The Rise Of Italian Fascism 19181922

THE RISE OF
ITALIAN FASCISM

1918-1922

'-f' t

by )

A. ROSSI

With a Preface by

HERMAN FINER

Translated by

PETER AND DOROTHY WAIT

iD

METHUEN & CO.-LTD. LONDON

S6 Essex StreetStrand^ IV,C ,'2 , ■

Translated from La JVaissance du
Fascisme, UItalic de igi8 d igss

First published in ig^S

Printed in great Britain

IN MEMORY OF

MY FATHER

A METALLURGICAL WORKER
WHOSE LATER YEARS WERE DARKENED
BY THE VICTORY OF FASCISM IN ITALY

PREFACE

T hose who still persist in the belief that faithful
history can and should be an indispensable counsellor
in civic behaviour and state policy, will find the
present work of extraordinary and enduring importance.
Nothing m the literature of Italian Fascism compares with
this as an account of origins, a judgment of significance,
and the highly skilled appreciation of cause and effect. It
stands besides such works in political history and science
as Heiden’s History of National Socialism, Rosenberg’s History
of th German Republic, and Mr. Chamberlin’s works on
Soviet Russia. It corroborates and is corroborated by the
works of Salvemini, Nitti, and Lussu.

‘ In fifteen years ’, declared Mussolini in 1925, ‘ Europe’
will be fasdst or fascistized ! ’ The grim results of dynamic-
fascism, with its goal so confidently predicted, are to-day
evident to all—even to some of those deceived by the
cleverly incessant propaganda that the Comintern will get
you if you don t look out! But its import and present
works—threat or joy according to one’s outlook—were
discernible in its origins and early years. Plutarch attributes
to Cicero the opinion that the character of Caesar was
sufficiently established in his youth for a valid prediction of
the harm he would do to the Republic : he should have
been dealt with appropriately before and not after he
wrought untold mischief. The things which Signor Rossi
tells should have been known to our rulerSj for our safety ;
and it is interesting to speculate on the causes of their
deficiencies of knowledge, or understanding, or resolution.

Signor Rossi (a pseudonym) is an example of the highest
type of Italian : a subtle, searching, analytical mind,
combined with warmth of feeling and expression, and a
noble, humane sympathy for mankind. Few have so good a

■ vii

vm THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

title as he to reveal the nature of fascism by the investigation
and recording of its genetic years. He was born in Piedmont
in 1892, the son of an artisan, the metallurgical worker to
whose memory the book is dedicated. He progressed,
through years of bitter poverty as a child and youth, up
the educational ladder, by scholarships. His doctorate at
the University was obtained for a thesis on Leopardi and
French Philosophy of the Eighteenth Century. As was naturally
to be expected, he began an active participation in politics
in early youth. In 1913 he was an active socialist with
Mussolini —^i.e. when Mussolini had arrived at the editorship
of the Avanti, and was an extremist in his demands, and
violently revolutionary in tactics. This was in the days
when Mussolini was an utter pacifist, anti-imperialist,
anti-militarist, and an applauder of regicide.

When Italy was faced with Europe at war, Rossi broke
with Mussolini in order to continue his deeply felt and
sincerely held repudiation of war. Mussolini, it is inter-
5 esting to remember in the era of the Rome-Berlin axis,
i advocated the participation of Italy on the side of France
jand England, and especially on the side of France (Mother
|of Revolutions for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity !)
|because, he declared, if there were to be a little more liberty
jin Europe after the war, that supreme good was to be
jobtained only by laying Germany low. Rossi, who preached
Ithe gospel of goodwill among men, served at the Front
from May 1915 I® August 1918, that is to say for nearly
three years longer than his former colleague, Mussolini.
The war over, Rossi settled in Turin and there founded an
advanced Left political group and a journal called Ordine
Nuovo. In 1920 he was appointed director of the Turin
Co-operative Alliance, the largest co-operative society in
Italy. This post he held till the autumn of 1922. At the
same time he was political secretary of the Socialist Party
of Turin and leader of the socialist minority on the
Municipal Council. It was from this position that Rossi
was able to understand fascism and to contest its advent.

_ Perplexed, and wishing to learn, he paid a visit to Russia
in October 1922 and met Lenin, Trotsky, and, after them
the lesser of the first generation of bolshevik leaders. On

PREFACE

IX

his return shortly afterwards to Italy, fascism had triumphed.
Thenceforward, he led the life of a fugitive until the end
of 1926, when he left Italy. He travelled all over Europe.
He was made a member of the Secretariat of the Communist
International, but having the extraordinary temerity to
disagree with Stalin in open debate, he was expelled. He
settled in France and became editor of the review, Mondo.
He is a foreign editor of the Populaire. Fie has written
booklets on Marxist Humanism and The Political History of
the Comintern.

The importance of this book is threefold : as a contribu¬
tion to the history of Italy since the war, as an explanation
of contemporary international policy, with especial regard
to the relationship between Great Britain and Italy, and as
a theory of the future of national and international
government.

In its first aspect. Signor Rossi skilfully distributes the
burden of causation between the pre-war history and
institutions of Italy, its political immaturity, the social and
economic effects of the war, the defective functioning of
the parliamentary system and the political parties, and the
character and will of Mussolini. He is not fond of the
several compendious definitions of fascism now in political
currency, and defines his own purpose most aptly thus :

‘ Our way of defining fascism is to write its history.
We have tried to do this for Italian fascism of the years
1919-20. ... It is not a subject with definite attributes
which need merely be selected, but the product of a
situation from which it cannot be considered separately.’

He is therefore able to reveal that fascism did not inevitably 1
arise out of the existing political difficulties. No inevitability 1
lay there ; but the material possibilities were converted by j
Mussolini’s ambitions, powef-lust, and homicidal ruthless- \
ness, into a deadly certainty. No one could imagine such
a tyranny in the Italy of the twentieth century, and therefore
not enough citizens were prepared to resist the brutal
seizure of their liberties. With figures and facts, character
sketches, and depiction of local circumstances, economic
and social conditions and opinion, the author demonstrates

X

THE' RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

(though this is not a deliberate thesis), that the cry of danger
from bolshevism was a deliberately adopted lie, adopted
for its value as a psychological lever. He shows that far
from being dangerous, moderate socialism as well as extreme
socialism was, in its leaders, its hopes and tactics, innocently
humane. The leaders were too noble to envisage the
coming ignobility, too humane to imagine the advent of
crushing inhumanities. Those who excelled in cruelty won.
Since then, their victories at home and abroad have
accumulated and they have gone from strength to strength.
The mendacity of danger from bolshevism, concocted for
use at home, and successful there, has been every bit as
serviceable in international relations.

As we read this record we become acutely aware of the
I character of Mussolini in action and the strategy and tactics
i of fascist aggression, at first domestic. Political demands
; are made, so abnormal and far-reaching, that opponents
: are staggered into a state of shock, hypnosis, and self-doubt,
.'causing retreat and disastrous fumbling. Secondly, the
j intellect and character, private and public, of opponents
. are vilified in terms so unscrupulous and disgusting that the
; non-political masses come to believe that there must be
.some truth in what they are told. The paradox is that the
yery monstrosity of the allegations sways to belief therein,
as average men cannot believe that people can be so wicked
^s to make such terrible charges without a basis of truth.
Particularly did and do the fascists stigmatize the most
capable leaders on the other side. Thirdly, occurs the
Unscrupulous fomenting of agitation and violent assaults
pn fellow citizens who, according to plan, are enraged
whereupon, facing provoked retribution, the fascists claim
fhe right of armed self-defence—and another cycle of
^violence begins. Fourthly, they make a fake noble appeal
I for justice for their own cause to move their opponents to
/make concessions to them, but do not yield a reciprocal
I concession to their opponents. This is sometimes dignified
I by the title of ‘ relativity ’ of principle. Fifthly, the fascists,

. especially influenced in this case by the personal character
o Mussolini, practise, as they regularly promise, revenge,
o phrase IS more common in the speeches of the leaders

PREFACE

xi

than, ^ We will settle accounts with all’ Sixthly, there is
the stratagem of putting the burden of responsibility on the
other side. Illegal, unconstitutional, or outrageously un¬
civilized acts are practised, promises and alliances are
disregarded, and when in the natural course of events,
resentment produces the possibility of reprisal or punish-
rnent, the disturber of the peace declares that the responsi¬
bility for the threatened violence in defensive or punitive
measures rests, not with the aggressor, but with the defender !
Seventhly, it is continually claimed that only constitutional ;
means will be used, but in fact there is such an accumulation
of arms and organization of terror, that within the con¬
stitutional forms, men and women act contrary to that
constitution’s spirit and intention. Eighthly, there is the
unqualified denial of sanctity or sovereignty to any standard
of justice, honour, pledged word or principle, other than
the personal and public interests of the dictator. Einally,
there is the cool, deliberate annihilation, by imprisonment,
exile, maiming, and murder of those who in opposition
are brave to the limit.

^ When this has been said, Signor Rossi, without express
discussion, has made clear to us the spirit and aims of
fascist foreign policy. We are far from denying that inter¬
national justice has not been fully conceded to Italy by the
great Powers. But over and above what is reasonable,
the temper and tactics sketched above have since 1922
been brought into action in world affairs with consummate
cynicism ^ and selfishness, and delight in making mischief.
Mussolini s declaration just before his advent to power in
Italy that ' the succession is open, and we must hasten to
seize it,’ applied perfectly to the Italian fascist conception
of the international order. It has been expressed in many
forms, but always with the same frank brutality. Unfortu¬
nately for our generation, British and French diplomats, and
we may even say the British and French governing classes,
did not realize clearly enough that after the war the world
was in flux, the balance of power disrupted, with axes and
levers everywhere unattached, that not merely a piece of
land here or there, or an unredeemed population was the
issue but the very succession to the status of predominant

xii THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

(which does not mean the exclusive) determiner of the kind
of peace in which the world was to live. Even now it is
in the highest degree doubtful whether our rulers ever
studied the inward audacity of the fascist advent to power,
and especially its accumulation of arms and organization
of political support at critical localities, to be used at
critical junctures where their available force could be
exercised out of entire proportion to their real material
and psychological strength. The identity of the tactics of
aggression at home and abroad is perfect, except that to
the former two necessary additions were made—to divide
allies and associates on the opposing side, and parties and
classes in hostile nations, and to seal hermetically the fascist
country from the truths which might filter in from outside.
If those who have our destinies in their hands have under¬
stood these verities, and nevertheless have not taken the
appropriate measures to safeguard us, then the only other
conceivable explanations are too dreadful to contemplate.

In a final chapter, the Epilogue, Signor Rossi, reflecting
on his personal struggle and the moral issues, contemplates
the future. We need not epitomize the conclusions since
the chapter is quite short. We offer only two quotations as
evidence of the serenity and force of the author’s mind and
the quality of the rest of this book.

The fascist experiment proves that an idea is jeopardized
when its background is destroyed. “Ideas cannot be
killed, is a sublime and dangerous commonplace, which
Ignores the fact that an idea needs material support if it
IS to last. An idea is a generation, or a succession of
generations. If the generation disappears and the succes-
sion IS cut, the idea is submerged and the inheritance lost.
When the fascists kill, banish, or imprison their enemies,
burn their houses, and destroy their institutions, they

know what they are about and they do not strike in

vam. . . .’

And again :

‘ In point of material and military strength we must
be superior to the fascists since that is the ground on

PREFACE xiii

which they are trying to force a decision. But unless
sorne great moral force emerges to prevent war altogether
or if It comes, to keep its aims clearly defined, some force
that endures unchanged through all events, however
frightful or overwhelming, victory cannot be won or
if won, signifies nothing. Such a force is only to be found
m the popular masses, the common people, the workers.
1 heirs are the fundamental feelings : love of peace, desire
for social justice, respect for humanity, the sense of
brotherhood which are the mainsprings of humanity.
Naturally these feelings do not predominate all the time •
they have often to be unearthed, and they can be
suppressed or deflected. But not a single man of the
people in any country really believes that war is “ the
hygiene of the world,” or joins in the jeers of the fascist
leaders at the massacres of Addis Ababa or the martyrdom
of the children of Madrid. He has to be educated up to
this stage, trained to forget his genuine impulses.’

Herman Finer

CONTENTS

I. ITALY’S INTERVENTION IN THE WAR AND HER
INTERNAL CRISIS

II.

THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION OF I919

9

III.

MUSSOLINI AND FASCISM OF THE ' FIRST HOUR '

22

IV.

REVOLUTION CROSSES THE ADRIATIC

43

V.

NITTI, GIOLITTI, DON STURZO

52

VI.

THE RISE AND FALL OF MAXIMALISM

66

VII.

THE ‘ POSTHUMOUS AND PREVENTIVE ^ COUNTER¬
REVOLUTION

82

VIII.

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM

131

IX.

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM

171

X.

THE MARCH ON ROME

233

EPILOGUE

323

APPENDIX

367

INDEX

371

MAP

POSITIONS OF FASCIST COLUMNS BEFORE THE MARCH ON
ROME

313

On November i6, igig, in the first general election since the war,
Mussolini obtained gooo votes out of a total of 268,000 at Milan, where
the executive committee of the fasci had its headquarters and ran a daily
paper, the Popolo d’Italia, The socialists won more than half of this
total, and celebrated their victory on election night by marching up and
down under his windows chanting funeral dirges. Their paper, Avanti,
announced ironically thdt a corpse had been fished up from the bottom of
the Naviglio canal in an advanced state of decay — Mussolini's,

A year and a half later the ‘ corpse ' whom, in November igig, no
other party or group had been willing to put on its list, was elected at the
head of the candidates of the national bloc in two constituencies, Milan
and Bologna.

After the beginning of ig22 the fascist advance became an avalanche,
and Mussolini left Milan in a sleeping-car on the evening of October 2g
to ‘ march ’ on Rome, where he had been invited by the king to form a
cabinet. This rapid success, which on the face of it seems little short
of miraculous, was the result of a combination of factors, dating from
medieval Italy, from the Risorgimento and above all from the world
war and its repercussions.

But this result, favoured as it was by the accumulated apathy of
centuries, was not inevitable. It is the aim of this study to explain, or
at least resolve as far as possible into its elements of inevitability, more
or less conscious purpose, and luck, the social drama which preceded it, ^

^ To prevent the text from becoming a patchwork of references, sources
are mostly omitted. Every fact and judgment, however, is based on wide
documentation and a mass of evidence used with the scrupulous impartiality
of a historian and a militant.

I

ITALY’S INTERVENTION IN THE WAR AND HER
INTERNAL CRISIS

W HEN Serbia received the Austrian ultimatum
Italy was in a state of political and social crisis.
Some months earlier in Atarch the Chamber had
debated the balance sheet of the Libyan campaign, as
finally drawn up. The socialists thus had their chance of
taking some sort of revenge, and of condemning the war,
which had embittered the party and class struggle and
endangered the moderate policy followed since 1900 by
Giovanni Giohtti. To escape his budgetary difficulties and
a threatened railway strike Giolitti resigned on March 10,
1914, nominally on the score of a hostile resolution put
through by the radicals, thus avoiding a debate, although
he had a strong majority in the Chamber. He assumed that
he was certain, as always, to return to power after a short
interregnum, once the storm was over. But this time his
calculations were to be defeated.

The trend to the left was becoming more and more
marked at Socialist Party meetings ; between the meetings
at Reggio Emilia in 1912 and at Ancona in 1914 the free¬
masons and a group of reformists were expelled from the
party. On the eve of the war Mussolini had been a member
of the party executive for two years and editor of its paper,
Avanti, for one and a half. He was distrusted by veteran
socialists, adored by the young. The swing to the left
favoured his purpose, which was to forge the party into an
instrument for his own use, ridding himself of the old
guard, who were too full of scruples and were paralysed
by routine. The ‘red week’ at Ancona^ in June 1914

. a fight in which the state forces had fired on demonstrators,

serious rioting broke out in Ancona in June 1914 ; from this town, where for
several days the anarchists had the upper hand, the revolt spread to the

provmces of Ravenna and Forli, and lasted for a week. '

2

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

widened the rift between him and the circle grouped round
Turati and Treves in Milan. Mussolini favoured anarchistic
revolt; ‘ a hundred dead at Ancona and all Italy is in
flames he thought, without, incidentally, stirring from his
editorial office. Left to itself and disowned by the General
Confederation of Labour, the revolt flickered out. Here
and there sparks from the conflagration flared up into
strikes of protest.

From Milan Mussolini viewed the spectacle with keen
satisfaction. ‘ We record events ’, he wrote, ‘ with something
of the legitimate pleasure that an artist must feel on con¬
templating his own work. If the proletariat of Italy is now
acquiring a new psychology, fiercer and more unrestrained,
it is to this paper that it is due. We can understand the
fears of reformists and democrats faced with a situation
which time can only make worse.’ This on June 12, a few
weeks before Serajevo.

When the world war became inevitable, the whole of
Italy was in favour of neutrality, that is unwilling to in¬
tervene on the side of the central powers, which at that
time was the only danger. The whole of Italy, with the
exception of the nationalist group, which was afraid of
letting slip the chance of a ‘ good war ’, and of Sonnino,
who judged—wrongly—that the Treaty of the Triple
Alliance must automatically come into play.

For months Italian diplomacy carried on simultaneous
negotiations with both sides ; Salandra, in October, invoked
‘ sacred egoism’. At the beginning of 1915 Sonnino, who
had been at the Consulta since November, was still in favour
of an agreement with Austria, and if she had made up her
mind at once to yield ‘ the Trentino and something beside ’
the Salandra government would have anticipated and
carried out the parecchio policy. ^ Austria’s hesitations drove
the Italian government towards the Entente, and interven¬
tion on this side was virtually decided qn in March, by
three people: the king, Salandra, and Sonnino. The
Treaty of London, signed on April 26, was known only to
them • the other ministers were ignorant of it, and its

' Tbs was the policy advocated m January 1915 by Giolitti, who thought

Italy might gam all she wanted by remaining neutral.

Italy’s intervention in the war 3

text was not communicated to the Italian parliament until
March 1920.

The Socialist Party merely followed the current already
created by its opposition to the Libyan war. At first
Mussolini made a few vague protests against the ‘ Teutonic
hordes but as soon as he realized that the party was
practically unanimous in its support of neutrality he beat
a retreat, made a violent attack on what he called, at the
end of August 1914, the nationalist delirium, tremens^ and put
his attitude to the party vote. At the beginning of Sep¬
tember he proclaimed : ‘ We are asked to weep over

martyred Belgium. We are watching a sentimental farce
staged by France and Belgium. These two gossiping old
women would like to exploit the gullibility of the world.
From our point of view, Belgium is only a belligerent power
like all the others.’

But as in private he had spoken quite differently—in
favour of intervention—on several occasions, he was shown
up as a hypocrite in the paper Resto del Carlino by some¬
one who had overheard him and was annoyed at his double¬
dealing. Mussolini, after a preliminary denial, feared his
prestige would suffer, and sought to save himself by his
favourite method of escape by rushing forward. If he
stayed on in the Socialist Party, his standing would be im¬
paired, but if he left it he would lose his paper, he who needed
to ‘ talk to the people every day ’. So he went to see Filippo
Naldi, who controlled the paper which had attacked him,
and came to an agreement with him to found a new paper.
The Popolo d'Italia appeared at Milan on November 15,
1914, as a ‘socialist daily’, and Mussolini made his debut
with a bitter and malignant onslaught against the party he
had just deserted. His sudden change of face struck the
party and the workers, who had followed him so far in
blind confidence, as an act of treason. In the so-called
country of Machiavelli this raised an insurmountable
barrier, not only between the working classes and Mussolini,
but also between the working classes and the policy of
intervention.

Both industrial workers and peasants, socialist and |
catholic, opposed the war. The Italian people felt that |

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

4

war was being prepared without their consent and against
their interests. The government itself could think of
nothing better than to appeal to ^ sacred egoism h National
territory had not been invaded, which, as Clemenceau said,
was unfortunate. A group of former socialists and anarcho-
syndicalists demanded war in the name of the revolution
but in this the working class could not follow them. Musso¬
lini, who had driven them down the road of absolute
neutrality, was least qualified to bring them back. Not for
him was the part of the apostle, proclaiming his error and
winning by his confession the right to preach the new truth.
Embittered and vengeful, he left the Socialist Party : ' you
shall pay for this he promised on the evening of his
expulsion. He found himself opposed not only by the
extremist feeling on which he had relied up to the last
moment, but by the moral revulsion which his attitude
provoked. In this way Mussolini, in 1914-15, contributed
more than anyone to the wall of prejudice which grew up
between the Italian people and the war.

On the other hand the supporters of a ‘ revolutionary
‘ democratic' war were soon swamped by a flood of
adherents from the most reactionary quarters, who saw in
any sort of war their opportunity of reversing the red
verdict of the 1913 elections. The conservative spirit of
the bourgeoisie inclined them to neutrality, but with the
threat to their authority in commune and parliament they
became converts to the war, hoping to be done with a
policy of reform which encroached on their privileges
and raised new social strata into the political life of the
country.

For here was a fundamental weakness, due as much to
the absence of a real ruling class as to the gulf between the
masses and the new state. The Italian bourgeoisie^ as it has
often been pointed out, succeeded in organizing the state
less through their own intrinsic strength than because a
series of international events had hastened their victory
over the feudal and semi-feudal classes: the policy of
Napoleon III in 1852-60, the Austro-Prussian war of 1866,
the defeat of France at Sedan and the resulting development
of the German empire. iLhc Risotgimento was carried

Italy’s intervention in the war 5

through by the tiny Piedmontese state as a ‘royal conquest,’
without the active support of the people and on occasion
in face of their opposition.

The Roman question^ kept the catholics outside the new
state ; the social problem ranged the masses against it.
From the ‘ transformism ’ of Depretis to the emergency
laws of Pelloux and from the ‘ collaborationism ’ of Giolitti
down to the dictatorship of the right in 1914-18, the policy
of the ruling classes was dominated by the necessity of
controlling the masses while avoiding any decisive change
of course in a democratic sense.

The Italian social system suffered above all from its lack,
of the slow evolution, the storing up of experience, the
resiliency and social stability that gave scope to the demo¬
cratic impulse in England and France. The people were
only just emerging from centuries of servitude and poverty
to which they were still held by a primitive economic
system based on low wages in industry and feudal exploita¬
tion on the land. Democratic revolution had still to be
achieved, and it was the task of the socialist movement.
National history only began with the action of the socialists
in awakening the masses to national life. Giolitti understood
this very well, for he had long studied the problem of how
the masses should be represented in the state. In 1913 he
granted almost universal suffrage, and made a pact with
the Vatican {patto Gentiloni) which enabled the catholics to
vote in the elections based on the new system which took
place the same year. This was a bold step, but it was
doomed to failure by the reactionary motives which inspired
it. Giolitti was concerned less with the creation of a modern
state than with the securing of a parliamentary majority.
This was made up of a group of deputies from the south,

‘ askaris ’, elected by corrupt and violent methods, and of
industrial members from the north, won over by high
protective tariffs. The benevolent neutrality of the socialists
was ensured by a sprinkling of reforms and the concession
of public works ; while, for election day, the catholics
were held in reserve against them and led in serried files to

j Dating from 1870, witii the occupation of Rome by Victor Emmanuel II,

and settled by the Lateran Treaty between Mussolini ^d Pope Pius XI.

6 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

the ballot by their priests. The result was political emas¬
culation, with a blurring of programmes and a decay of
parties, which hindered and falsified the healthy working of
universal suffrage.

But the splitting of public opinion into two extremes,
begun by the Libyan war and accentuated by the economic
crisis of 1914, broke with the tradition of compromise and
I the methods employed by Giolitti since he came to power.

! The situation became more and more tense. The stopping
: of emigration, the transport crisis, and the feverish prepara-
^ tion of armaments all combined to provoke crises in industry,
i over raw materials and in public finance. The price of
! bread was beginning to rise, in a country where rioting
has always begun in front of bakers’ shops. Numerous
demonstrations and clashes showed an increasing aversion
from the war amongst the masses, especially in the country
I districts.

The ‘/asd of revolutionary action ’, created towards the
I end of 1914 by revolutionary supporters of intervention,

I and amongst whom Mussolini was already playing the part
j of a leader, carried on a fierce campaign and breached
I working-class and socialist organization. If the socialists
! objected, they must be crushed. The government, deceived
by the prospect of a short war, undertook to come in on the
j side of the Allies (Treaty of London, April 26) without
! taking thought for the future. They bound themselves to
! action within a month, leaving no time for military or
j political preparation. They passed measures against the
: right of assembly and the liberty of the press, prelude to a
regime of absolute power. This only widened the gap
between the masses and the state. According to Ivanoe
Bonomi, minister during the war and President of the
Council in 1921 :

‘ When Italy’s intervention in the war finally alienated
Ae socialist proletariat from the state and drove it into
inaplacable opposition, the Italian crisis began. And the
crisis appeared extremely dangerous, when the manner of
Italy’s entry into the war also detached Signor Giolitti
and his friends from the existing government.’

Italy’s intervention in the war 7

For even Giolitti, the master of compromise, was to go.
On May 9, 1915, three hundred deputies to the Italian
Chamber—the majority—left their cards on Giolitti, who
had come to Rome, unaware that the die was cast, to defend
his parecchio proposal, which Sonnino had adopted a few
months earlier. The government, which had signed the
intervention agreement in the meantime and was only
continuing to negotiate with Vienna and Berlin the better
to guard its secret, encouraged demonstrations by ‘ inter¬
ventionists ’, especially in Rome, Milan, and Bologna. In
Quarto d’Annunzio made a great speech in favour of war ;
in Rome nationalists and ‘ fascists ’ mobilized and demon¬
strated against parliament. Salandra resigned, but the
king assured him of his confidence, and the government
summoned the Chambers, but only to tell them what had
already been settled. War had come, and Giolitti was to
wait five years before returning to power.

So the Chamber, elected on a universal sulfrage in 1913*,
when the swing to the left was considerable, and with a!
majority in favour of neutrality, brought about intervention !
and a dictatorship of the right. One cannot avoid a com-;
parison with the post-war situation, when the 1921 Chamber, j
democratic and anti-fascist, ended with the government of!
Mussolini. From several standpoints the ‘ glorious days ’
of May 1915 were the counterpart of the march on Rome.
The overriding of the will of parliament by the king and a
handful of men, and the impression that the government
had been bluffed into giving way by a minority that had
been allowed to demonstrate, unchecked, in the streets,
made the people feel wronged and deceived, and led
directly to the anti-parliamentary and maximalist sentiments
of the post-war years. ‘ The whirlwind of the war will blot
it out for the moment,’ as Croce says in his History of Italy,
‘but its consequences are irrevocable’. The carelessness,\
the unconsciousness almost, with which the ruling class}
plunged Italy into the war prepared the way for the dis-l
appointments of peace which contributed so much to the
birth of fascism. And in the course of the struggle for
intervention the fasci of 1914-15 began to acquire the
mixture of demagogy, inflamed nationalism, anti-socialism ,

8 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

and reaction which appeared again in ihtfasa of 1919-22.
Embarked on amid party strife, the national war ‘ will be
waged in an atmosphere of civil war said senator Vincenzo
Morello. Between May 1915 and October 1922 this process
was direct and uninterrupted.

II

THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION OF 1919

I TALY, which had only been a united nation for fifty
years, was dealt a terrible blow by the war. She was
left with 680,000 dead,^ half a million disabled, and
more than a million wounded. Lacking a great accumula¬
tion of reserves, she had to import everything : coal, oil,
rubber, leather, raw materials for textiles, and a proportion
of minerals and foodstuffs.

On the other hand, there had been no great national ideal
to support this effort or transfigure these sacrifices. The
government’s ‘ sacred egoism ’ had been fundamentally
neither egoistic nor sacred. Begun and carried on like a
civil war, the war left a legacy of violent passions and
insatiable hates. The day of victory brought no relaxation,
and the defeats of 1916 and 1917 were only sparsely and
belatedly avenged by the victory of Piave.

To no other country did demobilization bring such
difficult problems. The traditional outlet of emigration,
through which, in 1913, had passed about 900,000 workers,
chiefly landless peasants, had become more and more
restricted. What was to be done with those returning from
the front, and how long could the wartime factories keep on
the million hands who worked there? The change from
war industry to peace industry is notoriously hard. How, in
the midst of general disorder, persistent upheavals, and
growing hunger, could the way be found back to a world
trade already wrecked and impoverished, and guarded
by ruthless competitors who were better prepared and better
equipped ?

Everyone faced the future, though, with a heart full of

^ The figure given by fascist statisticians. M. Pierre Renouvin, in his work,
La Crise Europienne et la Grande Guerre, pvits it a.t 4.60,000.

9

10 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

hope. The war had so turned and sifted the soil of existence
created such landslides and outcrops that it was felt that at
the end of this geological epoch the sun would rise on a new
world. Had not Lloyd George himself announced : ‘ The
post-war world is to be a new world. . . . After the war
the workers must be inexorable in their demands.’ Even the
pronouncements of the government invested the war with
the mystic meaning of a revolution which had just begun.
‘This war’, proclaimed Orlando, the President of'^the
Council, on November 20, 1918, ‘ is also the greatest politico-
social revolution recorded by history, surpassing even the
French revolution.’ Salandra, on the same day, "spoke even
more forcibly. ‘ Yes, the war is a revolution ; a great, a very
great revolution. It is the hour of youth. Let no one think
that a peaceful return to the past will be possible after this
storm.’

During the war the most revolutionary catchwords had
been allowed, without scruple, to circulate. To one who
was concerned as to the consequences of such propaganda,
a fanatical advocate of intervention gave the following
reply : It does not matter if, in order to beat the Aus¬
trians, the proletarian troops need to call the bourgeoisie
dirty traitors, so long as they fight.’ This same propagandist
came to realize that this bourrage de cranes was not entirely
inolFensive ’. ^

. hmself had kept throughout the war on the

front page of his newspaper Blanqui’s maxim, ‘ he who has
Napoleon’s, ‘revolution is an idea
that lias -found bayonets ’. After the armistice he set his
sails to catch the rising wind ;

The war has brought the proletarian masses to the
tore. It has broken their chains and fired their courage.
The people’s war _ends with the triumph of the people.
. . . If the revolution of’89, which was both a revolution
an a war, opened up the world to the bourgeoisie after
Its long and secular novitiate, the present revolution,
which IS also a war, seems to open up the future to the
masses after their hard novitiate of blood and death in
the trenches.

THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION OF I919 II
And again :

‘ May 1915 was the first episode of the revolution, its
beginning. The revolution continued, under the name
of war, for forty months. It is not yet over. It may or
may not follow this dramatic and striking course. Its
tempo may be quick, or slow. But it goes on. ... As to
methods, we have no prejudices ; we accept whatever
becomes necessary, whether legal or so-called illegal. A
new historical epoch is beginning, an epoch of mass
politics and democratic inflation. We cannot stand in
the way of this movement. We must guide it towards
political and economic democracy.’

Such was the exalted atmosphere to which the demobilized
soldiers returned, after four years of war, which had brought
them nothing but suffering, bitterness and disillusion. The
The peasants, particularly those of the south, came back to
insist on their right to the land. The workers looked to
Russia, where for two years the bolsheviks had carried on a
superhuman struggle.

The outlook in Europe became daily more tragically
dramatic.

‘ The fall of the Hohenzollerns in Germany,’ writes
Pietro Nenni, an ex-combatant, ‘ the break-up of the
Habsburg empire and the flight of its last emperor, the
Spartacist movement in Berlin, the Soviet revolution in
Hungary and Bavaria : in short, all the extraordinary
and sensational events of the end of 1918 and the beginning
of 1919 fired the imagination and inspired the hope that
the old world was on the point of crumbling away and
that humanity was on the threshold of a new era and a
new social order.’

The ex-soldiers were for the most part Wilsonian and
democratic, with a vague but sincere desire for reconstruction
mixed with distrust for the old political cliques. Groups of
ex-soldiers uniting here and there were shortly joined
together in the National Association of Ex-service Men,
with an independent part to play, outside the traditional
parties. ‘ No party, no class, no vested interest, no paper

12

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

enjoys our confidence it proclaimed, ‘ organized and
independent, we formulate our own policy In January
1919 the central committee of the Association launched an
appeal for the formation of an ex-service men’s party. At
the first meeting which took place in June feeling against
the fascists, whose movement had been under way for some
months, was strong and a manifestly democratic programme
was adopted. This included the setting up of a constituent
assembly, the abolition of the Senate and its supersession
by councils elected by all classes of workers and producers ;
the reduction of military service to three months ; the
proclamation of a fatherland ‘ free from national egoism
and at one with humanity’, etc. The programme, as a
member, Emilio Lussu, remarks, seemed ‘ specially designed
for collaboration with the Socialist Party He adds :

‘ The ex-servicemen were in short embryo socialists, less
through a knowledge of socialist doctrine than through a
deep international feeling acquired through the experience
of war, and the yearning for the land which was felt by most
of them, being peasants.’

I' ^ How was the Socialist Party going to make use of this
j situation ? Everything was in its favour ; there seemed to be
; no opposition ; and everybody—members of the govern-
iment, fascists, ex-servicemen—used its catchwords and
waited to see what it was going to do. Its opposition to the
war seemed to single it out as the official heir to power.

In March 19173 2, few months before Caporetto, the
executive of the Socialist Party, together with the parlia¬
mentary group and the General Confederation of Labour,
had published a paper setting out their immediate demands
for Peace and the Post-war Period. This programme was con¬
ceived in anticipation of new social and political ideas
which were in the air. In foreign policy the party, which
had taken part in the Zimmerwald conference,^ demanded
a peace without forced annexations and ‘ respectful of the
rights of nationalities’, immediate and simultaneous dis¬
armament, the abolition of tariff barriers and the institu-

coimSJ delegate.s from all the European

THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION OF I919 I3

tion of ‘ federal juridical relations between all civilized
states Such a policy could only be carried through if the j
proletariat were to achieve the first position in the state,
through a series of ‘ social, political and economic reforms ’,
including ‘ republican government based on the supremacy
of the people ’ ; the abolition of the Senate ; universal,
equal and direct suffrage ; free rights of association,
assembly, strike and propaganda ; election of judges and
the chief officers of the state ; a complete system of social
insurance ; collective labour contracts and minimum wages ;
a great programme of public works ; expropriation of
badly cultivated land, etc. This remained the programme;
of the Socialist Party until half-way through 1918, but while
waiting for its fulfilment a proportion of the masses became
more radical in outlook, as a result of what they had suffered
in the war, and more especially in reaction to the loathsome
way in which the ‘ home front ’ shirkers had taken advantage
of wartime discipline to carry on the struggle against the
working class and the Socialist Party. In the party, the
swing to the left became more and more pronounced, and
at the national congress in Rome in September 1918 obtained
a crushing majority. This new majority dismissed the
programme of 1917 as far too feeble and ‘reformist’,
without considering it in relation to the problem of the
character and historic content of the Italian revolution.

In the Italy of 1918-19 there was undoubtedly the needV
for a bourgeois-democratic revolution, such as was experi-|
enced by the bolsheviks in March 192 7, and which they tried i
to consolidate after their victory in October.^ In Italy, too, I
it was essential to break the supremacy of the old social j
castes, whose influence had been strengthened by the war,
and lead the masses to take a share in political life and build
a popular state. In this way her national revolution, left

^ In an article devoted to the fourth anniversary of the October revolution,
Lenin remarks : ‘ The most exacting task of the revolution was bourgeois znd
democratic in nature. This was the destruction of survivals of the Middle
Ages, the final removal of shameful barbarism, shackling all culture and
progress.^. . . We went through with this revolution to the end. With one
purpose in view we advanced towards social revolution, well aware that there
was no impassable barrier before us. The measure of our progress depends
on our efforts; to-morrow the struggle will decide which of our conquests
arc for ever assured.*

14 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

incomplete by the Risorgimento, could be rounded off.
Radical reforms were inevitable, and no one dared openly
oppose them. Even the governmental question was no
longer a serious obstacle ; nearly everybody either wanted
the abolition of the monarchy or was resigned to its dis¬
appearance. The war had set the masses on the move
and their momentum was easily sufScient to overthrow
the existing structure. Republic, political and economic
democracy, common ownership of the land : these were the
essentials of the first stage of the revolution.

Almost all parties were in favour of a constituent assembly
and the most sweeping social reforms. At the beginning
of January 1919 the Italian Labour Union, which was
national-syndicalist in tendency and later provided the
framework of fascist syndicalism, called 'for a ‘ national
constituent assembly conceived as the Italian section of the
constituent assembly of nations ’. In March Mussolini
demanded a ‘constituent assembly of the Fourth Italy’,
and insisted that the deputies returned at the next elections
should ‘ constitute the national assembly summoned to
decide on a form of government ’. In April the Republican
Party and the independent socialists (Bissolati’s group)
called on the ruling class to ‘ yield their power quietly to
the people ’, demanded a ‘ national constituent assembly,
with full power to decide on the new forms of representation ;
the assembly to nominate without delay a provisional
government which should remain in power until the new
national statute of the Italian people came into force
and pronounced itself in favour of the inauguration of a
‘ social repubhe ’. The Radical Party launched an appeal
for a thoroughly comprehensive renewal of the state ’, and
‘ an irnmediate and wider participation of the working
classes in the government ’. Even the congress of ‘ Liberal"’
Associations (i.e. conservatives) recognized the nece.ssity of
‘ speeding up the course of events ’. The strength of the
current swept along the most widely differing groups. The
first congress of the National Association of Ex-servicemen
ralhed to the idea of a constituent assembly, and the congress
of freemasons which was being held in Rome at the same
time (June 1919) resolved that ‘in the political and social

THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION OF I919 I5

sphere all changes which would democratize the character,
direction and structure of the state should be carried out \
Again in October, in Florence, the national congress of
fasci demanded almost unanimously ‘ a constituent assembly,
by whatever means, for a fundamental alteration of the law,
with the aim of achieving politically, socially and economi¬
cally an entirely new state of affairs The idea of a
constituent assembly caught on chiefly amongst the more
politically minded groups of soldiers returning from the
war zone, who were now just beginning to be seen about
again at home. Pietro Nenni, in a book which is certainly
the best that has been written on the post-war crisis in Italy
(Storia di Q^atro Ami), writes :

‘ Everyone who lived through those feverish months
when the joy of peace was mixed with profound dis¬
satisfaction with social and political conditions in the
country, when all differences were merged into an almost
mystical exaltation of the rights of those who had fought,
everyone who can remember the first withdrawal of the
fighting forces to their home districts, will recall that there
was never a reunion or meeting or torchlight procession
without talk of the constituent assembly. The phrase
was passed on from zone to zone and was impressed on
the minds of the demobilized troops. Each man gave it
what meaning and value he liked. It was everything, and
it was nothing ; or, better, it could have been everything,
and came to nothing.’

Why did it come to nothing ? Because a ‘ mystical ’ \
constituent assembly, of which so many component parts i
were already in existence, could not really come into being j
or function without action from the party which controlled i
the masses. This party, however, had just removed the j
constituent assembly from its programme. In the discussions !
of December 1918 the majority of the parliamentary group ;
of the General Confederation of Labour had renewed their
claims of 1917 and declared for the constituent assembly ;
but the party executive, elected at the Rome congress,
announced that henceforward their goal must be ‘the
creation of the sociahst republic and the dictatorship of the

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

l6

proletariat The dispute broke out again the following
January and was complicated by the equivocation which
made ‘ reformists ’ and ‘ revolutionaries ’ equally powerless.

In order to overcome the post-war social and political
crisis successfully, the Socialist Party ought to have taken
office at the earliest possible moment. The ‘ reformists ’ of
the party and of the General Confederation of Labour had
revived the 1917 programme, to counterbalance the empty
theories of the left, and above all to avoid the dangerous
ground of the struggle for power. But the right-wing
socialists voted in their January session for the Turati-
Prampolini resolution against taking office, so as not to
‘ absolve the classes who willed the war from the terrible
responsibilities of its results Actually this argument
applied equally well against the 1917 programme and against
every other step towards power, and resembled the theory
of the maximalists^ that nothing should be attempted
‘ within the framework of capitalism since in any case the
bourgeoisie was doomed, and it was better to let it collapse
under the weight of its own mistakes and impotence.
Besides, although some of the ‘ reformists ’ found the
constituent assembly useful to oppose the ‘ dictatorship of
the proletariat ’, they were certainly not prepared to fight
for it, since they were contemplating an alliance with
Giolitti—^far easier within the limits of constitutional
monarchy.

The ‘ revolutionaries ’ objected to a constituent assembly,
for the very reason that made their opponents accept it.
The fact that it was common talk, a password on everybody’s
lips, alarmed them. If they had possessed a spark of revolu¬
tionary spirit this should have led them to adopt it, as in
1871, when ‘ the Commune acquired a kind of mysterious
potency in the confused mind of the mob ’, and when, as
C. Thales was not the first to remark, ‘ rational ideas were
eclipsed by the extraordinary appeal of such a shibboleth ’.

These revolutionaries, however, wanted above all to
copy Russia and this amounted to a bemused repetition
of the catchwords that the bolshevik success had set in

^ This section of the Socialist Party was dominant from
armistice until the March on Rome ; see also Chap, VI, etc*

the time of the

THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION OF I919 I7

circulation. Instead of making the problems of the Italian
revolution the basis for their own ideology, they tried to
build a revolution on a ready-made and ill-digested ideology,
and this accounts for their complete failure. The soviets
of which the bolsheviks spoke actually existed, and had
come into being quite independently of them, dating back
to the cherished tradition of 1905 and expressing the pro¬
foundly democratic tendencies of village and factory whose
roots grew deep in the past. The Soviet Executive Com¬
mittee was formed in Petrograd at the same time as the
Provisional Committee of the State Duma : February 27,
1917. The bolsheviks were reckoning as late as July on a
‘ peaceful development—preferably—of the revolution ’ ;
they went through the phase of dual power, shared and
disputed between soviets and provisional government, and
fought the mensheviks and social-revolutionaries to win a
majority inside the soviets. Even after the slogan ‘All
power to the soviets ’ had been issued, they continued to
demand that the constituent assembly, which they dissolved
a few months after the Oetober victory, be summoned.
Every one of these decisions, with its corresponding code of
action, grew out of the living drama of the revolution, on
which its entire significance depends.

J[n ^919 the Italian working class had neither programme
nor Fe’aders. The 1917 programme, adopted by the socialists,
had no revolutionary fervour, while what fervour existed
was dissipated in borrowed slogans: on the one side a disem¬
bodied soul, on the other a soulless body. Meanwhile the
masses continued to dream ; ‘ for some weeks ’, says Mario
Missiroli, ‘ the people became children again and went back

to the pure springs of faith They.only asked to be led

somewhere, so long as it was forward, towards a new world,;
for which their feverish longing was stimulated by the still ’
unhealed wounds of war, but their faith found no interpreter. ■
Against the constituent assembly myth was set the soviet*
myth, without either becoming a reality. The clash was an
imaginary one, between shadows which overcast the political
horizon and obscured, on right and left, all paths to power.

Meanwhile Italy’s economic situation was getting worse.
Between March 7 and December 22, 1919, eleven classes—

i8

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

from 1896 to 1916—wex'e demobilized. Discontent was
general and strikes were on the increase.

