The use of fasces by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is quite another story. In 1921, he called his political movement Fasci di combattimento, fascio being the Italian word for peasant organizations and labor unions. When il duce chose the ancient Roman fasces as symbol of the fascist party, he was at the same time playing with the similarity of the words fascio and fasces, chosing an ancient symbol, and drawing a parallel between fascism and earlier progressive movements.