A new election law had expanded the voting rights to a larger section of the population and established a proportional representation system.

[2] The elections took place in the middle of Biennio Rosso ("Red Biennium") a two-year period, between 1919 and 1920, of intense social conflict in Italy, following the First World War.

[3] The revolutionary period was followed by the violent reaction of the Fascist blackshirts militia and eventually by the March on Rome of Benito Mussolini in 1922.

The agitations also extended to the agricultural areas of the Padan plain and were accompanied by peasant strikes, rural unrests and guerrilla conflicts between left-wing and right-wing militias.

[5] The new system favoured parties such as the socialist PSI, which was able to mobilise voters through trade unions, cooperatives and other mass organisations, and the Catholic PPI, which could rely on the support of church associations.