 In 1928, all political parties were banned, and parliamentary elections were replaced by plebiscites in which the Grand Council of Fascism nominated a single list of 400 candidates.Duggan (2012), using private diaries and letters, and secret police files, argues that Mussolini enjoyed a strong, wide base of popular support among ordinary people across Italy.Mussolini elicited emotional responses unique in modern Italian history, and kept his popularity despite the military reverses after 1940.