Italian fascism

Italian fascism (Italian: fascismo italiano), also called classical fascism or simply fascism, is the original fascist ideology, which Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini developed in Italy. The ideology of Italian fascism is associated with a series of political parties led by Mussolini: the National Fascist Party (PNF), which governed the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, and the Republican Fascist Party (PFR), which governed the Italian Social Republic (RSI) from 1943 to 1945. Italian fascism is also associated with the post-World War IIItalian Social Movement (MSI) and later Italian neo-fascist political organizations.

Italian fascism was initially a left-wing nationalist and anti-clerical movement, and originated from ideological combinations of ultra-nationalism and Italian nationalism, national syndicalism, revolutionary nationalism, and from the militarism of Italian irredentism to regain "lost overseas territories of Italy" deemed necessary to restore Italian nationalist pride. Italian fascists also claimed that modern Italy was an heiress to the imperial legacy of Ancient Rome, and that there existed historical proof which supported the creation of an Imperial Fascist Italy to provide spazio vitale ("vital space") for the Second Italo-Senussi War of Italian settler colonization en route to establishing hegemonic control of the terrestrial basin of the .

Italian fascism promoted a corporatisteconomic system, whereby employer and employee syndicates were linked together in associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy. This economic system intended to resolve class conflict through collaboration between the classes. Italian fascism opposed liberalism, especially classical liberalism, which fascist leaders denounced as "the debacle of individualism". Fascism was opposed to socialism because of the latter's frequent opposition to nationalism, but it was also opposed to the reactionary conservatism developed by Joseph de Maistre. It believed the success of Italian nationalism required respect for tradition and a clear sense of a shared past among the Italian people, alongside a commitment to a modernized Italy.

Originally, many Italian fascists were opposed to Nazism, as the fascist movement in Italy did not espouse Nordicism nor, initially, the antisemitism inherent in Nazi ideology; however, many fascists, in particular Mussolini himself, held openly racialist and racist ideas (specifically against black Africans, Italian Jews, Roma, Sinti, and Slavic peoples) that were enshrined into law as official policy over the course of fascist rule. As Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany grew politically closer in the latter half of the 1930s, Italian laws and policies became explicitly antisemitic due to pressure from Nazi Germany (although antisemitic laws were rarely enforced in Italy), including the promulgation of the Manifesto of Race and Italian racial laws in the Kingdom of Italy and all colonies of the Italian Empire. In addition, the Greek population of the Dodecanese and Northern Epirus, which were then under Italian occupation, were persecuted by the Italian fascists as well. When the Italian fascists were in power, they also persecuted some linguistic minorities and Protestantdenominations in Italy.