l62 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
factor in production \ and all c state intervention, nationa-
lization, municipalization' was renounced. Allc demagogic'
fiscal measures must be abolished and freedom from taxation
granted to c that part of revenue which is turned into tech-
nical or instrumental capital '. At home, c restoration of the
authority of the national state 5 ; an agnostic view of the
monarchy ; the creation, alongside parliament^ of national
technical councils with legislative powers. Prohibition of
strikes in the public services. With regard to syndicates,
fascism would help proletarian minorities who were getting
themselves placed on a national footing. In religious matters,
* complete liberty to the catholic church in the exercise of its
spiritual office ; a concord with the Vatican '.
The paragraphs devoted to foreign policy began with the
affirmation, already repeated countless times, that ' fascism
does not believe in the vitality or the principles of the
so-called League of Nations ', and took up all the points
expounded in the Trieste speech of February.1 As for the
army, the 1919 programme^ in deference to the pacific and
democratic spirit of the ex-servicemen, had demanded the
c replacement of the standing army by a national militia
defensive in character and with short-term service '.2 The
new programme called, on the contrary, for ; a military
establishment proportionate to the present and eventual
needs of a continuously developing nation like Italy '. The
absolute difference between these two proposals showed how
far fascist ideology had gone since March 1919. To those
who imputed a lack of originality to the new programme
Mussolini replied a few days later with a pompously expressed
summary :
c We are irrevocably separated from all the socialist
sects, because we reject all forms of internationalism and
all forms of state intervention in economic life. . . . We
are separated from the various schools of democracy and
liberalism by our conviction of the necessity for a very
strong state, hence one reduced to its primal politico-
moral functions, and by our demand for an expansionist,
courageous, Italian foreign policy.3
1 p, 132. 3 p. 34.