While working for various labour organizations in Switzerland, Benito Mussolini made a name for himself as a charismatic personality and a consummate rhetorician. After returning to Italy, he amassed a large following while working as an editor for the socialist magazine Avanti!.
Mussolini recognized as one of the most gifted and dangerous of Italy’s younger socialists in early life.
Characteristic
Let us have a dagger between our teeth, a bomb in our hands, and an infinite scorn in our hearts.
His physique was impressive, and his style of oratory, staccato and repetitive, was superb. His attitudes were highly theatrical, his opinions were contradictory, and his attacks were frequently malicious and misdirected; but his words were so dramatic, his vigorous gestures so effective, that he rarely failed to impose his mood.
The government, dominated by middle-class Liberals, did little to combat this lawlessness of Mussolini's movement, both through weak political will and a desire to see the mainly working-class left defeated. Fascist movement built a broad base of support around the powerful ideas of nationalism and anti-Bolshevism.
Cause
That's fine.
Government
In 1922 Mussolini led a coalition of fascist leaders to Rome and forced the king to yield the government.
Cause
Rome! Rome!
Effect
Oh No!
For large numbers of Italians, an oppressive fascist regime brought economic hardship and/or a loss of basic human rights.
The Duce
The fascist state’s control of information, the large number of choreographed rituals and spectacles dominating public life, and the creation of a cult around the leader, Benito Mussolini, reflect this.