‘ Several factors helped to create and prolong this
discontent : the difficulty of starting regular work again
after so many years spent in danger and suffering, but
also partly in idleness; the inertia caused by the
exhaustion of will-power which had been over-worked and
over-exploited the reaction against over-strict dis¬
cipline too long maintained ; the irritation caused by the
non-fulfilment of the lavish promises of radical economic
reforms made to encourage the troops to the supreme
sacrifice ; the revulsion against the squandering of ill-
gotten wealth. But the chief cause of unrest was unques¬
tionably the constant rise in the cost of living. The rise
in prices was hastened by the effects of monetary inflation,
ffitherto artificially mitipted, and by the dearth of goods
imposed on a population eager to throw off wartime
restrictions. The rise in the cost of living, by increasing
the discontent of the working classes, forced them to
make continual demands for higher wages and kept them
in a state of constant irritation and uncertainty about the
future which often broke out into violent demonstrations.’
(See G. Mortara, Prospettive Economiche.)

Strikes, which were on the increase towards the middle
of (200,000 metallurgical workers in the north, 200,000
agricultural labourers in the provinces of Novara and
Pavia, printers in Rome and Parma, textile workers at

^ fit <rf laziness was epidemic in all countries that had taken oart in
the war. In France it was referred to by M. Gabriel S6ailte in a o-tS^hle

issued by the Ligue des Droits de I'Homme : ‘ From all parts of the countrv

“'J^-^tness , they want to earn more and produce less Some

. it is toTe found takes xntny form^

k * * ■ 1 .*® negligence of an administration which lets itself

or ^“till to foresee, in its lack of atw eeoUmic

W Sed^Sff^aeo f„P“Tonement of fiscal measures which should have
LLdTwhich out-of-date

fb,

time during the crisis in Itafy.® grievances felt at the same

THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION OF I919 I9

Como, sailors at Trieste, etc.), only raised wages to the new
high level of the cost of living.^

The struggle for better conditions was no longer sufficient
to calm the general discontent. During several weeks,
beginning in June, indignant crowds would pour into the
shops, insisting on price reductions and sometimes looting
merchandise. Mussolini and the recently formed fasci
proclaimed their complete solidarity ‘ with the people of the
provinces of Italy in revolt against those who would starve
them ’, and praised ‘ the firm and resolute gestures of the
righteous vengeance of the people The Popolo d’Italia
expressed the hope that ‘ in exercising their sacred rights
they would not be content with striking at the criminals
through their possessions, but would also start to attack their
persons ’, for ‘ a few profiteers strung up on lamp-posts and
a few hoarders smothered under the potatoes and bacon
they wanted to hide would make a good example The
bewilderment of the socialists and of the General Confedera¬
tion of Labour, who were harassed and ineffective, invited
the abuse of Mussolini, who poured scorn on the manifesto
in which they determined ‘ to create no false hopes ’.

All Italy was out in the streets. The government could
do nothing, since it had not sufficient forces to intervene
everywhere at once.

‘ I was impressed writes Signor Tittoni, minister in
Nitti’s cabinet, ‘ by the fact that to muster sufficient
forces to face the storm it was necessary to send for
carabinieri and police from other districts, which were thus
left unprotected. I have often wondered what the
government would have done if revolt had broken out
simultaneously throughout the peninsula.’

The agitation against the high cost of living rapidly
became a national movement, but thefFwas no one to
organize and guide it towards a definite goal, and so make
use of the force it represented. The maximalist executive of

^ Even school-teachers struck during the first fortnight of June. What
were their demands ? Minimum initial salary of ten lire a day and an
indemnity against the high cost of living for those on the retired list, some of
whom were still receiving, after forty years of service, between forty and
sixty lire a month.

20 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

the Socialist Party, in order to avoid ‘ creating false hopes ’
postponed all action (and continued to do so until the march
on Rome) until the ‘ approaching revolution ’ : the real
thing, which would have the authentic stamp of Moscow.
Meanwhile, as in Bologna, tradesmen took the keys of their
shops to the Chambers of Labour, while the socialist adminis¬
tration enforced price control. The communes and
Chambers of Labour : these were the ‘ second power ’ which
were rising up against the state, and might take its place ;
these were the Italian ‘ soviets ’, formed by the far-reaching
traditions of municipal life and by the recent history of
the working-class movement. But they were not copied
from Russia, and the so-called leaders persisted in wanting
to form soviets exactly to the Russian pattern. Because
the revolution was Italian and popular in form the ‘ revolu¬
tionaries who wanted ‘ soviets everywhere passed it by
without recognizing it.

On the other hand there was organized for July 20-21 a
general strike, which was to have been international : a
demonstration of solidarity with the Russian and Plungarian
soviet republics. This had been decided upon at the South-
port Conference, but at the last moment the French General
Confederation of Labour withdrew, and the Italian socialists
alone carried out their agreement. Something serious was
expected and the atmosphere was oppressive and uneasy,
but nothing happened. The poUtical strike was nothing
but a show, staged without enthusiasm or any of the pas¬
sionate interest which launched the attack against the high
cost of living.^ The premonitions of the ruling classes were
dispelled j with new confidence they prepared for battle.

While the towns were being shaken by strikes, agitation
against the cost of living, and industrial riots, there were in
the country the makings of a revolution which escaped
equally from the control of the socialist and syndicalist
; leaders. Mobs of recently demobilized peasants took
possessiom of uncultivated estates [latifmdia) and settled on
■them. ‘During the war there was plenty of talk of “ the
land for the peasants ”. There are some promises which
i cannot be broken with impunity. When the peasants over-
ran several estates of the Agro Romano, soldiers of a regiment

THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION OF I919 21

famous for its heroism were seen cheering on the invaders,
who were wearing their war medals.’ (Nitti.) During
August the movement grew in the Rome district and spread
over the south. The Socialist Party, its eyes still turned
towards Russia (where, however, the peasants’ hunger for
the land had been the deciding factor of the revolutionary
victory), remained aloof from this thrust made by the rustic
mob, which belonged to no party or union and sometimes
took the field behind a tricolour flag.

In November the general election revealed the new Italy.
It was, thanks to Nitti, the first really free election since
the unification of the kingdom. Proportional representation,
which had just been adopted, favoured the increase of the
big parties, socialist and Popolare (catholic). The second,
barely a year old, had already attained an important
position in Italian political life. In spite of the Roman
question, Catholics were permitted by the Vatican to vote
and play their part in national life under a united state.
It was a revolution within the revolution. The year 1919
was in fact the year of the Italian democratic revolution.
The masses had begun their struggle for bread, land and
freedom. The ties with the past seemed finally broken ;
from this revolution a true nation, a popular state, must at
last emerge. All signs pointed clearly to the Fourth Italy.

Ill

MUSSOLINI AND FASCISM OF THE ‘FIRST
HOUR

W ITH the armistice Mussolini felt that the day of
reckoning had arrived for the whole world, himself
included. The dictatorship of the Fronle Interrio,
which had protected him during the war, was over, and
nothing stood between him and the growing indignation of
the masses. After the demobilization he was forced to play a
lone hand, on which his life depended. He had no theoretical
or sentimental considerations to hamper him, and was
known to have neither scruples nor convictions. 1 le read
in order to acquire, not ideas, but the political strategy of
which he was in need. The process of thought inspired him
with a kind of suspicious embarrassment which made
him seize upon anything that justified illogicality and
incoherence. He appropriated, often at third hand but
with an unerring instinct, Nietzsche’s ‘ will to power
Stirner’s ‘unique’, Bergsonian intuition, Sorel’s ‘myths’,
pragmatism and, his latest discovery, Einstein’s theory of
relativity. His only use for ideas was to enable him to
dispense with ideas. He was accused of a betrayal of
principle ? The whole object of his researches was to collect
everything which detracted, or appeared to detract from the
reality or binding nature of principles, and if principles
were meaningless so was their betrayal. Only action
counted, and on the plane of action betrayal did not exist,
only victory or defeat. Mussolini knew very well that he
could not even carry on the daily struggle without some
general ideas, and he picked them up wherever he could to
suit each emergency. He became a cheap-jack philosopher,
raking up ancient platitudes which he would bring out with

* ‘ Fascismo della prima ora.’

22

MUSSOLINI AND EARLY FASCISM 23

a challenging air of self-satisfaction reminiscent of Monsieur
Jourdain or Erostrates. He scorned fixed principles and
asserted that ‘ imperialism is the eternal and unchangeable
law of life ’ ; he criticized Marxism for its gver-sim
tion of history while proclaiming that ' it is blood that turns
the bloodstained wheels of history In this way he aban¬
doned dogma for platitude, but platitudes, vividly expressed,
circulated rapidly in the vast province which is Italy, and
there was nothing easier to replace, without troubling about
past or future commitments.

This is what Mussolini needed, while on January 29, 1919,
he described himself as ^ a cynic, insensible to everything
except adventure-—mad adventure Gould he be taken at
his word and judged on his own definition ? An adventurer,
yes, since his only end in life was personal success, to which
everything must be subordinated. A cynic too, since,
according to one of his friends, who nevertheless remained
loyal to him, ‘ friendship and sentiment have no place in
his heart’. But there was nothing in him of the Titan
storming heaven or the romantic hero carried away by the
violence of his convictions. He inclined to the classical,

‘ since he can interpret all the grand passions without feeling
them ’ : passions both individual and collective on which
he played as on a keyboard. Angelica Balabanoff, who
knew him well, tells of occasions when he seemed a miserable
creature, scared of the prick of a hypodermic needle ; others
describe him fearlessly making his way through a hostile
mob. But to talk in terms of current psychology of his
cowardice or courage is to miss his real personality.
Mussolini was too shrewd to be really brave, but he was
shrewd enough not to be the slave of his nerves. He had a
fine instinct for the road to success and eventually always
managed to take it. With no love of danger for its own sake,
he would do all he could to avoid or reduce it, but when it
was a question of asserting himself, or of self-preservation,
he was ready to accept whatever the situation dictated.
When the world war broke out he was careful not to follow
the Garibaldists into the Argonnes, nor did he commit
himself after May 1915 as his friend Corridoni did. He
waited to go to the front with his own class, and when he

MUSSOLINI AND EARLY FASCISM

23

a challenging air of self-satisfaction reminiscent of Monsieur
Jourdain or Erostrates. He scorned fixed principles and
asserted that ‘ imperialism is the eternal and unchangeable
law of life ’ ; he criticized Marxism for its over-simplifica¬
tion of history while proclaiming that ' it is blood that turns
the bloodstained wheels of history h In this way he aban¬
doned dogma for platitude, but platitudes, vividly expressed,
circulated rapidly in the vast province which is Italy, and
there was nothing easier to replace, without troubling about
past or future commitments.

This is what Mussolini needed, while on January 29, 1919,
he described himself as "a cynic, insensible to everything
except adventure—mad adventure h Could he be taken at
his word and judged on his own definition ? An adventurer,
yes, since his only end in life was personal success, to which
everything must be subordinated. A cynic too, since,
according to one of his friends, who nevertheless remained
loyal to him, friendship and sentiment have no place in
his heart h But there was nothing in him of the Titan
storming heaven or the romantic hero carried away by the
violence of his convictions. He inclined to the classical,
‘ since he can interpret all the grand passions without feeling
them ’ : passions both individual and collective on which
he played as on a keyboard. Angelica Balabanoff, who
knew him well, tells of occasions when he seemed a miserable
creature, scared of the prick of a hypodermic needle ; others
describe him fearlessly making his way through a hostile
mob. But to talk in terms of current psychology of his
cowardice or courage is to miss his real personality.
Mussolini was too shrewd to be really brave, but he was
shrewd enough not to be the slave of his nerves. He had a
fine instinct for the road to success and eventually always
managed to take it. With no love of danger for its own sake,
he would do all he could to avoid or reduce it, but when it
was a question of asserting himself, or of self-preservation,
he was ready to accept whatever the situation dictated.
When the world war broke out he was careful not to follow
the Garibaldists into the Argonnes, nor did he commit
himself after May 1915 as his friend Corridoni did. He
waited to go to the front with his own class, and when he

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

24

was wounded in a minor accident during hand-grenade
practice after a few weeks in the trenches he went back to
Milan and stayed there till the end of the war. He never
took part in any engagement, for his life was too precious
to run the risk of a ‘ senseless bullet but his thirty-eight
days in the trenches were just enough to permit him to
return, without too much embarrassment, to liis paper and
his career. This would have been finished if he had not
gone at all, but never for a moment did he consider sacrificing
himself, like Corridoni or Battisti, in the cause of victory.
The only cause he recognized was his own.

Mussolini needed something more than Ins own unscrupu¬
lousness and lack of principle, if he was to ad\-ancc further.
For in spite of his stupendous pride (‘ I ha\-c never yet met
my equal,’ he confided to a friend before the war), he knetv
that he could do nothing alone. On November 10, igig,
day of the ‘ victory procession ’, he rode tvilh a lorry full of
arditi.^ After driving round the streets of .Milan they all
fetched up at a large cafe in the middle of the city, ^v•here
Mussolini addressed his men. ' Arditi, con'radcs I have
defended you against the slanders of cowardly philistines.

. . . With shining daggers and bursting bomb.s you .shali
wreak vengeance on the miserable wretches who would
prevent the advance of greater Italy. She is yotu's .
yours! ’ The arditi raised their daggers tind dro\-e them into
the table round the flag which had been .sjircacl o\'er it
shouting . Long live Italy ’. Thus for the time being a
rough-and-rea,dy bodyguard was formed.

But Mussolini was wise enough to realize that he needed
allies, and a proper organization to support him. The
Socialist Party and the branches of the General Confedera¬
tion of Labour were hostile. There was,
possibility of a split in their ranks. The socialist leaders
and the executive committee of the Confederation did not
see eye to eye. The Confederation had just revived, at the
Bologna congress at the end of January 1919, the 1917
programme,2 including the constituent assembly. Mussolini,

^ The arditi brave) were

Italian army, started during the war

2 Pp.

a, special

body of shock troops In the

MUSSOLINI AND EARLY FASCISM 25

inspired with hope, gave his support. The General Con¬
federation of Labour would perhaps break its recently
concluded alliance with the Socialist Party, and regain its
independence. It might aim at the creation of a labour
party modelled on the British Labour Party, a project
favoured by a good many Confederation leaders ; and
Mussolini would then be able to collaborate, with his
newspaper, transformed meanwhile from a ‘ socialist daily ’
to a ‘ producers’ daily ’. He carried on a campaign in the
Popolo PItalia for a syndical coalition, and in particular for
the amalgamation of the General Confederation of Labour
with the Italian Labour Union, whose leaders were his
friends and preached with him a kind of ‘ national socialism ’.
The Italian Labour Union had supported Italian inter¬
vention in the war, but with its return to the arms of the
Confederation the question of principle would be overcome,
and supporters of the war would be admitted both to the
new General Confederation of Labour and to the new labour
party. Mussolini hoped to profit by this ruling and at one
stroke win back the contact with the masses that he had
lost during the war.

Mussolini did not commit himself too deeply in this
direction, partly because the difficulties encountered were
greater than he expected—the General Confederation of
Labour shortly rejected the coalition with the Italian Labour
Union precisely because of its attitude during the war—
and partly because he never liked putting all his eggs in one
basket. In seeking a reconciliation with the socialist move¬
ment he aimed at the right wing, and in particular at
the leaders , of the Confederation. At the same time he did
not wish to share with the right-wing sociali .ts the risk of
being swamped by a popular movement, so he combined
his ‘ national socialism ’ with demagogy. In this he was the
still unconscious evangelist of all fascist creeds. As early as
January he supported the strike of the postal workers, the
claims of the railwaymen, etc. ‘ We must grant their
demands at once! If two, three, or five milliards are needed,
they must be found. At home by a census of national wealth,
abroad by borrowing.’ The railwaymen must unite ‘ from
inspector to navvy ’ in one syndical union. And when they

26

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

presented their list of claims, in March, he supported them
all unreservedly, including the right to strike, although the
Italian railways are a state service.

During the same month another event favoured his
flirtation with the working-class movement. The factory
hands employed by Messrs. Franchi and Gregorini at
Dalmine (Bergamo), members of the Italian Labour Union,
had presented a memorandum in which their chief demand
was for the English working week. When it was refused they
shut themselves up in the factory, hoisted a tricolour flag
on the chimney and continued production, declaring that
they would not quit until their demands had been fully met.
It was the first post-war factory occupation in Italy.
Mussolini welcomed it in his paper :

‘ The refusal of the metal workers to lea\'e their fac¬
tories signifies the translation into action of the new
tendencies of the international working-class movement,
whose distinguishing characteristics have been taken up
and studied by this paper. The traditional method of the
strike, harmful to class and nation alike, is discarded.
The formation of the workers’ council, which for three
days has managed the concern and kept every department
going, represents an honest and painstaking effort and a
praiseworthy ambition to supersede the so-called bourgeois
class in the control of production.’

After their victory Mussolini was summoned to Dalmine
where he praised ^ the workers’ action in ‘ inventing the
creative strike which does not interfere with production’
and encourapd them to continue with the new method.

The conditions with which the industrialists have sur¬
rounded you have prevented you from showing all you are
capable of, but you have proved your good will and I
assure you that you are on the right road.’ Afterwards a
speech was made by Michele Bianchi, future general
secretary of fte Fascist Party and quadrumvir of the march
on^Rome. Thus the first factory occupation took place
under the auspices of budding fascism.

,. the June and July riots against the high cost of

living, Mussohni and the/a.« devoted themselves, as we

MUSSOLINI AND EARLY FASCISM 27

have already noted, ^ to frenzied attempts to outbid the
socialists and the General Confederation of Labour.
Mussolini raised the cry of all demagogues whose demagogy
is a cloak for their fundamental opportunism : ‘ Squeeze
the rich He knew very well that to save Italian finances,
lower the cost of living, satisfy all popular needs, old and
new, and overcome the crisis, it was not enough to decimate
capital or string up a few profiteers. But a sop had to be
found for the proletarian Cerberus. ^ The coffers are
empty’, he wrote on June lo. ‘Who is to fill them? Not
we, who have no houses, no cars, no factories, no land, no
workshops, no money. Those who can, must pay. Here is
our immediate proposal : let the owners expropriate them¬
selves, or we will call up the army of ex-service men and
storm our way through all obstacles.’

All this served doubtless to make the situation even worse,
but it did not mean that Mussolini’s socialist tendencies
were again in the ascendant, or that he was really a socialist
gone astray, a reactionary in spite of himself Between
Mussolini and his own past stood a barrier of hatred, con¬
tempt, and bloodshed. No less infamous than the betrayal
was the manner in which it had been carried out : the
acceptance of blood money on which his newspaper was
founded. II modo ancor m^qffende. Repentance in sackcloth
and ashes would have availed him nothing, even if his pride
had allowed it, which was out of the question. But he had
never been a real socialist ; only a mussolinist. While a
member of the party he had belonged to the left wing, chiefly
because the old leaders, who, in his interest, had to be
eliminated, belonged to the right. Directly he acquired the
Avanti he got rid of Claudio Treves, refusing his articles
because he wanted to manage the paper, his paper, alone.
This actually resulted in a duel. After his expulsion from
the party he dreamed only of repaying the humiliation he
had suffered, and his ruthless attack on it was inspired by
spite and his obsession for revenge.

Mussolini had done more than change sides, like a
Renaissance soldier of fortune : he had given up his
bohemian existence and begun to live a life of luxury, to

28 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

have mistresses, to combine the ‘ will to power ’ with a life
of ease, far from dirt and misery. Money was not the sum of
his desires nor the deciding factor of his policy, but lie had
come to realize that it was the sinews of war, and as war was
part of his programme he could not dispense with it. He
was not likely to forget that without money from Naldi
and Barrere in 1914 he would have been powerless. No one
who had known him as he was in 1912--13, shabby, hollow¬
cheeked, with burning eyes, would recognize him to-day
in the Galleria in Milan, dressed in black, his powerful neck
set on his thickened torso, his face squat and swollen, . . .
He appealed to mob opinion not because he agreed with it,
but because he wanted to gain time and avert summary
destruction. He ran with the mob, sometimes ahead of it,
but was never swept away. He stirred it up, in order to
outwit it, for all his tastes and needs called him to the other
side of the barricades.

Thus Mussolini hesitated no longer to break with the
'interventionist’ democrats, who with Bissolati remained
faithful to their ideals, even after the armistice, and continued
to oppose Sonnino’s short-sighted policy. Bissolati, himself
an ex-editor of Avanti, had been one of the four socialist
deputies expelled from the party in 1912, at Mussolini’s
instigation, for their excessively nationalist attitude during
taking part in the agitation for Italy’s
intSvention, Ee joined up in May 1915, at the age of fifty-
eight, with his old rank as sergeant, and got himself sent
straight to the front. Twice wounded in July, during the
attack on Monte Nero, he refused to stay in Rome, though
weakened by a series of operations. He went back to the
front in mid-winter, still as a sergeant, and for his valour
won another medal in the great Austrian push of spring,
1916. The grave political crisis of June compelled him to
join^ the newly formed 'national’ government. As a
minister he unceasingly opposed the policy of 'sacred
egoism insisting that they were fighting for a nobler ideal
than mere national unity, and preaching the necessity of
close collaboration with the peoples of the Austrian empire
in their struggle for independence. On the eve of the Paris
Conference the hitherto concealed differences between him

MUSSOLINI AND EARLY FASCISM

29

and Sonnino developed into open discord, and he resigned :
Nitti was shortly to follow his example.

By leaving the cabinet, Bissolati hoped to gain a free
hand to carry on his campaign in favour of a genuinely
democratic peace, and he demanded that Italy should not
remain tied by the Treaty of London. ‘ Baron Sonnino ’,
he said in an interview, ‘ is all for the inviolability of the
Treaty of London, which gives Fiume, an essentially Italian
town, to the Jugo-Slavians, so as to demand the possession of
Dalmatia (where Italians are in a tiny minority). I hold the
opposite view : Fiume must form part of the kingdom of
Italy, and Dalmatia be given to Jugo-Slavia.’ Respect for
the principle of nationality coincided with Italy’s interests.
By observing the terms of the Rome Pact, signed in
1918 with the representatives of the succession states of the
Austrian empire, ^ she could become the leader of the smaller
powers, and contribute to the stabilization of a new and
peaceful Europe.

But when the time came, Sonnino and the Italian
nationalists persisted in their desire to reap the advantages
of the secret Treaty of London—by annexing Dalmatia—
while at the same time demanding the annexation of Fiume,
in the name of the very principle of nationality which that
treaty, concluded ‘ consule Sonnino,’ violated by awarding
Fiume to Jugo-Slavia.^ Mussolini rushed to their support
and began a most violent campaign against any renunciation.
Bissolati, invited by the Italian League of Nations Society,
was due to come to Milan on January 11 to hold a meeting,

^ At the Rome Conference summoned by permission of the Italian govern¬
ment, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Czech, and Jugo-Slavian delegates had
agreed on the necessity of a joint struggle against the Habsburg monarchy,
so^ that ‘ each people might realize its complete freedom and national unity
within a free state Italians and Jugo-Slavians, in a separate agreement,
acknowledged ' that the unity and independence of the Jugo-Slavian nation
are of vital interest to Italy, just as the achievement of Italian national unity
is to the Jugo-Slavian nation ^ Both sides undertook so to act “ that during
the war and on the conclusion of peace the aims of both nations might be
fully attained ’. They agreed at the same time on the joint defence of
the Adriatic against foreign control. Amongst the members of the Italian
delegation which concluded this agreement was Benito Mussolini.

2 Article 5 of the treaty of April 26, 1915, read precisely : ‘ The territories
listed below will be allotted by the four allied powers to Croatia, Serbia, and
Montenegro : in the upper Adriatic the entire coast from the Bay of Volosca
on the borders of Istria up to the northern frontier of Dalmatia, including
the present Hungarian coastline, and the entire Croatian coast, including the
port of Fiume, etc.’'

30

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

first of a series intended to explain and disseminate ‘ Wil¬
sonian conceptions of a peace based on law and justice
Mussolini ^ mobilized his friends, denounced Bissolati’s
pusillanimity, and broke up his meeting at the Scala.
This marked the final severance of the fascist movement
from any possible connection with democracy ; hence¬
forward, taking as usual the line of least resistance, it
adopted the cause of discontented nationalism.

But the government had got itself into a fix over this
question. It had arranged for hundreds of telegrams
demanding annexation ‘ in the name of the population ’ to
be sent off by Italian officials in Dalmatia, it had permitted
demonstrations in favour of ‘ Fiume or death ’ in Italian
towns, and declared in the press that ‘ the rights ’ of Italy
would be defended to the death. Meanwhile in Paris
Orlando and Nitti were not only unable to force the accep-
tance of this squaring of the circle-the Treaty of London
plus Flume—but found that the actual validity of the treaty
was inenaced, since Wilson and the Serbs, who had not
been informed of it, refused to recognize it. The Italian
delegation was paralysed—completely absorbed, as M.
Tardieu remarked, by the Fiume question—and the Con-
reduced to ‘ a three-cornered dialogue ’ :

1 son, Clemenceau, Lloyd George. So, when Orlando and
Sonnmo decided on April 23 to leave Paris as a protest
their gesture fell flat, for it did not affect the situation. But
Italian national feeling was stirred, and Orlando made
ery speeches to cheering crowds at railway stations.

Italv^lWpd* action of the government, and

Italy hved agam m the atmosphere oi maggio radioso. To
complete the effect d’Annunzio came to Rome to demand
mexation in a speech at the ‘Augusteo’ : ‘ Our epic

oT ’’ ‘D” yo'- hear, far

f Cetaatia, the

rneasured tread of an army on the march ? With caries

swe n?d in the dawn of another May ifaly

sweeps down from the Capitol.’ ^ ^

Mussolini, and the nationalists demanded

Dalmatia A immediately annex Fiume,

Ualmatia, the Tyrol, and present the Paris Conference with

MUSSOLINI AND EARLY FASCISM 21

the fait accompli. \Ve must put a fait accompli before the
three powers wrote Mussolini on April 29. ‘ The fait

accompli is a decree of annexation to which the Jugo-Slavs
though they gnash their teeth, will have to submit. They
cannot make war on Italy. They have no artillery, machine-
guns, aeroplanes, or munitions. They will go no further
than a more or less vigorous diplomatic protest. It would
be calamitous for the government to miss such a unique
opportunity. If the question is not settled at once in accord¬
ance with the simple requirements of necessity, it will never
be settled.’ It was even threatened that Italy might ally
herself ‘ with all the victims of the Entente : Hungarians,
Bulgars and Turks ’. The government propagated the
behef that its gesture had been successful ; the newspapers
emphasized ‘ the void created at the Conference by the
absence of Italy ’, its ‘ disorganization ’, the ‘ complete con¬
fusion ’ caused by the departure of the Italian delegates,
which had destroyed the ‘ Wilsonian dictatorship ’. But it
was gradually realized that the Conference was not only
continuing to work, but was settling a great many important
questions : the foundation of the League of Nations, the
status of Schleswig, of Luxemburg, the Anschluss demanded
by Austria, etc. Orlando and Sonnino, without any further
invitation, made a headlong departure from Rome when
Barrere informed them that the frontiers of Austria and the
Brenner were going to be fixed in their absence.

^ Orlando, ‘ ce tigre vegetarien ’, as Clemenceau called
him, found no more crowds to cheer his journey back.
Disappointment and humiliation brought to many Italians
a vision of Italy defeated in spite of victory, with the fruits
of victory ‘ stolen ’ by the allies. This sense of injustice and
loss was cold-bloodedly exploited to a pitch of frenzy by
Mussolini, and was perhaps the most important of the
psychological factors contributing to the success of fascism.
Mussolini and the nationalists had everything to gain by
making out that Italy was a defeated nation. It was quite
untrue, for probably no country gained or could gain so many
advantages from the war. With the achievement of national
unity the work begun with the Risorgimento was completed,
while the fall of the house of Habsburg destroyed her

32 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

hereditary enemy and chief rival. Germany, in spite of the
hard conditions imposed on her, remained on her feet, and
one day would regain her place in Europe ; England and
France, victorious now, would have to reckon with her once
more. If the ruling classes had had the necessary breadth
of vision, if they had not yielded before the threats of
Mussolini and the nationalists, if they had placed themselves
at the head of the peoples of the old empire, Italy would
have taken the place of Germany, the Habsburgs, France,
as the arbiter of Danubian and Balkan politics. She might
have been the pivot of the Little Entente. On the contrary,
while the allies were sharing out amongst themselves the
German colonies in Africa and the former Turkish empire
in the near east, liberals, fascists, and nationalists were
working themselves into a frenzy over a few rocks in the
Adriatic. For new difficulties were arising, for which the
responsibility lay with those who had signed the Treaty of
London, giving Fiume to Jugo-Slavia, and who could think
of nothing, after the armistice, but the renewal of the
policy of ‘ sacred egoism ’. But the judgments of history
do not distinguish between guilty and innocent victims ;
like those of Jehovah they are visited on both alike. Those
responsible for evil profit sometimes from the blind reactions
provoked by the harm they have done, and this was the
case in Italy, where the ‘ diplomatic defeat ’ which Bissolati
had foreseen and tried in vain to avert was made use of by
those who had rendered it inevitable. The ruling classes,
fascists and nationalists, who had ‘ mutilated ’ the Italian
victory, found in wounded national feelings the most
efficacious method of clinging to power and carrying on the
struggle against the democratic revolution.

Mussolini had more than this one string to his bow.
While demanding of the government an ultra-nationalist
foreign policy he was initiating his campaign against the
state. This appealed to the inherent anarchy of the Italian
people and of the middle classes in particular : disgruntled
ex-officers, students fidgeting in University lecture-rooms,
shop-keepers struggling against taxation, dklassis of every
sort who wanted something new, helped to give to growing
fascism its invaluable halo of lawlessness and heresy. But,

MUSSOLINI AND EARLY FASCISM

33

which was most important it favoured the claims of the
industrialists and merchants and the capitalist classes
generally. The Popolo PItalia stressed the incapacity of the
state for carrying on public services and proposed that they
should be handed over to private industry, while the state
gave up all commercial activity. This became the leit¬
motiv of fascist agitation, and of the meetings of economic
' congregations ’ such as that which took place in Genoa
at the beginning of April 1919, when Italian industrialists
and landowners agreed to combine against state monopolies,
the remains of war-time economy and ' bolshevism b This
meeting was the first step towards a reorganization of
capitalist forces to face the perils of the situation. Mussolini
welcomed it and offered his co-operation. He wanted money,
a lot of money, and this was the only way he could get it. The
ideological duality which was one of Mussolini’s chief assets
enabled him in this way to satisfy both the vague passions of
the mob and the more precise interests of the capitalists.

This duality is incidentally one of the essential character-
istics of all fascist ideology and propaganda, and was '
naturally evident in the discussions and announcements of;
the congress of March 23, 1919, in Milan, where the
delegates and supporters of tHeyai'a met to found a national
organization. The meeting took place in the Piazza San ;
Sepolcro, in a hall lent by the Association of Industrial
and Commercial Interests. Not many more than a hundred
fascists answered the summons sounded by the Popolo
(TItalia; anarcho-syndicalists, arditi^ freemasons, and futur¬
ists jostled ultra-conservatives, but the great majority were
survivors of the ^ fasci oi revolutionary action ’ of 1914-15,
and of the former left-wing interventionists b Their
influence was noticeable in the programme born of this
meeting and issued in June by the new organization, the
‘ Italian Fasci di Combattmento% which reflected the heat
and excitement of the moment. The made the

following demands :

For political reform :

Universal suffrage, with proportional representation
and votes for women.

3

33

34 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

Abolition of the Senate,

Convocation of a national assembly with the initial
task of deciding the form of the constitution.

Creation of national technical councils with the object
of extending and improving political democracy, in
accordance with the ideas conceived in Bavaria by Kurt
Eisner.

For social reform:

Eight “hour day.

Minimum wage.

Participation of workers’ representatives in the technical
management of industry.

Compulsory retirement of workers at fifty-five.

For military reform :

Replacement of the regular army by a national militia
with short periods of training, to be used for purely
defensive purposes.

Nationalization of all arms and munitions factories,
foreign policy emphasizing the value of Italian
participation in the peaceful rivalries of the civilised
world.

For financial reform :

An extraordinary levy on capital, substantial and
graded, amounting to a partial expropriation of all
wealth.

Confiscation of all the possessions of religious com-
munities, and abolition of episcopal revenues.

Revision of all contracts for war materials, and a levy
of 85 per cent on all war-time profits.

This programme, issued by the central committee of the
fasci with an eye to the general election, was obviously
much further to the left than Mussolini would have liked.
But he needed an organization behind him, and he did
not want to risk the immediate alienation of those who,
thanks to their common memories of ^ revolutionary inter¬
ventionismhad just rallied to him. He did, however,

MUSSOLINI AND EARLY FASCISM 35

take precautions against the programme acquiring too
much significance. While appearing to accept the pro¬
positions of his friends, he interpreted ’ and watered them
down to such an extent that they lost their meaning, and
even ended by leading to quite different conclusions. At
the meeting of March 23 Mussolini drew up the following
declaration :

‘ The Congress of March 23 declares its opposition to
the imperialism of other peoples at the expense of Italy,
and to the contingent imperialism of Italy at the expense
of other peoples. It accepts the chief principle of the
League of Nations, which presupposes the integrity of
each nation ; integrity which, so far as Italy is concerned,
must be realized in the Alps and the Adriatic through her
claim for Fiume and Dalmatia."

This declaration already violated a principle of the
League, by demanding Dalmatia, where the Italians were
a tiny minority, while in the Tyrol and Julian Venetia the
frontiers already assured to Italy included hundreds of
thousands of Germans, Slovenes, and Croats. But the
arguments used by Mussolini in the commentary he added,
and the spirit which inspired it, effectively purged the
declaration of any League content. Mussolini, though
temporarily forced to lodge under the sign of the League,
introduced the explosive which was to shatter it.

We have a population of forty millions in an area of
287,000 square kilometres, cut across by the Apennines,
which reduce still further the cultivable land at our
disposal. Within from six to twenty years we shall be
sixty millions, and we have only a million and a half
square kilometres of colonies, of which the greater part
is desert and quite unsuitable for settling our excess
population. But if we look round we find England, with
a population of forty-seven millions and a colonial empire
of fifty-five million square kiloraetres ; and France, with
a population of thirty-eight millions, has an empire of
fifteen million square kilometres. And I have figures to
prove that every nation in the world has a colonial empire,

36 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

which it is far from ready to give up for the sake of trans¬
atlantic creeds. Lloyd George speaks openly of the
British Empire. Imperialism is the basis of life for any
nation seeking economic and spiritual expansion. We
say that either everyone must become an idealist, or no
one. Let us seek our own interests. We want our place
in the world, because we have a right to it. Let us be
frank : the League must not become a trap set by the
wealthy for the proletarian nations as a means of
perpetuating the present conditions of the world balance
of power.’

After such an ‘ explanation what was left of the seven or
eight lines of the declaration ?

Since the principles adopted, even in such a curious
fashion, might still lead to embarrassment, Mussolini saw
to it that the meaning and scope of every programme was
limited in advance by the avoidance of all labels and
definitions. Fascists were neither republican nor monarchist,
catholic nor anti-catholic, socialist nor anti-socialist ; they
were ‘problemists’ and realists, and practised in turn,
according to the needs of the situation, ‘ class collaboration’
class struggle, and class expropriation ’. And since the
idea of a party involved a doctrine and a programme, they
were ‘anti-party’. This put the old parties at a dis¬
advantage, satisfied those who were after something new,
and avoided the dangerous ground of principle, as well as
the difficulties of being coherent. Emphasis was laid on
action rather than on ideas. This attracted many of the
young advancing towards life ’, impatient of obstructions
and eager to have a good time, to sacrifice themselves, to
acquire self-confidence. Fascism drove them along the
easiest way. Everything was simplified, for thoughts had
no time to form themselves, connect, or conflict before they
evaporated in action, exalting and melodramatic. The
inner life reduced itself to the simplest reflexes, shifting from
the centres of feeling and becoming externalized. Doubts
and^ uncertainties ceased to exist. The youthful fascist in a
world full of contradictions joyfully affirmed : ‘ I need not
think ; therefore Lam’.

MUSSOLINI AND EARLY FASCISM 37

Thus the first real fascist congress, held in Florence in
October 1919, was able to accentuate the republican note
and propose, with Marinetti, the expulsion of the papacy
and the ‘ devaticanization ’ of Italy ; all of which was
nullified by a single remark made by Mussolini during his
speech : ‘We fascists have no preconceived doctrine : our
doctrine is based on facts.’

But events in Italy during 1919 were far from encouraging
for the fascist movement or for Mussolini, who retained
nevertheless his sound sense of realities and did not lose his
head. He had prophesied at the ‘ Fascist Constituent
Assembly ’ in March ; ‘ In two months a thousand fasci
will have arisen throughout Italy.’ At the beginning of
July he was far more modest. ‘Fascism’, he wrote, ‘is
pragmatical, it makes no assumptions, it has no ultimate
objects. It will not necessarily go on for ever, or even for
very long.’ Having completed its task, which is concerned
with the present crisis, ‘ it will not cling to life, but will
know how to vanish without fuss ’. ‘ Fascism ’, he con¬

tinued, ‘ will always be a minority movement. It cannot
spread beyond the towns. But soon each of the three
hundred principal towns of Italy will have its own fascio di
combattimento ’. Even this more modest prospect was not
realized. At the Florence congress only 137 fasci were
represented, with 62 in course of organization, and 40,000
adherents. These figures are obviously faked ; the report
of the third National Congress held in Rome in November
1921, when fascism could afford to be frank, announced
officially that at the Florence congress there had been
represented only ‘ ^6 fasci, with 17,000 adherents’. In
any case the figures came nowhere near the 1000 fasci
foreseen in March 1919, or the 300 hoped for in July.
The movement seemed to be flagging rather than progress¬
ing. Mussolini’s fear of isolation was greater than ever,
especially in view of the approaching elections, when he
would have to conne out into the open and reveal his true
position.

At the beginning of July he began in Milan a campaign \
for the creation of a ‘ committee of agreement and action ’. \
The first meeting, summoned at the instigation of the ‘

38 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

fascio^ was attended by representatives of the Syndical Union
(pro-Corridoni), the fascio di combattime?ito, the Socialist
Union (reformist), the Association of Arditi, the Union of
Demobilised Soldiers, the National Association of Ex~sei'vice-
men, Corridoni’s Revolutionary Society, the Republican
Youth Society, the National Association of War Volunteers,
the Federation of Garibaldists, liit fascio of Social Education,
and the Italian Labour Union. This miscellany was a fair
reflection of the circle in which fascism gained its first
recruits ; left-wing interventionists, reformist and anarcho-
syndicalist, and ex-servicemen, democratic and Wilsonian,
formed the majority, but they rubbed shoulders with
nationalists, reactionaries, and even ordinary strike-breakers,
J Mussolini proposed the formation of a permanent com-
, mittee to resist the socialist monopoly. ' It must be made
clear that these gentlemen cannot start the revolution against
us. They might manage without us if they had the necessary
organization and resolution, but they lack both. If they
want to turn the results of the economic collapse into
reprisals against us, we will give them something to think
about that will make them bitterly regret it.’

The violence of this language shows a certain lack of
balance ; Mussolini’s attitude was dictated by a defence
reflex. The disturbances against the high cost of living had
not ceased, and the atmosphere was charged with revolution.
Mussolini and the other delegates decided that if this food
crisis were to become a political movement ’ they would
attempt to ‘ divert it into the revolutionary and progressive
direction ’ followed by the associations present at the
meeting.

Mussolini even hoped to bring about an alliance between
the one-time interventionists and the conservatives to drive
the socialists nut of the Milan Corporation at the forth¬
coming^ elections. Electoral reform was in force, and
proportional representation would favour the advance of
sodahsts and Fopolari, while the small intermediate parties
risked extinction. He proposed therefore a ‘ left con¬
centration’, which should ally itself with the right-wing
inte^entionists (nationalist, liberals, and democrats). But
the fascist movement was still so chaotic and circumstances

MUSSOLINI AND EARLY FASCISM 39

were so unfavourable that the tactics adopted by the fasci
for the elections varied widely in accordance with local
conditions and opposition. In Rorpe a candidate was put
forward on the National Alliance list, which was composed
of nationalists and conservatives, while the republicans,
reformists, and the National Association of Ex-servicemen
formed a left-wing bloc. The fascists abstained at Verona
and Padua, were included in the national bloc at Ferrara
and Rovigo, and joined the ex-servicemen at Treviso.
Nearly everywhere else the ex-servicemen made their own
separate lists and excluded the fascists from them.

In iVIilan, after lengthy negotiations, the left-wing parties
(Republican Party, Socialist Union, Association of Ex-
servicemen) had broken with thcfascio. Thtfascio refused
to make a common list with them ostensibly because of a
disagreement over the electoral programme, in which it
rejected the principle of the legal recognition of working-
class organizations h because that would bring about their
strangulation h What was making Mussolini so fastidious
about a programme, when he had declared a hundred times
that programmes were of no importance, and a few weeks ago
had proposed an alliance with the conservatives in order to
defeat the socialists ? The fact was that the left-wing parties
had said that they would willingly form a joint list with the
fascists on condition that Mussolini did not stand. Mussolini
was hated and despised by all the workers, while the ex-
servicemen considered him a traitor and a renegade, whose
name would weaken their whole list. The groups which |
had formed the co-ordinating committee did not want to!
begin the fight with such a handicap, hence the veto on|
Mussolini. Consequently he broke off the negotiations and |
put forward his own list, which gained some five thousand I
votes out of about 270,000 Milanese voters.

This was a bitter blow for Mussolini, since it involved his
personal failure. He had hoped to break through the wall
of enmity that confronted him, and now he found himself
dangerously isolated. For the first few weeks his reactions
were those of a hunted animal, A short while ago he had
sent two parcels containing bombs, one to the prefect, the
other to the archbishop of Milan. Now, on November 17,

40 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

the day after the elections, he incited a gang of arditi to
throw a bomb at the procession celebrating the socialist
victory, wounding nine people. Mussolini" was arrested
and it was proved that he was behind the outrage, but the
prosecution was not pressed and he suffered only a day and
a night’s imprisonment. At the same time he fell a prey
to a kind of ‘ ideological ’ exasperation, meditating on his
personal isolation with a mixture of bitterness, "despair,
and pride. He spoke his thoughts aloud, free as he was
from any immediate preoccupation, and once more at the
beginning of his journey on a new road that seemed both
difficult and long.

‘ Detesting as we do he wrote in his newspaper on
December 12, ‘ all forms of Christianity, that of Jesus as
well as that of Marx, we feel an intense sympathy with
the modern revival of the pagan worship of strength and
courage. Enough, red and black theologians of all
churches, enough of your false and cunning promise of a
paradise that will never come. Enough, you ridiculous
saviours of the human race, which doesn’t care a damn
for your infallible receipts for happiness ! Leave the
field clear for the sheer force of individualism, since the
individual is the only human reality.’

At the same time he sent his hearty greetings to the
anarchist Malatesta, who had returned secretly to Italy
towards the end of December. And on January i, 1920
he began the new year with a repetition of the same creed ;

J^avigare necesse est. . . against others and against our¬
selves. ... We have destroyed every known creed, spat
upon every dogma, rejected every paradise, flouted every
charlatan—white, black or red—who deals in miraculous
drugs for restoring happiness to the human race. We
put no faith in any system, nostrum, saint or apostle •
still less^do we believe in happiness, salvation or the
promKed land. . . . Let us get back to the individual.
We stend for everything that exalts and ennobles the
individual, gives him more comfort, more liberty and a
wider life. We fight against everything that restricts and

MUSSOLINI AND EARLY FASCISM

41

harms the individual. Two religions, one black, one red,
are fighting to-day for the mastery of our minds and of
the world ; two vaticans are sending forth their en¬
cyclicals, one in Rome and the other in Moscow. We
are the heretics of both these religions.’

