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 bec