Biography of Benito Mussolini - Essay Example

 Benito Mussolini Forword The monstrous beast that will be described in this extended essay has some positive and negative sides, however the person in this situation motivated me to write about him. Because there is a lot to talk about and his life is truly interesting since he was nothing and became the Prime Minister and then the Dictator of Italy. Introduction In the world there were many countries leaders that followed the advices written in the novel called “ The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli (Machiavelli 2007). Benito Mussolini is one of them, because he considered the fact that the most important thing is to become the greatest country in the world or at least one of them by putting a lot of pressure to the citizens and impose hard rules to follow and nobody can go against those rules otherwise it would have been called disloyal or betrayer and therefore he would have died. But this essay will be touching all the most important parts of Mussolini’s life. Another important topic is the fascist’s ideology, which came to known in Italy by the end of 1922. Around this time Mussolini was only a member of the government but he gained so many followers that he started a march on Rome and demanded to be ruler, after which he became the dictator. This was the time when Mussolini started to have great control and made many changes in Italy and some of them were good. Then after this point Mussolini became aligned with Hitler and experienced World War II, ultimately losing and costing him his life. These parts of Mussolini’s life, as well as the fascist ideology will be examined. I. Early Political Career Benito Mussolini was born the 29th of July in 1883 in Dovia di Predappio, Italy. Benito Mussolini’s family were poor, his father was a blacksmith and follower of the political group called Socialism, while his mother was an elementary school teacher (Giusepi, Web). Similar to his father he became a big Socialist. Similar to his mother to his mother he became an elementary school teacher. The way his family describes him is by saying that he was really intelligent but violent and he had a lot of ego in himself. His early academic life was poor until he got expelled by a boarding school in Faenza because he stabbed another student. Therefore he went to another school and he got his academic high school diploma, after this he went to Switzerland to avoid the military service where he also met socialist people. He came back to Italy in 1904 and started to engage himself in politics. He began in politics by first becoming a journalist. He became a writer for a newspaper in Austria in 1908. During this time of his life be wrote frequently and put together a book, called The Cardinal’s Mistress (www.diggerhistory.info). Because of his large following of the political group Socialism he lost his job at the newspaper. He eventually became a journalist at another newspaper. The newspaper was in Forli. It was a Socialist newspaper and it was called La Lotta di Classe (The Class Struggle) (www.diggerhistory.info). During this time he became interested in a lot of philosophies. He read philosophy from people like Karl Marx and philosophy from people like Friedrich Nietzsche. Other philosophers he read that aren’t as popular are Auguste Blanqui and Georges Sorel. In 1910 he gained his first political position. He was made the secretary of the Socialist political group in Forli. During this time his political beliefs were very different from what they would later turn into. Later he began to really promote his country extremely, while in 1910 he said that he was antipatriotic. Soon after becoming the secretary Italy made war on Turkey and they put Mussolini in jail because of his political views. They released him after not too long and he then went to Milan where he became a very important leader of labor group. In Milan he was the editor of a Social newspaper called Avanti as well (Giusepi, Web). As a labor leader he identified with the lower classes and workers and said that they should unite against the government. In 1914 World War I started. Mussolini said, along with Socialist group, that Italy should not be in the World War I. He wasn’t anti-war, because he thought that if war were to occur it should be between the poor people and the rich people. He said and wrote things about how he wanted to start a war between the poor people and the rich people, but after a few months of the World War I he changed his mind. He left the Socialism group and his job at the newspaper and started his own newspaper called Il Popolo d’Italia and started his own political group called Fasci d’Azine Rivoluzionaria (www.commandosupremo.com). He was now for the war. It’s not entirely certain why he changed his mind, but it’s possible that he thought the war would cause chaos in Italy that would end up with him taking control. In 1917 he was drafted into the army of Italy. Soon he got injured