Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (July 29, 1883 – April 28, 1945) ruled
Italy as a dictator from 1922 to 1943. He created a fascist state through the use of state terror and propaganda. Using his charisma, total control of the media and intimidation of
political rivals, he disassembled the existing democratic government system. His
entry into World War II on the side of Nazi Germany made Italy a target for Allied attacks and ultimately led to his downfall and death.
Early years
Mussolini was born in Dova di Predappio, near Forlě, in Romagna. His father, Alessandro, was a blacksmith, and his
mother, Rosa Maltoni, was a teacher. He was named Benito after Mexican
revolutionary Benito Juárez. Like his father, Benito became a socialist and later a Marxist. He was
influenced by what he read of Friedrich Nietzsche, and
another doctrine that was in the air was the "syndicalism" espoused by the
French writer Georges Sorel (1847-1922). By age eight, he was banned from
his mother's church. Benito also had the distinction of being expelled from one school for stabbing a fellow student in the
buttocks with a pen knife in 1894. He qualified as an elementary schoolmaster in 1901. In
1902 he emigrated to Switzerland. Unable to find a permanent job there and
arrested for vagrancy, he was expelled and returned to Italy to do his military
service. After further trouble with the police, he joined the staff of a newspaper in the Austrian town of Trento in 1908. At this time he wrote a novel,
subsequently translated into English as The Cardinal's Mistress. Mussolini had a brother, Arnaldo, who would later become
the editor of Il Popolo d'Italia, the official newspaper of Benito Mussolinis regime.
Birth of Fascism
The word "Fascio" had existed in Italian politics for some time. A section of
revolutionary syndicalists broke with the Socialists over the issue of
Italy's entry into the First World War. Mussolini agreed with them. These
syndicalists formed a group called Fasci d'azione rivoluzionaria internazionalista in October 1914. Massimo Rocca
and Tulio Masotti asked
Mussolini to settle the contradiction of his support for interventionism and still being the editor of Avanti and an
official party functionary in the Socialist Party. (1) Two weeks later, he joined the Milan fascio. In November, 1914, supported by his then mistress Margherita
Sarfatti, he founded a new newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia, (The Italian People) and the prewar group Fasci
d'Azione Rivoluzionaria. Mussolini was attracted to fasces the ancient Roman symbol, of
the life-and-death power of the state, bundles of the lictors' rods of chastisement
which, when bound together, were stronger than when they were apart — reflecting the intellectual debt that fascism owed to
socialism and presaging the symbolism of the renewed Roman imperium
Mussolini promised to bring about. Mussolini claimed that it would help strengthen a relatively new nation (which had been united
only in the 1860s in the Risorgimento), although some would
say that, like Lenin, he wished for a collapse of society that would bring him to power.
Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance, thereby
allied with Imperial Germany and the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. It did not join the war in 1914 but did in 1915 — as Mussolini wished — on the side of Britain and France.
Called up for military service, Mussolini was wounded in grenade practice in 1917 and returned to edit his paper. Fascism
became an organized political movement following a meeting in
Milan on March 23, 1919 (Mussolini founded the Fasci di Combattimento on February 23, however). After failing in the 1919 elections, Mussolini at last entered parliament in 1921 as a right-wing member. The Fascisti formed armed squads of war veterans to terrorize
socialists and communists. The government seldom interfered. In return for the support of a group of industrialists and
agrarians, Mussolini gave his approval (often active) to strikebreaking, and he abandoned revolutionary agitation. When the
liberal governments of Giovanni Giolitti, Ivanoe Bonomi, and Luigi Facta failed to stop the spread of anarchy, and after Fascists
had organised the demonstrative and threatening Marcia su Roma ("March
on Rome") (October 28th 1922),
Mussolini was invited by Vittorio Emanuele III to form a
new government. He became the youngest Premier in the history of Italy on October 31.
