GIULIANA LASCHI

I liberal-costituzionali nelle elezioni del 1913 e del 1919

N. 153

Summary — The article attempts to reconstruct the slow, irreversible decline of the liberal-constitutionalist movement in the period between the 1913 and 1919 elections, in order to identify the weaknesses which led to the subsequent collapse of the movement. The liberals faced the 1913 elections in a rather difficult phase of their political life. At the close of the 23rd legislature, the parliamentary majority had become very large, but there existed a profound conflict within it: the two spirits of liberalism — progressive and conservative — were unable to merge. The need to form a stable party organization became ever more pressing, but the liberal constitutionalists were unable to comprehend this need and resolve it. The only example of liberal organization in those years was the Italian Constitutional Democratic Party founded by the progressive wing of the constitutional movement But it was too feeble an attempt and it came too late. Subsequently the war intensified the internal conflicts in the movement and made them irreversible, with a sharp division between neutrals and interventionists These contrasts were fatal in the 1919 elections, which were the first to take place by universal male suffrage on the proportional system. The new electoral law had a decisive influence on the breakdown of the liberal groups, but it was not the cause of the crisis in the liberal movement. The latter was already completely fragmented and far removed from the needs of the new situation in Italy.