Early years

Mussolini was born in a village named Predappio in the province of Forlì, in Emilia-
Romagna. He was named Benito after Mexican reformist President Benito Juárez; the
names Andrea and Amilcare were for Italian socialists Andrea Costa and Amilcare
Cipriani. His mother, Rosa Maltoni, was a teacher who believed education was extremely
important. His father, Alessandro, was a blacksmith who often encouraged Benito to
disobey authority (other than his own). He adored his father, but his love was never
reciprocated. Like his father, who was a member of the first Socialist International,
Benito became a socialist. Benito was not baptized as a child.

By age eight, he was banned from his mother's church for pinching people at the pews
and throwing stones at them outside after church. He was sent to boarding school later
that year and at age 11 he was expelled from school for stabbing a fellow student in the
hand and throwing an inkpot at a teacher. He did, however, receive good grades, and he
qualified as an elementary schoolmaster in 1901.

In 1902 he emigrated to Switzerland to escape military service. During a period when he

was unable to find a permanent job there, he was arrested for vagrancy and jailed for one
night. Later, after becoming involved in the socialist movement, he was deported and
returned to Italy to do his military service. He returned to Switzerland immediately, and a
second attempt to deport him was halted when Swiss socialist parliamentarians held an
emergency debate to discuss his treatment.

Subsequently, a job was found for him in the city of Trento, ethnically Italian but then
under the control of Austria-Hungary, in February 1909. There he did office work for the
local socialist party and edited its newspaper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore ("The future of
the worker"). It didn't take him long to make contact with irredentist, socialist politician
and journalist Cesare Battisti, and to agree to write for and edit the latter's newspaper Il
Popolo ("The People") in addition to the work he did for the party. For Battisti's
publication he wrote a novel, Claudia Particella, l'amante del cardinale, which was
published serially in 1910. He was later to dismiss it as written merely to smear the
religious authorities. The novel was subsequently translated into English as The
Cardinal's Mistress. In 1915 he may have had a son from Ida Dalser a woman born in
Sopramonte, a village near Trento.[3]

By the time his novel hit the pages of Il Popolo, though, Mussolini was already back in
Italy. His polemic style and growing defiance of the Imperial-Royal authority and, as
hinted, anti-clericalism put him in trouble with the authorities until he was finally
deported at the end of September. After his return to Italy (prompted by his mother's
illness and death) he joined the staff of the "Central Organ of the Socialist Party"[4],
Avanti! ("Forward!"). Mussolini had a brother, Arnaldo, who would later become the
editor of Il Popolo d'Italia, the official newspaper of Benito Mussolini's Fascist Party
(November 1922)
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. The ambitious Mussolini quickly sided with them in 1914, when the
war broke out. 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. Two weeks later, he joined
the Milan fascio. 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 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 Austria-
Hungary. 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. The Fascisti formed armed squads of war veterans called squadristi
to terrorize anarchists, socialists and communists. The government rarely 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 organized the demonstrative
and threatening Marcia su Roma ("March on Rome") (October 28, 1922), Mussolini was
invited by Vittorio Emanuele III to form a new government. At the age of 39, he became
the youngest Premier in the history of Italy on October 31.

Contrary to a common misconception, Mussolini did not become prime minister because
of the March on Rome. King Victor Emmanuel III knew that if he did not choose a
government under either the Fascist or Socialist party, Italy would soon be involved in a
civil war. Accordingly, he asked Mussolini to become Prime Minister, obviating the need
for the March on Rome. However, because fascists were already arriving from all around
Italy, he decided to continue. In effect, the threatened seizure of power became nothing
more than a victory parade.

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 influence 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.

In this fluid situation, Mussolini took advantage of the opportunity and, rapidly
abandoning his early socialist and republican program, put himself at the service of the
antisocialist cause. The fascist militias, supported by the wealthy classes and by a large
part of the state apparatus which saw in him the restorer of order, launched a violent
offensive against the syndicalists and all political parties of a socialist or Catholic
inspiration, particularly in the north of Italy (Emilia Romagna, Toscana, etc.), causing
numerous victims though the substantial indifference of the forces of order. These acts of
violence were, in large part, provoked by fascist squadristi who were increasingly and
openly supported by Dino Grandi, the only real competitor to Mussolini for the
leadership of the fascist party until the Congress of Rome in 1921. [5]

The violence increased considerably during the period from 1920-1922 until the March
on Rome. Confronted by these badly armed and badly organized fascist militias attacking
the Capital, King Victor Emmanuel III, preferring to avoid any spilling of blood, decided
to appoint Mussolini, who at that moment had the support of about 22 deputies in
Parliament, President of the Council. Victor Emmanuel continued to maintain control of
the armed forces: if he had wanted to, he would have had no difficulties in booting
Mussolini and the completely inferior fascist forces out of Rome. Therefore, it is not
appropriate to refer to Mussolini's rise as a "coup d'état" since he obtained his post legally
with the blessing of the monarch.

