\ñThe Italian dictator Benito Mussolini concentrated all power in his own hands.ñ
By 1929, the Italian Fascists had banned all other political parties, independent trade unions, and the opposition press. Opponents of the regime were sought out by the police, tried by special courts, and condemned to long prison sentences or deportation to house arrest on remote islands off southern Italy. Although the monarchy and the parliament were not abolished, they lost all real authority. It was Mussolini himself who held all military and civil power. He ruled with the aid of the Fascist Grand Council, consisting of his former companions, ministers, and top civil servants. The Fascist Party was the only political organization allowed in Italy. So-called "corporate" bodies were set up to oversee relations between workers and their employers. The economic life of the country was officially under the control of the state.
~Fascist aspirations~
Italians were subjected to ever-present propaganda circulated by the radio, cinema, and the press. From the beginning of the 1930s onwards, ºIl Duceº became the centre of a cult orchestrated by his propaganda machine. The Fascists paid particular attention to the indoctrination of young people. These were trained from childhood in paramilitary organizations that aimed to create future soldiers fanatically dedicated to the regime. Mussolini dreamed above all of foreign conquest, to create a new empire ruled from Rome. He spoke of turning the Mediterranean into an "Italian lake", and encouraged a rising birth rate so that Italy would have more soldiers. But for all his efforts, his armed forces remained weak and ineffectual. They were able to conquer the African state of Ethiopia in 1935 and tiny Albania in 1939. They also intervened in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). But they were no match for a major European army. Despite Mussolini's alliance with Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, Italy did not enter the Second World War until the defeat of Britain and France appeared certain in the summer of 1940. Participation in the war brought Fascist Italy to collapse within three years.
