{"id":21575,"date":"2025-04-23T14:29:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T14:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uit-ci.org\/?p=21575"},"modified":"2025-04-23T14:29:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T14:29:59","slug":"80-years-on-from-the-fall-of-mussolini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/23\/80-years-on-from-the-fall-of-mussolini\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"80 years on from the fall of Mussolini"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Francisco Moreira<\/i><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/div>\n
On the\u00a028th of April, 1945, Mussolini, the supreme leader of Italian fascism, and Adolf Hitler’s unconditional partner, was captured and executed by partisans (guerrillas) of the anti-fascist resistance. His death, and that of Hitler two days later, marked the end of Nazi-fascism in the Second World War.<\/i><\/p>\n

It was half past six in the morning, on the 27th of April, when the partisan group of the\u00a0Garibaldi Brigade<\/i>\u00a0of the anti-fascist resistance detected a German convoy near the village of Dongo, a municipality in the province of Como (Italy). After an exchange of fire, the Germans agreed to negotiate. The brigade members allowed the Germans to withdraw in exchange for the surrender of all the Italians with them. At around 7p.m., as they were checking the Italians’ papers, they recognised Benito Mussolini, disguised in German clothes.
\nThe news of the arrest of\u00a0il Duce<\/i>\u00a0(‘the Duke<\/i>‘ – the warlord), the fascist dictator who had ruled Italy with an iron fist between 1922 and 1943, was announced on the radio, along with the decision of the\u00a0National Liberation Committee<\/i>\u00a0to execute him \u00ablike a rabid dog<\/i>\u00ab. On April 28th, he was shot, along with his mistress Clara Petacci. Their bodies, and those of other fascist hierarchs, were taken to Milan and displayed in Piazza Loreto, being then hung upside down. The image travelled the world and marked the coup de gr\u00e2ce against fascism in World War II.<\/i><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
From Workers’ Revolution to Fascism<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Mussolini was born in 1883 in Predappio, a small town near Bologna. He was a teacher and a militant socialist, but a fervent atheist. In August 1914, when the inter-imperialist \u2018Great War<\/i>\u2019 began, the\u00a0Italian Socialist Party<\/i>\u00a0(PSI<\/i>) rejected the majority position of the Second International (social democratic) in favour of intervention in the war. But Mussolini supported it and was expelled from the\u00a0PSI<\/i>. In May 1915, Italy entered the war and Mussolini was inducted into the 11th Bersaglieri Regiment (infantry).<\/div>\n

After the signing of the armistice, between 1919 and 1920, the Italian proletariat staged a revolution that shook the country. It was part of the upswing provoked by the war, which had succeeded the triumph of the Russian Revolution in 1917. In Italy, factories were taken over and workers’ councils (soviets) were formed, mainly in the industrial north, in Milan and Turin. But the treachery of the reformists in the\u00a0Socialist Party<\/i>, and the youth and inexperience of the new\u00a0Communist Party<\/i>\u00a0brought the revolution to a defeat.
\nOn March\u00a023rd, 1919, Mussolini founded the\u00a0Fasci Italiani di Combattimento<\/i>\u00a0(‘Italian Fighting Leagues<\/i>‘). The Fascist movement grew until, in November 1921, it became the\u00a0National Fascist Party (<\/i>Partito Nazionale Fascista<\/i>)\u00a0 and Mussolini was elected deputy in Milan. While social democracy was lulling the workers to sleep, among the bourgeoisie, the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie, adherence to fascism was growing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/div>\n
The Fascist Dictatorship<\/b><\/i><\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0On October\u00a028th, 1922 Mussolini led the \u2018March on Rome<\/i>\u2019. King Victor Emmanuel hastened to appoint him president of the Council of Ministers, and thus Fascism seized power. Whilst its gangs acted with truncheons, knives and revolvers, the dictatorial regime was consolidated. By 1926 the workers’ and mass organisations had been completely crushed, and thousands upon thousands were exiled and imprisoned. The most famous was the communist leader Antonio Gramsci.<\/div>\n

In 1931 Leon Trotsky wrote: \u00abFascism in Italy is the direct product of the betrayal by the reformists of the insurrection of the proletariat. Since the end of the war, the Italian revolutionary movement had been on the rise and by September 1920 the workers had reached the point of occupying enterprises and factories. […] Social Democracy was afraid and retreated. […] The crushing of the revolutionary movement was the most important premise for the development of Fascism<\/i>\u00ab. (1)<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0For more than a decade, Mussolini ruled with an iron fist. He was a staunch ally of Adolf Hitler and German Nazism from the time it began to develop in 1923, and after he seized power in 1933. Despite his anti-religious origins, in 1929 he signed the \u2018Lateran Pacts<\/i>\u2019 with Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, granting political independence to the Vatican and enormous privileges to the Catholic Church, which remain until this day. From then on,\u00a0il Duce<\/i>\u00a0had the papacy’s blessing for his imperialist adventures and repression. The Vatican supported him in the conquest of Abyssinia (1935-36), in sending troops, arms and planes to Francisco Franco to crush the Spanish workers’ revolution, and in the anti-Jewish laws of 1938.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The war and the anti-fascist triumph<\/b><\/i><\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In 1939 Hitler began his invasion that led to the outbreak of World War II. Italy was his great ally. He invaded Greece and added troops to the invasion of the Soviet Union. But Hitler’s complications in dominating Europe and the world found an early expression in Italy.<\/div>\n

In 1942, the imminence of an Allied invasion of Sicily, the hardships of the troops, and the poor living conditions at home, fuelled growing popular unrest. The year culminated in the beginning of the activities of left-wing organisations, underground workers’ parties and trade unions. The big strikes in the Fiat factories, in Turin, began to spread to other cities. By the first months of 1943, the strike movement against the war and material hardship dominated the industrial north, clamouring with economic and pacifist demands in defiance of the fascist regime. The Soviet victory over the Nazi armies at Stalingrad in February strengthened the anti-fascist resistance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0With the Allied landing in Sicily, the monarch Victor Emmanuel, and a large part of the bourgeoisie, led by the \u2018hero<\/i>\u2019 of Abyssinia, General Pietro Badoglio, considered Mussolini’s term of office to be over. On July 25th, 1943, he was arrested and interned in a villa in Gran Sasso. But on September 12th, a German raiding party liberated him and transported him to Germany. Shortly afterwards, Mussolini announced the formation of the \u2018Republic of Sal\u00f2<\/i>\u2019 in German-occupied northern Italy.<\/div>\n

In 1945, amid the collapse of the Nazi armies, Mussolini travelled to Milan in an attempt to negotiate his surrender to the Allies. An immediate and unconditional surrender was demanded. He rejected it, and when he attempted to retreat northwards he was stopped by the partisans who controlled the area. His assassination and Hitler’s suicide two days later on April 30th marked the end of Nazi-fascism in World War II.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
(1) –\u00a0Leon Trotsky, The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany, 1973<\/i><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Francisco Moreira \u00a0 On the\u00a028th of April, 1945, Mussolini, the supreme leader of Italian fascism, and Adolf Hitler’s unconditional partner, was captured and executed by partisans (guerrillas) of the anti-fascist resistance. His death, and that of Hitler two days later, marked the end of Nazi-fascism in the Second World War. It was half past […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21576,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21575\/revisions\/21576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}