v
NITTI, GIOLITTI, DON STURZO
A" the general election of November 1919, the Italian
masses showed their disapproval of the war and their
need for social justice by voting for the socialists and
the Popolari. These two parties alone had between them a
majority in the new Chamber: 256 out of 508 seats. There
were only three possible ways of assuring a parliamentary
majority : socialists and Popolari; socialists, democrats, and
liberals; Popolari^ democrats, and liberals. The socialists
had gained 1,840,600 votes and 156 seats—32 per cent in
the country and in parliament; they were consequently far
from having an absolute majority. The proportional voting
system had saved the conservative parties from a worse
defeat; the south, in spite of the war, remained their chief
source of votes. Of the 156 socialists, 131 had been elected
in the north, in the Po valley and in Tuscany ; only ten
came from the inland districts of the south, five of whom
were from Apulia, The islands returned no socialist
deputies. The socialists, however, were nearer to power
than the figures showed, by the extent to which they could
interpret the will of the whole Italian people and voice their
profound discontent. Three courses seemed open to them ;
to leave parliament and have recourse to direct action in the
country; to remain there while creating a second power in
the country to replace it; to win over in parliament and in
the country the allies which were indispensable to the
accomplishment of the democratic revolution. In actual
fact the Socialist Party, incapable alike of direct action and
of large-scale political manoeuvres, shilly-shallied for three
years until the fascists stepped in and solved the problem
without them, and in spite of them.
Mussolini, who was lying low, exasperated by his electoral
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