gO THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
emigration, prevented workers who still had jobs from
taking the risk of losing them.3
During the first quarter of 1921, the number of strikers,
compared with the same period in the preceding year, fell
from 493,914 to 148,7965 and the number of working days
lost from 6,268,900 to 1,644,250, a decrease of about
77 per cent and 80 per cent. Mussolini remarked in an
article at the end of 1920 : ' Within the last three months
the psychology of the working-class masses has been pro-
foundly modified.5 In February 1921 Giolitti managed to
do away with the control of the bread price, and the socialist
deputies who had turned Nitti out over this very question
only made a show of opposition, pleading c apathy on the
part of the masses for this battle that had been fought in
their name \
Fascism became stronger towards the end of 1920 and
particularly during the first half of 1921, when post-war
unrest had largely subsided and c order 3 was being restored
by the combination of economic events and the decay of
the Socialist Party. The great fascist advance began in the
Po valley and in Tuscany, where the landowners were at
grips with the farm-labourers in the one and with the
mezzadri (share tenants) in the other. A decisive factor
dating from this period was a rush of country-folk to join
the fascists. In 1919 Mussolini had thought that thcfasci
could only flourish in towns.1 But towards the end of 1920
the landowners c discovered' fascism, took it up and left
their mark on it. All their grudges and bitterness went into
it: c The old spirit of hatred and mistrust of anyone who
wants a new distribution of the land has revived in the
landowners and wealthy peasants', it was said : c The
enemy to-day is the organized wage-earner, as yesterday it
was the vagabond. Against him everything is permissible.'
In some places the proprietors had already built up fighting
organizations whose traditions and example influenced the
newly formed fasci. The clash soon reached a pitch of
extreme violence; it t was like a barbarian * ordeal9,
concluding a twenty years' feud with a 'judgment of God*
1 P. 37.