WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.820 Welcome to the Deep Dive, the place where we 00:00:01.820 --> 00:00:04.639 take the vast, often contradictory flow of historical 00:00:04.639 --> 00:00:07.900 sources, articles, research papers, personal 00:00:07.900 --> 00:00:10.320 notes, and distill it into the knowledge you 00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:12.779 need, giving you the shortcut to being truly 00:00:12.779 --> 00:00:15.939 well -informed. Today, we're embarking on a mission 00:00:15.939 --> 00:00:20.519 of immense scope, unraveling the life and dramatic 00:00:20.519 --> 00:00:23.879 downfall of Benito Amalquer Andrea Mussolini. 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:26.559 Right. And he wasn't just the dictator of Italy 00:00:26.559 --> 00:00:29.440 for two decades. He was the founder of fascism 00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:32.039 itself, an ideology that, you know, really defined 00:00:32.039 --> 00:00:34.840 a huge part of the 20th century. And our sources 00:00:34.840 --> 00:00:38.179 paint a picture of just profound ideological 00:00:38.179 --> 00:00:40.840 schizophrenia. So that's our goal today. We're 00:00:40.840 --> 00:00:43.420 going to meticulously analyze Mussolini's complete 00:00:43.420 --> 00:00:46.020 transformation. I mean, from this ardent socialist, 00:00:46.219 --> 00:00:48.600 a prominent Marxist journalist, all the way through 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:50.579 his brutal consolidation of power. And then into 00:00:50.579 --> 00:00:52.600 the contradictions of his rule and finally the 00:00:52.600 --> 00:00:55.479 shocking violent circumstances of his collapse 00:00:55.479 --> 00:00:57.500 and his execution. And if you only know the history 00:00:57.500 --> 00:00:59.899 of Il Duce, you know, the man who appears so 00:00:59.899 --> 00:01:01.859 strong and unyielding, you have to start at the 00:01:01.859 --> 00:01:04.450 beginning. You really do, because his origins 00:01:04.450 --> 00:01:07.930 read like a political obituary for the man he 00:01:07.930 --> 00:01:10.689 eventually became. They're full of these incredible 00:01:10.689 --> 00:01:12.870 contradictions. Okay, let's unpack this then. 00:01:12.989 --> 00:01:14.989 Just look at the names his parents gave him. 00:01:15.069 --> 00:01:17.609 Benito. Named after the liberal Mexican president, 00:01:17.829 --> 00:01:21.109 Benito Juarez, a revolutionary hero. A revolutionary. 00:01:21.609 --> 00:01:24.870 And then his middle names, Andrea and Amalcar. 00:01:25.150 --> 00:01:27.049 Taken directly from Italian socialist. Yeah. 00:01:27.269 --> 00:01:30.659 Andrea Costa and Amalcar Cipriani. So this was 00:01:30.659 --> 00:01:33.799 a child who was, politically speaking, baptized 00:01:33.799 --> 00:01:37.340 into the radical anti -establishment left. It's 00:01:37.340 --> 00:01:39.819 the perfect symbolic start for a deeply fractured 00:01:39.819 --> 00:01:42.200 political life. You have his father, Alessandro, 00:01:42.439 --> 00:01:44.900 a blacksmith and a committed socialist radical. 00:01:45.260 --> 00:01:47.980 And his mother, Rosa, was a devout Catholic school 00:01:47.980 --> 00:01:50.659 teacher. Exactly. So you have this tension from 00:01:50.659 --> 00:01:53.200 day one, revolutionary atheism versus conservative 00:01:53.200 --> 00:01:55.060 faith. It seems like it was just hardwired into 00:01:55.060 --> 00:01:57.099 Mussolini from the very beginning. And it eventually 00:01:57.099 --> 00:01:59.959 manifested as this political... opportunism that 00:01:59.959 --> 00:02:02.280 just jettisoned every single principle he was 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:05.280 raised with. That's it. So we are truly charting 00:02:05.280 --> 00:02:08.120 the ideological course of a man named after three 00:02:08.120 --> 00:02:11.099 leftist heroes who ended his career as the most 00:02:11.099 --> 00:02:14.039 vehement anti -communist totalitarian leader 00:02:14.039 --> 00:02:16.939 in Western Europe. That's our mission. Understanding 00:02:16.939 --> 00:02:20.180 how that turn happened. OK, so let's begin. We're 00:02:20.180 --> 00:02:23.789 in 1883 in Dovia di Predapio. The sources note 00:02:23.789 --> 00:02:26.330 he had humble origins. His father was a working 00:02:26.330 --> 00:02:28.550 class blacksmith. But we shouldn't picture him 00:02:28.550 --> 00:02:31.349 as, you know, poverty stricken. His father was 00:02:31.349 --> 00:02:34.150 an educated, very active local socialist politician. 00:02:34.409 --> 00:02:37.229 He even served as a deputy mayor. So young Benito 00:02:37.229 --> 00:02:40.090 had a political education right from birth. Absolutely. 00:02:40.330 --> 00:02:42.310 Alessandro was steeped in that tradition of Italian 00:02:42.310 --> 00:02:44.689 Republican nationalism. He admired figures like 00:02:44.689 --> 00:02:47.289 Mazzini and Garibaldi, but he filtered it all 00:02:47.289 --> 00:02:50.669 through this humanitarian and almost anarchistic 00:02:50.669 --> 00:02:53.030 socialist lens. And that fusion, that fierce 00:02:53.030 --> 00:02:55.430 nationalism mixed with revolutionary fervor, 00:02:55.430 --> 00:02:58.330 that was his father's legacy to him. It was. 00:02:58.409 --> 00:03:00.530 And it's one that Benito never fully shook off, 00:03:00.650 --> 00:03:02.349 even when he completely abandoned Karl Marx. 00:03:02.759 --> 00:03:05.259 And even as a kid, he showed signs of the personality 00:03:05.259 --> 00:03:08.360 that would mark him as a future autocrat. Our 00:03:08.360 --> 00:03:11.500 sources describe him as prone to proud, grumpy 00:03:11.500 --> 00:03:14.020 and violent behavior. Right. There's that famous 00:03:14.020 --> 00:03:16.419 story about him injuring a classmate with a penknife. 00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:19.259 At a boarding school, of all places, it's often 00:03:19.259 --> 00:03:21.699 used to illustrate this early temperament, a 00:03:21.699 --> 00:03:24.860 kind of raw, uncompromising nature. It really 00:03:24.860 --> 00:03:27.599 speaks to his inherent volatility. But despite 00:03:27.599 --> 00:03:30.400 those early troubles, he was clearly intellectually 00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:33.680 gifted. I mean, he managed to qualify as an elementary 00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:36.879 school master in 1901. But his ambition was never 00:03:36.879 --> 00:03:39.439 really about teaching, was it? No, not at all. 00:03:39.479 --> 00:03:41.879 It was always tethered to political action, to 00:03:41.879 --> 00:03:44.120 intellectual ferment. And that led him toward 00:03:44.120 --> 00:03:46.740 self -study and debate, not the classroom. And 00:03:46.740 --> 00:03:50.039 that ambition takes him in 1902 across the border 00:03:50.039 --> 00:03:52.659 to Switzerland. He was supposedly looking for 00:03:52.659 --> 00:03:55.770 work. And he did briefly hold jobs as a stonemason 00:03:55.770 --> 00:03:58.469 and a laborer. But he was also explicitly trying 00:03:58.469 --> 00:04:01.629 to avoid compulsory military service. Yes. And 00:04:01.629 --> 00:04:03.909 what's so fascinating is that Switzerland became 00:04:03.909 --> 00:04:06.889 his philosophical laboratory. This was a crucial 00:04:06.889 --> 00:04:09.370 period where, you know, the roots of fascism 00:04:09.370 --> 00:04:12.569 were unknowingly being forged. This is really 00:04:12.569 --> 00:04:14.650 the critical period for any learner trying to 00:04:14.650 --> 00:04:16.509 understand Mussolini's intellectual machinery, 00:04:16.730 --> 00:04:18.769 isn't it? He wasn't just reading socialist tracts. 