Mussolini's Fascist state, established nearly a decade before Adolf
Hitler's rise to power, would provide a model for Hitler's later economic and political policies. Both a movement and a
historical phenomenon, Italian Fascism was, in many respects, an adverse reaction to both the perceived failure of laissez-faire economics and fear of international Bolshevism (a short-lived Soviet was established in Bavaria just about this time), although trends in
intellectual history, such as the breakdown of positivism and the general fatalism of postwar Europe were also factors. Fascism was a
product of a general feeling of anxiety and fear among the middle-class of postwar Italy, arising out of a convergence of
interrelated economic, political, and cultural pressures. Italy had no long-term tradition of parliamentary compromise, and
public discourse took on an inflammatory tone on all sides.
Under the banner of this authoritarian and nationalist ideology, Mussolini was able to exploit fears in an era in which
postwar depression, the rise of a more militant left, and a feeling of national shame and humiliation stemming from its
'mutilated victory' at the hands of the World War I peace treaties seemed to
converge. Italian influence in the Aegean and abroad seemed impotent and disregarded by the greater powers, and Italy lacked colonies. Such unfulfilled
nationalistic aspirations tainted the reputation of liberalism and constitutionalism among many sectors of the Italian
population. In addition, such democratic institutions had never grown to become firmly rooted in the young nation-state. And as
the same postwar depression heightened the allure of Marxism among an urban
proletariat even more disenfranchised than their continental counterparts, fear regarding the growing strength of trade unionism, communism, and
socialism proliferated among the elite and the middle class .
Fascism emerged as a "third way" — as Italy's last hope to avoid imminent collapse of 'weak' Italian liberalism or
communist revolution. While failing to outline a coherent program, it evolved into new political and economic system that
combined corporatism, totalitarianism, nationalism, and anti-communism in a
state designed to bind all classes together under a capitalist system, but a new capitalist system in which the state seized
control of the organization of vital industries. The appeal of this movement, the promise of a more orderly capitalism during an
era of interwar depression, however, was not isolated to Italy, or even Europe.
Fascist Dictatorship
At first Mussolini was supported by the Liberals in parliament. With their help, he introduced strict censorship and altered
the methods of election so that in 1925–1926 he
was able to assume dictatorial powers and dissolve all other political parties. Skillfully using his absolute control over the
press, he gradually built up the legend of Il duce, a man who never slept, was always right, and could solve all the
problems of politics and economics. He introduced the Press Laws in 1925 which stated that all journalists must be registered
Fascists. However, not all newspapers were taken into public ownership and Corriere della Sera sold on average 10 times as
many copies as the leading Fascist newspaper 'Il Popolo D'Italia'. Italy was soon a police state. The assassination of the prominent Socialist
Giacomo Matteotti in 1924, began a prolonged political crisis in
Italy, which did not end until the beginning of 1925 when Mussolini asserted his personal authority over both country and party
to establish a personal dictatorship. Mussolini's skill in propaganda was such that he had surprisingly little opposition to
suppress.
At various times after 1922, Mussolini personally took over the ministries of the
interior, of foreign affairs, of the colonies, of the corporations, of the army and the other armed services, and of public
works. Sometimes he held as many as seven departments simultaneously, as well as the premiership. He was also head of the
all-powerful Fascist party (formed in 1921) and the armed local Fascist militia, the
MVSN or Blackshirts that terrorized incipient resistances in the cities and provinces. He
would later form an institutionalised militia that carried official state support, the OVRA. In this way he succeeded in keeping power in his own hands and preventing the emergence of any rival. But it was
at the price of creating a regime that was overcentralized, inefficient, and corrupt.
Most of his time was spent on propaganda, whether at home or abroad, and here his training as a journalist was invaluable.
Press, radio, education, films — all were carefully supervised to manufacture the illusion that fascism was the
doctrine of the 20th century, replacing liberalism and democracy. The principles of this doctrine were laid down in the
article on fascism, written by Giovanni Gentile and signed by
Mussolini that appeared in 1932 in the Enciclopedia Italiana. In 1929, a concordat with the
Vatican was signed, by which the Italian state was at last recognized by the
Roman Catholic Church, and the independence of Vatican City was recognized by the Italian state.
