Page 169 - Fascism: The Bloody Ideology Of Darwinsim

Fascism's Hatred Of Religion 169

virtues of humility, resignation, charity, and goodness and it was also in
Nietzsche that he found some of his favourite phrases including 'live
dangerously', and 'the will to power'. Here, too, was the splendid
concept of the superman, the supreme egoist who defied both God and
the masses, who despised egalitarianism and democracy, who believed
in the weakest going to the wall and pushing them if they did not go
fast enough. 124

Mussolini clearly referred to his ideological link with Darwinism in the
pages of the communist weekly magazine La Lotta di Classe (Class Struggle), of
which he was editor for a time. Pictures of Marx and Darwin were on the
cover of the very first edition. The first issue of La Lotta di Classe referred to
these two materialist ideologues as "The greatest thinkers of the past century,"
and was full of praise for Darwin's theory of evolution. 125 Mussolini wrote a
great deal for La Lotta di Classe on Darwinist, communist and anti-religious
themes, but after 1922, in other words, after he came to power, all copies of this
paper suddenly disappeared from local libraries. 126

Mussolini's False Piety
Mussolini underwent a sudden personal change at the end of the 1910s.
After having been a radical communist for so long, he then emerged as the
leader of the ideology known as "fascism" as it set out on its way to power. This
movement took the "axe" of ancient Roman paganism as its symbol. However,
Mussolini did not himself discover "fascism," but rather developed it from the
racist trends which had been escalating in Italy during that period. But, even
though he did not invent the ideology, he soon made it his own and turned it
into a political movement. Just like Hitler, he gathered ignorant people around
him, street thugs, adventurers, and instigators of violence. He grouped them
together in a quasi-military organization known as the "Black Shirts," which he
employed as a weapon of terror against his rivals. By these methods, he was
able to seize power a few years later. By 1922 he was Italy's prime minister.
Shortly afterwards, he began to be known by the term "Il Duce," or leader, and
became an outright dictator.
As Mussolini was emerging as the leader of fascism, he decided first to
conceal his enmity towards religion, and even to appear as a devout Catholic.
He made great efforts to create the image, particularly in the early years of his
rule. On the one hand, he had all magazines in which he had written against
religion collected and destroyed, while on the other, he made divinity lessons