00:04:19.310 --> 00:04:21.949 Not by a long shot. He was deeply immersed in 00:04:21.949 --> 00:04:24.949 radical, often contradictory philosophical text. 00:04:25.129 --> 00:04:28.310 He taught himself French and German. He was translating 00:04:28.310 --> 00:04:30.529 thinkers like Schopenhauer and Kant. He was a 00:04:30.529 --> 00:04:33.230 true autodidact. Biographers later described 00:04:33.230 --> 00:04:36.290 him as easily the best educated and most sophisticated 00:04:36.290 --> 00:04:38.670 of the dictators. It's true. He was building 00:04:38.670 --> 00:04:41.310 his own ideology piece by piece. So who are the 00:04:41.310 --> 00:04:43.529 non -Marxist figures that most fundamentally 00:04:43.529 --> 00:04:46.370 warped his socialist worldview during this intense 00:04:46.370 --> 00:04:49.480 period of study? We have Marx, obviously, but 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:51.220 the real structural shift seems to have come 00:04:51.220 --> 00:04:53.680 from elsewhere. The trio that provided the intellectual 00:04:53.680 --> 00:04:57.779 ammunition against Orthodox Marxism were Friedrich 00:04:57.779 --> 00:05:00.540 Nietzsche, the elite sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, 00:05:00.639 --> 00:05:03.500 and most crucially, the revolutionary syndicalist 00:05:03.500 --> 00:05:05.800 Georges Sorel. OK, Nietzsche, I can see that. 00:05:05.959 --> 00:05:08.399 Mussolini just absorbed Nietzsche's scorn for 00:05:08.399 --> 00:05:11.699 the masses, for democracy, for egalitarianism. 00:05:12.079 --> 00:05:15.040 He replaced that socialist concept of class solidarity 00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:18.500 with the idea of the superior individual. The 00:05:18.500 --> 00:05:22.040 ubermensch, the man destined to lead and defy 00:05:22.040 --> 00:05:25.000 conventional morality. Exactly. So the socialist 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:27.639 intellectual suddenly finds a philosophical justification 00:05:27.639 --> 00:05:31.500 for his own superior ego, for his rejection of 00:05:31.500 --> 00:05:33.439 the democratic process. But Nietzsche doesn't 00:05:33.439 --> 00:05:35.259 really give you a political program. He just 00:05:35.259 --> 00:05:38.019 gives you a self -justification. Sorrel, on the 00:05:38.019 --> 00:05:40.459 other hand, Sorrel provides the methodology for 00:05:40.459 --> 00:05:43.300 political change. Precisely. Sorrel, a French 00:05:43.300 --> 00:05:45.459 syndicalist, argued that liberal democracy was 00:05:45.459 --> 00:05:48.339 decadent and capitalism was crumbling. And crucially, 00:05:48.439 --> 00:05:51.439 he rejected the dry economic theories of classical 00:05:51.439 --> 00:05:54.000 Marxism. The ones that promised a socialist paradise 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:56.480 through predictable historical forces. Right. 00:05:56.620 --> 00:05:58.600 Sorrel said you couldn't wait for history. You 00:05:58.600 --> 00:06:01.420 needed action. He emphasized the potent use of 00:06:01.420 --> 00:06:03.620 violence, direct action like the general strike, 00:06:03.759 --> 00:06:06.379 and the necessity of a political myth. And that 00:06:06.379 --> 00:06:08.939 idea of myth, that's where Sorrell connects directly 00:06:08.939 --> 00:06:11.600 to fascism, isn't it? He's basically saying political 00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:14.620 movements succeed not through rational debate, 00:06:14.819 --> 00:06:18.079 but through emotional appeals, visceral symbols 00:06:18.079 --> 00:06:21.540 and a unifying story. A myth that drives the 00:06:21.540 --> 00:06:24.620 masses to action. It is the absolute opposite 00:06:24.620 --> 00:06:27.180 of scientific socialism. It's the core ideological 00:06:27.180 --> 00:06:30.199 transplant. Mussolini took that from Sorel and 00:06:30.199 --> 00:06:33.319 used it to build fascism. The entire fascist 00:06:33.319 --> 00:06:36.339 political style, the uniforms, the slogans, the 00:06:36.339 --> 00:06:39.240 cult of personality, the constant physical mobilization, 00:06:39.339 --> 00:06:42.379 it's pure Sorelian myth and direct action. You 00:06:42.379 --> 00:06:44.439 abandon the complex rationalism of socialist 00:06:44.439 --> 00:06:47.779 theory for raw revolutionary emotion and speed. 00:06:48.250 --> 00:06:50.389 But even with all these radical, you know, anti 00:06:50.389 --> 00:06:52.350 -Marxist undercurrents that he was absorbing, 00:06:52.490 --> 00:06:54.970 he was still outwardly a leading socialist figure 00:06:54.970 --> 00:06:57.589 for years. For over a decade, yes. He was tirelessly 00:06:57.589 --> 00:06:59.629 active in the Italian socialist movement in Switzerland. 00:06:59.889 --> 00:07:01.810 He even served as the secretary of the Italian 00:07:01.810 --> 00:07:04.290 Workers Union in Lausanne. And his radical activism 00:07:04.290 --> 00:07:06.550 frequently got him into trouble. He was arrested 00:07:06.550 --> 00:07:10.029 by Bernese police in 1903 for advocating a violent 00:07:10.029 --> 00:07:12.970 general strike. So he was already embracing civilian 00:07:12.970 --> 00:07:15.889 direct action long before he ever founded fascism. 00:07:16.089 --> 00:07:18.730 When he returned to Italy, his talent as a polemicist 00:07:18.730 --> 00:07:21.129 and writer quickly propelled him up the ranks 00:07:21.129 --> 00:07:24.230 of the Italian Socialist Party, the PSI. He became 00:07:24.230 --> 00:07:27.110 a rising star. By 1912, he was on the national 00:07:27.110 --> 00:07:30.170 directorate of the PSI. The party saw his talent 00:07:30.170 --> 00:07:32.850 and appointed him editor of the official PSI 00:07:32.850 --> 00:07:35.649 newspaper, Avanti. And that was a pivotal moment 00:07:35.649 --> 00:07:38.329 for him to wield mass influence. He leveraged 00:07:38.329 --> 00:07:40.790 that position brilliantly, didn't he? Oh, extremely 00:07:40.790 --> 00:07:43.709 successfully. Under his aggressive and sensationalist 00:07:43.709 --> 00:07:46.089 leadership, Avanti served... Circulation didn't 00:07:46.089 --> 00:07:48.610 just grow, it skyrocketed. It went from about 00:07:48.610 --> 00:07:51.610 20 ,000 copies to a massive 100 ,000. Which just 00:07:51.610 --> 00:07:54.129 proves that, above all else, Mussolini was a 00:07:54.129 --> 00:07:56.670 phenomenal propagandist. A shrewd manipulator 00:07:56.670 --> 00:07:59.370 of public attention. It was a skill he perfected 00:07:59.370 --> 00:08:01.850 and carried directly into his dictatorship. He 00:08:01.850 --> 00:08:03.750 understood media and how to reach the masses 00:08:03.750 --> 00:08:06.069 through emotion. And yet, what exactly was his 00:08:06.069 --> 00:08:08.410 flavor of socialism during this period? Given 00:08:08.410 --> 00:08:11.290 his exposure to Nietzsche and Sorel, was he a 00:08:11.290 --> 00:08:13.560 true believer in Marxist theory? While he certainly 00:08:13.560 --> 00:08:15.980 presented himself as one, he'd call himself an 00:08:15.980 --> 00:08:18.839 authoritarian communist and openly declare Karl 00:08:18.839 --> 00:08:21.399 Marx the greatest of all theorists of socialism. 00:08:21.680 --> 00:08:23.899 He could quote the literature extensively. But 00:08:23.899 --> 00:08:27.060 simultaneously, that Nietzschean ego was fully 00:08:27.060 --> 00:08:30.300 active. He was intensely anti -clerical, publishing 00:08:30.300 --> 00:08:32.539 works like his novel The Cardinal's Mistress 00:08:32.539 --> 00:08:35.700 and attacking religion as a disease of the psyche. 00:08:36.519 --> 00:08:38.899 He called Christianity a promoter of resignation 00:08:38.899 --> 00:08:41.919 and cowardice. So he believed in the class struggle, 00:08:42.019 --> 00:08:45.080 but not necessarily in equality or humility. 00:08:45.259 --> 00:08:48.299 He rejected the very spirit of egalitarianism 00:08:48.299 --> 00:08:51.429 that socialism stood for. Precisely. He was replacing 00:08:51.429 --> 00:08:53.649 it with the idea of a superior man leading the 00:08:53.649 --> 00:08:55.970 revolution. He was fundamentally influenced by 00:08:55.970 --> 00:08:58.029 that Nietzschean rejection of the herd mentality. 00:08:58.269 --> 00:09:00.570 He felt orthodox socialism had become predictable, 00:09:00.710 --> 00:09:03.350 bureaucratic, and timid. It had faltered, in 00:09:03.350 --> 00:09:05.129 his words, because it was too focused on Marxist 00:09:05.129 --> 00:09:07.629 determinism and reformism instead of the revolutionary 00:09:07.629 --> 00:09:10.850 violence Sorel advocated. He was, as he sometimes 00:09:10.850 --> 00:09:14.230 styled himself, vero heretico, the sincere heretic. 