An iPhone application known as iMussolini offers the full text of over 100 speeches by Italy's former Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini. The app is a big hit in Italy. It was downloaded more than a popular video game based on the movie Avatar, and reached second spot on the Italian version of iTunes. Since it was launched January 21, it has been downloaded roughly 1,000 times a day.

If you think the market for the app might be older Italians with fond memories of their favorite strutting tyrant, you would be wrong. iPhone is biggest with the Facebook and Web 2.0 crowd, so clearly Benito has a whole new generation of fans. Not surprising really given the xenophobic attitudes that are commonplace in Italy these days. Without too much trouble you can find Mussolini busts and other Il Duce memorabilia. There are even sweatshirts to be had bearing the initials WIDS - Viva Il Duce Sempre (Mussolini Lives Forever).

The guy who designed the application, Luigi Marino, claims he is unhappy about his product being associated with fascism. He has taken pains to point out that the app is "history related' and not an endorsement of fascism. He's pulling in 70% of sales revenues courtesy of Benito fans, so it's a little hard to believe that he envisaged the app as a resource for history buffs. Given the reactionary climate in parts of Italy these days, it's pretty much a given that if you release an app with anything Il Duce related it will attract the predictable kind of attention.

A sizable percentage of Italians are still enamored of Il Duce. Comments on the website Iphoneitalia left little doubt... "Sainthood now!" "Thanks for making an application on one of the greatest statesman in our history" and "Whoever doesn't like this application can always go live in China." There were also voices of sane people.... "This is just unadulterated masturbation for fascist egos." and "Are we insane? Collecting the speeches of a dictator who ruined Italy?"

Like many a fascist leader before him, Mussolini came to a sticky end. He and his mistress Clara Petacci, were shot to death in 1945. Their bullet riddled bodies were hung upside down from the roof of a gas station in Milan with the aid of meat hooks. Civilians took the opportunity to throw stones at the corpses and spit at them.

Mussolini did leave a few quotes that we can remember him by:

"I have been a racist since 1921. I don't know how they can think I'm imitating Hitler."

“Let us have a dagger between our teeth, a bomb in our hands, and an infinite scorn in our hearts”

Link to cartoon about fascism in Italy - here.