Their failure at the elections disconcerted and demoralized
the fasci, though Mussolini did not yet feel that all was lost.
After all he was not entirely alone, and there was one
department in which he was, for the time being, superior.
Against the vast but undisciplined crowds who swelled the
socialist demonstrations and voted red, Mussolini employed
armed groups of reckless hooligans who did not hesitate to
break the law. These were the arditi, whose association had
an office in every town, which had become almost every¬
where a centre of armed organization closely connected
with the fasci. The arditi had confidence in Mussolini, who
flattered and encouraged them. From the war area, while
waiting to be demobilized, they used to send him telegrams
such as the following, signed by the N.C.O.s of the 27th
Storm Battalion : ' Bravo, Mussolini ! Keep on striking
hard, by God, for there is a lot of rubbish in our way. We
are with you in spirit and will soon come and give you a
hand.’ The relations between arditi and fascists were par¬
ticularly close in Milan, and resulted in the arditi leaving
their hiding-place in April 1919 to make a surprise attack
on the offices oi Avaiiti^ the socialist daily, which they sacked
and set on fire. This serious action, coolly carried out,
with the unmistakable Mussolini touch, provoked no direct
response. There was a general strike in which, outraged,
the entire working-class population took part, but which
led to nothing, and a collection which brought in more than
a million towards a new building ; but there were no
reprisals. A year later, on the anniversary of this event,
Mussolini was able to write :

"" On April 15, 1919, the maximalists of Milan were
shown in their true colours as philistines and cowards.
No attempt at revenge was so much as planned, and
neither the money collected, nor the votes gained can
wipe out the memory of the day when the maximalist

I

42 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

weathercock, knocked off its perch and broken into

pieces, fell into the muddy waters of the Naviglio.’

In the meantime his alliance with the arditi became
closer, and his body-guard was swollen by new members
whom he had summoned to Milan towards the end of
1919, and whom he paid with the money subscribed for
Fiume. A committee of inquiry investigated, on Feb¬
ruary 20, charges made against him by two former editors
of the Popolo d’Italia, including one conceiming the formation
of gangs drawn from ‘ mercenary elements collected from
Fiume and several other Italian towns, paid thirty lire a
day and considerable sums for expenses, and organized for
purposes of intimidation and violence.’ Mussolini had no
alternative but to admit it, and told the court committee :

‘ There were some hundreds of men in all, divided into
squads commanded by officers, and naturally all under
my command. I was a sort of commandcr-in-chief of this
little army.’ A commander who controlled it without ever
leaving the offices of his paper.

When the Fiume subscription was used up, or no longer
available as a result of the scandal raked up by the two
dismissed journalists, it was big business money that enabled
Mussolini to keep up his ‘ little army Towards the end
of the year large sums were coming in from industrialists,
and Mussolini began a big drive for naval and aerial
armaments and for the development of the mercantile
marine. On December 23 he declared that he was going
to press for an expansionist foreign policy, and announced
at the same time that the Popolo PItalia would ‘ in the new
year be provided with the indispensable typographical
resources for a paper with a huge circulation’. Clearly
he had no doubt that he could get all the money he wanted.
Further, the Fiume adventure of d’Annunzio and his
legionaries^ was an unexpected blessing. Mussolini, by
supporting it at first and then turning traitor, was to profit
from it greatly.

%

IV

REVOLUTION CROSSES THE ADRIATIC

O N September 12, 1919, while Nitti, the President of
the Council, all unawares, was speaking in the
Chamber, he received a telegram informing him
that d'Annunzio had occupied Fiume. The fate of this
city had never ceased to handicap the whole of Italy’s
foreign policy. On April 26, after the theatrical withdrawal
of Orlando and Sonnino, the National Council of Fiume
had proclaimed the annexation of the town to Italy and
placed itself under the orders of the king’s representative.
General Grazioli. Orlando and Sonnino having hastily
returned to Paris the day before, d’Annunzio, who had
come to Rome to organize and lead the agitation in favour
of annexation, made a flamboyant speech on May 6 from
the top of the Capitol. He appealed to Italian heroism,
unfurled the flag that had covered the remains of Randaccio,
the airman killed on the Timavo, and declared that he
would present it to the city of Trieste, after consecrating it
in Italian Fiume. The Orlando government, caught
between Rome and Paris, resigned as soon as possible, while
the newspaper war went on, and each successive attempt of
the Peace Conference at compromise over the Adriatic
question fizzled out.

The Nitti nTnistry was formed on June 22. The nation¬
alists were frenzied with rage, since all hope of forcing the
government’s hand over Fiume had to be abandoned.
Consequently their anger was vented on the new ministry,
and on Parliament, which d’Annunzio wanted to replace
by * a form of representation which would bring to the
fore the real producers of national wealth, the real sources
of national strengthThus the policy of expansion was
linked with nationalism and anti-parliamentarism, thanks

43

44 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

chiefly to the Poet, who predicted for the new ministry ' a
retribution, swift and unerring as the jet of a flame-thrower
In this over-heated atmosphere there were grave incidents
in Fiume at the end of June and the beginning of July.
Soldiers of the French forces in occupation were murdered
or wounded. The nationalist press hailed the ^ Fiume
vespers and Mussolini made the threatening suggestion of
* an alliance with the proletarian republics of the east, and
a rapprochement with Germany b An Allied commission
of inquiry was appointed, and unanimously recommended
the reduction of the Italian contingent and the increase of
the Allied one ; steps were to be taken against the respons¬
ible Italian officers and the battalion of Fiume Volunteers ’
disbanded. The Sardinian Grenadiers were also to be
removed from the town, and on August 24 Major Rejria,
their commanding officer, received orders to leave with his
unit that night. A party of officers decided to disobey, and
offered their services to the National Council of Fiume.
The Council hesitated, and the troops left for the barracks
at Ronchi, whence they were to return a few weeks later
with d’Annunzio. At a meeting held in their new quarters,
eight grenadier officers took the oath ' Fiume or death b
Active propaganda in the press, among politicians and in
the army prepared the way for the expedition. A letter
containing the oath and the eight signatures was sent to
d’Annunzio, who arranged a meeting with one of the
officers in Venice and took command of operations.
Transport was requisitioned, and on September 12 the
column consisting of some thousand men—other officers
joined it m marched, singing, into Fiume. From the
Palace, the headquarters of the government, d^Annunzio
declared the town annexed to Italy. Each day parties of
volunteers of every description arrived with batteries of
artillery, squadrons of aircraft, and motor boats, and on
September 14 the ‘ Commandant ’ appealed to the officers
and men of the Italian ships in the harbour to form the
first squadron of the free Qparnero b On the 19th a body
of officers and boarded the Pazzwomh:, which had a
cargo of food, took possession of her, and brought her to
Fiume ; so began a practice which was to stock the town

REVOLUTION CROSSES THE ADRIATIC 45

with food, money, and arms. D’Annunzio’s freebooting
allies supplied him from their captures : the Persia gave
him arms ; the Taranto two million lire intended for
Albania ; the Cogne^ later, a large cargo of assorted mer¬
chandise which was sold by auction in the markets of Fiume.

Demonstrations for Fiume took place all over Italy ;
nationalists and fascists as well as officers in uniform took
part. Nitti issued orders, inflicted punishments, and dis¬
missed the commanding officer of the Turin army corps,
none of which had any effect. Army discipline was severely
shaken, and even those officers who upheld it sympathized
privately with the successful conspirators.

It was only at the last moment that d’Annunzio took
command of the Fiume expedition, but like the Creator he
formed it after his own image and likeness. For him Fiume
became the scene of a marvellous adventure, through which
he lived in a state of delirious excitement. The hero, the
man of letters, and the tragedy king took the stage one after
the other, and sometimes all together.

At the time of the despotic laws of Pelloux^ in 1900,
though representing the Abruzzi conservatives, d’Annunzio
had thrust himself into a meeting of left-wing deputies, and
announced that he was advancing towards life His
conversion was never completed, for to d’Annunzio to
advance ' towards life ’ meant to seek new sources of
emotion. In the same year 1900 he wrote his ' Hymn ’ On
the Death of a Destroyer^ celebrating the ' great Barbarian
who has risen above Good and Evil, and left on the plains
below ‘ the slavish mob and lifeless multitude ’ to climb the
last peak, from which he sees the promised land.

Man must be his own star,

A law unto himself, and the avenger of his law.

D’Annunzio was his own star, and followed no other,
tie had only offered his services to Rome in order to obtain

^ In. February 1898 General Luigi Pelloux, President of the Council, put
before the Chamber a scries of extraordinary bills against the fpedom of the
press, of meeting and association and instituting the penalty of ‘ banishment ’
{domkilio coatto) for opponents of the regime. The left-wing parties and even
the liberals carried on a fierce struggle against these bills which went on until
the middle of 1900, when the June elections resulted in their victory. It was
in March 1900 that d’Annunzio joined the opposition to these laws.

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

46

a setting and an audience worthy of his greatness : ‘ Each
day will be marked for you by a mighty deed, wherein you
will see, as though engraved on a seal, the quality of my soul.’
And twenty years after at Fiume he still dedicated himself
to Glory, whose service he recognized before that of Duty.

Once installed at Fiume d’Annunzio intended to play
the star part. As ‘ Commandant of the city of Fiume ’ he
issued a decree on November 20 by which he left in power,
though with strictly limited authority, the National Council
which had been elected by plebiscite on October 30, 1918 :
‘All decisions and agenda of the National Council which
in any way concern public order and may have a political
effect, must be submitted for the approval of the military
command, and may not be put into force until the day
after they have been approved.’ Fiume became a centre
for ideahsts, idlers and rogues of every kind, some drunk
with patriotic emotion, others attracted by a taste for
adventure or a desire for amusement.

In Rome Nitti, as President of the Council, stated in an
early speech in the Chamber on September 13 that soldiers
who had joined d Annunzio would be regarded as deserters
unless they returned to their units within five days. He
turned at the same time to ‘ the workers of Italy, to the
artisans and the peasants, to ask for their help ’, and ‘ to
the nameless masses, to make the great voice of the people
a warning to all ’. Three days later, in another speech, he
adopted a different tone, one almost of retractation, and
appealed to the^ soldiers instead of to the proletariat. At a
Royal Council in Rome on September 25, Giolitti advised
the occupation of Fiume by regular troops, and an immedi¬
ate general election. Nitti only accepted part of this advice :
he dissolved the Chamber on the 29th, and fixed Novem-
elections. As to Fiume, he contented himself
with declaring a blockade by land and sea ; a blockade
wlncl^ incidentally, was not at all strictly maintained.

^lume d’Annunzio found himself up against a number
of the inhabitants, particularly those who in varying degrees
wanted autonomy, whose leader was the deputy Zanella.
To pm locd support, the ‘ Commandant ’ decided to
dissolve the National Council and hold new elections •

REVOLUTION GROSSES THE ADRIATIC 47

meanwhile, by declaring martial law in the town, he
anticipated possible opposition. Ten days before the
elections he published an edict to the effect that Fiume was
' a war-time stronghold that military law would be
enforced against ' anyone professing sentiments hostile to
the cause of Fiume ’ and that the death penalty would be
promptly inflicted upon the guilty. On the other hand,
in spite of his declaration that he did not recognize the
Nitti government, he permitted himself to treat with it.
Admiral Cagni, General Badoglio, in command of the
blockading troops, the Duke of Aosta, who was always on
the look-out for a surprise attack, and members of
d'Annunzio’s own circle, such as his secretary Giurati and
Major Rizzo, all intervened or rushed backwards and
forwards between Rome and Fiume.

Nitti never intended drastic intervention, and he saw to
the provisioning of the town by means of the Red Cross.
In point of fact he was not averse to acquiring, thanks to
d’Annunzio, a bargaining point to use in his discussions
with the Allies about Fiume, while on the other hand he
feared the unpopularity in which a ' strong man ’ policy
would involve him. D’Annunzio remained obstinate, and
proceeded in an Italian warship to Zara, where he obtained
a promise from Admiral Millo, the governor of Dalmatia,
not to evacuate that region in any circumstances whatsoever.
Since the National Council of Fiume announced itself
unanimously and unreservedly in favour of an accord with
the Rome government, d’Annunzio decided to try for a
plebiscite in his favour. But on the evening of December 18,
after the voting had taken place, he realized that the result
would be unfavourable, and stopped the count. Three
days later he broke off all negotiations, and several of his
supporters, including his secretary, his press agent, Pedrazzi,
and Major Rizzo, deserted him. Immediately after his
departure, Pedrazzi published in an Italian newspaper on
December 24 a picture of the situation which is worth
preserving :

‘ At d’Annunzio’s side there stand only brave young
officers, deGorated or wounded, bold and enthusiastic,

48 THE RISE OF ITALIAN I'.VSCISM

but quite irresponsible ... to tliern war has become a
necessity of life, fighting a moral practice. To put an
end to this enterprise is to put an end to their delightful
rebel existence, a little comic perhaps, but still a rebel
existence, a life of songs, processions, meetings, military
celebrations at once gay and warlike.

‘ This atmosphere of generous and hot-headed youthful¬
ness has certainly affected d’Annunzio, and turned his
head. Hailed by all as a conqueror, to himself he seems
a victim. Fiume is victorious, not he. His dream was
greater : too great. Coming to Fiume to save the city
he has involved himself little by little in dictatorship,
not through personal ambition, but for the good he hoped
to do. His vision stretches ever further afield—beyond
the bounds of the Adriatic. Fie dreams of noble crusades
wherever the spirit of rebellion dwells.’

Such was the situation until the fall of the Nitti cabinet in
May 1920.

Let us in the meantime consider the views of the various
parties. The nationalists fanned the flames, for the Fiume
affair might at any moment provoke a war with Jugo¬
slavia, and they hoped by this means to strengthen Italy’s
territorial claims in the Adriatic. The freemasons did the
same, from patriotic and revolutionary (in tlie 1848 mannei-)
motives, and because they reflected the mental confusion
of the average lower middle-class Italian. The Palazzo
Giustiniani Lodge urged the government to provision Fiume
by means of the Red Gross, an organization in which masonic
influence was very great, and whose president, Ciraolo, a
deputy, was himself a mason. The freemasons of Piazza del
Gesu sent to d’Annunzio at Fiume an award of thirty-three
grades of their own order. 1

Mussolini carried on a campaign for Fiume, not only
because it involved a perfervid nationalism which favoured

tx, 1908 there were in Italy two kinds of freemasons, corresponding to

Grande Loge de France. Both were subsequently
tyahe fascist government. Domizio Torrigiani, Grand Master of
theTalazzo Giustimam branch, was deported. Raoul Palermi, ‘ Commander ’
ot the ancient Scottish and traditional rite’ and an accomplished and

of thTr^-'ir* whose name became familiar in France at the time

01 me uailiaux affair, became an associate of Mussolini.

REVOLUTION CROSSES THE ADRIATIC 49

his designs, but because he realized that Fiume was ‘ anti-
state ’ and the possible starting point for a reconquest of the
peninsula. For the moment d’Annunzio was in the lime¬
light, reaping the prestige of his coup ; he had at his disposal
armed forces, and was himself a fighter. He must, therefore,
be humoured and treated with caution. In September
Mussolini started a subscription for Fiume, the proceeds of
which he diverted two months later, as we have seen, into
the pockets of his little army’. He was not prepared to
play second fiddle, though, and if d’Annunzio marched on
Rome he would establish there, as at Fiume, his own
dictatorship. This must be prevented at all costs. In the
of September 25 Mussolini wrote : ^Revolution
is here. Begun in Fiume, it may be completed in Rome
but in private he did his best to dissuade d’Annunzio from
any such project. Before the court of honour of the Milan
Press Association he stated, early in 1920 : ^ There existed
in Fiume a kind of club which called me a traitor to Italy,
because it knew that I discountenanced a march of any
description.’

Most people had considered the possibility of such a
march : particularly the legionaries, who sang verses about
going to ^omt fare lafesta to Nitti, and one of whose leaders,
Giurati, wrote to the Trieste fascio, on September 19, that
‘ the exploit of Fiume must be consummated in Rome ’ ;
certain industrialists, too, who sent Borletti to Fiume to
spy out the land ; various royal and military cliques ; and
Admiral Millo himself, the governor of Dalmatia, who was
in close touch with the Duke of Aosta’s circle. The
expectation was so general that Nitti handed over the com¬
mand of the entire Adriatic coast to General Caviglia, in
order to prevent a possible landing of legionaries.

Only the socialists had not considered the possibility.
There was, it is true, a / conspiracy ’ early in 1920, which
was quickly suppressed. D’Annunzio had just appointed as
his secretary, to succeed the nationalist Giurati, Alceste de
Ambris, a syndicalist and leader of the Italian Labour Union,
which had supported the war, and whose adhesion the
General Confederation of Labour had consequently refused.
When the general railway strike broke out in January,

A

50 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

various members of the extreme left, including Malatesta
and Giulietti, conceived the idea of turning the situation
created by the occupation of Fiume to revolutionary ends.
Malatesta, the anarchist, who was aged about sixty-seven
and had returned from exile only a few days before, was the
only real revolutionary in Italy in the 1919-20 period. For
him the word ‘ revolution ’ had a definite meaning, and
implied a course whose final goal was Rome.

The starting point mattered little ; Fiume would serve,
for d’Annunzio might be won over, and there were arms to
be seized. The revolution, according to Malatesta, must be
brought about at once, for, he said : ‘ If we let the right
moment slip we shall pay with tears of blood for the fright
we have given the bourgeoisie: A survivor of the ‘ Alliance ’
of Bakunin, he had taken part in the attempted rising of the
‘Band of Benevento ’ in April 1877, and had been the
moving spirit of the ‘ red week ’ of 1914. Now that all Italy
was in ferment swift action was wanted, and unhesitating
use must be made of anything which could ensure victory.
So Malatesta got into touch with d’Annunzio. For go-
between he had Captain Giulietti, head of the Federation of
Marine Labour. Giulietti, who had contrived the secret
return of Malatesta to Italy and supplied money for the
anarchist daily, Umanita Muova,^ was at the same time a
valuable ally of d’Annunzio’s. In October 1919 his Federa¬
tion had seized the Persia, which was loaded with arms for

me White armies fighting the Soviets, and brought it to
Fiume.

It was both an advantage and a disadvantage for Mala¬
testa that he had no official connection with the working-
class movement. He was unhampered by routine and had
a will of iron. But the socialists, who still had the confidence
of the inasses, were as suspicious of him as of d’Annunzio.
borne of the ‘conspirators’, at their secret meetings in
Rome, refused to support him without the co-operation or
at least the approval of the Sociahst Party and the General
Confederation of Labour. The latter, alarmed, withheld
approval firom the scheme, and it went no further; par¬
ticularly as Mussolini, who had wind of it, and wanted no

' Which appeared first in February 1920 in Milan.

REVOLUTION GROSSES THE ADRIATIC 51

march on Rome without Mussolini, hastened to tell the
whole story in the pages of the Popolo PItalia,

In this way any chance of associating the Fiume enter¬
prise with a popular revolution in Italy was ended. The
‘ march on Rome' was to come from the right. The
occupation of Fiume, as time went on, provided fascism with
a model for its militia, its uniforms, the names of its units,
its war cries and its creed. Mussolini borrowed the whole oiF
d’Annunzio’s scenario, including his crowd scenes. Realiz¬
ing that d’Annunzio was above all a poet, and as such could
not get very far, he waited patiently to succeed him.
D’Annunzio was the victim of the worst plagiarism ever
known. ^ For the fascist conquest of Italy,’ said Count
Sforza, with his usual discrimination, ' has been the most
literal and the least original copy of d’Annunzio’s wild epic,
the Fiume adventure.’

V

NITTI, GIOLITTI, DOxN STURZO

AT the general election of November igig, the Italian
masses showed their disapproval of the war and their
Z A.need for social justice by voting for the socialists and
the. Popolari. These two parties alone had between them a
majority in the new Chamber : 256 out of 508 seats. There
were only three possible ways of assuring a parliamentary
majority : socialists and Popolari ; socialists, democrats, and
liberals ; Popolari, democrats, and liberals. The socialists
had gained 1,840,600 votes and 156 seats--32 per cent k
the country and in parliament; they were consequently far
from having an absolute majority. The proportional voting
system had saved the conservative parties from a worse
defeat; the south, in spite of the war, remained their chief
puree of votes. Of the 156 socialists, 131 had been elected
m the north, in the Po valley and in Tuscany ; only ten
came from the inland districts of the south, five of whom
were _from_Apulia. The islands returned no socialist
depute. The socialists, however, were nearer to power
than the figures showed, by the extent to which they could
interpret the will of the whole Italian people and voice their
profound discontent. Three courses seemed open to them :
to leave parliament and have recourse to direct action in the
country • to remain there while creating a second power in
the country to replace it; to win over in parliament and in
the coutey the allies which were indispensable to the
accomplishment of the democratic revolution. In actual
tact the Sociahst Party, incapable alike of direct action and
ot large-sple political manoeuvres, shilly-shallied for three

the problem

Without them, and in spite of them.

Mussolini, who was lying low, exasperated by his electoral

NITTI, GIOLITTI5 DON STURZO 53

defeat, realized very well what he stood to gain from such a
situation. Commenting on an article in Avanti^ according to
which the Socialist Party must ^ leave to the bourgeoisie the
task of liquidating the liabilities resulting from the war he
wrote, a week after the elections :

‘ No, my dear sirs, the socialists who hold the party
ticket may—some of them—understand the reasons for
this dilatory policy, but the electorate will not. The
masses who voted for you did so in the belief—we shall
see whether or no it was an illusion—that you alone were
capable of solving their problem and leading the Italian
people towards greater prosperity and greater freedom.
You cannot decently withdraw from this undertaking.
There are two ways of fulfilling your obligations : either
by winning absolute power through open insurrection,
since you have not a clear majority in parliament, or by
a coalition with other parties, arranged on intelligent and
advantageous terms, and based on an agreed common
programme. The first alternative would mean civil war,
with the inevitable destruction of the party and the work¬
ing class, and the rise of an armed dictatorship ; the
second, on the other hand, would lead to the fulfilment of
the greatest expectations. We are loath to suggest a
further possibility, deadlock in parliament and chaos in
the country.’

Three months later Mussolini was convinced that this
third hypothesis would be realized.

^ The marvellous victory at the polls has simply shown
up the inefficiency and weakness of the socialists. They
are impotent alike as reformers and revolutionaries. They
take no action either in parliament or in the streets. The
sight of a party wearing itself out on the morrow of a
great victory in a vain search for something to apply its
strength to, and willing to attempt neither reform nor
revolution, amuses us. This is our vengeance, and it has
come sooner than we hoped.’

The Socialist Party could not escape from this impasse,
which forced it to waver from one policy to another, taking

54 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

two steps backward for every one forward. The manifesto
issued in August by the maximalist section, which dominated
the party, plumped for revolution without any transition
period :

‘ The establishment of a socialist society ’, announced
this manifesto, ‘ cannot be achieved by decree, nor by the
decision of a parliament or a constituent assembly. Hybrid
forms of collaboration between parliament and workers*
councils are equally to be condemned and rejected. The pro¬
letariat must be incited to the violent seizure of political and
economic power, and this must then be handed over entirely
and exclusively to the workers’ and peasants’ councils, which
will have both legislative and executive functions.’

At the national congress of the Socialist Party, which took
place at Bologna in the beginning of October 1919, this
section had abolished the old party programme, because it
recognized ‘ the struggle for the control of centres of power
(the state, communes, etc.) and their transformation from
instruments of aggression and exploitation into instruments
for the economic and political expropriation of the ruling
class.’ The new programme, however, asserted that ‘ these
bodies cannot conceivably be utilized for the liberation of
the proletariat ’. What then was to be done with parliament
and the municipalities after they had been conquered?
The n:ia.nifesto quoted above explains ; the party must
strive I in the constituencies and the institutions of the
bourgeois state for the intensive propagation of the prin-
aples of communism, and for the rapid overthrow of these
instruments of bourgeois domination ’.

Thus the 156 deputies and, a few months later, the 2800
sociahst communes were apparently to confine their energies
exclusively to revolutionary propaganda and sabotage of the
state ^In actual fact the socialist deputies and mayors
devoted their best efforts, as in pre-war days, to the advoca-
tmn of public works, the creation of syndicates and co-opera¬
tive _ enterprises, and to everyday, sometimes excellent,
adimnistration. Everything went on as if there were no
distinction, or connection either, between this practical and
almost shamefaced reform and the maximalist proclamations.

NITTI, GIOLITTI, DON STURZO 55

Everyone worked on his own by a sort of division of labour
to which none raised any objection. In Moscow the results
of the Congress of Bologna, unanimously ratifying adhesion
to the Third International, were hailed as a great achieve¬
ment. Lenin, however, wrote to Serratii towards the end
of October, to warn the Italian proletariat against a ‘ pre¬
mature insurrection adding his praises and one piece of
advice : ‘ The marvellous work of the Italian communists
assures us that they will win over to the cause of communism
the whole industrial and agricultural proletariat, as well as the small
proprietors, which is essential for their victory.’ The praise
was unmerited and the advice was ignored. The party’s
work was far from ‘ wonderful ’, and instead of try ing to
win over ‘ the whole of the industrial and agricultural pro¬
letariat, as well as the small proprietors ’, the party remained
drunk with words, drawing up paper plans for soviets, and
taking no notice of the factory councils in the north or the
land-hungry peasants of the south.

A great number of the small landowners were coming
under the influence of the ‘ Italian Popular Party ’, the
Popolari, which had just been formed. At the November
elections it had obtained more than a million votes and a
hundred seats. The Vatican had approved its creation at
the end of 1918 to stem the rising tide of socialism. In
addition, ‘ a fair number of liberals ’, writes Signor Tittoni,

‘ counted on its support as an ally against socialism ’.

The Popolari thus began life with two souls, one democratic
and eager for great reforms, the other profoundly reaction¬
ary. As time went on the conflict between these tendencies
became more marked. The conservative elements, Don
Sturzo remarked, ‘ will leave the party when the agrarian-
fascist phenomenon materializes ’. But quite apart from
this initial equivocation, the attitude of the Popolari and the
confusion of the socialists resulted in the former being
called upon to play a chiefly conservative role during the
years 1919-20. Mussolini took the measure of the party
exactly in January 1919, a few days after its creation :

‘ The event of the day in national politics is the creation

of the Italian Popular Party. ... Its programme is demo-

^ Then editor of the Avanti,

56 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

cratic. Too democratic, we dare say. It has much in
common with other party programmes. But the Popolari,
in choosing their weapons, must observe the strictest
legality. By so doing they can play a very great part in
national life. They alone can hope to compete with the
socialists for the rural vote at the next election.’

And so it fell out. For two years the socialists had no
opponents—apart from their own stupidity—except the
new party. ■ The Popolari alone opposed the constituent
assembly and breached the socialist monopoly in the
syndical sphere, especially in the country districts ; and
Italy was still, in spite of the war, an essentially rural
country. In so far as any bolshevik danger ’ existed at
all in Italy it was the Popolari who checked it.

The dual character of the Popolari made it difficult for
them to collaborate with the socialists, who for their part
were not ready for any sudr thing. This was the funda¬
mental cause of the successive ministerial crises which used
up the only two leaders then at the disposal of the Italian
bourgeoisie, Nitti and Giolitti.

accession to power Nitti had accom¬
plished a great deal. He was an honest liberal, widely
read in history and economics and, which was unusual in
an Italian statesman, thoroughly acquainted with the great
modern states, particularly England, Germany, and the
United btates. He was abreast of modern movements and
tendencies m international finance. At the same time-
and this curious combination explains to a large extent both
his merits and defects—he remained, by extraction and
temperament, a typical Italian of the south, brought up in
primitive social surroundings, where organized parties and
advanced labour movements were quite unknown. Con¬
sequently he came quickly to the fore, like many of the
pick of the south, who did not have to win their spurs in
local oampaigns. They were bound to their native soil by
ties of common feeling, local prestige, or social rank, and
mere wa.s no connection between their intense, often
cosmopolitan culture and the local life. They were self-
made men, and when they returned from Naples, Rome,

NITTI, GIOLITTI, DON STURZO 57

or London they found themselves in a sort of family atmo¬
sphere, among faithful friends, who were an essential part
of their background and with whom they shared a certain
philosophy built on common sense, cunning and adapt¬
ability. It was through their own study and intellectual
effort that they were able to jump straight from the small
provincial world into the great capital, avoiding the
longer road of human experience. It was not surprising
that Nitti should be as sceptical and canny as a big business
man and as fatalistic as a peasant of the Basilicata. The
colossal lag of the south behind northern Italy compelled
its statesmen to adopt a constant gradualism, though, on
the other hand, thanks to their lively intelligence and
culture, they had a taste for high politics. They could only
reconcile these two tendencies by resigning themselves to
patience and caution in home affairs and reserving their
initiative for foreign policy.

A broadly paternal policy is what Nitti always wanted
to put into effect. He would have made a perfect ‘ commis ’
under Louis XIV or Joseph II, but could not adapt himself
to the clash of party and class struggle, which in the post¬
war period made it impossible to ‘ do good ’ for the people
without coming into close contact with them, and letting
them feel that their role was important and that a new era
had begun. Nitti, like Giolitti and Turati, kept his pre¬
war outlook. His economic and social programme was
still that of his Discorsi ai Giovani d’ltalia which he had
collected in his UItalia all’Alba del Secolo XX, the most
significant document of the prescient liberalism of the
nineteen hundreds. Nitti did not believe in the possibility
of revolution in Italy. ‘ Italy ’, he liked to say, Vis perhaps
the only European country which in two thousand years
has not had a real revolution or a great war of religion ’.
He had a fundamental mistrust of political change, partly
through ingrained conservatism, partly through scepticism
derived from a study of history and economics. He dis¬
approved of the conception of a constituent assembly with
which everybody had flirted, and as a liberal of the old
school, unchanged by the war, he opposed any idea of state
socialism and control of industry or banking. He was

58 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

compelled to go further along the road of prudent and
rather opportunist reform by the grave economic situation,
which confronted the government with problems so urgent
that they allowed no respite.

The economic crisis, so far delayed and partly disguised
by temporary distractions, broke upon Italy at the beginning
of 1920 and immediately reached a climax. The difficulties
of the food supply began to be felt ; the coal problem
became more and more acute. England now only supplied
300,000 tons a month instead of 800,000, and charged a
high import rate. The number of trains had to be reduced,
factories could only work half time. Other imports had to
be cut down : corn, sugar, frozen meat. The food question
was complicated by the rise in the rate of exchange, over
which control had to be established in the middle of April
1920. Besides, the Italian economic system had not yet
adapted itself to the new conditions. People continued to
speculate feverishly and start new businesses, for with peace
a new era of expansion and prosperity was expected. Hence
the demand for credit increased, and with it the fiduciary
issue. Abroad the fall in wholesale prices was a sign that
a new adjustment was inevitable.

Nitti made real efforts to cope with the situation, the
seriousness of which, particularly with regard to public
finance, he did not attempt to conceal. He warned his
electors in a letter written in October 1919 ;

Present state expenditure exceeds receipts more than
three times ; all state concerns are in debt, and thousands
of millions a year are lost owing to the fixing of the price
of bread ; the national debt is increasing at the rate of
a milliard a month; each month our expenditure on
the army is greater than it was each year before the war.’

Nitti introduced numerous measures of control and showed
great activity, launching a loan in November 1919 which
was very successful and brought in 21,000,000,000 lire in a
few months. Later, after his fall from power, he recalled
the long list of his decrees to prove that it was he who had
made the first most difficult and ungrateful efforts to avoid
the storm. This was true, but did not and could not avert

NITTI, GIOLITTI5 STURZO 59

his fall. In the atmosphere of 1919-20 his slogan : ' Produce
more and consume less offered no prospects to Italy and
her people. In a world becoming increasingly impoverished,
with new needs created in war-time and liberated by peace,
such a formula had no psychological meaning and would
soon have no economic meaning either.

Moreover, Nitti could not get the necessary political
support for his administration. In common with Giolitti
he would have liked to persuade the socialists to form a
government with him. The bitter struggle between these
two statesmen was partly over the question as to which was
to succeed first in taming the monster. The socialists,
many of whom remained faithful to their old liaison with
Giolitti, disliked Nitti for his internal policy. He had
reorganized the police force, almost non-existent at the
beginning of 1919, and created the ‘ Royal Guard which
was to play a very active part in the suppression of popular
demonstrations, however peaceful. (Between October 1919
and May 1920 several hundred working men and peasants
were killed and wounded in all parts of Italy. Socialists
and fascists alike abused the police.) But the socialists
shunned the responsibility of power, and the only way of
doing without them was to put their 1917 programme into
practice with the aid of other supporters.

Nitti was not the man for such a task. This is clear from
an examination of his agrarian policy. In 1917, when he
was Minister of Finance, he had founded the National
Ex-servicemen’s Plan, and he now allotted it a large grant
for the purchase of land, to be handed over to members
who were farmers. This idea, though generous in its
original conception, was now totally inadequate to satisfy
the land hunger that possessed every peasant in the country.
Nitti’s hand was forced by ever-increasing seizures of land,
and he brought in two successive measures which aimed
rather at stopping the seizures than at carrying out genuine
reform.^ The first gave prefects power ^ to allow in certain
conditions the occupation of uncultivated land, where
agricultural production needs stimulating ; and to put an
end to violent and arbitrary occupation by the people ’.

^ Decrees Visocchi of 2.ix,i9i9, and Falcioni of 22.iv.1920.

6o THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

The second, published when the situation had become
worse, was still more repressive, since it specified that
‘ only uncultivated or under-cultivated land may be tem-
porarily occupied occupation being only permitted by
consent of ‘ legally constituted associations which already
possess and cultivate land b Within these limits Nitti could
hardly counter maximalist ‘ nihilism ’ by bold social
planning.

The only other possible allies were the Popolari; but
Nitti’s training made it difficult for him to understand this
new party which had sprung up like a mushroom in the
post-war forcing-house. His outlook was too personal to
suit the political requirements of the Popolari, whose
secretary, Don Sturzo, wanted to create a great party on
the English model, with a definite programme to which
its tactics in the country and in parliament would be
subordinated. Besides, the members, who had almost all
favoured neutrality and owed their success at the elections
chiefly to this fact, considered Nitti too deeply compromised
by his share in war-time administration. They accused
him^ too of ‘ weakness ’ towards their rivals, the socialists.
During the railway strike of January 1920, when the ‘ white ’
unions had ordered work to be resumed, not only had
the strike been terminated by an agreement signed with the
single ‘ red ’ organization which had started it, but the
Minister of Labour had left to the mercies of the Railway-
men s Union all those catholics who had refused to obey
its orders. 1 The Popolari therefore took advantage of the
first ministerial crisis, in March 1920, to demand the
resignation of the entire government and to lay down their
minimum programme. ^

nunister Chimienti. Nitti was away from Rome aU Tanuarv
differeiKes*^' Inter-Allied conference, which was discussing Italo-Jugo-Slav

the following are the most important :
of conciliation with all nations, and recognition of the
of self-determination; at home, respect for individual and collective
freedom, combmed wth firm opposition to all anarchistic elements aiming at
Ae hqmdation of the existing social order. (2) Proportional representation
ina municipal and provincial elections ; political

and ^^^“‘tative votes for women. (3) Recognition of all class organizations
and their proportional representation on ail central and local councils or
commissions. ... (5) Creation of a state examination for sccondaiy schools ;

NITTI, GIOLITTI, DON STURZO 6l

Nitti, who had the support of the Vatican, with which he
was negotiating over the Roman question, was for a time
under the impression that he could dispense with the help
of the Popolari^ and formed his new ministry without them.
It only lasted a few weeks, and although he was joined by
the Popolari after the third crisis it was too late to save the
government from its fate. To relieve the budget from the
heavy charge of the bread subsidy, Nitti issued an ordinance
raising the price of bread by fifty centesimi a kilogram.
This provoked violent opposition from both left and right.
Mussolini’s attitude in his paper was that ' those who have
more must pay more : the present price must be maintained
for the sake of the poor, the workmen, and the office-
workers Faced with this storm Nitti withdrew the
ordinance with the intention of drafting it into a bill, but
the hostility of practically all groups in the Chamber
forced him to resign.

Nitti’s fall caused no surprise, since so many influences
and events had been combining to bring it about. When
he came to power Mussolini, following his usual custom,
had declared that he was expecting action, and had approved
his fiscal measures, as he later approved Giolitti’s ; but he
was now out for his blood, because Nitti had had him
detained a few hours in November 1919 and had ordered
a search for arms at fascist headquarters. Nitti was equally
unpopular with the army, having axed hundreds of super¬
fluous generals and thousands of officers, and refused to
carry out the expedition against the soviets of Georgia that
the previous Orlando government had planned. The
nationalists were furious with him because of his views on
the Fiume question and his desire for conciliation with
Jugo-Slavia, and organized endless demonstrations. On
May 24, the anniversary of Italy’s entry into the war,
which was not officially celebrated, a delegation of Dal¬
matians and Fiumans came to Rome. This gave rise to a

abolition of all regulations restricting the development of private education.
(6) Foundation of regional chambers of agriculture, and reform of the
machinery of arbitration in collective disputes ; agrarian legislation for the
division of large properties, internal colonization, and purchase of land by
the peasants for small-holdings. ( 7 ) Fiscal reform to solve the financial
problem by increasing the rate of taxation, and imposing a heavy tax on
fortunes made during the war. . . .

02 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

violent demonstration which was severely repressed with
many victims on both sides, eight dead and thirty wounded,
an event which considerably weakened the government.

His right-wing opponents felt that the moment had come
to redouble their efforts to defeat Nitti and reverse his
foreign policy. In the early months of 1920, while strikes
were increasing in the country and d’Annunzio was in full
blast at Fiume, Nitti was striving in London, Paris, and
San Remo to secure an intelligent policy of European
reconstruction from which Italy would be bound to profit.
Together with Lloyd George he mpported a return to
normal conditions, the resumption of trade relations with
the Soviets, and the fixing of reparations at a reasonable
figure. The French government persisted in the policy
which led to Millerand’s sabotage of the Cannes conference :
hostility towards any concession to Germany ‘ who must
pay and towards any accord with Russia around whom
the cordon sanitaire must be kept drawn. Consequently
Italian nationalists and fascists obtained every help and
encouragement in their opposition to Nitti from the French
ambassador at Rome, M. Barrere. He had his instructions
from Clemenceau, who had announced after the November
1919 elections that he would ‘do anything and sanction
any means ’ of preventing Italy from being submerged by
the tide of revolution. The French embassy at Rome was
accused in the press and in the Chamber of having become
‘ the headquarters of the campaign against the socialists
who remained ‘dangerously’ Wilsonian. The Spa con¬
ference was summoned for May 25. ‘ Signor Nitti said
M. Barrere, ‘ will not be present ’, and Nitti was defeated
on May ii, the very day on which the Italian and Jugo¬
slav delegates had at last made contact at Pallanza.

The succession was open ; at the beginning of June, after
some weeks of crisis, Nitti was definitely turned out, chiefly
because there was a successor all ready : Giovanni Giolitti.
Giolitti, like Mussolini, had private scores to settle. He
had not wanted Italy to intervene in the war in spring 1915,
particularly at that moment and in the existing circum¬
stances. He had been expelled from the government as
the result of a palace intrigue, and subsequently abused and

NITTI, GIOLITTI, DON STURZO 63

threatened. Salandra had incited the fascists and nationalists
against him^ and had given them the freedom of the streets.
It was Giolitti’s wish to return to power^, combine with
the socialists, carry out a number of political, economic
and fiscal reforms and finally restore order in the country.
He tolerated Nitti and even lent him his supporters, but he
looked upon him as a lieutenant who would give way to
him when he was ready. Nitti had quite different views.

On October 12, 1919, before the general elections, Giolitti
set out his claims to power in his famous speech at Dronero.
This largely consisted of a devastating tirade against the
Italian ruling class, ‘ against the impudent minorities, the
witless and soulless governments that had dragged a nation
into war against its will against those who had flung
Italy blindly into war, without well-defined agreements on
political and colonial questions, without even realizing the
existence of her economic, financial, commercial, or in¬
dustrial needs b After enumerating Italy’s losses in life and
wealth, Giolitti launched his own programme : to make
every effort in foreign affairs to render another war im¬
possible ; to call upon all nations to join the League ; to
take advantage of international working-class solidarity ;
to abolish secret diplomacy, and leave to parliaments alone
the right of declaring war and making peace. As for the
past, he looked forward to immediate official inquiries on
the subject of war-time responsibilities, the use to which
plenary powers had been put, the way in which large
contracts had been ordered and carried out, ‘ to show the
country how billions of money had been wasted To meet
the financial crisis he proposed the abolition of military
expenditure, a graduated tax on total income and on
inheritance, and an extraordinary levy on capital, especially
war profits. He launched a violent attack on the forces of
reaction, ' which he said, ' can prevail no longer, since
the privileged classes of society, which led humanity into
disaster, can no longer rule the whole world alone ; its
destiny must lie henceforth in the hands of the people

This speech raised a great hullabaloo in the nationalist
and conservative press. Nitti hastened to oppose such a
programme, especially the inquiry into the war, which would

64 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

only serve to ‘ revive ill-feeling and he replied in a letter
to his constituents on October 31. From this moment the
papers noted that ‘ the break between Signor Nitti and
Signor Giolitti may be considered as final It was in fact
the beginning of an extremely bitter struggle between
the two statesmen. Their rivalry was complicated by the
conflicting interests of the two biggest Italian banks, the
Banca Commerciale Italiana said the Banca Italiana Sconto, and
took the most astonishing forms. Giolitti managed to get
a deputy to blackmail Nitti by bringing a petition in the
Chamber against him for his pretended connection with the
B.I.S., and had leaflets denouncing him secretly printed ;
while Nitti had all Giohtti’s dealings on the stock exchange
watched. They did their best to eliminate one another.
At every ministerial crisis each vetoed the other’s can¬
didature, thus preventing any solution, paralysing and
discrediting parliament, and aiding the machinations of the
fascists and conservatives.

In this struggle Giolitti consistently had the upper hand.
He had a profound knowledge of the art of government,
to which he had devoted the greater part of his life, and
great experience in handling men, though he was more
successful at exploiting their weaknesses than at making use
of their good qualities. A bureaucrat, he did not share
Nitti’s dislike of state economic intervention. As a sup¬
porter of neutrality he was nearer the socialists and the
Popolari. On the eve of his return to power he asked the
socialists to join his government, for he hoped to do ‘ great
things ’. Turati replied : ‘ We are not ambitious. If we
accepted, it would be for personal reasons, and our people
would not follow us.’ Giolitti retorted : ‘ I am convinced
that I can serve the country at this moment, and I shall
form a government. I shall get a majority wherever I can.’
He also appealed to the Popolari. Don Sturzo did not like
the idea of joining Giolitti. He had a profound distaste
for the arch corrupter of Italian politics, which was returned
in full by Giolitti : the anti-clerical Piedmontese wished
never to meet a party chief in canonicals. Don Sturzo
feared Giolitti’s methods, knowing that he was ready to
make use of the catholics, as he had done in 1913, to split

NITTI, GIOLITTI, DON STURZO 65

up and weaken the other parties, and not to initiate, as
Don Sturzo wished, a policy of large-scale party alliances
based on well-defined programmes. The Vatican, which
had tried in vain to save Nitti, opposed Giolitti, fearful of
his financial programme and his conception of the ‘ two
parallels ’, church and state, which need never meet.
Amongst the measures proposed by Giolitti, that enforcing
the registration of all bonds by the holder especially con¬
cerned the church, which had so far been able to evade the
laws regarding ecclesiastical possessions by holding bearer
bonds and owning property through intermediaries.

