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The 1934 Montreux Fascist conference , also known as the Fascist International Congress , was a meeting held by deputies from a number of European Fascist organizations. The conference was held on 16–17 December 1934 in Montreux , Switzerland . The conference was organised and chaired by the Comitati d'Azione per l'Universalità di Roma  [ it ] (CAUR; English: Action Committees for the Universality of Rome).

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108-414: CAUR was a network founded in 1933 by Benito Mussolini 's Fascist Regime . CAUR's director was Eugenio Coselschi  [ it ] , and its stated goal was to act as a network for a " Fascist International ". Major obstacles arose in the organisation's attempt to identify a "universal fascism" and the criteria that an organisation must fulfil in order to qualify as "fascist". Nevertheless, by April 1934

216-464: A secular state , and such a state did not leave any "space" for social identities such as religion . According to Bauer, such religious demands were incompatible with the idea of the " Rights of Man ". True political emancipation, for Bauer, required the abolition of religion. Karl Marx replied to Bauer in his 1844 essay On the Jewish Question . Marx repudiated Bauer's view that the nature of

324-478: A secular state . Bauer's conclusions were disputed by Karl Marx in his essay Zur Judenfrage , in which he argued that society cannot be free from the oppression of capitalism without removing Jews from society: "As soon as society succeeds in abolishing the empirical essence of Judaism—huckstering and its conditions—the Jew becomes impossible, because his consciousness no longer has an object... The social emancipation of

432-548: A September 1920 speech: When dealing with such a race as Slavic—inferior and barbarian—we must not pursue the carrot, but the stick policy ... We should not be afraid of new victims ... The Italian border should run across the Brenner Pass , Monte Nevoso and the Dinaric Alps  ... I would say we can easily sacrifice 500,000 barbaric Slavs for 50,000 Italians ... In the same way, Mussolini argued that Italy

540-479: A Socialist ) in the radical periodical La Voce . He also wrote several essays about German literature, some stories, and one novel: L'amante del Cardinale: Claudia Particella, romanzo storico ( The Cardinal's Mistress ). This novel he co-wrote with Santi Corvaja, and it was published as a serial book in the Trento newspaper Il Popolo from 20 January to 11 May 1910. The novel was bitterly anticlerical, and years later

648-512: A classmate with a penknife and was severely punished. After joining a new non-religious school in Forlimpopoli , Mussolini achieved good grades, was appreciated by his teachers despite his violent character, and qualified as an elementary schoolmaster in July 1901. In July 1902, Mussolini emigrated to Switzerland, partly to avoid compulsory military service. He worked briefly as a stonemason but

756-641: A clean sweep" to revive the Italian nation. On 23 March 1919 Mussolini re-formed the Milan fascio as the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (Italian Combat Squad), consisting of 200 members. The ideological basis for fascism came from a number of sources. Mussolini drew from the works of Plato , Georges Sorel , Nietzsche , and the economic ideas of Vilfredo Pareto . Mussolini admired Plato's The Republic , which he often read for inspiration. The Republic expounded

864-612: A condition for being pardoned was serving in the army, he joined the corps of the Bersaglieri in Forlì on 30 December 1904. After serving for two years in the military (from January 1905 until September 1906), he returned to teaching. In February 1909, Mussolini again left Italy, this time to take the job as the secretary of the labour party in the Italian-speaking city of Trento , then part of Austria-Hungary . He also did office work for

972-531: A daughter, Edda, at Forlì in 1910. In 1915, he had a son with Ida Dalser , a woman born in Sopramonte, a village near Trento. He legally recognised this son on 11 January 1916. By the time he returned from service in the Allied forces of World War I, Mussolini was convinced that socialism as a doctrine had largely been a failure. In early 1918 he called for the emergence of a man "ruthless and energetic enough to make

1080-585: A historical and political biography about the life and mission of the Czech ecclesiastic reformer Jan Hus and his militant followers, the Hussites . During this socialist period of his life, Mussolini sometimes used the pen name "Vero Eretico" ("sincere heretic"). Mussolini rejected egalitarianism , a core doctrine of socialism. He was influenced by Nietzsche's anti-Christian ideas and negation of God's existence . Mussolini felt that socialism had faltered, in view of

1188-405: A historical basis—belonged to Italy anyway. In Mussolini's thinking, demography was destiny; nations with rising populations were nations destined to conquer; and nations with falling populations were decaying powers that deserved to die. Hence, the importance of natalism to Mussolini, since only by increasing the birth rate could Italy ensure its future as a great power. By Mussolini's reckoning,

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1296-623: A lawsuit by Aaron Sapiro, Ford publicly apologized for his anti-Semitism, retracted his earlier views, and closed his magazine. A "Jewish problem" was euphemistically discussed in majority-European countries outside Europe, even as the Holocaust was in progress. American aviator and celebrity Charles A. Lindbergh used the phrase repeatedly in public speeches and writing. For example in his diary entry of September 18, 1941, published in 1970 as part of The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh , he wrote [John T.] Flynn says he does not question