by a grenade and got sent home. When he got home he went back to writing his newspaper. During this time was very important because during it he started his first started the Fascist political party. He made it in 1919 and called it the Fasci de Combattimento and ran in the elections that year, but he lost. He won in 1921 and entered parliament as a right-wing political leader. His Fasci group started an army and attacked the Socialist group that Mussolini used to belong to. During this time he changed his thinking a lot. He made it so that industrialists and agrarians could break up strikes, he also stopped thinking revolutionarily about the poor people taking over the rich people. II. Blackshirts and the March on Rome Mussolini and his followers sought to gain total control of the country. His party and his followers believed in strong feelings of patriotism called nationalism. They believed in doing things instead of thinking and debating them. In 1921 Mussolini’s Fasci party had as much as 300,000 members (Bosworth 147). However, they still had trouble gaining political control in the Parliament. They only had 35 seats out of 535 in the Parliament (Bosworth 147). Because of such small levels of political control Mussolini sought ways to gain total power. His chanced occurred when there was a crisis in Italy in 1922. In the year 1922 many of the Parliament groups that were in power had difficulties and fell apart. Mussolini’s groups had large fascist rallies that were very successful and convincing and he gained even more supporters. He became so popular that in October of 1922 he threatened to march on Rome with all his followers unless he was not allowed to become the leader of the government. The March on Rome was a march to show to all the Italians that Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party came to power, this march was formed by Italian citizens that were dressed up with a black shirt and they were called the “blackshirts”. This militia group was formed in 1920 by Benito Mussolini to break the nonbelievers (the non followers of Benito Mussolini’s party) strikes. On October 24, 1922 Mussolini gave a speech in front of 60,000 of his followers. In the speech he stated that, “Our program is simple: we want to rule Italy” (www.absoluteastronomy.com). While he gave the speech the blackshirts warned Prime Minister Luigi Facta that he needed to resign and give control of the government to Mussolini. Facta didn’t think that they would actually take over though and hoped for Mussolini to govern with him. In response to Mussolini’s followers Facta placed Rome under a” state of siege” (www.absoluteastronomy.com) . The problem was that the King Victor Emmanuel III would sign the order for the army to attack Mussolini. Even though the king wanted to use the armies against Mussolini, his advisors told him that he shouldn’t do this because Mussolini would straighten out the chaos that had been occurring in the Parliament. The king then asked Mussolini to form a new government. Therefore, the “March on Rome” never went against the king (www.commandosupremo.com). The march and Mussolini’s seizure of power also had implications for the church. The church feared that Mussolini would disband it so they made a deal with Mussolini. The deal was that they would be able to have control over education in the public schooling, that they would be recognized by the government as the official religion, and that the Pope would still have control over the Vatican. Therefore, Mussolini got the church to officially recognize him as the leader, which was important because so many Italians were devoted Catholic people. III. Fascism Ideology Benito Mussolini’s Fascism ideology was complicated to understand. He once said that, "If the 19th century was the century of the individual, we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the state" (Mussolini 150). In the first half of the twentieth century, governments were more focused on power of their state, and not the well being of their individual citizens of that certain state. After the First World War, many countries tried Democracy as a form of government to try and avoid another World War. Since the Great Depression hurt democracy so much, countries stayed away from democracy because they believe capitalism could not work. Other events such as Hitler's rise to power, the Spanish Civil War, and the Cold War are more reasons and events that show Benito Mussolini's Fascism statement that the 20th century was the "collective" century. Countries such as Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, that were all previously ruled by Russia, turned to certain forms of democracy as their style of government. Also democracy was made in Austria and Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. These new states believed in their independence, and democracy looked like a good way for success due to the allied victory. These countries instituted constitutions developed according