A Fascist government needs just such a strong, opportunistic, and charismatic leader if it is to be effective. Appropriately, both Mussolini and Hitler were known simply as “the leader”​—Il Duce and der Führer.

To fight? Yes! “War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it,” Mussolini once said, adding: “War is to the man what maternity is to the woman.” He called perpetual peace “depressing and a negation of all the fundamental virtues of man.” In saying these words, Mussolini was simply mirroring the views of Treitschke, who contended that war was a necessity and that banishing it from the world, besides being profoundly immoral, “would involve the atrophy of many of the essential and sublime forces of the human soul.”

By 1922 the Fascists in Italy were powerful enough to install Mussolini as prime minister, a position he quickly used as a stepping-stone to being a dictator. As far as wages, hours, and production goals were concerned, privately owned industry was subjected to rigid government control. In fact, private enterprise was encouraged only to the extent that it served government interests. Political parties other than the Fascist were outlawed; labor unions were banned. The government skillfully controlled the media, silencing opposers by means of censorship. Special attention was given to indoctrinating the young, and personal liberty was seriously curtailed.