in violence against Socialists and other political opponents. In 1921, he founded the Fascist Party, turning his paramilitary movement into a formal political party. Mussolini named the new party after the Italian word for bundle (fascio) in reference to bundles of rods used in Ancient Rome that were a symbol of power and the right to beat or sometimes kill people as punishment. These bundles of rods were called fasces. If the fasces had a small ax embedded in it, then the magistrate that possessed it had the right of corporal punishment, the right to kill. The party emphasized national unity and the use of violence to crush dissension.

Supported by wealthy landowners, Mussolini’s paramilitary group, the Blackshirts, attacked members of the Socialist Party and labor unions. Fascist squads burned Communist and Socialist offices as they took over cities. They seized power city by city through violence and intimidation. In late 1921, Mussolini was elected to the lower chamber of Italy's parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, which gave him a measure of credibility. 

On October 28, 1922, tens of thousands of armed Fascists composed primarily of disgruntled WWI veterans marched on Rome demanding Mussolini be named prime minister. The current Prime Minister, Luigi Facta, wished to declare martial law and fight the insurgents, but Italy’s King, Victor Emmanuel III, fearing bloodshed pressured Facta to resign by threatening to abdicate his throne. 

On October 30, 1922, Facta resigned and the King appointed Mussolini as Prime Minister, thereby transferring political power to the Fascists. This allowed Mussolini to declare himself both prime minister and interior minister giving him control over the police. He now had legitimate power to exact punishment and to carry out violence on whomever opposed him. Metaphorically, it gave him Italy’s fasces. He still used his Fascist squads to beat, harass, and kill his enemies. But after becoming prime minister, he also began to direct the police to do his dirty work. 

In June 1924, assassins with ties to Mussolini killed socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti, prompting a boycott of the Parliament by opposition leaders. On January 3, 1925, Mussolini in a carefully worded speech to Parliament took responsibility for the assassination, which marked the start of his dictatorship. 

“I declare before this Chamber, before the world and before God that I personally assume the whole political, moral and historical responsibility for what has occurred,” he said. “I declare that if the Fascists are an association of malefactors, then I am the head of that association of malefactors.” 

“Only force,” he said, “can decide between Fascism and the Opposition.” Mussolini made it clear that he intended to use violence to crush the opposition. The crowd stood, applauded, and shouted “Vivo Mussolini! Vivo Fascismo!” When his animated, fiery speech concluded, his supporters lifted him on their shoulders and carried him triumphantly out of the chamber.

Mussolini dubbed himself “Il Duce” (the Leader) and ruled as a dictator from that point on. He expelled all opposition members from Parliament and had Communist members arrested. He abolished local elections and reinstated the death penalty for political crimes. As part of his attack on the free press, Mussolini required movie houses to show government propaganda newsreels. 

Mussolini’s vision for fascism is best described in “The Doctrine of Fascism,” coauthored by Mussolini and published in 1932. The doctrine states that fascism is “all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value."