00:09:14.509 --> 00:09:17.549 Already an internal opponent of the party orthodoxy 00:09:17.549 --> 00:09:20.179 he was supposed to be leading. This inherent 00:09:20.179 --> 00:09:23.080 ideological tension between the socialist journalists 00:09:23.080 --> 00:09:26.779 and the Nietzschean ego just explodes in 1914 00:09:26.779 --> 00:09:29.620 with the outbreak of World War I. It really does. 00:09:29.779 --> 00:09:32.899 The Italian Socialist Party, the PSI, took a 00:09:32.899 --> 00:09:35.860 firm stance of neutrality. A position Mussolini 00:09:35.860 --> 00:09:38.740 initially supported. But the shift that follows 00:09:38.740 --> 00:09:41.840 is one of the most abrupt and consequential ideological 00:09:41.840 --> 00:09:44.460 pivots in modern political history. It was a 00:09:44.460 --> 00:09:46.740 defining break. Yeah. He went from international 00:09:46.740 --> 00:09:49.820 class solidarity to revolutionary nationalism. 00:09:50.320 --> 00:09:52.860 Within weeks of the war starting, Mussolini became 00:09:52.860 --> 00:09:55.500 this fervent interventionist. How did he justify 00:09:55.500 --> 00:09:57.799 that? He argued the war wasn't some imperialist 00:09:57.799 --> 00:10:00.120 conflict to be avoided, but a revolutionary opportunity. 00:10:00.580 --> 00:10:02.659 He believed it would fulfill the unfinished goals 00:10:02.659 --> 00:10:05.220 of Italian unification by liberating Italians 00:10:05.220 --> 00:10:07.679 under Habsburg rule. And he also argued it would 00:10:07.679 --> 00:10:09.639 bring about social revolution by overthrowing 00:10:09.639 --> 00:10:11.539 the reactionary monarchies in Germany and Austria 00:10:11.539 --> 00:10:14.080 -Hungary. Exactly, which he saw as obstacles 00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:16.559 to a true socialist state. So he essentially 00:10:16.559 --> 00:10:20.039 repackaged the war as a revolutionary act. But 00:10:20.039 --> 00:10:22.919 that went directly against the core internationalist 00:10:22.919 --> 00:10:25.960 tenets of the PSI. And he was promptly expelled 00:10:25.960 --> 00:10:28.600 from the party for it. His decision was seen 00:10:28.600 --> 00:10:31.600 as a profound betrayal of working class internationalism. 00:10:31.850 --> 00:10:34.350 What's historically revealing, though, is a police 00:10:34.350 --> 00:10:36.490 report from that time. It actually supported 00:10:36.490 --> 00:10:39.210 his ideological sincerity. Right. It noted his 00:10:39.210 --> 00:10:41.830 apostasy was not due to self -interest or money, 00:10:41.950 --> 00:10:44.990 but because he was a sincere and passionate advocate 00:10:44.990 --> 00:10:47.950 of war. He genuinely believed he was acting to 00:10:47.950 --> 00:10:50.529 transform the nation. Yet the very next step 00:10:50.529 --> 00:10:53.090 he took, founding his own newspaper, Il Popolo 00:10:53.090 --> 00:10:55.570 d 'Italia, shows that the immediate need for 00:10:55.570 --> 00:10:58.250 capital forced a dramatic turn away from proletarian 00:10:58.250 --> 00:11:00.889 ideology. This is where we see the pragmatist, 00:11:00.889 --> 00:11:02.860 not the... the philosopher, fully take over. 00:11:03.039 --> 00:11:05.500 Launching a major newspaper requires substantial 00:11:05.500 --> 00:11:07.759 capital. So where did this recently expelled 00:11:07.759 --> 00:11:10.919 communist journalist find the cash? And the sources 00:11:10.919 --> 00:11:13.600 are explicit. He received funds from a coalition 00:11:13.600 --> 00:11:16.379 of deeply vested interests. Interests that were 00:11:16.379 --> 00:11:19.039 the exact opposite of his former ideological 00:11:19.039 --> 00:11:21.600 base. We're talking about engineering giants 00:11:21.600 --> 00:11:25.309 like Fiat and Ansaldo. domestic industrial interests 00:11:25.309 --> 00:11:28.250 who stood to gain massively from military contracts. 00:11:28.470 --> 00:11:30.929 And shockingly, he was financed directly by the 00:11:30.929 --> 00:11:32.649 governments of France and Britain. Absolutely. 00:11:33.190 --> 00:11:35.669 They were desperate for Italy to join the Allied 00:11:35.669 --> 00:11:38.620 side. The historical gravity of this cannot be 00:11:38.620 --> 00:11:41.279 overstated. The man who claimed to fight for 00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:43.820 the working class was instantaneously bankrolled 00:11:43.820 --> 00:11:46.740 by national capitalism and foreign imperial powers. 00:11:46.940 --> 00:11:50.000 That financial reliance cemented the true birth 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:52.860 of fascism, the abandonment of the class struggle 00:11:52.860 --> 00:11:55.809 in favor of a national synthesis. By December 00:11:55.809 --> 00:11:58.889 1914, he was openly denouncing orthodox socialism. 00:11:59.149 --> 00:12:01.470 He argued that it had failed because it blindly 00:12:01.470 --> 00:12:04.009 adhered to class distinction while completely 00:12:04.009 --> 00:12:06.429 ignoring the primacy of national identity. He 00:12:06.429 --> 00:12:08.289 shifted the definition of the nation away from 00:12:08.289 --> 00:12:10.549 political borders toward a shared palpitating 00:12:10.549 --> 00:12:14.779 reality defined by. Sentiments, traditions, language, 00:12:14.899 --> 00:12:17.159 culture, and race. The class struggle, in his 00:12:17.159 --> 00:12:19.720 view, was a vain formula if the national problem 00:12:19.720 --> 00:12:22.139 hadn't been resolved first. So the goal was no 00:12:22.139 --> 00:12:24.639 longer the dictatorship of the proletariat. No. 00:12:24.980 --> 00:12:27.879 Now it was the rule of a revolutionary vanguard 00:12:27.879 --> 00:12:31.370 elite. United by nationalism drawn from any class, 00:12:31.549 --> 00:12:33.549 whether you were a factory worker or an industrial 00:12:33.549 --> 00:12:37.129 titan. And that new, unified national identity 00:12:37.129 --> 00:12:40.269 transcending traditional class lines was the 00:12:40.269 --> 00:12:43.529 ideological foundation of the Fasci. And importantly, 00:12:43.669 --> 00:12:46.090 he validated this new nationalism with personal 00:12:46.090 --> 00:12:49.330 sacrifice. He volunteered for service in 1915, 00:12:49.649 --> 00:12:52.350 joined the Bersaglieri, and served nine months 00:12:52.350 --> 00:12:55.049 of active trench warfare. He was eventually promoted 00:12:55.049 --> 00:12:57.750 to corporal for his exemplary conduct and fighting 00:12:57.750 --> 00:13:00.470 quality. He secured his bona fides as a veteran, 00:13:00.710 --> 00:13:03.049 a status that would become crucial for his movement. 00:13:03.350 --> 00:13:06.610 His service ended in February 1917 after he was 00:13:06.610 --> 00:13:09.269 severely wounded by a mortar explosion. It left 00:13:09.269 --> 00:13:11.789 him with over 40 metal shards lodged in his body. 00:13:11.970 --> 00:13:14.450 And this injury, which was nearly fatal, elevated 00:13:14.450 --> 00:13:17.090 him to the status of a war hero, a man who had 00:13:17.090 --> 00:13:19.269 bled for the interventionist cause. Following 00:13:19.269 --> 00:13:22.289 the war in 1918, he began explicitly calling 00:13:22.289 --> 00:13:25.320 for a strongman. a dictator ruthless and energetic 00:13:25.320 --> 00:13:27.639 enough to make a clean sweep to revive Italy, 00:13:27.860 --> 00:13:30.320 which was suffering from post -war malaise. Which 00:13:30.320 --> 00:13:32.899 leads directly to the formation of fascism itself 00:13:32.899 --> 00:13:36.379 in 1919, the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento. 00:13:36.799 --> 00:13:39.200 drawing from Plato's authoritarian republic rule 00:13:39.200 --> 00:13:42.500 by an elite opposition to democracy and Cyrillian 00:13:42.500 --> 00:13:45.379 syndicalism with its violence and myth. And that 00:13:45.379 --> 00:13:47.820 philosophy took practical form in the black shirts, 00:13:47.980 --> 00:13:50.539 the squadristi. This is where Sorrel's philosophical 00:13:50.539 --> 00:13:53.820 justification for violence morphed into a practical 00:13:53.820 --> 00:13:57.379 