to democracy principals. However, politics and economic collapse soon hurt these governments. High inflation rates from war debts and no jobs undermined these new governments. With the world in economic crises because of the Great Depression, economic misery made people consider Fascism. Democratic systems could not flourish unless there was a basic consensus about the goodness of the state and the social system, along with willingness to believe in it. Such ideas usually cannot be fulfilled without good economies, but these conditions were not there after World War I. Similar to Germany, Italy had many problems after World War I. Fascism was the way that these countries solved their problems. Benito Mussolini reaped the benefits as dictator of Fascism. Mussolini like Hitler believed that the "fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State" (Mussolini 146). Mussolini believed that, "Fascism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State" (Mussolini 147). Unlike democracy, fascism does not allow for opposition because "whoever defies the State will be punished." (Mussolini 109). This Fascist idea of State power is demonstrated by the acts taken during the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Civil War was an example of the struggle for power for states, and not for the well being of the peoples. General Francisco Franco was leader of the Fascist Party who was attempting to gain control of Spain. Other fascist leaders, Hitler and Mussolini, assisted Franco in the war. The Civil War was a fight for leadership of Spain between fascism and communism that was behind the Soviet Union. Hitler and Mussolini were helping Franco because they viewed war as good. They both were obsessed with power. The Soviet Union wanted communism to win in Spain because Russia "depends upon a system of military alliances" (Orwell 56), as well as the fascists. Democratic countries all over the world believed that "at last, apparently, democracy was standing up to Fascism...When Franco tried to overthrow a mildly Left-wing Government the Spanish people had risen against him" (Orwell 48). The working person finally made a stand against the government but he lost. General Francisco Franco and the fascist regime won and ruled Spain until Franco's died. This was very important war, as once again fascism and the power of the government won over democracy and the poor person and worker. After the end of another World War, it would seem that the countries of the world would try to get along, but this was not the case. The power struggle continued on with the fight between Communism and Democracy and the government and. the individual. The democratic and capitalist countries defeated the Soviet Union. The defeat of the Soviet Union and the threat of the spread of communism ended the century of the state, as it had existed since the 1920's. Mussolini's ideas would be ended when democracy won. World War I was won by the democracy. That victory would be short lived as fascism spread over Europe. Collectively, communist and democratic regimes defeated fascism. Then communism and democracy waged a cold war for the next forty-five years, until democracy prevailed. It is ironic that communism, the acknowledged enemy of Mussolini, would carry the government philosophy forward. The last decades of the twentieth century had given the power back to the people. The United States stands as the leader of the Free World and the free world continues because individuals has been successful in gaining their rights. IV. Five years under total control of Italy Benito Mussolini took power in 1922 after being invited by the king to form a government. During this early time of power he was supported by the parliament government too. He worked with them towards reforms. Together they made reforms such as very strong censorship of things (Pre-War Years, Web). In 1925 they changed the ways people are elected so that Mussolini can become the ultimate dictator and make sure there are no other oppositional political parties. He used his experience working at the newspapers and his censorship control to make a legend out of himself. He built up the legend of, "Duce, a man who was always right and could solve all the problems of politics and economics (Pre-War Years, Web).” With all the censorship and fascism ideology Italy was a police state. When people resisted him he killed them, but he was so good at newspapers and the press that very few people had oppositions to him. Mussolini spent a lot of time on propaganda both in his country and outside his country. He made sure that newspapers, radio shows, education and teaching, and movies were all made to show that fascism was all powerful. After he took power in 1922 Mussolini often took control of the ministries of the interiors of outside colonies. He also took control over certain businesses and the army and of public projects. He had such control that he was the head of up to seven departments at one time. He