Giovanni Gentile called himself 'philosopher of fascism’. For Benito Mussolini, he wrote the essay La dottrina del fascismo (1932), in which he described the nature and the necessity of fascism. His Manifesto of Fascist Intellectuals (1925) sparked off a polemic with his former friend, Benedetto Croce. Gentile replaced Croce as Minister of Education under Mussolini. In 1944, he was murdered by anti-fascist partisans.