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From Fascism to the Republic in Italy

The war, which lasted more than three years and cost more than 600,000 lives, led the country to victory and to the achievement of unity, but also to a serious crisis that affected all aspects of national life. The period between 1919 and 1922 was one of severe political, economic and social instability, which facilitated the rise to power of the Fascist party of Benito Mussolini, who became head of government after his March on Rome in October 1922.

From that moment on, the democratic life of the State progressively diminished as the dictatorial regime of Mussolini settled in.
In 1929, the Lateran Treaty was signed, with the Italian State granting the Holy See a small piece of land on which to establish Vatican City and, at the same time, definitively regulating the relationship between the Pope and the Italian government.

In the second half of the 1930s, the Fascist regime resumed its colonial expansion policy, which led to the conquest of Ethiopia.
During the same period Mussolini opened relations with National Socialist Germany, which, from the Rome-Berlin Axis, would lead to a military alliance, the Pact of Steel, in 1939, and participation in the Second World War alongside Hitler the following year.

The military defeats sustained at the hands of the Allies led to Mussolini's removal from government.
After failing to reach a majority during a session of the Fascist Council, on 24-25 July 1943 he was arrested by order of King Victor Emmanuel III.
The government was then entrusted to General Pietro Badoglio, who signed an unconditional surrender to the Allies the following September.

This was the beginning of a tormented period for Italy, marked by the double occupation by the Allies south of Rome and the Germans in the north, by the installation of a puppet Italian Social Republic by Mussolini after his rescue by German paratroopers, the formation of a resistance movement against the Germans and the sad events of the civil war between partisans and the combatants of the Social Republic.

The allied troops entered Rome in June 1944 and continued their march northward, achieving, together with the partisan forces, the liberation of Italy on 25 April 1945.
In the constitutional referendum of 2 June 1946, the Italian people voted for abolition of the monarchy and the introduction of the Republic.

The work of the constituent assembly, elected at the same time, led to the formulation of the current Constitution, which came into force on 1 January 1948.
Elections for the first republican legislature of the new Italy took place on 18 April 1948, with the majority of seats going to the Christian Democrats and the Catholic party that would dominate Italian politics until the end of the cold war.

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