Under the dictatorship, the effectiveness of parliamentary
system was virtually abolished though its forms were publicly preserved. The law codes were rewritten. All teachers in
schools and universities had to swear an oath to defend the Fascist regime. Newspaper editors were all personally chosen by
Mussolini himself, and no one could practice journalism who did not possess a certificate of approval from the Fascist party. The
trade unions were also deprived of any independence and were integrated into what was called the "corporative" system. The aim (never completely achieved), inspired by medieval guilds, was to place
all Italians in various professional organizations or "corporations", all of them under governmental control.
Mussolini played up to his financial backers at first by transferring a number of industries from public to private ownership.
But by the 1930s he had begun moving back to the opposite extreme of rigid governmental control of industry. A great deal of
money was spent on highly visible public works, but the economy suffered from his strenuous efforts to make Italy self-sufficient. A concentration on heavy industry proved problematic, because Italy lacked
the basic resources.
Military Aggression
In foreign policy, Mussolini soon shifted from the pacifist anti-imperialism of his lead-up to power, to an extreme form of
aggressive nationalism. An early example of this was his bombardment of
Corfu in 1923. Soon after this he succeeded in setting up a puppet regime in Albania and in ruthlessly consolidating Italian power in Libya, loosely a colony since 1912.
It was his dream to make the Mediterranean mare nostrum
("our sea" in Latin). In 1935, at the Stresa Conference, he helped create an anti-Hitler front in
order to defend the independence of Austria. But his successful war against Abyssinia
(Ethiopia) in 1935–1936 was opposed by the League of Nations, and he sought an alliance with Nazi Germany, which had withdrawn from the League in 1933. His active intervention in 1936-1939 on the side of
Franco in the Spanish Civil War ended any possibility of reconciliation with France and Britain. As a result, he had to accept the
German annexation of Austria in 1938 and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1939. At the Munich
Conference in September 1938 he posed as a moderate working for European peace. But his "axis' with Germany was confirmed
when he made the "Pact of Steel" with Hitler in May 1939. Clearly the
subordinate partner, Mussolini followed the Nazis in adopting a racial policy that led to
persecution of the Jews and the creation of apartheid in the Italian empire. Before this, Jews were not specifically persecuted
by Mussolini's government, and were permitted to be high members of the Party. Later, he would refuse to allow Jews to be
deported to concentration camps until Germany occupied Italy during the war (a period depicted in the movie, The Garden of the
Finzi-Continis). Members of TIGR, a Slovene anti-fascist group, plotted to kill
Mussolini in Kobarid in 1938, but this was unsuccessful.
The Axis of Blood and Steel
The term "Axis Powers" was coined by Mussolini, in November 1936, when he
spoke of a Rome-Berlin axis in reference to the treaty of friendship signed between Italy and Germany on October 25, 1936. Later, in May 1939, Mussolini would describe the relationship with
Germany as a "Pact of Steel", something he had earlier referred to as a "Pact of Blood".
World War II
As World War II (WWII) approached, Mussolini announced his intention of
annexing Malta, Corsica, and Tunis. He spoke of creating a "New Roman Empire" that would stretch east to Palestine and south through Libya and Egypt to Kenya. In April 1939, after a brief war, he annexed Albania, a campaign which strained
his military. His armed forces are generally considered to have been unprepared for combat when the German invasion of Poland led to World War II. Mussolini thus decided to remain 'non-belligerent' until he was
quite certain which side would win.
On June 10, 1940, as the Germans under
General Guderian reached the English Channel, Mussolini declared war on Britain and France. In October, Italy attacked Greece and lost
in result 1/3 of Albania, until Germany attacked Greece as well. In June 1941, he declared war on the Soviet Union and in December he declared war on the United States.
Following Italian defeats on all fronts and the Anglo-American landing in Sicily in
1943, most of Mussolini's colleagues (Count Galeazzo Ciano, the foreign minister and also Mussolini's son-in-law, included) turned against him at a
meeting of the Fascist Grand Council on July 25, 1943. King Vittorio Emanuele III called
Mussolini to his palace and stripped the dictator of his power. Upon leaving the palace, Mussolini was swiftly arrested. He was
then sent to Gran Sasso, a mountain recovery in central Italy (Abruzzo), in complete isolation.
