Mussolino's Rise to Power

In his exploration of 20th century fascism between the wars, Payne (1995) described Mussolini as the most liberal of the totalitarian personalities that dominated that period. Perhaps this was a vestige of his earlier involvement with revolutionary socialism, or a reflection from his early years. Yet, the fact remains that Mussolini, along with Hitler, was an architect of fascism and of the policies that led to World War II. The intention in the following pages is to explore Mussolini's rise to power, including his childhood and youthful political development.

Benito Mussolini was born in July of 1883 in Varana di Costa, a village in the Commune of Predappio in Romagna. According to Ivone Kirkpatrick (1964), Romagna, at that time, was a hotbed of anticlericalism and republicanism. It was an era of rural nonconformity.

Mussolini himself was named after both a Mexican revolutionary and two Italian revolutionary socialists. Both his grandfather and his father were politically involved, his grandfather in the struggle against the papacy and his father in the struggle to institute revolutionary socialism in Italy. However, his mother was deeply religious, conformist, and conservative. Both eventually had an important influence on Mussolini's development and choices.

He became a political activist and political writer, like his father, but he was essentially conservative, like his mother. Mussolini himself asser

n the party and the editorship of Avanti. This was the official Socialist newspaper (Payne, 1995). At the age of 29, then, Mussolini had obtained quite a bit of attention and power. He controlled the press of the Socialist party and was an acknowledged leader of its revolutionary, and leading, faction. Nonetheless, this was not satisfactory. He was dissatisfied with the pace of change within the country and felt that the Socialist party was inadequate to the challenges of the times. James Gregor (1979) noted that Mussolini was basically an authoritarian Socialist who shared much in common with Lenin, who actually endorsed Mussolini's success in 1912. Gregor indicated that both opposed bourgeois parliamentarianism, both believed that the masses were unable to lead the revolution, and both believed in a leadership of a minority of professional revolutionaries. Both also supported ongoing organized violence as a means to an end, and both thought that revolutionary consciousness would be imposed on the masses from without, rather than emerging from within (Gregor, 1979). This is interesting since the two men ultimately wound up on opposite sides of the struggle. Nonetheless, in these early days, Lenin and Mussolini were sim

Category: History - M