With power comes great responsibility. Throughout history many of the great leaders of this world have abused this power. Some of these leaders are considered dictators. But what is a dictator? A dictator is a ruler with total power over a country typically one you have obtained power by force. They are also referred to as autocrats, absolute rulers, tyrants, or oppressors. An excellent example of a dictator is Benito Mussolini. The fascist Italian leader started off with strong ideals and goals to re-create the Roman Empire however as his rule continued his common sense was gradually overwhelmed. (history.com staff) But to understand his decline, first three questions must be answered. How did Mussolini come to power? How did Mussolini held …show more content…
His first act to re-establish the Roman Empire he invaded Ethiopia using much more advanced technology than the Ethiopians were able to handle. Four years later, he sent fascists to expand his influence in Spain during the Spanish Civil War (biography.com). These successes were noticed by German dictator Adolf Hitler, who soon made a pact with Mussolini – known as the ‘Pack of Steel’. Through the influence of Hitler, Benito also discriminated against the Jews. Finally, Italy invaded Greece in 1940. However after this Mussolini’s rule began to slip and he lost all of his conquered lands in a gamble for ruling England and France during WW2. Mussolini was forced to resign and arrested. While trying to escape to Switzerland, he and his mistress were captured and killed on April 28th, …show more content…
Other effects included women women in the Fascist Italy. They were tasked with getting married at a young age and having lots of children. This was Mussolini’s “Battle for Births” plan. This ‘battle’ was started because Mussolini felt Italy’s population was smaller than it should have been. Women were given the incentive that if they had lots of children (at least 5), they would have better tax privileges. Despite his want of a large population, this Battle of Births was a failure. In addition to a large population, Mussolini wanted a nation of warriors. The fascist government expected boys to become soldiers that would ‘fight with glory for Italy’ (historylearningsite.co.uk). A famous slogans during this time was, “War is to the male what childbearing is to the female.” Any opposition to these views were handled by the “Black Shirts”. Black Shirts were ex-soldiers whom used excessive force to implement fascist ideals. They had just as much of an effect on Italy as Mussolini, seeing as they were the ones to enforce Mussolini’s
Overall, the fascist experiment in Italy was a failure. Benito Mussolini aimed to make the world safe for the middle class, small business owners, property owners, and people in the agricultural area. Through this, Mussolini gained support of the majority of the population. There is no doubt that most of the support was actually the work of propaganda and rhetoric rather than the real thing'. The government made desperate attempts to significantly increase the birthrate in Italy. In 1927, Mussolini launched the "Battle for births". The task of young women was to get married quickly and have a lot of children. And the more children they get, the more benefits they get from the government. Mussolini's population policy failed to produce
Benitoite is a very unique mineral that has a beautiful appearance. It is classified as metamorphic rock which means it had to go under the metamorphic process to get into the form its in. Since this is rare mineral there are not very many places on earth where Benitoite is found. As of right now, California is the only place where it is found. It is the state gem of California because I believe its rarity is a special symbol to the state. In order to find this gem, a person would have to go to the Benitoite Gem Mine, in San Benito County, California.
During the Second World War, Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was the leader of the Italian Nationalist Fascist government. He was head of the Italian government from 1922 till 1943. The significance of Mussolini is that he played a key role acting as the Italian Prime Minister and established a totalitarian regime, during this time, as the unchallenged supreme leader, known as ‘Il Duce’. Fascism consisted of many contributors of which Mussolini with all his quirks was the key to most of its failures and successes, making him the most significant player that is worthy of being investigated. This topic is worthy of being investigated as Mussolini made a lot of decisions that lead to the death of many, but the question as to
Mussolini consolidation of fascist power in Italy in the years 1922-1929 could have been mainly due to the use of force and intimidation. However this was not a straightforward process, since fascism was a new thing. In the years 1922 to January 1925 marked the transition from the liberal parliamentary system to the fascist state. Like many political transitions, it was an untidy and complicated process. Although from the start Mussolini’s intentions were quite difficult to establish, however it could be that Mussolini wanted to set up from the beginning a totalitarian one party state.
Hitler and Mussolini looked upon the new form of government, which was Totalitarianism. This form of government means there is only one leader to make decisions and thus they killed or jailed all opponents. Mussolini and Hitler used this form of government after World
The following six characteristics allow for one to easily determine if a country is an authoritarian or totalitarian model: one hierarchical party, an ideology that drives all information, government policy decisions, and education, propaganda that is carried out by a complete control of the media, violence that is carried out by an official secret police, tightly controlled armed forces, and central control of the economy or resources. After carefully analyzing each aspect of these characteristics along with the history of Mussolini’s rule in Italy from the 1930s through 1945, one can easily determine that this is an example of a totalitarian
Benito Mussolini was an Italian leader who reigned from 1922 to 1943. He created a government plan, which supported feeling superior to other countries and having a strong military defense. He also ran a dystopian country because of the lack of equality, communism, etc. There are currently several nations around the world in which dystopia exists, and it is powered by fear. A dystopian society is a place in which there is a disparity of rights of the government and citizens of the nation; for example, Benito Mussolini made certain influential independent decisions which rendered Italy into a dystopian society.
