Born in Isernia, Molise, Farinacci was raised in poverty and dropped out of school at a young age, moving to Cremona and beginning working on a railroad there in 1909.

[4] In 1935, Farinacci fought in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War as a member of the Voluntary Militia for National Security (MVSN), the new official name of the Blackshirts, eventually attaining the rank of lieutenant general.

In 1937, Farinacci participated in the Spanish Civil War and in 1938 became a governmental minister and enforced the antisemitic racial segregation measures declared by Mussolini.

He also funded the journal Crociata Italica, the main organ of a small group of clerical fascist priests led by Don Tullio Calcagno.

In the morning of 26 April 1945, in the closing days of World War II, Farinacci fled Cremona and headed towards Valtellina, along with a small group of Fascist diehards.

Near Bergamo he parted from the main column and headed towards Vimercate along with marquise Maria Carolina Vidoni Soranzo, secretary of the female Fasces, whose sister owned a villa there.

On 27 April their car ran into a partisan patrol near Brivio and refused to stop, resulting in a shootout in which the driver was killed and Marquise Vidoni Soranzo was mortally wounded.

The uninjured Farinacci was captured along with twelve suitcases, filled with money and jewels; he was brought to the town hall of Vimercate and tried by a partisan court.