CBC Ideas Week: How to Defeat Authoritarianism

How do authoritarian leaders use threats, illusions and force to seize and maintain power? And what does it take for truth and justice to prevail? Guided by host Nahlah Ayed, Ideas explores the rise and fall of four pivotal authoritarians and their regimes from recent world history, and asks what we can learn from their eventual downfall.

Benito Mussolini’s Italy

The first officially fascist regime of the 20th century began in Italy in 1922. Italian fascists marched on Rome, demanding the removal of the prime minister. The king agreed and handed power to Benito Mussolini. Sustained by a cult of personality and iron-fisted suppression of dissent, Mussolini transformed the nation into a single-party state. Nahlah and panellists discuss the legacy of Italian fascism and its relevance today.