Page 168 - Fascism: The Bloody Ideology Of Darwinsim

168 FASCISM: THE BLOODY IDEOLOGY OF DARWINISM

The Men Who Inspired Mussolini: Nietzsche and Darwin

Mussolini's devotion to communism was rooted in both his tendency to
violence and personal psychological problems. Denis Mack Smith describes
Mussolini's personality in these words:
Despite his continuing allegiance to Marx, there was little precise
doctrine in his eclectic brand of socialism. He sometimes called himself
a syndicalist, but in private spoke unkindly about most other socialists
and to some acquaintances seemed above all an anarchist. 121
Another historian who has studied Mussolini's life, Angelica
Balabanoff, thought his views were "more the reflection of his early
environment and his own rebellious egoism than the product of understanding
and conviction; his hatred of oppression was not that impersonal hatred of a
system shared by all revolutionaries; it sprang rather from his own sense of
indignity and frustration, from a passion to assert his own ego and from a
determination for personal revenge.'' 122
Actually, Mussolini's only definite beliefs were the principles of
"conflict" and "war." These he had learned from the ideological founder of
fascism, in other words, from Friedrich Nietzsche, and his mentor, Charles
Darwin.
There is considerable evidence for the admiration Mussolini felt for
them both. He admitted to his admiration for Nietzsche, whom he said filled
him with a "spiritual eroticism." 123 Denis Mack Smith writes:

In Nietzsche he found justification for his crusade against the Christian

MUSSOLINI'S
MENTORS
Mussolini believed
that war and
conflict were
indispensable to
the development of
a nation. Two
figures instilled
that idea in him,
Charles Darwin and
Friedrich Nietzsche.