From The Student Room

TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > History > Mussolini 1922-39

---

Key Economic Periods

1922 onwards - Economic recovery in Italy. Mussolini comes to office with no specific programme and purcues traditional liberal economic policies of lowering inflation and limited govt intervention.

1927 onwards - economy begins to weaken. Partly caused by the overvaluation of the lira.

1929 onwards - Italy is hit by the Great Depression. Mussolini responds with growing govt intervention to bail out the industrialists. Efforts are made to establish the distinctly Fascist Corporative State.

1936 onwards - The economy is increasingly harmed by the stress on autarky and the needs of war.

Chronology

1922 October - Lira valued at 90 to £

1923 - Law passed on reclamation of land (Battle of the Marshes launched)

1924 - Loans from US start (end in 1929)

1925 - Battle for Grain announced - high tariffs put on imported grain, new marginal land used that was expensive to farm and govt grants to farmers to buy machinery and fertilisers.

1925 - Palazzo Vidoni Pact passed (victory for industrialists, a pact between Confindustria and Rossoni's Fascist trade unions depriving other unions of bargaining rights).

1925 - Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (OND) created.

1926 April - Rocco Law passed

1926 July - Ministry of Corporations set up

1926

• high tariff on imported grain introduced
• Lira valued at 150 to the £
• OND has membership of 281,000

1927

• Labour organisations CGL and CIL dissolve themselves as powerless.
• Lira valued at 90 to the £ reached again, lira was returned to Gold Standard and the exchange rate fixed.
• Charter of Labour passed.
• imposition of wage cuts by govt.
• OND reorganised under PNF control.

1928

• Law passed on reclamation of land (Battle of the Marshes extended)
• Rossoni's National Syndicalist Organisation splits up.

1929 October 24th - Great Depression hit.

1930 March - National Council of Corporations set up.

1930 - imposition of wage cuts by govt

1931 - OND has membership of 1.7 million

1933 - The IRI (Institute for Industrial Reconstruction) is set up (govt agency) to help industry recover. It took over industrial shares previously held by banks and those of other companies in trouble.

1933

• Law passed on reclamation of land (Battle of the Marshes extended).
• imposition of wage cuts by govt.

1934

• Institute of Foreign Exchange set up as a govt agency to control trade.
• budget deficit = 2 billion lira

1935 - National Prices Committee to control prices. Inflation controlled until 1943.

1935-36 - Sanctions imposed on Italy by League of Nations as a consequence of the Abyssinian War but they excluded oil and coal.

1936

• govt forced to devalue Lira
• Exports shift from Western Europe to Germany increasingly from 1936.
• Autarky formally announced as an official policy accompanied by a vast propaganda campaign.

1937

• Ministry of Currency Exchange set up as a govt agency to control trade.
• High Commission on Autarky created to supervise policies.
• IRI becomes permanent with extended powers to take over private firms.

1939

• The IRI now controlled 75% of pig iron production, 45% of steel production, 90% of ship building and overall controlled 20% of industry. The state via the IRI now controlled a higher proportion of industry than any other controlled except the USSR.
• budget deficit = 28 billion lira
• Chamber of Fasces and Corporations replaces Parliament.
• OND has membership of 3.8 million

Comments

These notes are aimed at A Level history students.

Originally written by belle_27 on TSR Forums.