Arturo Bocchini and the secret political police in fascist Italy.

When Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy in 1922, the moderate social and political reforms of the previous half century began to be systematically dismantled, to be replaced by a totalitarian fascist regime that placed the security of the state above all else. As director general of Italy's Public Security Police from 1926 to 1940, Arturo Bocchini played an integral role in this transformation, becoming perhaps the second most important figure in Italian fascism during that time. One of his achievements was the creation of OVRA, a network of special and informal secret…