1404-511: A member of the party to revitalise and transform it to recognise the contemporary reality revealed the hopelessness of orthodox socialism as outdated and a failure. This perception of the failure of orthodox socialism in the light of the outbreak of World War I was not solely held by Mussolini; other pro-interventionist Italian socialists such as Filippo Corridoni and Sergio Panunzio had also denounced classical Marxism in favour of intervention. These basic political views and principles formed

1512-597: A message that was articulated by the Fascist newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia , which was now edited by Mussolini's brother, Arnaldo . To that end, Mussolini obtained from the legislature dictatorial powers for one year (legal under the Italian constitution of the time). He favoured the complete restoration of state authority, with the integration of the Italian Fasces of Combat into the armed forces (the foundation in January 1923 of

1620-429: A number of ideas that fascism promoted, such as rule by an elite promoting the state as the ultimate end, opposition to democracy, protecting the class system and promoting class collaboration, rejection of egalitarianism, promoting the militarisation of a nation by creating a class of warriors, demanding that citizens perform civic duties in the interest of the state, and utilising state intervention in education to promote

1728-399: A people that has not integrated itself into its proper linguistic and racial confines—where the national problem has not been definitely resolved. In such circumstances the class movement finds itself impaired by an inauspicious historic climate. Mussolini continued to promote the need of a revolutionary vanguard elite to lead society. He no longer advocated a proletarian vanguard, but instead

1836-476: A prominent role in social life. As an example, he referred to the pervasiveness of religion in the United States , which, unlike Prussia , had no state religion . In Marx's analysis, the "secular state" was not opposed to religion, but rather assumed it. The removal of religious or property qualifications for citizenship did not mean the abolition of religion or property, but rather naturalized both and introduced

1944-608: A threat to the "white race". Mussolini believed that the United States was doomed as the American blacks had a higher birthrate than whites, making it inevitable that the blacks would take over the United States to drag it down to their level. The fact that Italy was suffering from overpopulation was seen as proving the cultural and spiritual vitality of the Italians, who were thus justified in seeking to colonise lands that Mussolini argued—on

2052-467: A unified region that had belonged to Italy from the times of the ancient Roman province of Italia , and was claimed as Italy's exclusive sphere of influence. The right to colonise the neighbouring Slovene ethnic areas and the Mediterranean, being inhabited by what were alleged to be less developed peoples, was justified on the grounds that Italy was allegedly suffering from overpopulation. Borrowing

2160-582: A universal campaign of hatred against the Jews" while also stating, "Considering that in many places certain groups of Jews are installed in conquered countries, exercising in an open and occult manner an influence injurious to the material and moral interests of the country which harbors them, constituting a sort of state within a state, profiting by all benefits and refusing all duties, considering that they have furnished and are inclined to furnish, elements conducive to international revolution which would be destructive to

2268-560: A vanguard led by dynamic and revolutionary people of any social class. Though he denounced orthodox socialism and class conflict, he maintained at the time that he was a nationalist socialist and a supporter of the legacy of nationalist socialists in Italy's history, such as Giuseppe Garibaldi , Giuseppe Mazzini , and Carlo Pisacane . As for the Italian Socialist Party and its support of orthodox socialism, he claimed that his failure as

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2376-507: A way of regarding individuals in abstraction from them. On this note Marx moved beyond the question of religious freedom to his real concern with Bauer's analysis of "political emancipation." Marx concluded that while individuals can be 'politically' free in a secular state, they were still bound to material constraints on freedom by economic inequality , an assumption that would later form the basis of his critiques of capitalism . Werner Sombart praised Jews for their capitalism and presented

2484-820: Is the belief that Jewish people have undue influence over the media, banking, and politics. Based on this conspiracy theory, certain groups and activists discuss the "Jewish Question" and offer different proposals to address it. In the early 21st century, white nationalists , alt-righters , and neo-Nazis have used the initialism JQ in order to refer to the Jewish question. [T]he political annulment of private property not only fails to abolish private property but even presupposes it. The state abolishes, in its own way, distinctions of birth, social rank, education, occupation, when it declares that birth, social rank, education, occupation, are non-political distinctions, when it proclaims, without regard to these distinctions, that every member of

2592-673: The French Mouvement Franciste , representatives from Lithuania 's Tautininkai , the Portuguese Acção Escolar Vanguarda (English: Vanguard School Action) and União Nacional of Salazar , were headed by António Eça de Queiroz (son of the famous writer , and future head of the Emissora Nacional, the National Radio Station of Portugal), as well as delegates from Austria, Belgium, Denmark,

2700-590: The National Fascist Party at a congress in Rome. In 1921 , Mussolini won election to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time. In the meantime, from about 1911 until 1938, Mussolini had various affairs with the Jewish author and academic Margherita Sarfatti , called the "Jewish Mother of Fascism" at the time. In the night between 27 and 28 October 1922, about 30,000 Fascist blackshirts gathered in Rome to demand

2808-615: The Spanish Civil War . Mussolini took part in the Treaty of Lausanne , Four-Power Pact and Stresa Front . However, he alienated the democratic powers as tensions grew in the League of Nations , which he left in 1937. Now hostile to France and Britain, Italy formed the Axis alliance with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan . The wars of the 1930s cost Italy enormous resources, leaving it unprepared for

