How far do you agree that the limited appeal of Mazzini’s ideas was the main reason for the slow progress of national unity in Italy in the years 1830-49?

Despite his desire to see a nation state built by “the people”, Mazzini failed to attract the support necessary for the movement to grow due the inaccessibility of his ideas and thus slowed the progress that could have been made with a mass movement. His limited appeal was mainly due to his inability to gain the support of the peasantry, in all his ideas of a new Italy he did not propose a solution to the deep social and economic poverty that they were faced with thus creating unwillingness in the peasants to support a revolution that would not benefit them. He also failed to address the ending of feudal common land rights, a burning issue for the peasantry across the peninsula throughout the 1830s and 40s. Instead the problem was taken up by the middle class, highlighting the lack of common ground between the Mazziniian nationalists and the peasantry and as a result the inability to create a national identity. This rift was particularly evident in the membership of Young Italy, Mazzini’s organisation founded in 1831, although membership was broader than other societies such as the Carbonari, the majority of those involved were from privileged backgrounds such as the Bandiera brothers. This limited upper and middle class support was mainly sure to the fact that his ideas were complex and intellectual and he did little to help the the third of peasants that were illiterate to understand them, leaving his movement with an extremely narrow social base which only added to the division between the people of Italy thus slowing the progress to national unity.