Who was Mussolini and what did he do?

Benito Mussolini was an Italian political leader who ruled Italy as a fascist dictator from 1925 until 1945. He was a revolutionary socialist before founding the paramilitary fascist organisation in 1919 and becoming Prime Minister in 1922.

Known to his compatriots as “Il Duce” (the Leader) or simply “Mussolini,” he aligned himself with Adolf Hitler during World War II, relying on the German dictator to prop up his authority. Mussolini was assassinated by firing squad in Italy shortly after the German surrender in 1945.

Mussolini began his career as a socialist politician and journalist for the Avanti! newspaper. In 1912, he joined the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), but he was ousted for urging military action in World War I, which contradicted the party’s neutrality stance.

Mussolini started a new publication, Il Popolo d’Italia, in 1914 and served in the Royal Italian Army until he was wounded and discharged in 1917.

Mussolini denounced the PSI, his ideas shifting to Italian nationalism rather than socialism, and eventually created the fascist movement, which came to oppose egalitarianism and class strife, instead favouring “revolutionary nationalism” that cut across class lines.