by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com
March 17, 2011
In the past, modern dictatorships have been established in a variety of ways. In 1919, in response to a short-lived communist revolution, the King of Hungary appointed the first modern civilian absolute ruler, Admiral Nicholas Horthy, who became the first fascist dictator in history. In 1922, after much maneuvering, Benito Mussolini organized the “March on Rome” by his unofficial “Black Shirt” militia. King Vittorio Emmanuel III acquiesced in replacing the sitting Prime Minister chosen by Parliament with Mussolini. By 1924, with the acquiescence of Italian ruling class, Mussolini had established himself as dictator and in fact coined the modern meaning of the word “fascist” to describe his form of absolute rule.