This 1922 news column reported that Benito Mussolini had been granted power by the Italian King:
"King Victor Emanuel of Italy has invited the leader of Fascisti, Benito Mussolini, to form a cabinet to replace the Facta Ministry". A semi-flattering profile of Benito Mussolini that explains his difficult childhood and the periodic beatings he suffered at the hands of his Marxist father. No references are made to his favorite pastimes - beating up editors and closing newspapers:
"Significantly, his god is Nietzsche, the German philosopher who wrote: 'Might makes right.'"
You can read about his violent death here...
Fascist Rome fell to the Allies in June of 1944, click here to read about it...
A report by Carleton Beals on Italy's new order: "The strong state has arrived in Italy. It has been on the road ever since the failure of the factory seizures in September, 1920."
Knowing his audience well, Il Duce served it up good and raw in this 1936 speech:
"We must be strong. We must be always stronger. We must be so strong that we can face any eventualities." "What is the reason for Il Duce's newly acquired antisemitism? Why the new laws degrading the Jews of Italy? There are hardly 60,000 native-born Jews in all Italy. Many Italians have never laid eyes on a Jew. Antisemitism played no part in Italian life until Il Duce determined to banish the Jews into a moral and material ghetto." "There have been other 'Fasci' before the present, for the word, derived from Latin 'fascia' (a bandage), means any league or association. Thus, the association of laborers and sulfur-workers, that caused the agrarian agitation in Sicily in 1892, were called Fasci... the essence of the word being the close union of different elements in a common cause that binds them all together. Each 'Fascio' possesses so-called 'squadre de azione' (squadrons of action), composed of young men who have mostly served in the war. Each of these 'squadrons' has a commandant, named by the directing council of the particular Fascio."
In Milan there existed a general committee that supervised all these yahoos, but by enlarge, each local Fascio was free to do as they saw fit within their own domains. The earliest 'Fasci di Combattimento' were created in 1919 by Mussolini, who at the time enjoyed some popularity as the editor of the Il Popolo d'Italia . The Fascists saw the destruction of Italian socialism as their primary job.
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