Srinagar, Oct. 16 -- Marx argued that the contradictions of advanced capitalism would make the industrial societies of Western Europe the most likely setting for a proletarian revolution. Yet the first major post-war political transformation in one of these societies was not socialist revolution but the rise of fascism in Italy. This contrast raises an important question: why did Italy move in a direction so different from what many Marxists expected? The answer lies not in a combination of economic crisis, political instability and limited social reform. After the First World War, Italy experienced inflation, unemployment, industrial decline, labour unrest and the Biennio Rosso (1919-20), during which workers occupied factories and peasa...