From the year1924 to 1939 Mussolini when from Italy’s greatest leader who was strong and determined to a leader who was unsure and dived about and was under the influences of Nazi Germany.
The cause of this is divided between Mussolini’s failure to listen to his people and make decisions that were in the best interests of Italy and decisions made with the influences of Nazi Germany and Hitler. Up until 1936 Mussolini had achieved many success for fascism but were not always in the best interests of Italy its self. Mussolini’s biggest success was in creating a strong fascist youth which was loyal to fascist ideas and beliefs, the idea was to ensure that fascism would be firmly installed within Italy for generations to come, this was achieved by making all schools fascist with fascist teachers and Mussolini to be seen as a god like figure, this did resemble a Roman method. Mussolini’s biggest impact upon the youth was the introduction of youth clubs, by late 1930’s youth organizations had over 8 million members the majority of these were members of the ONB (Opera Nzionale Balilla) this included all ages of boys and girls but the ONB became compulsorily which although could make it become a failure because of children being forced to join it did install fascism into the Italian youth. By 1929, the ONB was directed by the ministry of National Education, this made the ONB become more education orientated than a youth club normally is which cause many youth members to become less and less enthusiastic with the ONB. The battle for births was another one of Mussolini’s achievements where laws against contraception and abortion were strictly enforced which pleased the church, the family allowances was introduced, the state pied of marriage loans and job promotions went to father of the biggest family.
The whole idea of the battle for births was that it would increase the overall population of Italy, Mussolini’s targets set though were unrealistic and were not meet but the overall birth rate did increase slightly which is why this is a success for Mussolini, the only reason why this was achieved was because of the massive propaganda and the financial support that the state offered, because of the reluctances of the Italian people to apply with the battle for births does question weather Mussolini had achieved a totalitarian state by the 1930’s. The church was one of the biggest successes for Mussolini because it joined the fascist state with the Catholic Church for the first time since Italy was unified; this was achieved through the Lateran agreement in 1929. The Lateran agreement was a treaty that gave the Vatican City their independences, financial compensation and religious studies with in schools to be made compulsorily. The reason why the Lateran agreement was such a success was because at the time the relations between the church and the fascist state were very sourer and Mussolini finally accepted the church with in the fascist state. The church later regretted the agreement because of Mussolini’s foreign policies and the relations that he had with Hitler.
The significances the Lateran agreement in the end gave Mussolini the maneuverability to expand his empire and to not have to worry about domestic problems. The OND (Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro) was Mussolini’s answer to getting his people more involved in fascism and the idea was to provide the Italian people with free leisure and entertainment, this was controlled by a government agency which was set up in 1925. The fascist party organized the entertainment and by 1939 there were 4 million members, which was not as successful as the ONB but was also not compulsorily where the ONB was. The majority of the OND’s activities consisted of holidays and days out which were ever free of subsidized, the idea of this did make the fascist party look like they were very popular but many people only joined for the free entertainment and not to show their support for fascism. Up until 1936 there were few failure that out weighed the success but from 1936 to 1939 Mussolini’s domestic policies started to back fire and started to cause problems for Mussolini and the fascist party.
Mussolini biggest failure was ignoring the southern problem, which got worse and worse, which did not help Mussolini’s aim of Anarchy (self efficiency) because of the lack of agriculture and production that the south was producing and also the poverty that the south was suffering from. The battle for grain also didn’t help the south because of the amount of resources that it took up and the fact that the fascist idea was not planned and orchestrated very well at all. The south problem was also made wore by the mafia who Mussolini also failed to destroy, and gave up after trying. If Mussolini had got rid of the Mafia it would of saved the state trillions of lire every year. Mussolini’s biggest failure was to try to alter the culture of the Italian people by first dictating how they should greet one another and getting more and more paranoid related culture changes after that, this clearly shows how Mussolini is starting to become to over protective of the Italian people and starting to treat them like children.
Mussolini also decided to change the youth body to “ the Italian youth of the Lictors” (GIL) this was to ensure the increased military and physical training for the youth, the idea was to turn the youth organizations in factories producing loyal fascist solders who saw Mussolini as their god. Mussolini’s policy on anti-Semitism in 1939, which he had introduced because of Hitler, caused many catholic and the church to go against Mussolini and with the majority of Italians catholic this was a very bad move for Mussolini. Anti-Semitism had never been featured with the fascist regime before and caused many Italians especially the youth and students to have growing cynicism of the regime. Before 1936 when the Italian government had not differed into unpopular forign policies, adventures and commitments the Italian people had tolerated Mussolini and the decisions that he took but after 1936 when Mussolini started to interfear with dometic policies and unessaseliry change policies it started to inoy the Italian people and the church which caused the down fall of Mussolini’s popularity amoung the church and the party.
