LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Benito Mussolini: Fighting Fascists
built 623 days ago
The stadium that Benito Mussolini ordered built in the 1930s is just about ready to host opening and closing ceremonies for the Torino Winter Olympics, after a $35.4 million renovation. The fascist-era Stadio Comunale has been renamed Stadio Olimpico for the Feb. 10-26 games.
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On January 3, 1925, Mussolini made a speech before the Chamber in which he took responsibility for squadristi violence (though he did not mention the assassination of Matteotti). Promising a crackdown on dissenters, he dropped all pretense of collaboration and set up a total dictatorship. Before his speech, fascist militia beat up the opposition and prevented opposition newspapers from publishing. Mussolini correctly predicted that as soon as public opinion saw him firmly in control the "fence-sitters", the silent majority and the "place-hunters" would all place themselves behind him. In 1925, all opposition was silenced. And so the Matteotti crisis was the turning point between a parliamentary state ruled by a fascist party to a fascist dictatorship.
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On May 30th 1924, Giacomo Matteotti made a passionate speech in Rome condemning Mussolini's leadership of Italy. He declared that the 1924 election was a fraud and that the Fascists had won it using violence and a system corrupted by the Acerbo Law. Matteotti was the leader of the socialists and was killed by the fascists. The socialists walked out of parliament in protest as a result and this gave Mussolini a free hand in parliament. In January 1925 Mussolini assumed responsibility for his new direction of policy. by means of love if possible but by force if necessary..."
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Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (July 29, 1883 - April 28, 1945) ruled Italy as a dictator from 1922 to 1943. He created an anti-democratic, fascist state through the use of propaganda; through total control of the media, he disassembled the existing democratic government system.
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Mussolini's National Fascist Party was banned in the postwar Constitution of Italy, but a number of successor neo-fascist parties emerged to carry on its legacy. Mussolini's granddaughter, Alessandra Mussolini, runs one of the primary neo-fascist parties in modern Italy, Azione Sociale. Historically, the strongest neo-fascist party was MSI (Movimento Sociale Italiano), which was declared dissolved in 1995 and replaced by the National Alliance, which distanced itself from Fascism (its leader Gianfranco Fini once declared that Fascism was "an absolute evil"). These parties were united under Silvio Berlusconi's House of Freedoms coalition and the leader of the National Alliance, Gianfranco Fini, was one of Berlusconi's most trusted advisors. In 2006, the House of Freedoms coalition was narrowly defeated by Romano Prodi's coalition, L'Unione.
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Rescued by the Germans several months later in a spectacular raid led by Otto Skorzeny, Mussolini set up the Italian Social Republic, a Republican Fascist state (RSI, Repubblica Sociale Italiana) in northern Italy with him living in Gargnano. But he was little more than a puppet under the protection of the German Army. In this "Republic of Salò", Mussolini returned to his earlier ideas of socialism and collectivization. He ... executed some of the Fascist leaders who had abandoned him, including his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano.
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Fighting Fascists