During the Fascist takeover, many Italians lived in a state of terror. Black-shirted squadrists beat, shot, ritually humiliated, and destroyed the property of peasants, workers, politicians, journalists, and labor organizers. Although Socialists and the working classes were the primary victims, the Fascists also targeted Catholics, liberals, Masons, state authorities, and even dissident Fascists. This unprecedented campaign of political violence, most intense during the years between 1920 and 1922, culminated with the March on Rome and the appointment of Benito Mussolini as prime minister. Thereafter, Fascist squads continued to perpetrate illegal violence, often with impunity, though with less frequency and intensity, enabling Mussolini to establish a full-blown dictatorship by 1926.

The experience of squadrismo, many scholars have shown, shaped the Fascist ideology, established the Fascist political “style,” produced martyrs, and bequeathed a revolutionary mythology.