Was There A Crisis In Government In 1922?

Term Paper Title	Was There A Crisis In Government In 1922?
# of Words	1523
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	6.09

Was there a crisis in Government in 1922?

There had been problems for a long time in Italy most of the problems dating back to the unification in 1870. Since this unification which was never popular with everyone especially the Catholics the Italian government had struggled to form an effective parliamentary system. By the summer of 1922 there were so many problems with the system that it allowed Mussolini to become PM and establish the first ever type of Fascist government. There are many different causes as to how and why Mussolini was allowed to become Prime minister some of the causes and problems within Italy had existed for years but most of them came about with Italy joining the First World War on the side of the Allies. There were many long- term problems in Italy that allowed Mussolini to take over. The first major long term problem that had always been a thorn in the side of the Liberal government was that the Liberals were unable to form an effective party, instead they were all separated into small factions around certain people such as Giolitti and Orlando. The second long-term problem was the Roman question this problem had existed since the beginning of unification. The Pope was reluctant to join the new Italian State this problem was never resolved and ended up becoming one of the major problems within the Liberal system. The Catholics living in Italy were urged by the Pope not to take part in Politics this meant that Catholics living in Italy would oppose any resolution passes by the government. Eventually though the Catholics did get involved in politics with the formation of the PPI this was the Catholic party of Italy. This party was made up of people from all different backgrounds that didn�t all share the same political views but did have a common religion. This Party proved major opposition to the Liberal government because the PPI became a large party in the House of Deputies. This meant that whenever the Liberals wanted a resolution or a law passed they had to rely on the support of the PPI�s members to vote in favor otherwise they couldn�t pass any laws. This proved to be a problem to Liberal Prime ministers right up until Mussolini became Prime Minister. Another long-term problem was the red threat. In hindsight we can see that this threat was never a particularly huge threat but at the time with the Russian revolution going on it looked like the same could happen in Italy. This was one of the major reasons why Mussolini was able to get into power. There were more problems for the Liberal government when it joined the First World War this made an already unpopular government even more unpopular. The country didn�t really want to go to war but the government didn�t really have a choice if they stayed out then the winning side wouldn�t be very happy for their non participation and this could damage Italy�s prospects of gaining land in the future or expanding its empire. Luckily for the Liberals Italy won the war and because of the treaty they made with the allies they looked like they were going to do well out of the war. When it came to sharing out the territory gained from Germany and Austria/ Hungary Italy didn�t get most of what it was promised. This made the Italian government look very bad in the eyes of its people who had been against going to war in the first place. This I think was really the beginning of the end for the Liberal government.

After the war saw a new political party emerge this was the Fascist Party (PNF) this party led by Mussolini had no political agenda but instead believed in strong government. The Fascists were very violent this at first was tolerated by the Liberal government who saw the Fascists as an answer to the socialist threat so the police and did nothing about the violence even in some cases helping them out by lending them weapons and vehicles. But by 1922 the Fascist violence had become uncontrolable this led to a big problem for the Liberals some of them thought that the fascists could be tamed and brought into gove...

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