In the following years, while still operating within many structures of the liberal state, Mussolini implemented changes that brought Italy ever closer to a dictatorship. For example, in November 1926, all political parties other than the fascist one were outlawed, and oppositional newspapers were abolished. Free speech, elections, and free association vanished and censored increased. Anti-Fascists were punished via a Special Tribunal that, over the course of the ventennio, sent thousands to exile or jail and sentenced 31 to death. A network of spies called the Organization for the Vigilant Repression of Anti-Fascism was set up to monitor and, in many cases, eliminate subversives. Parliament was altogether abolished in 1939.
It’s important to mention the Roman Catholic Church, which exerted, and still exerts, significant influence in Italy. In 1929, Mussolini and the Vatican signed the Lateran Treaty, which made Vatican City an independent state and granted the Church a significant sum of money, some freedom, and many privileges and
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In exchange, the Church continued to do nothing to hinder the efforts of the fascist government. By recognizing the Vatican, Mussolini hoped to further increase the base of consensus, an aim that he in fact achieved, even if it meant compromising his earlier anticlericalism.
Building consent was indeed a critical goal. One of the most interesting ways in which the regime attempted to do so was with the cult of the Duce, as Mussolini was sometimes called As leader of the Fascist nation, Mussolini was deified in public life. His face appeared everywhere—in the newspaper, on signs, in magazines—and journalists reported each of his speeches and glorified his every move. This