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After his defeat in the 1919 election, Mussolini saw no future in trying to out-socialist the socialists. Without a distinct policy, without friends and backing, he was in serious danger of ending up as a confused and egocentric demagogue with a talent for histrionics.

— Denis Mack Smith Modern Italy: A Political History (1959)

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More quotes by Denis Mack Smith

Mussolini had been envious of the Bolsheviks and for a while fancied himself as the Lenin of Italy.

Modern Italy: A Political History (1959)

Mussolini had once belonged to the Bolshevik wing of the Italian Socialist party and still in 1924 confessed admiration for Lenin, while Trotsky was quoted as saying that Mussolini was his best pupil.

Mussolini (1983)

Always an extremist, [Mussolini] inclined to the belief of Babeuf and Blanqui in violent insurrection by a minority in order to establish authoritarian rule. His articles reveal a retreat from belief in class solidarity and a growing attachment to revolution for revolution’s sake, power for the sake of power.

Modern Italy: A Political History (1959)

Lenin was the contemporary politician whom [Mussolini] most admired and he studied the Russian revolution closely to see what lessons it offered. Lenin seemed to him ‘the very negation of socialism’ because he had not created a dictatorship of the proletariat or of the socialist party, but only of a few intellectuals who had found the secret of winning power. Mussolini was, in truth, envious.

Mussolini (1983)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Denis Mack Smith (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.