I think so-after talkng with an Italian friend, the case for “good” Mussolini is this:
-alone, he broke the power of the sicilian mafia-he put them all in jail. For the firts time in its history, dams got built and roads improved-without the graft and corruption of the Mafia.
-he began the construction of the highways system (Autostrada)-this gave work to many unemployed Italians, and made business easier to carry on
-he got the heads of the big Italian industrial firms (Fiat,Alfa-Romeo, Finsteel) together, and agreed on a coherent industrial policy
-he drained the malarial Pontine Marshes (deadly since Roman days)
-he also introduced major reforms in the education system, and brokered the agreement (the Lateran Treaty) with the RC Church (ending decades of ill feelings)
He was also (early on) an enemy of German Naziism-he actually sent troops to the Austrain border in 1936-and kept Hitler from absorbing Austria.
Of course, all of this was negated by Italy’s disastrous entry into WWII-the war was a total disaster for Italy. Had Mussolini kept away from Hitler (and allied himself with france and GB)-would he be a hero today?
Mussolini was a fascist and his reign over Italy was characterized by all of things that characterize totalitarian states: violence, intimidation, censorship, human rights abuse, jailing without trial, propaganda, and so forth. If he’d avoided entering World War II on Hitler’s side, one can at best imagine that the Italians would see him rather like the Spanish see Franco.
If Mussolini had successfully remained neutral, he would probably have been remembered much as Franco is - like ITR says.
OTOH, if Mussolini had allied himself with the western allies, he’d have been inevitably crushed by Hitler, and would be as remembered as the Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas is remembered today - as per wikipedia, “To this day, Metaxas remains a highly controversial figure in Greek history. He is reviled by some for his dictatorial state, and admired by others for his popular policies, patriotism, defiance to aggression, and his military victory against Italy.”
As far as I know he mostly is honoured and loved.
By a lot of Italians
This reminds me of one of the oddest things about my elementary school education. I was in a “gifted” class, and we would have these reading “modules” to go through about various topics. They were about the size of an A4 piece of paper folded in half and laminated, and stored in a box. They had a very wide range of subjects (I remember one was talking about how climate scientists had determined that the world was cooling and a new ice age was coming.) And one in particular sticks in my mind – it was a mini biographical sketch talking about this national leader with the nickname of “Il Duce” was such a beloved figure and a friendly guy, winking and joking with the press before he would go out on some balcony to give an important speech. This was in the 70s, and I was too young to know who Mussolini was – but looking back on it now, of course, it strikes me as bizarre.
NM
And don’t forget that the “good” Mussolini colonized Ethiopia by force.
Well, he didn’t have much choice, because Ethiopia was the only part of Africa that wasn’t already colonized by one European country or another. Who else was he supposed to conquer?
Well remember that Franco is adulated by many on the right, including posters here. He’s seen as saving Catholic Spain from the scourge of communism, and his little habit of killing tens of thousands and oppressing millions of others is kind of ignored.
Amongst those who hate unions and the left, Mussolini would be thought of as a hero had he not fought with Hitler. He’d still have been a complete and total wanker in reality, though.
Are you talking about SRAs? I don’t remember what SRA stood for, but I remember they were called SRAs. One section was called, “Getting the Main Idea” and featured stories like the one you describe.
In 2006 I was in Italy and we stopped along the Autostrada somewhere in Marche and they were selling “Il Duce” cigarette lighters by the cash register. Full bust of Benito in profile with the legend “Il Duce” emblazoned on it.
So I would say in parts of Italy, at least, he is honored and loved even though he lost WW2.
For comparison sake when I was in Spain last year I didn’t see anything paying homage to the Franco years. I’m pretty sure in Germany something similar with a Hitler profile on it would get your ass tossed in prison.
Yes, exactly – I hadn’t thougtht of that in years.
I remember them being called "SRA"s and over the years I’ve found some of them to be amusingly wrong. But I do remember that they were fun to read.
I had understood that Mussolini was a much more sympathetic character than Franco and that had he engineered a successful outcome to WW2 he would be regarded favourably in Italy and abroad. In the 1930s he would not have compared badly to, for example, Churchill.
Pre-war Italy did not have a bloodbath remotely comparable to the Spanish Civil War (where both sides committed many disgusting atrocities, but that would be a different thread).
However, I am not sure about this, and would welcome having my ignorance fought. But most interesting to judge him by the standards of Europe in the 1920s, not the 2010s, and for the purposes of this OP ignoring events after 1937.
SRA stands for Science Research Associates.
Ridiculous; Mussolini was an authoritarian, and left many of these functions to the private sector.
Consider the strange case of the mural at the Messina Maritime station:
Me either! We had them in my elementary school in the mid-Seventies.