Leigh:

I know this is like going into the fossil record, but I'm a little behind, as you can see.  Getting on, with regards to your post concerning Moose-olini, I am all in agreement... mostly!  Your second paragraph seems to suggest that Mussolini was something of an opportunist, stepping in at the right time with what the people wanted.  I say, "This is not how things went."  (Or:  "Here follows a slight clarification of how things went.")

The thing that Mussolini lacked (though Hitler did not) was popular support.  The fascist movement was not a majority movement in Italy before it came to power; it was just the most violent.  Representing middle-class interests, the fascists had support from the relative minority of landowners, because at heart, though fanatically nationalist, I think the fascists can most easily be described as anti-Socialist.  Like the Bolsheviks, who, while once a majority, became an increasingly radical minority, the fascists succeeded in achieving power by virtue of the political limbo game, effortlessly going lower than everyone else.