Mussolini was the real-life Italian leader whose totalitarian dictatorship inspired Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Known as Il Duce, Mussolini founded Italian Fascism and was the leader of the National Fascist Party from 1922–1943, when he was deposed and replaced as the Axis Powers of World War II (Germany, Italy, and Japan) began to collapse. Mussolini was captured and executed in 1945.