A Moment of Reflection

Big day in history today. A day of consequences for the actions of the man who coined the term fascism. The Guardian UK reprints an Op-Ed from 1945.
Emphasis my own.

April 28 1945: On this day Italian partisans executed Mussolini and his mistress.

Rough Justice

Comment
Monday April 30, 1945
The Guardian

If, as seems likely, Mussolini and other prominent members of the Fascist hierarchy have been shot by the Italian partisans without trial or argument, no one in the Allied countries will complain. These men were as guilty as any. They were sufficiently notorious to make identification easy. They richly deserved their fate. The method cannot be taken as a precedent, but many will feel that there is a certain rough justice about these swift and passionate executions which may be lacking from the cold-blooded judicial trials of which we shall have all too many before we are finished. Of the dead men only one has earned a place in history. Mussolini, the inventor of Fascism and the first modern dictator, was a man of no ordinary ability. This rough, shrewd, ambitious peasant was the first to discover the modern road to power. Long before Hitler he found an army among the down-and-outs, the unemployed, the ex-Service men, the whole tribe of "armed Bohemians" left over from the first world war. And long before Hitler he realised the power of propaganda as an instrument to support his rule. For this last he was exceptionally suited. A journalist, he had himself a flamboyant, effective style both in writing and speaking, which, unfortunately, he has bequeathed to the Italy that has got rid of him. A true Italian, he perfectly understood the dramatic gesture which so appeals to a nation with an operatic tradition.

In one respect Mussolini was always easier understand than Hitler. He was no fanatic, but a cynic who in private would often talk in a reasonable and intelligent manner. His foreign policy, therefore, was more predictable. In the early days at least he had no love for Hitler or for Germany, which he rightly regarded as the supreme threat to Italian independence. But when his absurd dreams of empire had led him into the Abyssinian adventure he was forced into the arms of Germany. The half-hearted policy of "sanctions" did not save Abyssinia but only made the Axis certain. Like the leaders of the democracies Mussolini underrated Hitler, whom he naturally despised as an intellectual inferior who had copied his example. At the same time he overrated the power of Italy and the loyalty of Italians to the Fascist Government. It is now clear that, for all their criminal folly, the Italian people never wholly accepted the denial of liberty, the cruelty and corruption, which went with Fascism. Many, too many unfortunately, liked to be told that Italy was a great and martial nation, but when it came to the point they were at once too sensible and too civilised to follow their leader to the end. If Italian fascism was less horrible than German Nazism, one must thank the Italian people and not Mussolini. As it is, his crimes were sufficient. The Murder of Matteotti and the invasion of Spain, to name only two, are not easily forgotten. But Mussolini's greatest crime was to have been the inventor and creator of that evil disease which has so nearly brought Europe to ruin. He was the first Fascist, and as such will stand infamous in history.