Nothing, however, could stop Giolitti’s accession to
power. He was looked upon and trusted almost everywhere
as a saviour. The Italian bourgeoisie^ which in 1914 had
supported the war to rid themselves of the working-class
movement, which was getting too powerful, now rallied for
the same reason to the supporter of neutrality, the ‘ traitor
Giolitti. Even those who had been his fiercest enemies,
such as Sonnino, begged him to take office. It was remem¬
bered that in those happy times before the war Giolitti had
proved himself able to charm the socialist serpent. Those
who in 1915 ’5 wrote Guglielmo Ferrero, ‘ snatched the
magic wand from his hands and broke it, are now calling
on the old magician to renew his former marvels.’ The
nationalists, who had been his most violent opponents
during the war, accepted him now, since they hoped that
by devoting himself chiefly to internal affairs he would
abandon Nitti’s excessively pan-European policy. Mussolini
was inclined to support him if by so doing he could bring
himself nearer power. He announced that Giolitti’s
ministerial proclamation ‘ coincided almost exactly with the
fascist postulates As to the their parliamentary

group had decided, in spite of Don Sturzo’s advice to the
contrary, to join the new government.

With his accession to power the serious break of 1914-15
which had split the in two was mended. There

was no more talk of ‘ neutralists ’ and ^ interventionists
Giolitti, the war-resister, ‘^demagogic’ financier and man
of the Dronero speech, had achieved a real, if temporary,
revival of national unity.

5

VI

THE RISE AND FALL OF MAXIMALISM

AFTER the armistice, and particularly after the
/ \ elections of November 1919, there ’ivas a rush to join
X JLthe ‘ red ’ General Confederation of Labour, which
swept in all classes of labour, including private employees,
skilled labourers, state employees, and in many districts
the local societies of small shop-keepers. The 321,000
members of the General Confederation of Labour at the
beginning of the war had increased to 2,200,000 by the end
of 1920. The same thing was happening in every country.
In France the Confedkation Generale du Travail, from a million
members in 1914, reckoned 2,400,000 early in 1920 ; in
Germany the two and a half millions of 1913 leapt to eight
millions in 1920 ; even in England the careful calculations
of the Trade Unions showed over the same period an
increase of 1,572,391 to 4=3U=537 in their membership.
An epidemic of strikes broke out and reached its peak in
1920 in Italy as elsewhere, although it was soon put an
end to by the cold douche of the economic crisis.^

^ This is illustrated by the statistics of strikes in the years 1919-22 taken
from the Amuaire of the Statistique Ginirale de France

England

(«)

W9

rgso

igsi

IQS 2

1352

1607

763

576

{b)

2400

^779

1770

512

Germany

(«)

3719

3807

4455

4785

(b)

193B

1429

1489

2046

France

(a)

2026

1832

475

665

(b)

n6x

1317

402

290

Italy

( a )

1871

2070

1134

575

(.b)

1554

2314

724

448

U.S.A,

(“)

3630

3411

2385

,112

(b)

—

_

(fl) Number of disputes (strikes and lock-outs). (^) Number of strikes and
workers locked out in thousands,

Germany is the exception which proves the rule, for the number of strikes
did not begin to fall until 1925, when the economic crisis occurred in¬
dependently of inflation.

66

THE RISE AND PALL OF MAXIMALISM 67

In January 1920 there was a strike of railwaymen and post
office employees, and between the end of February and the
end of May increasing numbers of agricultural workers in
the provinces of Ferrara, Mantua, Novara, Pavia, Padua,
Verona, Arezzo, and Parma, went on strike. The ^ white ’
(catholic) organizations of Soresina (Cremona) were also
affected. All these strikes had a definitely economic aim,
to make wages meet the ever-rising cost of living. They
followed no preconcerted plan ; the railwaymen went out
on January 20, while the post office employees returned to
work on the 21st ; the agricultural strikes of the north took
place unrelated to each other or to the seizure of land which
was going on in the south. It was a huge dissipation of
energy, a wave of movements which ended by holding up
productive work for weeks and months in some rural districts,
but whose political effect was nil. But this readiness and
persistence of the masses who struck was a sign of the times
and evidence of their restlessness and their hopes. The
least thing might lead to a cessation of work, though at times
strikes were linked with a more widespread discontent, as
in Carnia, during May, where the Austrians had been in
occupation during the war and too many problems had been
left unsolved. In some cases ^ political ’ claims of the first
importance were made, as in the general strike at Turin
during April, the object of which was the recognition of
factory councils by the employers, and which resulted in a
severe defeat for the workmen.

This strike arose out of an incident which shows what
the atmosphere was like in some industrial centres. The
government having just adopted ‘ summer time the
management of the Fiat motor-works had put on the
hands of the factory clock one hour. The workers’ com¬
mittee put it back, so the directors appealed to them to
keep to winter hours if they liked, but to let the clock show
the same time as the others in the town. No agreement
could be made, the workers’ delegates were dismissed and
the strike broke out. Summer time was a relic of the war,
an intrusion by the state into the workers’ daily life which
they would not tolerate. At Turin the outbreak was spon¬
taneous, but in other centres, such as Bologna and Cremona,

68

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

the Chambers of Labour^ refused officially to accept the
legal time. Mussolini gave the movement his full support,
calling it ‘ The first revolution of the Italian people against
their ruler.’ On April 6, 1920, he wrote in his newspaper :

‘ I, too, am opposed to the “ legal time ”, because it
represents a form of state coercion and interference. It
is not a question of politics, nationalism, or utility ; I
am for the individual and against the state. Down with
the state in any shape or form : the state of yesterday,
to-day, and to-morrow, the bourgeois state, the socialist
state. For us then, the last survivors of individualism,
nothing remains to carry us through the night of the
present and the future save the religion, absurd but always
comforting, of anarchy.’

And the article ended with the word anarchy in bold type.

Clashes between demonstrators and authorities increased,
but the former always came off worst, for though excited
they were unarmed. While the dead lay in the streets—
and there were nearly always some-—the workers retaliated
by calling a general strike. Sometimes the railwaymen
stopped trains carrying the Royal Guard or vans loaded
with arms for the war against the Soviets. Early in 1920
there took place the first occupations of factories^ since
those of Dalmine in March 1919.3 Tension became extreme
in June with a revolt at Ancona, when soldiers, supported
by the working class of the town, refused to embark for
Albania. But in spite of the resistance put up in various
places the revolt was quickly suppressed.

These upheavals disconcerted the workers’ and socialist
organizations, whose method with the over-excited masses
was alternately to advise calm and promise them revolution.
A manifesto was drawn up by the Socialist Party, the

* Jhe Chamber of Labour (Camera del Lavoro) was the meeting-place of
all the local syndicates of every description. Generally speaking, there was
one » every provincial capital and in other places of importance.

Between February and June factories were occupied, and more or less
successful attempts made to run them, in Sestri Ponenti and Viareggio
(Ansaldo), at the Ilva (Naples), in the Mazzoni textile works at Torre Pellice,
m Asti, at the Miani and Silvestri machine shops in Naples, in Scsto San
Giovanni, at the Ilva (Piombino).

« P. 26.

THE RISE AND FALL OF MAXIMALISM 69

parliamentary socialists, and the General Confederation of
Labour on June 25, 1920, immediately after the Ancona
affair, opposing local action :

' The present situation,’ it said, ' shows that the
bourgeois crisis is getting worse, and that the great clash
between bourgeoisie and proletariat is near at hand. In
view of the necessity of marshalling our full forces for
coming battles, the organizations controlling the prole¬
tarian movement in Italy warn the workers against action
which may spoil the concerted movement. . . , Workers !
the proletarian revolution cannot be the work of a single
group of men ; it cannot be accomplished in an hour.
It must be the result of vast preparation, achieved by
unprecedented efforts and an iron discipline.’

^ Great clash ’, ^ vast preparation ’—behind this boasting
there was absolutely nothing. The ship, with all its cargo
of hope, was adrift, and while the syndical and socialist
leaders shuffled and hesitated the bourgeoisie began to pull
themselves together. There were various encouraging signs :
in April 1919 the arditi had managed to burn the Avanti
offices, and in November to bomb a socialist procession,
without provoking any serious reaction. During a royal
session of the Chamber on December i, the socialist deputies
had walked out crying : Long live the Republic’, and
the same evening had been chased through the streets of
Rome by students and officers, several of them being
wounded. This had led on one side to a demonstration in
the king’s favour in the Piazza del Quirinale, and on the
other to a general strike in protest.

The working class raised protests nearly everywhere ;
every town had its general strike and its dead. Sometimes
popular fury broke out, as in Mantua, where in consequence
of the Rome affair the mob invaded the railway station and
pulled up the rails, beat up all the officers it met, attacked
the prison, released the prisoners, and fired the buildings.
In Rome on May 12, 1920, the scavengers went on strike
and teams of students and other volunteers took their place.
In July the tramway-men brought out their vehicles
beflagged in red to celebrate a successful strike. Many

70 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

exasperated people who had been obliged by the strike to
walk miles in the heat of summer, climbed on to the trams,
tore down the flags, and beat up the drivers. The same
afternoon students, nationalists, and arditi sacked the Avanti
offices and broke up the machines—with the usual result :
the Chamber of Labour called a general strike. None the
less it was only thanks to the police that the Epoca presses,
which had produced the Rome edition of the Avanti, were not
broken up. That evening some socialist deputies, among
them Modigliani, were seriously wounded, and during the
same month fascists, arditi, and legionaries burnt the
Balkan, the headquarters of the Slovene organizations at
Trieste.

These were but the first signs, outpost skirmishes, left to
local initiative and enterprise, and carried out by the fascist
and nationalist irregulars. Meanwhile the capitalist classes
were steadily organizing themselves. On March 7, 1920,
when labour troubles were at their worst, the first national
conference of Italian industrialists assembled at Milan and
formed the General Confederation of Industry. This
included all the great and three-quarters of the lesser
industries, and being closely allied with the Association of
Limited Liability Companies was to have a preponderating
influence on national life. During this conference a complete
and detailed plan of campaign was drafted and everytliing,
from the centralized organization of all manufacturers to
the^ methods of combating the workers’ syndicates, and the
political restoration of Giovanni Giolitti, was laid down.
At the beginning of April the new alliance won its first
success by crushing the general strike at Turin—-the strike
over ‘summer time’. Soon afterwards, on August 18, the
General Confederation of Agriculture was formed and
rapidly expanded to embrace every form of agricultural
property and industry, great and small. No longer would
manufacturers and landlords fight in stray units. To the
erratic and localized efforts of the workers they could now
oppose a defensive and offensive force organized on a
national and strongly centralized basis.

Giolitti’s return to power^ was the chief symptom of the
. ■ =^P.65. ;

THE RISE AND FALL OF MAXIMALISM 71

new situation. While among the populace the war question
still divided the organized proletariat from numbers of
ex-servicemen and certain middle-class groups (students,
officers, members of learned professions) in higher circles,
supporters both of war and of neutrality were working in
complete unity to regain control of the situation.

The socialists had not joined the new government, but
Giolitti had not given up hope of gaining their support.
In his speeches in the Chamber he went as far as he could
to win their confidence. He hoped to repeat the methods
which had won him success before the war : to reconcile the
conflicting interests of manufacturers and farmers by an
apt adjustment of customs duties, and give a share of the
benefits of this protective tariff to certain groups of industrial
workers in the north and the wage-earning agricultural
workers of the Po valley, who formed the backbone of the
political and syndical power of the socialist movement.
But 1920 was not 1910. The Socialist Party and the General
Confederation of Labour no longer represented the elite of
labour. Hordes of new members had joined, and the make¬
shift plans of earlier days were no longer sufficient to control
them. The economic crisis, daily getting worse, made it
difficult for him to carry out his former policy of compromise
and left no margin for the satisfaction of everyone’s demands.
Besides, the Socialist Party, which had promised revolution
without raising a finger to prepare it, and had jumped
straight from the 1917 programme into their soviets ’ policy,
expected that the ' insoluble ’ crisis would thrust power
upon them. When Giolitti suggested that the socialists
should join his cabinet Turati, the leader of the ring wing,
refused because he knew the party would not follow him.^

Turati had absorbed from Marx his realization of the
close alliance between economic evolution and political
change, and his conviction that the emancipation of the
workers must be the action >of the workers themselves*.
The task of the socialists was to educate and prepare the
working classes for self-government. The persistence with
which he had fought for the eight-hour day in Italy was
not mere zeal for reform. The reduction of hours, which

1 P. 64.

72 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

Marx had hailed in 1864 in his ' Inaugural Address ’ for
its immense physical^ moral, and intellectual benefits
would allow the working classes to educate themselves and
prepare for the struggle. Turati saw the advance of socialism
as a stream which absorbed all progressive tendencies,
moving harmoniously forward, unhurried, thriving on com¬
promise, and guided by enlightened good will. The masses
more and more conscientious, the bourgeoisie more and more
intelligent: the former patient, the latter resigned to the
inevitable : joint executors to a world whose end was to be
desired and accepted. Consequently he could not bring
himself to join the government without the masses behind
him, still less against their will. This was not through lack
of courage, like Dante’s pope, ‘ che fece per viltade il gran
rijiuto \ When Bissolati responded to the king’s summons
in 1911 Turati asked : ^ Take a share in the government ?
Perhaps we ought, but certainly we cannot.’ The unpre¬
paredness of the masses was an insurmountable obstacle.

‘ What is socialism in Italy to-day ? ’ he asked himself
' Socialism has barely touched the surface of the masses,
and even where it has gone a little deeper, through better
organization, it serves interests worthy of respect, but
narrow and limited,’ How could he take office with such
an instrument ? He wanted a policy, not a personal
adventure. In 1911-12 he had, for the same reason, opposed
the war in Tripoli, because it distracted the Italian people
from the slow and painful development of their civic
conscience. Again, despite his sympathy for Belgium and
the Entente, he had opposed intervention in 1914, because
he feared the effect on the public mentality. The mass
movements of 1919-20 seemed to him to be merely the out¬
come of a ‘ war psychosis But the classic proportions of the
socialist creed as he had conceived it were shattered now,
and Turati felt that the political weapon he needed was
farther from his hand than ever. When he rose in the
Chamber on June 28 to answer Giolitti’s first ministerial
pronouncement, he had to do so as a private individual.
He proclaimed the necessity of ‘^rebuilding Italy’ by a
combination of measures ' organic, planned, and prompt,
capable of arousing her latent vigour, and renewing the

THE RISE AND FALL OF MAXIMALISM 73

State and the Nation But his admirable speech was
received with general indifference, and, because the
mountain would not come to him, Turati did not go to the
mountain. The fate of Italian socialism was indeed tragic,
for it suffered as much from the insight of some of its leaders
as from the obtuseness of the rest.

Another socialist leader, Claudio Treves, for many years
Turati’s colleague on his review, the Critica Sociale, in a
speech in the Chamber on March 30, at the time of the first
Nitti crisis, described the situation thus : ‘ This is the crux
of the present tragic situation : you can no longer maintain
your existing social order and we are not yet strong enough
to impose the one we want.’ But actually the old social
order was digging itself in, while the new one was befogged.
Seeking a way out a group of young intellectuals in Turin,
headed by Antonio Gramsci, had gone far both in theory
and practice to base an organization on the factory councils
which had achieved a fair degree of maturity and power in
that town. But their efforts were wrecked by the obtuseness
of the Socialist Party and by their own inexperience and
isolation. The maximalist party leaders, unmoved, con¬
tinued to sleep on their paper schemes for soviets. The
National Council at Florence had directed the party
executive in January 1920 to draw up within two months
definite plans for Workers’ Councils. At the National
Council at Milan in April—long after the time limit had
expired—^the ‘ need for soviets ’ was once more affirmed,
and the party leaders once more called upon to ‘ create these
proletarian organizations ’. To lighten their task, they were
supplied with a set of regulations for drawing up soviets,
wherein, in a few dozen clauses, every provision for their
efficient functioning was laid down. Only the soviets them¬
selves were missing. . . . Was it in order to seize power
and destroy the counter-revolution at birth that the party
leaders had to impose these soviets from above, in bureau¬
cratic style ? On the contrary, it was chiefly to ‘ obstruct
and paralyse the experiment of social democracy ’, to
prevent ‘ the establishment of the bourgeois parliament ’,
and to destroy those illusions of democracy ‘ the most
dangerous kind’. With these objects in view they must

74 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

' intensify and complete their preparations for the forcible
overthrow of the bourgeois state and the inauguration of the
dictatorship of the proletariat h Complete their prepara¬
tions ’ : this was not easy, for how could they complete
what had never been begun ? Such preparations could
only mean one thing : political action rallying to its pro¬
gramme all whose sufferings, illusions, and need for justice
urged them towards a new order. The party leaders were
incapable of seeing the problem in such a light. Brave
words helped them to maintain their popularity with the
mob, but ended by befogging the minds, never very stable,
of those who used them. Mixed drinks intoxicate, but do not
give courage or decision, and generalizations about the
' inevitable and early crisis ’ of the administration, which it
was impossible for the bourgeoisie to escape, acted as narcotics.
For contact with reality they substituted a kind of frenzied
and harmless monomania which the bourgeoisie placed under
forcible restraint at the first opportunity. These extremist
cliches derived from a fundamental inertia, which they
helped to perpetuate. While the socialists awaited their
inheritance, now assured to them, at the bedside of the dying
man—the bourgeoisie —who was not worth putting out of
his agony, political life in Italy became one long meeting
at which the capital of the ^ coming' revolution was
squandered in orgies of words.

But the masses, still ' awaiting ’ the revolution, took the
game seriously. The General Confederation of Labour,
whose reformist leaders had signed in Moscow in the summer
of 1920 a pact which was to bring about ' the triumph of
the social revolution and the world-wide republic of the
soviets ^ had at the same time invited the Italian working
class to accept the new law of social insurance, based upon
contributions by state, employers, and insured. The workers
who had rejected summer time refused to pay their contri¬
butions. What was the good of social insurance if there was
just going to be a revolution ? Why pay, since they would
soon be all powerful ? The gap between social insurance
and the world-wide Tepublic of the soviets was too wide.
The masses could not understand. Further, while the
Confederation led a campaign in favour of the law, the

THE RISE AND FALL OF MAXIMALISM 75

Chambers of Labour in Bologna and Turin decided that
employees should not pay, and the workers at the Bianchi
factory in Milan went so far as to call a strike in protest.
So began a crisis of authority inside the labour movement,
parallel to that in the state, of which the second was to be
solved first.

As soon as he took office Giolitti stifled the Ancona revolt^
and decided to withdraw the Italian forces from Albania.
In this way he began the task of settling the bourgeois crisis,
which in September brought him up agianst the alarming
occupation of factories by workers all over the country. In
May the Federation of Metallurgical Workers (F.I.O.M.^)
had begun discussing a collective wage agreement with the
employers, who were determined to make no concessions.

‘ Until now we have always given way ’, they said. ‘ Now
things are going to be different, and we shall begin with
you.’ This attitude showed that there was some change in
the situation. On its side the F.I.O.M., which had already
had to carry on long strikes to settle local agreements, did
not wish to face a new strike which might last many months,
exhaust the workers, and bring victory no nearer. A
substitute for this blunted weapon had to be found, while,
as the increasing symptoms of crisis showed, the field of
battle was getting more restricted. It was then that the
strategists of the Federation, who all belonged to the right
wing of the Socialist Party, decided to combat the persistent
and clumsy stubbornness of the employers with a stay-in
strike. The employers were prepared to meet obstructionism
with lock-outs, so as to drive the workers into the ordinary
strike they now wanted to avoid. On August 30 the manage¬
ment of Alfa-Romeo cleared out its workshops in Milan
and shut its doors in order to suppress a Hghtning strike.
The Federation ordered its members to occupy the factories,
thus snatching their most formidable weapon from the
employers’ hands by forestalling and preventing a lock¬
out. This occupation of factories, often represented as some
critical stage of revolutionary fever, was in its inception
simply a substitute for a strike which had become too

v.p. 68. .

* Federazione Italiana Operai Metallurgici.

76 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

difficult, and a more economical method of enforcing
labour’s new collective contracts. The Federation leaders
had chosen the line of least resistance, and they thought
that the occupation would provoke government interven¬
tion, while some of them, though they did not admit it,
cherished the hope that its political outcome might lead to
the socialists taking a share in the administration.

On August 31 the workers occupied 280 machine shops
in Milan, and in the next two days the movement spread
all over Italy, at times even forestalling the orders of the
leaders. It began with the metallurgical trades, but the
factories wanted raw materials and accessories supplied by
other industries, so, to ensure the continuance of their work,
these had to be won over. The control of the factories
passed into the hands of workers’ committees, who did all
they could to maintain output. In this they had only them¬
selves to rely upon, for all the engineers and nearly all
the technicians and clerical staff had left on the order of the
directors. Work in progress went on well enough, but the
difficulty of replenishing with raw materials was soon felt.
Money for wages was also wanting, for little had been found
in the safes opened after occupation. Once the first enthu¬
siasm had evaporated many of the workers got tired of
spending all their time in the factories, until finally, towards
the end of the campaign, they were not allowed out for fear
they should not return. So the ‘ red guards ’ at the gates,
to defend the factories against possible attack, served
equally to prevent a large number from deserting.

The workers’ committees often displayed admirable
activity, combined with a keen sense of responsibility, a
care for ‘ proletarian honour ’ in all questions of labour
discipline, and respect for property become communal,
and made incessant appeals to the workers’ consciences, of
which Ips and less notice was taken. The few weeks the
occupation lasted called forth in the workers, those
appendages of the machines’, a flood of moral energy,
a striving towards higher activities, which the impartial
historian must preserve among the brightest pages of
proletarian idealism, or of any form of idealism. But the
picture had its shadows, which deepened as enthusiasm

THE RISE AND FALL OF MAXIMALISM 77

waned. Scenes of violence—engineers held by force in their
factories, etc.-—were few and quickly checked. Little blood
was shed, murders could be counted on the fingers of one
hand, and were in every case due to the isolated acts of a
few over-excited individuals : a small matter in proportion
to the extent and seriousness of the upheaval which had
occurred, and the thousands of factories and millions of
workers involved.

Thoroughly alarmed, the employers dissolved their
delegation, which by its high-handedness and obstinacy
had provoked the movement, and replaced it with a fresh
one, more conciliatory and determined to come to an
understanding. Overtures were made from all quarters to
the syndical and socialist chiefs, to get them to agree to a
compromise. The editor of the Corriere della Sera, senator
Albertini, betook himself to Turati and told him that the
time had come for the socialists to assume power. The
directors of the Banca Commerciale assured the F.I.O.M. of
their benevolent neutrality, and offered and asked for
assurances in case of a revolutionary outcome to the move¬
ment. The prefect of Milan, acting for the government,
did his utmost to bring together the two parties to the
struggle. Mussolini, too, took his precautions, announcing
in his paper that the fascists had no intention of attadking
the occupied factories, and so far forgot his pride as to go in
person to the hotel where Buozzi, secretary to the F.I.O.M.,
was staying, to tell him he would continue to support the
movement.

Should negotiations with the employers, now prepared
to yield on every point, be resumed? A negative answer
would give the signal jfor a general insurrection, since it
was no longer possible to keep the workers in the factories
without giving them something further to aim at. The only
way out was by escaping in a forward direction. Armed
insurrection was out of the question, for nothing was ready.
The workers felt safe behind the factory walls, not on
account of their arms, often ancient and inadequate, but
because they looked on the factories as hostages which the
government would hesitate to shell to bits in order to dis¬
lodge the occupants. It was a long step firom this defensive

78 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

attitude to open street fighting, as the workers were, if
confusedly, aware. Even in Turin, where there was a ven¬
turesome advance-guard, better armed than elsewhere,
the communist leaders took no active steps, and restrained
the groups which had prepared lorries for a sortie from the
Fiat works.

The National Council of the General Confederation of
Labour met in Milan on September lo by agreement with
the executive of the Socialist Party, and faced the question
of what tactics they should adopt. The two bodies had
decided, a few days earlier, that ‘ if as a result of the continued
obstinacy of the employers no early solution can be reached ’,
the workers’ struggle must take as its objective ‘ the control
of firms, in order to bring about collective management
and the socialization of every form of production The
immediate claim was for control ; socialization was put off
into the distant future. By defining control as their objective
they made it clear that they had no intention of going
further, but would evacuate the factories as soon as it was
granted. Not for nothing were the Socialist Party leaders
maximalists ; they were unwilling to face the inevitable
disillusion of the masses. A treaty of alliance concluded at
the end of 1918 between the General Confederation of
Labour and the Italian Socialist Party had left to the latter
the management of political strikes. There now took place a
pointless discussion as to whether this was a political or a
syndical strike, which really masked a joint shrinking from
responsibility. The Confederation offered the control of the
movement to the maximalists and communists at the head
of the party, knowing quite well that they had no desire to
take it on.

The National Council in Milan voted for the syndical
view, and Gennari, the secretary of the party, confined
himself to saying :

The agreement lays down that the party executive
may make itself responsible for action, and the General
Confederation of Labour undertakes not to interfere.
At the present moment the party executive does not wish
to assert these powers. Possibly, in the course of time

THE RISE AND FALL OF MAXIMALISM 79

and if circumstances alter, the executive may decide to
appeal to the agreement, and I am certain that it will be
honoured.’

This vague allusion to possible future events committed
them to nothing ; it was quite irrelevant to the present
situation. The executive had wasted months in preaching
revolution, but had foreseen nothing and prepared nothing.
After the Milan decision in favour of the Confederation view¬
point the leaders breathed a sigh of relief. Relieved of all
responsibility, they could now scream themselves hoarse
about the ‘ treason ’ of the General Confederation of
Labour. Thus they had something to offer to the masses
whom they had abandoned at the critical moment, and
were able at the same time to save face.

But the working classes saved nothing. They believed
themselves to be on the threshold of power ; they had got
out of the rut to catch only a vanishing glimpse of something
fresh beyond their old horizon. Everybody said they had
won, including Mussolini.

' A revolution has taken place,’ he wrote, ‘ or to be
precise a phase of the revolution that we began in 1915.
It has lacked the 1848 manner which, according to out¬
worn romantic ideas, should accompany revolutions.
. . . Nevertheless there has been a revolution, and one
may add, a great revolution. A legal relationship that
has stood for centuries has been broken.’

But the workers felt tricked and beaten, and they were right.

The occupation of the factories marked the decline of the
working-class movement, and the inglorious end of ‘ maxi¬
malism’, though its corpse continued to litter the ground
until the fascists swept it up. A distinct change soon came
over the workers’ psychology, the beginnings of wisdom
in the words of Mussolini. Instead of disarming their
adversaries it had the effect of making them more aggressive
and drove them to reprisals. The/ai'ri, feeble and almost
non-existent before September 1920, multiplied in the last
three months of the year. It was not fascism that defeated
the revolution, but the inconsistency of the revolution that
gave impetus to fascism.

8 o THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

How and why did such a phenomenon occur ? Because
the occupation of the factories gave the bourgeoisie a psycho¬
logical shock, which explains their fury and guided their
successive steps. The sense of property and the authority
of the industrialists was hit; evicted from their factories,
they saw work going on, for better or for worse, in their
absence. Now that the shadow of death had passed away,
life flowed back into them. After a few days of bitterness
and uncertainty, during which their chief feeling was a
deep grudge against Giolitti,^ who ‘ had failed to back them
up ’ and had forced control of their industries on them by
decree, their reaction took the form of a fight to the death
against the working class and the ‘ liberal state ’.

But the so-called victors were demoralized. After super¬
human efforts they had tasted the joys of free production,
only to find themselves no better off than they were before,
and, worse still, with no prospect of improving their lot.
The arms manufactured or brought into the factories during
the occupation were gradually all found and confiscated
by the police. Nothing seemed changed ; work was
resumed and the F.I.O.M. had signed its ‘ better agree¬
ment ’, while the workers’ factory committees were the same
as those which had managed production. But the barriers
between workers and employers had broken down, and
neither side could resume work on the old footing. The
employers felt the occupations as a blot on their escutcheon.
The factories were haunted by evil spirits which must be
exorcized. At Turin Senator Agnelli, chairman of Fiat,
hoped to do so by arranging a co-operative administration
of the factory with the employees. Similar schemes put
forward nearly everywhere came to nothing. The F.I.O.M.

1 On September 15, seeing that ‘ the General Confederation of Labour has

demanded the modification of existing relations between employers and
workers, in order that the latter, acting through their syndicates, should
achieve the possibility of some form of control in industry ', that the Con¬
federation ‘ by means of this control ’ was proposing ‘ to secure an improvement
in disciplinary arrangements between employers and workers and an increase
in production, upon which the whole economic revival of the country depends ’ ,
Giolitti issued a decree forming a commission on which both sides were equally
represented, to draft ‘ proposals on which a government bill might be based
for the reorganization of industry, to provide for the participation of the
workers both in technical and financial control and in the general administra¬
tion of firms

THE RISE AND FALL OF MAXIMALISM 8l

leaders wanted to consolidate their victory by joining the
government, thinking that a coalition resulting from such
events would give the masses a definite token of success and
would save them from demoralization. They felt, too, that
the agreement they had won was the last which their
organisation would be able to conclude, and that they could
not hold the position they had gained against the inevitable
attack of the exasperated bourgeoisie. But the occupation
of the factories had for the time being radicalized ’ the
masses and, so far from imposing their participation in the
government, had rendered it psychologically impossible.

The evil spirits were to be exorcized by direct and violent
action ; the hour of fascism had come.

VII

THE ^POSTHUMOUS AND PREVENTIVE’
COUNTER-REVOLUTION

T he end of the factory occupations left both the
workers and the employers with the feeling that they
had been beaten. In addition to the collective
agreement the workers had gained ^ syndical control of
industry’. But what was this vague committee set up by
the September 15 decree in comparison with the mirage
they had seen during the weeks spent in the occupied
factories ? The employers had been forced to give in
without a soldier or a gendarme stirring to dislodge the
workers from the factories ; they had been made to sign
blindly an agreement which they had recently refused to
discuss, and submit by Giolitti’s orders to the control of
industry. Both sides were disgruntled and saw no hope in
the future, but the industrialists and landowners were
livid with rage and ready for anything, willing to sell their
souls for revenge. The bloodshed and the fires which were
to destroy the offices of hundreds of working-class and
socialist organizations and the homes of ' red ’ and even
‘ white ’ workers seemed to them the ritual of an atonement
ceremony, necessary to purify the violated temple of property.

Giolitti ignored the abuse that was heaped on him and
set about making the best use of a situation which, so he
thought, favoured his designs. A bourgeois bloc was formed,
based on patriotic sentiment, and on November 4, 1920,
for the first time since the armistice, victory celebrations,
unbroken by any disturbance, took place in Rome and all
the big cities. At the administrative elections, which took
place soon after, the bourgeois parties fought nearly every¬
where on a * national bloc ’ platform. Popolariy on the
other hand, decided to form a separate list, but the Vatican

Zz ,

COUNTER-REVOLUTION 83

disapproved of this perversity and censured it publicly.
In a few large towns such as Turin and Milan the Popolari
joined the bloc as a result of pressure from Rome. In
Turin Cardinal Gasparri wrote a letter proclaiming that
‘ wherever co-operation is necessary to resist the socialist
advance, such co-operation is a duty and in Milan Cardinal
Ferrari intervened in the same way. The fascists, still a
negligible quantity, supported the lists of the national bloc
everywhere. In Milan Mussolini, who had learned prudence
from his experience of November 1919, resisted his friends
who would have liked a fascist list ; ‘ For us to take part in
the struggle would enormously increase our opponents’
chance of success, for to present a list including fascists
would be enough to start a rush to the poll to vote against
it. That is obvious as you know very well. We could not
even get a minority list through.’ Which shows, once again,
that when the ‘ maximalist ’ advance was beginning to
weaken, the forces of fascism, which later claimed that they
had ‘ saved Italy from revolution ’, were still disunited.

The administrative elections took place at a time of
suspense and transition. The sociahsts obtained majorities
in 2162 communes out of 8059, and in 25 provinces out of 69.
They won the greatest number of communes in Emilia
and Tuscany, where, a few weeks after the elections, the
fascist offensive was launched. The socialist success, how¬
ever, had its drawbacks. It was too definite to allow the
Socialist Party to go on marking time, but not sufficient
to make it face its responsibilities boldly. The bourgeois
coalition, on the other hand, had fought hard and succeeded
in stemming the red tide in several important centres :
Rome, Spezia, Brescia, Genoa, Pisa, Naples, Bari, Palermo.
It won significant victories at Florence and, greatest of all,
Turin, the ‘ red town In the year 1919-20 the tide was
showing signs of ebbing.

On the strength of these results Giolitti decided to carry
his policy a step further, and to do so it was necessary to
settle the Fiume question, a permanent source of trouble
and indiscipline in the army, and a cancer in the body
politic. Giolitti attempted a master stroke and brought it
off; the buying off of Mussolini and his separation from

84 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

d’Annunzio. So successful was he that he thought he had
Mussolini in his pocket; in which he was much mistaken.
The negotiations took place at Milan through the prefect
Lusignoli, who was to be the connecting link between
Giolitti and Mussolini until the march on Rome. The
Treaty of Rapallo with Jugo-Slavia was signed on Novem¬
ber 12, 1920. Dalmatia, except for Zara, remained Jugo¬
slavian, and part of the port of Fiume, Sussak, was also
ceded. Mussolini, whose attacks on Bissolati^ in January
1919 will be recalled, wrote on the same day : ‘ We declare
ourselves satisfied as far as the eastern frontier is concerned,
and we believe that this satisfaction will be shared unani¬
mously by Italian public opinion. As for Fiume, the
Rapallo solution is not the ideal one, which would be
annexation, but it is the best so far put forward h Next day
he went still further : ‘ Italy needs peace to recover and
refresh herself and to pursue the way to her inevitable
greatness. Only a madman or a criminal would consider
unleashing new wars not forced on us by sudden aggression.
For this reason we thoroughly approve of the settlement of
the eastern frontier and Fiume questions.’ In the same
article Mussolini set himself against the nationalists, whom
he accused of imperialism and reproached for ‘ being
hypnotized by the sight of a few islands and beaches in the
Adriatic This article dumbfounded the Fiume legionaries,
who called Mussolini a ‘ parasite ’ and a ‘ traitor adding,

‘ the great man of the Via Cannobio^ has fizzled out ’.
At the Central Fascist Committee in Milan a breath of
revolt was felt. To cut the ground from under the opposition
Mussolini himself introduced a motion in favour of com-
pronoise, which declared that the Treaty of Rapallo was
‘ Sufficient and acceptable as to the eastern frontier, insuffi¬
cient as to Fiume, inacceptable as to Dalmatia’. One
member of the central committee, Cesare Rossi, voted
against it ‘ because he was in complete agreement with the
tendencies and opinions expressed by Mussolini himself
some days ago in the Popolo d’Italia
By this manoeuvre Mussolini avoided a break with the
fasci and at the same time brought off his pact with Giolitti,

1 P. 28 ff.

* The Milan office of the Popolo d!"Italia was in this street.

COUNTER-REVOLUTION 85

for from now on Italian public opinion hesitated and
dropped all active opposition to the Treaty of Rapallo.
Giolitti’s money had been put to a good use. But money was
not the chief part of the bargain. For Mussolini the new
arrangement presented other personal advantages. He was
free of the agreement he had made in the summer with
d’Annunzio for some vaguely defined form of action to be
made under the latter’s direction. In addition^ he thought
Giolitti could form a government consisting of liberals,
Popolari, fascists, and perhaps right-wing socialists, with
himself a member of the cabinet. Besides, Giolitti and his
war minister, Bonomi, were very well disposed towards the
fascists, whom they hoped to use against the socialists.
Mussolini, therefore, postponed for the time, being any idea
of a ‘ march on Rome He would reach Rome in any
case by way of a parliamentary alliance which only Giolitti
could bring about. Protected on the left by the socialists
who were hostile to d’Annunzio, and on the right by
Mussolini, Giolitti could now attempt his great coup.

The same day that the workers in the peninsula occupied
the factories d’Annunzio published at Fiume the ‘ Constitu¬
tion ’ of the Italian Regency of the Quarnero It was a
mixture of medieval guild and modern syndicalism, personal
government and vague sovietism, which alienated the
sympathy of the nationalists, who were reactionaries first
and patriots afterwards. In particular. Article 9 of this
constitution said :

^ The state does not recognize property as an absolute
domination of individual over matter, but looks upon it
as the most useful of social functions. No property can
be reserved by any person as if it were part of him ; it is
inadmissible for a lazy proprietor to leave his property
unused or badly used, to the exclusion of others. Labour
is the only title to power in any means of production or
exchange. Labour alone is master of the goods it has
rendered fruitful in their highest degree and most profitable
to the general economy.’

It was all rather hazy, and Mussolini has written more
subversive prose. But d’Annunzio was a poet, and poets are

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

86

sometimes slaves to their dreams. Such a ‘ constitution ’ ran
the risk of over-valuing certain social claims by linking them
with national claims, at a moment when the bourgeoisie
were setting national claims aside while they made a clean
sweep of the social claims of the masses. The bourgeoisie and
even the nationalists deserted him, and at the crucial
moment Admiral Millo went back on his engagements.^
On September 9, 1920, d’Annunzio proclaimed simul¬
taneously the independence of the ‘ State ’ of the Quarnero
and his new constitution, thus provoking a breach with the
National Council of Fiume. The economic situation of the
town was becoming difhcult ; there was a shortage of
water, gas, electricity, and coal. Negotiations for a loan
between d’Annunzio and a group of financiers fell through.
Towards the end of October the legionaries, with the assis¬
tance of the Federation of Marine Workers, seized the Cogne,
an Italian vessel loaded with Swiss merchandise which was
put up for auction in Fiume. As soon as he learned of the
conclusion of the Treaty of Rapallo,^ d’Annunzio ordered
the occupation of the islands of Orbe and Cherso, transferred
by this treaty to Jugo-Slavia. But Giolitti now decided to
put an end quickly to this chaos. General Caviglia started
a blockade of the Fiume coast to prevent further raids by
legionaries. A delegation of Italian members of Parlia¬
ment approached d’Annunzio to suggest a compromise.
D’Annunzio rejected any agreement and demanded as a
preliminary the recognition of the Regency of the Quarnero
by the Rome government. Two destroyers and a torpedo-
boat deserted from the Italian fleet, came to Fiume and
placed themselves at the ‘ Commandant’s ’ disposal. The
actual blockade of the town was begun and d’Annunzio
replied by declaring a state of war between the Regency
and Italy. On Christmas Eve the Italian forces advanced,
but a few shots fired at the governor’s palace, the hostility
of the National Council, and of the population, brought
about d’Annunzio’s surrender. Doubtless he had sworn to
shed the last drop of his blood on the sacred ground, but he
convinced himself quite easily that ‘ it was not worth
devoting one’s exertions to a people who, when battle is
VP.47. *P. 84.

COUNTER-REVOLUTION 87

joined at Fiume, will not for a single moment leave their
Christmas gluttony and festivities D’Annunzio was an
actor who could not play to an empty house, the super-man
in him could not do without his public.

On December 31 an agreement was signed and a pro¬
visional government formed in Fiume. D’Annunzio left
the town and went to Italy where, in spite of all his and his
friends’ efforts, he was no longer able to play a leading part.
The fasci made a great deal of noise about events in
Fiume, and Mussolini in the Popolo d’’Italia spread himself in
headlines and abusive language, but no gesture of sympathy
was attempted. While the Fiume affair was going on and
he was dreaming of leading a national and social crusade,
at the head of an army of the oppressed, d’Annunzio had
lost touch with the country.

‘ The horizon and spirit of Fiume ’, he had declared, ‘ is
as wide as the earth. Wherever one of the oppressed sets
his teeth under the oppression, wherever a rebel keeps
watch, armed with a stick or a stone against machine-
guns and cannons, there shines the light of Fiume . . .
and force will be met with force . . . and the new
crusade of the poor and the free against the predatory
races and the tribe of usurers who yesterday exploited
war in order to exploit peace to-day, our nobilissima
crusade, will restore true justice.”

This resembled the revolutionary nationalism that the
genuine leaders in Moscow were preparing to exploit: the
congress of eastern peoples was held in Baku in September
1920. But the workers who had occupied the factories and
the peasants who were still occupying the land knew
nothing of d’Annunzio, and the sociahsts looked on the Fiume
episode merely as a grotesque adventure. Serrati, the editor
of Avanti, was astonished and quite shocked when Lenin
described d’Annunzio to him as a revolutionary. An Italian
maximalist could never recognize an ally, even a temporary
one, in the d’Annunzio, ‘ who has never hesitated to lead
the most dangerous forces in the service of a noble cause ’.
The more d’ Annunzio saw of the chaotic sta.te of the world,
the more he turned away from Itahan politics. Once more

88 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

the thread between Fiume and Rome was cut, only to be
joined again at Milan by Mussolini.

Since the General Confederation of Labour was involved
in the deadlock of the committee of workers and employers,
and the Fiume question was settled, Giolitti had nothing to
wait for but disruption in the ranks of the socialists in order
to complete his plan. At the end of 1920, the socialists
still had an imposing force at their disposal : one hundred
and fifty-six deputies in parliament, about a third of the
communes, more than a third of the provincial councils,
eight thousand co-operative societies, and two million
members of the General Confederation of Labour. How
could this force be used to make a real power in the policy
and destiny of the country ? Could the experience gained
during the occupations help the party towards a definite
goal at last ?

The time for ‘ direct and violent ’ seizure of power was
past. During recent events it had not been considered, and
Lenin himself did not think it possible. ‘ We do not want a
second Hungary ’, he declared. But he hoped the situation
would become more favourable, and he demanded the
expulsion of Turati and his friends from the Socialist Party.