Mussolini was substituted by the Maresciallo d'Italia Gen. Pietro
Badoglio, who immediately declared in a famous speech "La guerra continua a fianco dell'alleato germanico" ("The war
shoulder to shoulder with our Germanic allies continues"), but was instead working to negotiate a surrender; in a few days
(September the 8th) Badoglio would sign an armistice with Allied troops.
Rescued by the Germans several months later in a spectacular raid led by General Kurt Student, Mussolini set up the Italian Social Republic, a Republican Fascist state (RSI, Repubblica Sociale Italiana) in
northern Italy with him living in Gargnano. But he was little more than a puppet under the protection of the German Army. In this "Republic of Salň", Mussolini returned to his
earlier ideas of socialism and collectivization. He also executed some of the Fascist leaders who had abandoned him, including
his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano. During this period he wrote his
memoirs entitled My Rise and Fall.
On April 27, 1945, in the afternoon, near
the village of Dongo (Como Lake), just before the Allied armies reached Milan, Mussolini,
along with his mistress Claretta Petacci, were caught by the
Italian partisans as he headed for Chiavenna
to board a plane for escape to Switzerland. The day after, April 28, they were both executed along with their sixteen-man train,
mostly ministers and officials of the Italian Social Republic. The next day their bodies were hung, upside down, in Piazzale
Loreto (Milan) along with those of other fascists, to be abused by the crowds. Mussolini's body was then buried in an unmarked
grave in a Milan cemetery until the 1950s, when his body was moved back to Predappio. It was actually stolen briefly in the late
50s, then returned to Predappio. Here he was buried in a crypt (the only posthumous honor granted to Mussolini, his tomb is
flanked by marble fasces and a large idealized marble bust of himself sits above the tomb.)
According to an investigation made by some journalists, among whom the American Peter Tomkins who was an OSS agent in Milano
(Italy) during WW II, and aired on August 2004 by the Italian national TV network Raitre, Mussolini was killed on April 28, 1945 in the
morning, by some British secret agents on their attempt to take possession of the Churchill-Mussolini exchange of letters. These
documents might have been awkward to Churchill, given that some speculate the two statesmen were discussing an anti-Soviet
separate peace, despite the agreements previously stipulated between the Allies. The investigation is backed also by the witness
of Bruno Giovanni Lonati, on that time an Italian communist partisan member of the "Brigate Garibaldi" in Milan. [1] (http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/610637.php) [2] (http://www.larchivio.org/xoom/bonzanigo.htm)
This version is in contrast with the report of "Colonnello Valerio" the partisan commander charged by the CLN (National
Liberation Committee) with the task to execute the death sentence issued against Mussolini. According to Colonnello Valerio,
Benito Mussolini and Claretta Petacci were executed on April 28, in the afternoon, in the village of Giulino di Mezzegra.
The Duce was survived by his wife, Donna Rachele, by two sons, Vittorio and Romano Mussolini, and his daughter Edda, the widow of Count Ciano. A third son, Bruno, had been killed in an air accident while testing a military plane.
Mussolini's granddaughter Alessandra, daughter of Romano Mussolini, is currently a deputy in the Republican Chamber.
Mussolini was the inspiration for the character of Benzino Napaloni in Charlie Chaplin's movie The Great
Dictator.
References
- The Birth of Fascist Ideology, From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution, Zeev Sternhell, with Mario Sznajder and Maia Asheri, trans. by David Maisel, Princeton University Press, NJ,
1994. pg 214.
Writings of Mussolini
- Giovanni Hus (Jan Hus), il verdico Rome (1913) Published in America under
John Hus (New York: Albert and Charles Boni, l929) Republished by the Italian Book Co., NY (1939) under John Hus, the
Veracious.
- The Cardinal's Mistress (trans. Hiram Motherwell, New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1928)
Other revolutionary minded Italians of the inter-war period
See also:
External links
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