As Prime Minister, the first years of Mussolini's reign were characterized by a coalition
government composed of nationalists, liberals and populists and did not assume
dictatorial connotations until the assassination of Matteotti. With the silencing of political
dissent as the result of Matteotti's assassination, the function of Mussolini's government
became comparable to that of authoritarian dictatorships.[6] In domestic politics,
Mussolini favoured the complete restoration of State authority, with the integration of the
Fasci di Combattimento into the armed forces (the foundation in January 1923 of the
Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale) and the progressive identification of the
Party with the State. In political and social economy, he produced legislation that
favoured the wealthy industrial and agrarian classes (privatizations, liberalizations of rent
laws and dismantlement of the unions).

In June of 1923, a new majoritarian electoral law was approved which assigned two
thirds of the seats in Parliament to the coalition which had obtained at least 25% of the
votes. This law was punctually applied in the elections of April 6, 1924, in which the
fascist "listone" obtained an extraordinary success, aided by the use of shenanigans,
violence and intimidatory tactics against opponents.

The assassination of the socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti, who had requested the
annulment of the elections because of the irregularities committed, provoked a
momentary crisis of the Mussolini government. The response of the opposition was weak
and generally unresponsive (the secession of the Aventine), incapable of transforming
their posturing into a mass antifascist action, was not sufficient to distance the ruling
classes and the Monarchy from Mussolini who, on 3 January 1925, broke open the
floodgates and, in a famous discourse in which he took upon himself all of the
responsibility for the squadrist violence (though he did not mention the assassination of
Matteotti), proclaimed a de facto dictatorship, suppressing every residual liberty and
completing the identification of the Fascist Party with the State.

From 1925 until the middle of the 1930's, fascism experienced little and isolated
opposition, although that which it experienced was memorable, consisting in large part of
communists such as Antonio Gramsci, socialists such as Pietro Nenni and liberals such as
Piero Gobetti and Giovanni Amendola.

While failing to outline a coherent program, fascism evolved into a new political and
economic system that combined totalitarianism, nationalism, and anti-Communism in a
state designed to bind all classes together under a capitalist system (The "Third Way").
This was a new capitalist system, however, one in which the state seized control of the
organization of vital industries. Under the banners of nationalism and state power,
Fascism seemed to synthesize the glorious Roman past with a futuristic utopia. [7]
Despite the themes of social and economic reform in the initial Fascist manifesto of June
1919, the movement came to be supported by sections of the middle class fearful of
socialism and communism. Industrialists and landowners supported the movement as a
defense against labour militancy. Under threat of a fascist March on Rome, in October
1922, Mussolini assumed the premiership of a right-wing coalition Cabinet initially
including members of the pro-church Partito Popolare (People's Party

Fascist dictatorship
In the beginning Mussolini was given support from all political spectrums in Italy, from
lefists to democrats. Unbeknownst to them, he was dismantling parliament
democratically with legislation that they had approved. By 1926, he had complete control
over the Italian government and people.

Skillfully using his secret but absolute control over the press, he gradually built up the
legend of Il Duce. He introduced the press laws of 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'.

Nevertheless, Italy was soon a police state. The assassination of the prominent
internationalist 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.
Nonetheless he was "slightly wounded in the nose" when he was shot on 8 April 1926 by
Violet Gibson, an Irish woman and sister of Baron Ashbourne[8]. He also survived a
failed assassination attempt in Rome by anarchist Gino Lucetti[9], and a planned attempt
by American anarchist Michael Schirru ended with his capture and execution.[10]

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.

During his 21-year rule, Mussolini launched several public construction programs and
government initiatives throughout Italy to combat economic setbacks or unemployment
levels. His earliest was Italy's equivalent of the Green Revolution, known as the "Battle
of the Grain", which saw the foundation of 5,000 new farms and five new agricultural
towns on land reclaimed by draining the Pontine Marshes. This plan effectively increased
Italy's agricultural output by more than 50% and solved a national food shortage through
a wide-scale cultivation of grain.

He also combatted an economic recession by introducing the "Gold for the Fatherland"
initiative, by encouraging the public to voluntarily donate gold jewellery such as
necklaces and wedding rings to government officials in exchange for steel armbands
bearing the words "Gold for the Fatherland". The collected gold was then melted down
and turned into gold bars, which were then distributed to the national banks.

Efforts such as these gradually earned him the support and allegiance of people
throughout Italy. Furthermore, he rebuilt the wealth and morale of the people, improved
the national living standard, and gave Italy a highly-regarded diplomatic front in the
courts of Europe.

As dictator of Italy, Mussolini's foremost priority was the subjugation of the minds of the
Italian people and using propaganda to do so; 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, the
Lateran treaties, 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. In
1927 Mussolini had had himself baptized by a Roman Catholic priest in order to take
away certain opposition from the side of Italy's Catholics, who were until then still very
critical of the modern Italian State which had taken away papal property and virtually
blackmailed several popes inside the Vatican. Mussolini however never became known
as to be a practicing Catholic. Nevertheless since 1927 and more even after 1929,
Mussolini with his anti-Communist doctrines convinced many Catholics to actively
support him.

