Benito Mussolini

I

Introduction

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), founder of Fascism and prime minister and dictator of Italy (1922-1943). Known as Il Duce (Italian for “the leader”), Mussolini centralized political power in Italy and bound the nation to him with his charisma. His vast personal power, strong-arm methods, and extreme nationalism made him a model for leaders of like-minded authoritarian movements in the 1920s and 1930s. German dictator Adolf Hitler saw Mussolini as a precursor, and many similarities existed between the Fascist and German Nazi movements. Allied with Hitler from 1938 to 1943, Mussolini helped plunge Europe into World War II (1939-1945).

II

Early Life

Mussolini was born in Predappio, a small town in north central Italy, near the city of Forlì. He was the first son of a striving lower-class couple. His father was a blacksmith and his mother was a schoolteacher. Like many other families of this time and region, Mussolini’s family held socialist convictions and was opposed to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. The couple named their first son after Mexican revolutionary hero Benito Juárez, and his younger brother after medieval Catholic heretic Arnold of Brescia.

As a youth, Mussolini was known for his quick temper and arrogance. Educated in local schools, he earned a diploma in 1901 that qualified him to teach elementary school. Employment prospects in the area were scarce, however, and in 1902 he moved to Switzerland.

III

Political Development

While abroad, Mussolini studied the works of socialist thinkers such as Karl Marx and became involved with socialist groups. Returning to Italy in 1904, he drew on his exposure to leftist ideas, his quick intelligence, and his growing talent as a journalist and speechmaker to advance in local socialist circles. In 1910 he married Rachele Guidi, with whom he would have five children.

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A

Newspaper Editor

In 1911 Mussolini was jailed for leading protests against Italy’s invasion of Libya. Upon his release in 1912, he was lionized by the left for his attack on imperialism and the Italian Socialist Party appointed him editor of the party’s prestigious official newspaper, Avanti! (Forward!). Now living in Milan, he acquired notoriety and a loyal personal following for his explosive editorials. His pieces generally took the form of scathing polemics against both the Italian liberal government and its main opposition, moderate socialist reformists. Meanwhile, his impatience with democratic procedure and his indifference to the harsh day-to-day experience of the poor distanced him from the traditional Italian socialist tenets of majority rule and humanitarianism. Despite his actions against Italy’s imperial conquest of Libya, Mussolini was at heart more a nationalist than a socialist.

The outbreak of World War I (1914-1918) occasioned Mussolini’s official break with socialism. At first Italy stayed out of the war. Most socialists, including Mussolini at the time, wanted the country to remain neutral on the grounds that the war was imperialistic and contrary to workers’ interests. However, in 1915 the Italian government decided to enter the war after the Allied Powers of Britain, France, and Russia promised Italy significant territorial gains in the Treaty of London. As Italy prepared for war, Mussolini also shifted his position, and began to support Italy’s entrance into the war. He justified his reversal by contending that wartime chaos would bring about revolution and that inaction would only isolate the socialists. Mussolini also foresaw that war would raise nationalistic passions in Italy—passions on which he could capitalize. To socialist party leaders, this turnaround smacked of pure opportunism, and they dismissed him from Avanti! He subsequently founded a new newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia (The People of Italy), which later became the organ of the Fascist movement. When the socialists learned that the newspaper was financed by the French, who wanted Italy to enter the war, and by industrialists, who wanted to split the socialist movement, they expelled him from the Italian Socialist Party.

Italy entered the war in May 1915 and Mussolini was drafted into the army in September. He was severely wounded in February 1917 when a grenade launcher he was firing exploded, and he was released from the army in June. The time he spent under arms only made him a more convinced nationalist, completing his break with the socialist movement.