Who benefited Mussolini?
Benito Mussolini is considered the founder of European fascism, which brought immense and unjustified suffering to millions of people, putting humanity on the brink of destruction.
How did he manage to be the largest and most influential person in Europe during the 1922-1943 years?
Benito Mussolini was born in July 1883, in the family of a teacher and artisan. The father of the future dictator of Italy was a militant socialist: an adherent of the Russian revolutionary Bakunin and a member of the Second International. Of course, the father was able to convey his political views to his son. With great difficulty, the nine-year-old Benito arranged for monks at the school, where he fully showed his violent and uncontrollable temper: he always sought to lead his comrades, was cruel and vindictive.
At the age of seventeen, Benito Mussolini took the first steps in his career as a journalist — he began writing political articles in Italian socialist newspapers. At the same time, often speaking at rallies, he honed his oratory. Mussolini perfectly learned to imitate arousal and to pretend that the idea completely captured him.
To avoid military service, Benito Mussolini fled to Switzerland. There he took part in political meetings, where in 1902 he got acquainted with Angelica Balabanova and Vladimir Ulyanov, who hold Marxist views. It was Balabanova who introduced Mussolini to the works of the best thinkers, politicians and economists of that time. At the request of Italy, the Swiss police Mussolini was caught. He still had to serve two years in the Italian army. For several years he was engaged in teaching, but quickly realized that while working in journalism, he was given a political tool. Becoming the editor of the socialist edition of La Lima, he criticized the government and the Vatican in the interest of the people. Then they began to call him “picollo duce” (translated as “little leader”), and after a few years the prefix “picollo” disappeared from his title.
Mussolini quickly gained prestige among the Italian socialists. A talented journalist, he wrote articles in an accessible language, often going beyond the limits of decency. He himself chose topics, invented catchy headlines, knew and anticipated the mood of the masses.
During the war 1914-1918. Mussolini first called for the neutrality of Italy, and then radically changed his mind and made a call for the performance of Italy on the side of the Entente against Germany. In his public speeches, he argued that Europe would perish if Germany wins this war. The change in attitude towards the war was the reason for his resignation from the post of chief editor of the publishing house Avanti, since it did not coincide with the opinion of the members of the Italian Socialist Party.
It was only possible to explain this radically change of view due to archival documents declassified at the end of the twentieth century. It follows from them that Benito Mussolini was recruited by British intelligence MI-5. The calculation of British intelligence officers was based on the knowledge of the personal qualities of a talented journalist, an artful speaker and his connections with the military circles of Italy and the Vatican. Mussolini was also interested in cooperation with intelligence, since a lot of money was required to start a political career, and the lovingness of the future dictator required material support. And for the "work" on British intelligence, which consisted in supporting Italian public opinion in continuing the country's participation on the side of the Entente and actively opposing opposing forces, he received about 6 thousand pounds a month. According to reports, the recruitment of Mussolini was carried out through a former member of the House of Commons, S. Chora, who was also a resident of MI-5 in Italy. Subsequently, records of successful recruitment and financial documents confirming the payment for the services of the future leader of Italy, and at that time the editor-in-chief of a socialist newspaper, were found in Choir’s documents. At the same time, Mussolini also worked for the French counterintelligence, which for the services to support Rome’s participation in the war on the side of the Entente paid him 12 thousand francs per month. By the way, not only the governments of the Entente countries were interested in the participation of Italy in military operations, but also their industrial-military complexes, which received super-profits from military supplies.
But for Mussolini, this was not the first experience of working for the special services of foreign countries. There is information that at the beginning of the last century, Russian counterintelligence was interested in receiving information about immigrants, their plans, sources of financing, and attitudes. The Russian secret service sent its employees abroad with a view to introducing them into the emigre circles. Most often, intelligence officers traveled to Europe under the guise of journalists. In 1902, the newspaper Russkoye obozreniye was set up in Paris by the secret police, which was headed by the Russian special services agent I.F. Manasevich-Manuilov. In the Vatican, where he was as a journalist and editor of the newspaper, Manusevich-Manuilov managed to get acquainted with the journalists of the socialist newspaper Avanti. He then carried out a successful recruitment of Benuto Mussolini, the editor of Avanti, who regularly reported on moods and events in Russian émigré circles living in Italy.
After the end of world war in 1918, Mr. Mussolini proclaimed that socialist ideas had become obsolete and the nation needed a cruel, strong and energetic person. His path to power passed through the organization of the new party, the Italian Union of Struggle, which was later transformed into the National Fascist Party, then appointed as Prime Minister. In a short time in power, he built a police state and became its head. In foreign policy, Mussolini led a policy of aggressive nationalism. He wanted to make Italy a country that would be respected and feared by countries not only in Europe, but in the whole world.
Mussolini considered Hitler to be a fierce and cruel man, and Germany as an enemy of Rome. But again his opinion changed dramatically after meeting with Hitler in 1937. And on November 1, the Duce announced the creation of the Berlin-Rome axis, near which two dictators dreamed of uniting other countries ready "for cooperation and peace." Thus arose the "axis of evil", which plunged both countries into the abyss of world military conflict.
Mussolini lived a long enough life: from the pugnacious and uncontrollable teenager to the traitor of the people of Italy. He dreamed that he would enter the world history as a great ruler of a European state. But the descendants remained in the memory of the killer of millions of people, the father of fascism, the traitor of his people. A separate dirty page in his life is the activity of an agent of at least three foreign intelligence services, which can be recognized with confidence as a betrayal of his homeland.
Dictators Secrets of great leaders. Benito mussolini
He learned to read at four. At five - already played the violin. Wrote a very famous novel at the time. Had countless love stories. "The first fascist of Europe", he despised Hitler, but did the same as Hitler. He betrayed girlfriends and friends, he shot his own son-in-law ... The bloody game for power over the world for both Mussolini and Hitler ended almost at the same time: the Fuhrer was gone two days after the Duce was shot. But they are remembered in different ways - perhaps because Mussolini was more human.
He learned to read at four. At five - already played the violin. Wrote a very famous novel at the time. Had countless love stories. "The first fascist of Europe", he despised Hitler, but did the same as Hitler. He betrayed girlfriends and friends, he shot his own son-in-law ... The bloody game for power over the world for both Mussolini and Hitler ended almost at the same time: the Fuhrer was gone two days after the Duce was shot. But they are remembered in different ways - perhaps because Mussolini was more human.
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