political tool. These armed squads, often composed 00:13:57.379 --> 00:14:00.899 of demobilized war veterans, specialized in brutal 00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:04.220 Discipline violence aimed squarely at dismantling 00:14:04.220 --> 00:14:06.779 socialist and communist organizations. And this 00:14:06.779 --> 00:14:09.480 is the crucial step. The Italian liberal government, 00:14:09.620 --> 00:14:12.980 which was terrified of a Bolshevik style communist 00:14:12.980 --> 00:14:15.440 revolution at home, essentially just allowed 00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:18.059 this political violence to happen. That passive 00:14:18.059 --> 00:14:20.379 and often active support from the state was the 00:14:20.379 --> 00:14:23.220 key accelerator for fascist power. Conservative 00:14:23.220 --> 00:14:25.480 elites and property owners saw the black shirts 00:14:25.480 --> 00:14:28.759 as their bulwark against the left. By 1921, the 00:14:28.759 --> 00:14:30.940 movement had transitioned into the National Fascist 00:14:30.940 --> 00:14:34.480 Party. And by October 1922, they were ready to 00:14:34.480 --> 00:14:36.740 demand power through the March on Rome. But the 00:14:36.740 --> 00:14:39.500 sources are clear. The March on Rome wasn't a 00:14:39.500 --> 00:14:42.139 military conquest. It was a psychological and 00:14:42.139 --> 00:14:46.299 political operation. Right. While 30 ,000 blackshirts 00:14:46.299 --> 00:14:49.639 mobilized, they were poorly armed. They likely 00:14:49.639 --> 00:14:51.460 would have been easily defeated by the standing 00:14:51.460 --> 00:14:54.019 Italian army if orders had been given. The real 00:14:54.019 --> 00:14:57.509 crisis was political. Prime Minister Luigi Factor 00:14:57.509 --> 00:15:01.129 requested King Victor Emmanuel III declare martial 00:15:01.129 --> 00:15:04.029 law to suppress the mobilization. But the king 00:15:04.029 --> 00:15:06.549 refused, sealing the fate of the Italian liberal 00:15:06.549 --> 00:15:09.330 state. We have to analyze this. Why would the 00:15:09.330 --> 00:15:11.830 king not use the full force of the state against 00:15:11.830 --> 00:15:14.370 this militia? This is the critical political 00:15:14.370 --> 00:15:18.070 miscalculation. Historians suggest the king feared 00:15:18.070 --> 00:15:20.389 civil war if the army was ordered to fire on 00:15:20.389 --> 00:15:22.629 the fascists. But there's a stronger argument 00:15:22.629 --> 00:15:25.230 rooted in the sources. Which is? The conservative 00:15:25.230 --> 00:15:27.590 establishment led by the king desperately hoped 00:15:27.590 --> 00:15:29.830 to co -opt Mussolini. They believed they could 00:15:29.830 --> 00:15:31.970 use his popularity and the brute force of the 00:15:31.970 --> 00:15:35.110 fascists to restore order, eliminate the threat 00:15:35.110 --> 00:15:37.289 from the left, and then just manage him within 00:15:37.289 --> 00:15:39.409 the constitutional framework. What a stunning 00:15:39.409 --> 00:15:43.149 underestimate of his ambition. A fatal one. Mussolini 00:15:43.149 --> 00:15:45.409 wasn't even in Rome. He was waiting safely in 00:15:45.409 --> 00:15:47.590 Milan and was simply summoned to become prime 00:15:47.590 --> 00:15:50.360 minister. It was a constitutional transfer of 00:15:50.360 --> 00:15:53.080 power achieved under duress, an appointment achieved 00:15:53.080 --> 00:15:56.860 via threat, political paralysis, and the underestimation 00:15:56.860 --> 00:15:59.240 of the ruling class. So Mussolini takes power 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:03.139 in October 1922. Despite the theatrical violence 00:16:03.139 --> 00:16:05.600 of the March on Rome, the fascists were initially 00:16:05.600 --> 00:16:08.759 a minority in the new coalition government. How 00:16:08.759 --> 00:16:11.539 did he avoid being immediately outvoted and deposed? 00:16:11.659 --> 00:16:13.139 That's where the shrewdness of his transition 00:16:13.139 --> 00:16:15.840 comes in. He didn't just seize power, he legally 00:16:15.840 --> 00:16:18.549 undermined it. piece by piece. His first step 00:16:18.549 --> 00:16:21.330 was immediate. Using a provision within the Constitution, 00:16:21.750 --> 00:16:24.730 he obtained full dictatorial powers for one year. 00:16:24.909 --> 00:16:27.070 Which gave him the time and legal authority to 00:16:27.070 --> 00:16:29.470 begin restructuring the state without immediate 00:16:29.470 --> 00:16:32.149 parliamentary resistance. Exactly. His stated 00:16:32.149 --> 00:16:34.830 goal was the eventual establishment of a totalitarian 00:16:34.830 --> 00:16:38.070 state with himself as il duce. So how did he 00:16:38.070 --> 00:16:41.429 ensure future parliamentary dominance even after 00:16:41.429 --> 00:16:44.610 his temporary dictatorial powers expired? Through 00:16:44.610 --> 00:16:48.179 the 1923 acerbo law. This was probably the most 00:16:48.179 --> 00:16:50.659 cynical piece of electoral legislation in Italian 00:16:50.659 --> 00:16:53.559 history. It turned Italy into a single national 00:16:53.559 --> 00:16:56.879 constituency. And it guaranteed that the party 00:16:56.879 --> 00:16:58.919 or a list receiving the largest share of the 00:16:58.919 --> 00:17:02.299 vote, provided it was at least 25%, would automatically 00:17:02.299 --> 00:17:04.579 receive two -thirds of the seats in Parliament. 00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:07.259 which effectively made it impossible for any 00:17:07.259 --> 00:17:09.519 organized opposition to challenge the fascists. 00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:13.200 It rewarded intimidation and manufactured majorities. 00:17:13.319 --> 00:17:16.000 It ensured permanent fascist political dominance, 00:17:16.279 --> 00:17:19.039 but the facade of constitutionalism collapsed 00:17:19.039 --> 00:17:22.039 entirely during the Mattiotti crisis in 1924. 00:17:22.319 --> 00:17:24.339 Yes, this was when the violence that brought 00:17:24.339 --> 00:17:26.960 him to power came back to haunt him. Socialist 00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:29.559 deputy Giacomo Mattiotti openly denounced the 00:17:29.559 --> 00:17:31.980 electoral fraud enabled by the acerbal law. He 00:17:31.980 --> 00:17:34.039 basically called the new government illegitimate. 00:17:34.059 --> 00:17:36.539 And he was promptly kidnapped and murdered. The 00:17:36.539 --> 00:17:38.900 murder was quickly linked to a fascist squadrist 00:17:38.900 --> 00:17:41.660 leader and the political fallout was immediate 00:17:41.660 --> 00:17:44.720 and catastrophic. Public opinion turned sharply 00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:47.359 against Mussolini. The opposition in protest 00:17:47.359 --> 00:17:49.980 withdrew from parliament in what was called the 00:17:49.980 --> 00:17:52.720 Aventine secession. They were hoping to compel 00:17:52.720 --> 00:17:55.700 the king to dismiss Mussolini. But the king didn't 00:17:55.700 --> 00:17:58.299 act. He feared renewed political instability, 00:17:58.700 --> 00:18:01.460 maybe even a second more violent fascist coup. 00:18:01.640 --> 00:18:04.720 He stalled. And meanwhile, Mussolini was under 00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:07.119 immense pressure from his own hardline militants. 00:18:07.299 --> 00:18:09.859 His own blackshirt commanders gave him an ultimatum. 00:18:10.380 --> 00:18:12.839 Abandon the pretense of democracy or we will 00:18:12.839 --> 00:18:15.720 abandon you. So he was caught. Faced with internal 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:18.420 party collapse and a potential revolt by his 00:18:18.420 --> 00:18:21.859 own forces, he chose consolidation. On January 00:18:21.859 --> 00:18:25.440 3, 1925, he gave his truculent speech, where 00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:28.180 he openly accepted political, moral, and historical 00:18:28.180 --> 00:18:30.720 responsibility for all the squadristy violence. 