ICS Working Papers Nº2/2016

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ICS WORKING PAPERS 2016
moderate proposals whereby parliament, and more specifically its higher chamber, the
senate, would be transformed in line with the new principles of corporatist representation.
In November 1927, the Grand Council discussed a plan for reform that was supposed to
determine the issue of the corporatist state once and for all, but once again there was no
outcome and the regime carried on as essentially a hybrid, retaining liberal principles
alongside corporatist ones.
In 1929, elections were replaced with plebiscites in which Italians could respond yes or no to
candidates chosen by the Fascist Grand Council from a list of names put forward by the PNF,
the Fascist syndicates and business organizations. In this way representation became organic,
accompanied with the corporatization of interest organizations as outlined in the 1927 labour
charter, and the chamber dominated by the PNF. With the shift to the plebiscitary phase, the
primary responsibility for nominating candidates to the Chamber of Deputies lay with the
national confederations of legally-recognized unions, who were to put forward 800 names,
twice the number to be elected. A further 200 names were to be put forward by charitable
bodies with legal recognition, or by organizations of national importance. The Fascist Grand
Council’s task was to select the 400 whose names would appear on the approved list and be
submitted to the plebiscite.
In 1931, Mussolini called on the Fascist Grand Council to begin reforming parliament. The
secretary of the PNF, Giovanni Giuriati, who was also president of parliament, was charged
with the project. At the beginning of the 1930s, the debate around corporatism and the
reform of representation became a hot topic There were several options available within
the limited pluralism of the regime, with the former nationalist, Rocco, calling for a model of
corporatism limited more to labour relations, while Giuseppe Bottai called for a more
decentralized model without forgetting the manifest desire of the PNF to dominate the future
chamber. Farinacci opposed the proposal to turn the National Council of Corporations into a
corporatist chamber because he thought this would undermine the PNF. Giuriati finally
proposed the establishment of a Fascist legislative assembly and the dissolution of the
senate; however, Mussolini, possibly in order not to enter into conflict with the king, opposed
the abolition of the upper house of the liberal era, which the PNF subsequently
‘fascistized’
Another commission was then created by hierarchies of fascism and jurists, supported by civil
servants who studied the systems in Germany, Poland, Portugal and Austria. It was not
until 1936 – 14 years after taking power – that Mussolini was finally able to announce the
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