l86 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
percolating into the working classes, having at their disposal
radical recruiting methods : violence and terror. Important
fascist syndical organizations only grew up in districts
already conquered by armed squads and as a result of such
conquest. Fascist syndicalism c flourishes like a weed amid
the charred ruins of houses '. Concentration of squads in a
district was invariably followed by the destruction of the
Chamber of Labour and other syndical offices, by the
assassination or expulsion of local syndical leaders. This
razzia was the necessary preliminary to the setting up of a
fascist c corporation 3 in which all members of the organiza-
tion just destroyed were forced to enrol. Having destroyed
the former organization, the fascists were left with the
workers on their hands, and to avoid letting slip all they had
gained they were forced, as the heirs of the red organizers,
to tackle the problems they had solved. e Rather delicate,
this organization,' wrote Italo Balbo in his Diary ; e Labour
is over plentiful, and only syndical discipline can ensure
work and bread for all.3 This c discipline ' bore a close
resemblance to the £ monopoly ' against which the fascists
had been clamouring a few months before. Often, having
no one at their disposal capable of running the syndical
c league', the fascists would force the previous secretary to
carry on, giving him an occasional thrashing, to keep him
in his place and inspire him with a wholesome fear of his
new masters.
Mussolini had always been suspicious of fascist syndicalism,
as of all definitions and interpretations that might endanger
his freedom of action ; besides, he had watched the opposi-
tion flaunt the flag of' national syndicalism '. Nevertheless
he permitted this independent syndicalism of the fascists,
so long as it did not affect the balance of forces inside the
fascist movement to his own disadvantage. He fully realized
that this syndical activity widened the gulf between himself
and the socialists and would give him a chance to hasten
the internal crisis of the socialist movement and capture the
leaders of the General Confederation of Labour. ' We never
thought/ said Mussolini in later days, ' when a few dozen
of us met in the Piazza San Sepolcro on March 23, 1919,
that we should form syndical organizations. . . . Fascism