Benito Mussolini Like his father, Benito became a burning socialist. Mussolini had huge goals of running a political machine based on his own beliefs. Born in the poverty-stricken village of Romagna, Italy, he was wild, nomadic, and defiant as a young adult lived the life of a bum. Showing fierce aggression at such a young age, he was expelled from two schools for knife-assaults on other students. His father a village blacksmith and his mother a schoolmistress, he lived life in poverty that seemed inscapable. By moving from Italy to Austria he devoted himself to the battle for human and economic freedom. Mussolini had become an impassioned Socialist. He had been appointed s