336 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
parliamentary action and squadrismo at the same time, thus,
in Lenin's phrase, combining c legal with illegal action '.
But it was the socialist movement which gave him the neces-
sary freedom of movement, by refraining from all action,
legal or illegal, and thus delivering the country into the
hands of its enemies. If it had been attacked through these
inconsistencies fascism might have been crushed, but
because they were neglected and allowed to flourish they
became a direct cause of its strength and success.
The Italy of 1919-1922 lacked political leaders. Giolitti's
mentality was pre-war, and when he returned to power in
1920 he was in his seventy-eighth year. The others, Nitti,
Bonomi, Orlando, Salandra, all suffered from the same
handicap : they were good scholars, but too academic to
be able to deal properly with the post-war situation. The
socialists had a few first-rate men, mostly on the right, but
they were hampered by the conflict of doctrines inside the
party and the working-class movement. The personal
qualities of some of the communist leaders, such as Gramsci
and Bordiga, could not outweigh the damage done by
hopelessly wrong-headed tactics, and sometimes aggravated
it. The maximalist socialists were a body without a head.
Lamartine's description of a Girondin chief applied to most
of their leaders : c One of those complaisant idols of which
people make anything they wish except a man.'
Italian socialism had need of a man, several men, in order
to win, or, which came to the same thing, to avoid being
wiped out. This was why Mussolini was able to reduce
Italy to his own size and fill the entire horizon. With his
advent the rule of c principle 3 came to an end, and his
own personal adventure became that of Italy itself. For
the better understanding of this crisis it is possible and indeed
essential to trace back over centuries its remote and funda-
mental causes : the configuration of the land ; the economic
and social structure ; the long enslavement of the people ;
the recent liberation, barely tolerated by some, barely
assimilated by others. But these causes were not bound,
inevitably, to lead to the events of the years 1919-1922 as
they actually took place, with all their changes, their pos-
sibilities and their final result. New forces were growing