All About Benito Mussolini
By Students’ Academy
Copyright@2011Students’ Academy
Smashwords Edition
Chapter 1
Introduction
He is undoubtedly one of those political leaders who laid the foundation of Fascism in the world. Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born on 29 July, 1883, in Predappio, Province of Forlì-Cesena; he was an Italian politician, the leader of the National Fascist Party.
Mussolini rose to power very rapidly and with his determination and strong will he became the 40th Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 and began using the title Il Duce by 1925. After 1936, his official title was "His Excellency Benito Mussolini, Head of Government, Duce of Fascism, and Founder of the Empire”.
He takes the credit of creating and holding the supreme military rank of First Marshal of the Empire along with King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, which gave him and the King joint supreme control over the military of Italy. Mussolini remained in power until he was replaced in 1943. He continued to be the leader of the Italian Social Republic.
Fascism was based on the elements of nationalism, corporatism, national syndicalism, expansionism, social progress and anti-communism in combination with censorship of subversives and state propaganda. Mussolini was one of the founders of the Fascism. In the years following his creation of the fascist ideology, Mussolini influenced, or achieved admiration from, a wide variety of political figures. Many world leaders who belonged to the posterity were influenced by his thought and leadership qualities.
He initiated and successfully completed many reforms in the Italian society. Between 1924 and 1939, Mussolini successfully got many domestic achievements: his public works programmes such as the taming of the Pontine Marshes, the improvement of job opportunities, and public transport. Mussolini also solved the Roman Question by concluding the Lateran Treaty between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See. He is also credited with securing economic success in Italy's colonies and commercial dependencies.
Mussolini had a very significant role to play in the Second World War. In the initial stage, Italy was on the side of France against Germany but on 10 June 1940, Mussolini led Italy into World War II on the side of the Axis. He believed that the war would not continue for a long period; he declared war on France and Great Britain in order to gain territories in the peace treaty that would soon follow.
After the Allied Invasion, things changed for Mussolini. Three years later, with the intervention and force of the Allied Forces, he was deposed. Soon after his incarceration began, Mussolini was rescued from prison in the daring Gran Sasso raid by German Special Forces. Following his rescue, Mussolini headed the Italian Social Republic in parts of Italy that were not occupied by Allied forces. In late April 1945, with total defeat looming, Mussolini attempted to escape to Switzerland, only to be quickly captured and summarily executed near Lake Como by Italian partisans. His body was then taken to Milan where it was hung upside down at a petrol station for public viewing and to provide confirmation of his demise.
Chapter 2
Early Years
Birthplace of Benito Mussolini. It is a museum now.
Mussolini was born in a very small town in the province of Forlì in Emilia-Romagna on 29 July 1883. In 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.
Mussolini’s father, Alessandro Mussolini, was a blacksmith; he was an Anarchist activist, while his mother, Rosa Mussolini, née Maltoni, was a very deeply devoted Catholic schoolteacher. The boy Mussolini learned many political things from his father. 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. Benito was the eldest of his parents' three children. His siblings Arnaldo and Edvige followed.
During his boyhood, Mussolini would often help his father in his profession of blacksmithing. Since his father, Alessandro Mussolini, a revolutionary socialist who idolized 19th century Italian nationalist figures with humanist tendencies such as Carlo Pisacane, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Giuseppe Garibaldi, Mussolini’s own political views were highly influenced by his father’s ideology. 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. In 1902, at the anniversary of Garibaldi's death, Benito Mussolini made a public speech in praise of the republican nationalist.
There was always a conflict between his parents about the religion which Mussolini was to be baptized in. Most of the Italians used to be baptized at the time of birth but Mussolini was baptized much later in life. However, as a compromise with his mother, Mussolini was sent to a boarding school run by Salesian monks. Mussolini was rebellious and was soon expelled after a series of behaviour related incidents, including throwing stones at the congregation after Mass, stabbing a fellow student in the hand and throwing an inkpot at a teacher. Having joined a new school, Mussolini achieved good grades; he qualified as an elementary schoolmaster in 1901.
Chapter 3
Emigration to Switzerland
Mussolini's booking photograph following his arrest by Swiss police, 1903
Mussolini did not want to serve in the military, so to avoid the military service, in 1902, Mussolini went to Switzerland. For some time he worked in Geneva, Fribourg and Bern as a stone mason, but was unable to find a permanent job in Switzerland.
During his stay there, he got an opportunity to study 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 and some of his influences. 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.
