134	THE   RISE   OF   ITALIAN   FASCISM
practises anti-clericalism ', is not connected with freemasonry,
accepts most of the Popolari's views on divorce, freedom of
education, rural property, decentralization. He appealed
to the Vatican over the heads of the Popolari: if the papacy
would renounce its dreams of temporal power, the state
would provide it with c help and material facilities for
schools, churches, hospitals, and everything that a lay
power has at its disposal'. Besides the relations between
the fascists and the Popolari, there must be considered the
relations between Italy and the Vatican, whose reconcilia-
tion and collaboration were necessary, c for Rome's Latin
and Imperial tradition is represented by Catholicism 5.
Another part of Mussolini's speech dealt with relations
between fascists and socialists. At the outset he declared
that his speech would be ' completely anti-socialist and
anti-democratic 5, which made it easier to set out his offers
and his threats. He made no concessions to the socialists,
but even criticized them on doctrinal grounds. In an
article on January 14 he had already stated that * capitalism
is scarcely at the beginning of its history', and he repeated
his articles of faith before the Chamber : c The true history
of capitalism is only just beginning '. Since capitalism is
facing its highest tasks the state should renounce all its
economic functions : £ We must abolish the collectivist
state that the war forced on us, and return to the Man-
chesterian state'. He took care to point out his own
personal success : c The socialists, after seven troubled years,
see before them in the proud attitude of a heretic the man
they expelled from their orthodox church *. They will have
to admit that they have taken a wrong turning, that they
have been and always will be defeated on the ground of
violence that they have chosen. It is inevitable, for the
workers ' are by nature and I venture to say piously and
fundamentally pacifistic, for they represent the standing
reserve on which society draws, while risk, danger, and a
taste for adventure have always been the business and
privilege of aristocratic minorities'. Then there are the
extremists of socialism, the communists. * I know them very
well, for some of them are of my making ; I admit with a
sincerity that may appear cynical that I was the first to