Mussolini

Fascist Benefactor

Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Only Napoleon can be compared to him!
—Roald Engelbreth Amundsen

Benito Mussolini was the "Rock Star" leader of Italy from 1925 to 1943. Prior to Mussolini's leadership, he was Prime Minister of Italy from 1922 to 1925. Mussolini would be remembered for turning Italy into a powerhouse country in the 1920s with his innovations in creating jobs for farmers, common workers,controlling poverty and of course, his wonderful public presentations. Due to paranoia and fear in World War II, Mussolini was impeached as leader in 1943, when he then founded the Sao Republic in Northern Italy. This went unchallenged by King Victor Emmanuel III in order to avoid a civil war that he would likely lose.

Early years

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born on July 29, 1883 in Predappio, Italy. At the time, Italy was formally recognized as the Kingdom of Italy. His parents Alessandro Mussolini, a blacksmith with a revolutionary socialist ideology, and Rosa Mussolini, a school teacher. While Benito's mother was a Roman Catholic, Benito's father was an atheist. Benito's mother would teach him about religion and how essential religion is to the lives of everyday people, something that would be talked about in Benito's Fascist speeches down the road. Mussolini would take on several jobs growing up including teaching at an elementary school in the early 1900s. However, the curriculum in Italian schools were considered ridiculous according to Mussolini on the grounds of not enough class participation and too much studying. He would quit teaching elementary school to find other work.

Arrests of Mussolini

Mussolini, the hero which steps on the monster's head, he was our world: because of this, every head of the monster fight him, wanting his death. For us, the others, he will be our shining star which will fill us with hope: he'll be for us the proof that the hydra can be beaten. Proof of our chances of victory.
—Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

Benito Mussolini would emigrate to Switzerland. Worked several common jobs to survive, but it would not last long as Mussolini would be arrested in 1903 for advocating a violent general strike, incarcerating him for three weeks before being deported to Italy. In 1904, Mussolini was arrested on technical paperwork issues, causing him to be deported again to Italy. From there, he would join the Italian military under the Bersaglieri, serving proudly from January 1905 to September 1906. Mussolini would return to teaching from then on.

World War I

He's a great man, much greater than Stalin!
—Emil Ludwig

Mussolini is the greatest lawmaker alive today [...] Italy is ruled by a government which, under the secure leadership of Mister Mussolini, doesn't back down when faced with the logical consequences of economic reality and has the courage to impose financial corrections to stabilize the recovery of the country [...] Had I been Italian, I would have been with Mussolini since the beginning [...] your movement has rendered a great service to the whole world.
—Winston Churchill

World War I begin on July 28, 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy would join the Allied Powers, essentially fighting the Central Powers like the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, German Empire, Bulgaria. Mussolini's support of World War I would get him ousted from Italian Socialists, changing Mussolini's view of revolutionary socialism. Eventually in February 1917, Mussolini would suffer an injury thanks to shrapnel injuries from a mortar bomb that exploded accidentally in a trench. Mussolini would be hospitalized for 6 months before returning to the front until the end of World War I.

The Fascist Revolution

Mussolini is not an ordinary socialist. You will perhaps see him one day as a leader of a consecrated battalion, saluting the flags of Italy with his sword. He is an Italian of the fifteenth century, a condottiere. He is the only man with the strength to correct the weakness of the government.
—George Sorel, The Genesis of Georges Sorel by James H. Meisel, Ann Arbor and Wahr (page 220, n.21)

As Benito Mussolini was still recovering from injuries and the ravages of World War I, Mussolini realized that communist style socialism was a failure of a ideology, causing him to rethink his social views. After World War I, Italy started struggling thanks the Allied Powers betraying Italy after the Treaty of Versailles. Mussolini would create a newspaper series called Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (Combat Italian Squad) with initially 200 members. Fed up with King Victor Emmanuel III's royal policies, which included allowing gangs of communists thugs to roam the streets, and Mafia gangs to do the same, Mussolini would create a group consisting of disgruntled veterans from World War I called the Blackshirts. These people would clash against Communists, Marxists, Mafiosos, , and Anarchists on the streets. Fearing that the Communists would overtake Italy, the Italian government would allow the Blackshirts to be part of the government with Mussolini at the helm with the Chamber of Deputies. This would lead to the March of Rome on October 28, 1922 when Mussolini would get the resignation of liberal Prime Minister Luigi Facta, allowing for Mussolini to become the new Prime Minister of Italy.

Mussolini's leadership of Italy

In his country he acted as an antidote to a deadly venom. For Europe he was a strong man, which has done a lot of good for everyone. I can say with full satisfaction that I am the first important person to highlight the incredible results of Mussolini: he's the biggest possibility of our times.
—Lord Rothermere

The whole world has already spoken of Mussolini. No one can speak if not with enthusiasm of your exceptional Head of State, which in a couple years transformed your nation in a formidable powerhouse, already affirmed in all fields, both abroad and internally.
—Eleutherios Venizelos

In 1925, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy gave his power to Benito Mussolini, effectively making Mussolini the new leader of Italy. Immediately going to work, Mussolini would crack down on Mafia influence. During a trip to Sicily, Mussolini would arrest numerous members of the Mafia on the grounds of extortion, murder, price gouging, and obvious counts of theft. Mussolini believed that the Mafia was a threat to Fascism due to the Mafia's beliefs of Socialism and/or Communism. Because of that, Mafia members that were not arrested fled Italy for the United States of America. Mussolini's popularity in Italy would rise since Italians did not have to resort to desperate measures to care for their standard of living. Mussolini would create numerous jobs during his leadership for Italy. An example would be creating 5,000 new farm jobs. Swamp reclamation in Italy allowed for new farms to be created, putting rural Italians to work immediately. This would work for a while, but the costs of chemical fertilizers would affect production of wheat and other goods in the long run.