has also the Fascism party leader and the Fascism army leader. He took all these responsibilities on so that nobody else would took over control from him. He was successful in preventing other people from taking control from him, but it ended up costing his country because with him as leader of so many departments, they didn’t run as well. Later Mussolini completely eliminated the Parliament. After this he had many more changes. All the laws were changed to reflect his Fascism interests. All education institutes and teachers and college had to pledge allegiance to the Fascism political group. Mussolini personally chose all the newspaper leaders and made the journalist writers be approved by the Fascism party. The unions that Mussolini was once a leader for were changed and made to be a part of what he called the “corporative system” (Pre-War Years, Web). He wanted to try and put all Italians in professional organizations. Benito Mussolini during his dictatorship didn’t do only bad things. During those five years from 1922 to 1927 he made big improvements in all the aspects of Italy because he took over when the country had a deficit of six billion and he improved the academic life of the public schools (Pre-War Years, Web). He made the schools in such a way that were divided in multiple degrees. Elementary, middle school, and high school. He also made the Fascist Sunday where all the children between eight to eighteen years old were required to do physical activities. He stopped the Italian migration to the east because he ordered to make clear the countryside since there were swamps. He also did other things. He helped balance the economy. He built transportation services such as railroads. He made groups throughout the country to listen to workers and companies to try and figure out their disagreements and find solutions to help them. He got Italy recognized as a national political country. Because of the many things he did he had a lot of different perspectives about him. Most people who owned property and industrial people thought he was very good and strong leader. However, the working people and the poor though that he was bad because they weren’t living as well as before. Mussolini had to gain their support through the propaganda he made and politics that benefited them. He did things like all them to bargain with the employers for more money and other things. He also made clubs where they did fun things, they called this the dopolavoro (Pre-War Years, Web). However, after the five years by the 1930s he wasn’t the same as before (De Grand 59-65). His policies stopped helping workers so much and become more strict and about the government. Even though he spent lots of money on public’s projects. The Italy economy still was bad from his attempts to change things and despite them. He concentrated too much on industrial projects and didn’t have the money to fund them (De Grand 59-65). Therefore he started to change his foreign policy. He changed from not attacking other countries to being very patriotic and thinking about attacking other countries. One of his first attacks was in 1923 when bombed a place called Corfu. He also attacked Albania and Libya so that Italy could take over the Mediterranean (Pre-War Years, Web). V. Effect on World War II Italy’s participation in World War II can be said to begin when Mussolini started a alliance with Germany in 1937. It was a non-military alliance but it was still placing them on the side of Germany, they called it the Pact of Steel in Italy. The pact made it so that they supported each economically, but also secretly made it so that they supported each with the army. In 1937 he also take over Albania. He also told Great Britain that they would be able to keep Italy from helping the Axis forces, which upset them very much. While he still had not joined the World War effort he did attack Egypt and Libya during this time when Britain was there (www.britannica.com ). Later in 1937 he met with Adolph Hitler and talked about the war. They discussed a war that was going in the Mediterranean and how they could make it so that Britain wouldn’t be as successful there. This is when Hitler brought up the idea that Spain might be able to be convinced to join the Axis forces, since it would be a strategic advantage in Germany’s fight against Britain. Mussolini liked this idea because then he could get power of Tunis, Corsica, and Nice from French. Since then, Hitler went and talked to the rulers of Spain, Franco and Petan. Hitler also contacted the Soviet union around this time about meeting up and attacking Britain (www.britannica.com). When Hitler finally met with Franco and Spain the meeting was hard. Hitler said that he would, "rather have three or four teeth extracted from than go through that again (www.hitlerstoppedbyfranco.com)." Franco along with his Prime Minister Suner made it so he was purposely hard to negotiate with, and when they ended their meeting they didn’t resolve many