National Corporate Party

The National Corporate Party (Frennian: Nationalkorporative Partei, NKP; Felsinian: Partìo Corporativo Nasionałe, PCN) was a short-lived Trossian political party. Founded by the right-wing intellectual Antonio Ludovici in 1932, the party advocated the restructuring of society and the economy along Sigmuntine corporatist lines. The party enjoyed momentary success but lost its appeal after the 1936 Sabre Riots and was dissolved in 1942.

History
The National Corporate Party was founded by Antonio Ludovici in May 1932. Ludovici had previously been a member of the Chamber of Patricians for the Conservative Party, but left the party after its decision to merge with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Union. In a speech in the Chamber, Ludovici stated that this merger would constitute a "betrayal of the legacy of Rigonat", referring to the founder of the Conservative Party.

The National Corporate Party soon attracted many disgruntled conservatives, mostly from the patriciate and the middle class. Despite its anti-capitalist position, the party's appeal among working class voters remained limited throughout its existence. New members were made to swear an oath pledging loyalty to the party's founding principles, while higher ranked members were given ceremonial sabres, which some started demonstratively carrying around in public. This practice led some to refer to Ludovici's followers as "Sabres" or, less sympathetically, "Sabre-Rattlers". Clashes between Sabres and left-wing militias soon became a common occurrence on the streets of Tross.

In elections to the Chamber of Commons, the National Corporate Party enjoyed momentary success. It won six seats in its inaugural election in 1932, and subsequent elections would see its seat count rise to 24 by 1936. This allowed the parliamentary party to elect Antonio Ludovici to the Council of Ministers in May 1936. In response to his election, even before he was formally installed by the Lord Provost, the Chamber of Deputies passed a motion of no confidence, thus preventing his installation. The National Corporate Party denounced this action as a "hypocritical subversion of the constitutional order", and party supporters subsequently took to the streets, where rioting quickly broke out. Sabres and other partisans clashed with Communard leagues and other left-wing militias, and the Provostine Guard was deployed to suppress the violence. The Sabre Riots, as they would come to be known, were the most violent event in Tross since the Riots of 1917, taking the lives of a few dozen people, and leaving many more wounded.

The riots prompted the Chamber of Commons to pass a law in June 1936, soon dubbed the Sabre Law in the media, which banned paramilitary organisations. After a lengthy court case, Ludovici was convicted for sedition, libel and slander, and forced to pay a fine of two thousand francs. This conviction in turn allowed the Chamber of Patricians to suspend his membership, which it did in August 1936. Deprived of his political office and his paramilitary force, Ludovici retreated from party politics and spent the rest of his days writing books and articles for right-wing journals. Without its charismatic leader, the National Corporate Party lost electoral appeal and by 1942, all incumbent National Corporate members of the Chamber of Commons had lost re-election. The party was dissolved shortly afterwards.

Ideology
Historians have traced the National Corporate Party's ideological roots back to a reactionary anti-modernist intellectual strand starting in the late 19th century. This strand opposed modernity, rationalism, materialism, individualism, egalitarianism, feminism, capitalism and parliamentarianism. In their stead, these intellectuals placed a moral framework based on strength, self-sacrifice and hero worship. In his book "The Ills of Modern Liberalism and the Road to Redemption", Ludovici married these notions to a more modernist approach to politics and economics, borrowing heavily from contemporary syndicalism. He defended this synthetic worldview as being a logical extension of the theology of Saint Sigmund, and consequently called it "Sigmuntine corporatism".

Among the party's longtime positions were the reversal of universal suffrage and the introduction of household suffrage in functional constituencies, the nationalisation of strategic industries, the bringing together of workers and owners in corporate associations, the maintenance of the privileged position of the Church of Tross in the area of education and large-scale investments in Tross' armed forces.