2916-509: The University of Lausanne 's Department of Social Science on 7 May 1904, attending the lectures of Vilfredo Pareto. In 1937, when he was prime minister of Italy, the University of Lausanne awarded Mussolini an honorary doctorate . In December 1904, Mussolini returned to Italy to take advantage of an amnesty for desertion from the military. He had been convicted for this in absentia . Since

3024-551: The Voluntary Militia for National Security ) and the progressive identification of the party with the state. In political and social economy, he passed legislation that favoured the wealthy industrial and agrarian classes (privatisations, liberalisations of rent laws and dismantlement of the unions). In 1923, Mussolini sent Italian forces to invade Corfu during the Corfu incident . The League of Nations proved powerless, and Greece

3132-621: The general strike , and the use of neo-Machiavellian appeals to emotion, impressed Mussolini deeply. Mussolini became active in the Italian socialist movement in Switzerland, working for the paper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore , organising meetings, giving speeches to workers, and serving as secretary of the Italian workers' union in Lausanne . Angelica Balabanov reportedly introduced him to Vladimir Lenin , who later criticised Italian socialists for having lost Mussolini from their cause. In 1903, he

3240-751: The interwar period . Mussolini was originally a socialist politician and journalist at the Avanti! newspaper . In 1912, he became a member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), but was expelled for advocating military intervention in World War I . In 1914, Mussolini founded a newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia , and served in the Royal Italian Army until he was wounded and discharged in 1917. Mussolini eventually denounced

3348-724: The pogroms of eastern Europe by emigration to other places, primarily the United States and western Europe. In Nazi Germany , the term Jewish Question (in German: Judenfrage ) referred to the belief that the existence of Jews in Germany posed a problem for the state. In 1933 two Nazi theorists, Johann von Leers and Achim Gercke , both proposed the idea that the Jewish Question could be solved by resettling Jews in Madagascar , or somewhere else in Africa or South America. They also discussed

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3456-647: The 1880s onwards, culminating in the Nazi phrase of the " Final Solution to the Jewish Question". Similarly, the expression was used by proponents for and opponents of the establishment of an autonomous Jewish homeland or a sovereign Jewish state . The term "Jewish question" was first used in Great Britain around 1750 when the expression was used during the debates related to the Jewish Naturalisation Act 1753 . According to Holocaust scholar Lucy Dawidowicz ,

3564-570: The 1880s, the outbreak of anti-Semitic pogroms in Russia and consequent mass emigration of Jews to New York made relations worse. After 1880, escalating pogroms alienated both elite opinion and public opinion in the U.S. In 1903, the Kishinev pogrom killed 47 Jews, injured 400, and left 10,000 homeless and dependent on relief. American Jews began large-scale organized financial help and assisted in emigration from Russia. More violence in Russia led in 1911 to

3672-529: The 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The debate began with Jewish emancipation in western and central European societies during the Age of Enlightenment and after the French Revolution . The debate's issues included legal and economic Jewish disabilities (such as Jewish quotas and segregation ), Jewish assimilation , and Jewish Enlightenment . The expression has been used by antisemitic movements from

3780-632: The 1920s, he ordered the Pacification of Libya , the bombing of Corfu over an incident with Greece , and annexed Fiume , after a treaty with Yugoslavia . In 1936, Ethiopia was conquered following the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and merged into Italian East Africa (AOI) with Eritrea and Somalia . In 1939, Italian forces annexed Albania . Between 1936 and 1939, Mussolini ordered an intervention in Spain in favour of Francisco Franco , during

3888-784: The Allies, in September 1943, Mussolini was rescued in the Gran Sasso raid by Germany. Hitler made Mussolini the figurehead of a puppet state in German-occupied north Italy, the Italian Social Republic , which served as a collaborationist regime of the Germans. With Allied victory imminent, Mussolini and mistress Clara Petacci attempted to flee to Switzerland, but were captured by communist partisans and executed on 28 April 1945. Mussolini

3996-647: The CAUR convened at Montreux on 16 December. Participants from fascist organisations in 13 European countries attended, including Ion Moța of Romania 's Iron Guard , Vidkun Quisling of Norway 's Nasjonal Samling , George S. Mercouris of the Greek National Socialist Party , Ernesto Giménez Caballero of the Spanish Falange movement, Eoin O'Duffy of the Irish Blueshirts , Marcel Bucard of

4104-500: The Danish and Swiss delegates, likewise created a rift by underlining the centrality of anti-Semitism to fascist movements, a move opposed by Coselschi and O'Duffy. The Romanian Iron Guard stressed the need for race to be an integral component of fascism. On the matter of anti-Semitism, several compromise resolutions were adopted. These declared that "the Jewish question cannot be converted into

4212-723: The First World War that resulted in his ousting from the Italian Socialist Party: Professor Benito Mussolini, ... 38, revolutionary socialist, has a police record; elementary school teacher qualified to teach in secondary schools; former first secretary of the Chambers in Cesena, Forlì, and Ravenna; after 1912 editor of the newspaper Avanti! to which he gave a violent suggestive and intransigent orientation. In October 1914, finding himself in opposition to

