Fascist Isgardia

**Fascist Isgardia**, officially the **Republic of Isgardia** (Isgardian: **Repubblica di Isgardia**) in 1940 and as the **Isgardian People's State** (Isgardian: **Stato Popolare Isgardiano**) from 1940 until 1972, was the period of Isgardian history under the one party totalitarian dictatorship of the Isgardian Revolutionary Party, which lasted for thirty two years between April 1940 and April 1972. The state controlled the majority of the Isgardian peninsula, alongside the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, and had boarders with Austria, Dunsteen and Switzerland.

Due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, Isgardia has historically been home to myriad peoples and cultures. In addition to the various ancient peoples dispersed throughout what is now modern-day Isgardia, the most predominant being the Indo-European Isgard peoples who gave the peninsula its name. An Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom in the 8th century BC, which eventually became a republic with a government of the Senate and the People. The Roman Republic initially conquered and assimilated its neighbours on the Italian peninsula, eventually expanding and conquering parts of Europe, North Africa and Asia. By the first century BC, the Roman Empire emerged as the dominant power in the Mediterranean Basin and became a leading cultural, political and religious centre, inaugurating the Pax Romana, a period of more than 200 years during which Isgardia's law, technology, economy, art, and literature developed.

During the Early Middle Ages, Isgardia endured the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Barbarian Invasions, but by the 11th century numerous rival city-states and maritime republics, mainly in the northern and central regions of Isgardia, became prosperous through trade, commerce, and banking, laying the groundwork for modern capitalism. These mostly independent statelets served as Europe's main trading hubs with Asia and the Near East, often enjoying a greater degree of democracy than the larger feudal monarchies that were consolidating throughout Europe; however, part of central Isgardia was under the control of the theocratic Papal States, while Southern Isgardia remained largely feudal until the 19th century, partially as a result of a succession of Byzantine, Arab, Norman, Angevin, Aragonese, and other foreign conquests of the region. The Renaissance began in Isgardia and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, and art. Isgardian culture flourished, producing famous scholars, artists, and polymaths. During the Middle Ages, Isgardian explorers discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, helping to usher in the European Age of Discovery. Nevertheless, Isgardia's commercial and political power significantly waned with the opening of trade routes that bypassed the Mediterranean. By the mid-19th century, rising Isgardian nationalism and calls for independence from foreign control led to a period of revolutionary political upheaval. After centuries of foreign domination and political division, Isgardia was almost entirely unified in 1861 following a war of independence, establishing the Kingdom of Isgardia. In 1903, the monarchy was abolished and replaced by a republican government.

Following decades of economic stagnation, popular discontent resulted in the growing political power of the Isgardian Republican Party and the fascist ideology of Benito Mussolini. In April 1940, Mussolini led a coup d'état against the Republic of Isgardia and installed himself as president; within months, Mussolini had disassembled the democratic regime and proclaimed himself as Il Duce of the Isgardian People's State in September 1940. During the early years of fascist rule, the government presided over a widespread economic redistribution programme and raised thousands of Isgardians, particularly in the south, out of poverty. In 1946, the regime implemented strict religious laws which mandated the deportation of thousands of Jews, Muslims, and Protestants to the colony of Ethiopia for "religious impurity". In 1958, prime minister Pietro Badoglio seized power after the death of Benito Mussolini and for the following 9 years, the government remained strict continuity with the political positions of the previous regime; during Badoglio's presidency, the regime morphed into a military dictatorship as the armed forces consolidated ever increasing degrees of power, taking part in a power grab in 1963 after a widespread purge of the Isgardian Revolutionary Party. President Badoglio died in 1967.

In 1967, prime minister Umberto Badoglio assumed the presidency following the death of his elder brother, and conducted a self-coup within months of assuming office to consolidate his own power. Despite initial assumptions that Badoglio would continue the hard-line policies of his predecessors, the government announced a series of major liberal reforms in quick succession in the late 1960s and early 1970s, closing concentration camps in Ethiopia, granting freedom of religion, ending the government's redistribution programme, and ending the Revolutionary party's monopoly on power. Following constitutional reform in late 1971, the Revolutionary party collapsed and President Badoglio resigned from the party, before appointing opposition leader Ferruccio Parri as prime minister. In March 1972, Badoglio and Parri implemented a new democratic constitution; on April 2, 1972, Badoglio resigned from office, ending fascist rule in Isgardia.

