Grand Council of Fascism

Part of a series on
Fascism
Core tenets Nationalism Totalitarianism Single party state Dictatorship Militarism Direct action Mixed economy Class collaboration Third Position New Man Imperialism
Topics Definitions Economics Fascism and ideology Fascism worldwide Symbolism
Ideas Autarky Authoritarian democracy Bourgeois nation Class collaboration Corporatism Proletarian nation Totalitarianism
People Benito Mussolini Adolf Hitler José Antonio Primo de Rivera Zaki al-Arsuzi Corneliu Zelea Codreanu Ante Pavelić Ikki Kita Wang Jingwei Plínio Salgado Konstantin Rodzaevsky Avraham Stern Oswald Mosley William Dudley Pelley Aleksandr Dugin
Literature The Doctrine of Fascism Fascist manifesto La Conquista del Estado Mein Kampf My Autobiography The Myth of the Twentieth Century Zaveshchanie russkogo fashista
Organizations Axis powers 1934 Montreux Fascist conference
History World War I March on Rome Beer Hall Putsch Aventine Secession Pacification of Libya German election of 1932 Enabling Act Second Italo-Ethiopian War Spanish Civil War Anti-Comintern Pact World War II The Holocaust
Lists Fascists by country
Related topics Anti-fascism Clerical fascism Fascist (epithet) Glossary of Fascist Italy Iron law of oligarchy Nazism Neo-fascism Racism Social fascism Palingenetic ultranationalism
Fascism portal Politics portal

The Grand Council of Fascism (Italian: Gran Consiglio del Fascismo) was the main body of Mussolini's Fascist government in Italy. A body which held and applied great power to control the institutions of government, it was created as a party body in 1923 and became a state body on 9 December 1928. The council usually met at the Palazzo Venezia, Rome, which was also the seat of head of the Italian government.

Members of the Council

Its members, selected among the party's gerarchi, were as follows:

• The Head of Government and Duce of Fascism:

Benito Mussolini (9 December 1928 - 25 July 1943)

• The Quadrumvirs, the people who led the March on Rome – Michele Bianchi (died in 1930), Emilio De Bono, Cesare Maria De Vecchi and Italo Balbo (died in 1940).
• The President of the Senate and the President of the Chamber of Deputies, from 1939 the Chamber of Fasci and Corporations
• The Ministers of Justice, Foreign Affairs, Agriculture and Forestry, Education, Corporations, and Popular Culture
• The Presidents of the Royal Academy of Italy, of the special court of state emergency and defense, and those of the Corporations; Industrialists, Agriculture workers, Industrial workers and Farmers. The inventor Guglielmo Marconi was the President of the Academy of Italy, making him a council member.
• The Chief of Staff i.e. commander of the MVSN
• The Secretary of the National Fascist Party (who is also the secretary of the Council)
• Various people chosen by Mussolini himself, who held a 3-years position

Powers of the Council

Palazzo Venezia, Rome

Essentially, the council held these powers:

• The power to elect the Fascist Party deputies, the nomination for the Party Secretary and other party leaders, the approval of the party statutes and the power regarding the party's policy.
• The power to elect the Crown's line of succession including the choice of the heir to the throne, the right of the crown, the power to choose possible successors to the Prime Minister, the power to choose the function and membership of the Grand Council, the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies (later the Chamber of Fasci and Corporations), the power to decide the rights and powers of the Prime Minister, international Treaties, and foreign affairs.

The Grand Council meetings were convened by the Prime Minister himself and all decree and laws could only be legalized by the approval of the Prime Minister himself. In contrast to the Führerprinzip government model in Nazi Germany, the Grand Council at least theoretically had the power to recommend that the King of Italy remove the Prime Minister from office. Therefore, it was nominally the only check on Mussolini's power.

Deposition of Mussolini

The majority of the Grand Council ultimately voted on 25 July 1943, Dino Grandi's Order of the Day that, enforcing its formal powers, deposed Mussolini, bloodlessly, following the Allied invasion of Sicily.

See also

• Italian Fascism