00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:33.059 And that ended the crisis by ushering in the 00:18:33.059 --> 00:18:36.220 formal police state. By 1927, the scaffolding 00:18:36.220 --> 00:18:38.200 of the dictatorship was firmly in place. His 00:18:38.200 --> 00:18:40.240 title changed from President of the Council of 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:42.460 Ministers to Head of the Government, making him 00:18:42.460 --> 00:18:44.900 answerable only to the king. not parliament. 00:18:45.039 --> 00:18:47.299 A huge step toward becoming a legal dictator. 00:18:47.640 --> 00:18:50.319 Then all other political parties were outlawed 00:18:50.319 --> 00:18:55.119 by 1926. And by 1928, an electoral law abolished 00:18:55.119 --> 00:18:57.579 elections entirely. They were replaced by these 00:18:57.579 --> 00:19:00.079 plebiscites where voters could only approve or 00:19:00.079 --> 00:19:03.099 reject a single list of candidates selected by 00:19:03.099 --> 00:19:05.589 the fascist grand council. And even though the 00:19:05.589 --> 00:19:07.589 Grand Council was constitutionally the highest 00:19:07.589 --> 00:19:10.690 authority, it was entirely subservient to him. 00:19:10.789 --> 00:19:13.250 Absolutely. The sources stressed that only Mussolini 00:19:13.250 --> 00:19:15.670 had the power to summon the council and determine 00:19:15.670 --> 00:19:18.089 its agenda. It was designed purely as a rubber 00:19:18.089 --> 00:19:20.470 stamp. Centralization was everything. He often 00:19:20.470 --> 00:19:22.450 held up to seven crucial ministries simultaneously. 00:19:23.109 --> 00:19:26.349 Interior, foreign affairs, war. All of them. 00:19:26.670 --> 00:19:28.930 He ensured all threads of authority ran directly 00:19:28.930 --> 00:19:30.970 through his office. And speaking of centralized 00:19:30.970 --> 00:19:34.470 control, this period also saw his dramatic campaign 00:19:34.470 --> 00:19:37.250 against the Sicilian mafia, assigning Cesare 00:19:37.250 --> 00:19:39.769 Mori, the Iron Prefect, the mission of eradication. 00:19:40.069 --> 00:19:42.670 Mussolini saw the mafia as a direct threat to 00:19:42.670 --> 00:19:45.410 the authority and prestige of the state. He gave 00:19:45.410 --> 00:19:47.829 Mori carte blanche, demanding the authority of 00:19:47.829 --> 00:19:49.869 the state be absolutely, I repeat, absolutely 00:19:49.869 --> 00:19:53.069 reestablished in Sicily. And Mori acted with 00:19:53.069 --> 00:19:56.190 stunning brutality. Mass arrests, taking women 00:19:56.190 --> 00:19:58.349 and children hostage, the siege of towns, the 00:19:58.349 --> 00:20:01.269 use of torture. In terms of raw statistics, it 00:20:01.269 --> 00:20:04.269 worked. The murder rate in Palermo province dropped 00:20:04.269 --> 00:20:06.789 dramatically. It was a huge propaganda success 00:20:06.789 --> 00:20:08.650 for the government, showing they could deliver 00:20:08.650 --> 00:20:10.890 order where the liberal state had failed. But 00:20:10.890 --> 00:20:12.849 the success of the campaign brought an inherent 00:20:12.849 --> 00:20:16.029 danger to the fascist establishment itself. That's 00:20:16.029 --> 00:20:18.710 the irony. Maury's inquiries inevitably began 00:20:18.710 --> 00:20:21.029 revealing significant collusion between mafia 00:20:21.029 --> 00:20:23.569 families and the local fascist political leadership. 00:20:23.769 --> 00:20:26.869 Corruption land grabs. All of it. So Maury was 00:20:26.869 --> 00:20:29.390 dismissed in 1929 under the propaganda claim 00:20:29.390 --> 00:20:32.049 that the mafia was now completely defeated, which 00:20:32.049 --> 00:20:34.130 effectively terminated the investigation before 00:20:34.130 --> 00:20:36.069 it could expose high -level fascist corruption. 00:20:36.390 --> 00:20:38.630 Let's turn to the economic and propaganda front. 00:20:39.589 --> 00:20:41.950 His dictatorship relied heavily on transforming 00:20:41.950 --> 00:20:44.609 Italy into a modern, powerful state through these 00:20:44.609 --> 00:20:46.730 highly theatrical government initiatives, the 00:20:46.730 --> 00:20:50.710 famous battles. Yes, the battles were signature 00:20:50.710 --> 00:20:54.269 Mussolini policies. They were conceived as spectacles 00:20:54.269 --> 00:20:57.069 of national unity and purpose rather than purely 00:20:57.069 --> 00:21:00.230 rational economic programs. The most prominent 00:21:00.230 --> 00:21:02.430 was the Battle for Wheat. Which was launched 00:21:02.430 --> 00:21:05.369 to achieve agricultural self -sufficiency or 00:21:05.369 --> 00:21:09.789 autarky. It sounds laudable on the surface, achieving 00:21:09.789 --> 00:21:12.509 food independence, but it was a classic example 00:21:12.509 --> 00:21:15.150 of propaganda trumping economics. What were the 00:21:15.150 --> 00:21:18.269 real world costs? The costs were high. While 00:21:18.269 --> 00:21:21.170 it succeeded in creating 5 ,000 new farms, famously 00:21:21.170 --> 00:21:23.250 draining the Pantene marshes and establishing 00:21:23.250 --> 00:21:26.390 new towns like Latoria and Sabaudia, it was deeply 00:21:26.390 --> 00:21:29.009 inefficient. It required high tariffs to protect 00:21:29.009 --> 00:21:31.349 the domestic market and diverted resources away 00:21:31.349 --> 00:21:33.609 from more profitable exports. So things like 00:21:33.609 --> 00:21:36.210 olive oil and citrus fruits suffered. Correct. 00:21:36.630 --> 00:21:38.309 Economically, the country suffered from resource 00:21:38.309 --> 00:21:41.369 diversion and price inflation for food. It created 00:21:41.369 --> 00:21:43.650 a powerful myth of national competence while 00:21:43.650 --> 00:21:45.829 pushing the country further into debt. So by 00:21:45.829 --> 00:21:48.210 1935, Mussolini was making this extraordinary 00:21:48.210 --> 00:21:50.589 claim that three quarters of Italian businesses 00:21:50.589 --> 00:21:52.990 were under state control. The principle was that 00:21:52.990 --> 00:21:55.619 the state was everything. As he wrote in The 00:21:55.619 --> 00:21:58.259 Doctrine of Fascism, the crisis can only be settled 00:21:58.259 --> 00:22:01.200 by state action and within the orbit of the state. 00:22:01.480 --> 00:22:04.980 The economy served the regime's prestige. And 00:22:04.980 --> 00:22:07.220 this brings us to the ultimate symbol of fascist 00:22:07.220 --> 00:22:10.000 competence, the myth that Say what you like about 00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:13.900 Mussolini, he made the trains run on time. Masterpiece 00:22:13.900 --> 00:22:16.839 of propaganda. We have to clarify that significant 00:22:16.839 --> 00:22:19.500 improvements to the Italian railway system, including 00:22:19.500 --> 00:22:22.319 electrification and modernization, were underway 00:22:22.319 --> 00:22:25.440 before Mussolini took power. So what did he do? 00:22:25.920 --> 00:22:28.440 where the fascist regime excelled was ensuring 00:22:28.440 --> 00:22:30.519 that the major lines, the politically important 00:22:30.519 --> 00:22:33.819 routes used by tourists and diplomats, ran with 00:22:33.819 --> 00:22:36.180 meticulous punctuality. So it was a performance 00:22:36.180 --> 00:22:38.740 designed for foreign observers to suggest a new 00:22:38.740 --> 00:22:41.950 era of national discipline. But it wasn't true 00:22:41.950 --> 00:22:44.670 of the smaller domestic routes. No, delays remained 00:22:44.670 --> 00:22:47.210 frequent on lesser lines. It was a selective 00:22:47.210 --> 00:22:49.670 efficiency designed to propagate the cult of 00:22:49.670 --> 00:22:52.970 Il Duce as the supreme organizer, the new fascist 00:22:52.970 --> 00:22:55.490 ubermensch who imposed order on chaos. And he 00:22:55.490 --> 00:22:57.690 ensured every aspect of Italian life, including 00:22:57.690 --> 00:23:00.490 education, promoted this personality cult. Through 00:23:00.490 --> 00:23:03.549 the Opera Nazionale Bellia, established in 1926, 00:23:03.869 --> 00:23:06.509 this was the mandatory youth movement for children 00:23:06.509 --> 00:23:09.789 aged 8 to 18. Its purpose was not just academic, 00:23:09.930 --> 00:23:13.289 but moral, physical, social, and military education. 