Bad in what way? In how oppressive the government was? In how unsuccessful its policies were?
If it's the first case, which from the OP I guess it's the case, then it's easy to say they were better than the Nazis. But "better than the Nazis" means "drier than water" here. They murdered approx. 20% of Libya's population in an attempt to quell a local nationalist uprising. The Italian secret police, OVRA, was not as bad as other secret police services like the Gestapo, NKVD, or Kempeitai, in terms of how pervasive its effect was on civilian life or how cruel and murderous - but they were still the secret police service of a dictatorship. In fact, the Germans specifically modeled the Gestapo after OVRA. There was also everything they've done after 1932. In Ethiopia, when the war was not advancing quickly enough, Mussolini authorized the use of chemical weapons against civilian areas, killing possibly thousands. After occupying Ethiopia, Italy enforced racial laws on the country. In 1938, of course, they enforced Nuremberg-like laws over the Jews in Italy proper. During the war, Italy committed pretty horrid war crimes against the Slavic populations it controlled in its part of Yugoslavia, starving thousands in death camps.
Fascism initially was a reaction to 2 things:
1. Rising left-wing forces that threatened revolution during and after the Biennio Rossi.
2. Italy's unsatisfactory rewards for its sacrifices during WW1.
Both of those are pretty bad from the get-go. In the first case, fascism was basically intended as a mechanism to employ violence against the opposition in the interests of maintaining the privileges of a small wealthy elite. That's why the King agreed to make Mussolini PM after the March on Rome rather than quell the movement. In the second case fascism is a nationalist, imperialist, militarist movement, intent on expanding Italy and making it into an empire. But not only did Mussolini want to grab a few territories, he thought war itself was good as it united the people and allowed the best of humanity to emerge via self-sacrifice for the nation. Mussolini allowed this to guide his foreign-policy, which was ruinous for Italy as this kind of thinking led the Duce into believing that the invasions of Ethiopia and Greece - two countries with very little strategic or economic value, and that Italy was not properly ready for war with - were actually good ideas.
Overall if you're actually asking about 1932 specifically, than it's a bit harder for me to tell just how bad they were at that particular point. I will say however that like the Nazis, the Italian Fascists got more repressive, tyrannical, and racist as time went on. I mean, in the first couple of years or so of their rule they were basically still adherent to constitutional norms etc., but after that began political assassinations and organized repression, that got worse as time went on and as the fascists deepened their control of the country. You can see it aesthetically, too - Mussolini started to wear ever-fancier military uniform in the 1930's, as opposed to the ordinary suit-and-tie he wore as PM in the 1920's. Ultimately, it got to the point in which the previously mostly liberal foreign policy of Italy turned into unabashed expansionism, and domestically repression was always growing. Economically, fascism was not exactly delivering either (despite the propaganda of "the trains run on time") - Italy was a far cry from an industrial powerhouse that can wage expansionist wars while still keeping its own population well-cared for. I think this is because the Fascists, unlike the Nazis, started out more modest, without any intention to acquire half of Europe or eliminate world bolshevism or whatever, they "only" wanted to rule Italy and to fix what they thought was wrong. But they got worse as time went on. Ultimately, I don't think that was because Fascism started out well but was later corrupted, I think the wars and the repression were an inevitable conclusion of fascist ideas, it just took a while to materialize.