During the course of the past two chapters, we have traced a growing convergence between Italian liberalism and Fascism in reaction to the postwar crisis. Here we shall treat what may be called a liberal – Fascist regime, Mussolini's government from the March on Rome until 3 January 1925. On that day, Mussolini abruptly sought to resolve from above the legitimation crisis that had been set off by the assassination of the Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti, ushering in the transition to an explicitly authoritarian regime, antiliberal in theory and in practice.

Before beginning our analysis, however, it will be suggestive briefly to consider reaction to the Fascist government on the part of non-Italian liberals. Not doing so might lead the reader to believe that the attitudes of Italian liberals were somehow unique, that they had ruled themselves out of the broader liberal universe of discourse. It should never be forgotten that whatever Fascism might have represented when Mussolini came to power in 1922 – or, for that matter, until the 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia – Italy certainly had not been relegated to pariah status in the international community. Retrospective impressions of Italy's unholy alliance with Nazi Germany against the Spanish Republic, and then against the western liberal world in 1939, have largely eclipsed the rather favorable image afforded Mussolini and his regime by an assorted collection of governments, statesmen, journalists, intellectuals, and celebrities during the first half of the Fascist epoch.