things. Hitler later met Petan and the meeting was equally as difficult. Hitler then met with the Soviet Union and told them that he had the support of the other people and tried to get their help, but Hitler didn’t understand why Mussolini was attacking Greece from Albania at the time because it didn’t make sense to do so. Mussolini told Hitler that he attacked Greece because he was worried that if he didn’t then Great Britain would go there and get a good position for the war on Italy. He argued that it was a good strategy to gain a position in Greece because he had navy buildups around the Adriatic sea and since Britain already had places in Egypt and Malta that would make it even worse if they got a spot in Greece to attack them from (www.britannica.com). When Mussolini attacked Greece it didn’t work like he had planned. Even though he had thought that when he attacked them he would win and gain as much respect for the Italian army as the German army had when they attacked it didn’t go as planned. This made Hitler very upset because he wanted to use the Balkan area as an area of peace. It also messed up his dealings with the Soviet Union because they still hadn’t met at the time and when they saw that Italy had lost in Greece it made their dealings with the Axis side look less secure. After the war there Britain did what Italy was worried they would do and moved army units into the area. They moved troops from Egypt to Greece, and bombers too, which made Italy’s oil fields near there in danger of being bombed (www.britannica.com). Mussolini had wanted help from the German army but after they lost the attack in Greece they had to use the units that were going to be allotted to them for communication in Bulgaria, which was Germany’s partner in the World War I, and who Hitler wanted for them to join the Axis powers. Italy then which was fighting Britain in the desert at the time then had to fight them by theirselves and they lost. Mussolini had to sign terms with them. From that time on Italy’s economy started doing terrible and many people started turning on Mussolini, including his son-in-law. Because of these reasons they decided that he was not doing a good job as a leader so they had to organize a meeting called the The Grand Council of Fascist Party that would decide what to do with Mussolini. One of the respected people of the organization said, “Mussolini has assassinated my son!'...You have imposed a dictatorship on Italy that is historically immoral (Life p.84).” After they had their meeting they held a vote and decided to get rid of Mussolini. The vote was 17-7 against him, so the King Victor Emmanuel III who had made Mussolini the ruler took back his rulership and made him be arrested. This happened in 1943 (www.encyclopedia.com). After they arrested Mussolini they took him to a place in Italy called Gran Sasso that was near Rome. It was supposed to be a secret location and it was new so that it was not marked on any maps, plus it was also located high in the mountains to be hidden from view. However, Germany had to find out where it was so they got their intelligence officers lead by SS Captain Otto Skorzeny to discover it (Gran Sasso Rescue, Web). Once they discovered it they told Hitler and he had them organize a rescue mission to get Mussolini. They flew by and took pictures before hand to determine how they would save Mussolini. When they did this one man had to hold another man by the feet to get the pictures taken, since they didn’t have advanced methods of taking such pictures then. Finally, the 90 German soldiers went there to get Mussolini using hang gliders. They surprised the guards at the place so much that they didn’t even have to shoot at them and they went right in and found Mussolini. They sent a plane and the leader of the SS and Mussolini got in and flew away (Gran Sasso Rescue, Web). The plane took Mussolini to Rome, then they flew him to Vienna, then they flew him to see Hitler at a secret location in Prussia called Rastenburg. Hitler needed and wanted to put Mussolini back in power in Italy because he needed their alliance for the Axis army. Mussolini didn’t want to go back in power though because he argued that it would cause a Civil War to start it Italy and he didn’t want that to occur, so he suggested that he retire. Hitler didn’t like this idea and was mad because he had gone through so much trouble to save him. He told Mussolini that the only way to truly help Italy would be to have a strong Fascism group there and then use it to save the Italians, and that Mussolini should be the leader again. Hitler was also mad because Mussolini didn’t want to get revenge on the Italian people that had thrown him out of power. After he talked with Mussolini, Hitler told Jospeph Goebels that Mussolini wasn’t as strong a man as before (Gran Sasso Rescue, Web). Eventually Mussolini gave into Hitler’s commands. He finally went to Hitler and said, "I have come for my instructions (http://www.benitomussolini.info/)." This