334 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
he wanted, his will to power took the form of individual
revolt. The experiences of his years of exile had a decisive
effect on him. Sometimes he had been dependent for his
daily bread on the help and goodwill of mere artisans or
simple decent socialists, or on petty dishonesty. Sometimes he
had had to take the roughest kind of work; he had fallen low,
and known extreme poverty. Such a life might have turned
him into a saint or a criminal, but he was too ambitious
and too unscrupulous to take either way out. He learnt
to set his teeth, to calculate, to reject the romantic outlook
and to grab his opportunity. Socialism could give him a
start and serve for shelter. In a few years he reached the
highest position that the party could give him, the editor-
ship of its paper, Avanti. By the outbreak of war socialism
in its turn had become the obstacle that society had been
to him in the years 1900 to 1908. Mussolini did not hesitate
to break away a second time. After the armistice he realized
that he had to begin all over again and start a third struggle
for existence. From that time on his personal fortune is so
closely linked with the history of fascism as to be often
indistinguishable.
If Mussolini had simply joined forces with the reactionaries
in 1919 the flood would have passed over him and he would
have been left behind ; he would not have found himself
in March supported by the ex-members of the e Fasci of
Revolutionary Action5 of 1914-1915, nor, a short time later,
would he have managed to collect a number of young men
and ex-servicemen. Even if he had formed the newfasci
they would have perished with him. By the end of 1920
the situation had altered : the squadristi and the c slave-
drivers ', spreading from the valley of the Po, were advancing
rapidly and overthrowing the socialist strongholds one after
another. Mussolini hastened to make use of this movement,
and revised his programme, declaring that c the reality of
to-morrow will be capitalist'. Towards the end of 1921
however, the movement was showing signs of getting out
of hand and compromising his political plans. So he tried
to frustrate it, denouncing its c greedy egoism which refuses
any national conciliation3 ; he contrasted the c urban
fascism 5 of Milan with the c agrarian fascism ' of Bologna,