The Trial of Mussolini: Being a Verbatim Report of the First Great Trial for War Criminals Held in London Sometime in 1944 or 1945

by Michael Foot

Book about an imaginary trial. From a review by George Orwell:

"For the purposes of his allegory ‘Cassius’ [pseudonym of Michael Foot] imagines Mussolini indicted before a British court, with the Attorney General as prosecutor. The list of charges is an impressive one, and the main facts — from the murder of Matteotti to the invasion of Greece, and from the destruction of the peasants’ co-operatives to the bombing of Addis Ababa — are not denied. Concentration camps, broken treaties, rubber truncheons, castor oil — everything is admitted. The only troublesome question is: How can something that was praiseworthy at the time when you did it — ten years ago, say — suddenly become reprehensible now? Mussolini is allowed to call witnesses, both living and dead, and to show by their own printed words that from the very first the responsible leaders of British opinion have encouraged him in everything that he did."

Genres: Fiction

82 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1943

About the author

Michael Mackintosh Foot was an English Labour politician and writer, who was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1992, and was the Leader of the Opposition from 1980 to 1983.