is when Hitler told him that a Fascist government would be started in Italy called the Italian Social Republic. Even though Mussolini would be in charge of it, the German’s would control most of it, specifically its foreign policy and its financial concerns would be governed by Germany. Germany also decided that all the people that he voted to remove Mussolini from power would be killed. September 27, 1943 Mussolini went to Gargnano to start his new Italian government in the part of Italy that was controlled by Germany. Since he was controlled by Hitler people started to call Mussolini, “the prisoner of Gargnano (http://www.benitomussolini.info/).” The Germans spied on Mussolini at every opportunity especially listening to his phone calls. Mussolini said, "They are always there, like the spots of the leopard(http://www.benitomussolini.info/)," When Mussolini went to start to get other government members the Germans had to approve them., and even when they were approved they had to consult German advisors when they made decisions. Mussolini tried to get his new government as popular as it used to be by promising people that he would improve conditions, but very few people joined him. By this time the Allied forces were taking over and they had almost reached him. Because of all these reasons Mussolini began to deteriorate and started a morphine habit. VI. Mussolini’s Death Mussolini gradually began to deteriorate from the morphine and stress. He changed his moods unexpectedly and would sleep sporadically. He began to say that his life was much like the lives of Jesus and Napoleon and that the reason he was in the current situation he was in was because of the Italians. He even said that they were a, "mediocre race of good-for-nothings only capable of singing and eating ice cream (http://www.benitomussolini.info/)." Soon the Allied forces had advanced into the part of Italy that he was, so he tried to escape to Austria, however when he got to Dongo he got overtaken by an angry mob, and even though he was dressed like a German soldier they could tell who he was because he had on expensive boots. They took him to a house and they brought his lover Claretta Petacci because she had demanded to be with him. The day after they captured him they drove him and Claretta to another area and shot Claretta Petacci with a machine gun. Mussolini was shot next. The next day they took their corpses and dumped them in Milan and a huge crowd gathered and they hung their corpses and threw things at them. The next day they buried them in their family tomb. Conclusion In conclusion, one can see that Benito Mussolini was a monstrous beast that took over Italy and caused it great ruin. Even so this occurred, he had a very interesting life since he started out from such a small position as an elementary school teacher, and then a journalist, and then a political leader, and then finally a dictator of a huge country. His life had many odd occurrences, from his earliest times as a journalist where he was oftentimes fired for Socialism. Later in life he started the Fascism in Italy and gained a huge amount of followers that marched on Rome in 1922 called the blackshirts and took power of Italy. He then went into Italy as a dictator and made many changes, some of them good, but many of them bad. Finally, he joined with Hitler in World War II and lost and was thrown out of power. Hitler had him rescued and he finished his life as a leader in Italy before being captured and killed. It is clear that Mussolini had a very tumultuous existence. Bibliography Benito Mussolini http://www.comandosupremo.com/Mussolini.html, Feb. 2010 Benito Mussolini (1883-1945). A Biography. http://www.benitomussolini.info/, Feb,. 2010 Benito Mussolini: Italian Dictator. Role in World War II Britannica.com http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/399484/Benito-Mussolini/5091/Role-in- World-War-II, Feb. 2010 Bosworth, R.J.B, Mussolini's Italy life under the dictatorship, Penguin Books,2006 De Grand, Alexander, Italian Fascism Its origins & Development , Nebraska Press,2000 Fascist Grand Council. Encyclopedia.com http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O46 FascistGrandCouncil.html, Feb. 2010 Giusepi, Robert. A History of World War II: Mussolini. http://history-world.org/mussolini.htm, Feb. 2010 Gran Sasso Rescue. http://warandgame.wordpress.com/2007/10/11/gran-sasso-rescue/ Hitler Stopped By Franco. http://www.hitlerstoppedbyfranco.com/photographs.htm, Feb. 2010. Pre-War Years. http://www.comandosupremo.com/Prewar.html, Feb. 2010. Life (Feb 26, 1945), Vol. 18, No. 9 Machiavelli, Niccolo. (2007) The Prince. Arc Manor Press. Mussolini, Benito. (2006) My Autobiography: With "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism" Dover Publications. Mussolini: Il Duce Fascist Dictator The Leaders. http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages- leaders/ww2/mussolini.htm Orwell, George. (1980) Homage to Catalonia. Mariner Books. Read More