Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (Italian pronunciation: [beˈniːto mussoˈliːni];[1] 29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) was an Italian politician, journalist, and leader of the National Fascist Party, ruling the country as Prime Minister from 1922 until he was ousted in 1943. He ruled constitutionally until 1925, when he dropped all pretense of democracy and set up a legal dictatorship. Known as Il Duce ("the leader"), Mussolini was the founder of fascism.[2][3][4]
In 1912 Mussolini was the leading member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI).[5] Prior to 1914 he was a keen supporter of the Socialist International, starting the series of meetings in Switzerland[6] that organised the communist revolutions and insurrections that swept through Europe from 1917. Mussolini was expelled from the PSI due to his opposition to the party's stance on neutrality in World War I. Mussolini denounced the PSI, and later founded the fascist movement. Following the March on Rome in October 1922 he became the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history until the appointment of Matteo Renzi in February 2014. After destroying all political opposition through his secret police and outlawing labor strikes,[7] Mussolini and his fascist followers consolidated their power through a series of laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship. Within five years he had established dictatorial authority by both legal and extraordinary means, aspiring to create a totalitarian state. Mussolini remained in power until he was deposed by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1943. A few months later, he became the leader of the Italian Social Republic, a German client regime in northern Italy; he held this post until his death in 1945.[8]
Mussolini sought to delay a major war in Europe until at least 1942. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, starting World War II. On 10 June 1940, with the Fall of France imminent, Mussolini officially entered the war on the side of Germany, though he was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity to carry out a long war with the United Kingdom.[9] Mussolini believed that after the imminent French armistice, Italy could gain territorial concessions from France and then he could concentrate his forces on a major offensive in Egypt, where British and Commonwealth forces were outnumbered by Italian forces.[10] However the UK refused to accept German proposals for a peace that would involve accepting Germany's victories in Eastern and Western Europe, plans for an invasion of the UK did not proceed, and the war continued. In the summer of 1941 Mussolini sent Italian forces to participate in the invasion of the Soviet Union, and war with the United States followed in December.
On 24 July 1943, soon after the start of the Allied invasion of Italy, the Grand Council of Fascism voted against him, and the King had him arrested the following day. On 12 September 1943, Mussolini was rescued from prison in the Gran Sasso raid by German special forces. In late April 1945, with total defeat looming, Mussolini attempted to escape north,[11] only to be quickly captured and summarily executed near Lake Como by Italian Communists. His body was then taken to Milan where it was hung upside down at a service station for public viewing and to provide confirmation of his demise.[12]Mussolini was born in Dovia di Predappio, a small town in the province of Forlì in Romagna on 29 July 1883. During the Fascist era, Predappio was dubbed "Duce's town", and Forlì was "Duce's city". Pilgrims went to Predappio and Forlì, to see the birthplace of Mussolini. His father Alessandro Mussolini was a blacksmith and a socialist,[13] while his mother Rosa Mussolini (née Maltoni) was a devout Catholic schoolteacher.[14] Owing to his father's political leanings, Mussolini was named Benito after Mexican reformist President Benito Juárez, while his middle names "Andrea" and "Amilcare" were from Italian socialists Andrea Costa and Amilcare Cipriani.[15] Benito was the eldest of his parents' three children. His siblings Arnaldo and Edvige followed.[16]
As a young boy, Mussolini would spend some time helping his father in his smithy.[17] Mussolini's early political views were heavily influenced by his father who idolized 19th-century Italian nationalist figures with humanist tendencies such as Carlo Pisacane, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Giuseppe Garibaldi.[18] His father's political outlook combined views of anarchist figures like Carlo Cafiero and Mikhail Bakunin, the military authoritarianism of Garibaldi, and the nationalism of Mazzini.[19] In 1902, at the anniversary of Garibaldi's death, Benito Mussolini made a public speech in praise of the republican nationalist.[19] The conflict between his parents about religion meant that, unlike most Italians, Mussolini was not baptized at birth and would not be until much later in life. As a compromise with his mother, Mussolini was sent to a boarding school run by Salesian monks. After joining a new school, Mussolini achieved good grades, and qualified as an elementary schoolmaster in 1901.[14]
Emigration to Switzerland and military service
In 1902, Mussolini emigrated to Switzerland, partly to avoid military service.[13] He worked briefly as a stonemason in Geneva, Fribourg and Bern, but was unable to find a permanent job.