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 who did not possess
a certificate of approval from the Fascist party could practice journalism. These
certificates were issued in secret, so the public had no idea of this ever occurring, thus
skillfully creating the illusion of a "free press". 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 clandestine
governmental control. Furthermore, that all schools, newspapers, etc. had to not write, for
example, the 13th of June 1933 but instead had to write the 13th of June of the 11th year
of Mussolini's power.
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, and on international prestige projects such as the SS
Rex, Blue Riband ocean liner and aeronautical achievements such as the transatlantic
flying boat cruise of Italo Balbo, who was tributed great honors by the USA after his
landing in Chicago. Those projects earned respect from some countries, but the economy
suffered from Mussolini's strenuous efforts to make Italy self-sufficient. A concentration
on heavy industry proved problematic, because Italy lacked the basic resources.

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), and established a large naval base on the Greek Island of Leros to enforce a
strategic hold on the Eastern Mediterranean. 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 this eventually led to Hitler seeking an alliance with fascist Italy.

The invasion of Ethiopia was accomplished rapidly (the proclamation of Empire took
place in May of 1936) and involved several atrocities such as the use of chemical
weapons, (mustard gas and phosgene) and the indiscriminate slaughter of much of the
local population to prevent opposition.

The armed forces disposed of a vast arsenal of grenades and bombs loaded with mustard
gas which were dropped from airplanes. This substance was also sprayed directly from
above like an "insecticide" on to enemy combatants and villages. It was Mussolini
himself who authorized the use of the weapons: "Rome, 27 October '35. A.S.E. Graziani.
The use of gas as an ultima ratio to overwhelm enemy resistance and in case of
counterattack is authorized. Mussolini." "Rome, 28 December '35. A.S.E. Badoglio.
Given the enemy system I have authorized V.E. the use even on a vast scale of any gas
and flamethrowers. Mussolini." Mussolini and his generals sought to cloak the operations
of chemical warfare in the utmost secrecy, but the crimes of the fascist army were
revealed to the world through the denunciations of the International Red Cross and of
many foreign observers. The Italian reaction to these revelations consisted in the
"erroneous" bombardment (at least 19 times) of Red Cross tents posted in the areas of
military encampment of the Ethiopian resistance. The orders imparted by Mussolini, with
respect to the Ethiopian population, were very clear: "Rome, 5 June 1936. A.S.E.
Graziani. All rebels taken prisoner must be killed. Mussolini." "Rome, 8 July 1936.
A.S.E. Graziani. I have authorized once again V.E. to begin and systematically conduct a
politics of terror and extermination of the rebels and the complicit population. Without
the legge taglionis one cannot cure the infection in time. Await confirmation. Mussolini."
[11]
The predominant part of the work of repression was carried out by Italians who,
besides the bombs laced with mustard gas, instituted forced labor camps, installed public
gallows, killed hostages, and mutilated the corpses of their enemies. [12]Graziani ordered
the elimination of captured guerrillas by way of throwing them out of airplanes in mid-
flight. Many Italian troops had themselves photographed next to cadavers hanging from
the gallows or hanging around chests full of detached heads. One episode in the Italian
occupation of Ethiopia was the slaughter of Addis Ababa of February, 1937 which
followed upon an attempt to assassinate Graziani. In the course of an official ceremony a
bomb exploded next to the general. The response was immediate and cruel. The thirty or
so Ethiopians present at the ceremony were impaled, and immediately after, the black
shirts of the fascist Militias poured out into the streets of Addis Ababa where they
tortured and killed all of the men, women and children that they encountered on their
path. They also set fire to homes in order to prevent the inhabitants from leaving and
organized the mass executions of groups of 50-100 people. [13]

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. Members of TIGR, a Slovene anti-fascist group, plotted to kill
Mussolini in Kobarid in 1938, but were unsuccessful. One of Mussolini's famous quotes
is "If I retreat, kill me"

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. His "Axis" with Germany was confirmed when he made
another treaty with Germany in May 1939. Mussolini described the relationship with
Germany as a "Pact of Steel", something he had earlier referred to as a "Pact of Blood".

Clearly the subordinate partner, Mussolini followed the Nazis and adopted racial policies
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 fascist party. Despite some persecutions, Mussolini
government was actively saving Jews [14]. Members of TIGR, a Slovene anti-fascist
group, plotted to kill Mussolini in Kobarid in 1938, but were unsuccessful. One of
Mussolini's famous quotes is "If I retreat, kill me".

Mussolini did not approve all policies of Hitler and in April, 1938, Mussolini privately
suggested that the Vatican consider excommunicating Adolf Hitler. It is not clear if the
Church ever seriously considered excommunicating Hitler. [15]