Mussolini first got the idea for fascism when he was a [[RedShirtReporter war reporter]] in the trenches of WorldWarOne, following around the soldiers. And he liked what he saw in the army. He wanted to create a society organized like a military battalion, a rigid conformist society with no dissenters to undermine patriotic values.

Today, he is most famous for being the [[OlderThanTheyThink first fascist ruler of any country]], and for his colonial war against Ethiopia in 1935 (called Abyssinia at the time) which proved the ridiculous incompetence of the [[DoomedMoralVictor League of Nations]]. He was a close ally of AdolfHitler and fought on NaziGermany's side during [[WorldWarII the war]], although the Italian Army were [[StopHelpingMe more of a hindrance to the Nazis than a help]]. To be fair, when Hitler wanted Italy to enter the war, Mussolini said what amounted to [[UnfinishedUntestedUsedAnyway Can it wait until I've industrialized my country in five years?]] (this may have been a random number chosen to delay Italian entry ''indefinitely''...until Germany [[CurbStompBattle annexed half the continent with ease]], at least).

That all said, there is a real historiographical debate about how much of a Fascist Mussolini really was, as the most notable members of his cabinet consisted of political opportunists rather than die-hard Fascist fanatics, and Mussolini seemed to waver a lot when the question of how far the Fascist revolution was meant to go came up, on at least one occasion saying that Italy was not ready to be Fascist. In other words he believed in Fascism, but was too cynical about Italy and politics in general to believe that a Fascist revolution could take place, and thus was content to run a straight-up dictatorship with Fascist dressing, electing to maintain his position rather than upset the status quo. Thus, UsefulNotes/FascistItaly was not as totalitarian as NaziGermany nor Stalinist Russia- it was a one-party state with media controlled and opposition banned and such, but it was still a monarchy, had a shaky, up and down relationship with the Catholic Church, tolerated (if not permitted) a degree of freedom of speech, and had an aggressive foreign policy that was more bark than bite[[note]]They invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and entered World War 2 on the Nazi side of course, but Mussolini had been variously promoting or downplaying war for at least a decade before that[[/note]]. Though Mussolini ruled for more than 20 years, several parts of Italy barely noticed any change from the previous fifty.

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Mussolini first got the idea for fascism when he was a [[RedShirtReporter war reporter]] in the trenches of UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne, following around the soldiers. And he liked what he saw in the army. He wanted to create a society organized like a military battalion, a rigid conformist society with no dissenters to undermine patriotic values.

Today, he is most famous for being the [[OlderThanTheyThink first fascist ruler of any country]], and for his colonial war against Ethiopia in 1935 (called Abyssinia at the time) which proved the ridiculous incompetence of the [[DoomedMoralVictor League of Nations]]. He was a close ally of AdolfHitler and fought on UsefulNotes/NaziGermany's side during [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the war]], although the Italian Army were [[StopHelpingMe more of a hindrance to the Nazis than a help]]. To be fair, when Hitler wanted Italy to enter the war, Mussolini said what amounted to [[UnfinishedUntestedUsedAnyway Can it wait until I've industrialized my country in five years?]] (this may have been a random number chosen to delay Italian entry ''indefinitely''...until Germany [[CurbStompBattle annexed half the continent with ease]], at least).

That all said, there is a real historiographical debate about how much of a Fascist Mussolini really was, as the most notable members of his cabinet consisted of political opportunists rather than die-hard Fascist fanatics, and Mussolini seemed to waver a lot when the question of how far the Fascist revolution was meant to go came up, on at least one occasion saying that Italy was not ready to be Fascist. In other words he believed in Fascism, but was too cynical about Italy and politics in general to believe that a Fascist revolution could take place, and thus was content to run a straight-up dictatorship with Fascist dressing, electing to maintain his position rather than upset the status quo. Thus, UsefulNotes/FascistItaly was not as totalitarian as UsefulNotes/NaziGermany nor Stalinist Russia - it was a one-party state with media controlled and opposition banned and such, but it was still a monarchy, had a shaky, up and down relationship with the Catholic Church, tolerated (if not permitted) a degree of freedom of speech, and had an aggressive foreign policy that was more bark than bite[[note]]They invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and entered World War 2 on the Nazi side of course, but Mussolini had been variously promoting or downplaying war for at least a decade before that[[/note]]. Though Mussolini ruled for more than 20 years, several parts of Italy barely noticed any change from the previous fifty.

15th Feb '13 1:38:07 PM AllenbysEyes

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15th Feb '13 1:37:36 PM AllenbysEyes

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germans hasselhoff etc.

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25th Jan '13 11:50:17 AM nombretomado

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