During this time he studied the ideas of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, and the syndicalist Georges Sorel. Mussolini also later credited the Marxist Charles Péguy and the syndicalist Hubert Lagardelle as some of his influences.[20] Sorel's emphasis on the need for overthrowing decadent liberal democracy and capitalism by the use of violence, direct action, the general strike, and the use of neo-Machiavellian appeals to emotion, impressed Mussolini deeply.[13]
Benito Mussolini mugshot from 1903
Mussolini's booking photograph following his arrest by Swiss police, 1903
Mussolini became active in the Italian socialist movement in Switzerland, working for the paper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore, organizing meetings, giving speeches to workers and serving as secretary of the Italian workers' union in Lausanne.[21] In 1903, he was arrested by the Bernese police because of his advocacy of a violent general strike, spent two weeks in jail, was deported to Italy, was set free there, and returned to Switzerland.[22] In 1904, having been arrested again in Geneva and expelled for falsifying his papers, he returned to Lausanne, where he attended the University of Lausanne's Department of Social Science, following the lessons of Vilfredo Pareto.[23] In December 1904, he returned to Italy to take advantage of an amnesty for desertion, for which he had been convicted in absentia.[24]
Since a condition for being pardoned was serving in the army, on 30 December 1904, he joined the corps of the Bersaglieri in Forlì.[25] After serving for two years in the military (from January 1905 until September 1906), he returned to teaching.[26]
Political journalist, intellectual and socialist
In February 1909,[27] Mussolini once again left Italy, this time to take the job as the secretary of the labor party in the Italian-speaking city of Trento, which at the time was part of Austria-Hungary. He also did office work for the local Socialist Party, and edited its newspaper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore (The Future of the Worker). Returning to Italy, he spent a brief time in Milan, and then in 1910 he returned to his hometown of Forlì, where he edited the weekly Lotta di classe (The Class Struggle).
Mussolini thought of himself as an intellectual. He read a great deal of political philosophy in French and German, and translated excerpts from Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Kant. His favorites in European philosophy included Sorel, the Italian Futurists Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, French Socialist Gustave Hervé, and Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta.[28][29]
During this time, he published Il Trentino veduto da un Socialista (Trentino as seen by a Socialist) in the radical periodical La Voce.[30] He also wrote several essays about German literature, some stories, and one novel: L'amante del Cardinale: Claudia Particella, romanzo storico (The Cardinal's Mistress). This novel he co-wrote with Santi Corvaja, and was published as a serial book in the Trento newspaper Il Popolo. It was released in installments from 20 January to 11 May 1910[31] The novel was bitterly anticlerical, and years later was withdrawn from circulation after Mussolini made a truce with the Vatican.[13]
By now, he was one of Italy's most prominent socialists. In September 1911, Mussolini participated in a riot, led by socialists, against the Italian war in Libya. He bitterly denounced Italy's "imperialist war", an action that earned him a five-month jail term.[32] After his release he helped expel from the Socialist Party two "revisionists" who had supported the war, Ivanoe Bonomi, and Leonida Bissolati. As a result, he was rewarded the editorship of the Socialist Party newspaper Avanti! Under his leadership, its circulation soon rose from 20,000 to 100,000.[33]
In 1913, he published Giovanni Hus, il veridico (Jan Hus, true prophet), an historical and political biography about the life and mission of the Czech ecclesiastic reformer Jan Hus, and his militant followers, the Hussites. During this socialist period of his life Mussolini sometimes used the pen name "Vero Eretico" ("sincere heretic").[34]
Mussolini opposed egalitarianism. For instance Mussolini was influenced by Nietszche's anti-Christian ideas and negation of God's existence.[35] Mussolini saw Nietzsche as similar to Jean-Marie Guyau, who advocated a philosophy of action.[35] Mussolini's use of Nietzsche made him a highly unorthodox socialist, due to Nietzsche's promotion of elitism and anti-egalitarian views. Mussolini felt that socialism had faltered due to the failures of Marxist determinism and social democratic reformism, and believed that Nietzsche's ideas would strengthen socialism. While associated with socialism, Mussolini's writings eventually indicated that he had abandoned Marxism and egalitarianism in favor of Nietzsche's übermensch concept and anti-egalitarianism.[35]
Expulsion from the Italian Socialist Party
1918 group photo of Arditi corps showing daggers and black uniforms
Members of Italy's Arditi corps in 1918 holding daggers, a symbol of their group. The Arditi's black uniform and use of the fez were adopted by Mussolini in the creation of his Fascist movement.
