308 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
' The secret Quadrumvirate of action declares the present
government fallen, the Chamber dissolved and the Senate
adjourned. The army is confined to barracks and is to
take no part in the struggle. Members of the state forces
must realize that fascism is not marching against them,
but against a political class of cowards and incompetents
who have been unable for the past four years to give the
nation a government. Workers in the fields, in the
factories, in transport and in the civil service have nothing
to fear from fascist tenure of power. Their just rights
will be loyally protected. We shall be generous to our
enemies who submit, towards the rest we shall be ruthless.
Fascism draws the sword to cut the too numerous Gordian
knots that clog and degrade Italian life. We call God
and our 500,000 dead to witness : we have one impulse,
one will, one passion : the well-being and the grandeur
of our country.u
At the last minute important alterations were made to
this text. The passage about the government, the Chamber
and the Senate was suppressed. The passage about the
army was altered so as to make its neutrality all the more
certain. The fascist Quadrumvirate no longer ordered it
to be confined to barracks. It addressed it in the following
terms : 4 The army, the last reserve and safeguard of the
nation, must not take part in the struggle. Fascism repeats
its great admiration for the army of Vittorio Veneto.3 In
addition, the passage intended to reassure the workers was
preceded by another, far more eloquent, to reassure the
bourgeoisie: c The producing classes of the bourgeoisie must
realize that fascism desires to impose a single discipline on
the nation and to help all the forces capable of augmenting
its economic expansion and well-being.' On October 29,
at the very gates of Rome, the officer commanding the forces
assembled in Tivoli made an announcement that the sole
aim of the march was c to give the nation a strong and
wise government'.
The Quadrumvirate at its headquarters in Perugia was in
reality exercising none of those fi military, political and
1 The MS., in Mussolini's handwriting, of this first version is reproduced
in Chiurco, V, pp. 22-25.