Born in
Melfi,
Basilicata, Nitti studied
law in
Naples and was subsequently active as journalist. He was correspondent for the
Gazzetta Piemontese (English: Piedmontese Gazette) and was one of the editors of the
Corriere di Napoli (Courier of Naples). In 1891, he wrote a work about
Christian socialism, titled
Il socialismo cattolico (Catholic Socialism). In 1898, when he was only 30 years old, he became professor of
finance at the
University of Naples. Nitti was chosen in 1904 for the
Italian Radical Party to serve in the
Italian Parliament. From 1911 to 1914, he was minister of agriculture, industry, and trade under the then prime minister
Giovanni Giolitti. In 1917, he became minister of finance under
Vittorio Emanuele Orlando and held it until 1919. On 23 June 1919, Nitti became prime minister and interior minister, after Orlando had resigned following the disappointed Italian gains at the
Paris Peace Conference, resulting in widespread indignation within Italy about an alleged
mutilated victory. A year later, Nitti was also minister of the colonies. His cabinet had to deal with great social unrest and dissatisfaction over the peace treaties. Particularly troublesome was the agitation over
Fiume led by
Gabriele D'Annunzio. Nitti had great difficulty keeping the administration functioning at all, thanks to the enmity between the extremely divergent political factions of
communists,
anarchists, and
fascists. After less than a year as head of government, he resigned and was succeeded by the veteran Giolitti on 16 June 1920. In social policy, Nitti's government passed a law setting up compulsory insurance for unemployment, invalidity and old age. From 1901 to 1924, Nitti was a member of the country's
Chamber of Deputies, first for the Italian Radical Party and then for the
Italian Democratic Liberal Party. Still a member of the
Italian Parliament, Nitti offered resistance to the nascent power of
Italian fascism and openly despised
Benito Mussolini. In 1924, Nitti decided to emigrate, and returned to Italy only after
World War II, and joined the
National Democratic Union and was a member of the
Senate for the Republic in the
Independent Left group from 1948 until his death in 1953. As a
secularist and
anticlerical, he opposed
Christian Democracy and staunchly opposed
NATO membership. In his 1927 book
Bolshevism, Fascism and Democracy, Nitti correlated fascism with
Bolshevism, saying: "There is little difference between the two, and in certain respects, Fascism and Bolshevism are the same." At the same time, as a
positivist, for Nitti both politics and history boiled down to facts. Like World War II, the
Russian Revolution was a fact. Against the opinion of
Georges Clemenceau, who considered the Russians to be perfectible ignorant barbarians and the Germans to be imperfectly educated barbarians, Nitti wondered what would have prevented them from getting along with
Bolshevik Russia, once they had got along well with the
Russia of the Tsars. Referring to modernisation, he wrote: "Transplanting the principles and methods of the Russian Revolution into a country like Italy ... would be certain ruin. But it can be added that there is something in the spirit of the Russian Revolution that even Italy cannot ignore." == Notable works ==