“For this I have been and am a socialist.”

—  Benito Mussolini

The accusation of inconsistency has no foundation. My conduct has always been straight in the sense of looking at the substance of things and not to the form. I adapted socialisticamente to reality. As the evolution of society belied many of the prophecies of Marx, the true socialism folded from possible to probable. The only feasible socialism socialisticamente is corporatism, confluence, balance and justice interests compared to the collective interest.
As quoted in “Soliloquy for ‘freedom’ Trimellone island”, on the Italian Island of Trimelone, journalist Ivanoe Fossani, one of the last interviews of Mussolini, March 20, 1945, from Opera omnia, vol. 32. Interview is also known as "Testament of Benito Mussolini, or Testamento di Benito Mussolini. Also published under “Mussolini confessed to the stars”, Publishing House Latinitas, Rome, 1952. (Intervista di Ivanoe Fossani, Soliloquio in “libertà” all'isola Trimellone, Isola del Trimellone, 20 marzo 1945)
1940s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 24, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "For this I have been and am a socialist." by Benito Mussolini?
Benito Mussolini photo
Benito Mussolini 127
Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Le… 1883–1945

Related quotes

Benito Mussolini photo

“I think that within five or six months’ time there will be quite a few Socialists who will recognize that I am the only Socialist that there has been in Italy for the last five years; and I am not being paradoxical, even if I add that the Socialist Party on the whole is detestable.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

“Sacrifice, Work, and Production” Speech in Milan before the Fascio Milanese Combattimento (5 February 1920) p. 69
1920s, Mussolini as Revealed in his Political Speeches (November 1914—August 1923) (1923)

Arthur Scargill photo

“I am opposed to Solidarity because I believe that it is an anti-socialist organisation which desires the overthrow of a socialist state.”

Arthur Scargill (1938) British trade unionist

Letter to left-wing newspaper Newsline (7 September 1983), as quoted in the " Scargill angers unions with Solidarity attack http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19830908&id=hfU9AAAAIBAJ&sjid=CUkMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2345,1392758", Glasgow Herald (8 September 1983), p. 1

Alexis De Tocqueville photo

“As for me, I am deeply a democrat; this is why I am in no way a socialist. Democracy and socialism cannot go together. You can't have it both ways.”

Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

Original text: Quant à moi, je suis profondément démocrate, c'est pour cela que je ne suis nullement socialiste. La démocratie et le socialisme ne peuvent pas marcher ensemble. Qui veut l'un ne veut pas l'autre.
Notes for a Speech on Socialism (1848).
1840s

Wilhelm Liebknecht photo

“I am for the unity of the party – for the national and international unity of the party. But it must be a unity of socialism and socialists. The unity with opponents – with people who have other aims and other interests, is no socialist unity.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

We must strive for unity at any price and with all sacrifices. But while we are uniting and organizing, we must rid ourselves of all foreign and antagonistic elements. What would one say of a general who in the enemy’s country sought to fill the ranks of his army with recruits from the ranks of the enemy? Would that not be the height of foolishness? Very well, to take into our army – which is an army for the class struggle and the class war – opponents, soldiers with aims and interests entirely opposite to our own, – that would be madness, that would be suicide.
No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Kwame Nkrumah photo

“The difference between myself and Castro is that I am not aligned and he is; I am a socialist and he is a communist.”

Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972) Pan Africanist and First Prime Minister and President of Ghana

Quoted in Asiaweek, Vol. 5 (1979), p. 28.

Oswald Spengler photo

“We are socialists. Let us hope that it will not have been in vain.”

Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) German historian and philosopher

Prussianism and Socialism (1919)

Winston S. Churchill photo

“I am against the monopoly enjoyed by the BBC. For eleven years they kept me off the air. They prevented me from expressing views which have proved to be right. Their behaviour has been tyrannical. They are honeycombed with Socialists—probably with Communists.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Quoted in Charles Moran's diary entry (3 June 1952), quoted in Lord Moran, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival, 1940-1965 (London: Sphere, 1968), p. 416.
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Janusz Korwin-Mikke photo

“Before I was nine years old, I had been a socialist. When young, everyone is a socialist; later he becomes smarter.”

Janusz Korwin-Mikke (1942) polish politician

essay "Przepisy celne, ale ulgowe" (Customs regulations, but reduced) in Angora (21, 1998)

Adolf Hitler photo

“I am a socialist, and a very different kind of socialist from your rich friend Reventlow. I was once an ordinary workingman… But your kind of socialism is nothing but Marxism.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

As quoted in Hitler and I, Otto Strasser, Boston, MA, Houghton Mifflin Company (1940) p. 106
Other remarks

Herbert Morrison photo

“It is because I have confidence in the reasoned appeal the Socialist Party can make to all sections of the community – manual workers and black coats alike – that I have decided to go to East Lewisham, if I am selected, emphasizing by this action my conviction that the soundest socialist appeal is that which is most universal in its scope.”

Herbert Morrison (1888–1965) British Labour politician

The Times, 10 January 1945.
Morrison abandoned his safe seat in Hackney South for Lewisham East in the 1945 general election despite it being a Conservative-held seat that had never previously returned a Labour MP. The move paid off, and he was elected there.

Related topics