"[Mussolini] forcibly denounced those socialists who thought religion a matter for individual conscience or had their children baptized. Science had proved that God did not exist and the Jesus of history was an ignorant Jew whose family thought him mad, and who was a pigmy compared to the Buddha. Religion, he said, was a disease of the psyche, an epidemic to be cured by psychiatrists, and Christianity in particular was vitiated by preaching the senseless virtues of resignation and cowardice, whereas the new socialist morality should celebrate violence and rebellion."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 8
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Denis_Mack_Smith
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Denis Mack Smith
Denis Mack Smith CBE FBA FRSL (born 3 March 1920 – July 11, 2017) was an English historian, specialising in the history of Italy from the Risorgimento onwards. He is best known for studies of Garibaldi and Cavour and of Mussolini, and for his single-volume Modern Italy: A Political History. He was named Grand Official of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1996.
13 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Denis Mack Smith →
Related Quotes
"[Mussolini] brought a radical Marxist strand to the Avanti! newspaper, soon doubling its circulation. With a growing …"
"The election [of 1919] indicated that the prevailing sentiment in the country was to the left and Mussolini acknowled…"
"Lenin was the contemporary politician whom [Mussolini] most admired and he studied the Russian revolution closely to …"
"Mussolini had once belonged to the Bolshevik wing of the Italian Socialist party and still in 1924 confessed admirati…"
"[In 1938] Mussolini anti-clericalism was thus reassuring itself. Sometimes he now acknowledged that he was an outrigh…"
"The Mussolini of 1944 reasserted the socialist beliefs of his youth because he now felt that he had been cheated by t…"
"Bombacci had once been a friend and disciple of Lenin and revived the story that, according to Lenin, Mussolini had b…"
"[Mussolini’s] desire for revenge against the bourgeoisie was genuine enough; his intention was to inject the germs of…"
"Always an extremist, [Mussolini] inclined to the belief of Babeuf and Blanqui in violent insurrection by a minority i…"
"Mussolini had been envious of the Bolsheviks and for a while fancied himself as the Lenin of Italy."