4320-812: The German rabbi Martin Salomonski  [ de ] imagines a refuge for Jews on the moon. The most infamous use of this expression was by the Nazis in the early- and mid-twentieth century. They implemented what they called their " Final Solution to the Jewish question" through the Holocaust during World War II , when they attempted to exterminate Jews in Europe. In his book The Jewish Question (1843), Bauer argued that Jews could only achieve political emancipation if they relinquished their particular religious consciousness. He believed that political emancipation required

4428-504: The Italian Futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti , French Socialist Gustave Hervé , Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta , and German philosophers Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx , the founders of Marxism . Mussolini had taught himself French and German and translated excerpts from Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Kant . During this time, he published Il Trentino veduto da un Socialista ( Trentino as viewed by

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4536-550: The Italian population had to reach 60 million to enable Italy to fight a major war—hence his relentless demands for Italian women to have more children. Mussolini and the fascists managed to be simultaneously revolutionary and traditionalist ; because this was vastly different from anything else in the political climate of the time, it is sometimes described as "The Third Way". The Fascisti, led by one of Mussolini's close confidants, Dino Grandi , formed armed squads of war veterans called blackshirts (or squadristi ) with

4644-444: The Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism." According to Otto Dov Kulka of Hebrew University , the term became widespread in the 19th century when it was used in discussions about Jewish emancipation in Germany ( Judenfrage ). In the 19th century hundreds of tractates, pamphlets, newspaper articles and books were written on the subject, with many offering such solutions as resettlement, deportation, or assimilation of

4752-599: The Jewish Question . Nazi propaganda was produced in order to manipulate the public, the most notable examples of which were based on the writings of people such as Eugen Fischer , Fritz Lenz and Erwin Baur in Foundations of Human Heredity Teaching and Racial Hygiene . The work Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens ( Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Living ) by Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche and

4860-526: The Jewish population. Similarly, hundreds of works were written opposing these solutions and offering instead solutions such as re-integration and education. This debate however, could not decide whether the problem of the Jewish question had more to do with the problems posed by the German Jews ' opponents or vice versa: the problem posed by the existence of the German Jews to their opponents. From around 1860,

4968-516: The Jewish question. ' " The question was next discussed in France ( la question juive ) after the French Revolution in 1789. It was discussed in Germany in 1843 via Bruno Bauer 's treatise Die Judenfrage ( ' The Jewish Question ' ). He argued that Jews could achieve political emancipation only if they let go their religious consciousness, as he proposed that political emancipation required

5076-432: The Jewish religion prevented assimilation by Jews. Instead, Marx attacked Bauer's very formulation of the question from "can the Jews become politically emancipated?" as fundamentally masking the nature of political emancipation itself. Marx used Bauer's essay as an occasion for his own analysis of liberal rights. Marx argued that Bauer was mistaken in his assumption that in a " secular state ", religion would no longer play

5184-667: The Netherlands and Switzerland. Notable in their absence were any representatives from Nazi Germany . The conference in Montreux occurred only six months after the assassination of the Austrofascist Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss by Nazi agents and the resulting diplomatic crisis between Italy and Germany . Likewise, Mussolini did not allow any official representative of the Italian Fascist Party to attend

5292-593: The PSI, his views now centering on Italian nationalism , and founded the fascist movement which opposed egalitarianism and class conflict , instead advocating " revolutionary nationalism " transcending class lines . In October 1922, following the March on Rome , Mussolini was appointed prime minister by King Victor Emmanuel III . After removing opposition through his secret police and outlawing labour strikes , Mussolini and his followers consolidated power through laws that transformed

5400-403: The Second World War; Mussolini initially declared Italy's non-belligerence. However, in June 1940, believing Allied defeat imminent, he joined the war on Germany's side, to share the spoils. After the tide turned, and the Allied invasion of Sicily , King Victor Emmanuel III dismissed Mussolini as head of government and placed him in custody in July 1943. After the king agreed to an armistice with

5508-415: The Socialist Party, as they were two " revisionists " who had supported the war. In 1912, he became a member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). He was rewarded with the editorship of the Socialist Party newspaper Avanti! Under his leadership, its circulation soon rose from 20,000 to 100,000. John Gunther in 1940 called him "one of the best journalists alive"; Mussolini

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5616-442: The United States repealing an 1832 commercial treaty. In the 1920s, according to historian Leo Ribuffo, auto magnate Henry Ford sponsored a major outburst of attacks on Jews in his magazine, the Dearborn Independent , bundles of which he sent to all Ford dealerships every week. It especially promoted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , and also published new articles that blamed Jews for America's problems. In 1927, following

5724-464: The anti-interventionist orthodox socialists resulted in violence between the Fascists and socialists. These early hostilities between the Fascists and the revolutionary socialists shaped Mussolini's conception of the nature of Fascism in its support of political violence. Mussolini became an ally with the irredentist politician and journalist Cesare Battisti . When World War I started, Mussolini, like many Italian nationalists, volunteered to fight. He