00:23:13.759 --> 00:23:16.019 The goal was to instill the fascist hierarchy 00:23:16.019 --> 00:23:19.039 and collective identity, rejecting individualism. 00:23:19.180 --> 00:23:21.539 And ensuring the personality cult of Mussolini 00:23:21.539 --> 00:23:24.160 was infused into the next generation. The messaging 00:23:24.160 --> 00:23:26.680 was pervasive and required absolute obedience. 00:23:27.079 --> 00:23:29.160 With the domestic regime stabilized by the late 00:23:29.160 --> 00:23:32.440 1920s, Mussolini turned to foreign policy, driven 00:23:32.440 --> 00:23:34.480 by this desire to resurrect the Roman Empire. 00:23:34.740 --> 00:23:37.619 His doctrine of spazio vitale, or living space, 00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:40.779 was his geopolitical mandate. Spazio vitale was 00:23:40.779 --> 00:23:43.779 the core vision. A new empire span - Africa and 00:23:43.779 --> 00:23:46.099 the Balkans, claiming the entire Mediterranean 00:23:46.099 --> 00:23:49.039 as Italy's exclusive sphere of influence. This 00:23:49.039 --> 00:23:51.660 was overtly imperial and militaristic. And it 00:23:51.660 --> 00:23:53.859 was underpinned by a view of history as a Darwinian 00:23:53.859 --> 00:23:56.599 struggle between races. The sources confirm the 00:23:56.599 --> 00:23:59.740 inherent racism driving this ambition, even before 00:23:59.740 --> 00:24:02.259 the later alignment with Hitler. His views on 00:24:02.259 --> 00:24:06.579 Slavs were chillingly explicit. In 1920, he stated 00:24:06.579 --> 00:24:08.720 that when dealing with a Slavic inferior and 00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:11.539 barbarian race, Italy must use the stick policy. 00:24:12.029 --> 00:24:14.349 And he went on to assert, we can easily sacrifice 00:24:14.349 --> 00:24:17.789 500 ,000 barbaric Slavs for 50 ,000 Italians. 00:24:18.049 --> 00:24:20.029 That was the political rationale for violence 00:24:20.029 --> 00:24:21.630 in the Balkans and the suppression of border 00:24:21.630 --> 00:24:24.369 populations. And this aggressive doctrine was 00:24:24.369 --> 00:24:26.670 immediately translated into action in the colonies, 00:24:26.769 --> 00:24:29.069 specifically the campaign known as the Pacification 00:24:29.069 --> 00:24:32.880 of Libya. This was a campaign of outright extermination 00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:35.759 against the indigenous resistance. The fascists 00:24:35.759 --> 00:24:38.779 waged a genocidal campaign confining well over 00:24:38.779 --> 00:24:40.940 half of the Cyrenaica population to at least 00:24:40.940 --> 00:24:43.660 15 concentration camps. And our sources confirm 00:24:43.660 --> 00:24:46.559 the widespread use of chemical warfare. Specifically 00:24:46.559 --> 00:24:49.380 mustard gas deployed by the Royal Italian Air 00:24:49.380 --> 00:24:51.460 Force against the Bedouin population. And there 00:24:51.460 --> 00:24:54.240 was also an explicit legally mandated racial 00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:57.299 policy aimed at Italian settlers to prevent degeneration. 00:24:57.880 --> 00:25:00.339 Yes. Mussolini personally intervened. telling 00:25:00.339 --> 00:25:03.420 diplomats in 1933 that miscegenation needed to 00:25:03.420 --> 00:25:06.839 be made a crime in Libya. He viewed interracial 00:25:06.839 --> 00:25:09.539 sex as a dangerous weakness, fearing that Italian 00:25:09.539 --> 00:25:12.000 settlers would degenerate into half -castes. 00:25:12.079 --> 00:25:14.920 The ultimate expression of this imperial ambition 00:25:14.920 --> 00:25:19.599 was the conquest of Ethiopia from 1935 to 1936, 00:25:19.900 --> 00:25:22.940 a conflict that truly isolated Italy internationally. 00:25:23.460 --> 00:25:25.859 The Second Italo -Ethiopian War was an act of 00:25:25.859 --> 00:25:29.220 raw aggression. Mussolini ignored League of Nations 00:25:29.220 --> 00:25:32.200 sanctions, dismissing them as hypocritical attempts 00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:35.960 by older imperial powers to deny Italy its rightful 00:25:35.960 --> 00:25:38.880 place. And the brutality was systematic, widespread 00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:41.700 use of mustard gas and deliberate terror against 00:25:41.700 --> 00:25:44.140 the Ethiopian civilian population. That's correct. 00:25:44.259 --> 00:25:46.460 The final objective was to kill off much of the 00:25:46.460 --> 00:25:49.140 adult male population to prepare the land for 00:25:49.140 --> 00:25:51.880 millions of Italian settlers. The war confirmed 00:25:51.880 --> 00:25:53.779 for the international community that Mussolini 00:25:53.779 --> 00:25:55.740 was a ruthless aggressor. And this isolation 00:25:55.740 --> 00:25:57.940 is what ultimately pushed him into the arms of 00:25:57.940 --> 00:26:00.140 the one other major power suffering from similar 00:26:00.140 --> 00:26:02.940 international censure, Nazi Germany. It's one 00:26:02.940 --> 00:26:05.880 of the great historical ironies. Mussolini initially 00:26:05.880 --> 00:26:09.940 feared and despised Hitler. In 1934, he mobilized 00:26:09.940 --> 00:26:12.039 troops and threatened war against Germany over 00:26:12.039 --> 00:26:14.400 Austria. He even formed the stress affront in 00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:17.200 1935 with Britain and France specifically to 00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:19.500 contain German expansionism. And his initial 00:26:19.500 --> 00:26:22.420 view on Hitler's core ideology, biological racism, 00:26:22.619 --> 00:26:25.420 was one of utter contempt. He famously dismissed 00:26:25.420 --> 00:26:29.720 it as German vice and errant nonsense, stupid 00:26:29.720 --> 00:26:31.880 and idiotic. He specifically claimed there was 00:26:31.880 --> 00:26:35.299 no Jewish question in Italy. He viewed race through 00:26:35.299 --> 00:26:38.259 a cultural and national lens. a pseudo -scientific 00:26:38.259 --> 00:26:40.579 biological one. But the sanctions over Ethiopia 00:26:40.579 --> 00:26:43.140 burned his bridges with the Western democracies, 00:26:43.400 --> 00:26:45.700 making the alliance with Germany inescapable. 00:26:45.859 --> 00:26:49.079 By 1936, the Rome -Berlin Axis was formed. And 00:26:49.079 --> 00:26:51.920 by 1938, under Hitler's direct influence, the 00:26:51.920 --> 00:26:54.160 fascist regime completely reversed its stance 00:26:54.160 --> 00:26:56.759 on race. The result was the Manifesto of Race. 00:26:56.920 --> 00:26:59.200 Followed by specific racial laws closely modeled 00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:02.079 on the Nazi Nuremberg laws. These laws stripped 00:27:02.079 --> 00:27:04.720 Jews of Italian citizenship, barred them from 00:27:04.720 --> 00:27:07.160 military and professional positions, and prohibited 00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:09.460 marriage or sexual relations between Italians 00:27:09.460 --> 00:27:12.200 and so -called inferior races, Jews and Africans. 00:27:12.400 --> 00:27:14.980 What's fascinating and important for you, the 00:27:14.980 --> 00:27:18.059 learner, to understand is how unpopular and internally 00:27:18.059 --> 00:27:21.380 contested this was within Italy. It was profoundly 00:27:21.380 --> 00:27:23.640 unpopular, even within the fascist party establishment, 00:27:24.059 --> 00:27:27.180 which had not been anti -Semitic. Mussolini himself 00:27:27.180 --> 00:27:29.920 later expressed profound regret over the measure, 00:27:30.039 --> 00:27:32.480 admitting it was a conscientious German essay 00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:35.220 translated into bad Italian. And during World 00:27:35.220 --> 00:27:38.099 War II, Mussolini and the Italian military often 00:27:38.099 --> 00:27:40.859 actively opposed or hindered German efforts to 00:27:40.859 --> 00:27:43.119 deport Italian Jews in occupied territories. 