He was originally a Socialist, however, when he read Karl Marx’s theory about social revolution, he began to favor going to war and enlisted in fighting in the war—developing strong fascist ideals. Wounded in the war, he came back to Italy and wanted to spread his ideas and opinions with others and captivated others with his conviction. His power was established after the March on Rome, where an event was held where Fascists working with Mussolini seized control of the government and announced their ruling by parading through Rome. Luigi Facta—their previous Prime Minister—tried to take control of Rome, but Victor Emmanuel III did not sign the order, resulting in their army terminating any potential threatening Fascists before they attacked them. In 1922, he became the youngest Italian Prime Minister in history and created a law that enabled Fascists to hold the most of authority within the government. From there, Mussolini implemented many more laws and changes, one of which including the Ceka, which was a group of professional gangsters hired by Mussolini himself to scare the Italian citizens into voting for Fascists during the elections. He held a deep animosity for Socialism and was trying to wipe out leftist groups with terroristic tactics, such as mass murder and extreme propaganda. In addition, he also introduced a diarchy where he and Victor Emmanuel were both political leaders and banned all opposing newspapers and political parties, determined to make the country completely totalitarian. In 1927, he created and was the head of the OVRA, which was a secret police force with official state support and a death penalty. Mussolini had a strong desire to conquer more land and spread his empire, so in October 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia and killed many people within the country by gas bombing Ethiopia, resulting in the League of Nations trying to impose sanctions. Italy was also allies with Germany and
In Italy the strong presence of Catholic religion and organizations influenced Mussolini's policies concerning women. Although the fascist ideology intended to abolish class struggle by
Benito Mussolini outlines several essential characteristics of his preferred political ideology, Fascism, in what has become known as the Doctrine of Fascism. In this paper, Mussolini outlines his vision of the ideology, and explains the major issues that Fascism will address once it becomes the leading political system in Italy. Mussolini’s major points as outlined in the Doctrine included an extreme emphasis on nationalism, organization and modernization of the state, persistent focus on religion, life as a struggle, and the notion that individuals exist only for the improvement of society as a whole. Wolfgang Schieder, after reviewing the Doctrine of Fascism, explains Mussolini’s success based on it and
World War II, which only lasted about five years, changed the course of history forever, and affected millions of lives. Among the major nations that were involved in the war, Benito Mussolini and his Italian army sought to settle their differences with many nations. Benito’s fascist views, his idea of a nation built by one race, and his relationship with Adolf Hitler ultimately led to his involvement in the war. His responsibility, in essence, was to ally himself with the superpowers of the world, and lead his people into a war that they could not fight.
His most important weapon in his arsenal was his captivating charisma. It gave him the ability to hypnotize entire crowds of people, twisting peace into war and freedom into an insatiable debt to the government or simply put, fascism. Mussolini’s second weapon was his Blackshirts, his own private army which eliminated the opposition and humiliated opposing leaders. With his Blackshirts Mussolini was able to reduce fair competition into a virtual dictatorship, and reaped the benefits of the popular vote. His final tool was the march to Rome, a brutal coup which intimidated the Italian government to the point of handing over their leadership and submitting to Mussolini. With these assets in hand Benito Mussolini was able to become a ruthless fascist dictator of Italy and contributed to the deaths of millions of people during one of the most horrific wars of all
Molinari, professor of statistics in his report for the Central Institute of Statistics in 1932 said, “the search for a better life and the desire for economic well-being are the primary and most important reasons the the voluntary limitation of childbirths…” Being that the desire to live a better life limited family size, many people would much rather care more for themselves and increase their lifestyles than have larger families than they do. This shows how unsuccessful the population policies were because as Molinari also said “even if one could eliminate poverty and other economic disadvantages, the desire to improve one’s economic standing and rise above circumstances will have an effect on the decision to have children.” (Document 3) This meant that even if people were well off monetarily, there would still be talk about how many children to have and what life style they should choose because of the more children you have, the more money gets taken away from what can be spent on yourself. The more money spent on the children, the less luxury you can have for yourself. Having children is choosing a completely different life style than not having them at all. Another reason why Mussolini was shown to be unsuccessful was when a letter was sent to Edda Mussolini Ciano (his daughter) in 1940. This mother had eleven children and did not realize what she was getting herself
In terms of women, both Mussolini and Hitler had similar policies. Firstly, contraception was banned in both countries. Mussolini tried to succeed in winning the "Battle for Births" on the home front using various methods. Young Italian men and women were encouraged to conceive marriage quickly and to procreate as many children as possible, similarly in Germany. Il Duce' believed that a country's economic strength was directly linked to the size of its population. Furthermore, he wished to create a huge army in order to successfully carry out his plans of conquering areas such as Northern Africa, the Balkans and parts of Europe. In terms of males, Germany also had a shortage at the time due to the millions killed during WWI, so this was also something which concerned
Mussolini and Hitler’s time in power was around the time its countries were most vulnerable. Their power was so successful because of their full and unconditional support from its people. If they were failing somehow, through their use of propaganda they made it seem like they were booming, socially, economically and politically. Adolf Hitler, born and raised in 1889, Austria. Dying in April 1945 Germany, he commit suicide just two days after Mussolini died by firing squad alongside his mistress, in Italy. Benito Mussolini was born in 1883 Italy where he bullied many kids (Downing, 2001). Hitler was able to successfully work his way up from the inside of government, which overall explains why Hitler’s 12 years in power went more smoothly than Mussolini’s 18 years. Due to both leaders having fascist policies allowed their countries to be alike. Their personality cults did not necessarily help them rise to power but it certainly consolidated their positions once ‘Fuhrer’ or ‘Duce’. Also, their propaganda use strongly encouraged the people to support their leader and gain respect for them. The events prior to their rise played a significant role when analysing their personalities, ideologies, and propaganda. To a large extent, their