5832-423: The basis of Mussolini's newly formed political movement, the Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria in 1914, who called themselves Fascisti (Fascists). At this time, the Fascists did not have an integrated set of policies and the movement was small, ineffective in its attempts to hold mass meetings, and was regularly harassed by government authorities and orthodox socialists. Antagonism between the interventionists versus

5940-465: The common people of Italy to be participating members in what would be Italy's first national war. Thus he claimed that the vast social changes that the war could offer meant that it should be supported as a revolutionary war. As Mussolini's support for the intervention solidified, he came into conflict with socialists who opposed the war. He attacked the opponents of the war and claimed that those proletarians who supported pacifism were out of step with

6048-464: The concept was totally without substance. Instead we see the nation arise as a palpitating reality before us! ... Class cannot destroy the nation. Class reveals itself as a collection of interests—but the nation is a history of sentiments, traditions, language, culture, and race. Class can become an integral part of the nation, but the one cannot eclipse the other. The class struggle is a vain formula, without effect and consequence wherever one finds

6156-475: The continuation of the struggle in which he was engaged ... But assuming these modifications did take place ... he always wanted to give the appearance of still being a socialist, and he fooled himself into thinking that this was the case. After being ousted by the Italian Socialist Party, Mussolini made a radical transformation, ending his support for class conflict and joining in support of revolutionary nationalism transcending class lines. He formed

6264-438: The danger of a totalitarian evolution. As Prime Minister, the first years of Mussolini's rule were characterised by a right-wing coalition government of Fascists, nationalists, liberals, and two Catholic clerics from the People's Party . The Fascists made up a small minority in his original governments. Mussolini's domestic goal was the eventual establishment of a totalitarian state with himself as supreme leader ( Il Duce ),

6372-409: The development of warriors and future rulers of the state. The idea behind Mussolini's foreign policy was that of spazio vitale (vital space), a concept in Italian Fascism that was analogous to Lebensraum in German National Socialism. The concept of spazio vitale was first announced in 1919, when the entire Mediterranean , especially so-called Julian March , was redefined to make it appear

6480-551: The directorate of the Italian Socialist party because he advocated a kind of active neutrality on the part of Italy in the War of the Nations against the party's tendency of absolute neutrality, he withdrew on the twentieth of that month from the directorate of Avanti! Then on the fifteenth of November [1914], thereafter, he initiated publication of the newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia , in which he supported—in sharp contrast to Avanti! and amid bitter polemics against that newspaper and its chief backers—the thesis of Italian intervention in

6588-452: The failures of Marxist determinism and social democratic reformism , and believed that Nietzsche's ideas would strengthen socialism. Mussolini's writings came to reflect an abandonment of Marxism and egalitarianism in favour of Nietzsche's übermensch concept and anti-egalitarianism. When World War I began in August 1914, many socialist parties worldwide followed the rising nationalist current and supported their country's intervention in

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6696-437: The fall of Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies and the repression of "reactionary" Turkey would create conditions beneficial for the working class, and that the mobilisation required for the war would undermine Russia's reactionary authoritarianism and bring Russia to social revolution. He said that for Italy the war would complete the process of Risorgimento by uniting the Italians in Austria-Hungary into Italy and by allowing

6804-472: The goal of restoring order to the streets of Italy with a strong hand. The blackshirts clashed with communists, socialists, and anarchists at parades and demonstrations; all of these factions were also involved in clashes against each other. The Italian government rarely interfered with the blackshirts' actions, owing in part to a looming threat and widespread fear of a communist revolution. The Fascisti grew rapidly; within two years they transformed themselves into

6912-429: The governments of France and Britain. On 5 December 1914, Mussolini denounced orthodox socialism for failing to recognise that the war had made national identity and loyalty more significant than class distinction. He fully demonstrated his transformation in a speech that acknowledged the nation as an entity, a notion he had rejected prior to the war, saying: The nation has not disappeared. We used to believe that

7020-468: The idea first developed by Enrico Corradini before 1914 of the natural conflict between " plutocratic " nations like Britain and "proletarian" nations like Italy, Mussolini claimed that Italy's principal problem was that "plutocratic" countries like Britain were blocking Italy from achieving the necessary spazio vitale that would let the Italian economy grow. Mussolini equated a nation's potential for economic growth with territorial size, thus in his view

7128-424: The idea of patriotism and Christian civilisation, the Conference denounces the nefarious action of these elements and is ready to combat them." The delegates at the conference also unanimously declared their opposition to communist movements and the Third International . A second and final conference was held in Montreux in April 1935. José Antonio Primo de Rivera made a brief appearance at this conference, using

7236-433: The interventionist newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia and the Fascio Rivoluzionario d'Azione Internazionalista ("Revolutionary Fasces of International Action") in October 1914. The funds to create Il Popolo d'Italia —funneled through entrepeneur Filippo Naldi  [ it ] —came from many sources, including domestic industrial and agrarian interests, such as the engineering giants Fiat and Ansaldo , and

