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Religious freedom was no longer tolerated and Catholicism was compulsory in all schools.

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Italy came out of WWI badly beaten, with huge debt and inflation on the rise. With Mussolini's dictatorship rushed in, and a One-Party political system. their first goals were to modernize the economy, to reduce government costs, and fixed the abused taxing system.

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Women were expected to stay home and have as many children as they could. Those who could bore more than 10 children were given medals by Mussolini himself. Men were trained for the army.

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Propaganda was issued to school children that developed their sense of nationalism, and made them believe that they were better.

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Michael Ebner, Ordinary Violence in Mussolini's Italy, Cambridge University Press, 2010

Michael Ebner

Between 1926 and 1943, the Fascist regime arrested thousands of Italians and deported them to island internment colonies and small villages in southern Italy.

Ordinary Violence in Mussolini's Italy analyses this system of political confinement and, more broadly, its effects on Italian society, revealing the centrality of political violence to Fascist rule. In doing so, the book shatters the widely accepted view that the Mussolini regime ruled without a system of mass repression.

The Fascist state ruled Italy violently, projecting its coercive power deeply and diffusely into society through confinement, imprisonment, low-level physical assaults, economic deprivations, intimidation, discrimination, and other quotidian forms of coercion.

Moreover, by promoting denunciatory practices, the regime cemented the loyalties of "upstanding" citizens while suppressing opponents, dissenters, and social outsiders. Fascist repression was thus more intense and ideological than previously thought and even shared some important similarities with Nazi and Soviet terror.

In almost two decades Benito Mussolini's fascist dictatorship deported 15,000 Italians to island internment colonies and small villages in southern Italy. This institution (confino di polizia) and, more broadly, the experiences of Italians affected by it, is the subject of this dissertation. The dissertation explores three interrelated phenomenon, arguing that police-state violence and coercion were central to Fascist rule. First, it provides a comprehensive history of the network of internment colonies and exile villages, arguing that the structure and purpose of the confino system were highly variable and evolved over time.

Early on, the regime manipulated the system's appearance by assigning prominent antifascists to relatively hospitable islands in the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, Fascist militiamen abused the detainees; less fortunate victims, mainly poor Italians, languished in decrepit communal barracks; and the detainees' families suffered economically. Finally, although only 15,000 Italians were sentenced to political detainment, the regime relied on an array of more subtle yet insidious sanctions, which exerted pressure on vast segments of the population to conform politically. Second, through a random sample conducted on the 'personal files' of the detainees, held at Rome's Central State Archive, the dissertation demonstrates that the majority of Fascism's victims were not antifascist militants but, rather, "politically compromised" individuals, "social outsiders," and "ordinary Italians."

The dictatorship began by persecuting militant antifascists, but in the mid-1930s, coinciding with the invasion of Ethiopia, behaviors ranging from homosexuality to criticizing Mussolini were construed and punished as political offenses. Third, through micro-historical reconstruction of the events and contexts which led Italians to be sentenced to political internment or exile, the dissertation examines how official coercive policies were implemented on the ground, arguing that many ordinary Italians and Fascists assisted the police. In Italian communities, institutionalized coercion was directed against groups that were already feared or maligned; for the regime, this use of police-state power served to attract supporters, intimidate enemies, tighten its authoritarian grip on society, and advance the Fascist political and ideological program.

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Michael Ebner, Ordinary Violence in Mussolini's Italy, Cambridge University Press, 2010 Michael Ebner Between 1926 and 1943, the Fascist regime arrested thousands of Italians and deported them to island internment colonies and small villages in southern Italy.

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As stated before Mussolini served as Prime Minister from 1922 to 1943.

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The regime could alter its appearance in media and remove any content that contained opposition, or doubts about fascism.

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Ruling Italy from 1922 to 1943, under Prime Minister, and known as Il Duce or ("The Leader")

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Internet Modern History Sourcebook

Benito Mussolini:

What is Fascism, 1932

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) over the course of his lifetime went from Socialism - he was editor of Avanti, a socialist newspaper - to the leadership of a new political movement called "fascism" [after "fasces", the symbol of bound sticks used a totem of power in ancient Rome].

Mussolini came to power after the "March on Rome" in 1922, and was appointed Prime Minister by King Victor Emmanuel.

In 1932 Mussolini wrote (with the help of Giovanni Gentile) and entry for the Italian Encyclopedia on the definition of fascism.

Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it. All other trials are substitutes, which never really put men into the position where they have to make the great decision -- the alternative of life or death....

...The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide: he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, but above all for others -- those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after...

...Fascism [is] the complete opposite of...Marxian Socialism, the materialist conception of history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production.... Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied - the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society....

After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage....

...Fascism denies, in democracy, the absur[d] conventional untruth of political equality dressed out in the garb of collective irresponsibility, and the myth of "happiness" and indefinite progress....

...iven that the nineteenth century was the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, and of Democracy, it does not necessarily follow that the twentieth century must also be a century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy: political doctrines pass, but humanity remains, and it may rather be expected that this will be a century of authority...a century of Fascism. For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism and hence the century of the State....

The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State....

...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone....

...For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence. Peoples which are rising, or rising again after a period of decadence, are always imperialist; and renunciation is a sign of decay and of death. Fascism is the doctrine best adapted to represent the tendencies and the aspirations of a people, like the people of Italy, who are rising again after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude. But empire demands discipline, the coordination of all forces and a deeply felt sense of duty and sacrifice: this fact explains many aspects of the practical working of the regime, the character of many forces in the State, and the necessarily severe measures which must be taken against those who would oppose this spontaneous and inevitable movement of Italy in the twentieth century, and would oppose it by recalling the outworn ideology of the nineteenth century - repudiated wheresoever there has been the courage to undertake great experiments of social and political transformation; for never before has the nation stood more in need of authority, of direction and order. If every age has its own characteristic doctrine, there are a thousand signs which point to Fascism as the characteristic doctrine of our time. For if a doctrine must be a living thing, this is proved by the fact that Fascism has created a living faith; and that this faith is very powerful in the minds of men is demonstrated by those who have suffered and died for it.

Source:

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Internet Modern History Sourcebook Benito Mussolini: What is Fascism, 1932 Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) over the course of his lifetime went from Socialism - he was editor of Avanti, a socialist newspaper - to the leadership of a new political movement called "fascism" [after "fasces", the symbol of bound sticks used a totem of power in ancient Rome].