The Italian socialist movement was gaining momentum in Switzerland in those days. Mussolini actively participated 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.
Mussolini was not the advocate of peaceful means of protest and it was evident in the events which took place in Switzerland when he decided to support a general strike. 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, set free there, and returned to Switzerland. In 1904, after having been arrested again in Lausanne for falsifying his papers, he returned to Italy to take advantage of an amnesty for desertion of which he had been convicted in absentia.
Finally, he joined the Italian Army as a volunteer. Having served the military for two years (from January 1905 until September 1906), he returned to teaching.
Chapter 4
Political Work
Mussolini could not stay at one place for a very long time. He got restless and he decided to make a move. In February 1908, Mussolini once again left Italy; he decided to take a job as the secretary of the labor party in the Italian-speaking city of Trento, which at the time was under control of Austria-Hungary. He also worked in the office of 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 the Italian city of Milan, and then in 1910 he returned to his hometown of Forli, where he edited the weekly Lotta di classe (The Class Struggle).
During his stay there as an editor of the paper, he published Il Trentino veduto da un Socialista (Trento as seen by a Socialist) in the radical periodical La Voce.
Mussolini was very good at writing and he composed 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 Jan. 20 to May 11, 1910 The novel was bitterly anticlerical, and years later was withdrawn from circulation after Mussolini made a truce with the Vatican.
Mussolini’s contribution to the socialist movement began to be recognized by the majority of the people in Italy. He began to be considered to be one of Italy's most prominent Socialists. In September 1911, Mussolini was a highly vigorous participant in a riot, led by Socialists, against the Italian war in Libya. He bitterly denounced Italy's "imperialist war" to capture the Libyan capital city of Tripoli, an action that earned him a five-month jail term. Having been released from the jail, he helped expel from the ranks of the Socialist party by two 'revisionists' who had supported the war, Ivanoe Bonomi, and Leonida Bissolati. He was duly rewarded for this and he was given the editorship of the Socialist Party newspaper Avanti! Under his leadersip, its circulation soon rose from 20,000 to 100,000.
Mussolini got involved in some serious writing and he sat down to write the accounts of his past life. 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 misbeliever).
On one hand Mussolini was deeply associated with socialism and the reform of the society, on the other hand, he supported the people who opposed egalitarianism. Though baptized as a Christian, Mussolini was always skeptic of the religious doctrine. For instance Mussolini was influenced by Nietszche's anti-Christian ideas and negation of God's existence. Mussolini saw Nietzsche as similar to Jean-Marie Guyau, who advocated a philosophy of action. 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 favour of Nietzsche's übermensch concept and anti-egalitarianism.
Chapter 5
Expulsion from Socialist Party
The First World War began in August 1914, and a large number of socialists and socialist parties initially supported the war. The socialists from the other countries began to support the war. Austrian, British, French, German and Russian socialists followed the rising nationalist current by supporting their country's intervention in the war.
The Italian nationalism was on its peak when the First World War began, and the war was supported by a variety of political factions. Gabriele d'Annunzio was one of the most important of the nationalist supporters of the war; he promoted Italian irredentism and helped sway the Italian public to support intervention in the war. The Italian Liberal Party under the leadership of Paolo Boselli promoted intervention in the war on the side of the Allies and utilized the Dante Aligheri Society to promote Italian nationalism. Italian socialists were divided on whether to support the war or oppose it.
Before Mussolini made his position on the war clear, a number of revolutionary syndicalists had announced their support of intervention, including Alceste De Ambris, Filippo Corridoni, and Angelo Oliviero Olivetti. However the Italian Socialist Party decided to oppose the war after anti-militarist protestors had been killed, resulting in a general strike called Red Week.
In that very year, the socialist party withdrew its support for the war. Mussolini honoured official support for the party's decision and he wrote an in an August 1914 article; he wrote "Down with the War. We remain neutral."
Mussolini was a highly ambitious person and he did not want to lose this opportunity; he accepted the war as an opportunity, both for his own ambitions as well as those of socialists and Italians. 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.
Finally, Mussolini decided to declare support for the war; he appealed to the people and the supporter from Italy and socialist supporters from other countries to overthrow the Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies in Germany and Austria-Hungary whom he claimed had consistently repressed socialism. Mussolini denounced 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. Mussolini vehemently claimed and declared that the fall of Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies and the repression of "reactionary" Turkey would create conditions beneficial for the working class. 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. 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. Thus he claimed that the vast social changes that the war could offer meant that it should be supported as a revolutionary war.