7344-438: The local Socialist Party, and edited its newspaper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore ( The Future of the Worker ). Returning to Italy, he spent a brief time in Milan , and in 1910 he returned to his hometown of Forlì, where he edited the weekly Lotta di classe ( The Class Struggle ). Mussolini thought of himself as an intellectual and was considered to be well-read. He read avidly; his favourites in European philosophy included Sorel,

7452-400: The meeting, ostensibly in order to see what the conference could achieve before lending full official support. José Antonio Primo de Rivera , while allowing members of the Falange to participate, issued a public statement that the Falange as an organisation would not be represented, claiming that the Falange was "not a Fascist movement", although the following year he asserted that the Falange

7560-430: The military authoritarianism of Garibaldi, and the nationalism of Mazzini. In 1902, at the anniversary of Garibaldi's death, Mussolini made a public speech in praise of the republican nationalist. Mussolini was sent to a boarding school in Faenza run by Salesians . Despite being shy, he often clashed with teachers and fellow boarders due to his proud, grumpy, and violent behaviour. During an argument, he injured

7668-516: The movement did not meet its goal of acting as a counterbalance to international communism. The CAUR did not win official endorsement from the Italian Fascist Party or the Spanish Falange. It was unsuccessful either to present a commonly agreed definition as to what "fascism" was or to unite most major fascist parties into one international movement. Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (in Switzerland known as Benedetto Mussolini ; 29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945)

7776-461: The nation into a one-party dictatorship . Within five years, Mussolini established dictatorial authority by legal and illegal means and aspired to create a totalitarian state. In 1929, Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty to establish Vatican City . Mussolini's foreign policy was based on the fascist doctrine of " Spazio vitale " ("living space"), which aimed to expand Italian possessions. In

7884-399: The nation is an equal participant in national sovereignty, when it treats all elements of the real life of the nation from the standpoint of the state. Nevertheless, the state allows private property, education, occupation, to act in their way – i.e., as private property, as education, as occupation, and to exert the influence of their special nature. Far from abolishing these real distinctions,

7992-532: The network had identified "fascist" movements in 39 countries, including all European countries except Yugoslavia , as well as the United States , Canada , Australia , South Africa , five countries in Asia and six in Latin America . As different groups tried to obtain subsidies all manners of conflicts arose on issues such as racism , anti-Semitism , corporatism , and state structure. The first world conference of

8100-417: The old Liberals and others, won 64% of the vote. Jewish question The Jewish question was a wide-ranging debate in 19th- and 20th-century Europe that pertained to the appropriate status and treatment of Jews . The debate, which was similar to other " national questions ", dealt with the civil, legal, national, and political status of Jews as a minority within society, particularly in Europe during

8208-490: The opportunity to express sympathies with the movement while stating that Spain was not ready to participate in any venture of international fascism because his movement was estrictamente nacional (strictly national). The conference was not able to bridge the gulf between those participants who proposed achieving national integration by a corporative socio-economic policy and those who favored an appeal to race. Pretensions to "universal fascism" could not survive this rift, and

8316-620: The press, education, culture, state and economy. They also proposed to condemn inter-marriage between Jews and non-Jews. They used this term to oust the Jews from their supposedly socially dominant positions. The topic was also taken up by Jews themselves. Theodor Herzl 's 1896 treatise Der Judenstaat advocates Zionism as a "modern solution for the Jewish question" by creating an independent Jewish state, preferably in Ottoman-controlled Palestine. The 1934 science fiction novel Zwei im andern Land  [ de ] by

8424-569: The problem of poverty in Italy could only be solved by winning the necessary spazio vitale . Though biological racism was less prominent in Italian Fascism than in National Socialism , right from the start the spazio vitale concept had a strong racist undercurrent. Mussolini asserted there was a "natural law" for stronger peoples to subject and dominate "inferior" peoples such as the "barbaric" Slavic peoples of Yugoslavia. He stated in

8532-545: The proletarians who had joined the rising interventionist vanguard that was preparing Italy for a revolutionary war. He began to criticise the Italian Socialist Party and socialism itself for having failed to recognise the national problems that had led to the outbreak of the war. He was expelled from the party for his support of intervention. A police report prepared by the Inspector-General of Public Security in Milan, G. Gasti, describes his background and his position on

8640-603: The pros and cons of supporting the German Zionists. Von Leers asserted that establishing a Jewish homeland in Mandatory Palestine would create humanitarian and political problems for the region. Upon achieving power in 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi state began to implement increasingly severe legislation that was aimed at segregating and ultimately removing Jews from Germany and (eventually) all of Europe. The next stage

8748-532: The pseudo-scholarship that was promoted by Gerhard Kittel also played a role. In occupied France , the collaborationist regime established its own Institute for studying the Jewish Questions . According to historians Ronald J. Jensen and Stuart Knee, by the 1870s Russian-American relations were strained by the mistreatment of American Jewish visitors in Russia. President Ulysses S. Grant responded to American Jewish requests for action to protect visitors. By

8856-479: The resignation of liberal Prime Minister Luigi Facta and the appointment of a new Fascist government. On the morning of 28 October, King Victor Emmanuel III , who according to the Albertine Statute held the supreme military power, refused the government request to declare martial law , which led to Facta's resignation. The King then handed over power to Mussolini (who stayed in his headquarters in Milan during

