The Cafe d'Ed

For my topic in the Ed Cafe we did was Benito Mussolini. Against popular belief he wasn't completely bad, before becoming the dictator of Italy. He was born in a little town in Italy and grew up in that little town. His father was a blacksmith and his mom was a catholic teacher. He didn't get baptized at birth, so when the time came to send Benito Mussolini to school his parents decided to send him to boarding school that was run by monks. He got expelled for his behavior, he threw rocks at children leaving services. He also stabbed a kid in the hand. He left that elementary school and went to a different one where he received top grades.

He worked in his father smithy on occasion. His father talked about politics and his political views, which was a mixture of anarchism, militarism and nationalism. Around the time he would have to enter the military, Mussolini fled to Switzerland to avoid having to serve. There he was incredibly active with an Italian Socialist group. He also learned about George Sorel who had the belief that Capitalism and Liberal Democracy were both bad. He also thought that the best way to deal with issues was through violence, general strikes and direct action.

After returning to Italy much later in his life, he started a newspaper called "The Class Struggle" and wrote a book. He was incredibly good at editing newspaper and he increased his popularity greatly with it. He joined the PSI or the Italian Socialists Party and he edited their newspaper Avanti!. He grew the popularity of the newspaper from twenty thousand to one hundred thousand and continue to make himself well known throughout Italy. He was part of a socialist riot that got him put in jail for 5 months and got him severely demoted in the Socialists Party. He started using the pen name "Vero Eretico" which translates to Sincere Misbeliever.

Around WWI Benito struggled with the inner turmoil of the war. The PSI wanted to stay out of it, so he did at first too. Writing a newspaper article with the title "Down with War. We stay Neutral". Although he soon saw that the war was an opening for his ambitions and it was also an opportunity for the country. It was also a chance for the Italians living in Germany-Hungary to be freed from the Hapsburg. He tried to convince the PSI to overthrow the German-Hungarian monarchs and join the war. He said that the Germany-Hungarian monarchs had repressed socialism consistently. He gave many reasons for why joining the war would be beneficial to them, but in the end the PSI expelled Benito Mussolini from the party.

Around this time he denounced Socialism and started the National Fascist Party. He started gaining power by telling the flaws of traditional Socialism. He started giving speeches, and he started addressing Italy as one class instead of distinct social and economic classes. This was one of the smartest things he could have done. Italy was going through social oppression. The working class didn't have many rights and the rich were living well. When Benito Mussolini addressed Italy as one social class it united the people and created nationalistic views in peoples eyes.

From this point he quickly rose to power by wiping out his competition. He got to power and he formed the government into a one party dictatorship, in which he was in charge. He started raising money to go into war. He got money from the French (the idea being that Italy would join the French's Side) in WWII. When Hitler/Germany invaded Poland the first time in September of 1939, it took a short 8 months but Italy joined the side of Germany and WWII was in full bloom.

The rest of Benito Mussolini's story is better known. He wasn't completely bad the whole time during his life. He was a socialist for more than half of his life. When he was expelled from the PSI and socialism was taken out of his life he turned and created Fascism. I am not saying that I am proud of what he did during the time he was dictator. I hope that you realize that people change and in this particular example it wasn't for the best.