348 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
controlled. They still take part in parades and demon-
strations, and may be kept in a constant state of alertness
and tension ; but this is simply part of the drill and never
approaches the level of political consciousness.
In this system there is no room for the fatal illusion., long
held by the communists, that fascism might do some good
by destroying c democratic illusions'. The Italian com-
munists actually announced in May 1921 that: £ It is true
that White reaction is celebrating a few ephemeral victories
over an enemy which is paying dear for its unpreparedness,
but it is destroying the democratic and liberal illusion and
breaking down the influence of social democracy among
the masses.' And in the resolution of the Presidium of the
Communist International, published in January 1934, the
following statement concerning Germany may be read :
e The establishment of an undisguised fascist dictatorship,
by dispelling the democratic illusions of the masses and
liberating them from the influence of social democracy, is
accelerating Germany's advance towards the proletarian
revolution.' This is not the place for a detailed criticism
of this coitception, which the Communist International has
never abandoned in spite of all its changes of front., and we
need only record that fascism suppresses not only c demo-
cratic illusions \ but the workers' and socialist movement
which is subject to them. Fascism is like a completely
successful operation : the patient dies and all his illusions
are removed.
By reducing the people to a mere instrument, fascism
destroys the nation. This aspect of the system tends to
pass unnoticed, disguised by the violent nationalist frenzy
that fascism cultivates. National conscience as conceived
in the nineteenth century by Mazzini, the prophet of the
nation state, is ousted by state expediency. For him
nations could not exist without free peoples, any more than
humanity could exist without free nations. The winning
of political liberty and the winning of national independence
spring from the same instinctive urge, and in the best
Jacobin and romantic tradition, * patriot' and ' democrat'
are identical. For Mazzini the awakening of national
consciousness was no more than an essential step towards