00:27:43.480 --> 00:27:45.460 Which just illustrates the regime's ideological 00:27:45.460 --> 00:27:48.460 inconsistency and underlying distaste for the 00:27:48.460 --> 00:27:51.019 extreme biological anti -Semitism imported from 00:27:51.019 --> 00:27:53.319 Germany. Before we move to the warriors, we have 00:27:53.319 --> 00:27:55.680 to address his most politically pragmatic and 00:27:55.680 --> 00:27:58.880 ideologically contradictory maneuver, his relationship 00:27:58.880 --> 00:28:01.019 with the Catholic Church. Pure political genius 00:28:01.019 --> 00:28:05.579 and supreme cynicism. He privately called the 00:28:05.579 --> 00:28:08.599 papacy a malignant tumor, but he understood that 00:28:08.599 --> 00:28:10.619 he could not achieve total control over Italy 00:28:10.619 --> 00:28:13.140 without neutralizing the powerful influence of 00:28:13.140 --> 00:28:15.759 the church. He set the stage by having his own 00:28:15.759 --> 00:28:18.119 children baptized and undergoing a religious 00:28:18.119 --> 00:28:21.799 marriage ceremony in 1925, years after his civil 00:28:21.799 --> 00:28:24.619 marriage. And this all culminated in the 1929 00:28:24.619 --> 00:28:27.240 Lateran Treaty, resolving the Roman question 00:28:27.240 --> 00:28:29.839 that had plagued Italy since unification. The 00:28:29.839 --> 00:28:32.579 treaty recognized Vatican City as an independent 00:28:32.579 --> 00:28:35.759 sovereign state, provided massive financial compensation 00:28:35.759 --> 00:28:38.299 to the Holy See, and established Catholicism 00:28:38.299 --> 00:28:41.519 as Italy's state religion. Pope Pius XI was so 00:28:41.519 --> 00:28:43.980 grateful he hailed Mussolini as the man of providence. 00:28:44.160 --> 00:28:46.859 That public reconciliation was essential for 00:28:46.859 --> 00:28:50.079 his legitimacy. But how did he maintain his own 00:28:50.079 --> 00:28:53.240 supremacy? The fascist regime never ceded ideological 00:28:53.240 --> 00:28:55.779 ground. They were very careful to assert the 00:28:55.779 --> 00:28:58.079 promise of the state. They famously mandated 00:28:58.079 --> 00:29:00.940 that pronouns referring to Il Duce had to be 00:29:00.940 --> 00:29:03.279 capitalized like those referring to God. A visual 00:29:03.279 --> 00:29:05.920 assertion of state superiority. And despite the 00:29:05.920 --> 00:29:08.640 public reconciliation, Mussolini maintained his 00:29:08.640 --> 00:29:12.559 virulently anti -clerical views in private, confirming 00:29:12.559 --> 00:29:15.700 he was an outright disbeliever. It was a marriage 00:29:15.700 --> 00:29:17.759 of convenience for the sake of political power, 00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:21.279 not a sincere conversion. We arrive at the final 00:29:21.279 --> 00:29:24.220 destructive act of Mussolini's career. world 00:29:24.220 --> 00:29:27.759 war ii by the late 1930s the axis alignment was 00:29:27.759 --> 00:29:30.279 firm he signed the pact of steel with germany 00:29:30.279 --> 00:29:34.039 in may 1939 what was his fundamental strategic 00:29:34.039 --> 00:29:37.420 miscalculation it stemmed directly from his social 00:29:37.420 --> 00:29:40.640 darwinian worldview he genuinely believed that 00:29:40.640 --> 00:29:43.079 italy and germany the virile nations due to their 00:29:43.079 --> 00:29:45.579 high birth rates and martial spirit were destined 00:29:45.579 --> 00:29:48.170 to rule the continent While Britain and France, 00:29:48.410 --> 00:29:50.750 which he dismissed as a feat nations, were in 00:29:50.750 --> 00:29:53.109 terminal decline. He was convinced of inevitable 00:29:53.109 --> 00:29:55.650 Axis victory and wanted Italy to be present at 00:29:55.650 --> 00:29:57.630 the division of the spoils. When Hitler invaded 00:29:57.630 --> 00:30:00.690 Poland in September 1939, Mussolini declared 00:30:00.690 --> 00:30:03.109 non -belligerence, despite the Pact of Steel. 00:30:03.390 --> 00:30:05.470 That was because his own military leaders had 00:30:05.470 --> 00:30:07.150 informed him that Italy wouldn't be ready for 00:30:07.150 --> 00:30:10.369 major operations until 1942. That decision was 00:30:10.369 --> 00:30:12.650 temporary, driven by necessity, not principle. 00:30:13.079 --> 00:30:15.519 Because when Germany swiftly crushed France in 00:30:15.519 --> 00:30:19.019 June 1940, Mussolini panicked. He believed the 00:30:19.019 --> 00:30:21.660 war was effectively over and that Germany's victory 00:30:21.660 --> 00:30:24.579 was imminent. He declared war on Britain and 00:30:24.579 --> 00:30:27.220 France, stating explicitly he needed to join 00:30:27.220 --> 00:30:30.680 simply to share the spoils. This action earned 00:30:30.680 --> 00:30:33.180 him that famous condemnation from President Franklin 00:30:33.180 --> 00:30:36.200 D. Roosevelt. The hand that held the dagger has 00:30:36.200 --> 00:30:38.220 struck it into the back of its neighbor. And 00:30:38.220 --> 00:30:41.079 Italy paid the price almost immediately. Mussolini 00:30:41.079 --> 00:30:44.180 initiated what he called a parallel war, attempting 00:30:44.180 --> 00:30:46.319 to achieve quick victories in the Mediterranean 00:30:46.319 --> 00:30:49.119 and North Africa. It failed almost universally. 00:30:49.519 --> 00:30:52.019 The campaign against Greece resulted in a humiliating 00:30:52.019 --> 00:30:54.339 stalemate. And the British defeated them decisively 00:30:54.339 --> 00:30:56.559 in North Africa, leading to the crushing defeat 00:30:56.559 --> 00:30:59.160 at the Second Battle of El Alamein in late 1942. 00:30:59.720 --> 00:31:02.900 And these military failures, combined with Italy's 00:31:02.900 --> 00:31:05.700 heavy losses on the Eastern Front, severely damaged 00:31:05.700 --> 00:31:08.380 Ildussi's prestige at home. The collapse was 00:31:08.380 --> 00:31:11.349 strategic and domestic. The required German presence 00:31:11.349 --> 00:31:13.369 in Italy to prop up the failing Italian forces 00:31:13.369 --> 00:31:15.809 was humiliating and served his sharply turned 00:31:15.809 --> 00:31:18.130 public opinion against the war and against Mussolini 00:31:18.130 --> 00:31:21.890 himself. By 1943, the home front was in chaos. 00:31:22.250 --> 00:31:25.029 Industrial strikes, the first major labor unrest 00:31:25.029 --> 00:31:28.089 since 1925, broke out in the northern cities. 00:31:28.289 --> 00:31:30.529 The totalitarian facade was crumbling under the 00:31:30.529 --> 00:31:32.890 weight of military failure. The definitive military 00:31:32.890 --> 00:31:36.250 crisis was the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 00:31:36.250 --> 00:31:40.000 1943. That invasion proved the army was collapsing 00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:42.619 and the fascist state was unable to defend the 00:31:42.619 --> 00:31:45.759 homeland. Mussolini met with Hitler and was reportedly 00:31:45.759 --> 00:31:48.759 so stressed he was barely coherent. That same 00:31:48.759 --> 00:31:51.180 day, Rome itself was bombed by the Allies for 00:31:51.180 --> 00:31:53.279 the first time. This prompted the internal revolt, 00:31:53.480 --> 00:31:55.920 the meeting of the Grand Council of Fascism on 00:31:55.920 --> 00:31:59.000 July 24th, 1943. This was the internal coup d 00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:02.079 'etat. Dino Grandi. A powerful fascist official 00:32:02.079 --> 00:32:04.420 proposed a resolution demanding that King Victor 00:32:04.420 --> 00:32:07.640 Emmanuel III resume his full constitutional powers. 00:32:07.740 --> 00:32:10.000 In essence, a formal vote of no confidence in 00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:12.019 the man who created the council. After a nine 00:32:12.019 --> 00:32:14.880 -hour, tense debate, the motion passed 19 votes 00:32:14.880 --> 00:32:17.799 to 8. A stunning internal betrayal. But the vote 00:32:17.799 --> 00:32:20.180 itself was only advisory. It required the king 00:32:20.180 --> 00:32:23.559 to act. The next day, July 25th, Mussolini went 00:32:23.559 --> 00:32:26.640 to the royal palace expecting, maybe, a reprimand. 