Early Life
Born in Isernia, Molise, he was raised in poverty and dropped out of school at a young age, moving to Cremona and beginning working on a railroad there in 1909. Around this time period, he became an irredentist socialist and, when World War I began, a major advocate of Italy’s participation in the war. After the war, Farinacci was an ardent supporter of Benito Mussolini and his Fascist movement. He subsequently established himself as the Ras (local leader, a title borrowed from the Ethiopian aristocracy) of the Fascists in Cremona, publishing the newspaper Cremona Nuova - later on Il Regime Fascista - and organizing Blackshirts combat squads in 1919. The Cremona squads were amongst the most brutal in Italy, and Farinacci effectively used them to terrorize the population into submission to Fascist rule. In 1922, Farinacci appointed himself mayor of Cremona.
Read more about this topic: Roberto Farinacci
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