>>18135443My name is Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea, son of Alessandro Mussolini and Rose Maltoni. I am 35 years old and I run a newspaper I started myself. I owe my name to my father's socialist convictions - Andrea, like Andrea Costa, founder of the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Romagna. Amilcare, like Amilcare Cipriani - patriot, adventurer, socialist and a convicted anarchist. Benito, like Benito Juarez - also a revolutionary and the first native to hold the office of President of Mexico.
So I owe my name to a savage. An Aztec dwarf, barely four and a half feet tall. A little man. Nothing like me. Apart from the revolutionary spirit.
Today, 23rd of March, in the year 1919, is a date that will go down in history. I'm like an animal - I can smell the times ahead - and this is my time. Here they are, my lost people, in need of strongmen and simple ideas; the desperate, the crippled, the veterans of the Great War.
You know what the Great War is, right? Yes! 1914 to 1918. Europe in flames. Four years of battles from Russia to Italy. Ten million dead, twenty-one million wounded and countless veterans, the desperate souls. They are here for me.
Albino Volpi. Multiple convictions. Volunteer, "Cayman of the Piave". Brave soldiers. They were promised compensation, rewards, the honor of victory - and instead they got nothing, not even a pension - only the contempt of those who didn't want the war and didn't fight it.
Amerigo Dumini. American by birth, but he chose to fight for Italy. Assault battalion, the death company. In this putrid peacetime, these men of war, without a place in the world, dismissed on the spot like flunkies - they are my men. I can feel their anger, their hatred. I have only them, and they have only me. History is made with outcasts - people at the bottom of the barrel. Inflame their anger, give them bombs and guns - I will make a revolution with them!
We pushed this country into war and led it to victory. We shed our blood for the fatherland. Today we found the Fasces of Combat! For the future, the vanguard, the revolution! Today, Fascism is born!
Fascism - a beautiful creature, made up of passion, ideals, courage and change, that will conquer millions and millions of hearts. Yours too, I'm certain. Follow me, you'll love me too. You'll become Fascists too.