22O THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
responsible persons and organizations : the Party Execu-
tive, and Provincial Directorates, who will rely on the
Inspectors-General and the Consuls.
(7) Actions except under the command of responsible
people are absolutely forbidden.
(8) If reprisals are called for, they must be sudden and
ruthless.
Thus, before this pointless and illogical strike broke out,
the fascist leaders had drawn up their plan for changing
the socialists' ' demonstrative action * against fascism into
a pitched battle of fascists against socialism. Their military
objectives were settled : they did not yet want to occupy
Rome, but hoped to take advantage of the strike to gain two
essential positions on the frontiers of the regions they already
occupied, namely the Genoa and Liguria zone on one side,
Ancona on the other. In the course of their campaign they
succeeded in reaching two unexpected and important
objectives, Milan, the capital of Lombardy, and Leghorn,
the last centre of working-class resistance in Tuscany.
The fascist executive issued an ultimatum addressed to the
strikers and the state : c We give the state forty-eight hours
to assert its authority over all its dependents, and over those
who are endangering the existence of the nation. When
this time has elapsed fascism will claim full liberty of action
and will take the place of the state, which will once more
have proved its impotence.' In this way the strike, which
was to have made the state enforce respect for the law, only
succeeded in uniting the legal and the illegal forces of
reaction—the state and the fasci. The outlaws were no
longer the fascists who for months had killed, burnt, and
pillaged with impunity, but the railwaymen and the
workers in general who were trying to remind the state of
its duty. During July the fascists had left a trail of smoking
ruins, tortured bodies, and broken rninds from Rimini to
Novara and Raveana, and now they were presented with
a splendid opportunity of becoming the guardians of law
and order.
For the second time they joined the national bloc in the
Chamber, not, as in May 1921, as a result of the elections,