IB History Weakness of the Liberal State Key Definitions

Italian for "Two Red Years" (1919-1920). A period of intense social conflict in Italy marked by factory occupations, agricultural strikes, and rural unrest, largely organized by socialist and anarchist workers. In September 1920, around 400,000 metalworkers occupied factories in Turin, Milan, and Genoa. The movement alarmed the Italian middle class, industrialists, and landowners, who subsequently funded Fascist squads (squadrismo) as a counterforce. Its failure to escalate into revolution also discredited the Socialist Party.

A feature of Italian Liberal politics from the 1880s onward in which governments were formed and sustained by absorbing politicians from different factions through patronage, personal deals, and manipulation of electoral support. Rather than developing strong party programs, Liberal leaders like Giovanni Giolitti built shifting coalitions held together by favors and appointments. Critics argued that trasformismo produced weak, corrupt governance that left Italy unable to address serious social and political challenges after the First World War.

Italian for "mutilated victory." The nationalist grievance that Italy had not received sufficient territorial rewards at the Paris Peace Conference (1919) despite its sacrifices in the First World War. Italy had been promised Dalmatia, Fiume, and other territories in the Treaty of London (1915), but was denied most of this. The phrase was popularized by the poet and nationalist Gabriele D'Annunzio. It became a rallying cry for right-wing nationalists and contributed to the destabilization of the Liberal State.