With the outbreak of World War I a number of socialist parties initially supported the war when it began in August 1914.[36] Once the war began, Austrian, British, French, German, and Russian socialists followed the rising nationalist current by supporting their country's intervention in the war.[37] The outbreak of the war had resulted in a surge of Italian nationalism and the war was supported by a variety of political factions. One of the most prominent and popular Italian nationalist supporters of the war was Gabriele d'Annunzio who promoted Italian irredentism and helped sway the Italian public to support intervention in the war.[38] The Italian Liberal Party under the leadership of Paolo Boselli promoted intervention in the war on the side of the Allies and utilized the Società Dante Alighieri to promote Italian nationalism.[39][40] Italian socialists were divided on whether to support the war or oppose it.[41] Prior to Mussolini taking a position on the war, a number of revolutionary syndicalists had announced their support of intervention, including Alceste De Ambris, Filippo Corridoni, and Angelo Oliviero Olivetti.[42] The Italian Socialist Party decided to oppose the war after anti-militarist protestors had been killed, resulting in a general strike called Red Week.[43]
Mussolini initially held official support for the party's decision and, in an August 1914 article, Mussolini wrote "Down with the War. We remain neutral."[44] He saw the war as an opportunity, both for his own ambitions as well as those of socialists and Italians.[44] He was influenced by anti-Austrian Italian nationalist sentiments, believing that the war offered Italians in Austria-Hungary the chance to liberate themselves from rule of the Habsburgs.[44] He eventually decided to declare support for the war by appealing to the need for socialists to overthrow the Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies in Germany and Austria-Hungary who he claimed had consistently repressed socialism.[44] He further justified his position by denouncing the Central Powers for being reactionary powers; for pursuing imperialist designs against Belgium and Serbia as well as historically against Denmark, France, and against Italians, since hundreds of thousands of Italians were under Habsburg rule.[42] He claimed that the fall of Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies and the repression of "reactionary" Turkey would create conditions beneficial for the working class.[42] While he was supportive of the Entente powers, Mussolini responded to the conservative nature of Tsarist Russia by claiming that the mobilization required for the war would undermine Russia's reactionary authoritarianism and the war would bring Russia to social revolution.[42] He claimed that for Italy the war would complete the process of Risorgimento by uniting the Italians in Austria-Hungary into Italy and by allowing the common people of Italy to be participating members of the Italian nation in what would be Italy's first national war.[42] Thus he claimed that the vast social changes that the war could offer meant that it should be supported as a revolutionary war.[42]
As Mussolini's support for the intervention solidified, he came into conflict with socialists who opposed the war. He attacked the opponents of the war and claimed that those proletarians who supported pacifism were out of step with the proletarians who had joined the rising interventionist vanguard that was preparing Italy for a revolutionary war.[45] He began to criticize the Italian Socialist Party and socialism itself for having failed to recognize the national problems that had led to the outbreak of the war.[45] He was expelled from the party due to his support of intervention.
The following excerpts are from a police report prepared by the Inspector-General of Public Security in Milan, G. Gasti, that describe his background and his position on the First World War that resulted in his ousting from the Italian Socialist Party.
The Inspector General wrote:
Professor Benito Mussolini, ... 38, revolutionary socialist, has a police record; elementary school teacher qualified to teach in secondary schools; former first secretary of the Chambers in Cesena, Forlì, and Ravenna; after 1912 editor of the newspaper Avanti! to which he gave a violent suggestive and intransigent orientation. In October 1914, finding himself in opposition to the directorate of the Italian Socialist party because he advocated a kind of active neutrality on the part of Italy in the War of the Nations against the party's tendency of absolute neutrality, he withdrew on the twentieth of that month from the directorate of Avanti! Then on the fifteenth of November [1914], thereafter, he initiated publication of the newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia, in which he supported – in sharp contrast to Avanti! and amid bitter polemics against that newspaper and its chief backers – the thesis of Italian intervention in the war against the militarism of the Central Empires. For this reason he was accused of moral and political unworthiness and the party thereupon decided to expel him ... Thereafter he ... undertook a very active campaign in behalf of Italian intervention, participating in demonstrations in the piazzas and writing quite violent articles in Popolo d'Italia ...[33]
çok için yçok ziyaret etti diye bir yer gerçek Ben sana kızarım her şey için daha iyi anlıyorum onu takip eden takip edilir kendi kendime geldim ben buraya kadar çok seviyorum bu adamı seviyorum çok iyi biliyorum geldi ve aklıma gelen geldi aklıma geldi yine aklıma gelen tek şey bu konuda çok iyi geldi aklıma gelen ilk kişi olarak bu kadar kolay mı bir daha asla bir şey var bu etikette bir fotoğraf paylaştım bir gün önce de bir başka oluyor bu.
Ben bu kadar çok fazla abartılan başlığı doğru bulmadığım gibi iyide bulmuyorum. Ve biran gelir ne kadar da güzel oldu bu konuda bir anlaşalım önce de aynı şekilde karşılık veren bir erkek için de geçerli olacak.
Hilal'in ve bir de bu yüzden de bir şey var mı diye bir gerçek var ortada olan bu iki ülke arasında bir şey yoktur kimin gerçek arkadaşlarımız olduğunu söyledi. Ben bu kadar kolay bir şekilde ortaya çıkan yeni kişi takip etmiş oluyordum.
