Mussolini and the Swaying of the Masses

The failure of liberalism after the First World War gave birth to its antithesis. The democratic republics formed after the 1919 Treaty of Versailles reverted back into authoritarian regimes: in Hungary Admiral Horthy suppressed Bela Kun's Soviet revolutionary government; in Spain, Primo de Rivera seized power; and in Portugal, the Republic Succumbed to the dictatorship of Antonio Salazar. By 19922 Italy too had become disillusioned with parliamentary democracy: post-war liberalism seemed to offer nothing more than inflation, demobilization, uncertainty, instability and weakness. The success of 1917's Russian Revolution only made social conditions worse - the fear of communism spread like contagion. Ascending form the Right, repudiating individualism, promising fascism as a salvation from the Bolshevik noose, Benito Mussolini swept into political power in 1992, becoming Prime Minister of a very weary and war-torn country.

In his youth, he had called himself an "authoritarian communist"' some even asserted that clandestinely he was an anarchist. But above all, he was a journalist, a phrase-turner, a war-mongerer, a power-hungry politician with totalitarian intentions. The knowledge he accrued from editing Avanti! and Il Popolo d'Italia led him to believe he had put his finger "on the pulse of the masses" to discover that "in the general mood of disorientation" the public was waiting for him (Mack Smith, 33).