‘ Expel the Reformists from the party and then support
a Turati government ’, he advised Serrati. But the Italian
maximalists could only carry out the first part of this plan,
and that only two years later. The campaign against the
‘ Reformists which led to the first split at Leghorn, made
the second part inapplicable. How could they drive out
Turati in the name of the struggle ‘ against all compromise ’
and then contemplate a fresh compromise with him ? The
result was a split which added a fresh difficulty to those
which already embarrassed the Socialist Party, namely the
communist question. The Socialist Party at the end of 1920
reckoned 4367 sections and 216,327 adherents. At the
Leghorn Congress in January 1921 the maximalists (centre
party) won a majority with 98,028 votes, the communists
were second with 58,183, while the right only obtained
14,625 votes. This split resulted in no increased freedom
of action for the tendencies it liberated. The communists
who led the party in September were as incapable as the

COUNTER-REVOLUTION 89

rest. A new party, they were driven to the left by immaturity
and the desire to be different. The maximalists, harassed
from the left by the communists, dared not face the situation,
and remained inactive between the two extreme tendencies,
still repeating the old refrain : ‘In the present situation,
as Serrati says, the only result of taking power would be that
the present responsibilities of the bourgeois would be trans¬
ferred to the socialists.’ Nor did the right-wing socialists,
at their conference at Reggio Emilia, dare to have the
courage of their conclusions, or indeed to arrive at any
conclusions. They even voted, without conviction,^ simply as
a political manoeuvre, for adhesion to the Third Inter¬
national, only claiming ‘ independence in their interpreta¬
tion of the twenty-one points and their application according
to conditions in each country The right wing was con¬
cerned with safeguarding the unity of the party and especially
that of the syndicates (bound to the party by the pact of
alliance), and consequently took refuge in a smoke-screen
of procedure. Each party was the slave of its own time-worn
slogans, regardless of the great change in the situation.
The old fear of responsibility, the same fundamental
insincerity which had prevented them from putting their
theories into practice, now prevented them from bringing
these theories down to the level of facts. The split was as
pointless as it was inevitable.

The economic situation continued to make inroads on
the strength of the syndicates, though there were signs of
approaching stability.

‘Just as a total economic breakdown in Italy seemed
inevitable ’, wrote Professor G. Mortara in his Prospettive
Econemiche, ‘ a concatenation of circumstances altered the
course of events. The return to normal conditions was
largely helped by the reduction in the factors of economic
disturbance. The price fall in the world market, the
control of the note issue and the progress towards exchange
stabilization checked the rise in the cost of living and
diminished its wide fluctuations. On the other hand
industrial depression, by causing a vast amount of unem¬
ployment which was aggravated by the slowing up of

go THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

emigration, prevented workers who still had jobs from

taking the risk of losing them.’

During the first quarter of 1921, the number of strikers,
compared with the same period in the preceding year, fell
from 493,914 to 148,796, and the number of working days
lost from 6,268,900 to 1,644,250, a decrease of about
77 per cent and 80 per cent. Mussolini remarked in an
article at the end of 1920 : ‘ Within the last three months
the psychology of the working-class masses has been pro¬
foundly modified.’ In February 1921 Giolitti managed to
do away with the control of the bread price, and the socialist
deputies who had turned Nitti out over this very question
only made a show of opposition, pleading ‘ apathy on the
part of the masses for this battle that had been fought in
their name ’.

I Fascism became stronger towards the end of 1920 and
1 particularly during the first half of 1921, when post-war
unrest had largely subsided and ‘ order ’ was being restored
by the combination of economic events and the decay of
\ the Socialist Party. The great fascist advance began in the
; Po valley and in Tuscany, where the landowners were at
I grips with the farm-labourers in the one and with the
■' mezzadri (share tenants) in the other. A decisive factor
dating from this period was a rush of country-folk to join
the fascists. In 1919 Mussolini had thought that the fasci
could only flourish in towns. ^ But towards the end of 1920
the landowners ‘ discovered ’ fascism, took it up and left
their mark on it. All their grudges and bitterness went into
it: ‘ The old spirit of hatred and mistrust of anyone who
wants a new distribution of the land has revived in the
landowners and wealthy peasants’, it was said: ‘The
enemy to-day is the organized wage-earner, as yesterday it
was the vagabond. Against him everything is permissible.’
In some places the proprietors had already built up fighting
organizations whose traditions and example influenced the
newly formed fasci. The clash soon reached a pitch of
extreme violence; it, was like a barbarian ‘ordeal’,
concluding a twenty years’ feud with a ‘judgment of God ’

LP. 37-

COUNTER-REVOLUTION QI

by which the victor took possession of the body and chattels
of the vanquished.

The Po country, where the clash took place, is highly
cultivated ground with a rich harvest yield. The work of
reclaiming the land from swamps, rushes and malaria had
been going on for centuries. This splendid work was
intensified towards the end of the nineteenth century thanks
to new technical processes, private capital, state loans and
the new conditions in the home market. The water was
drained off, leaving fertile alluvial land on which roads,
houses and plantations sprang up. The yield per hectare
was high : 17 quintals of corn as against 10, the average
elsewhere, and on the artificially developed land up to 25
and 30, sometimes even more. The cultivation of other
crops had been widely extended, such as hemp, and par¬
ticularly beetroot, with high profits guaranteed by tariffs
on sugar. This agricultural system and the industrial one
that developed beside it brought in a very good revenue,
of which both landowners and workers scrambled to get
all they could. But what was for the owners only a question
of extra profits was a matter of life and death to the workers.
The country was over-populated and the people had no
desire to emigrate ; after the war they could not. Conse¬
quently work had to be found on the spot, and since there was
only an average of 120 or 130 days’ work available for each
labourer it was essential for wages to be high enough to keep
off starvation during the rest of the year. After memorable
struggles which often broke out just before harvest time
and sometimes went on for months, the workers’ organiza¬
tions obtained that the hiring of labour should be done
through the local syndical employment office. Other
clauses, relating to the number of labourers employed per
hectare, threshing arrangements, direct exchange of services
between farmers, had the same end in view. Agreement was
often reached at the expense of the state, whose protective
policy kept up the price of agricultural produce and insti¬
tuted public works to absorb some of the labour. Such a
solution was not so easy just after the war when prices had
fallen and there was a general economic crisis. The struggle
for revenue grew into one for the ownership of capital, and

92 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

the landowners, who had always put up an obstinate
resistance, were less and less inclined to yield.

On the workers’ side the system was only possible with
strict discipline, even with the control over the employment
of labour. This combination of rules as meticulous and
as closely enforced as those of a medieval gild with a
highly advanced technique was not the least oddity of this
huge region. Anyone who did not join the peasants’ league,
who accepted lower wages and worked all the year round,
depleted the share of the others and was consequently
pitilessly harassed by them. The blackleg was boycotted,
refused bread by the baker, treated as an outcast with his
wife and children, until he gave in or left the district.
Penalties and fines were imposed on landowners who
employed him and broke the labour contract.

Such a system could only function if it was universal,
for any breach of its terms brought other workers to starva¬
tion. At the same time small farms were disapproved of
and their development hindered : not from any theoretical
objection, but because they were partly exempt from the
imponibile della mano d^opera^^ for the wealthy peasant or
small farmer and his families did not keep to the legal day
and made scarcely any use of the working shifts of the
wage-earners. Conditions on the plain favoured economic
development by large-scale enterprise where the labour
contract really functioned and could be more easily enforced.
After the war the peasants, who had heard much talk about
their ' right to the land and particularly the sons of small
owners and farmers, many of whom had risen from the
ranks, wanted to be independent and make their own way,
and this brought them up against the collective regulations.
The Federation of Agricultural Labourers engaged in long
strikes in which they forced the farmers znA mezzctdri to take
part. The latter were allowed to harvest half their crops,
the half which was their due, but the landlord’s share they
had to leave in the fields. However necessary or justifiable
such tactics might be, the sight of such wealth abandoned

^ The imponibile della mano dPpera means the obligation on the landowner
to^ employ a minimum of labourers per hectare, a minimum which varied
with the type of farm and the nature of the ground. The minimum was
fixed in the collective labour contract.

COUNTER-REVOLUTION 93

and often lost deeply wounded the peasants’ love of the land
and shocked even the hired labourers. Such methods were
resented by the public, who saw no reason in them, and
were only carried out by the strikers under compulsion and
with qualms of conscience. Gaps immediately began to
show in the ranks of the forces directed by the Federation,
and it was through these that the fascist offensive was able to
penetrate. Its monopoly made the red organization all-
powerful, but as soon as a group of labourers in any one
place succumbed to the temptation of being able to work all
the year round or of owning a patch of land, the land-
owners had won the day, since the system broke down and
there was nothing to stop the rout once it had begun. How
were the workers’ leagues to prevent it ? How were they to
re-establish their unity? The old tactics were no longer
effective against the attack of the landowners, having
nothing better to offer than one, two, three months spent
every year in a strike to ensure that everybody got his
allotted number of working days. The system could only
be saved by extending the old scramble for a share of the
inadequate revenue to an actual conquest of the ‘ land for
the peasants ’.

Some of the Federation leaders realized this, and at the
General Confederation of Labour congress in Febru^y
1921 a proposal for making a start with the ‘ socialization
of the land ’, drafted by the socialist deputy Piemonte, was
adopted. In each province an ‘agricultural community’
was to be set up, and all the land, except that of the small
proprietors, was gradually to pass into its hands. The
bodies administering this community were drawn exclusively
from the direct representatives of the agricultural labourers
and their associations. Their powers were very wide ; they
could order, through one of their officials, the expropriation
of a property and its transfer to the agricultural co-opera¬
tives. The proprietors were to receive as indemnity
securities bearing an interest of 3 cent, redeemable
after a maximum of fifty years. The state was to provide
the necessary hundreds of millions a year, for the purchase
and cultivation of the land. Everything was provided for,
as in Gennari’s and Bombacci’s plans for soviets.

94 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

It was the dream of Lassalle turned into a genuine bill
which the socialists were to introduce and support in the
Chamber. Consequently the agrarian revolution depended
on the governmental majority. But the socialists formed no
part of this majority and would not or could not approach
the government. Moreover the rapporteur, to defend himself
against criticism from the left, which denounced the bill for
‘ drugging revolutionary spirit ’ and for providing an expro¬
priation indemnity, took care to explain that the securities
given to the ex-proprietors ‘ can easily be kept in sight,
despite change of ownership, and confiscated when com¬
munism triumphant judges it opportune to tax them
further or to annul them ’. Since it was out of the question
for the Chamber to pass such a bill, the principles behind
it should at least have been used to compel further action
on the part of the masses, who were set on agrarian revolu¬
tion. But the bill had been drafted precisely to replace
direct pressure from the people by a gradual and legal
conquest; no means of enforcing it had been considered,
nor of attaining the same goal by different means in the event
of failure. Apart from this the bill, at least for the time being,
practically left out the peasants of the south, and made no
provision for the small proprietor, who could not add to his
portion, even if it were insufficient; while the farmers and
rmzzfldri had to give up all hope of owning their land, since
expropriation affected them equally with their landlords.
At best, if the act took effect during the agricultural year,
they would be left alone till the end of the year, then expelled
with no corresponding indemnity. Their only hope was to
become proletarian members of the agricultural co-operative,
formed by others, which was to work the land. This meant,
in the immediate future, complete loss of independence and
forfeiture of all their rights. So the bill succeeded in being
too revolutionary ever to get through parliament, while
it left out of the revolution, and even forced into opposition,
millions of peasant families, the great majority of Italy’s
rural population.

Out of 280 communes in Emilia 223 were in socialist
hands. The landowners, living in town or country, with
their sons, their friends, their contractors, and their cus-

COUNTER-REVOLUTION

95

tomers were impotent before the all-powerful workers’
syndicates. In the country the prizes and distinctions of
public life were almost entirely denied to the whole bourgeoisie,
and also to members of the lower middle class who were not
members of the socialist organizations. The country
landowner who for years had been cock of the walk, head
of the commune, manager of all local and provincial bodies,
was ousted from all of them. On the land he had to reckon
with the ‘ League ’ and the employment ofhce, in the
market with the socialist co-operative society which fixed
■ prices, in the commune with the red list, which won crushing
majorities. Profit, position, power, were lost to him and his
children. Hatred and bitterness were welling up, ready at
any moment to overflow. Some of the Chambers of Labour,
as at Bologna, Reggio Emilia, Ravenna, exercised complete
control over the economic life of their province. They had
organized the labourers, the small-holders, and the tenant
farmers ; they flxed the price of the goods which they
distributed throughout many communes by means of their
network of co-operatives. Landowners, shopkeepers, con¬
tractors, and middlemen of all kinds found their positions
being daily sapped by the co-operative and municipal
socialist movement. This was why their hatred was chiefly
directed against the admirable conversion schemes which
the workers’ organizations introduced and worked success¬
fully eveiywhere. ‘ The man we fear most ’, as a great
landowner of the province of Ravenna said, ‘ is not the
communist Bombacci, but Nullo Baldini, who, with his
Co-operative Federation, is cutting us out everywhere.’
For this reason also fascist violence was chiefly directed
against the institutions set up by reformist socialism. These
institutions were spreading, and little by little were monopo¬
lizing the entire economic and political life of their districts.
The old ruling classes felt that they were being swept
away to make room for the new social structure. The success
of socialist enterprise reminded them daily : vitd nucl, mors
tua ; and faced with this dilemma, clinging desperately to
life, the condemned classes reached by the same logic the
conclusion, mors tua, vita mea.

In the country the socialists had always been opposed by

96 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

the great landowners ; now they were losing their grip on
the smaller fry, whose sons, just back from the war, wanted
to run their own concerns. In the towns, too, they were
losing the support of this class, who after waiting in vain
for some time for the socialists to ‘ do something ’, were
beginning to have their doubts, while the old animosity
between the black-coated worker and the man in shirt¬
sleeves, no longer restrained by their common hopes, flared
up again. In addition, the party’s attitude towards the
returned soldiers was inspired by purely sectarian motives.
The ‘ Proletarian League of Ex-servicemen ’ which it had
created in 1919 was merely a branch of the party, and
indeed of the maximalist section which dominated it. Its
aim was to prevent ex-servicemen from being ‘ led by govern¬
ment concessions into the path of collaboration and
compromise ’. Its political aims were identical with those
of the party : preparation for social revolution, soviets, the
dictatorship of the proletariat. The General Confederation
of Labour included in its programme an ample list of claims
on behalf of the ex-servicemen, but the party postponed all
this to a later date. How could the ex-servicemen confide
their interests to a party which publicly recommended to its
branched ‘ the greatest strictness in the admission of old and
new members ’, because it ‘ considered the membership of
all those who had given practical support to the war as
incompatible with socialism’? In this case, as was remarked
by one ex-serviceman, ‘the cry “down with the war”
practically amounts to “ down with the soldiers ” ’.

There were hundreds of thousands of ex-soldiers in Italy,
without any special political views, who had gone to the
war very young and brought back with them nothing but the
memory of their sufferings and their adventures. Why
should they turn their backs on such memories when the
socialists could give them nothing in exchange? What
crime had they committed to turn everyone against them ?

‘ If it is a lie or a piece of sectarian exaggeration wrote
another ex-soldier, ‘ that the demobilized soldiers have been
constantly attacked and abused, it is at least indisputable
that we have been shunned, spied on, mistrusted, treated
as if we were plague-stricken.’ Mussolini was quick to

GOUNTER-REVOLUTIO.N 97

realize the chance offered by the blindness of his enemies.

‘ The socialists are making a mistake he said, ‘ if they
believe that those who really fought, that is two or three
million Italians, are going to turn round as soon as peace
comes and spit on the war in which they fought/ On the
contrary, as time went on, and no prospects were offered
them, they forgot their suffering, idealized the past, and
championed the Victory’ they had won. This state of
mind prevailed especially among the officers, that is to say
nearly all those members of the middle classes who had taken
part in the war.

A careful study of the newspapers of the period shows that
attacks on officers were comparatively rare. The most
serious were reprisals for attacks by nationalist or fascist
officers on socialist deputies in the streets of Rome. But it
would be a mistake to draw conclusions from statistics of
this kind. When one officer was booed or beaten up, they
all shared his humiliation, and the results of the insult were
exaggerated by their over-sensitive nerves. The bourgeois
press would take care to rub in the insult, inventing the
most contemptible lies in order to distort the incident and
stir up hatred, just as it did in France with its description of
a ‘ red ’ spitting on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Moreover, after autumn 1920 the state began to exploit
this mentality for its own reactionary ends. Some time ago a
colonel had been sent by the war office to travel through
Italy, build up groups of officers, and maintain connections
between them, and pass the word to divisional commanders.
His report, published a year later, already provided a
detailed plan for the anti-socialist offensive and a pretty
accurate analysis of the strength and particularly the
weakness of the movement they had to deal with.

According to this Colonel A. R., in order to combat
subversive influences in the army, the authorities ought to
shorten the term of compulsory service and create ^ a solid
framework of long-service officers and non-commissioned
officers, well paid and carefully chosen on a volunteer basis k
Since this professional army would not be enough :

‘ We must add to our conscript army and the 250,000

mercenaries which we shall soon possess a militia of
7

gS THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

idealists, consisting of the most expert, brave, strong
and warlike from amongst us to support and control their
action. This militia must be capable of being used both
for defensive action and for political purposes, and must
be able at this critical pei'iod to put fresh blood and life
into the national forces and lead them to victory.’

The report insists that such a movement should be under
the direction of a special staff formed of political as well as
military elements, and goes on to give technical advice :

‘ Form squadrons, companies and battalions, or at any
rate their framework, which responsible members of our
class must be made to join.’ In this way a progressive
training could be given to the inexperienced.

‘ Minor engagements with the object of chastising the
insolence of the more subversive centres will give a fine
schooling to our militia and serve to break up and
demoralize the enemy at the same time. But care must
always be taken to have one or more bases as starting
points and as centres for concentrating our resources.
These bases must be at a reasonable distance from the
place where the blow is to be struck, so that it is possible
to return to them without arousing suspicion and to
reorganize there in the event of a temporary set-back.
This is the procedure to be followed when local punitive
action is undertaken.’

i Here is another glimpse of the adversary’s forces at a time
i when the decline of the socialist movement had begun,
but was not yet evident:

‘ Discontented and revolutionary-minded people are
not capable of organization. They act in heterogeneous
masses under the impulse of passing emotion. The arms
in their possession are scarce and unevenly distributed.
They have no organized bodies capable of making use
of them. Their equipment is necessarily inadequate,
particularly for prolonged resistance. The political
groups that help to keep up mass excitement possess
clever and courageous men, but these are interspersed
with senseless braggarts, and they all have a very limited

COUNTER-REVOLUTION 99

grasp of tactics, the use of arms, discipline, co-operation,
and even action itself. The very conditions of life of these
subversive elements allow them only extremely limited
resources ; any attempt at co-ordinated preparation
remains local, or at best extends to the district. . . . Long
and far-sighted preparation is impossible for them.
The more fanatical meet together, spur each other on,
choose leaders, issue instructions ; most of the others
remain undecided, passive, without initiative. Hypno¬
tized by noise and crowds they delude themselves as to
their strength and their prospects. Their first reverse
will be followed by disillusion and disorder.’

This sketch of the situation was made before the working-
class movement had suffered the collapse which followed
the occupation of the factories. By this time the danger of a
popular insurrection, already discounted in the report, had
totally disappeared, and it was no longer necessary to carry
out in its entirety the programme of Colonel A. R., ‘ military
expert in civil war ’. But the government did not remain
inactive. On October 20 Giolitti’s minister of war, Bonomi,
the former socialist, whom Mussolini himself had expelled
from the Socialist Party in 1912, sent out a circular,^
announcing that officers in course of being demobilized
(about 60,000) were to be sent to the chief centres with
orders to join the Fasci di Combattimento, which they were to
control and staff, and for this they would receive four-fifths
of their present pay. In this way the fasci themselves would
be enabled to carry out the part of Colonel A. R.’s pro¬
gramme referring to ‘ local punitive expeditions ’, and later
on to go to further lengths, since they were assured of the
effective and indispensable aid of the state.

The contest soon became too much for the socialists, as
was shown by events in Bologna on November 21, 1920.
Here, at the municipal elections, the socialist list, mainly
composed of extreme left-wing elements, obtained 18,170
votes, against 7,985 for the national bloc, and 4,694 for the
Popolari. This was on a basis of universal suffrage, and the

^ Later Bonomi denied having taken this_ step and complained that he
had been ‘ betrayed ’ by the military authorities.

I'OO THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

victory, even allowing for a great number of abstentions,
was decisive. The local fascists were furious at this defeat
and gave out that they would prevent the socialist adminis¬
tration from functioning. The day before the installation
of the Council they posted up typed notices announcing
battle for the next day and asking women and children to
keep well away from the centre of the city, where the town
hall, the Palazzo d’Accursio, was situated.

The victors had been elected by an enormous majority of
the population, but what were they to do ? Appeal to the
prefect or the state to have their mandate respected and its
result enforced ? Had anyone dared to suggest it he would
have been howled down as a traitor by the crowd of wind¬
bags who lost their heads at the first shot fired by the fascists.
Since the state was nothing but the ^ executive committee
of the bourgeoisie ' nothing could be expected of it. In point
of fact socialist deputies and mayors, besides secretaries of
syndicates and Chambers of Labour, spent quite a lot of time
at ministries and prefectures, asking for all sorts of things :
the concession of public works, credit for co-operatives,
nomination or dismissal of officials, even orders of knighthood.
Such demands were apparently venial or at any rate not
against their principles. But how could they ask for state
intervention for the defence of a municipality and the
enforcement of respect for democratic institutions, in the very
town where a year ago the Socialist Party Congress had
declared that these institutions must be abolished, and where
the party branch was dominated by communists ? There
were actually negotiations between the Chamber of Labour
and the authorities, which ended in a vague compromise,
an undertaking being apparently given not to hoist the red
flag. But at party headquarters it was decided : We will
defend ourselves against the fascists Cases of bombs were
brought to the Palazzo and revolvers distributed; but the job
was left to inexperienced hands and^ as so often happens, to
agents provocateurs. At the ceremony of installation the com¬
munist Gnudi, after being named mayor by the council,
stepped on to the balcony, surrounded by party flags, to greet
the crowd collected in the square. Pigeons were released
with red streamers attached to their tails* It was maximalist

COUNTER-REVOLUTION

lOI

Bologna’s greatest moment. When the new mayor appeared
the crowd burst into cheers, but the fascists who were lined
up, armed, at the corners of the square, opened fire. Panic
followed, and on the town hall balcony those entrusted with
the ‘ defence ’ dropped their bombs. Fascist revolvers and
municipal bombs accounted for nine dead and a hundred
wounded, all socialists or sympathizers. Indoors the reports
and explosions spread panic and rage. From the public
balcony revolver shots were fired at the minority benches,
mortally wounding Giordani, lawyer, ex-soldier, nationalist
and freemason, and one of the most pacific amongst the
opponents of the new administration.

The events of the Palazzo d’Accursio precipitated in
Bologna, Emilia, and throughout Italy an outburst of
accumulated hate and violence. The dead body of Giordani
was exploited to the point of hysteria, while the provocation
of the fascists, the illegality of arming against a properly
elected administration, and the nine dead socialists were
forgotten. Nothing was remembered but the ex-soldier with
a heroic war record, ‘ killed in a trap ’ by the ‘ anti¬
nationalists ’. Hatred separated the two camps ; waverers
kept off or joined the fascists. The socialists, incapable alike
of profiting by legal or organizing illegal methods, found
themselves up against both fascist squads and state forces.
The era of violence, reprisals, and ‘ punitive expeditions ’
had begun.

In December a clash took place in rather similar circum¬
stances near the Gastello Estense in Ferrara, with the same
effect on public opinion. In the province of Ferrara, how¬
ever, another factor contributed to the success of fascism.
Here, at the beginning of 1921, took place the first great
reverse which was to lead to the total collapse of the
organized working-class movement. This province was the
electoral home of revolutionary and anti-socialist syndicalism.
Between 1907 and 1913 there had been a succession of violent
agricultural strikes under the leadership of Umberto
Pasella, future secretary-general of the jasci, Michele Bianchi,
future qtiadrumvir of the march on Rome, and others, nearly
all of whom went over to fascist syndicalism. If the
employers’ resistance were prolonged they knew how to

102

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

deal with it, for the crops of a recalcitrant landlord could be
destroyed, they explained, with a single match h The
country-folk of this province had always been the easy prey
of demagogues and of Mussolini’s friends and colleagues.
Socialist propaganda had never made much impression on
them, which explains why the district was first to give way
to fascist pressure. With a fine instinct for local feeling the
fascists adopted as their slogan here : ‘ The land for those
who till it without waiting for future socialization. The
Agrarian Association let itself be persuaded into leasing
several thousand hectares direct to individual workers, who
thus escaped their quota of labour service. Generally
speaking the land was poor, and not much of it was ceded.
These ^ Potemkin villages ’ only served to enhance the
poverty of most of the wage-earners of the province, but the
fascists could now say : You see, the socialists promised
you everything and gave you nothing ; they even prevented
you from having your own land to farm. The/^zi'rz have set
up hundreds of families who can farm their own land all
the year round.’ The country-folk were rallied by this
single word of hope, after being frightened by the punitive
expeditions. The peasant ‘ leagues no longer under the
protection of the traditional system, went over in a block to
the fascist syndicates, to join the struggle against ' socialist
tyranny ’. The first fascist syndicate was created on
February 25, 1921, in the commune of San Bartolomeo of
Bosco, in the province of Ferrara, at the headquarters in
the old socialist Lega^ The co-operatives soon followed the
syndicates, while lorry-loads of blackshirts touring the
country forcibly dissolved the local socialist administrations.
In November 1920 all twenty-one communes of the province
had been won by the socialists ; towards the end of April
1921 only four were left, and it was not long before these
were dissolved or forced to resign.

By the end of 1920 the fascists were making habitual use
of ‘ punitive expeditions ’ to extend their influence. These
were employed on a large scale in Julian Venetia, where the
fascist groups were openly supported by the local authorities,

^ The Lega the farm labourers’ syndicate in each district; these
tended to be socialist.

COUNTER-REVOLUTION IO 3

and where the struggle against ^ bolshevism ’—i.e. against
Workers’ Co-operatives, Sickness Funds and Culture Clubs,
inherited from Austrian Socialism—was accompanied by a
violent oppression of the Slovene and Croat populations.
The headquarters of the Slovene associations in Trieste was
set on fire in July 1920, and in October the socialist daily,
II Lavoratore^ was attacked, and the Chamber of Labour in
Fiume destroyed. This form of action, while it was intensi¬
fied in Julian Venetia, where it drew much support from
nationalist aspirations, spread into the Po valley, where it
acquired the characteristics which were dominant up to the
time of the march on Rome. In the Po valley, the towns
were on the whole less red than the country, being full of
landowners, garrison officers, university students, officials,
rentiers^ professional men, and tradespeople. These were the
classes from which fascism drew its recruits and which
officered the first armed squads. Thus an expedition would
usually set out into the country from some urban centre.
With arms provided by the Agrarian Association or by some
regimental stores, the blackshirts would ride to their destina¬
tion in lorries. When they arrived they began by beating
up any passer-by who did not take off his hat to the colours,
or who was wearing a red tie, handkerchief, or shirt. If
anyone protested or tried to defend himself, if a fascist was
roughly treated or wounded, the ^ punishment ’ was intensi¬
fied. They would rush to the buildings of the Chamber of
Labour, the Syndicate, or the Co-operative, or to the
People’s House, break down the doors, hurl out furniture,
books, or stores into the street, pour petrol over them, and
in a few moments there would be a blaze. Anyone found on
the premises would be severely beaten or killed, and the
flags were burnt or carried off as trophies.

The expedition usually had a definite object, which was
to ^ clean up ’ a neighbourhood. They would then draw up
at once outside the headquarters of the red organization
and destroy it. Groups of fascists would round up the
‘ leaders ’, mayors, and town councillors, the secretary of the
Vleague ’, or the president of the co-operative. These were
forced to resign and banished for ever from the district,
under pain of death or the destruction of their houses. If

104 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

they escaped vengeance was taken on their families.
‘ Punitive expeditions set out every day’, says Chiurco in his
History of the Fascist Revolution.^ ‘ The lorry load of fascists
arrives in a given district, and they announce themselves
to the head of the League. They begin with a discussion ;
then either the head of the League gives way or persuasion is
followed by violence. He generally does give way. If not,
the revolvers have their say.’ If he still resisted he was done
away with. They would come to his house at night and
trick him into coming out ; as soon as he opened the door
they would shoot him down on his own doorstep. Such
people would often let themselves be taken away in order
to spare their families the tragic sight. Next morning they
would be found dead in the field to which the fascists had
brought them. Sometimes the fascists amused themselves
by taking away their victims in a lorry and, after torturing
them, leaving them naked, tied to a tree, hundreds of miles
away. To maintain the terror they used to send out and
publish all kinds of threats and orders, without the slightest
sign of interference from the magistrates or the government.
Thus the Marquis Dino Perrone Compagni^ could with
impunity send the following letter, in April 1921, to the
mayor of a village in Tuscany :

‘ Sir, Since Italy must belong to the Italians and
cannot therefore permit herself to be governed by people
of your sort, speaking for your fellow-citizens who are
under your administration I advise you to resign your
office of mayor before Sunday, April 17. If you refuse,
you alone are responsible for the consequences. If you
take it upon yourself to draw the attention of the authori¬
ties to this generous, kindly and humane advice your time
allowance will expire before Wednesday the 13th—a

^ This History, from which we shall make frequent quotations, deals with

the <^ents of 1919-223 is an * ofRcial ’ work compiled under the auspices of
the Government Press Bureau and published in 1929 with a preface by
Mussolim, ^ ,

This man ^had under him squadrons consisting of disgruntled patriots
side by side with rogues and professional criminals. ‘A century earlier \
writes Pietro Nenni in his Six Tears of Civil War in Italy^ * the noble marquis
would have been a famous brigand. In the post-war period he became a
deiender of ordei in the service of the landowners. The fascist government
made him a prefect.^

COUNTER-REVOLUTION „ I05

lucky number. Signed, Dino Perrone Compagni, i Piazza

Ottaviani, Florence.’

The author signed his own name, on paper stamped with
the fascio^ and added his private address, quite certain that
there would be no interference with him and his friends and
no official veto on the proposed expedition.

During the first weeks of 1921 the fascist offensive reached
its highest pitch of violence and ferocity. The meaning of
the events of this period cannot be grasped without a clear
realization of how this phenomenon broke out and of the
wideness of its territorial distribution. In Julian Venetia
the offensive was complicated and intensified by a struggle
against the outlanders ’ who made up almost the entire
population of the country districts and the Carso plateau.
Here the role of the fasci was almost official, for they
represented the Italianization that was to be imposed on
peoples and administration ; the police force and the army
openly co-operated with them. They had in addition the
money and the support of the shipowners who wanted a firm
hand kept on the workers in the numerous building-yards
from Trieste to Pola, and on the miners’ unions of the Carso.
In the southern, most fertile zone of Istria, the landowners
took the offensive. The whole of this district, whose long-
discussed frontiers had only just been fixed and where the
Fiume question was still an open one, was still mobilized.
There was no contact between the Slav population and its
landowning rulers, and except in one or two towns the
Italians felt they were in occupied territory. The fasci were
largely composed of garrison officers, officials, and other
elements imported from the peninsula, who carried on the
war of ‘ liberation ’ against the Slavs and the ‘^ communists.’
Working-class institutions, priests who preached in Slovene
and villages where the police were the only Italian inhabitants
were the objectives of this war.

The fascists had already,^ in 1920, attacked the socialist
newspaper and the headquarters of the Slav organizations
in Trieste, and at the beginning of 1921 they did so again
and again. The Lavoratore, Socialist Party organ, which had
1 Pp. 102, 103.

I06 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

been forcibly seized by the communists on January 29 after
the rupture at the Congress of Leghorn, was set on fire by
the fascists for the second time on February 9. The workers,
as usual, replied with a general strike. But the ‘ work of
systematic destruction of everything bolshevik began, with
open state assistance, in the country district of Istria, which
stretches along the coast from Pirano to Pola. Thus, ‘ on
the evening of January 20, by arrangement with the garrison
troops, an attack was made on the Chamber of Labour at
Dignano On February 28 the Trieste Chamber of Labour
was attacked for the third time and entirely destroyed. To
avenge the burning of the Chamber of Labour, the workers
at Muggia, near Trieste, fired the shipyards of San Marco.
These too were destroyed.

‘ Troops of the Sassari brigade were then called in to
fight the rebels and a fascist aeroplane from the Portorosa
flying school flew to the scene of the disturbance. During
the night of March i the fascists of Trieste and Upper
Istria massed in Pirano, seized a ship and went to Muggia.
The vessel drew near, with masked lights, and the fascists
landed and set fire to the Chamber of Labour, which was
completely destroyed.’

At the beginning of April serious incidents took place in
the Carnizza district, south of Istria. A fascist squad from
Dignano arrested and removed a Slav innkeeper. This
arbitrary act caused a revolt. The tocsin was sounded in
the neighbouring villages, peasants hurried to the spot and
the fascist gang was forced to retreat towards Carnizza with
its prisoner. There it was besieged, while soldiers, police,
and fascists were mobilized and a desperate fight took place,
under real war conditions, with barbed-wire and machine-
guns. This guerrilla war lasted several days, until finally
the forces of ‘ order ’ prevailed. ‘ The rebel populations
were driven from their villages, which were destroyed by
fire, and the districts of Segotti, Vareschi, Zuechi, and
Mormorano were devastated either by fire or battle.’ The
struggle was prolonged in the Arsa (Albona) mines, where

^ In this section on the territorial distribution of the movement, quoted
passages where no reference is given are from Chiurco’s History of the Fascist
Revolutionoh 111,

COUNTER-REVOLUTION IO7

the workers were on strike and under arms. The military
authorities decided to occupy the district, and attacked it
by land and sea. After a few skirmishes the miners’ resis¬
tance was overcome. The fighting had given the fascist
squads a chance to perfect their organization and equipment,
and from now on they carried out a ^ systematic destruction ’
of all working-class institutions, syndical, co-operative, or
cultural. All the ‘ Culture Clubs ’ in the suburbs and
neighbourhood of Trieste were destroyed. A few weeks
later a socialist paper summed up this campaign as follows :

^ Out of dozens and dozens of Chambers of Labour and
People’s Houses, only three or four still exist, of which two,
at Trieste and Pola, are carrying on in temporary premises
or even in the ruins of their buildings. Of a hundred
Culture Clubs not one survives.’

In the Po valley agrarian fascism, supported by storm
squadrons raised in the towns of the district, was in full
swing. After the events at the Palazzo d’Accursio in
Bologna and at the Castello Estense in Ferrara,^ a period
of desperate tension broke out into a storm of punitive
expeditions. On January 24 a fascist procession in Modena
was fired on and two squadristi killed, one of whom belonged
to a squadron brought over from Bologna for the occasion.
The Chambers of Labour at Modena and Bologna were
immediately set on fire. The Minister of the Interior—
Giolitti—ordered the cancellation of all licences to bear
arms in the provinces of Bologna, Modena, and Ferrara.
Mussolini protested violently in the Popolo d'Italia against
this measure. At Bologna and Ferrara ih&fasci^ the liberal
associations, and the employers’ organizations decided
to refuse to give up their arms. At Modena: ‘The
representatives of he local associations of Soldiers on
Leave, the Ex-servicemen, the Fasci di Combattimento^
State Pensioners, the Order and Liberty Association, the
Popolari, the liberal-democratic group, the Liberal Party,
the Sportsmen’s Society, the provincial Agrarian Associa¬
tion, the Association of Traders and Manufacturers,
associated themselves with the resolution passed by the
associations at Bologna and Ferrara, refused to recognize
^ Pp. 99 ff. and loi.

I08 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

the constitutionality of the ministerial decree or the legality
of the prefectorial order and demanded of the government
instant withdrawal of the decree, failing which they were
ready to resist. Meanwhile they advised citizens not to
surrender their arms.’ At Ferrara the fascio ordered
and secured the closing down of all shops and factories
as a protest, and a general lock-out in the three
provinces was expected. The decrees were not with¬
drawn, but_ a week later at Bologna the ‘ Committee of
Action against Disarmament ’ was able to report with
satisfaction on the small numbers of those who had yielded
up their arms. The most determined opponents of pacifica¬
tion were the landowners, principal instigators and gainers
by the fascist offensive.

In the province of Bologna raids and acts of terrorism
increased, particularly after the meeting of the fascist
provincial congress (April 3), which was celebrated by the
destruction of numerous workers’ and socialist clubs in the
capital. In the province of Ferrara, operations on a grand
scale began earlier, at the beginning of March, and reached
a peak in May, when the expeditions became ‘ innumerable ’,
there were so many, says the fascist historian, that ‘ one could
no longer keep count: leagues, organizations, all were
overthrown.’ On May 26 Italo Balbo, who had planned and
directed all the expeditions without any interference from
the local authorities, was arrested at Ferrara for being
found in possession of a revolver. ‘ As soon as the news
became known the town was in a ferment. Columns
of fascists roused the population with patriotic songs,
while the bells of the principal churches sounded
the tocsin. At one o’clock in the morning the
Gastello Estense was besieged by the fascists, who had
mobilized, rounded up their country squadrons and
threatened to occupy it. The authorities were forced to
free Balbo and he was presented by public subscription
with a new weapon to replace the confiscated one.’ Two
months earlier Arpinati, the leader of the action squadrons
in Bologna, accused of having committed several murders
and other acts of violence, had been set free three
days later after similar demonstrations.

COUNTER-REVOLUTION IO9

In the province of Mantua, which had enjoyed peace
since the tragic days of December 1919/ the landowners
took advantage of the fascist advance to attack the agri¬
cultural labour agreement. In Mantua itself the confederate
Chamber of Labour and the People’s University were
destroyed on April 20, and next day, with the aid of fascists
who drove up in lorries from the country, the syndical
Chamber of Labour, the Railwaymen’s Club, and the flat
of the socialist deputy Dugoni suffered the same fate. The
Agrarian Association announced that in future work would
only be given to those on the fascist register. Punitive
expeditions wiped out leagues, co-operatives, workers’
associations, special attention being paid to league leaders
and their homes. At San Giovanni del Dosso, after the
suppression of the league, wages were reduced and hours of
work raised from eight to ten a day. It was impossible to
get into the country without a fascist pass. At Buscoldo a
lorry drew up one night outside the local co-operative club,
a handsome building of which the workers were very proud.
Darkness had already fallen. The fascists rushed in,
shouting : ‘ Down with the king. Long live d’Annunzio.’
Some guarded the main entrance, others entered the cafe ;
with eyes glaring and faces distorted they shouted : ' Hands
up.’ The workers present, who were playing cards or reading
newspapers, obeyed. They were searched, without so much
as a penknife being found. The fascists, revolver in hand'5
forced them to leave, one by one. At the door others lay in
wait for them with daggers and bludgeons. The workers
all had to run the gauntlet. Blows were rained on their
heads and shoulders and they were stabbed in the back.
Thirty-eight were thus stabbed, including old men, three
disabled soldiers, and a fourteen-year-old child. After this
the fascists ransacked the building, broke up the furniture,
and destroyed the registers. At a blast from a whistle they
got back into their lorry, after emptying the till, and
disappeared into the night.

The tradespeople hated the co-operatives as much as the
landowners hated the ^ leagues ’. At Ostiglia, an important
provincial centre, there was a flourishing co-operative store

^P.69.

no THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

in one of the little town’s most beautiful buildings, containing
its most popular cafe. The fascist executive stepped in and
announced their decision : ‘ The management of the

co-operative are invited to go into liquidation and dispose
of their property before the end of May ; for shopkeepers
have the right to carry on their trade without being crippled
by the co-operative.’ The management with some difficulty
secured a month’s reprieve, but had to carry out the fascist
decree before the end of June.

The successful preaching and practice over a long period
of Prampolini’s ‘ evangelical ’ socialism could not avail to
save Reggio Emilia and its province from the fascist afflic¬
tion. At Reggio the socialist municipality had organized,
with undeniable success and to the great benefit of the
population, pharmaceutical services, the distribution of
milk and meat and the provision of bread ; while it either
ran or controlled numerous food-shops, restaurants, and
a flour-mill. In the province agricultural co-operatives
farmed 2227 hectares, and there were in 1920 eighty-six
co-operative stores with 16,800 members and a turnover of
more than 53,000,000 lire. It was a new social system of
production and distribution, and it found itself up against
a coalition of all those whose private interests it affected.
After the middle of March, to quote Chiurco again : ‘ The
fascists were in the ascendant and the red organizations,
attacked and plundered, began to decline.’ The Reggio
Chamber of Labour was set on fire on April 8, and by the
middle of May many leagues and syndical employment
offices had suffered the same fate ; sixteen socialist muni¬
cipal councils, including that of Reggio, had been forced to
resign, several hundreds of workers had been savagely
beaten up and dozens of socialist officials banished from the
province by the fascists. During April the People’s Houses in
Salsomaggiore and Borgo San Donnino among others in the
province of Parma were burnt down. In the town of Parma,
where resistance to fascism was strong, the People’s House
belonging to the Syndical Union was sacked. A few shots
were exchanged on April 19. The next day a general strike
was declared and the police arranged to arrest a large
number of ‘ subversive ’ persons and confiscate the arms

COUNTER-REVOLUTION

III

they used in the defence of their organizations. The fascists
thought their way was open and advanced to the attack ;
but the workers resisted : ‘ They fought a real battle in the
outskirts of Naviglio and sent a rain of tiles on to their
attackers from the roofs ; armoured cars joined in, bombs
exploded, and there were several wounded.’ Next day
there was another police round-up to arrest and disarm those
who had tried to resist the fascist attack. On April 23, the
date of the inauguration of thcirfascio, a squadron of former
Fiume legionaries, preceded by carabiniers with revolvers
in their hands, attacked and broke up the vine-producers’
co-operative at Piacenza. In a few weeks all the towns along
the old Via Aemilia were subjected to the fascist reign of
terror.

Firmly installed in the Bologna-Ferrara-Piacenza triangle,
the fascist squads also conquered the provinces of Rovigo
in the north-east and of Pavia in the north-west. In the
province of Rovigo—Polesine—there was no sort of bol¬
shevism to be suppressed. Social disputes had always been
settled peacefully. The local socialist leader was Giacomo
Matteotti, by conviction and inclination a reformist, in the
best sense of the word. On February 28 the old agricultural
agreement expired, and the labourers’ organizations
suggested starting negotiations for a new one. The land-
owners, inspired by recent events in the Po valley and
Ferrara, decided to take the opportunity of ridding them¬
selves of the leagues, employment offices, and all forms of
workers’ organization, and refused. Expeditions with
nothing to ^ punish ’ but the very existence of a body of
working men who had emerged from a state of ignorance
and serfdom began to increase towards the end of February,
immediately reaching an unheard-of degree of violence.
Matteotti and the Chambers of Labour gave the order :

‘ Stay at home ; ignore all provocation. Even silence and
cowardice are sometimes heroic.’^ This attitude was quite
ineffective against the fascist squads touring the country in
lorries provided by the landowners or borrowed from the
Cereal Requisition Board, which had the services of the army
at its disposal. The league offices were closed down or

^ See Matteotti’s speech in the Chamber on March 10, 1921.

II 2 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

destroyed, and socialist town councils forced to resign.
The town council of Occhiobelli, for instance, one of the
first districts to be influenced by socialist propaganda, had
to relinquish its mandate, although it hacl been elected in
November 1920 by 1100 votes to 160 for all other parties.
Its retirement did not save this commune from more
expeditions. On May i the Chamber of Labour and the
co-operative were set on fire by fascists who appeared in
lorries from every direction. ‘ More and more Chambers of
Labour and other organizations were destroyed daily,’ says
Ghiurco. The fascist squads could be proucl of their work
for not a single syndical or co-operative organization was
left, dozens of people had been killed, between four and
five thousand wounded or tortured, more than a thousand
private houses had been broken into, more than three hun¬
dred sacked and burnt. The landowners had won. Matteotti
stated as much in another speech to the Chamber : ‘ The
whole tenor of civil life is destroyed, each Com¬
mune is isolated from the next, each labourer from his
neighbour, the agrarian war is lost. One by one the
peasants are asking for work, and the Rovigo Chamber of
Labour whose buildings are already in ruins is to be
dissolved at the beginning of April.’