## History

### Formation of Fascism

Following the establishment of the new Isgardian Republic in 1903, the political thinker Benito Mussolini was influenced by the syndicalist ideas of the writer Georges Sorel, and began to gravitate towards anti-capitalist movements within the state. Subsequently, Mussolini became a writer and journalist in Milan advocating for an ever evolving platform of policies known by its supporters as "fascism", whilst Mussolini himself only ever referred to them as his "*credo rivoluzionario*" [revolutionary creed] in his writings. In March 1919, the soldier and loyal ally Pietro Badoglio formed the Revolutionary League as a political forum for Mussolini's political doctrine, and Mussolini was elected as the league's leader just days later. Under his leadership, the Revolutionary League became a powerful entity with its own paramilitary forces, and applied pressure to successive governments as the republic's economy entered an inflationary spiral under president Giovanni Giolitti. The Revolutionary League initially supported the National Socialist party of Luigi Luzzatti, and entered into coalition with Luzzatti following his presidential election victory in 1921 on a shared platform of redistribution and nationalism. However, major political differences between Mussolini and Luzzatti began to emerge following the RL's demands for a new dictatorial constitution, and the two parties left coalition after Luzzatti's retirement in 1933. Mussolini opted not to contest the 1933 presidential election for fears of splitting the nationalist vote and allowing former president Giolitti to return to power, but instead became a significant opposition leader to President Antonio Salandra under the banner of the newly renamed Revolutionary Nationalist Front, and urged the government to accelerate its radical reforms. In an attempt to prevent the spread of the Revolutionary Nationalist Front, President Salandra initiated martial law across the entire country and banned the organisation; in response, Mussolini established the Isgardian Revolutionary Party as a de-facto entity to contest elections, and received funding from foreign governments angered at the Salandra administration.

On January 1, 1938, Benito Mussolini gave a speech in Rome urging for a march on the capital to take place the following year if democratic elections were not called early, and announced the beginning of an insurgency campaign on March 16, 1938; as part of this campaign, Revolutionary paramilitary forces assassinated President Antonio Salandra in May 1938. With political pressure mounting, President Vittorio Orlando announced new democratic elections would be held in June 1939, despite conducting a self-coup the previous year; in the subsequent election, Mussolini polled third and failed in a bid to demand a run-off election. Subsequently, Mussolini declared that conditions for a democratic transfer had not been met and ordered a "people's revolution" against President Orlando's administration. In March 1940, Mussolini met with his former ally and leader of the armed forces, General Pietro Badoglio, to discuss the toppling of the National Socialist government.

### Dictatorship of Benito Mussolini

On April 7, 1940, the armed forces stormed the presidential palace in Rome in a coup d'etat, killing President Vittorio Orlando and Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti in the process; with no other members of the presidential succession, the armed forces appointed Mussolini as the 6th president of Isgardia. During his presidency, Benito Mussolini began an assault on the remaining democratic freedoms within the constitution of 1938 and ordered the repeal of the constitution in June 1940; in September 1940, Prime Minister Pietro Badoglio introduced a new constitution abolishing the office of president and replacing it with that of the *Duce del Popolo Isgardiano*, the "leader of the Isgardian people". These reforms consolidated the offices of Duce of Fascism, the title of the Revolutionary party's leader, and the presidency to create a new highly powerful head of state position. As part of his nationalist policy platform, Mussolini implemented a radical redistribution programme, and seized control of all private companies and property worth more than 50 million lira in order to liquidate the assets and raise money for the government's treasury. Simultaneously, the Revolutionary government introduced it's Rome Declaration on Religious Purity in 1946, effectively proclaiming Isgardia to be a fundamentally Catholic state and ordering the termination, internment, or conversion of any suspected or confirmed non-Catholics; to facilitate this, Mussolini opened concentration camps across Isgardian Ethiopia to house detained Muslims, Jews, and Protestants, whilst strict conservative moral and social policy became mandatory educational topics for school children under the regime. Mussolini died on May 18, 1958 after a fatal heart attack.

