Benito Mussolini Influence

Benito Mussolini was the founder of Fascism and the ruler of Italy for 21 years. Italians perceived him as a wise hero initially as middle and upper-class citizens were impatient with Italy’s parliamentary government and wanted a powerful leader that would set up orders, however, on his death decades later, the great mass of Italian people didn’t take it as a loss nor greeted it with regret. He was born in Northern Italy to a blacksmith father, Alessandro Mussolini and religious mother and a Catholic elementary school teacher, Rosa Mussolini. He belonged to a poor family who lived in a crowded two-bedroom apartment. He grew up in an environment that often talked about nationalism, socialism, and republicanism. His father was a socialist and

Uniformed in black shirts, symbolizing their name, they roamed the streets of cities in Italy. They beat up socialists, communists and union members. Their strategies became more violent as Mussolini’s power grew. The Black Shirts used intimidation and murder against opponents of Mussolini. Because of them to some extent, the number of fascists grew with extreme support and little opposition. Using this opportunity, Mussolini started the “March on Rome” in 1922 to protect the capital from a communist revolution. But in fact, the threat of a communist revolution doesn’t exist. Nevertheless, Mussolini hoped that the approach of his Black Shirts would frighten the government into surrender and they did. Under a lot of pressure, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy made Mussolini the Prime Minister. He pushed farmers to focus more on planting specific crops, which made Italy a more self-sufficient country in the long run. Later on, he gave more money to the industries for steel and iron production, whilst increasing the use of hydroelectric power at the same time. Italy enjoyed an economic

Italy still remained a monarchy with an elected parliament, even so, Mussolini had the right to make laws on his own initiative. The media were repeatedly censored and banned all the criticism of the government. Nothing negative could be said about him and Fascism. The media became excessively pro-fascist and biased towards Mussolini as they were only allowed to report on his accomplishments. It removed all the freedom of the press. However, controlling Italy still was not enough for him. Mussolini wanted more, precisely a strong nation. He dreamed of building an Italian empire. He attempted to expand his domain. His goal was to gain more land for Italy, which he believed, would make him even more powerful. In 1924, he arranged a treaty with Yugoslavia. Subsequently, it gave Italy the Fiume City. He declared war on Ethiopia by using the clash on the border between Ethiopia and Italian colony of Somaliland as an excuse to make territorial demands. Although a lot of men died during the chaos of the poorly organized war, Italy was able to defeat Ethiopia by the use of modern tanks, planes, and mustard gas. He added Ethiopia to his new empire in