Fascist Grand Council and the Transition to Democracy in Italy

The Fascist Grand Council and the Transition to Democracy in Italy

The Fascist Grand Council was created in 1922 and became part of state institutions in 1928, effectively becoming the owner of the sovereignty of the state. In 1927, it adopted the Charter of Labor, subordinating economic forces to the development of national power. The Council, chaired by the Duce, had a dual character: a State organ and an organ of the party.

The Chamber of Deputies was elected in 1928 through the Acerbo Act, which attached 2/3 of the seats to the national list with the most votes. However, the regime disliked even this limited potential opposition. In 1928, the Corporate House was established with 400 deputies elected in a single national school, with candidates nominated by the Grand Council. Voters could only accept or reject the list in a plebiscite. The Senate became a fascist Senate, with the real power of appointment passing to the Grand Council. From 1932, senators and, from 1939, deputies had to belong to the party. The Council of Corporations, composed of fascist hierarchies since 1926, had legislative powers on economic issues. In 1939, it merged with the Chamber of Deputies into the House of the Fascists and Corporations, tightly controlled from the agenda to the ability to pass laws directly in committee.

The Allied landings in Sicily in July 1943 prompted the Fascist Grand Council to request the King to return to the Albertine Statute. Mussolini was deposed, and the monarch appointed Marshal Badoglio as head of government, who lasted until April 1944. Badoglio dissolved the Chamber and set elections for four months after the end of the war. He also dissolved the Fascist Party and its institutions, signing the armistice with the Allies and stopping the Duce, who would later be rescued from prison by the Nazis.

The period from the Armistice (08-09-1943) to the adoption of the Constitution (12-1947) is called station component or the political transition to a democratic situation. In August 1943, before starting to recover political pluralism, the underground parties reappeared and created the National Liberation Committee (CLN), an agency that required the establishment of a broad democratic basis and intended to submit decisions on the reconstruction of a democratic state to the will of the people.

The CLN reached a compromise:

• A new government would be formed with the participation of parties from the CLN.
• Institutional forms would be decided by the people through a Constituent Assembly elected by universal suffrage.
• A constitutional truce was established: no action would be taken that would prejudge the institutional issue.

The King retired from politics and appointed his son, the Prince of Piedmont, Umberto II, as Lieutenant General (1944). The following steps included the adoption of the electoral law for the Constituent Assembly and a March 1946 decree separating the decision on the form of State, which would be settled by popular referendum, from the wording of the Constitution, which the Assembly commissioned.

In June 1946, a referendum and elections to the Assembly were held (the first vote for women), resulting in the defeat of the partisans of the Republic. Umberto II left the country for exile. A unicameral Assembly was chosen, whose members appointed the interim President of the Republic, the liberal Enrico de Nicola.

The Constituent Assembly and the 1948 Constitution

The 1948 Constitution is a document of consensus with the desire for a renewed political system, to restore the rights of civilian citizens, a compromise text and the result of resignations of the party programs.

The process began in a Committee of 75 members representing the political forces proportionally, divided into three subcommittees. Due to differences between the texts of these, a coordination committee was assigned to mix and legally consistent.

Of the fundamental principles are:

• Italy is a democratic republic founded on work. The sovereignty belongs to the people. The individual has inviolable rights of freedom and equality and duties of political solidarity, economic and social.
• The local autonomy and administrative decentralization are key elements of state regulation. Guardianship of linguistic minorities.
• The State and the Catholic Church are independent and sovereign, each within its own grounds. Their relations are regulated by the Lateran Pacts (1929). All religious faiths are free under the law. Italy promotes the development of culture and scientific and technical research.