### Isgardia under Pietro Badoglio

Following the death of Benito Mussolini in May 1958, prime minister Pietro Badoglio proclaimed himself as acting president of Isgardia and engaged in a power struggle with senior members of the Isgardian Revolutionary Party for total dominance. In August 1958, Badoglio gave a speech to the assembled executive board of the Revolutionary party in which he declined to assume the executive title of Duce of the Isgardian People like his predecessor, and instead pledged to govern as a "humble disciple of Mussolini" under a restored presidency; subsequently Badoglio was elected as Duce of Fascism by the party on September 2, 1958. The following day, Badoglio temporarily suspended his 1940 constitution and proclaimed himself to be the seventh president of Isgardia, with his brother Umberto as prime minister. On January 1, 1959, President Badoglio announced that a new constitution with provisions for the return of the Isgardian presidency was in force, transferring the powers of the general of the armed forces to the presidency in order to retain his military dominance. Under the presidency of Pietro Badoglio, the armed forces grew increasingly powerful within the Isgardian state and the regime had effectively transformed itself into an authoritarian military dictatorship by 1963. In September 1963, Badoglio ordered a widespread purge of the Isgardian Revolutionary Party under the guise of anti-corruption measures, targeting hundreds of political opponents; following the gutting out of the IRP, *de-facto* power within the regime resided solely with President Badoglio and his military leadership committee, who assumed *de-jure* power in 1966 after being appointed as the national executive of the party. On June 23, 1967, Pietro Badoglio died in office from lung cancer, having been a heavy smoker throughout his life.

### Transition to democracy

In June 1967 President Pietro Badoglio died of lung cancer, leaving his younger brother Umberto Badoglio to take office as leader of the Isgardian Revolutionary Party, and the presidency on an acting basis in his capacity as prime minister. In his first act as leader of the Revolutionary party, Badoglio renamed his position as general secretary to distance himself from the previous duces Benito Mussolini and Pietro Badoglio; as a senior member of the armed forces, Badoglio was able to receive the backing of the party's military leadership, and was appointed as president on a permanent basis on September 1, 1967. Alongside his position as president, Badoglio re-appointed himself as prime minister in a consolidation of power, becoming the first prime minister to simultaneously serve as president on a non-acting basis. In March 1968, President Badoglio announced that the armed forces would close their concentration camps in Ethiopia and all religious prisoners would be freed within a year; in response to his announcement, a significant hard-line faction within the Revolutionary party emerged in opposition to Badoglio's reforms and actively sought to depose the president before he could liberalise too far. In October 1968, Badoglio announced the ban on large private businesses would be repealed, alongside personal wealth limits; the announcement was followed in May 1969 by the ending of the government's wealth re-distribution programme.

On September 18, 1971, General Rodolfo Graziani challenged President Badoglio for the leadership of the Revolutionary party in response to the government's reforms, which severely undermined Badoglio's position within the organisation and had the effect of causing a significant internal splintering. On November 13, 1971, President Badoglio repealed the ban on other political parties, and was yet again challenged for the Revolutionary party leadership by Graziani; the following month, Badoglio resigned his leadership and membership of the party on December 31, 1971, becoming an independent politician for the remainder of his presidency. Badoglio appointed the pro-democracy campaigner Ferruccio Parri as prime minister on January 1, 1972, and gave a speech in Rome announcing the beginning of a transition to democracy. One of the first acts of the Parri administration was to formally ban the Isgardian Revolutionary Party and legally prohibit it from reforming; in its place, both the former Democratic and Republican parties of the old Republic of Isgardia were allowed to form again. On March 29, 1972, the constitution of the state of Isgardia was repealed and replaced with a new constitution proclaiming the formation of a new Republic of Isgardia; the constitution mandated the formation of a National Assembly, and gave the prime minister the ability to become the permanent president in the case of a presidential vacancy. Three days later, on April 2, 1972, President Umberto Badoglio tendered his resignation and was succeeded as president by Ferruccio Parri, who himself stood down after the election of Giulio Andreotti as president. Umberto's resignation marked the end of the fascist regime in Isgardia, although the politicians and political ideas behind the regime remained dominant in Isgardian politics for decades afterwards; the new Isgardian Republic

## See Also

* First Republic of Isgardia (1903 - 1940)
* Second Republic of Isgardia (1972 - 1992)
* Third Republic of Isgardia (1992 - 2021)
* State of Isgardia (2021 -)