Under Mussolini's leadership, Mussolini would simplify the education system for all of Italy. Due to his experiences as a teacher, Mussolini believed that studying from a book does not give students the motivation to succeed. Therefore, Mussolini ordered schools to use books sparingly in favor of class participation. Meaning students would talk about what they learn, demonstrate the subjects to other students in an effort to motivate them, and sometimes have classes outdoors to ease the stress of the students. This revolutionary form of education would inspire many Nationalist leaders to do the same thing for the education system of their respected countries. Simplified education prepared female students for homemaking and prepared male students for hard labor to survive.

Another part of Mussolini's success as Fascist leader of Italy was providing sustainable industrial jobs going to the 1930s. Industrial jobs that did not just support the military, but also commercial jobs, new restaurants, and even the entertainment industry. Italy's standard of living would reach an all time high, inspiring Adolf Hitler upon his election as Chancellor of Germany in 1933. As Mussolini continued to fight the banks on what he was able to do for Italy, he would gather the resources necessary to make Italy great. However, as countries like Italy, Germany, and Spain would thrive, there would be great tension with the Soviet Union and African nations.

World War II

Mussolini lost the war because he was too kind. He wasn't a ruthless and bloody dictator like Stalin. Reading his diary, day by day, for 5 years between 1935 to 1939, so as he had already made a choice of joining the War, I can assure you that I find Mussolini to be an extrordinary man of great culture. A great writer [...] his diary is written exceptionally well.
—Marcello Dell'Utri

According to official history books, World War II began on September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, but it began years before that. Adolf Hitler's reason for invading Poland was on the grounds of Polish leader Edward Smigly calling for the deaths of ethnic Germans in western Poland. However, World War II did not get hot until 1940. In May of 1940, Churchill overthrew Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister, effectively seizing the position without an official election. He would immediately attack countries such as Germany and Italy when he got into power. Constantly rejecting peace offers from Hitler and Mussolini, Churchill would aide Joseph Stalin into fighting the Germans.

Mussolini's part of World War II was mostly African nations including Egypt and Libya. However, Mussolini's paranoia over Greece and Albania would give the Allied Powers the upper hand, essentially getting Mussolini ousted from power under the orders of the cowardly King Victor Emmanuel III. The final straw would be "The Allied Invasion of Sicily" in which over 9,000 people on the Axis side died while the Allied side reported close to 4,800 deaths. Mussolini would be removed from power in 1943, to form his own nation with his own people in what had been Northern Italy.

The murder of Mussolini

Which European politician of the first half of the twentieth century could be relied on to read the philosophical and literary works of his co-nationals and send their authors notes of criticism and congratulation? Who, at the time of profound crisis and despite his evident ill health, kept on his desk a copy of the works of Socrates and Plato, annotated in his own hand? Who declared publicly that he loved trees and anxiously quizzed his bureaucracy about storm damage to the environment? Who, in his table talk while he was entrenched in power, was fascinated by the task of tracing his intellectual antecedents?... Who seemed almost always ready to grant an interview and, having done so, was especially pleased by the prospect of talking about contemporary political and philosophical ideas? Who left more than 44 volumes of his collected works? Who claimed with an element of truth that money never dirtied his hands? Who could conduct a conversation in three languages apart from his own?... The somewhat surprising answer to all these questions is Benito Mussolini, Duce of Italian Fascism [...]
—R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini (New Edition) [page 7]

So finished twentyone years of Mussolini's government in Italy, during which he saved the Italian people from Bolshevism to bring them to a position in Europe which Italy never could have had before... the great roads which he drew will remain as a monument to his personal prestige and his lasting government.
—Winston Churchill

On April 27-29, 1945, Benito Mussolini was ambushed and murdered by Communists close to the border of Switzerland. Mussolini and a lady named Clara Petacci were horribly killed. The horrors included beatings, torture, sodomy, rape, hanging, being urinated on, burned, and other defilements of their living, and later dead bodies, by the communists as an appalled crowd looked on. Their bodies were not recognizable to the public before their burials. Italy would struggle to have an identity for the several years, forcing many Italians to flee the country under fear of Communism.

Legacy of Benito Mussolini

Mussolini is, for me, an enigma. I like many of his reforms. He has done much for the farmers. There is, in truth, an iron fist. However, because force (violence) is the foundation of Western Society, Mussolini's reforms deserve an impartial study. His care for the poor, his opposition to hyper-urbanization, his struggle to create a coordination between labour and capital, I think deserve special attention. [...] What surprises me the most is that, behind his restlessness, there is the desire to serve his own people. Even behind his most emphatic speeches there is a bit of sincerity and passionate love for his people. It also seems that the Italian masses love Mussolini's Iron government.
—Mahatma Gandhi

When his destiny will be completed, no hero in history will have been wiser than Mussolini, no man will have left more great works, no one will have contributed more to a unitary life on the European Continent.
—Ugo D'Andrea

Benito Mussolini was a pioneer in the education system by proving that active participation is more motivational for a student than studying a book for hours on end. Mussolini also created sustainable jobs which in turn improved the standard of living, allowing for Italians to break from the grips of the Mafia. He was an inspiration for numerous leaders including Adolf Hitler of National Socialist Germany. Finally, he was the author of a book that more people are reading today called "The Doctrine of Fascism." It's an important that discusses Fascism in an uncensored manner.