From Ferrara and Polesine the tide swept over Venetia.
Between February and May the Chambers of Labour in
Vicenza, Padua, Belluno, and Udine, the provincial
capitals, as well as in less important centres, were destroyed.
As elsewhere expeditions became more and more like
proper military operations. On April 10 for example there
was a ‘punitive expedition on a grand scale’ in Mossano
(Vicenza). ‘ About four hundred fascists, who had come
specially from Vicenza, Montegaldello, Poiana, and Noventa,
collected here. They invaded the district from all sides at
once, dealing out fire and blood. Seven houses were
attacked and their contents destroyed or burnt, some being
set on fire. Many bastinadoes were administered/^ On
April 24 another similar expedition took place at Poiana,
The fascists arrived in six lorries, occupied the red co-

repainded that all passages in inverted commas are

quoted from Chiurco’s

COUNTER-REVOLUTION II3

operative and the theatre, kidnapped the socialist assessors
and councillors from their houses and punished them
severely. The police drove the fascists off,’ but they came
back five days later : ‘ On the 29th a lorry-load of fascists
arrived and cut the telephone-wires to prevent possible
interruption. The mayor was beaten up and his house set
on fire.’ On May 10 the Udine fascists made an expedition
in lorries to Pordenone. They were met with revolver shots
and bombs ; one of them, an eighteen year old student
who had been a Fiume legionary, was killed, and others were
wounded. ‘ The fascists received substantial reinforcements
from neighbouring districts and forced the revolutionaries to
retreat to the Torre country, where they were beleaguered.
Machine-guns and even a field-gun were brought into
action. Troops from the Udine garrison intervened on the
side of the fascists and the bolshevik fortress was stormed.’
The engagement was prolonged thanks to the arrival of
squads from Vittorio Veneto, Friuli, Venice, and Trieste.

‘ For the next few days the work of cleaning up the country¬
side, under the direction of Signor Giunta (leader of the
Trieste/ai'czo) went on ; they destroyed red (socialist) and
black (popular Catholic) headquarters, made arrests and
carried out searches.’ In these provinces the land occupied
by fascism touched on the east Julian Venetia, already under
its domination, and on the west the Trentino and Tyrol,
which on the other hand resisted up to the eve of the
march on Rome.

The province of Pavia, which lies between Emilia and
Piedmont, is entirely agricultural. The Mortara section—
the Lomellina—forms part of the rice-growing district which
covers the whole plain of the province of Novara. Here
there was, if possible, an even closer connection than in other
provinces between the growth of fascism and the struggle
between landowners and ‘ red syndicates ’ and their em¬
ployment offices. The socialists had gained forty-five out
of fifty communes in the November elections and all fourteen
seats in the provincial council. The manufacturers of
Mortara, who included big war profiteers and two multi¬
millionaires, had hired, before the elections had even begun,
gangs of armed roughs who for forty francs a day terrorized

II 4 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

the town. Th.c fascia was formed in February 1921, chiefly
by people from other districts, a demobilized colonel, a
student from Pavia (Lanfranconi, afterwards one of the
first fascist deputies), and various other declasses, who were
all welcomed with open arms and financed by manufacturers
and landowners alike. As in Polesine the agricultural
labour agreements were due to expire. The labourers were
well organized and supported by an extensive network of
town councils, leagues, and co-operatives, and there was no
chance of worsting them by legal means. Fascist squads
were quickly formed and set to work. The authorities
protected them, for as Chiurco reveals : ‘ The sub-prefect
of Mortara sympathized with them ’ and in the neighbouring
district of Voghera ‘ the sub-prefect, himself a partisan
was the father of an ardent fascist.’ A levy was raised from
all the farmers in the district; for the richer four lire for
the others two fire per pertica.^ They all paid up in the
knowledge that once the workers were defeated they would
get their money back with a good profit as well. Within a few
months the whole system of the workers’ organizations was
wiped out.

In ‘gentle Tuscany’, however, fascist cruelty and
violence reached their highest level. Here the agricultural
proletariat was smaller than in Emilia (12*8 per cent of the
population, as against 23 -a). The favourite form of agrarian
exploitation was the mezzadria, which occupied rather more
than half the agricultural population. The socialists and
the Popolan disputed hotly for influence over the mezzadri,
and the fascists, standing for the rights of landowners,
attacked all ‘ leagues,’ red or white. One of the first
punitive expeditions in Tuscany was directed against the
white settlers of the Mugello, and on December 14, 1920
a peasant was killed at San Piero a Sieve. Four fascist
leaders, accused of a share in the murder, were released
after cross-examination. ^ Two of them. Captain Chiostro
and^ Lieutenant Capanni, both retired, were welcomed as
iascist candidates in the national bloc and were elected a

tew months later in the May elections.

Florence, particularly after the end of February, became

^ Local measure equivalent to 769 square metres.

COUNTER-REVOLUTION II5

a fascist storm centre. On the 27th a bomb was thrown at
a procession of fascists, who killed a communist leader,
Lavagnini, that evening. The next day there was a general
strike, fighting, and barricades in the working-class quarter
of San Frediano. A young fascist, Berta, the son of a
manufacturer, ran into a group of rioters who stabbed him
and threw his body into the Arno. In the suburbs the
workers threw up barricades to defend the headquarters of
their societies. At Scandicci carabinieri and fascists were
met with bullets and bombs and forced to retire, leaving
their lorry, which was set on fire. They returned to the
attack :

' On the bridge which leads into the district the first
barricades were met with. The chief of police gave the
order to fire. With the aid of artillery and armoured cars
they broke down the barricades and damaged the bridge.
After thus succeeding in getting into the quarter they
brought up field-guns against the People’s House and
partly demolished it.’

Then, finding their way open, the fascists ' attacked the
town hall and triumphantly carried off arms and red flags
to Florence.’ Machine-guns were used by the bersaglieri
at Bagno a Ripoli; a field-gun was brought into action at
the Oema bridge* Violent riots broke out in all working-
class neighbourhoods. Soldiers and police were cheered
by crowds as they returned from their raids ; but the
workers everywhere were becoming angry and frightened,
and this made their guns go off by themselves. They
developed a persecution complex which in some places
drove them like hunted beasts into acts of unprecedented
violence. Thus when at Empoli, near Florence, some
fascists were reported to be approaching, the whole neigh¬
bourhood rose in arms. When a couple of lorries reached
the first houses they were overwhelmed by rifle-fire from
all round ; tiles were rained on them from roofs, pots, and
other missiles from windows. The invaders were merely
naval mechanics in civilian clothes on their way to Florence
to take the place of railwaymen on strike. One lorry was

Il6 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

burnt, the other just managed to get away ; eight men were
killed and ten wounded. They were brutally avenged, for
soon after a number of troops and fascist squads marched in
and burnt down the People’s House. Two days later they
attacked the People’s House at Siena where the workers had
taken their stand. Fascists and police surrounded it
together with 200 troops. After a few hours of battle
machine-guns were brought up and two shots were fired
from a 63 field-gun at the building; after a last attack
the defenders hoisted the white flag and surrendered. The
fascists finished their day’s work by burning down the
People’s House ‘ with petrol provided by several people,
including the Cavaliere Morelli of the Landowners’ Con¬
sortium ’. Thanks to co-operation between the fasci of
Florence, Pisa, and Siena the whole district was soon
overwhelmed by the destructive tide of fascism. The
Chambers of Labour in the most important centres were
burnt down : Lucca on March 31, Arezzo on April 12,
Prato on April 17, Pisa on May 2, Grosseto on June 28!
The fascist squads also organized the conquest of Umbria.
Between March 22, when the Chamber of Labour and all
the workers’ institutions at Perugia were destroyed, and
April 26, when the same thing happened at Terni, the whole
district came under fascist control.

In the country round Rome and in the south fascist
progress was slow, except in Apulia, where the workers’
organizations were strong and class feeling bitter. Agri¬
culture was more progressive here than anywhere else.
Wheat, wine and oil were cultivated largely on indus¬
trial lines and there was a correspondingly large rural
proletariat. As in Emilia, wages, the minimum number
of employees per hectare, and the employment offices,
were questions of vital importance to the workers and
gave rise to frequent disputes. It was not through mere
chance that Apulia was the only part of southern Italy
to experience immediately a fascist movement on the Po
valley scale. The causes were the same; the land-
owners had the same end in view, the restoration of
their power j and used the same methods, the destruction
of the workers’ organizations. Even before the war they

COUNTER-REVOLUTION II7

had employed gangs of toughs, mazzieri^'^ to knock reason
into recalcitrant labourers and force them to support
the landowners’ candidate on election day. These gangs
had chiefly consisted of wanted ’ men, whose new job,
thanks to collusion between the authorities and the land-
owners, great manipulators of elections and majorities,
guaranteed them immunity from the law. Membership of
a gang was a safeguard as effective as the protection of a
medieval sanctuary. The workers became so strong after
the war that this method became impossible unless applied
on a much larger scale with a better organization and more
arms. The Apuliancame into being to carry out this
policy ; the old lags were enlisted in the fascist squads,
officered by students and demobilized officers, mostly sons
of landowners or members of the petite bourgeoisie of the
south, very poor, but greedy for fame and advancement.
Their method was to attack the townships, for in Apulia
the peasants lived in towns and went out every day to work
on the big estates, often several miles away, and came back
at night. The landowner’s agent used to come to the market¬
place every morning to hire labour ; formerly he had fixed
the daily wage, but now this was done, at least in part, by
the Chamber of Labour. The destruction of the Chamber
would be a death-blow to the resistance of the peasants.
Consequently, when on February 22 thirty fascists made a
surprise attack on the Chamber of Labour at Minervino
Murge and set it on fire, and others collected the next day at
Bari to attack the workers’ headquarters, the reaction was
immediate and violent. The provincial congress of the
Federation of Agricultural Labourers was that day sitting at
Bari, and a general strike was proclaimed. The labourers
felt themselves threatened once more with the abject poverty
and slavery from which they had only just emerged. In
their large villages, where everyone knew everyone else, it
was obvious that fascist, and landowner made

common cause. Instinctively they vented their rage on the
fascist-owned farms {masserie)^ diad, scoured the country in
armed groups setting fire to them. Gangs of mounted
mdzzi^'^i pursued them and a desperate battle followed

1 From a cudgel.

Il8 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

which went on after night had fallen. The infuriated
labourers butchered live stock and tore up plants, while
the fascists struck at the reds’ headquarters. The following
description appeared in the Popolo PItalia of February 25 :
‘After last night’s events there is tremendous feelino^
among the peasants. Many of them stayed in the towiP
without waiting for a general strike to be proclaimed by
the officials of the Chamber of Labour, now burnt down.
Numerous groups of fascists and peasants are parading the
streets, outwardly calm, but ready to fly at each others’
throats at the first incident. There is an atmosphere of
suspense and it is feared that at any moment something
serious may happen. Armed bands roam the country¬
side to hunt out the fascists. The troops sent are
already insufficient for keeping order inside the town
and it is impossible for them to patrol the country,
where the peasants are committing numerous acts of
reprisal. Armed squads of fascists are engaged in ascer¬
taining the state of the farms attacked by the socialists
and in^ avenging their relatives and friends,’ and next
day: ‘ Minervino Murge is still in a state of up¬

heaval. A fierce struggle is being waged in the sur¬
rounding country. To-night the Chamber of Labour
at Terlizzi was burnt down. There is bad news from
Gonversano, where they are fighting in the streets with
hand-grenades. At Gerignola the leaguists have set fire
to the masseria belonging to the Caradonna brothers, who
are fascist leaders.’

But the police and the military intervened to help the
fascists’ manoeuvres and defend them against reprisals, and
the struggle quickly became one-sided. Between March
and May the Chambers of Labour at Tarento, Bari, Corato,
Andria, Barietta, etc. were reduced to charred ruins The
fa^i created their first ‘ economic ’ syndicates, the collective
labour agreements were torn up, and the landowners could
look forward once more to having their own way in the
hiring of agricultural labour. From now on they had a
terrible weapon with which to complete the destruction of
the free syndicates, for those who refused to leave them
^ Instead of going to their daily work on the mfMj'ena.

COUNTER-REVOLUTION II9

could no longer obtain a single hour’s work, and now that
emigration had become almost impossible were condemned,
with their families, to starvation.

Thus by the middle of 1921 the fascist ‘occupation’
included the whole of Julian Venetia, part of Venetia, the
entire Po Valley except Romagna, Cremona, the greater
part of Tuscany, Umbria, and Apulia. In Piedmont the
whole province of Alessandria was infected, particularly the
districts of Casale and Novi Ligure and the rice-growing
districts of Novara. The provinces of Como and Turin
were hardly affected, but on April 25 in the town of Turin
the fascists managed to occupy and burn down the great
People’s House in the Corso Siccardi, the headquarters of
the Chamber of Labour and all the workers’ institutions,
without provoking any active retaliation. The communists,
who controlled nearly all the local organizations after the
split in the Socialist Party, had often defied the fascists to
touch the People’s House, threatening them and the in¬
dustrialists who subsidized them with ruthless reprisals if
they did so. They could do no more than others had done in
similar circumstances, and declared a general strike. This
allowed the fascists to make off in twenty-four hours with
all the honours of war and a resounding victory won at
small expense.

Lombardy, except for the provinces of Pavia and Mantua,
was as yet almost unaffected. In the capital, Milan, the
explosion of a time bomb on March 23 in the Diana Theatre,
placed there by anarchists as a protest against the imprison¬
ment of Malatesta, killed eighteen people and wounded a
hundred. The fascists retaliated not only by attacking the
anarchist paper Umanitd Nuova, but by taking the opportunity
of setting on fire and destroying the new offices of Avanti,
newspaper of the socialists, who had had nothing to do with
the affair. Thus the new offices suffered the same fate as
the old, which had been fired by Mussolini’s arditi in 1919.
In the Marches and the rest of central and southern Italy
the fascist movement was only just beginning. As may be
seen from the table, which is still incomplete, during the
first half of 1921 the fascists destroyed 17 newspapers and

120

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

printing-works, 59 People’s Houses, 119 Chambers of
Labour, 83 Peasants’ Leagues, 151 Socialist Clubs and
151 Culture Clubs. Nearly all these destructions took
place between March and May, chiefly in the country
districts, where, thanks to tht fasci, the landowners were
taking their revenge on the workers’ organizations. A
pro-fascist paper, the Giornale (Tltalia^ brought out the
essential character of fascism by calling it a ^Jacquerie

bourgeoise

bo

-S

•S

u

S

0

c /5

S

'B

3

a

'd

3

«s

tn

District.

'B

S

0

0

.Q

fS

0

u

"0

0

to

ly

_>

d

0

cn

0)

3

bO

fl

0

.'2

ist and com
and offices.

.s

.3

"o

<0

(/)

y

a

u

rS

W w

3

D

3

d

in

d

QJ .25

News

offices

a

0

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0

cu

0

6

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0)

Ph

3

3

Socia

clubs

3

’3

0

0

p

Work

societ

Total

Piedmont

Lombardy (except Cre-

I

4

9

3

2

I

9

-

2

-

10

8 49

mona and Mantua)

3

-

I

2

_

6

_

_

-

-

I 13

Liguria . .

-

3

_

-

>-

-

-

-

_

3

Venetia (except Rovigo) .

-

I

9

8

1

7

-

I

_

_

I 28

Julian Venetia

4

2

21

3

-

5

100

-

-

2137

Po Valley

Bologna

Cremona

I

6

7

9

5

-

5

”

-

-

2 35

Ferrara

-

-

9

I

19

_

5

_

2

—

I

_ 3 y

Mantua

-

3

4

37

15

-

2

_

_

I

»-

I 63

Modena

—

2

—

_

__

—

—

— 2

Parma

_

5

I

6

—

_

2

_

_

_

I 15

Pavia ....

-

21

7

9

25

4

8

4

_

_

2 80

Piacenza

I

2

7

3

_

“ 13

- 16

Reggio Emilia

I

I

2

I

8

2

_

I

_

-

Ro\*igo ....

-

2

4

3

3

-

2

_

I 15

Po Valley total .

_ 3 _

40

36

73

75

4

29

-

7

I

I

7 276

Romagna

I

I

I 3

Tuscany . .

Umbria

Latium

3

I

II

15

5

II

3

—

2

I

70

6

-

-

-

I

24 137

- 17

South (except Apulia)

2

2

_

_

3

~ 7

Apulia ....
Sicily ^ . . ,. ' .

Sardinia

-

I

13

3

I

4

2

3

-

I

4

—

-

7

9

1 20

5 24

2 3

■ Grand ■ Total ■. ■.

59

119

107

83

8.

141

100

10

I

28

53 726

N.B. This table does not pretend to a high degree of accuracy. It is based
on data taken from The History of the Fascist Revolution by G.-A. Chiurco, official
party historian, which are very inconsistent. The book often mentions the
^ organizations ’ of a locality or region, without any

destruction of a single building, People’s House, or
Chamber of Labour involves that of all organizations having their offices in

I

I

COUNTER-REVOLUTION I 2 I ,

it but except in the case of Turin we have not been able to take this into
account. Had we been able to complete the statistical data for aU the
other localities and regions, figures in the last column but one, the workers’
syndicates, would be much higher. The total number of organizations of
every kind destroyed in the first half of 1921 is undoubtedly higher by several
hundreds than the figure we have given. Even the results of the public
inquiry published by the Socialist Party at the beginning of 1922, heavily
drawn on by Ghiurco, are very incomplete, for they do not always enumerate
acts of fascist violence and destruction, for example in Julian Venetia, the
provinces of Ferrara, Rovigo, etc. ‘ The reports w^e have used the preface
adds, ‘ only go as far as May or June 1921 ; and omit all Romagna, the
province of Modena, a great part of Tuscany, Umbria, Latium, the province of
Mantua, Piacenza, Parma.’ This table does not include simple J punitive
expeditions ’, of which there were thousands at this time, nor individual
violence, lock-outs, forced resignations of town councils, destruction of private
houses and shops, banishments, and other forms of terrorism.

In all the ‘ invaded ’ districts there was the closest con¬
nection between the forces of the state and the fascists. At
Trieste on February 9, 1921, the fascists attacked the paper
II Lavoratore and the police interfered to arrest the com¬
munists who were trying to defend their paper and printing
offices. The fascists of Siena, before setting out on their
expedition to Foiano della Chiana, received arms and
munitions from the local military headquarters. As a rule
there was no attempt at concealment. If the military
authorities did not help, such officers as were fascists
did. Chiurco records that at Tarento, for example:
‘With the sanction of the fascist Nicolo Schiavone, a
sub-lieutenant of the 9th Infantry Division, a case of bombs
was taken from the arsenal of the Rossarol barracks and
twenty-four mark 91 rifles from the San-Paolo military stores,
where this officer happened to be confined to barracks.’
The state forces not only provided arms, but often, as
we have seen, shared in punitive expeditions. In this
connection Mario Cavallari, a war volunteer, tells of
the following events which took place in the province
of Ferrara at the end of March 1921 • ‘ The fascists are
accompanied on their expeditions by lorries full of pcjlice,
who join in singing the fascist songs. At Portomaggiore,
an expedition of more than a thousand fascists terrorized
the country with night attacks, fires, bomb-throwing,
invasion of houses, massacre under the eyes of the police.
Further, as fast as the lorries arrived they were stopped
by the police, who blocked every entry, and asked

122

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

the fascists if they were armed, doling out arms and
ammunition to those who were not. Houses were searched
and arrests made by fascists, and for two days a combined
picket of fascists and police searched all those who arrived
at the Pontelagoscuro station, allowng only fascists to enter
the country.’

Plenty of similar evidence exists, though it is impossible
to quote even a very small proportion of it. Here are
two examples supplied by squadristi. The first is taken
from Memoirs of a Fascist, written in 1922 by one of the
squad leaders of the Florence fascio, Umberto Banchelli :

‘ It naust be admitted that the reason fascism developed
so quickly and was given so firee a hand was that in the
breasts of officials and officers beat Italian hearts, which
welcomed us gladly as we marched to the rescue. N.C.O.s
and militiamen competed with each other to help ih&fascid
A fascist student, member of an action squad, wrote a sort
of public confession which he sent to a communist paper.
Written rather later it is very characteristic of the fascist
offensive from the start. It shows the prejudices, hates,
interests, in short the essential motives which spurred the
fascist leader, when he was not simply a mercenary or a
bandit: ‘ The army officers are on our side and supply us
with arms and ammunition. We are powerfully and intelli¬
gently organized, and so we can order our movement
better, without too great a risk.. .. We have you disarmed
by the police before attacking, not because we are afraid
since we despise you, but because our blood is precious
and must not be wasted on the vile and despicable
masses. The writer proceeds to give his views on the
future of the country : ‘Italy cannot go bolshevik. She
is not m industrial country, and her workers must adapt
themselves to peasant life. We will set them to work at

them into

Ibounds “a>^shlands where malaria

abounds. This will give wealth to the country and cool
their revo utionaiy ardour. It is time to put afi end to the

etXmse daughters in their silk dresses

4e^ the iourseoisie.’

After emphasizing the lack of real leaders among the

COUNTER-REVOLUTION

123

socialists, he adds : ' If you had anyone really capable and
loyal, we should not hesitate to imprison him and—why not ?
—do away with him, since the end justifies the means.’
This student was the son of a landowner and a typical action
squad leader.

It is time to ask how the central government faced this
situation. The local officials often sympathized with the
fasci or their powerful protectors. In Rome Giolitti took no
serious action, since he meant to dissolve parliament and
incorporate the fascists in the national bloc. The socialists
in the Chamber began to move resolutions demanding that
the government should enforce the law. On January 31,
1921, Matteotti brought in a motion of this kind, the first
of a series which continued at intervals until the march on
Rome.^ Giolitti saw everything in terms of bargaining,
compromise, give and take. What offer could the socialists
make ? Their participation in the government, which was
all he wanted and had long demanded, was more than ever
impossible. Even after the departure of the communists the
reformists were a minority in the Socialist Party. The
maximalists were still on top, more preoccupied with
protecting themselves on the left against the onslaughts of
the communists, who attacked them bitterly, and consistently
tried to outbid them, than with the fate of the Italian people.

The element of force was having a fatal effect on the
working-class and socialist movement. Paralysed by an
internal crisis which was aggravated by the Leghorn split,
it had to fight simultaneously against the fascist army, the
revengeful industrial and landowning classes and the state,
whose external forces contributed to the success of the
fascist movement by shutting their eyes to crime or, more
frequently, by lending it their active support. Taking a
realistic view of the situation there is nothing inexplicable,
mysterious or even unexpected in the weakness which the
Italian working class finally displayed before the fascist
offensive. But if socialists were still far from agreeing on the
causes of this weakness, a few of the leaders and of the

^ During this debate the communists moved that * The Chamber, con¬
sidering that the government as representing one class cannot defend the
proletariat, but on the contrary is forced to resort to violence to prevent its
eventual victory, proceeds to the order of the day.’

124 ITALIAN FASCISM

people were becoming conscious of it, though they did not
yet openly acknowledge the fact.

But the speed and the completeness of the socialist
collapse in districts where the system had been long and
firmly established are not entirely accounted for by the
causes so far mentioned. There was, besides, the military
character of the fascist offensive which secured it pre¬
dominance from the start. This gave the struggle a character
for which its opponents, more powerful though they were in
some respects, were quite unprepared. The fascists adopted
at once and carried on with increasingly devastating effect
the technique of mobile warfare. In the first place an
expedition against a particular locality was hardly ever
carried out by the local fascists, who would be few, isolated
and exposed to reprisals. The lorries came from the nearest
big centre and were filled with people entirely unknown in
the district. If the ‘ reds ’ were strong and it was feared that
there were still too many arms about, even after searches
carried out by the sympathetic police, sufficient armed
forces were collected to crush any possible defence. The
offices of the various organizations wbre destroyed, town
councils driven out of office, leaders killed or driven into
exile, after which the locdl fascio^ previously almost non¬
existent, would be swelled by the adhesion of reactionaries
of all complexions and of those who, lately afraid of the
socialists, were now afraid of the fascists. To conquer the
great centres they mobilized the forces of the provinces and
if necessary those of adjoining provinces. Later the scope
of the offensive widened, expeditions went from province to
province and region to region, and the fascist army, obtain¬
ing more recruits after each ^ occupationand gaining in
strength and mobility, stormed the enemy strongholds one
by one.

In this way districts, provinces, and groups of provinces
united for common action, with a permanent exchange of
resources and almost automatic co-operation at the first
call from any one which was threatened, or if an attack was
to be made on^ an important centre. More and more we
find cases of pairs or trios o^fasci regularly acting together *
Trieste and Fiume; Bologna and Modena; Bologna,

COUNTER-REVOLUTION 125

Modena and Ferrara ; Brescia and Verona ; Verona and
Mantua ; Florence, Pisa and Siena ; Casale, Alessandria
and Mortara. If Grosseto, where the fascia was powerless,
was the objective, four experienced fascists were first sent
from Florence to encourage and train the local fascists.
The expedition was then prepared and the secretary of the
Siena fascia^ ‘ ordered two cars to take the mobilization
order to the fasci along the Siena-Chiusi line for a joint
attack on Grosseto.’ But the workers of this town laid in
wait for the fascists in the country outside. When these
arrived their first car was stopped, and after a fight they
were forced to retreat, leaving one dead behind them.
Meanwhile other squads were arriving and surrounding the
town, which was still unapproachable. Reinforcements
collected from all directions, even from Florence and
Perugia, at least a hundred kilometres away, and the
entrance to the town was forced during the night. So
Grosseto, where there were hardly any fascists, was occupied
and passed under their control. When the Milan fascists
wanted to make an expedition to Greco Milanese, a com¬
munist centre in the suburbs of the town, they called in the
fasci of Emilia and Tuscany, who sent several squads. This
co-operation increased, snowball fashion, and by extending
the field of action helped to reach distant objectives and
cover whole regions. How did the fascist occupation absorb
the whole of Umbria between March and April 1921 ?
The flood spread from Florence, Arezzo, Siena, over
Perugia ; swollen with Perugian reinforcements it flowed
on to Foligno, Todi, Umberti; from these to Assisi and
Spoleto, until it swept over Terni, the last socialist strong¬
hold, all in a few weeks. The fasci had immense capacity
for concentrating and spreading their influence. When a
new fascia was formed, especially in districts as yet un¬
conquered, representatives from many other fasci, sometimes
from far off, would come and assist at the ceremony, and this
in itself sometimes gave rise to incidents and expeditions.
For instance, at Casale Monteferrato there were delegates
from Turin, Biella, Vercelli, Milan and Genoa. As another
example of the wide range of the operations, the Visa, fascia

1 Chiurco himself, author of the.History of (he Fascist Revolution. .

126 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

organized expeditions to several hundreds of places in
Tuscany, some of them very far off. The Varvaafascio sent
men to Reggio Emilia, Ferrara, Modena, Milan, Spezia,
various Tuscan centres, and even to Trieste and Fiume.
Even Hi&fasci in smaller centres had plenty of mobility and
initiative. To take one example out of several hundred,
that of Poggio Rusco (Mantua), apart from provincial
expeditions, shared in expeditions to Crevalcore (Bologna),
Pozzolengo, Desenzano and Rivoltella (Brescia), Peschiera
and Nogara (Verona), and to Bologna and Verona in May
1921. Later it went as far as Parma, Bolzano and Trente.
A very smaW fascia in the province of Mantua, according to
Ghiurco : ‘ Took part in innumerable expeditions and its
activity is proved by its expenditure of 300,000 francs on petrol.’

On the other hand there is hardly one case of a socialist
raid on fascist headquarters, or of anti-fascists rallying to a
place threatened by squadristi. The pre-war socialist move¬
ment and its post-war successor had led to the formation of
hundreds of little republics, socialist oases with no inter¬
communication, like medieval cities without their ramparts.
Italian socialism was only a conglomeration of thousands
of local ‘ sociahsms ’, greatly handicapped by municipal
exclusiveness and the absence of fully awakened national
consciousness. Fascism also managed to adapt itself to
local surroundings, but had one great advantage over the
working-class movement: its powers of transportation and
concentration supported by military tactics. The sixty-
three communes of Rovigo, Matteotti’s province, all held by
the sociahsts, succumbed one after another without ever
attempting to unite and post superior forces at the danger-
jwints. The bells were never rung, as in the Great Revolu¬
tion, to give warning to the peasants. In the Po valley the
advent of the terror only increased isolation. Thirty, fifty
fascists, as they came to each district, were too strong
for the local labourers. They were almost always arditi,
ex-soldiers, led by officers; homeless, as men at the front,
they could live anywhere. The labourers clustered round
meir People’s House, like medieval cottages round a castle,
but though the castle protected, while it mulcted, the
village, the People’s House needed protection. The

COUNTER-REVOLUTION

127

labourers were bound to the soil, where after lengthy
struggles they had won valuable concessions. This situation
gave the enemy the advantage of the offensive, of mobile as
against defensive tactics. In the fight between the lorry and
the People’s House the former was bound to win.

The workers were further handicapped by psychological
difficulties which hindered the efficient organization of their
defensive tactics. The Italian people had no revolutionary
traditions and no taste for war. Those who had acquired
this taste at the front had been flung into the arms of the
fascists. When the militant worker took his revolver out of
his pocket he put himself and felt himself on the wrong side
of the law. A similar feeling paralysed Hanriot’s gunners
outside the doors of the Convention on the gth Thermidor.
The fascist knew he was safe, and could even kill and burn
with impunity. Besides, in the eyes of the workers the People’s
House and the Chamber of Labour were the fruit of two or
three generations of sacrifice, their capital, the concrete
proof of the progress made by their class and the symbol of
their hopes for the future. They were devoted to them and
hesitated involuntarily to use them as mere war material.
It is not easy to turn a house one loves into a fortress, and
this is why the Italian workers showed none of the fierce
resolution of the last defenders of the Paris Commune,
building a barrier of fire between themselves and the
Versaillais. For the fascists the Houses were simply targets.
When their fine buildings went down in flames the workers
gave way to bitter despair, while the attackers yelled with
delight. The plain of the Po, covered with these socialist
oases, was a desert by the end of the civil war.

Could the workers have held up the fascists if they had
been properly organized ? They could certainly have made
life difficult for the fascists. If every expedition had suffered
heavy loss the fascists would have ceased to look on murder
as a sport, to use Mussolini’s own description of certain
exploits of the squadristL But the more ground the sociaKsts
lost in the political game the greater was the part played
by military factors. The events of the second half of 1921
up till October 1922 showed still more clearly that the
military inferiority of the working class was the consequence

128 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

of its political inferiority, due in its turn to the maximalist
atmosphere with which it was imbued. The fascist move¬
ment, before the period of the great meetings, had been a
movement of squads, little companies of men, tactics which
the arditi had learnt at the front. Italian maximalism, on
the other hand, was a movement of inarticulate crowds,
chaotic, incoherent and blind. Everyone felt safe in this
great crowd, alternately shaken by ecstasy and lost in a rosy
mist of facile and insolent optimism, but they were like ants
under the feet of a marching legion. Even organized, in
order to win power, they would have had to settle matters
at Rome. But it was their inability to transfer their power
into political terms which both prevented them from organ¬
izing and doomed to failure any attempt at armed action.

I Encouraged and helped by the relative simplicity of its
I task, and by making use of the two-edged weapon of legality
j and illegality presented to it by the socialists, the fascist
I movement made a prodigious and well-sustained effort
I during the first three months of 1921. It was declared in
I July 1920 that there were loSfasci ^ formed or in course of
I being formed Towards the middle of October, a few
weeks after the factory occupations, there were 190. By the
end of the year there were more than 800, and by February
^1921,1000. 277 newfasci were formed in April, 197 in May,
and at the party congress in November there were. 2300.
The working class, paralysed by the political split and the
economic crisis, was obviously losing ground. The in¬
dustrialists were taking the offensive in Turin. Strikes at
the Fiat and Michelin works were suppressed, and the
workers had to give in unconditionally ; in factories which
had flown the red flag and where all regulations had been
submitted to a workers’ council the owners were now getting
rid of undesirables ’. Giolitti was delighted. Now that
the factories^ had been evacuated, the treaty of Rapallo
signed, the Fiume affair settled, and the fixed price of bread
abolished he thought he would give the socialists a good
lesson and escape at the same time from the irksome pressure
of the Popolarl He would dissolve the Chamber in the hope
mat a fresh election would reduce the power of both parties.
He would stih be master, he thought, and later share office

COUNTER-REVOLUTION I29

with the socialists. For him to succeed in this it was
necessary for both parties to be weakened so that they would
accept his terms in fear of fascism. He therefore allowed
fascism to flourish, supported by the public forces, with officers
supplied by the War Office and arms by military authorities.
The Minister of Justice, Signor Fera, a freemason, sent a
circular letter to magistrates inviting them to shelve their
records of fascist crimes. Socialist municipalities which
were attacked by fascists were dissolved by ministerial decree
‘ in the interests of public order ’, that of Bologna on April 2,
Modena, Ferrara, Perugia, and hundreds of others a little
later. The fascists joined the national bloc and were
included in its Hsts. At the same time their terrorist acts
were ‘ legalized ’, and the ‘ liberal ’ state took its first and
irrevocable step towards suicide. In this sense, Giolitti, not
Mussolini, was the true evangelist of fascism.

Socialists, communists, and Popolari remained outside
the national bloc and, contrary to Giolitti’s expectations, the
new Chamber was more intractable than the last.^ The
election made no major alterations. The total socialist and
communist vote was actually higher, with the new provinces,
by 20,000 than the socialist vote in 1919, the ‘ red ’ year.
The total number of voters had increased since 1919 by
700,000^ and the percentage from 52 per cent to 56 per cent
of the total electorate. The two workers’ parties more or less
maintained their position, except in the Po valley where the
people were terrorized. Even on its reduced scale the
electoral campaign of the workers’ parties called for excep¬
tional heroism. In the ‘ occupied ’ districts socialists and
communists could scarcely hold any meetings, especially in
the country. Their newspapers and leaflets were seized,
even in the post offices, and burnt. Canvassers who were
known had to get out of the district on election day or lock
themselves into their houses.

The older workers’ parties were hardly affected, except
where the fascists actually prevented voting. But the small
parties, as always happens in a political crisis, were driven
to the right and vanished. Out of the 700,000 new voters
rather more than a fifth supported the P opolari, the remainder

1 Of these 265,000 were in the redente provinces voting for the first time.

130 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

the national bloc. There was a displacement^ therefore, of a
little over half a million votes out of a total of six and a half
million ; this meant a loss of about twenty seats to the
workers’ parties, who had 139 in 1921 (123 socialists and
16 communists) to 156 in 1919, and since the number of
deputies had risen from 508 to 535 their percentage had
fallen from 30 per cent to 26 per cent. The problem of
the majority remained almost unchanged. Socialists and
Popolari^ the latter having won more votes and ten more
seats, were still the two strongest groups. Giolitti’s grand
design had completely failed. It was the fascists who really
gained most by it. Mussolini was elected head of the list at
Milan and Bologna and the new Chamber included a fascist
group of thirty-five members.

But the real fight had only just begun and the outcome
was far distant. A preliminary swing to the right had taken
place. Would the workers’ parties learn from their ex¬
perience ? There were no signs at the moment. The
socialists rejoiced in their ‘ victorycelebrated by the
Avanti with huge headlines : The Italian proletariat has buried
the fascist reaction under an avalanche of red posters. The com¬
munists, even more blind, directed their campaign against
the socialists rather than the fascists, proclaiming as their
slogan: The May 1921 elections must pass the verdict on the
Socialist Party. Mussolini, overjoyed and arrogant in his
own victory, felt that the hour he had awaited since 1914
was at hand : the hour of vengeance and power.

VIII

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM

I N the report which preceded the decree dissolving the
Chamber, Giolitti wrote : ‘ We shall be nearer a real
solution of the most serious social problems when the
working classes get over this period of vague revolutionary-
hopes, which have been and still are a great hindrance to
progress. It would be only logical for them to invite their
representatives to take an active part in political life, instead
of confining their activities to mere criticism.’

But the result of the elections, deliberately planned against
the socialists and the Popolari, made it impossible for them to
combine -with Giolitti. The socialists blamed him, too, for
his complicity with the fascists and for the blood which they
had shed with impunity ; the Popolari bore him a grudge
for not having included the representatives of the catholic
syndicates in the commission of inquiry into industry, and
for abandoning the scheme for a public examination which
Benedetto Croce, his minister for education, had planned
and which was much favoured by the party and by the
Vatican. These fresh grievances, combined with the old
ones, created such feeling against Giolitti that he had to
abandon the manoeuvre for which he had held the elections.

The fascists showed him no gratitude either, although they
owed so much to him. On the eve of the elections Mussolini
■wrote in his paper that the electoral blocs ‘ are also a plat¬
form for the government of to-morrow and that men
‘ capable of standing at Italy’s helm ’ must be provided.
He was presumably thinking of a coalition ministry in which
he would take part. But coalition with whom ? In May
1920, at the national fascist conference in Milan, he had put
out his first feelers in this direction. He rallied the ‘ econo¬
mic assemblies ’, by declaring against any experimental

131

132 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

‘ state socialism proclaiming that ‘ the state must be
deprived of all economic functions and brought back into
line with ‘ Manchester school economics He reassured
the monarchy, the army and the conservatives by dismissing
the ‘ previous question ’ of a republican regime : ‘ The
republican problem is not an essential question ; to-day a
democratic republic would not be enough ; once started
the people would go much further.’ He did not exclude the
possibility of collaborating with the right-wing socialists,
provided they ‘ straightened their aim and he tried to win
over the Popolari by passing, in spite of an anti-clerical
speech by Marinetti, a motion in favour of free education,
one of the Church’s principal demands. In all these
adjustments of programme the dominating note was an
increasingly blatant nationalism. For the time being his
sentiments were reminiscent of d’Annunzio’s Naval Odes.

‘ The Italian people must be expansionist, and adopt a bold
naval policy. Italy’s future must be on the seas.’

A few weeks later, at the beginning of July, he outlined
his programme of foreign policy. In this department the
work of recasting the ‘ fascism of the first hour ’i was com¬
plete. In March 1919 at the Piazza San Sepolcro meeting
he had_ accepted the principles of the League of Nations,
explaining them in such a way that nothing was left of them. 2
Now he declared that ‘ fascism believes in neither the vitality
nor the principles of the so-called League of Nations’.
He demanded the revision of the Treaty of Versailles,
wanted Italy to ‘withdraw gradually from the group of
plutocratic western nations ’ and draw closer to the ‘ enemy
nations’, Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, and demand in the
colomal sphere ‘ the nation’s rights and needs ’. In February
1921 at Trieste, the home of the powerful armament firms
which had subsidized Mm heavily, after recalling the July
1920 programme, he finished with an impressive peroration :
Fa.te demands that the Mediterranean should belong to us
demands that Rome should once more lead the
civilization of Western Europe. Let us raise the flag of
empire, of our imperialism.’

^ Fascismo della prima ora, i.e. Fascism of iqiq.

* Pp- 35-36- ^ ^

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM I33

Mussolini had many reasons for seeking power, but a mere
desire for a portfolio was not one of them. If necessary he
would get in by the back stairs, but foreign policy was his
great passion and the only way of satisfying his will to power.
His imperialism was his own policy, realizable by him alone.
How could it be carried out with the Chamber resulting
from the elections of May 15 ? The socialists and Popolari,
who accounted for nearly half the seats, were hostile to
Giolitti; only by abandoning him was it possible to come
to terms with them. And Mussolini had other reasons for
such a course. In a coalition cabinet Giolitti would play
the leading part and had sufficient strength and cunning
to outwit Mussolini, who would be compromised in the eyes
of his squadristi without having gained his object. Profitless
betrayal was not his hne. So during the electoral campaign
he had taken the precaution of separating himself as far as
possible from Giolitti, and once elected he came out openly
against him.

For some time he considered whether he could down
Giolitti and bring in his own coalition government. The
manoeuvre depended on the Popolari, who were still demo¬
crats after their own fashion and were calling for great
social reforms. He prepared the way by separating himself
ostentatiously from the right wing, and particularly from the
nationalists. With this end in view he persuaded the
Fascist National Council in Milan (June 2-3, 1921) to
readopt the republican doctrines that he had previously
dropped on the same occasion he got a motion passed
which declared the complete independence of the Fascist
Party of the other groups, and in favour of the abstention of
fascist deputies from the opening session when the king
would be present and would read his usual speech. It was
a first step towards the large scale manoeuvre he was
preparing when he made his first speech in the Chamber
on June 21, 1921. The speech was fiercely nationalistic.
He referred to the Ticino, Alto-Adige, Fiume and Monte¬
negro, and- roundly abused the policy of Count Sforza,
Giohtti’s minister for foreign affairs. At the same time he
flirted with the Popolari: fascism ‘neither preaches nor

134 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

practises anti-clericalism is not connected with freemasonry,
accepts most of the Popolari^s views on divorce, freedom of
education, rural property, decentralization. He appealed
to the Vatican over the heads of the Popolari: if the papacy
would renounce its dreams of temporal power, the state
would provide it with ‘ help and material facilities for
schools, churches, hospitals, and everything that a lay
power has at its disposal \ Besides the relations between
the fascists and the Popolari, there must be considered the
relations between Italy and the Vatican, whose reconcilia¬
tion and collaboration were necessary, ‘ for Rome’s Latin
and Imperial tradition is represented by Catholicism
Another part of Mussolini’s speech dealt with relations
between fascists and socialists. At the outset he declared
that his speech would be ^ completely anti-socialist and
anti-democratic ’, which made it easier to set out his offers
and his threats. He made no concessions to the socialists,
but even criticized them on doctrinal grounds. In an
article on January 14 he had already stated that' capitalism
is scarcely at the beginning of its history ’, and he repeated
his articles of faith before the Chamber : ' The true history
of capitalism is only just beginning’. Since capitalism is
facing its highest tasks the state should renounce all its
economic functions: 'We must abolish the collectivist
state that the war forced on us, and return to the Man¬
chesterian state ’. He took care to point out his own
personal success : ' The socialists, after seven troubled years,
see before them in the proud attitude of a heretic the man
they expelled from their orthodox church They will have
to admit that they have taken a wrong turning, that they
have been and always will be defeated on the ground of
violence that they have chosen. It is inevitable, for the
workers 'are by nature and I venture to say piously and
fundamentally pacifistic, for they represent the standing
reserve on which society draws, while risk, danger, and a
taste for adventure have always been the business and
privilege of aristocratic minorities ’. Then there are the
extremists of socialism, the communists. ' I know them very
well, for some of them are of my making ; I admit with a
sincerity that may appear cynical that I was the first to

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM 135

infect those people when I introduced into Italian socialism
a little Bergson diluted with plenty of Blanqui.’ But they
have failed to digest the mixture properly, he added. The
fascists make a distinction between the Socialist Party and
the General Confederation of Labour : ‘ Our attitude to the
latter, which has never been one of opposition, might be
modified if the Confederation as a whole—its leaders have
long since considered it—were to separate from the Socialist
Party Under these conditions mutual disarmament was
possible, and Mussolini declared that he desired it, for ‘ if
things go on like this, the nation runs a real risk of plunging
into an abyss

Was Mussolini sincere in making these very conditional
and prudent advances ? If a definite answer were called
for, we should say yes. Not because he had the slightest
intention of going back to his old love, for Mussolini was
convinced that the age of capitalism had only just begun
and that, as he wrote a month after his speech, ‘ the new
reality of to-morrow, for the w’th time, is capitalistic
The news from Russia, where famine raged and the N.E.P.
was taking the place of ‘ war communism ’, convinced him
that there was a universal Restoration. Since the future
belonged to capitalism, socialism had no hope of making
headway ; the choice lay between an almost dead past and
the unlimited possibilities of the future, and his choice had
been made in advance. Besides, he risked nothing by his
overtures. If Giolitti brought off a coalition with the
socialists, they would enter the cabinet in triumph, and on
their own conditions. For this reason Mussolini declared
in his speech that he was ‘ anti-Giolitti, since the flirtation
between Giolitti and the socialist parliamentary group has
never been so pronounced as now’. But if the wedding
should take place on the initiative and under the guidance
of Mussolini, the fascists would refuse to act as the poor
relations of the new menage, and the socialists would find
their demands curtailed.

