The Mussolini story in this
posting combines parts of his Wikipedia biography (in teal font) with my rather
extensive comments (in red font).
Mussolini
(born on July 29, 1883 -- executed on April
28, 1945) ruled Italy dictatorially from 1922 to 1943. He created an
anti-democratic fascist state through the use of propaganda; through total
control of the media he disassembled the existing democratic government system.
(Nota bene! The primary mission of the media is
not to spread salacious or purely sensational news, but to preserve democracy by
the power of its public voice. Quidquid latet, apparebit! What’s going on with
today’s media? I often doubt that it continues to serve democracy at all. All
the news that is fit to print? What is the modern definition of fitness?)
Mussolini’s
father Alessandro was a blacksmith, and his mother Rosa Maltoni was a teacher.
He was named Benito after Mexican revolutionary Benito Juárez. (See B. Juárez in my Mexico entry
in the Nations and Their Heroes section.)
Like
his father, Benito became a socialist and
later, a Marxist. (This typical transition from Marxism
and socialism to fascism is of the greatest interest. Wrong
are those who in the wake of the fall of the USSR and a projected rule of
Globalism in the “New American Century” have dismissed Marxism as an outdated
thing of the past. In fact, Marxism is the best tool today to explain the
destructive processes tearing the world apart in the twenty-first century and
undermining the presumably sanctified political stability of the free world.)
He was
influenced by Nietzsche and another doctrine that was in the air was the syndicalism,
espoused by the French writer Georges Sorel (1847-1922). (See my very important entry Syndicalism And Its Apostle
Sorel in the Wishful Thinking section. And also, have you ever asked
yourself why so many great minds of the last one hundred years plus have been
so much “influenced” by Nietzsche? As for me, for instance, Nietzsche has
greatly stimulated the thinking capacity of my brain, but the only direct
influence he has had on me was to never be influenced by any authority
whatsoever, but to keep an open mind and think for myself at all times.)
He
qualified as an elementary schoolmaster in 1901. In 1902 he emigrated to
Switzerland. (Why?) Unable to find a permanent job there, and arrested for
vagrancy, he was expelled, and returned to Italy to do his military service.
After further trouble with the police, he joined the staff of a newspaper in
the Austrian town of Trento in 1908. At this time he wrote a novel,
afterwards translated into English as The Cardinal’s Mistress. Mussolini
had one brother Arnaldo (1885-1931, died
prematurely of a heart attack, following the death of his son) who became an important fascist theorist.
Mussolini
broke with the Socialists over the issue of Italy’s entry into WWI. In November
1914, supported by his then mistress Margherita Sarfatti (this is not a gossipy trivium: the question of where
he obtained the money for this venture is indeed important!), he founded the new newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia,
and the pro-war group Fasci d’Azione Rivoluzionaria. He coined the term fascism
from the fasces carried before Roman magistrates. (Apparently his personal involvement in the development of “fascism”
in Italy was far greater than Hitler’s parallel role in the emergence of German
fascism. Let us remember, though, that “fascism” is a clever word, but merely a
reflection of the political term “totalitarismo,” developed, although not
coined, by the Italian humanistic philosopher Giovanni Gentile.) These were the ancient Roman symbol of the life and death
power of the State: bundles of the lictors’ rods of chastisement which, when
bound together, were stronger than when they were apart, reflecting the
intellectual debt fascism owed to socialism and presaging the symbolism of the
renewed Roman Imperium Mussolini promised to bring about. (This is also the old story told by many nations, East and
West, North and South, about a father, or in other cases a mother, showing the
sons how important it is to stick together.)
Mussolini claimed that this would help strengthen a relatively new nation
(united only in the 1860’s in the Risorgimento), although some would say
that like Lenin he wished for a collapse of society that would bring him to
power. (Lenin in this case was not the
originator, but a good student of the great Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin,
whose idea of total destruction as the first step to creation was influenced by
the Biblical Creation “ex nihilo.” I do not find any similarity here with
Mussolini’s thinking. His fascism grew out of the old monarchy, preserving the
continuity of the State, rather than striving to destroy it.)
To be continued…
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