Politics: Benito Mussolini

by: Maria Paula Sánchez

Benito Mussolini was born at Forti, Italy; on July 29, 1883. He was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party; he is considered one of the important figures in the creation of Fascism. When he was young, he was influenced by his father, a revolutionary socialist and he entered to the Socialist Party in 1900.

After he finished school he became editor of the Socialist Party daily paper, Avanti. He became known between the Italian socialists, then he started promoting his views about war against Germany in World War I and this started to disturb the Socialists that were against war.

In 1915 he founded an independent newspaper, called Popolo d'Italia and which continued to promote war.

When Italy joined the Allies to fight against Germany, Mussolini gets into the army in 1917, but returned to the journalism, and he would develop his ideas that would soon become known as Fascism. By this time economy was broke and strikes were out the streets.

In March, 1919, Mussolini formed the National Fascist Party. This party took advantage, gained popularity because of the chaos people of Italy were suffering. He had more support from; industry, farmers, military and church. These key groups’ members accepted Mussolini´s solution for their problems that were; organize middle-class youth, control workers, set up a tough central government to restore the law and order.

The elections in 1921 sent him to Parliament, he was now the head of thirty five Fascist deputies, the third assembly of his movement gave birth to a national party, and this was the National Fascist Party. It consists with more than 250 thousand followers and Mussolini as it´s leader.

In August of 1922, the ruling Leftist party ordered a general strike in the nation. Mussolini send an ultimatum that if they did not end the strike, his Fascist party would.

The Leftist claimed he was trying to siege the government, but the armed forces wanted nothing to do with stopping the fascists from preventing the strike.

He sent the strikers back home to their families and their jobs. Mussolini managed to assume the powers of all the government offices in order to regain control of the economy. In a short period of time, he was successful in stabilizing the economy. He became known as “Il Duce”

In 1929 his Concordat with the Vatican settled differences between the Italian state and the Roman Catholic Church. In 1930´s while Mussolini was in power the living standard of the working majority fell. As national leader, he did not offered solutions for Italy.

In 1930 the economy depression arrived to Italy. The 1935 Ethiopian War was planned to distract from internal problems. Mussolini had a new creation, the “Italian Empire”, announced in 1936, then, follows the Spanish intervention, this is where Mussolini helped Francisco Franco in Spain´s civil war, which didn´t benefit Italy.

The Mussolini joined with German dictator Adolf Hitler and began to attack Jewish people like Germany did. At this period of time, Mussolini was losing all his support from Italy. By the outbreak of World War II, Mussolini was left as an unimportant figure in politics. He decided to make war. In 1940 he pushed Italy to war against the people that didn´t want it. Italy lost it’s was in 1942, Mussolini´s power collapsed six months later. Then he was restored under Hitler´s orders in northern Italy, so he drove Italy to civil war during 1944 and 1945. Mussolini was finally executed by firing squad on April 28, 1945, at Dongo in Como province.