8964-500: The seventeenth–eighteenth century court Jews as integrated and a model for integration. By the turn of the twentieth century, the debate was still widely discussed. The Dreyfus Affair in France, believed to be evidence of anti-semitism, increased the prominence of this issue. Theodor Herzl proposed the advancement of a separate Jewish state and the Zionist cause. Between 1880 and 1920, millions of Jews created their own solution for

9072-496: The side of the Allies and utilised the Società Dante Alighieri to promote Italian nationalism. Italian socialists were divided on whether to support the war. Prior to Mussolini taking a position on the war, a number of revolutionary syndicalists had announced their support of intervention, including Alceste De Ambris , Filippo Corridoni , and Angelo Oliviero Olivetti . The Italian Socialist Party decided to oppose

9180-469: The talks) by asking him to form a new government. The King's controversial decision has been explained by historians as a combination of delusions and fears; Mussolini enjoyed wide support in the military and among the industrial and agrarian elites, while the King and the conservative establishment were afraid of a possible civil war and thought they could use Mussolini to restore law and order, but failed to foresee

9288-399: The term "Jewish Question", as introduced in western Europe , was a neutral expression for the negative attitude toward the apparent and persistent singularity of the Jews as a people against the background of the rising political nationalism and new nation-states . Dawidowicz writes that "the histories of Jewish emancipation and of European antisemitism are replete with proffered 'solutions to

9396-483: The term was used with an increasingly antisemitic tendency: Jews were described under this term as a stumbling block to the identity and cohesion of the German nation and as enemies within the Germans' own country. Antisemites such as Wilhelm Marr , Karl Eugen Dühring , Theodor Fritsch , Houston Stewart Chamberlain , Paul de Lagarde and others declared it a racial problem insoluble through integration. They stressed this in order to strengthen their demands to "de-jewify"

9504-437: The truth of what I said at Des Moines, but feels it was inadvisable to mention the Jewish problem. It is difficult for me to understand Flynn's attitude. He feels as strongly as I do that the Jews are among the major influences pushing this country toward war. He has said so frequently and he says so now. He is perfectly willing to talk about it among a small group of people in private. A dominant anti-Semitic conspiracy theory

9612-500: The war after anti-militarist protestors had been killed, resulting in a general strike called Red Week . Mussolini initially held official support for the party's decision and, in an August 1914 article, Mussolini wrote "Down with the War. We remain neutral." He saw the war as an opportunity, both for his own ambitions as well as those of socialists and Italians. He was influenced by anti-Austrian Italian nationalist sentiments, believing that

9720-584: The war against the militarism of the Central Empires. For this reason he was accused of moral and political unworthiness and the party thereupon decided to expel him ... Thereafter he ... undertook a very active campaign in behalf of Italian intervention, participating in demonstrations in the piazzas and writing quite violent articles in Popolo d'Italia ... In his summary, the Inspector also noted: He

9828-881: The war offered Italians in Austria-Hungary the chance to liberate themselves from rule of the Habsburgs . He eventually decided to declare support for the war by appealing to the need for socialists to overthrow the Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies in Germany and Austria-Hungary who he said had consistently repressed socialism. Mussolini further justified his position by denouncing the Central Powers for being reactionary powers; for pursuing imperialist designs against Belgium and Serbia as well as historically against Denmark, France, and against Italians, since hundreds of thousands of Italians were under Habsburg rule. He argued that

9936-447: The war. In Italy, the outbreak of the war created a surge of Italian nationalism and intervention was supported by a variety of political factions. One of the most prominent and popular Italian nationalist supporters of the war was Gabriele d'Annunzio who promoted Italian irredentism and helped sway the Italian public to support intervention. The Italian Liberal Party under the leadership of Paolo Boselli promoted intervention on

10044-797: Was a devout Catholic schoolteacher. Given his father's political leanings, Mussolini was named Benito after liberal Mexican president Benito Juárez , while his middle names, Andrea and Amilcare, were for Italian socialists Andrea Costa and Amilcare Cipriani . In return his mother required that he be baptised at birth. Benito was followed by his siblings Arnaldo and Edvige . As a young boy, Mussolini helped his father in his smithy. Mussolini's early political views were strongly influenced by his father, who idolised 19th-century Italian nationalist figures with humanist tendencies such as Carlo Pisacane , Giuseppe Mazzini , and Giuseppe Garibaldi . His father's political outlook combined views of anarchist figures such as Carlo Cafiero and Mikhail Bakunin ,

10152-645: Was a working reporter while preparing for the March on Rome, and wrote for the Hearst News Service until 1935. Mussolini was so familiar with Marxist literature that in his writings he would not only quote from well-known Marxist works but also from the relatively obscure works. During this period Mussolini considered himself an "authoritarian communist " and a Marxist and he described Karl Marx as "the greatest of all theorists of socialism." In 1913, he published Giovanni Hus, il veridico ( Jan Hus, true prophet ),

