Word: mussolini
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Forty thousand ardent Fascists gathered in Rome to hail the new head, stomped by his palace window looking upwards eagerly. But a lady visitor had come to see Mussolini, and the head was in no position to review his followers...
...Benito Mussolini was called to office as Head of the Government of Italy. "Excuse my appearance," the new boss told King Victor Emmanuel, "but I come from the battlefield." Mussolini referred to his Fascist Party black shirt, not the striped pants ("too long and tight") or the frock coat ("sleeves . . . too short") which he had borrowed from his pals. As for his "battlefield," this, too. was the property of friends: it was they who had made the historic "March on Rome" the preceding day, while Leader Mussolini stayed snug in the office of his Socialist newspaper, Il Popolo...
Author Monelli, no professional historian but a veteran newspaperman, has written a biography that often verges on caricature. Obviously ashamed of his people's long allegiance to Mussolini, Author Monelli does his best to de-Caesarize Italy's 20th century Caesar. In destroying the legend of Mussolini as hero, he occasionally seems to build up another legend of Mussolini as utter boob. But with that qualification in mind, Mussolini can be enjoyed as a highly readable biography...
...became popular at once. He seemed ready to work hard and cooperate with other parties, and his chief desire was to be "respectable." When the lights burned late in Mussolini's palace, it was often because he had got his hands on "lists of subscribers to opposition papers" and was busy marking down those who were to be "beaten up until they bled." But, asserts Author Monelli, some of Mussolini's followers were far tougher than he. When his old Socialist enemy, Giacomo Matteotti, was murdered by some of his Fascist pals and Mussolini was blamed...
...group of his "friends," appalled by such weakness, staged a second March on Rome and cornered their cowering, unshaven chief in his palace. "What do you expect me to do with a corpse under my feet?" Mussolini wailed. "A fine head of a revolution, if you're afraid of a corpse!" bellowed an angry follower...