Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician and journalist who was the leader of the National Fascist Party . He ruled Italy as Prime Minister from 1922 to 1943; he constitutionally led the country until 1925, when he dropped the pretense of democracy and established a dictatorship.
Known as Il Duce , Mussolini was the founder of Italian Fascism. In 1912, Mussolini had been a leading member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party , but was expelled from the PSI for advocating military intervention in World War I, in opposition to the party's stance on neutrality. Mussolini served in the Royal Italian Army during the war until he was wounded and discharged in 1917. Mussolini denounced the PSI, his views now centering on nationalism instead of socialism and later founded the fascist movement which came to oppose egalitarianism and class conflict, instead advocating "revolutionary nationalism" transcending class lines. Following the March on Rome in October 1922, Mussolini became the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history until the appointment of Matteo Renzi in February 2014. After removing all political opposition through his secret police and outlawing labor strikes, Mussolini and his followers consolidated their power through a series of laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship. Within five years, Mussolini had established dictatorial authority by both legal and extraordinary means and aspired to create a totalitarian state. In 1929, Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty with the Vatican, ending decades of struggle between the Italian state and the Papacy, and recognized the independence of Vatican City.
After the Abyssinia Crisis of 1935–1936, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in the Second Italo–Ethiopian War. The invasion was condemned by the Western powers and was answered with economic sanctions against Italy. Relations between Germany and Italy improved due to Hitler's support of the invasion. In 1936, Mussolini surrendered Austria to the German sphere of influence, signed the treaty of cooperation with Germany and proclaimed the creation of a Rome–Berlin Axis. From 1936 through 1939, Mussolini provided huge amounts of military support to Franco's forces in the Spanish Civil War. This active intervention further distanced Italy from France and Britain. Mussolini had sought to delay a major war in Europe, but Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, resulting in declarations of war by France and the UK and the start of World War II. On 10 June 1940—with the Fall of France imminent—Italy officially entered the war on the side of Germany, though Mussolini was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity and resources to carry out a long war with the British Empire. He believed that after the imminent French armistice, Italy could gain territorial concessions from France, and he could then concentrate his forces on a major offensive in North Africa, where British and Commonwealth forces were outnumbered by Italian forces. However, the British government refused to accept proposals for a peace that would involve accepting Axis victories in Eastern and Western Europe; plans for an invasion of the UK did not proceed and the war continued. In October 1940, Mussolini sent Italian forces into Greece, starting the Greco-Italian War. The invasion failed and the following Greek counter-offensive pushed the Italians back to occupied Albania. The Greek debacle and simultaneous defeats against the British in North Africa reduced Italy to dependence on Germany.
Beginning in June 1941, Mussolini sent Italian forces to participate in the invasion of the Soviet Union, and Italy declared war on the United States in December. In 1943, Italy suffered one disaster after another: by February the Red Army had completely destroyed the Italian Army in Russia; in May the Axis collapsed in North Africa; on 9 July the Allies invaded Sicily; and by the 16th it became clear the German summer offensive in the USSR had failed. As a consequence, early on 25 July, the Grand Council of Fascism passed a motion of no confidence for Mussolini; later that day the King dismissed him as head of government and had him placed in custody, appointing Pietro Badoglio to succeed him as Prime Minister. On 12 September 1943, Mussolini was rescued from captivity in the Gran Sasso raid by German paratroopers and Waffen-SS commandos led by Major Otto-Harald Mors.
Adolf Hitler, after meeting with the rescued former dictator, then put Mussolini in charge of a puppet regime in northern Italy, the Italian Social Republic , informally known as the Salò Republic. In late April 1945, in the wake of near total defeat, Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci attempted to flee to Switzerland, but both were captured by Italian communist partisans and summarily executed by firing squad on 28 April 1945 near Lake Como. His body was then taken to Milan, where it was hung upside down at a service station to publicly confirm his demise.
“What is freedom? There is no such thing as absolute freedom!”
As quoted in " Eja! Eja! Alala!" in TIME magazine (23 July 1923) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,716187,00.html
1920s
Diuturna [The Lasting] (1921) as quoted in Rational Man : A Modern Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics (1962) by H. B. Veatch
1920s
My Autobiography , New York: NY, Charles Scribner’s Sons (1928) p. 280
1920s
Speech given by Mussolini to a group of Milanese Fascist veterans (October 14, 1944), quoted in Revolutionary Fascism, Erik Norling, Lisbon, Finis Mundi Press (2011) pp.119-120.
1940s
From Jane Soames’s authorized translation of Mussolini’s “The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism,” Hogarth Press, London, (1933), p. 20. http://historyuncensored.wixsite.com/history-uncensored http://media.wix.com/ugd/927b40_c1ee26114a4d480cb048f5f96a4cc68f.pdf Julius Evola reproduced the original Italian as "un secolo della 'Destra" ("a century of the right"); see Evola, Fascismo e Terzo Reich. Several English translations agree with Evola's wording, including one published by the Fascist government in 1935 and transcribed online. http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm
Attributed
This quote spread rapidly in the United States after appearing in a column by Molly Ivins (24 November 2002). It is repeated often and sometimes attributed to the "Fascism" entry in the 1932 Enciclopedia Italiana. However hard copies of the 1932 Enciclopedia Italiana exist in numerous libraries and the alleged quote is not in the text, nor is there anything that would support the alleged quote. A vaguely similar statement does appear in Doctrine of Fascism.
We are, in other words, a state which controls all forces acting in nature. We control political forces, we control moral forces, we control economic forces, therefore we are a full-blown Corporative state.
The same document explains that the "corporations" (corporazioni) on which the Fascist state rested were its own creations, modeled on guild associations and not private companies, which Italian normally calls società. For details see "Mussolini on the Corporate State" http://www.publiceye.org/fascist/corporatism.html by Chip Berlet.