00:32:26.779 --> 00:32:29.539 Instead, the king formally dismissed him and 00:32:29.539 --> 00:32:32.039 ordered his arrest under the guise of protective 00:32:32.039 --> 00:32:34.980 custody. The public rejoiced, believing the war 00:32:34.980 --> 00:32:37.720 was finally over. The king appointed Marshal 00:32:37.720 --> 00:32:40.259 Pietro Badoglio, who quickly dissolved the fascist 00:32:40.259 --> 00:32:42.480 party. Mussolini was shuttled around various 00:32:42.480 --> 00:32:44.740 locations, finally ending up high in the mountains 00:32:44.740 --> 00:32:47.980 at Campo Imperatore, a remote ski resort prison. 00:32:48.430 --> 00:32:50.390 The Germans, however, were not about to lose 00:32:50.390 --> 00:32:53.769 their key ally. Far from it. In September 1943, 00:32:54.430 --> 00:32:57.170 German commandos staged the famous Grand Sasso 00:32:57.170 --> 00:33:00.089 Raid, a daring mission led by SS officer Otto 00:33:00.089 --> 00:33:02.730 Skorzeny. They used glider -borne troops who 00:33:02.730 --> 00:33:05.509 landed on the mountain plateau and rescued Mussolini 00:33:05.509 --> 00:33:07.930 without a single shot being fired. He was returned 00:33:07.930 --> 00:33:10.569 to the north and installed by Hitler as the figurehead 00:33:10.569 --> 00:33:13.329 of a collaborationist regime. This was the Italian 00:33:13.329 --> 00:33:16.519 Social Republic. or the Salo Republic, a German 00:33:16.519 --> 00:33:19.940 puppet state in occupied northern Italy. Mussolini 00:33:19.940 --> 00:33:22.420 had virtually no actual control, admitting later 00:33:22.420 --> 00:33:25.039 he was under virtual SS house arrest. He was 00:33:25.039 --> 00:33:27.559 compelled by Hitler to carry out acts of vengeance, 00:33:27.859 --> 00:33:30.599 most notably orchestrating the execution of those 00:33:30.599 --> 00:33:33.440 grand council members who had betrayed him, including 00:33:33.440 --> 00:33:36.119 his own son -in -law. The political terror was 00:33:36.119 --> 00:33:40.119 immense, but his power was negligible. The sources 00:33:40.119 --> 00:33:42.720 reveal the psychological cost of this humiliating 00:33:42.720 --> 00:33:45.180 final phase. He spent his final months writing 00:33:45.180 --> 00:33:48.579 his memoirs, My Rise and Fall. And in an interview 00:33:48.579 --> 00:33:52.460 in January 1945, his total disillusionment was 00:33:52.460 --> 00:33:55.799 laid bare. He confessed, I am finished. My star 00:33:55.799 --> 00:33:58.640 has fallen. I work and I try, yet know that all 00:33:58.640 --> 00:34:01.660 is but a farce. I feel I am the last of spectators. 00:34:01.839 --> 00:34:03.980 He described himself as little more than a corpse. 00:34:04.430 --> 00:34:06.289 The self -proclaimed Übermensch had been stripped 00:34:06.289 --> 00:34:08.929 down to a broken, powerless old man. The end 00:34:08.929 --> 00:34:11.610 came swiftly and brutally in the spring of 1945. 00:34:12.070 --> 00:34:15.530 On April 25, 1945, Mussolini attempted a desperate 00:34:15.530 --> 00:34:17.710 flight to Switzerland, disguised in a German 00:34:17.710 --> 00:34:20.389 uniform accompanied by his mistress, Clara Pitacci. 00:34:20.590 --> 00:34:22.769 They were captured by communist partisans near 00:34:22.769 --> 00:34:25.230 Lake Como two days later. And they were summarily 00:34:25.230 --> 00:34:29.139 executed by shooting on April 28, 1945. And the 00:34:29.139 --> 00:34:32.280 final act, the public disgrace in Milan, was 00:34:32.280 --> 00:34:35.000 a brutal political statement designed to humiliate 00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:37.780 the regime and discourage any lingering fascist 00:34:37.780 --> 00:34:39.800 loyalties. It was necessary political theater. 00:34:40.039 --> 00:34:42.760 The bodies of Mussolini, Patacci, and several 00:34:42.760 --> 00:34:45.139 other executed fascists were transported to Milan 00:34:45.139 --> 00:34:48.500 and dumped in Piazzale Allorio, the exact square 00:34:48.500 --> 00:34:51.099 where Axis authorities had previously executed 00:34:51.099 --> 00:34:55.269 15 anti -fascist partisans. The crowd subjected 00:34:55.269 --> 00:34:57.070 the bodies to abuse. And they were then hung 00:34:57.070 --> 00:34:58.949 upside down from the roof of a service station, 00:34:59.090 --> 00:35:01.530 symbolically humiliating the dictatorship and 00:35:01.530 --> 00:35:04.090 physically signaling that fascism was dead and 00:35:04.090 --> 00:35:07.110 disgraced. What a monumental and deeply contradictory 00:35:07.110 --> 00:35:10.000 life. We have traced the trajectory of Benito 00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:12.019 Mussolini from a young man named after socialist 00:35:12.019 --> 00:35:14.579 heroes who edited the leading socialist paper 00:35:14.579 --> 00:35:16.739 through his transformation into the totalitarian 00:35:16.739 --> 00:35:18.699 Ducey. He governed through grand centralized 00:35:18.699 --> 00:35:21.019 economic battles, signed a massive treaty with 00:35:21.019 --> 00:35:23.380 the church he privately despised, and ended his 00:35:23.380 --> 00:35:26.000 life as a desperate German puppet, publicly executed 00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:28.760 and hung upside down. The specific detail that 00:35:28.760 --> 00:35:30.659 often gets lost in the story of his brutality 00:35:30.659 --> 00:35:33.760 is his tremendous intellectual capacity. that 00:35:33.760 --> 00:35:36.440 he spoke fluent English and French and sufficient 00:35:36.440 --> 00:35:38.960 German to act as the chief interpreter among 00:35:38.960 --> 00:35:41.900 heads of state at the Munich conference in 1938. 00:35:42.440 --> 00:35:45.840 That linguistic skill underscores the fact that 00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:47.820 this was an intellectual who made a deliberate, 00:35:47.920 --> 00:35:51.280 cynical choice to jettison rationalism for the 00:35:51.280 --> 00:35:54.460 raw power of myth and personality. And that influence 00:35:54.460 --> 00:35:57.480 is still palpable today. While the National Fascist 00:35:57.480 --> 00:35:59.760 Party was outlawed, Successor movements persist. 00:36:00.139 --> 00:36:02.519 We see members of the Mussolini family, like 00:36:02.519 --> 00:36:04.800 his granddaughter Alessandra Mussolini, still 00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:07.280 politically active in major modern Italian right 00:36:07.280 --> 00:36:09.760 -wing parties. The political inheritance, however 00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:12.929 distorted, never truly disappears. If we connect 00:36:12.929 --> 00:36:14.670 this to the bigger picture for you, the learner, 00:36:14.889 --> 00:36:17.630 Mussolini's life reviews the inherent fragility 00:36:17.630 --> 00:36:20.110 of any political power founded purely on a cult 00:36:20.110 --> 00:36:22.969 of personality and manufactured spectacle. The 00:36:22.969 --> 00:36:25.969 totalitarian facade he constructed, the trains 00:36:25.969 --> 00:36:29.130 running on time, the seven ministries, the capitalization 00:36:29.130 --> 00:36:31.929 of Il Duce, it was utterly stripped away by military 00:36:31.929 --> 00:36:34.429 defeat and internal dissent. He went from the 00:36:34.429 --> 00:36:37.110 self -proclaimed ubermensch to an ally's house 00:36:37.110 --> 00:36:39.570 arrest, confessing he was little more than a 00:36:39.570 --> 00:36:42.949 corpse. What does it tell you that all that power, 00:36:43.070 --> 00:36:45.809 so lavishly constructed, can be dissolved by 00:36:45.809 --> 00:36:48.030 a handful of votes in a council meeting and a 00:36:48.030 --> 00:36:50.630 swift military reversal? It proved that while 00:36:50.630 --> 00:36:52.909 propaganda and the suppression of truth can build 00:36:52.909 --> 00:36:55.710 empires quickly, they cannot survive the test 00:36:55.710 --> 00:36:58.610 of sustained failure. Absolute power founded 00:36:58.610 --> 00:37:01.570 on ego and fear can be stripped away in a single 00:37:01.570 --> 00:37:04.349 humiliating day. A powerful lesson on power and 00:37:04.349 --> 00:37:06.630 failure from the 20th century. Thank you for 00:37:06.630 --> 00:37:09.190 joining us on this deep dive. We hope this analysis 00:37:09.190 --> 00:37:11.389 provides you with a clear contextual understanding 00:37:11.389 --> 00:37:13.929 of one of history's most complex and disturbing 00:37:13.929 --> 00:37:14.489 transformations.