Strong Leadership, a New Government, and No More Class Wars: A Recipe to Make the Trains Run On Time

Mussolini had three points that were the most important in creating his idea of the perfect society. Mussolini decided that Italy needed to have strong leadership, to stop the class wars, and to destroy parliamentary government.

Mussolini said Italy needed strong, charismatic leadership that could bring Italy up from its past shames it had suffered. This charismatic, strong leader was in Mussolini’s mind, Mussolini. He said that they needed to stop class conflict. His thinking was that by organizing the economy in a way where everyone was producer that Italy would have great economic growth and that the country would thrive.

Finally Mussolini’s biggest point was that he wanted to destroy parliamentary democracy. How? By replacing it with a more elite government.  In Mussolini’s mind this elite government happened to be Fascism (with Mussolini, of course). If you haven’t figured it out already Mussolini was not a very humble man, and despite his theatrics and his charisma the only thing he really managed to accomplish was making the trains run on time.

Fascism and Nazism- the Solutions

Benito Mussolini

After WWI many people thought that the old governments (Socialism, Communism, and democracy) were the cause of the war so they did everything to reject the ideals of old governments and supported anything that wasn’t even if they didn’t truly believe it was a good idea. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) believed that democracy substituted the rule of the incompetent many for that of the corrupt. Two of the most influential people of this time were dictators Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.

Benito Mussolini was the leader of Italian Fascism. Italian Fascism was not a consistent doctrine but a fusion of ideas. It was successful in Italy because at the time Italian society was neat collapse. Fascism’s aim was to end class conflict. Fascism was a large anti-liberal, anti-communist movement that was willing to apply force whenever necessary and held all high-class values in contempt.

Adolf Hitler- the leader of Nazism

Adolf Hitler borrowed Fascism from Mussolini but took it one step forward- turning it into Nazism. Nazism was fascism but with an added racist twist. This movement was very successful in Germany because it gave people someone to blame for their issues:  capitalism, communism, the Jews, the pacifists and liberals, the weak and the insane- except they rolled it all into one thing and called it ‘the Jewish conspiracy’. Nazism said that by purging anyone who was part of the ‘Jewish conspiracy’ that Germany could take its place back in the sun.