10260-443: Was an Italian dictator who founded and led the National Fascist Party (PNF). He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922, until his deposition in 1943, as well as Duce of Italian fascism from the establishment of the Italian Fasces of Combat in 1919, until his summary execution in 1945 . As a dictator and founder of fascism , Mussolini inspired the international spread of fascist movements during

10368-691: Was arrested by Bernese police because of his advocacy of a violent general strike, spent two weeks in jail, and was handed over to Italian police in Chiasso . After he was released in Italy, he returned to Switzerland. He was arrested again in Geneva, in April 1904, for falsifying his passport expiration date, and was expelled from the canton of Geneva . He was released in Bellinzona following protests from Genevan socialists. Mussolini then returned to Lausanne, where he entered

10476-503: Was born on 29 July 1883 in Dovia di Predappio , a small town in the province of Forlì in Romagna . During the Fascist era, Predappio was dubbed "Duce's town" and Forlì was called "Duce's city", with pilgrims going to Predappio and Forlì to see the birthplace of Mussolini. Benito Mussolini's father, Alessandro Mussolini , was a blacksmith and a socialist, while his mother, Rosa (née Maltoni),

10584-454: Was compromising with his personal and political honesty by making use of every means—no matter where they came from or wherever he might obtain them—to pay for his newspaper, his program and his line of action. This was his initial line. It is difficult to say to what extent his socialist convictions (which he never either openly or privately abjure) may have been sacrificed in the course of the indispensable financial deals which were necessary for

10692-514: Was forced to comply with Italian demands. In June 1923, the government passed the Acerbo Law , which transformed Italy into a single national constituency. It also granted a two-thirds majority of the seats in Parliament to the party or group of parties that received at least 25% of the votes. This law applied in the elections of 6 April 1924 . The national alliance , consisting of Fascists, most of

10800-625: Was promoted to the rank of corporal "for merit in war". The promotion was recommended because of his exemplary conduct and fighting quality, his mental calmness and lack of concern for discomfort, his zeal and regularity in carrying out his assignments, where he was always first in every task involving labor and fortitude. Mussolini's military experience is told in his work Diario di guerra . He totalled about nine months of active, front-line trench warfare. During this time, he contracted paratyphoid fever . His military exploits ended in February 1917 when he

10908-427: Was right to follow an imperialist policy in Africa because he saw all black people as "inferior" to whites. Mussolini claimed that the world was divided into a hierarchy of races (though this was justified more on cultural than on biological grounds), and that history was nothing more than a Darwinian struggle for power and territory between various "racial masses". Mussolini saw high birthrates in Africa and Asia as

11016-643: Was the "sole Fascist movement of Spain" in a private report to the Italian embassy. Other notable absences included the Austrian Ernst Rudiger von Starhemberg and any representatives from the British Union of Fascists . From the outset, the conference was marred by serious conflicts between the participants. Coselschi, acting as President of the Conference, clashed with Quisling over the importance of Nazi Germany to international fascism. Moța, supported by

11124-567: Was the ideal editor of Avanti! for the Socialists. In that line of work he was greatly esteemed and beloved. Some of his former comrades and admirers still confess that there was no one who understood better how to interpret the spirit of the proletariat and there was no one who did not observe his apostasy with sorrow. This came about not for reasons of self-interest or money. He was a sincere and passionate advocate, first of vigilant and armed neutrality, and later of war; and he did not believe that he

11232-412: Was the persecution of the Jews and the stripping of their citizenship through the 1935 Nuremberg Laws . Starting with 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom and later, during World War II , it became state-sponsored internment in concentration camps . Finally the government implemented the systematic extermination of the Jewish people ( The Holocaust ), which took place as the so-called Final Solution to

11340-587: Was turned down because of his radical Socialism and told to wait for his reserve call up. He was called up on 31 August and reported for duty with his old unit, the Bersaglieri . After a two-week refresher course he was sent to Isonzo front where he took part in the Second Battle of the Isonzo, September 1915. His unit also took part in the Third Battle of the Isonzo, October 1915. The Inspector General continued: He

11448-410: Was unable to find a permanent job. During this time he studied the ideas of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche , the sociologist Vilfredo Pareto , and the syndicalist Georges Sorel . Mussolini also later credited Charles Péguy and Hubert Lagardelle as influences. Sorel's emphasis on the need for overthrowing decadent liberal democracy and capitalism by the use of violence, direct action ,

11556-522: Was withdrawn from circulation after Mussolini made a truce with the Vatican. He had become one of Italy's most prominent socialists. In September 1911, Mussolini participated in a riot, led by socialists, against the Italian war in Libya . He bitterly denounced Italy's "imperialist war," an action that earned him a five-month jail term. After his release, he helped expel Ivanoe Bonomi and Leonida Bissolati from

11664-510: Was wounded accidentally by the explosion of a mortar bomb in his trench. He was left with at least 40 shards of metal in his body and had to be evacuated from the front. He was discharged from the hospital in August 1917 and resumed his editor-in-chief position at his new paper, Il Popolo d'Italia . On 25 December 1915, in Treviglio , he married his compatriot Rachele Guidi, who had already borne him

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