Mussolini, Benito

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MUSSOLINI, BENITO

Benito Mussolini (July 29, 1883–April 28, 1945) was founder and leader of the Facsci di Combattimento, the Italian fascist movement. A successful journalist and former socialist, he became Italian prime minister on October 29, 1922. He remained in power until July 24, 1943. Although the Nazis attempted to rescue him, Mussolini was executed by Italian partisans on April 28, 1945.

MUSSOLINI'S RISE TO POWER

The impact of World War II accelerated the decomposition of liberal, middle-class politics in Italy. The country was suffering as early as 1917 when it was gripped by widespread industrial strikes over rising prices and food shortages, fear of a communist revolution thanks to events in Russia, and a crushing military defeat for the Italian forces at Caporetto in October. Victory in World War I also left most Italians bitter because the Allies subsequently refused to grant Italy territories promised to it to bring the nation into the war. After 1918 the country was overwhelmed by a host of social and economic problems: urban unemployment, high rents for tenant farmers in the north, land-hunger among peasant farmers in the south, spiraling inflation, and increased violence. Neither Italy's established liberal parties nor the structure of constitution could cope with the crisis. Mussolini successfully exploited the sharp divisions that emerged, presenting his party as a force for peace by breaking strikes and "disciplining" labor, and himself as a new kind of strong and efficient national leader. (His claim to act as a peacemaker was disingenuous given the role played by his armed gangs in the rising tide of violence.) Although Mussolini came to power more than ten years before Hitler, their rise shared common features: an ability to exploit deep-seated political divisions, economic upheaval, and the acquiescence, if not support, of powerful elite groups, such as industrialists, who feared communism and were desperate to escape the prolonged crisis.

ITALY'S RESPONSE TO THE GREAT DEPRESSION

Despite his grand claims to a revolutionary vision that had, in Mussolini's words, "the sanctity of heroism" at its heart, Italian fascism was largely tied to the existing capitalist economic and social order. While Mussolini clamped down hard on his left-wing opponents, his fascist economics offered little that was new. The regime did institute a new set of institutional arrangements intended to integrate capital and labor in hierarchical units, called "corporatism," linked to the Ministry of Corporations, but the system only enhanced the power of big business. Mussolini's rhetoric proclaiming innovation proved hollow, too, when Italy joined the gold standard in 1927, a step which prompted greater fascist intervention in the economy as the regime acted to push down food prices and force workers to accept wage cuts of up to 20 percent.

Nor was Mussolini able to shelter Italy from the effects of the collapse in world trade and pressures that mounted on the gold standard after 1929. By the summer of 1931 Italy had experienced a serious crisis in its commercial banking sector, although, in sharp contrast to events in central Europe, Mussolini was able to conceal the development from the Italian people. The state loaned the banks one million lira and established an Instituto Mobilare Italiano to support the banks and an Instituto per la Riconstruzione Industriale to strengthen the ties between government and industry.

But the Depression continued to bite. By 1934 more than 15 percent of Italian workers found themselves out of work, with unemployment rising to almost 18 percent in the northeast and central regions of the country. The regime's efforts to help Italian farmers also failed. Mussolini's regime resorted to a system of exchange controls, quotas, and clearing agreements that took on a renewed importance once Italy invaded Abyssinia in 1935 and intervened in the Spanish Civil War in 1936. This ambitious foreign policy soaked up surplus Italian labor and gave the economy an important boost, but at a price. Italy was forced officially to abandon the gold standard in October 1936 (a painful blow to Mussolini's ego), and by 1937 inflation was dramatically on the rise.

Intervention in the Spanish Civil War brought Mussolini closer to Hitler. The struggle in Spain emphasized the ideological common ground between the two leaders, notably their deeply felt hostility towards communism. A highly choreographed visit to Berlin in September 1937 further impressed Mussolini to the ambition and the military power underpinning the German regime, and the two countries signed a military alliance, the Pact of Steel, in May 1939. Despite the fact that the Pact committed Italy to come to the immediate support of its ally "with all its military forces on land, sea and in the air," Mussolini always claimed he had agreed to the alliance only on the understanding that there would be no major war until 1942. Italy's foreign adventures in the 1930s had sapped its strength and remained neutral in World War II until June 1940 when, after the fall of France, a German victory appeared assured. Italy's subsequent intervention in the war in Greece and in North Africa proved disastrous—Hitler had to send German troops to prevent an Italian collapse—and on July 25, 1943, after a string of military defeats, Mussolini was dismissed as Italy's leader by King Victor Emmanuelle.