Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) was an Italian politician, journalist, and dictator who led the Kingdom of Italy as a fascist dictatorship from 1922 until his overthrow in 1943. Known under his rule as Il Duce, he founded fascism in 1919 with the creation of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, which became the National Fascist Party (PNF) in 1921. Mussolini was appointed Prime Minister of Italy after the March on Rome in 1922, establishing a totalitarian fascist dictatorship. He oversaw Italy's participation in World War II as a prominent member of the Axis Powers, and was executed by the Italian resistance near the end of the war in 1945.
Mussolini was originally a radical socialist journalist at Avanti!. In 1912, he became a member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), but was expelled for advocating military intervention in World War I. In 1914, Mussolini founded a newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia, and served in the Royal Italian Army until he was wounded and discharged in 1917. He eventually denounced the PSI, his views pivoting to focus on Italian nationalism, and founded the fascist movement, which opposed egalitarianism, and class conflict, and instead advocated "revolutionary nationalism" transcending class lines. In 1922, following the March on Rome, he was appointed prime minister by King Victor Emmanuel III. After removing opposition through his secret police and outlawing labour strikes, Mussolini consolidated power through laws, and illegal means, that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship. He ordered the Pacification of Libya, which is often considered a genocide. In 1929, he signed the Lateran Treaty to establish the Vatican City. Mussolini, especially after the Great Depression, espoused policies of autarky and corporatism.
Mussolini's foreign policy shifted from cautious pragmatism to aggressive expansion and close alignment with Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s. Initially, he sought to expand Italy's influence without risking a major conflict with France or Britain, aligning with them during tensions over Austria. However, his invasion of Ethiopia resulted in condemnations from the League of Nations, which isolated Italy diplomatically. This pushed Mussolini toward Adolf Hitler, leading to a rapprochement and the formation of the Rome–Berlin Axis in 1936. Mussolini began militarily supporting Francisco Franco's forces during the Spanish Civil War. Although he acted as a mediator at the Munich Conference in 1938, his ambitions for territorial expansion and growing distrust of the Western powers led him to strengthen ties with Germany, resulting in the creation of the Pact of Steel in 1939.
The wars of the 1930s cost Italy enormous resources, leaving it unprepared for the World War II; Mussolini initially declared Italy's non-belligerence. However, in June 1940, believing that German victory was imminent, he joined the war on Germany's side to share the spoils. Following defeats at the hands of the Allies and the landing in Sicily, the Grand Council of Fascism voted on the Grandi motion, which effectively ended Mussolini's leadership and restored powers to King Victor Emmanuel III who then immediately dismissed Mussolini as head of government and placed him in custody in July 1943. After the king agreed to an armistice with the Allies in September 1943, Mussolini was rescued by the Germans during the Gran Sasso raid. Hitler made Mussolini the figurehead of a puppet state in German-occupied north Italy, the Italian Social Republic, which served as a collaborationist regime of Germany. With Allied victory imminent, Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci attempted to flee to Switzerland, but were captured by communist partisans and summarily executed on 28 April 1945.
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born on 29 July 1883 in Dovia di Predappio, a town in the province of Forlì in Romagna. Mussolini's father, Alessandro Mussolini, was a blacksmith and socialist, while his mother, Rosa (née Maltoni), was a devout Catholic schoolteacher. Given his father's political leanings, Mussolini was named Benito after liberal Mexican president Benito Juárez, while his middle names, were for Italian socialists Amilcare Cipriani and Andrea Costa. In return, his mother required that he be baptised at birth. Benito was followed by his siblings Arnaldo and Edvige. Mussolini's family was of relatively humble status, and fascist biographers emphasized that he had "come from the people". Nevertheless, the family did not belong to the lowest social stratum. Benito's father, despite having his own business, lived on the margins of the community because of his politics, while Rosa, who taught elementary school children at Palazzo Varano, earned a salary insufficient to compensate for her husband's lack of income.
Mussolini attended the first two years of elementary school in Dovia and then in Predappio (1889–1891). At his mother's request, he entered the Salesian college in Faenza (1892–October 1894), but was transferred after disciplinary problems, including a fight in which he injured a classmate with a knife, resulting in his demotion from the fourth to the second class. In Faenza, Benito experienced an unhappy period marked by corporal punishment from the Salesian friars and frustration over his family's modest social and economic condition.
With his mother's assistance, Mussolini continued his studies at the secular Royal Carducci Male Teacher Training School in Forlimpopoli, directed by Valfredo Carducci, brother of Giosuè Carducci. He earned his lower technical qualification in 1898. Although his academic performance was good, he remained resistant to discipline. He was expelled from the boarding school twice: once after a fight in which he used a penknife, and another time for staying out all night. During his years in Forlimpopoli, and under the influence of his father, Mussolini became involved with militant socialism, speaking at evening rallies in nearby towns. In 1900 he joined the Italian Socialist Party, where he became acquainted with Olindo Vernocchi. On 8 July 1901, he received his diploma as an elementary school teacher from the same institute.
After graduation, Mussolini applied unsuccessfully for teaching posts in several municipalities, including Predappio, Legnano, Tolentino, Ancona, and Castelnuovo Scrivia. In Predappio he also sought a position as an assistant substitute to the municipal secretary, but was rejected by the moderate faction of the council. He eventually began teaching at the elementary school in Pieve Saliceto, a hamlet of Gualtieri and the first Italian municipality governed by a socialist administration. After the school year ended, he left Italy on 9 July 1902 and emigrated to Switzerland to avoid compulsory military service.
Emigration to Switzerland and military service
Without work, connections or money, he settled down on July 20 in Lausanne. Living in abject poverty, he was arrested for vagrancy by the police on 24 July under the arches of the Grand-Pont where he spent the night and was kept behind bars for three days.
During this time, he studied the ideas of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, and syndicalist Georges Sorel. Mussolini also later credited Charles Péguy and Hubert Lagardelle as influences. Sorel's emphasis on the need for overthrowing decadent liberal democracy and capitalism by the use of violence, direct action, the general strike, and the use of neo-Machiavellian appeals to emotion, impressed Mussolini.
Mussolini became active in the Italian socialist movement in Switzerland, working for the paper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore (The Future of the Worker), organising meetings, giving speeches to workers, and serving as secretary of the Italian workers' union in Lausanne. John Gunther alleged that Angelica Balabanov introduced Mussolini, then a bricklayer, to Vladimir Lenin. In 1903, he was arrested by Bernese police because of his advocacy of a violent general strike, spent two weeks in jail, and was handed over to Italian police in Chiasso. After he was released in Italy, he returned to Switzerland. He was arrested again in Geneva, in April 1904, for falsifying his passport expiration date, and expelled from the canton of Geneva. He was released in Bellinzona following protests from Genevan socialists. Mussolini then returned to Lausanne, where he entered the University of Lausanne's Department of Social Science on 7 May, attending the lectures of Vilfredo Pareto. In 1937, when he was prime minister of Italy, the University of Lausanne awarded Mussolini an honorary doctorate.