Mussolini

"This important new life of Mussolini by a talented new biographer draws on a vast range of fresh material to challenge the standard version of Italy's fascist dictator as either grotesque buffoon, hell bent on war in Europe (the liberal version), or tool of the bourgeoisie in its war with the working class (the Marxist version)." "To get power and hold it by and large bloodlessly through two decades, as Mussolini did until his disastrous alliance with Hitler, required much more than that. Such was the magnetism of the man Churchill called 'the Roman genius' and Pope Pius XI 'sent by Providence', and so strong the appeal of fascism, that the only honest verdict is that he ruled by popular demand." "Mussolini was as popular with women as men. Behind every great man, it is said, there is a woman. Behind this great dictator, who had 169 lovers according to one estimate, stood a nation of women. It was his politics they found most attractive. He did away with democracy but he did not use mass murder to stay in power. There was no need. To the bitter end, there was little resistance to him by Italians because support for him remained so strong." "His fatal error was his alliance with Hi