Attributed
My Autobiography, New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1928. Reprinted in Benito Mussolini, My Rise And Fall, Volumes 1-2 Da Capo Press, 1998 (p.40).
1920s
Speech at the Italian Socialist Party’s meeting in Milan at the People’s Theatre on Nov. 25, 1914. Quote in Revolutionary Fascism by Erik Norling, Lisbon, Finis Mundi Press (2011) p. 88.
1910s
Remark to Galeazzo Ciano (11 April 1940), quoted in Famous Lines : A Columbia Dictionary of Familiar Quotations (1997) by Robert Andrews. p. 330
1940s
"The Doctrine of Fascism", June 1932. Quoted in Marco Piraino, Stefano Fiorito, Fascist identity : political project and doctrine of fascism. Lulu.com, 2009. (p. 107)
1930s
As quoted in “The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism”, Jane Soames translator, Hogarth Press, London, authorized edition (1933) p. 23
1930s
As quoted in Italy: A Modern History, Denis Mack Smith, University of Michigan Press (1959) p. 352, Pact of Pacification, 1921
1920s
As quoted in The Tyrants: 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption (2006) by Clive Foss ISBN 1905204965
Undated
Speech at Udine (September 20, 1922) "The Question of Regime. The Monarchy and Fascism," quoted in A History of Civilization (1955) by Crane Brinton, John B. Christopher, and Robert Lee Wolff, p. 520
1920s
“Religion: Benito a Christian?” Time magazine (August 25, 1924)
1920s
As quoted by Mussolini in 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt by James A. Haught (1966) p. 256. Originally came from Mussolini’s essay l'Homme et la Divinité, 1904.
1900s
As quoted by Mussolini as leader of the Revolutionary Fascist Party (1919) in Fascism and Big Business by Daniel Guerin (1973) p. 83. From article in Mussolini’s Popolo d’Italia on June 19, 1919.
1910s
“Inside every anarchist is a failed dictator.”
Quote from The Golden Book Magazine Vol. 16 (1932), p. 206 translated from what Mussolini said to Emil Ludwig (Colloqui con Mussolini, 1932)
1930s
As quoted in The Ideology of Fascism: The Rationale of Totalitarianism, A. James Gregor, New York and London, The Free Press (1969) p. 106
Undated
1920s
Source: My Autobiography (1928)
My Autobiography by Mussolini, New York: NY, Charles Scribner’s Sons (1928) p. 280.
1920s
As quoted in Mediterranean Fascism 1919-1945, edit., Charles F. Delzell, The MacMillian Press (1970) p. 23. Speech given on June 21, 1921 in Italy’s Chamber of Deputies.
1920s
Quoted in The Making of Fascism: Class, State, and Counter-Revolution, Italy 1919-1922, Dahlia S. Elazar, Westport, CT, Praeger, 2001, p. 141 and in Fascism in Ferrara, 1915-1925, Paul Corner, New York, NY, London: UK, Oxford Univ. Press, 1975, p. 193, n.5, Pact of Pacification, 1921
1920s
As quoted in The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution, J.L. Talmon, University of California Press (1981) p. 492. Original source: Mussolini, Opera Omnia VI, p. 427, 1914
1910s
As quoted in The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution: The Origins of Ideological Polarization in the 20th Century, Jacob Talmon, University of California Press (1981) p. 487
Undated
As quoted in Talks with Mussolini , Emil Ludwig, Boston, MA, Little, Brown and Company (1933) p. 38. Interview between March 23 and April 4, 1932, at the Palazzo di Venezia in Rome https://archive.org/details/talkswithmussoli006557mbp
1930s
Speech on November 14, 1933 as quoted in Under the Axe of Fascism, Gaetano Salvemini, London, UK, Victor Gollancz Ltd. (1936) p. 131
1930s
Mussolini's last words (28 April 1945), as quoted in "Mussolini" by Peter Neville,(2004) p. 195
1940s
Mussolini and Fascism (2003) by Patricia Knight, p. 46
Undated
“Men do not move mountains; it is only necessary to create the illusion that mountains move.”
As quoted in The Great Illusion, 1900-1914, Oron J. Hale, Harper & Row (1971) p. 109
Undated
As quoted in Three Faces of Fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism, Ernst Nolte, New York: NY, Holt, Rinehart and Winston (1966) p. 156. Opera Omnia di Benito Mussolini, V, p. 121
Undated
Remarks to Count Ciano (11 January 1939) after meeting Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, quoted in Malcolm Muggeridge (ed.), Ciano's Diary, 1939–1943 (1947), pp. 9–10
1930s
“A revolutionist is born, not made.”
Talks with Mussolini, interviewer Emil Ludwig, Boston: MA, Little, Brown and Company, 1933, p. 66. Interview took place between March 23 and April 4, 1932
1930s
1900s, God Does Not Exist (1904)
“Religion is a psychic disease of the brain.”
1900s, God Does Not Exist (1904)
1900s, God Does Not Exist (1904)
1900s, God Does Not Exist (1904)
1900s, God Does Not Exist (1904)
1900s, God Does Not Exist (1904)
“The struggle against the religious absurdity is more than ever a necessity today.”
1900s, God Does Not Exist (1904)
1930s
Source: Letter to Hitler, quoted in Winston Churchill's The Gathering Storm
Speech held in Trieste (September 18, 1938)
Source: Il discorso di Trieste, archivioluce, 2021-01-04 https://www.archivioluce.com/2019/09/18/il-discorso-di-trieste/,
Speech held in Trieste (September 18, 1938)
Source: Il discorso di Trieste, archivioluce, 2021-01-04 https://www.archivioluce.com/2019/09/18/il-discorso-di-trieste/,
