Ref.: ROME-54086
Benito MussoliniPolitician, journalist, Prime Minister and Italian Dictator. Mussolini occupied an important position within the Italian socialist party and from 1912 was also the editor of the socialist newspaper Avanti. He then became an interventionist and war volunteer; in 1919 he founded the Italian Combat Fasces, which in 1921 became the National Fascist Party and was introduced to the Nation with a radical, nationalist and authoritarian programme. Opposing the radical left wing, he led his political movement to the March on Rome and gained power on the 28th October 1922. After becoming Prime Minister he consolidated the regime, affirming the supremacy of the executive power, by transforming the administrative system and arranging the masses into party organizations. In 1940, trusting in a rapid solution of the conflict, he went to war on the German side. Due to the defeat suffered by the Italian Armed Forces and to the fact that, at the Grand Council of Fascism on the 24th July 1943 he was put in a minority condition, on the 25th July he was arrested by order of the Italian King. Rescued by the Germans and under the total control of Hitler, in order to mitigate the revenging fury of the Allied Forces against Italy, he founded the Italian Social Republic in the Northern territory of country. On the 28th April 1945, while he was trying to reach the territory of Valtellina, he was captured by Italian Partisans and killed.