The majority of the Socialist Party were against participa¬
tion, fearing the attacks of the communists. If their right
wing, the leaders of the General Confederation of Labour,
joined the government, they would lose some of their

136 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

influence with the masses, and in any case the party and the
syndicates would be weakened by a violent internal struggle.
Once they lost their hold on the people the socialist and
reformist syndicalists would be weakened in parliament.
Thus, whether the new government was formed without
them or with only a part of them, the disintegration of the
Socialist Party would be intensified. Mussolini felt finally
that it was impossible for him to guide Italy’s foreign policy
in the way he wanted so long as the country was torn by
civil strife. If it ceased, and the socialists, defeated and
divided, could be pushed into the government, the faseist
offensive would have achieved most of its aims after all.
He could therefore calmly await the socialist metamorphosis
and ‘ with all sincerity ’ hope that it would take place in
the way he had expected and worked for.

Giolitti, for his part, was preparing a similar solution.
He had just quashed a strike of officials of the central
administration of the Post Office and the Finance Ministry,
who had failed completely and had been forced to go back
to work unconditionally under a threat of severe reprisals.
But at the same time he wooed the leaders of the General
Confederation of Labour by yielding up to the ‘ Metal¬
lurgical Labour Consortium ’, a producing co-operative
society emanating from the F.I.O.M., five great state
concerns, the arsenals at Naples and Venice, and the arma¬
ment works at Terni, Genoa and Gardone, with the
idea of running them more profitably and lightening the
budget. Henceforward there could clearly be little danger
in Italian ‘ bolshevism ’ if it was possible at the end of
May 1921 to trust arsenals and armament works to the same
Metallurgical Federation which eight months ago had
ordered the occupation of the factories.

But Giolitti’s master stroke was to get new tariffs worked
out and approved by parliamentary commissions (Alessio’s
bill). This was an important turning-point in Italian
economics. Tariff walls were once more to defend national
industry and agriculture. Confederation chiefs and leading
industrialists were in accord over this, for this step would
create employment, and once more provide excess profits
to be shared in some measure between the capitalists and

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM 137

the syndical workers of the north. Giolitti thus initiated
the economic policy he had followed before the war, and
he hoped that this economic collaboration would result in
the socialist leaders, or at least the syndicalist leaders, joining
the government. But he never gathered the fruits he had
planted. Five days after Mussolini’s speech Giolitti’s ministry
was defeated over a motion presented by the socialists and
backed by the fascists. He was succeeded by Bonomi.

But even with Giolitti removed, Mussolini s way was far
from clear. Inside the fascist movement itself obstacles
rose up and blocked his way to power. There was^ dis¬
content among his followers on account of his attitude
towards the Treaty of Rapallo and d’Annunzio’s Fiume
adventure.’- He was compelled to devote some of his speech
at Trieste on February 6 to defending himself: ‘ In Novem¬
ber 1920, the idea of a revolution to annul a peace treaty
—that of Rapallo—which for better or worse was accepted
by 99 per cent of the country, was out of the question . .
and equally so to become embroiled in armed opposition
against the treaty conducted from an outpost of the nation,
Fiume.’ And to those who reproached him for not having
started a revolutionary movement to save Fiume, Mussolini
replied with a summary of his views on tactics which
showed his complete superiority in this respect oyer his
followers and also over the so-called revolutionary socialists :

‘ The fasci di comhattimento,’ he said, ‘ never promised
to start a revolution in Italy in the event of an attack
on Fiume, especially after Millo’s defection. Personally
I never wrote to or told d’Annunzio -that revolution in
Italy depended on my whim. Revolutions are not
jack-in-the-boxes, which can be jumped off at will. ^. . .
History, a collection of dead facts, teaches people little,
but daily events, which are history in the making, should
be more profitable. They show that revolutions are made
with armies and not against them ; with arms, not
without them ; with disciplined groups and not with
shapeless masses assembled at meetings. . . . Revolutions
succeed when the majority surround them with a halo
1 P. S3-85.

138 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

of sympathy, otherwise they cool off and fail. In the
Fiume tragedy the army and navy stood firm. There was
a certain amount of revolutionary spirit in Fiume at the
last moment, but it could find no means of expression ;
it wavered betw^een a handful of anarchists^ and nation¬
alists. According to certain agents ’’ the devil and
holy w^ater could be mixed, or the nation and anti-nation,
Misiano and Belcroix. I reject all forms of bolshevism,
but if I had to choose one it would be that of Moscow
and Lenin, if only because its proportions are gigantic,
barbaric, universal. ... It was not possible, then, to
liquidate a single episode of civil war—that of Fiume—by
starting a much bigger war, at such a moment; and no
one can artificially create historic situations or prolong
them when they are outdated.’

It will be seen that in spite of this defence the question of
d’Annunzio and Fiume was to be one of the rallying points
of the opposition to Mussolini now visible in the fascist ranks.
But the chief difficulty lay in the state of the country. How
could he attain power by legal means, which were the only
ones possible at the moment, in the prevailing atmosphere
of civil war, to which he himself had contributed more than
anyone ? On January 28 he had written in his newspaper :
Mt is obvious that the fascists must close their ranks, perfect
their organization in every detail, and at the first oppor¬
tunity hit out, without bothering about unnecessary
distinctions and on February 5, after the debate in the
Chamber on fascist acts of violence : 'There is only one
remedy : hit hard ! and hope that little by little we shall
knock some sense into their skulls.’ On April 13, again
addressing the socialists : ' We are determined to put you
out of your misery with cold steel, or hot.’^ Again, on
May 4, in a speech at Milan, on the eve of the elections :

' We shall go on ramming the truth down our adversaries’
throats until they swallow it.’

But by now this policy had already yielded its most
important results ; working-class organization was visibly

I fp- 49-50-

Gold steel or hot,’ d’Annunzio’s description of the arditVs daggers.

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM 139

damaged and the ‘ enemy ’ driven into a corner or reduced
to impotence. Continued fascist violence threatened to
compromise Mussolini’s plans and destroy any possibility of
political manoeuvring. On April 28 he had written an
article recalling the fascists to a sense of proportion :

‘ The fascists must not in their turn lose their sense of
proportion, or a great victory will be snatched from them.
It is dangerous for those who have won to want too much.
Fascism must not cause a revival of the P.U.S.^ in the
same way that the latter’s countless stupid mistakes
helped the development of fascism . . . since the P.U.S.
is no longer harmful we must not disturb the country,
but help it along its difficult way towards peace at home
and abroad. Our present watchword must be : “ If

fascism loses its sense of proportion it will lose its victory.” ’

These preoccupations determined Mussolini’s successive
attitudes and explain why he supported the idea of a ‘ peace
pact ’, which was suggested in certain parliamentary and
liberal circles. He hoped he would thus be able to kill two
birds with one stone, join the government and reassert his
influence over the Fascist Party, which was beginning to
get out of hand. For him the struggle for the peace pact
was a struggle for power both in the fascist movement and

in the state. • i, j

It was not easy to manage the movement now that it had
grown so tremendously, particularly since it owed its rapid
growth to its having joined in the election with the frankly
reactionary national bloc, and to the solid rising of the,
landowners in the Po valley and particularly in Tuscany.
Mussolini first encountered resistance over the presence of
the fascist deputies at the opening session of the new
legislature. ^ The right wing and the nationalists wanted to
go, to do honour to the king, but Mussolini wished the
fascist group to bide their time and not to commit them¬
selves. They were also opposed to any agreement with the
socialists, and wanted to form a right coalition government.

1 The official Socialist. Party. A pun is intended here. The party’s name

was really Partito Socialista Ufficiale.

® P. 133-

140 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

Against them Mussolini tried to revive fascism ‘ of the first
hour ’ with its ‘ republican trend the ‘ old ’ fascists
against the new.

‘ We are faced with the trouble that destroyed the
P.U.S. in November 1919,’ he wrote on May 25. ‘ Under
the surface of fascism lurks the “ illustrious cowardice ”
of those who were afraid both of the others^ and of
ourselves ; fascism is being used as a mask for the selfish¬
ness and greed which rebel at the spirit of national
conciliation, and there are many who have used fascist
prestige and violence to further their own miserable ends,
or who have employed violence for its own sake and not
for the ends for which we planned it.’

He ended his article with an appeal ; ‘ Fascists on the eve
of power, fascists of action, defend fascism ! ’

Two days later the Popolo Pltalia came out with the
headline : ‘ Fascists throughout Italy, go forward along the
old road, against all dissension.’ On May 29 he threatened
to put up a new target : ‘ Why should not fascism, having
fired to the left, take a shot at its enemies on the right ? ’
He insisted at the same time that the fasci should not disarm,
but should perfect the organization of their action squads.
When the socialist parliamentary group announced its
intention of asking the new Chamber for an inquiry into
fascist violence, Mussolini threatened a march on Rome to
prevent it: ‘ From now on the fdsci of Latium, Umbria,
Abruzzi, Tuscany and Campagna are morally obliged to
concentrate on Rome at the first call from the leaders of our
movement. An armed mobilization against a parliamentary
inquiry such was the situation in Italy in the middle of 1921.

To attain power, Mussolini wanted to be able to draw
on both legal and illegal resources. On the one hand he
had to keep in with the fascist masses, the These

must not suspect too soon that fascism was being ‘ parlia-
mentarized’. For this reason fascist deputies drove the
communist deputy Misiano out of the Chamber at the
point of their revolvers, without, incidentally, provoking any
retaliation. In June and July there was a fresh agitation
^ i.e. the socialists.

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM 141

throughout the country against the high cost of living, led
this time by the fascists. In Trieste fascist squads boarded
the boats from Istria with cargoes of vegetables and fruit
and forced the peasants to sell at very low prices. In
Naples they imposed a reduction of 50 per cent in the cafes
and restaurants. In Florence the squads paraded the streets
with banners, ‘ Producers and shopkeepers ! Prices must
go down within two days ! ’ Violence was on the increase,
and the fascists often made something on their own account
by exacting ransom from shopkeepers who wanted to be
left in peace. Mussolini approved, though making certain
reservations to prevent the application of fixed scales so
as not to alarm his financial backers too much. ‘ We must
not lose sight, at this stage, of one of the fundamentals of
fascism, the abolition of all war economy, all state inter¬
vention in business, and the establishment of economic
liberty, conditions necessary and adequate for a return to
normal conditions.’ This was the argument of big business.

But since a new ministry was being formed, Mussolini
tried to prepare opinion for a fascist participation in the
government, with Salandra, Meda, and even, if necessary,
with Giolitti. ‘ The attitude of the fascist parhamentary
group towards the Giolitti ministry,’ he declared on
June 8, ‘ might in certain circumstances be modified.’
And up till June 27, the day Giolitti was defeated in the
Chamber, he left his way in this direction open. He felt
he was near his goal, and did not want the newly elected
fascists and the old reactionaries to spoil his success. ‘ I
am always on the watch,’ he declared for the benefit of
friends and enemies, ‘ particularly when a changing wind
fills the sails of my ship of fortune.’ At the meeting of the
parliamentary fascist group on June 3, however, although
he got his own way in the matter of the ‘ republican trend ’,
he failed to impose abstention from the ‘ royal ’ session.
By 18 votes to 15 the group decided that deputies should
have a free hand. ^

At the beginning of July the peace pact negotiations were
started, 2 and on this point Mussolini joined issue with the

^ The National Council, which was held at the same time, approved
Mussolini’s wishes on the other hand.

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

142

National Council oiFasci (July 12-13). With great difficulty
he succeeded in getting through a resolution which made a
distinction in the exercise of fascist violence between the
political organizations and the syndicates, and which
authorised the fasci to make local agreements wherever
circumstances allowed, with representatives of working-
class organizations \ Opposition to the peace pact came
chiefly from the Fasci di Combattimento in' occupied' territory,
who were afraid of losing the advantage gained by the
terrorist tactics they had invented Their doubts were
expressed by Farinacci of Cremona : ‘ If we allow the reds
to go on with their propaganda,’ he said, at the meeting
of the National Council, ^ all our work may be undone.’
The representatives of Julian Venetia, Emilia, Tuscany,
where squadrismo flourished, repeated the argument : ‘ If
necessary, blows can be dealt out more judiciously; but we
must not weaken.’ Mussolini only just got the resolution
through. He emphasized that circumstances had changed
and the pact would help to divide the enemy.

' It is ridiculous at the present time to talk as if the
Italian working class were heading for bolshevism. You
all know that the state of mind of the working classes is
fundamentally different from what it was two years ago.
By making peace with us the socialists will cut themselves
off from the communists and anarchists. Our aim must
be to divide the enemy and so defeat them. . . . This
resolution leaves us prepared for any possibility. . . . We
must try to separate the General Confederation of Labour
from the subversive parties. Soon, when the syndicates,
co-operatives and federations are on their way to
independence, we shall hold a strong position in national
life.’.

Mussolini used every possible argument to win over the
opposition ; he believed what he said, but he did not say
all that he thought. For he wanted the pact signed as soon
as possible, no matter how, so as to get going with his
preparations for the political issue that he foresaw and on
which he had been banking for several weeks. He had a
detailed plan : to separate the General Confederation of

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM 143

Labour from the Socialist Party, and then form a sort of
‘ Labour ’ party by uniting the Confederation with the
^ national ’ syndicates which were springing up everywhere.
Independence, which, as he wrote on July 2, would separate
the Confederation ^ from all socialist and non-socialist
parties ’ and would mean ‘ a step forward towards the
realization of a united proletariat and the creation of a
Labour Party which would minimize the importance of
the socialist political parties Mussolini was resuscitating
in the new conditions created by the initial success of fascism
the plan he had had in mind during the early months of
1919.^ For the success of this manoeuvre the fascist move¬
ment must not be transformed into a political party, or
there would be no room for the ‘ Labour Party ’ and
Mussolini’s aims would be endangered. For it would be far
easier to form a coalition government with the Confedera¬
tion chiefs and some of the fascist leaders on the common
platform of a Labour Party, than with a Fascist Party,
aiming at the creation of a new syndical organization to
do away with and replace the General Confederation of
Labour. Hence, Mussolini declared that he was absolutely
opposed to the transformation of the fascist movement into
a political party.

Once started in this direction Mussolini could not turn
back, for he was eager for power. On July 19 the parlia¬
mentary fascist group, which was, as was to be expected,
the right wing of the movement, voted for a resolution in
favour of conciliation. After this vote, which he had him¬
self brought about, Mussolini declared that he considered
himself personally pledged and that his line of conduct
as far as fascism was concerned ’ depended on future events.
The fascists were not to be afraid of forced inactivity after
the end of the civil war, for fascism ^ must agitate for the
settlement of the formidable problems of Italy’s expansion
in the world ’ .

Various signs warned Mussolini, always on the alert, that
he must hurry. Amongst the workers a move towards a
united front had begun, and red fighting groups, the arditi
del popoloy paraded the streets of Rome for the first time at

^ P.25.

144 rise of Italian fascism

the beginning of J uly, while d’Annunzio’s legionaries and
some of the ex-servicemen Ardiii had broken away from the
fascL Worse still, the Bonomi government, which had
succeeded that of Giolitti, seemed determined to limit the
exploits of the fascists and the help they had been getting
from local authorities. The Sarzana affair made the fascist
leaders reflect—such of them as were capable of reflexion-
on the real strength of the sqmdre di combattimento when they
came up against state forces.

This happened for the first time at Sarzana on July 21
after seven months of violence, tolerated and even approved
of, when a fascist ' expedition ’ found itself faced by repre¬
sentatives of the state, determined not to let it pass. Five
hundred fascists from Florence, Pisa, Lucca and Viareggio
had concentrated at Sarzana and occupied the station.
Police captain Jurgens was there with eight militiamen and
three soldiers. The leader of the little fascist army, Amerigo
Dumini, explained to the captain the object of the expedition.
The fascists were proposing to surround the town in order
to set free ' peacefully or by force ’ ten fascists from Carrara
who had been arrested as a result of various outrages
committed in Lunigiana. At the same time they demanded
the person of Captain Niccodemi whom they accused of
striking the leader of the arrested fascists, Renato Ricci, to
whom Mussolini later entrusted the task of recruiting and
organizing the Balilla, This accusation was quite false, as
Ricci himself admitted later, but the fascist ultimatum
was none the less peremptory. While Dumini was arguing
with the captain of police the fascists grew impatient and
crowded round. ^ Enough of this chatter they shouted.
The militiamen came to the ready, and when a revolver
shot was fired on them from the fascist ranks, fired point
blank into this menacing and aggressive crowd, killing and
wounding a few of their number. The squadristiy accustomed
as they were to fighting unarmed enemies and relying on
the help of the state forces, lost their heads when confronted
with a dozen rifles actually pointed at them, and ran away
in all directions.

In the subsequent report, the squadrista Umberto Banchelli,
who signed it in his capacity of the expedition’s ‘ chief of

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM 145

Staff’, explained the reasons for the adventure. ‘The
Sarzana expedition is only a normal episode, which was
bound to happen once fascism was met by opponents who
stood firm. . . . These squads, too often accustomed to
conquering enemies who nearly always ran away or offered
feeble resistance, did not know how to defend themselves ’
Banchelli also explains in his Memoirs, already quoted, ^
that fascism only managed to develop because it was helped
by police and army officers. The ten rifles put five hundred
fascists to flight, not only because they went off, but because
by going off they had for once put the squadristi, bewildered
at suddenly finding themselves on the wrong side of the
barricades, outside the law. Further, the presence and
action of the representatives of the state dispelled as if by
magic the terror which preceded and accompanied the
punitive expedition. The inhabitants, who had been
warned by railwaymen of a train fired on by fascists, were
on the defensive. When they heard what had happened
in the station square armed groups marched out into the
surrounding country and, aided by angry peasants, gave
chase to the fascists, who left a dozen dead behind, strung
up on trees or drowned in the marshes, and several dozen
wounded. The police interfered again, this time to rescue
the retreating fascists from the angry mob.

After this the fascists mobilized and demonstrated in
several districts. In the town and province of Bologna, the
fasci, by agreement with the industrialists, proclaimed a
factory lock-out and ordered the shops to close as a protest.
In Padua they occupied the tower of the urdversity, sounded
the tocsin, and ordered all cafes and shops to shut and display
notices announcing ‘ National mourning ’, while in the
neighbourhood of Carrara, as Chiurco records : ‘ The
fascists, infuriated by the Sarzana massacre, killed two
communists.’ The fascist leaders, however, issued a mani¬
festo to the nation framed in reasonably cautious language
and calling for a truce.

For Mussolini realized that if the dangerous situation
caused by fascist terrorism continued there was bound to be
a reaction and state intervention, and everything might be

10

146 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

lost. In his speech in the Chamber on the day following the
Sarzana affair, therefore, he held out the olive branch, and
on July 23 he expounded his future policy to the disconcerted
socialists :

Sooner or later I believe it will be necessary to form a
grand new coalition of the three really “ efficient ’’ forces
in the life of the nation. First socialism, which is already
beginning to change its form, as is shown by the vote of
the General Confederation of Labour against the com¬
munists and by its new attitude to strikes in the public
services ; then the Popolari, whose strength is great, and
is derived—with what advantage to religion I do not
know—from the immense force of Catholicism ; finally it
is impossible to deny the existence of a complex, for¬
midable and essentially idealistic movement, which
includes the best part of the youth of Italy. To these
three forces, united round a programme which will be
their common denominator, will be entrusted to-morrow
the task of leading the country to a higher destiny,’

This speech was no empty gesture on Mussolini’s part.
For several weeks his actions had been ruled by a feeling
that fascism was losing its grip on the country, and that he
personally was losing his grip on fascism. There was a risk
of his perishing with it, and he wanted to escape, if necessary
even at the expense of the movement. ' If I achieve power,’
he confided to the liberal leaders,^ whose support he wished
to gain, 'I shall turn the machine-guns on the fascists, if
they do not learn wisdom.’ In any case he wanted to prevent
the formation of an anti-fascist government supported or
shared in by the socialists. He had everything to gain by
a truce, both for what it made possible and for what it
could prevent. Hence his willingness to treat.

^ After his July 23 speech he intensified the campaign in
his newspaper in favour of his plans. His chief aim was to
reassure that section of the bourgeoisie who were alarmed at
the prospect of socialists sharing in the government. There

^ Including ISitti, with whom he was negotiating over the formation of a
coalition government.

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM 147

was nothing to be alarmed about, he said. If some of the
leaders of the General Confederation of Labour were to
become ministers to-morrow, ^ they will have formidable
enemies on their left, the uncompromising portion of the
Socialist Party, communist, syndicalist and anarchist ’,
and would be ^ intelligent enough to take into due account
the free and undogmatic force of fascism Under fire from
the left, they would have to come to terms with the fascists,
and would fall into their power. Further, ^ people like
Baldini, Turati, and Baldesi, will not be any more capable
of concrete achievements than the others. Being new they
will merely make a greater show of goodwill, and will end
up by resuscitating the now feeble and decadent governing
class. Once socialist unity is impaired the possibilities of the
government are likely to be very greatly increased.’ On
July 27 he took the fascist bull by the horns in an editorial
headed ^ A Return to First Principles the document which
illustrates most strikingly the position he had taken up
and which he wanted the fascist movement to support.

‘ The question for fascism is one of discipline. The
National Council has fixed the limits (in the matter of
violence) and we must keep to them or get out. They
must be kept to if the nation and fascism are to be saved.
The nation welcomed us when our movement meant the
end of a tyranny, but they would repudiate us if it were
to become a new tyranny. In certain districts fascism
to-day is not what it was yesterday. It is no longer
inspired by its old ideals as a movement for defending the
nation, but is a purely repressive organization working to
protect the interests of certain individuals. Fascism in
1919 and 1920 was an almost negligible minority as
regards numbers, but it was full of strength and wisdom.’

After quoting the fascism of Milan as an example and
recalling a well-known passage of Machiavelli, Mussolini
concluded :U' It is urgently necessary for fascism to return
to its principles now. To-morrow may be too late.’

The peace pact was signed in Rome on August 2 by the
representatives of the National Council of Fascism, the
Socialist Party, the fascist and socialist parliamentary

148 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

groups, the General Confederation of Labour, and by
Signor De Nicola, President of the Chamber, who had lent
very active assistance in the negotiations. The five delega¬
tions agreed, according to article 2 of the pact, ‘ to take
immediate action to put an end to threats, assaults, reprisals,
punishments, acts of vengeance, pressure, and personal
violence of any description The two parties ‘ agreed
reciprocally to respect all economic organizations ’
(Article 4). Infringements of the conditions of the pact
would be submitted to arbitration, and to this purpose
tribunals were to be set up in each province. The first
signature at the foot of this document was that of Benito
Mussolini.

Mussolini now proceeded to deal with the resistance in
the fascist camp. The pact, he proclaimed, was a fait

accompli.

‘I hereby declare, assuming all moral and material
responsibility for my action, that I have put my heart
into it, and that once the essential part was accepted I
threw various minor details overboard. Let me add that
with all my strength ! wiU defend this Peace Treaty,
wliich in my opinion is an event of historic importance,
and that I shall put into practice the old proverb—Spare
the rod and spoil the clfild ”. If fascism is my child, as
has hitherto been recognized, I shall correct it or make
life impossible for it. We may celebrate a victory. But
I am always thinking of the future. I know not where to
stop. A victory has been won, and I am now considering
what use we can make of it. ... For me personally the
situation is simple: if fascism does not follow me no
one can force me to follow fascism.’ ’

On the same day in an interview with the Resto del Carlino
ne explained :

‘ Peace could certainly have been dictated on more
severe terms a monfii ago, before the star of fascism, which
had long been shimng on the horizon, had paled a little
^er the events at Viterbo, Treviso, and Roccastrada.

The treaty also settles the internal fascist crisis, in the sense

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM I49

that henceforward the political element will have a clearly
marked supremacy over the military/

What were the events which in Mussolini’s opinion had
revolted public opinion ? Viterbo had been occupied on
July 9 by a squad from Rome commanded by Bottai, future
Minister of Corporations and future Governor of Rome ;
at Treviso on July 13 columns of fascists from Padua and
Bologna had destroyed the offices of a republican and a
popular newspaper and committed every sort of violence ;
at Roccastrada in Tuscan Maremma, on July 25, a punitive
expedition had killed thirteen and wounded some twenty
of the population ; the houses of the mayor and councillors,
who refused to resign, being set on fireT These outrages were
not very different from the hundreds and thousands of
others which had been going on for six months in several
districts in Italy and which enabled the fascist dictatorship
to be established. The Popolo d'Italia of the time contained
no word of regret, only justification and encouragement to
continue. A few days afterwards, Mussolini referred to them
in order to explain the necessity for imposing a reversal of
policy on the fascists. Actually, to attain his own ends, he
judged it indispensable to dissociate himself from such acts.
The return to normality ’ coincided with his own interests
and ambitions.

The rank and file of the fascists resisted the pact. The
centre of dissent was Bologna. Dino Grandi, now Italian
ambassador in London, was the newest and youngest star
in the fascist firmament. Barrister, ex-soldier, editor of the
fascist paper, PAssalto, he was the theorist of the opposition,
the anti-Mussolini. Mussolini came to grips with him at
once, and the struggle between the ' old ’ I^lanese fascism
and the neo-fascism of Bologna began. Mussolini charged
Grandi with being only a recently joined member of the
party, and yet calling Bologna ^ the cradle of fascism
He went on :

^ Do the fascists of Emilia want to desert Italian
fascism ? Personally I am indifferent, or nearly so. For

^ It was the mayor of Roccastrada to whom the Marquis Perrone Compagni
had sent, in April, the threatening letter quoted on pp. 104, 105.

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

150

me fascism is not an end in itself, it was a means of
restoring national equilibrium and reviving various
neglected values. . . . These ends have largely been
attained. Fascism may now split up, evaporate, crumble,
dechne, disappear. If a few hard knocks are wanted to
hasten its ruin I will lend myself to the ungrateful task.
Fascism which is no longer hberation but tyranny, no
longer the nation’s safeguard, but the defence of private
interests and of the most exclusive, sordid, and despicable
classes which exist in Italy ; fascism which takes this form
may still be fascism, but not fascism as I conceived it at
one of the saddest periods of our country’s history. We
are becoming too numerous, and when the family increases
some are bound to break away. Let it happen if it must,
and may the socialists be glad of it. It is not the peace
pact which spells victory for them, but this crisis of
insubordination and the deplorable blindness which is
causing the loss of a section of Italian fascism.

‘ Did no one notice, then, the circle of hatred which
threatened to suffocate fascism both good and bad ? Did
no one notice that fascism had become synonymous with
terror even to people who were not socialists ? I have
broken through this circle, and made a breach in the
barbed wire of the thenceforward unbridled hatred and
exasperation of the vast mass of the people, who would
have defeated us. I have given fascism a future again,
and shown it the way to all its greatness, at the cost of a
civil truce exacted by the superior strength both of the
natmn and of humanity. As a result—as in the quarrels
of the old parties—the heavy artillery of strife and slander
IS turned on me ; there is talk of renunciation, surrender
Reason, and other pitiful idiocies. It is time for Itahan
fascism to be frank about its thoughts and desires. The
peace pact is the agent which must precipitate a result.

. . . Fascism can do without me? Doubtless ; but I,
too, can do very well without fascism. I can allow myself
to speak openly, for, having given much I ask absolutely
nothing and am ready to start all over again.’

This kind of talk failed to persuade or intimidate his
opponents. On the contrary Grandi and his friends

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM I5I

organized a meeting of the fasci of Emilia and Romagna,
which took place in Bologna on August 17. The town was
plastered with posters insulting the Duce: ' Once a

traitor always a traitor and anti-Mussolini rhymes were
sung. This local adunata turned into an opposition conference,
many representatives of other provinces being present also.
Tht fasci of Bologna, Ferrara, Cremona, Modena, Piacenza,
Rovigo, Forli, Venice, declared themselves ' completely
opposed to the peace treaty h The fascism of the Po Valley
and of the landowners was proclaiming its dissent. To the
latter Mussolini was a coward; he was unsparingly
denounced for being on the point of sacrificing fascism and
treating with the ' marxists ’ to satisfy his own ambition.
Amongst those who took part in the discussion were Italo
Balbo, of Ferrara, the deputies, Oviglio, Farinacci, Vicini,
Piccinato, and Marsich. The last announced : ' We have
come to the turning point of fascism. Mussolini realizes it,
but he appears to me to have lost his way. In effect there
are two solutions, one national, the other parliamentary.
We are for the national one, he for the parliamentary.’
Dino Grandi announced himself in favour of the completion
of the fascist revolution and opposed to the parliamentary
compromise, in favour of abandoning the outworn principles
of 1919 fascism for a fascism ' of the new generation The
starting-point of this fascism was Fiume. I was not a
legionary he said, ‘ but on the night of Ronchi^ I saw the
first baptism of Italian fascism. It is there, in the constitution
of the Quarnero and its national syndicalism that we must
seek the foundation plans of the state we have to build.’

Immediately after the Bologna meeting, Mussolini handed
in his resignation from the Executive Committee of the
fascL He was furious and depressed : ‘ The die is cast.
The loser must go. And I am going, leaving the front ranks.
I remain and hope to remain a private soldier in the Milan
fascio' A few days later Cesare Rossi, under-secretary-
general of thQ fascij followed his example. In his letter of
resignation he declared that the majority of the fascist
organizations ‘ have displayed in their regional conferences,
and, what is worse, in their daily actions, a firm and

^ P.44-

152 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

implacable hostility to the implementing of the peace pact
No great skill was needed to see that the invasion of late¬
comers, ‘ who had joined up for the most part when the
enemy w'as in retreat and the suspect enthusiasm of the
old ‘ clerical and agrarian cliques ’ would wipe out the
original characteristics of fascism. In fact fascism, ‘ through
the action of its local masses, through an infinity of episodes,
which make up the whole history of the fascist movement in
recent times, dominates the scene only in appearance, for
it has become the authentic and exclusive instrument of
conservatism and reaction

Mussolini was beaten, and the opposition did not stop at
its first success. In September it organized two new con¬
ferences, one at Ferrara, the other at Todi (Umbria). This
was the signal for several provincial federations to denounce
the pact, which they had never accepted. The dissentients
even organized a ‘ fascist march ’ on Ravenna, for the
celebration of the 6ooth anniversary of Dante’s death.
Columns arrived from Ferrara, Bologna, and Modena;
setting out on September 10, numbering at least 3000,
staffed and organized like an army, after a three-day tour
of the roads of Emilia the fascists marched into the ‘ town of
sfience ’ singing their battle hymns. On the way, to keep
meir hand in, they wrecked several socialist clubs. In
Ravenna they attacked all who failed to salute the fascist
banners. Workers^ and priests were severely beaten up,
and TOth them foreigners who had come for the celebrations,
mcluding Johann Joergensen, the historian of St. Francis.

I here were protests and incidents. On the very morning of
^ e i2th the fascists broke up and sacked five socialist clubs
m the to^ and the neighbourhood, the Chamber of Labour,
and the Federation of the Co-operatives. On their return
journey dhe columns destroyed everything they had not had
time to destroy on the way. Had Dante been able to rise from
ms tomb he would have recognized Sordello’s apostrophe :

Ahi serva Italia, di dolore ostello

nave, sanza nocchiero in gran tempesta.

€ ora in te non stanno sanza guerra

n vivi tuoi, e Pun Paltro si rode

di quei ch un muro ed una fossa serra.

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM I53

The same habits, but without the fierce courage and
greatness. The aim of this expedition was to demonstrate
the strength of the opposition. All its chiefs were there,
Grandi from Bologna, Balbo from Ferrara, Misuri from
Perugia, Caradonna from Apulia. They meant to prove
their determination to go on with their present methods and
adventures. Mussolini felt himself more and more isolated,
and though he hid his bitterness, giving vent to it neverthe¬
less on occasions, he began to wonder if he was not making
a useless sacrifice of his prestige, and if, after losing his first
battle, he was not in a fair way to lose the other, the gover-
mental battle. The meaning of the Ravenna episode was
quite clear to him and he made no protest about it. On the
contrary, in the Popolo PItalia he abused Nullo Baldini,
who had resorted to the feeble expedient of an interpellation
in the Chamber. This was the first move in Mussolini’s
new manoeuvre to regain without loss of face the main body
of the fascist army, now in mutiny against him. He now
realized that the policy he had conceived and which he had
inaugurated with his speech of July 23 was unworkable.
This policy had antagonized the majority of the fascists
without winning him support from any other quarter.

The conservatives were furious, because Mussolini’s new
attitude gambled on socialist participation in government,
and this meant that the state would defend working-class
and socialist organizations from the fascist gangs. Those
whom Mussolini described as ' until recently imploring the
degrading charity of a little socialist collaboration now
that the danger was past found that Mussolini Macked
style’. In the Giornale PItalia of August 18—the day
after the Bologna conference and Mussolini’s resignation—
Senator Bergamini^ wrote :

' Behind Mussolini’s fickleness there is perhaps a lack
of firm convictions. ... At any rate this hasty liquida¬
tion of fascism shows lack of style . . . the Duce throws
in his hand prematurely, with noisy ostentation, while
his victorious troops continue here and there their

1 After the march on Rome Bergamini made the acquaintance of fascist
* style He got no, mercy from the blackshirt thugs and was forced to resign

154 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

implacable warfare against the remains of their routed
adversaries.’

Afussolini, stung by the cheap gibes of those who had
profited by fascism, retorted that he had nothing to learn
from any of them, and as to his style ‘ he did not pretend
to act the general, since his army refused obedience or
discipline. ... It was my intention,’ he specified, ‘ my
definite intention, to have a peace pact; hundreds o^fasci
would have nothing to do with it and said so clearly. It is
not I who am leaving ; it is these others who force me to leave,
because it is I personally who am disqualified by their vote ’.

The Giornale (Tltalia answered by setting out its pre¬
occupations, or rather those of the landowners who
controlled it:

‘ We are not impatient for the development of the crisis
in fascism, on the contrary we have criticized Mussolini
for wanting to bring it on. In our view, as we have often
said, fascism has only a temporary function, but for
precisely this reason it must only be liquidated gradually,
when it becomes superfluous. We have spoken of lack of
style in connection both with Mussolini’s resignation
and with the excessive haste he has shown lately, since
the beginning of the negotiations for peace. We, who are
LO-day engaged in a controversy with Mussolini, agree
that he is right when he says that the anti-fascist front
must be broken, that fascism must not come into conflict
with the forces of the state, and that it is important to
reconcile public opinion to fascism. But this cleavage of
ideas must not lead to the hquidation of fascism at the
very moment that arditi del popolo are starting up in
various districts, and when the Turati socialists are
making unprecedented efforts to get their party into the
government, or anyhow to capture the government. It is
probable ^at at the approaching socialist congress the
collaborationist tendency will be defeated, and this will
be a good thing for Italy, for even a socialist puntarella in
the government would waken the state at this juncture.
There is also danger of a coahtion of socialists with the
reformists, the social democrats, and perhaps the hberal

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM I55

democrats, making possible a liberal-radical-socialist
ministry. Efforts towards this end will probably be
crushed by the socialist congress, which will confirm its
refusal to compromise. But we must not ignore signs of
activity on the part of certain left-wing elements who
aim at an alliance between democracy and socialism,
which would mean a governmental swing towards the
extreme left. The premature crisis of fascism is very
harmful, and its immediate disintegration would be even
more so, since it would weaken national and conservative
political forces and leave the ultra-democratic forces in
control of the country’s destiny. Hence it would be a
mistake for the fascists to break up their forces now and
leave the ground open for unfettered democracy in which
the socialists would be the real masters.’

On their side the nationalists, noted the Popolo d'Italia,
^ have laid a political ambush and their paper, the Idea
Nazionale, which was also the mouthpiece of heavy industry
and the armament manufacturers, discovered that fascism
was born, not at Milan in March, 1919, but ‘ in Bologna in
December 1920 Mussolini had against him, therefore, his
own movement, the big industrial and landowning class
and the nationalists ; and he realized that he would never
get the socialists to disarm, not even those of the right wing.
He was certainly not going to back a policy which he could
not himself direct and gain profit from.

The socialists saw nothing in the fascist crisis but the
embarrassing position in which Mussolini found himself,
and instead of making political capital out of it they looked
on, blinded by their grievances, and enjoyed the unhoped¬
for revenge which they regarded as final. In his speech
in the Chamber about the Sarzana episode (July 22),
Mussolini had already complained that the only reply the
socialists had made to his overtures was to call him a
repentant Magdalene. When he resigned the came

out with a complacent sneer which was not quickly forgotten.

The Socialist Party was in a worse fix than ever, for the
pact had only increased its impotence. On August 10 the
party executive approved the pact and on the 12 th it passed

156 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

a resolution against any form of participation in the govern¬
ment. Thus within two days the party made two decisions
which cancelled each other out, and, which was more
serious, without noticing the contradiction. Now that the
pact was signed, what did it mean ? Was it a provisional
truce between two armies in the field ? But from the
military viewpoint there was only one army in the field, that
of the fascist squads. The arditi del popolo movement had
scarcely begun, and anyway by Article 5 of the pact the
Socialist Party had expressly disavowed this organization.
It was obvious that the agreement could only work on a
basis which went beyond the ordinary doctrines of the two
adversaries, namely, a certain consciousness of the country’s
interests endangered by the civil war, the recognition of a
certain positive and intrinsic value in democratic liberty,
which the working class had every inducement to protect.

The fascist rank and file protested everywhere, com¬
plaining in company with their backers, the big landowners
and industrialists, ' legality is killing us In the actual
conditions then prevailing the liberties won by the working
classes could only be protected if the state remained neutral,
interfering in certain districts to restore the essential com¬
ponents of the life of the community where fascism had
destroyed them. The state was powerless without the
country behind it; it could only bring the fascists to
reason if the workers themselves submitted to the general
interest whose rule the unruly swarms of squadristi had to be
compelled to obey.

But the Socialist Party was carrying on discussions with
Moscow and with the Third International, to which, as
decided in its last congress, it still belonged. In Moscow
people only had a vague idea of what was going on in Italy,
and anyway, after the failure of the Warsaw campaign and
the removal of any immediate prospect of world revolution,
Ita.ly was no longer in Russian eyes anything but a rather
unimportant pawn. The socialists made a point of keeping
up the official connection with Moscow, which gave them
^me defence against the desperate rivalry of the communists.
But this delivered the party into the hands of the com¬
munists. They bandied formulae with each other, which,

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM I57

though much used for internal party controversy, merely
confused the general political issue, where the fate of the
working class and the Italian people was at stake. From
time to time their eyes were opened by the fascist manganello,
only to become blind again when it became necessary to
proceed beyond the mere statement of facts to draw political
and tactical conclusions. They wavered between boastful¬
ness and slackness, between ‘ symbolical' firmness and
resignation to the ‘ inevitable k Occasionally there were
signs that a new spirit would emerge from the blood spilled
and the burnings, but each time their assurance and
resolution failed them. They were much more afraid of
appearing not to be revolutionaries than of allowing fascism
to spread little by little all over Italy.

The communists had not signed the pact and their watch¬
word was : ‘ Conciliation is not possible ; it is a fight to
the death between us and fascism : fascism or communism.’
In practice they fought the fascists neither more nor less
than the rest, but their attitude was of the utmost help to
fascism. To them everything was fascism : the state, the
bourgeoisie^ democracy, socialism. All these had to be fought,
and it ‘ simplified ’ the struggle to lump them all together,
and made it unnecessary to aim or control the blows struck.
Actually the communists only fought seriously against the
socialists and won their victories in attempts to outbid them.
The Communist Party even opposed its members joining
the arditi del popolo^ which they denounced as a ‘ bourgeois
manoeuvre ’. In a statement on August 7 the party executive
declared :

" The arditi del popolo apparently propose to represent
the proletarian reaction against the excesses of fascism, to
restore "" the law and order of social life The aim of
the communists is quite different : they are resolved to
pursue the proletarian struggle to a revolutionary victory,
and they believe in the unalterable antithesis between the
dictatorship of bourgeois reaction and that of proletarian
revolution.’

The armed bodies which were to fight everybody and
carry out the revolution into the bargain must be organized

158 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

by the Communist Party alone, without the socialists, in
fact against them. This was simply a piece of narrow¬
minded and empty demagogy. Here and there a few shots
were fired by communists, and a few, despite the party ban,
joined the arditi del popolo, but the party as such practically
kept out of the fight, and by its tactics did much to help on
the victory of fascism.

There remained one course : to call in the state and
employ its vast resources against fascism ; but this was
barred by the Socialist Party’s refusal to allow the parha-
mentary group either to support or to join the government.
This party, which had rejected the constituent assembly,
because it wanted ‘ soviets everywhere ’, could make no
pohtical demands of the state which it proposed quite simply
to destroy. They could not ask this state to rid them of
their most dangerous enemies in order that they might carry
out their own march on Rome. The pact was thus
endangered by hundreds of incidents between workers and
fascists who were determined not to yield the positions they
had won, nor abandon the methods by which they had
won them. There was no ‘ secular arm ’ to enforce respect
for the principles laid down by the pact. Nor did anything
occm which might widen the breach in fascism, to make
the difference between the two tendencies an irreconcilable
one, or to compromise Mussolini and his friends and make
it impossible for them to rehnquish their new policy. Left
to itself the fascist crisis could settle itself without much
difficulty.

Mussolini’s problem was how to regain control of the
movement and make it a more manageable instrument to
serve his own personal pohcy and ambition. In February,
at the time of this Trieste speech, he had spoken against
turning fascism into a pohtical party, and at the end of
May he had still been of this opinion.^ The revolt of the
squads and the important part they had played in opposing
his orders convinced him, however, that the movement must
be turned into a party so that it could be effectively dis¬
ciplined. Although he abhorred programmes as ‘ dogmas
and prejudices already out of date or easily left behind by

1 P. 143.

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM 159

the ceaseless stream of events he now rallied to the idea
of a programme, since a party implied one. On August 23,
six days after the Bologna declaration, a colleague on the
Popolo (PItalia published an article affirming that fascism
must make up its mind to become a party or perish’.
Mussolini took the opportunity of announcing his con¬
version :

In another part of the paper a fascist writer raises a
fundamental problem which may be summed up in the
question, should fascism become a party? After long
reflexion and a careful study of the political situation I
have come to the conclusion that it should. The causes
and development of the fascist crisis force this choice on
us : either a party or an army has got to be formed. In
my opinion the solution lies in the formation of a party,
so well organized and disciplined that it can be turned,
if necessary, into an army capable of violent offensive or
defensive action. The party must be given a mind, that
is a programme. Theoretical and practical principles
must be revised and extended, some of them abolished.
The weeks which remain before the national gathering
at Rome must be devoted to the elaboration of the
platform of the Italian Fascist Party.’

