Blocco Nazionale

   The general elections of November 1919 weakened the hold on power of Italy’s traditional governing parties by rewarding the Partito Socialista Italiano/Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and the Partito Popolare Italiano/Italian People’s Party (PPI) with a substantial share of the vote. Accordingly, in May 1921, Giovanni Giolitti tried to reestablish his parliamentary majority by forming a great coalition of liberals, conservatives, nationalists, reformist socialists, and Benito Mussolini’s Fascists to confront the two mass parties. As a political maneuver, the creation of this socalled national bloc was a success: The coalition obtained 275 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, compared to the 122 won by the PSI, the 107 won by the PPI, and the 16 of the newly constituted (in 1921) Partito Comunista Italiano/Italian Communist Party (PCI). The chief consequence of Giolitti’s move, however, was to give legitimacy to Mussolini’s Fascists, who had been humiliated at the polls in 1919 but now emerged with 35 seats.