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The Special Tribunal of Italian Fascism: The Rise and Fall of a Totalitarianism’s Flagship




Author(s)

Antonio Grilli

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DOI:10.17265/1548-6605/2026.02.004

E-campus University, Rome, Italy

This short essay examines the birth, functioning, and decline of a central organ of the repressive system implemented by the fascist regime to crush all political opposition: the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State. Dedicated to extreme severity, with limited or no guarantees for the accused, and with single-instance trials based on the wartime penal code, Mussolini’s Special Tribunal effectively succeeded, thanks also to the assistance of an efficient and widespread network of political police, in instilling fear and discouraging any organized act of political opposition to fascism. Abolished in August 1943 following the fall of fascism and after 17 years of uninterrupted existence, the Special Tribunal was reconstituted a few months later, but its final months of existence, in an Italy now a theater of war, were ephemeral and left almost no trace.

Fascism, Special Tribunal, political opposition, repression, dictatorship

Antonio Grilli.The Special Tribunal of Italian Fascism: The Rise and Fall of a Totalitarianism’s Flagship.US-China Law Review, Mar.-Apr. 2026, Vol. 23, No. 2, 112-118