Speaking to a hall full of veterans of the Great War, he recounts the Italian version of the Dolchstosslegende—the Nazi myth that Germany’s defeat in World War I was the work of traitors at home. Mussolini, played by Italian actor Luca Marinelli, tells the veterans that the blood they shed for their fatherland was wasted by an incompetent democratic government that failed to achieve the territorial gains it was promised by England, France, and Russia. To stomping boots and booming voices, Mussolini—the son of a socialist blacksmith who became the father of fascism—concludes that it is up to them, the newly formed Blackshirts, to avenge this “ mutilated victory ” and restore Italy to her rightful glory.

In the opening scene of Mussolini: Son of the Century, a miniseries about the rise of Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator-to-be stands on a dimly lit stage. There, he announces the formation of the Fasci di Combattimento, the paramilitary heart and muscle of what would eventually become the National Fascist Party.

In the opening scene of Mussolini: Son of the Century, a miniseries about the rise of Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator-to-be stands on a dimly lit stage. There, he announces the formation of the Fasci di Combattimento, the paramilitary heart and muscle of what would eventually become the National Fascist Party.

Speaking to a hall full of veterans of the Great War, he recounts the Italian version of the Dolchstosslegende—the Nazi myth that Germany’s defeat in World War I was the work of traitors at home. Mussolini, played by Italian actor Luca Marinelli, tells the veterans that the blood they shed for their fatherland was wasted by an incompetent democratic government that failed to achieve the territorial gains it was promised by England, France, and Russia. To stomping boots and booming voices, Mussolini—the son of a socialist blacksmith who became the father of fascism—concludes that