More Than One Way to Skin a Cat

When hearing the word 'dictator' I would bet that most peoples instinct is to think of leaders who have come to their positions through violence or bloodshed in a coup d'état or some similar mechanism. However this is not always the case.

Consider the well known 20th Century fascist, leader and notorious womaniser Benito 'Il Duce' Mussolini. First, a bit of history: He starting off as a socialist and by 1911 was editor of the chief socialist newspaper Avanti! (not to be confused with the mountain bikes) until 1914 when he broke with the socialist party over political differences. After a spell of fairly successful duty for Italy in WWI he decided that Italy needed a man "ruthless and energetic enough to make a clean sweep" in order to revive the nation from it's mediocrity and by this time had fully turned his back on socialism.

In 1919 he reformed the fascist party which grew rapidly in popularity because of it's opposition to any discrimination based on social class. Instead it was intensely nationalistic and ambitious for Italy as a country, reviving images of the good ol' days of the Roman empire. His supporters, the Black Shirts, were formed out of war veterans whose aim it was to restore order and often clashed with communists and other rivals. A key thing of note in this period was that the Italian government rarely interfered with the Black Shirts because a more urgent threat seemed to be a communist revolution.

And then the March on Rome happened. The March on Rome was a coup d'état but was entirely bloodless. It took place in 1922 where about 30,000 of Mussolini's guys, the Blackshirts, marched towards Rome demanding the resignation of then Prime Minister Luigi Facta. When former Prime Minister Antonio Salandra informed Facta that Mussolini wanted his resignation and was marching on Rome, Facta wasn't having a bar of it, not believing Salandra and instead thinking that Mussolini would govern by his side. When he realized the truth he ordered a state of siege for Rome but, fearing a civil war, King Victor Emmanuel III refused to sign the order. Instead the King further cheesed off Facta by handing power to Mussolini who was supported by the military, the business class and the right-wing.

This as a result meant that Mussolini legally reached power in accordance with Statuto Albertino, the Italian constitution. This wasn't a fascist conquest but rather a peaceful transfer of power that actually followed what was allowed in the constitution.

In the next few years he set up a sort of fascist parallel government (i.e. for the Italian army there was also the fascist militia) and by 1924 after assassinating Giacomo Matteotti, a leading Italian socialist, Mussolini had installed himself as the dictator of Italy. After 1936 his official title was His Excellency Benito Mussolini, Head of Government, Duce of Fascism, and Founder of the Empire (which I would argue is a touch extravagant but, hey, I would probably think I was the bomb too if I was the ruler of Italy).

This was so until his joyride ended in 1945 when trying to gap it to Switzerland upon the Allied Invasion (he had already been arrested once and rescued by German special forces) he was captured by Communist Italian Partisans, executed and hung upside down outside a petrol station after popping in for a pie and a coffee (though those last circumstances are entirely unsubstantiated).

Now, how did this happen? Firstly he had wide support including that of the business class who were led to believe that Mussolini was more pro-free market than he turned out to be. Crucial to the entire process wasn't violence but rather the threat of violence and it was to this that much of the public authorities surrendered without bloodshed. Also Mussolini was never really faced with an organised opposition with the left being in disarray during this time.

Lets also not forget that Mussolini was not a crazed man acting alone. He was very skilled at identifying what the people of Italy wanted in a leader (ambition, strength and a desire to return Italy to former glory) and so used this understanding to build a lot of support. What is key to note is that Mussolini built up what became a police state over time instead of instantly transforming his government into a repressive regime.

Points of consideration (leave comments on your thoughts):

Can you think of some other dictators who have come into power through peaceful means?
Can you think of other regimes who have gradually built control (and repression?) over time?
Could something similar happen today in any of the celebrated Western democracies such as the US or England (and if not then why not)?