Benito+Mussolini


 * edited by kristian anderson**

__**Background and Rise to Power**__ Benito Mussolini was born in Forli, Italy, in 1883. After working briefly as a schoolteacher, Mussolini fled to Switzerland in 1902 in an effort to evade military service. He returned to Italy in 1904 and worked as a journalist and became the editor of Avanti. He was always interested in politics and was involved in the socialist movement, but moved to the right in 1914 when the Italian government failed to support the Triple Alliance, and in 1915 he resigned from the Socialist Party when they supported the Allies in World War I. When Italy entered the war he served in the Italian army and worked his way up to Corporal. After being wounded by a mortar bomb he returned to Milan to edit the right-wing Il Popolo d'Italia. After the war, Mussolini criticized Vittorio Orlando for failing to achieve Italy’s objectives at the Paris Peace Conference. He helped organize the various right-wing groups into the Fascist Party. After a series of riots in 1922 King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini in an attempt to prevent a communist revolution in Italy. Mussolini headed a coalition of fascists and nationalists and parliamentary government continued until the murder of the socialist leader, Giacomo Matteotti in 1924. Left-wing parties were suppressed and in 1929 Italy became a one-party state. Mussolini also carried out an extensive public-works programme and the fall in unemployment made him a popular figure in Italy.

__Economic policy__
Mussolini launched several public construction programs and government initiatives throughout Italy to combat economic setbacks or unemployment levels. His most successful plan was the Battle for Wheat which created 5,000 new farms and five new farming towns. This greatly helped the Italian economy and agriculture. Food production greatly increased from this and peasants were very pleased that the government was doing something to help them. Landowners grew wheat on unsuitable soil using all the advances of modern science, and although the wheat harvest increased, prices rose, consumption fell and high tariffs were created. The tariffs promoted widespread inefficiencies and the government subsidies given to farmers pushed the country further into debt. This great idea was ruined by greed and the want of wealth and riches. Mussolini also created the Battle for Land which provided work for the unemployed and helped farmers. Fewer than 10,000 peasants resettled on the redistributed land, and peasant poverty remained high. This plan was abandoned in 1940. He also created Gold for the Fatherland which encouraged the public to voluntarily donate gold jewellery such as necklaces and wedding rings to government officials in exchange for steel wristbands that said gold for the fatherland. The collected gold was then melted down and turned into gold bars, which were then distributed to the national banks. Mussolini pushed for government control of business and by 1935 he had control of about seventy five percent. He also attempted to turn Italy into a self-sufficient autarky, putting high barriers on trade with most countries except Germany. Most of Mussolini's plans were failures which led to the bad condition of Italy while he was the leader.

__Dictatorship__
At various times after 1922, Mussolini personally took over the ministries of the interior, foreign affairs, colonies, corporations, defense, and public works. He did this to make sure that everything went the way we wanted and used it to make him look like a better leader. He was also head of the all-powerful Fascist Party and the armed local fascist militia, the MVSN or "Blackshirts", who terrorised incipient resistances in the cities and provinces. He would later form the OVRA, an institutionalized secret police that carried official state support. This allowed him to keep as much power as he wanted to and prevented his opponents from passing him in support. In June 1923, the government passed the Acerbo Law which gave Mussolini much more power than he previously had and turned Italy into a fascist country. In the following years he did whatever he could in his power to limit all the restraints on his power, thereby building a police state. A law passed on Christmas Eve 1925 changed Mussolini's formal title from "president of the Council of Ministers" to "head of the government". This did not give him anymore power but it was a sign of the dictatorship that was about to come. All other parties were outlawed following Zamboni's assassination attempt in 1926, this official made Mussolini a dictator. He then abolished all parliamentary elections so he could not be overthrown.

__**Early Years in Power**__

Mussolini and his Fascist Party attempted a take-over of Prime Minister Luigi Facta in his famous “March on Rome” and succeeded. King Victor Emmanuel III refused to support the Prime Minister and handed the power over to Mussolini. He was supported by the military, the business class, and the liberal right-wing. Mussolini’s goal was the eventual establishment of a totalitarian state with himself as supreme leader. He was able to obtain dictatorial powers for one year. In 1923, Mussolini sent Italian forces to invade Corfu during the "Corfu Incident." In the end, the League of Nations proved powerless and Greece was forced to comply with Italian demands. media type="youtube" key="SvQzHockXaU" width="425" height="350"

__**Assassination Attempts**__

He was shot on 7 April 1926 by Violet Gibson, an Irish woman and daughter of Baron Ashbourne. On 31 October 1926, 15-year-old Anteo Zamboni attempted to shoot Mussolini in Bologna. Zamboni was killed on the spot. Mussolini also survived a failed assassination attempt in Rome by anarchist Gino Lucetti, and a planned attempt by the Italian anarchist Michele Schirru, which ended with Schirru's capture and execution. Members of TIGR, a Slovene anti-fascist group, plotted to kill Mussolini in Caporetto in 1938, but their attempt was unsuccessful.

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 * __By: Mark Shepherd__**