What did Mussolini do before he was a leader of Fascism?

Answer 1

He was a socialist. By the time Mussolini returned from Allied service in World War I, he had decided that socialism as a doctrine had largely been a failure. In early 1918, Mussolini called for the emergence of a man "ruthless and energetic enough to make a clean sweep" to revive the Italian nation. Much later in life Mussolini said he felt by 1919 "Socialism as a doctrine was already dead; it continued to exist only as a grudge". On March 23, 1919, Mussolini reformed the Milan fascio as the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (Italian Combat Squad).

Answer 2

Before he became a political leader he was a teacher of elementary school and a journalist as a director of the socialist newspaper "l'Avanti" (Forward) from 1912 through 1914, when he changed his mind in favour of an Italian intervention in WW1.

He was therefore expelled from the Socialist Party and founded the daily paper

"Il Popolo d'Italia" (literally :The People of Italy).

He fought as a private in WW1, becoming a corporal and then corporal specialist in 1916. Badly wounded he was sent to an 18 months furlough and in 1929 discharged from the Army with honour.

On March 23,1919 he founded the political Group of "Fasci Italiani di Combattimento" (literally translated: Italian Combat Fasces), that became then the Italian Fascist Party, of which he was the leader.

Answer 3

He Was a Schooln Teacher In Italy