Avanti! & Mussolini

Mussolini was born in Dovia di Predappio, Italy, on July 29, 1883.  He was named Benito for the Mexican revolutionary Juárez. A restless, disobedient child, he grew up a bully. He became a Socialist in his teens and worked, often as a schoolmaster, to spread the party doctrine. The newspaper he founded, La Lotta di Classe (The Class Struggle), won such recognition that in 1912 he was made editor of Avanti! (Forward!), the official Socialist daily published in Milan.

World War I changed Mussolini. Once a reformer, he became a worshiper of power. Unlike most of the Socialists, he advocated Italy's entry into the war on the Allied side. Expelled from the Socialist party, he founded his own newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia (The People of Italy), and called Italians to arms. In 1916 he enlisted. After being promoted to sergeant, he was wounded. In 1917 he returned to his newspaper.

During the chaos that gripped Italy after the war, Mussolini's influence grew swiftly. Into an army of supporters who wore black shirts (the symbolic uniform of anarchists) he recruited discontented Socialists, veterans, the unemployed--all the dissidents who believed that only a ruthless dictator could revitalize Italy. By 1922 crowds of peasants were spellbound by his magnetism and oratory and his backers were powerful enough to force King Victor Emmanuel III to bow before a Fascist march on Rome to seize the government. The king named Mussolini prime minister, Italy's youngest ever. He then became dictator and was called Il Duce (The Leader).