This was very prudent talk. He was not suggesting the
abolition of the squads ; he only wanted to make sure that
squadrismo was not going to spoil the political role of the
party. The ministerial crisis of June and the peace pact
had shown him that fascism was in danger of forfeiting its
legal and political resources and having recourse to mere
civil war, a policy which would end by antagonizing the
greater part of the country and inviting suppression by the
state. Mussolini wanted to play a double game ; preventing
the intolerance and impatience of the squadristi from
forfeiting him the legal weapons that he thought fascism
Still needed. At the beginning of September he was con¬
sidering a Fascist Labour Party. This was the transition
from the abortive proposal of a ' Labour Party’ and the
new theory. ‘ The word “ labour ’ ’ is essential, ’ he insisted,
in the name of the new party. Two weeks later he proposed

l6o THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

quite simply ' Fascist Party The new party was not to be
based on a coalition of syndicates, as he had contemplated
in the beginning of July, but on an association of Xhtfasci
and their storm squads, by then amenable to party discipline.
Instead of bringing about ‘ a united proletariat he would
form his own syndicates. Mussolini was tacitly adopting
the proposals of the Bologna heretics.

Although he had resigned in his letter of August 17 he
had not given up the struggle, and although he was forced
to give up his July 23 policy, there remained the struggle
for leadership inside the fascist movement itself. Having
now thrown his labour sympathies overboard he could act
more freely in view of the approaching National Congress.
He began by demanding, unsuccessfully, that it should be
held in Milan, which was favourable ground,, and not in
Rome. At the same time he was perturbed by the attitude
of Bonomi, who seemed determined to oppose fascist
illegality. At Modena the Royal Guard had fired on fascist
demonstrators, who had left several dead behind them.
This caused a tremendous furore. Restrictions were set on
the bearing of arms and the movements of lorries, which
hampered blackshirt excursions. For the most part local
authorities ignored the ministerial orders, or used them
for hunting down the meagre beginnings of the arditi del
popolo. Here and there, however, the fascist squads
encountered difficulties. The fasci demanded that the
parliamentary group should openly oppose Bonomi, but
Mussolini was against violent anti-ministerial action, and
insisted, on September 7, that they must first of all settle
the fascist crisis and form the party. An attack at this stage
would involve the risk of creating an anti-fascist coalition
and government, and might even bring Nitti back into
power. Bonomi was the lesser evil.

The Jhsci^ whose growth had been due to every sort of
help from public authorities, could not brook this new
atmosphere of restriction. The heads of the Florence fasdo
published the following notice on September 30 :

Very few citizens felt impelled to mourn for the tragic

events at Modena, and no shops were shut, even for half

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM l6l

an hour. In view of the open or secret hostility of the
population, and particularly of the rich and pleasure-
loving bourgeoisie^ which applauded fascist action so long
as it coincided with its own material interests, the fascists
declare formally that from to-day they retire from the
struggle. . . . We stand back, our weapons sheathed.’

Directly the people realized that the fascists no longer
had the support of the state they gave them a wide berth
and ignored their orders. The Venicealso ^ withdrew
from the struggle ’ and left the bourgeoisie henceforward ^ to
provide its own defence Mussolini stood out against this
wave of panic.

‘ This curious, paradoxical epidemic,’ he wrote on
October 8, ‘ affects tYit fasci who in August were agitating
against the Rome pact: After the Florencecome
those of Ferrara, Padua, Venice ; all of them exter¬
minating ” fasci^ which are now retiring “ into private
life.” . . . The extreme seriousness of such a decision
lies in the fact that they appear up to now to have
protected the bourgeoisie which least deserved it.’

And since the motion passed proclaimed ‘ unswerving
opposition ’ to Bonomi, Mussolini retorted : ‘ What is the
point ? And if to-morrow the choice lay between Bonomi
and Nitti, can one tell which way the obstinacy of the fascist
executive of Venice would tip the scale ? ’

The party congress was approaching, and Mussolini out¬
lined the new programme in the Popolo d^Italia, The
liquidation of the 1919 programme was complete, and
tentative socialism had given way to ‘ integral ’ nationalism.
The basis for everything was the ‘national society’, for
‘ the law of life in the world is not the unification of different
societies, but their fruitful, and if possible peaceful, rivalry
The state must give up all its monopolies in the sphere of
economics ; its specific task was to ‘ devote all its energies
to the reinforcement, development and expansion of the
Italian nation, which will thus be able to attain its great
historical and social goals Appeal was made to individual
energy and initiative, which constitute ‘ the most potent

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

162

factor in productionand all ' state intervention, nationa¬
lization, municipalization ’ was renounced. All ^ demagogic'
fiscal measures must be abolished and freedom from taxation
granted to ' that part of revenue which is turned into tech¬
nical or instrumental capital h At home, ' restoration of the
authority of the national state ' ; an agnostic view of the
monarchy ; the creation, alongside parliament, of national
technical councils with legislative powers. Prohibition of
strikes in the public services. With regard to syndicates,
fascism would help proletarian minorities who were getting
themselves placed on a national footing. In religious matters,

‘ complete liberty to the catholic church in the exercise of its
spiritual office ; a concord with the Vatican
The paragraphs devoted to foreign policy began with the
affirmation, already repeated countless times, that ‘ fascism
does not believe in the vitality or the principles of the
so-called League of Nations ’, and took up all the points
expounded in the Trieste speech of February.^ As for the
army, the 1919 programme, in deference to the pacific and
democratic spirit of the ex-servicemen, had demanded the
‘ replacement of the standing army by a national militia
defensive in character and with short-term service The
new programme called, on the contrary, for ‘ a military
establishment proportionate to the present and eventual
needs of a continuously developing nation like Italy h The
absolute difference between these two proposals showed how
far fascist ideology had gone since March 1919. To those
who imputed a lack of originality to the new programme
Mussolini replied a few days later with a pompously expressed
summary :

' We are irrevocably separated from all the socialist
sects, because we reject all forms of internationalism and
all forms of state intervention in economic life. ... We
are separated from the various schools of democracy and
liberalism by our conviction of the necessity for a very
strong state, hence one reduced to its primal politico-
moral functions, and by our demand for an expansionist,
courageous, Italian foreign policy.’

^ P, .132.'

= P. 34-

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM 1 63

Mussolini proposed at the same time a system of regula¬
tions laying down the functions and relations of the executive
organs of the party (National Congress, Central Committee,
Executive Commission, National Council, Political Secre¬
tariat), of its federations and sections. These regulations,
published on the eve of the Rome Congress, placed the squads
under the control of the political leaders of liicfasci^ render¬
ing them 'subject to political disciplinary control by the heads
of each section Any signs of independence were to be
crushed. The' political ’ element was to control the' military ’.

At the time of the Rome Congress (November 7-10,
1921) the fascists, who in 1920 had had only about 100
fasci with 30,000 supporters, now numbered 2200 fasci and
320,000 members, chiefly recruited from landowners and
middle classes. An analysis of 151,644 members, made at
the time by the party secretariat, throws some light on the
social structure of the movement: 18,084 landowners,

13,878 tradesmen, 4269 manufacturers, 9981 members of
the learned professions, 7209 state employees, 14,988 private
employees, 1680 teachers, 19,783 students. These 90,000
composed the militant part of the fasci: the financial
backers, the leaders, and active members of punitive expedi¬
tions. Besides them there were 36,847 agricultural labourers,
mostly members of socialist ' leagues ’ forced into the fasci
by the offensive of iht sqmdristi^ and 23,418 industrial
workers, taken largely from the civil service, the unemployed
dock workers, and the districts under fascist military
occupation. These occupations had brought the fascists a
windfall of 138 co-operatives and 614 workers’ syndicates,
with 64,000 members, two-thirds of them from Emilia,
Tuscany, and Venetia. The mass of the workers in the towns
and even in the country were paralysed and in some cases
completely subjugated, but they remained loyal to their
socialist or catholic organizations. At the moment the
squads provided the only real driving power of the fascist
movement. Even the Rome Congress only succeeded
because it became a sort of military parade, an adunata^ as
Mussolini realized very well.

The day before the opening Mussolini met the opposition
leaders and struck a bargain with them. The opposition,

164 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

conscious of being in a majority, agreed not to impeach him
or the central committee on condition that there was no
more talk of the peace pact. Mussolini accepted, for he
wanted to avoid a vote at all costs, knowing that it would
go against him, and he was so disconcerted at the prospect
of being publicly disowned that he was ready to deny any¬
thing. Grandi explained the views of the opposition at the
congress. We want to avoid a split, he declared, ^ so long
as there is no more talk of a peace pact, here or anywhere h
Mussolini, who had seen his popularity endangered, got
up on the platform and announced that the ' treaty is
definitely a thing of the past, and no more than a retro¬
spective episode h Grandi and Mussolini embraced each
other, and the congress, till now divided into friends and
enemies of the pact, reserving their applause for one or other
of the two leaders, greeted them with a single ovation,
singing and bawling : ' Giovinezz^'

The discussion on the first day had revealed the cleavage
between the two tendencies. A Turin representative got on
the platform to deplore the fact that ' fascism went arm-in¬
arm with the landowners and industrial bosses ’ ; while a
squadrista had declared : ' We must not sign a truce, for
we are soldiers.’ The reconciliation of the two leaders on
the second day put an end to this bickering. Both made
speeches in turn on the programme question. Mussolini
repeated the points already published in the Popolo d'ltaliaP
emphasizing once more the need of opposing any state
intervention in the economic sphere. ‘ In economic matters
we are liberal in the most classical sense of the word and,
after criticizing d’Annunzio’s Quarnero constitution, he
added : ‘ liberal though we are in economics, we are not so
in politics h He emphasized, too, the need for a swing to
the right and for a more imperialist foreign policy, praising
Crispi, who f at a time when Italy seemed to be committed
to a Stay-at-home policy, had the courage to make her play
a part in the Mediterranean and Africa, because he felt that
greatness was not possible for a nation unless it was inspired
by imperialism Without this spur nations are condemned
to decadence and death.

^ Pp. i6i~2.

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM 165

Grand! made a speech much richer in ideas and sugges¬
tions and mercilessly critical of Mussolini’s recent posturings,
though without mentioning his name. Parliamentary
fascism and national fascism were in conflict, he said.

‘ After the elections, fascism, which was a romantic move¬
ment, became a political one and was repressed by parlia¬
mentarism before acquiring any proper character of its own.
That is why, up till now, it has been groping about and has
not been able to find its way.’ Its organization needed
completely renewing, beginning with its philosophy. In the
Fiume tradition and in the Quarnero constitution were to
be found all the principles of this double renewal, whose
meaning ‘ might be summed up in the words, liberty, nation,
syndicalism ’. Instead of following in the wake of the con¬
servatives, the Vatican and reformist socialism, fascism
should be the moving spirit of a new national democracy,
a syndical democracy, which would allow the masses to
support the national state. ‘ The state must consist of a
great and powerful association of syndicates, for we see
democracy not as a means, but as an end.’ This was a
retort to Mussolini, who had said in his speech : ‘ Demo¬
cracy may be a means, but never an end.’ Fascism,
concluded Grandi, is slowly maturing inside it the germs of
the future state. ‘ Our congress is only the preface to a great
book that the new generation is to write.’

For most of those present the debates were a kind of stage
performance to which they listened without understanding
very well, and the two speeches were greeted with lengthy
and enthusiastic applause. This made it easy for the leaders
to close the discussion at once and get a motion passed
leaving to the National Council the task of shaping the party
programme, co-ordinating Mussolini’s and Grandi’s plans.^

Considering how much opposed in theory were these
plans this task might well have appeared hard. But the
solution arrived at saved time and maintained party unity.
The fascist rank and file had no interest in ideological
niceties ; their main idea was to go on beating up socialists,

^ This motion, put by Michele Bianchi, and passed on the gth, also settled
the transformation of the fasci into a political party, the Jfational Fascist
Farty . ' ■■ ■ '

l66 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

and it was enough that Mussolini and Grandi had agreed
to drop the peace pact. The difficulties with regard to the
programme were complicated by all sorts of equivocations.
Mussolini, himself a ‘ conservative had for several weeks
been considering collaboration with the socialists, whom his
fellow conservatives wanted to see crushed for good and all
by the fascist manganello. Grandi, who talked about a new
Risorgimento, and wanted to win the confidence of the masses
and impose the Quarnero republic on a national scale, had
the backing of the fascists of the Po valley, inspired and led
by the landowmers, who were particularly selfish and hostile
to the workers. Mussolini made no secret of his mistrust of
the fascist syndicates, particularly as the foundations for
a ‘ syndicalist state ’, but Grandi, who wanted to be both
revolutionary and syndicalist, was the leader of the fascism
of the punitive expeditions ’, which were uprooting
syndicalism entirely over a third of Italy. Mussolini, who
wished to collaborate with the General Confederation of
Labour, opposed d’Annunzio, who looked forward to a
‘national reconciliation’, in which the Confederation
would play an important part; while Grandi, who pro¬
claimed himself d Annunzio’s disciple, wanted to destroy
the Confederation root and branch. Mussolini, who hoped
for a personal dictatorship, had been talking of pacification
and collaboration right up to the eve of the congress ;
Grandi, with his talk of democracy and syndicalism, wished
the blackshirt offensive to go on until the enemy were wiped
out. On neither side was there any connection between
theory and facts, between principles and the forces which
were to put them into practice.

This tangle of equivocations eventually helped the fusion
of opposing tendencies. Mussolini’s reactionary ideas
inevitably combined with Grandi’s reactionary forces, and
from that moment unity was regained, particularly as
Mussofim was prepared for any sacrifice to get back the
sguadristi ; he had gone back on the peace pact, he had been
the first to sign a complimentary telegram to d’Annunzio
from the congress, and he had become an out-and-out
nationalist. Although he had, a few months ago, defended
the treaty of Rapallo, he now interrupted the speech of a

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM 167

delegate who complained that Italy had only very weak
armed forces on the Jugo-Slav frontier by shouting : ‘ We
are there. We will send a punitive expedition to Lioublana.’

‘ Loud applause ’ records the official account of the
congress.

Another episode, which had an important influence on
the internal development of fascism, speeded up the union
of the two schools of thought. The Tuscan and Emilian
squads had arrived in Rome equipped for a punitive
expedition, and they began attacking anybody in the
streets who wore a red tie or did not uncover as they passed,
as if they were in their ‘ own ’ Florence or Bologna. At the
station they killed a railwayman, and there was a general
strike in protest. The government was alarmed. Fascist
activity in other towns was all very well, but in Rome there
were embassies, the Vatican, pilgrimages. . . . There were
further incidents, and the fascists began to feel themselves
surrounded by an atmosphere of hatred and contempt.
They revenged themselves by leaving behind them in the
Augusteo, the hall where the congress had been held, piles
of litter and dirt. In the Chamber Mussolini spoke of
‘ misunderstandings between the people of Rome and the
fascists Grandi of forgetfulness and ‘ ingratitude b But
both had learned their lesson. Mussolini had discovered
that the only fascism that counted was that of the squads,
whose confidence he had to win back if he wanted a real
force behind him. Grandi realized that the Po valley was
not the whole of Italy, and that, even where it seemed to
have triumphed, fascism could not last without support
from the state. Shortly after he wrote in this connection :

‘ A violent and dictatorial seizure of the powers of the
state seemed to us at times to be an immediate necessity ;
all the more obvious because it seemed possible and
easy . . . the days in Rome destroyed this illusion. There in
November we all felt clearly that any attempt at a rising
would fail, because understanding of the new state has
not yet matured in the heart of the people.’ ‘ Punitive
expeditions ’ were not enough; political action was
wanted : ‘ Slow, steady, everyday work.’

l68 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

Which of the opposition leaders could undertake this
work ? They were all inexperienced and young, suddenly
faced with a reality which had so far escaped them. The
only possibility was Mussolini, who for several months had
been pointing out the danger of the split between the country
and fascism, the existence of which had come as an unex¬
pected revelation to the extremists of the opposition. It
began to be admitted that his opportunism had been called
for by the situation, that he alone could direct the political
action of fascism, and that without him it would fail. So,
shortly after his appearance in the congress as a minority
leader, there emerged, as the only possible leader of fascism,
the unrivalled ‘ Duce ’. The revolt against him, which had
forced him to abandon the untenable position he had taken
up, died down and fascism passed into his hands once
more, but not before various incidents had taken place
on the last day of the congress. The opposition delegates
proposed Rome, instead of Milan, as headquarters of the
party,^ in order to reduce Mussolini’s personal influence.
On this point the two sides voted against each other, and the
resolution was carried by a large majority. The opposition
greeted the result with significant applause, very galling to
Mussolini. The list of the Executive Committee of the fasci
was read out: Mussolini was first, then Grandi. Mussolini
rose and announced that he would not accept. The
Assembly cheered him, to force his hand, but he replied :

‘ It is no good insisting. You do not know me. I will not
accept.’ But his friends, on the contrary, knew him very
well, for though he made no formal declaration of accep¬
tance, he attended the first meeting of the new committee.
He realized perfectly that the situation was developing in
his favour, and he only kept up the farce because he needed
a httle time to get over the rebuff he had suffered at Rome.
If possible, he would have liked to get his own back with the
fascists by letting them manage for themselves and staying
m Milan with the Popolo PItalia until they begged him to
direct *e movement once more. The political situation
aUowed him no time for this. The ‘ democratic ’ groups in
parliament, ran^ng from Nitti to Giohtti, had begun
negotiating for umon into a single group, and had completed

THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM 169

their arrangements by the end of November. Between 150
and 160 deputies joined the new alliance. The fascists,
quit of the peace pact, which had not worried them much,
resumed their acts of violence, which included the assassina¬
tion of the socialist deputy Di Vagno in Apulia, and of the
socialist Boldori, president of the Cremona provincial
council of deputies, who was beaten to death in the road.
For funeral speech he had the fascist comment: ‘ It was not
our fault his skull was so thin.’ xA. new attack was made
on the Lavoratore in Trieste, and a compositor was murdered.
This caused a general strike in protest, proclaimed by the
Printers’Federation.

The government issued fresh regulations on the ‘ disarma¬
ment of citizens ’ ordering searches to be made and arms
seized. These measures were ineffective, for the government
only went half-way and left to local authorities the final
responsibility for breaking up the armed leagues. According
to the regulations : ‘ headquarters are to be occupied, arms
confiscated, the bearing of arms forbidden to all members of
armed bands, who are eventually to be reported to the legal
authorities in extreme cases, such as are mentioned in articles
253, 254 of the Penal Code (on those who “ organize armed
bands and belong to them”) ’. But how many of these
prefects and sub-prefects, when left to decide for themselves,
were likely to go so far ? The regulations left loop-holes for
endless evasion and connivance. A few searches were made,
chiefly in People’s Houses and headquarters of socialist
syndicates, to seize any arms that might possibly still be
there, and leave the field clear for the fascist attack. Mem¬
bers of several arditi del popolo were arrested and sentenced
by the magistrates without pity. Strict observance of the
law would have meant the occupation by the authorities of
each fascist base from which punitive expeditions set out,
and the arrest of sqmdristi. They contented themselves with
a few searches. But the arms which they should have found
were often supplied by the military, and when a search was
arranged the leaders oifasci were warned, and had plenty
of time to take them to a safe place, sometimes even the
cellars of police headquarters or of the prefecture. Nothing
was ever found, therefore, and next day the squads would

170 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

go off again, armed, in their lorries, passing unmolested
under the windows of the police-station, where a report was
being drawn up, explaining that a thorough search had
failed to reveal anything that would justify the prefect taking
any steps.

The government realized that the measures they had taken
were useless and contemplated abolishing the squads by
decree. As soon as the fascist leaders had wind of this they
got their blow in first, and on December 15, 1921 they issued
the following order :

' To all sections of the party ! To all squadre di com-
battimento ! There is a rumour in the press of an imminent
attack by the government on fascism. . . . Party sections
and squadre di combattimento make up an indivisible whole.
After December 15, 1921, all members of sections will
join squads. . . . The dissolution of the squadre di combatti¬
mento thus becomes an impossibility, unless the govern¬
ment first outlaws the entire National Fascist Party.’

Such was their challenge : the government wanted to
dissolve the squads, but the whole party belonged to them ;
let them dissolve the party if they dare. The government
obviously would not dare. Its leader, Bonomi, had been
elected in Mantua in May, on a national coalition list which
included the fascists. He issued more and more regulations,
which everybody ignored. The fascists had staked boldly
and the state gave way. At the same time the internal
crisis of fascism was brought nearer to a solution by the
common danger which united ' sections ’ and ' squads
Instead of breaking up, thereby giving Mussolini and his
friends a chance to join the state, towards the end of the
year fascism had united against the state.

IX

THE CAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM

AT the end of 1921 Mussolini was faced with the
/\ serious possibility of the left-wing groups forming
a coalition government bent on putting a stop to
fascist violence. There were 535 deputies in the Chamber,
of whom socialists, communists, and republicans,

110 Popolari, and 150 ^ democrats In order to bring about
a ministerial crisis on November 26, the socialists had tabled
a resolution deploring the inertia of the government over the
armed bands. If the fascists joined the attack, Ponomi
would be defeated, as Giolitti had been six months ago.^
But Mussolini was not ready for a parliamentary crisis,
and spared the government in his speech. Those in power,
he said, might attempt to crush the two extreme factions,
communist and fascist, simultaneously :

^ Let me say at once that as far as the fascists are con¬
cerned it would be very difficult and dangerous ; for
to-morrow, fascists and communists, alike persecuted by
the police, might arrive at an agreement, sinking their
differences till the time comes to share the spoils. I realize
that though there are no political affinities between us,
there are plenty of intellectual affinities. Like them, w^e
believe in the necessity for a centralized and unitary
state, imposing an iron discipline on all, but with the
difference that they reach this conclusion through the con¬
ception of class, we through the conception of the nation.

The Bonomi government might still have used one faction
to destroy the other, but, content to live from hand to
mouth, it did not. At the present time ihere were only three
solutions : a military dictatorship, which, said Mussolini .

. . ' iji ■ ■

172 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

‘ I have never believed in, even when it is suggested by
unemployed generals, who always think they have an
infallible remedy for the world’s troubles,’ besides, ‘ dictator-
slup is a high card, which can only be played once, and at a
frightful risk ’ ; alternatively an appeal to the country
through new general elections ; or, finally, a coalition
government. But who was to form it ? Not Nitti, for the
fascists were strongly opposed to him. ‘ Signor Giolitti ?
This statesman has always enjoyed great popularity. Besides,
history is a succession of logical and sentimental points of
view, and one does not fix one’s loves and hates for ever.
Yesterday’s friends become to-morrow’s enemies, and vice
yepa ; such is life.’ V/ith regard to the general situation,
if it was necessary to choose between civil war and a policy
of pacification, the fascists felt themselves strong enough to
accept pacification.

It is time the Italian people stopped fighting at home
and looked beyond their own frontiers, watching the new
developments which are destined once more to change the
map. of Europe. For the choice lies between treaty
revision and a new war. Italy must enter the lists solidly
united and undistracted by internal disorder, so as to
show the world—since from now on our life is neither
national, nor even European, but world-wide—that Italy
IS about to enter the fourth and most brilliant period of
her history.’

^ Reading this speech again to-day, one is struck by its
incoherence. It would have been easy to refute it and show
up^ its countless contradictions. Nobody did so, because in
order to drive Mussolini and fascism into a corner it would
have been necessary to take a firm line and shoulder
definite responsibilities, not only over fascism but over the
whole field of Italian politics. Mussolini could afford to be
iMoherent, because none of the others, from socialists to
fiberals, were ready to pay the price of a coherent policy.
He itoew the weakness of his opponents and profited by it.
Iheir torpor gave him freedom to manoeuvre. What he
was^ out to prevent was the hardening of vaguely democratic
teeiing in the Chamber into a definite coalition from which

THE CAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 173

the fascists would be excluded. Faced with the threat of
anti-fascist action by the state, he countered with the threat
of an alliance with the communists. Rather than a centre
government, which would eliminate both extremes, he
favoured a coalition government led by Giolitti, ‘ yesterday’s
enemy and to-morrow’s friend ’. He ‘ accepted ’ pacifica¬
tion, but as the necessary prelude to an imperialistic foreign
policy. In short, he did his best to stave off a ministerial
crisis whose outcome the fascists could not yet control, and
he succeeded. The Bonomi government survived a few
weeks longer.

The crisis came two months later. The new session was
fixed to begin on February 2. The day before, the right-
wing members, the fascists and the socialists decided to vote
against the ministry, and, which proved decisive, the
democratic group called on its members in the cabinet to
resign. Only the Popolari favoured the status quo. The
government was simultaneously blamed for not making
itself felt at the Cannes conference, for the ineffectiveness of
its measures for internal peace and disarmament, for its
weakness with the fascists, for its subservience to the
socialists, for being influenced inside the cabinet by the
Popolari, and for its growing tendency towards anti¬
clericalism. It was also criticized for not having done its
utmost to rescue the Bdnca Italiana di Sconto, which had had
to close down and demand a moratorium. Amongst those
responsible for the failure of this great bank were several of
the financial backers of fascism and nationalism, who
wanted to save their cash at the expense of the state, and
whose efforts found support in some of the ‘ democratic ’
papers, such as the Paese.

The French ambassador in Rome, M. Barrere, once more
had a hand in the game. At Cannes Bonomi had shown his
approval of Lloyd George’ s advances for a‘ return to normal ’
in the European situation and for a more intelligent policy
towards Germany and Russia. To reassure France, England
was disposed to give her the direct guarantee to which later
she was never willing to pledge herself. Briand lent a ready
ear to these advances, but Millerand and Poincare staged
a little coup d'etat in Paris, to get him out of the way.

174 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

I\I. Barrere took the same line in Rome. The Genoa
conference was about to take place, but Bonomi was fated to
miss it, as Nitti had missed Spa.^

Once the crisis had begun Giolitti and Nitti exerted them¬
selves to settle it, but as they both wanted to be the deus ex
machina of the new government their efforts cancelled each
other out. For his part, Don Sturzo, the secretary of the
Popolari, renewed his ban against Giolitti. The Bonomi
cabinet resigned and in the course of negotiations for a
solution, Giolitti, De Nicola, Orlando were eliminated in
turn. In face of this difficulty the king refused to accept the
cabinet s resignation, but asked Bonomi to go before the
Chamber to obtain a vote which would show clearly what
form the new government should take. On February i6
Bonomi accepted a motion of confidence, the first part of
which emphasized ‘ the necessity of giving back to the
country the conditions without which all classes cannot live
peaceably side by side, with a respect for freedom of labour
and organization, and in obedience to the law ’. This was
drawn up by the reformist, Celli, with the idea of embarrass-
ing the fascists and forcing them into opposition, which would
allow the formation of a majority from which they would be
excluded, and give the definite lead which had been sought
in vain for months.

Speaking for the socialists, Modigliani said that he would
vote in favour of the first part of the motion, but would
refuse to give a vote of confidence in the government
Mussolini understood Celli’s aims perfectly, and took the
offensive. ^ He drew attention to the contradiction between
the maximalist ’ decisions of the last socialist congress, and
me present acceptance of ‘ all classes living peaceably side
by side ’ and of ‘ obedience to the law On behalf of the
entire right wing he too, accepted the first part of the motion
which was passed by 388 votes to 11. Thus he once more
managed to prevent the voting in' the Chamber firom
pointmg the way to the formation of any new government.
After this , the fascists could, without any risk, support the
^lahsts m r^ing confidence in the Bonomi cabinet.
Ihe crisis continued, the longest known in Italy since i860.

^ Pp. 62-63.

THE CAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 175

Giolitti tried in vain to get the ban put on him by the
Popolari removed, and sent his favourite envoy, the prefect
Lusignoli, to the Vatican. The Genoa conference was about
to begin, and somehow or other a government had to be
formed. The Popolari, who had cold-shouldered Giolitti,
agreed to join a ministry formed by his lieutenant. Facta.
This took a form very different from that envisaged by the
Celli resolution, and included right-wing elements, such as
De Capitani and Riccio, of whom the latter was to be the
fascist intermediary in the new cabinet. Thus the crisis,
which had been engineered so as to bring in a government
‘ further to the left ’, had the opposite effect. Mussolini’s
coup had succeeded ; he had staved off a democratic coalition,
sociaHst support of the government, in short a stronger
ministry, which as he clearly realized could have made an
end of the fascists. The long crisis, the equivocation of the
socialists, the Popolari's ostentatious show of power and their
rallying to support the Facta solution, all served further to
discredit the parliamentary system. The country looked on
amazed at the antics of the various parties and their leaders
and could make nothing of them. The nationalists took the
opportunity to demonstrate in Rome, Bologna and Florence,
in front of military headquarters, shouting : ‘ We want a
dictatorship ! Down with parhament.’

The sort of truce—only by comparison—which lasted as
long as the Genoa conference, barely served to hide the fact
that the parliamentary crisis was having an increasingly
serious effect on the country. Chiefly under the influence
of the National Syndicate of Railwaymen there arose in the
working-class movement a ' Labour Alliance {^Alleanza del
Lavoro), covering all syndical bodies, headed by the General
Confederation of Labour. The formation of this ‘ united
front ’ put fresh courage in the workers and might have had
a decisive effect. But though indispensable it was not suffi¬
cient. It was exclusively syndical, and as such all it could
do was to proclaim on a national scale one of those general
strikes of protest which broke out after every fascist outrage.
But as it could organize neither street warfare, nor the legal
conquest of power, it proved as ineffective as the workers’
political parties. Moreover party differences were aggra-

176 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

vated rather than settled by the Labour Alliance ; behind
the facade they still fought bitterly. Maximalists and right-
wing socialists were on the point of an open break. And what
serious contribution could the communists make to the
united front, believing as they did that ‘ If the bourgeoisie
brings it off and white reaction strangles social democracy,
it will create the most favourable conditions for its own
defeat and for the victory of the revolution ’ . . . ?

The Popolari soon became conscious of strong pressure
being brought to bear on their right, from the direction of
the Vatican. At the beginning of February the College of
Cardinals, which met after the death of Benedict XV,
elected Cardinal Ratti as Pius XI. The new Pope belonged
to one of the typical conservative Lombard families who had
always taken a narrow-minded view over social questions,
and was an instinctive reactionary in everything. The
Jesuits, always attracted by a novelty, whether dangerous
or profitable, did their best to make an accord between the
fascists and the Vatican. Early in 1922, in their church of
Jesus in Rome, the favourite meeting-place of the ‘ black
aristocracy ’, they preached the beauties of the new move¬
ment in which they foresaw remarkable liberticide possi¬
bilities. One of them was so far carried away by his
enthusiasm as to get up in the pulpit and cry : ‘ Long live
fascism ’. In order to get rid of the socialists, Mussolini
needed the help of the Popolari, who were indispensable to
a right-mng government, and he hoped to win it through
the Vatican. On the occasion of the death of Benedict XV
he discovered religion, hailed once more the universal
mission of Catholicism and the revival of religious feeling,
a potent means of escape for the poor and wretched. At
the same time he had recourse to the strategy he had used
with the socialists : playing off the right against the left wing
of the party and hoping for a split. In actual fact the right
wing had almost no following inside the party, but could
count on increasing support from the Vatican.

Lower down in the catholic syndical organizations the
movement in favour of collaboration with the socialists
and particularly with the General Confederation of Labour’
was very strong. Peasants and workers who followed the

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM I77

Popolari had suffered from the attacks made by fascists on
the headquarters of their organizations and on their labour
contracts. At Cremona they forced the Popolari to sign a
local agreement with the socialists ' for the defence of
syndical freedom and the protection of their municipalities
But this defence could not go very far, since neither could be
guaranteed unless the state took active steps to make the law
respected. The political secretariat of the Popolari^ together
with Don Sturzo, were unwilling to commit themselves
very deeply with the socialists ; besides which the confusion
inside the party, where the maximalists still clung to their
1919-1920 ideas, made any collaboration in a government
out of the question. To make matters worse, the maximalist
executive of the party, sheltering behind a question of
procedure, censured the Cremona agreements, which thus
become inoperative. People who a few months ago had
rallied to the ' democratic concentration ^ and the political
solution it implied now began to hesitate, and to see no hope
outside an alliance with the fascists for a great national
government. With this in view Nitti was showing signs of
favour towards fascism, as in the declaration of policy he
made in Melfi on March 12.

Mussolini had no more trouble in settling the crisis inside
the party, which had been most threatening on the eve of
the Rome congress and now only manifested itself in stray
incidents, Grandi and the supporters of ^ national revolu¬
tion ’ understood the necessity of temporizing, and recog¬
nized that Mussolini was the only pilot who could keep them
clear of the rocks. Even over the young extremists he wielded
an undisputed authority. . He took care to be always in
touch with them ; he was at once curt and kindly, off-hand
and affectionate, holding out to each man the hopes that
were most likely to bind him to his service, talking con¬
fidentially, committing himself to nothing, but inspiring
others with the wildest dreams. At the beginning of 1922,
a few months after the congress, Italo Balbo, one of the
opposition leaders, wrote in hh Diary :

‘ Once a month, often once a fortnight, I go and see

Mussolini at Milan. Unforgettable meetings. The Duce

12

178 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

simplifies the most complicated problems, a great quality
in a leader. He is, too, always very affectionate. He never
lets me go without embracing me. His confidence is
my viaticum. Without this certainty I could not continue
the struggle. He tells me I am one of the elect. Such
praise makes me proud. Ambitious, too, to surprise him
by doing more than he expects. I am certain he was
right when, despite the hesitation of many, myself
included, he turned fascism into a party.’

The reconcihation with the extremists had far-reaching
results. At the National Council of Florence (December
20-21, 1921) the programme question was relegated to
second place. Attention was focused on the organization
of the fighting squads, which, while being placed under the
control of the political committees of the fasci, were to be
turned into a more regular army, capable of more ambitious
feats than the assassination of socialist leaders and the
burning of Chambers of Labour. Mussolini explained to
the ‘ military ’ fascists that it was time to stop thinking in
terms of local or regional action and aim at the conquest of
power. Until they were really prepared they must play for
time. In his own mind he was far from certain that he
wanted to march on Rome, his own inclination being to
get there by other and less risky methods. But he had to
calm the impatience of those who until lately had been his
opponents, besides holding in reserve the prospect of a
military conquest in case all else failed. Early in 1922 work
was begun on the reorganization of the squads on a unified,
national scale. Italo Balbo and the Marquis Perrone
Compagni, the leader of the Tuscan fascists, went to Oneglia
to meet General Gandolfo, who had recently joined. It was
at his house that they met to ‘ plan the transformation of the
squads into a Fascist Militia

Mussolini had insisted in August that a programme was
necessary. Now that he had shaped his instrument, the
party, he must take care not to handicap himself with a
programme that would make it unwieldy. His convictions
were unchanged ; he merely wanted to win over the refrac¬
tory squadristi. He wanted just enough doctrine to keep the

THE CAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 179

party together without making it inflexible. But he did
not want to tie himself down to anything, or leave the world
of adventure, where he felt at his best, for the tricky and
difficult one of fixed principles. He wanted to continue his
daily borrowing of ideas to meet all possible combinations
of forces opposing or supporting him. Ideas were only of
value in so far as they helped him on his way. And in this
connection he took plenty of precautions ; before the
discussion was over he had thoroughly confused the issue by
a profession of exaggerated relativism.

‘ The fascist phenomenon,’ he wrote after the Rome
Congress, ‘ is the highest and most interesting manifesta¬
tion of relativist philosophy. And since, as Wahiger
asserts, relativism is derived from Nietzsche and his Wille
zur Macht, Italian fascism has been and remains the most
formidable creation of an individual and national will to
power.’

This will to power embraced the entire fascist world, from
Mussolini, for whom life was just a ‘ wild adventure ’ and to
whom success was the only sanction, to the landowners and
manufacturers who, after shaking in their shoes for two
years, felt themselves once more the absolute masters of their
land and their factories, and thus saw ‘ the relationship of
man’s tyranny over man once more restored ’; and from the
petit bourgeois, who only yesterday had felt himself crushed
between capitalism and the proletariat, and who now
considered himself the deciding factor between these two
forces, to the demobilized officer, who saw in the fascist
militia the possibility of another command and the daily
ration of power that he could not do without.

From one point of view the vagueness of the programme,
instead of hindering the growth of fascism, helped it to
attract recruits and adapt itself to local conditions.

‘ The pretexts adopted by fascists to justify their offen¬
sive are not important, since they vary from place to
place. At Bologna and Reggio Emilia one is told that
the cowardly socialists must be driven out since they
could not or would not begin the revolution. In Carrara

l8o THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

and the Valdarno, on the other hand, they proclaim that
the time has come to make away with the anarchists, who
are threatening fresh upheavals and hindering gradual
and progressive conquests. In Turin and Florence they
rant against Russian communism, in Rome and Milan
against Nittian reformism, and so on.’ (L. Fabbri,
La Contro-rivoluzione preventiva.)

At the same time they fostered the illusions of allies whom
later they were to repudiate and trample on, all of whom
hoped to make use of the fascist movement for their own
ends : ‘ Giolitti to force a reconciliation on the Popolari,
Salandra and his supporters to break the ban the socialists
had put on him, the constitutional parties to save themselves
from being swept out of existence by universal suffrage.’
(G. Ferrero, Da Fiume a Roma.) The extreme adaptability
of fascism led them to think that one day they would be
able to mould it and use it to serve their own purposes.

This same adaptability allowed the frequent and wide¬
spread local crises in the fasci, which had paralysed the
movement in 1919-21, to pass off quickly, without deeply
affecting the situation created by the Rome Congress. At
the beginning of 1922 the/ara were in the throes of a crisis,
but the advance of the movement was not affected. One
executive ousted another, there was constant quarrelling,
but recruiting scarcely slackened and revived again im¬
mediately. Crises are only serious when a question of
principle is involved, which was not the case with the
fascists, either leaders or rarik and file. Hardly anybody
w^ prepared to sacrifice the privileges assured by member-
sHp of the party or the militia. It would have meant
givmg up uniform, arms, expeditions, subsidies, loot, flattery,
and all the other advantages reserved to fascists. As was the
case later with the German S.A., the opposition fascists
could not live outside the atmosphere to which they owed
everything ; a break with the party meant the end. Every
fascia affected disbanded itself and re-formed, joining the
movement stronger than before.

^ It is important to remember, too, the unifying effect of
violence and crime perpetrated in company. Umberto

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM l8l

Banchelli, an opposition fascist, explains that the existence
of liwdl fasci at Florence did not hinder the good work.

' Relentless blows wxre still struck at the socialists and
communists. There was even a joint expedition to Pisa.
The provincial council was turned out and the red guards
put to flight. We fought like mad, I remember, and the
twofasci acquitted themselves with equal credit.’ Men who
have killed together, burned houses, terrorized whole
country-sides could not stop or separate. To commit crimes
at top speed became a law, for one crime could only be
washed out by another. The bond uniting the aggressors
was not their own blood, which was seldom spilled, but the
blood of their victims. Feeling that nothing could quench
the hatred in which they were held, they went to all lengths,
for they knew that once they hesitated, once their enemy
was given a breathing-space, they were lost.

Mussolini, sustained by so many interests, hopes and
supporters, had no difficulty in dealing with the last echo
of the party crisis, between February and April, 1922. A
letter addressed to the secretary of the party by Piero
Marsich, head of the Vtmccfascio and an opposition fascist
of' fascism of the first hour ’ principles, was published at the
beginning of February in the journal of the Fiume legionaries.
In this letter Marsich revived the theme of the divergence
between parliamentary and national interests, and blamed
Mussolini for advocating in an interview a coalition govern¬
ment led by Giolitti. ' Under the pretext of avoiding a
Nitti-socialist collaboration, is the Italy of Carso and Fiume
to deliver herself into the hands of the man who opposed
the war and betrayed us at Rapallo ? ’ He also proclaimed
that d’Annunzio was the ' only great Italian ’ and inveighed
against ^ the iniquitous hegemony of a man ’ who was
forcing his politician’s tricks on to the party. This was
published in the Popolo PItalia on March 7. Mussolini, who
was then in Germany, broke off his journey at once and
returned to Milan to deal with this ^ wretched attempt at
secession The National Council of the party met at the
beginning of April and unanimously disavowed Marsich,
who was deserted even by his friends.

The same occasion served to frustrate opposition from

i 82 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

partisans of d’Annunzio. He had been infuriated by Musso¬
lini’s condoning the Treaty of Rapallo, by the way in which
he had been left high and dry in December 1920, and by the
fasci joining the electoral lists in May 1921, and he had
ordered his legionaries to quit the fasci. The congress of
legionaries, which met in September, declared itself firmly
opposed to fascism, which it accused of serving landown¬
ing and plutocratic interests. D’Annunzio’s definition of
fascism, ‘ agrarian slavery ’, was on everybody’s lips. At
the fascist congress in Rome, d’Annunzio and the Constitu¬
tion of the Quarnero provided the theme of the opposition.
But even in Fiume, after d’Annunzio had left, the initiative
had passed to the local fasci. At the beginning of March
1922, a fascist deputy, Giunta, and his squads seized a
destroyer, sailed to Fiume and opened fire on the government
buildings, where Zanella, ‘ the autonomist ’, was installed,
and drove him out. A provisional government was formed
under the fascist deputy, Giurati. Thus, in Fiume itself,
fascists and legionaries became less and less distinguishable
one from the other, and this tendency spread elsewhere in
Italy. Some of the legionaries remained with the fasci,
contrary to d’Annunzio’s orders, preferring to swim with the
fastest current, and having no Vittoriale to retire to. The
distinction between fascists and legionaries was not clear,
and actually only aflTected those who were in personal con¬
tact with the ‘ commandant ’. The legionaries had been
attracted to Fiume by their taste for adventure, and fascism
offered them the chance of a life of war, often their only
chance of any sort of life. The more powerful the fascist
organization became the harder it was for the ex-legionary
to break away on an independent course, particularly as
many of his leaders were to be found, cap tive or suborned, in
the front ranks of the fascists.

It was d’Annunzio’s attitude towards the General Con¬
federation of Labour which chiefly served to unite the
Fascist Party against him. He dreamed of playing one day
the role of poet-prophet-dictator in a national revolution
inspired by his Quarnero charter, and supported by all the
forces of progress, especially the world of labour. Labour
was to recover its dignity, now menaced by fascism, and

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 183

thus pacified at home Italy was to return to her world
mission. Mussolini had already lifted many of dh^nnunzio’s
ideas and he took this as well, turning it as always to his
own advantage. Peace at home, yes, but in order that he
might attain power and one day direct Italy’s foreign
policy. Mussolini, too, spoke of a ' fourth Italy ’ and of
Italy’s mission in the world, but any idea of a crusade for
the national and social ’ liberation of the oppressed was
discarded. D’Annunzio’s apocalyptic visions were reduced
to a ferocious nationalism, an extension of the will to
power ’ beyond the frontiers.

Both right and left fascists were disturbed by d’Annunzio’s
activities and his suspicious contacts. At the beginning of
April 1922 he was visited at his home in Gardone by Baldesi,
one of the secretaries of the General Confederation of
Labour. In the Mondo^ one of d’Annunzio’s legionary
friends^ expounded all the possible points of agreement
between d’Annunzio and the socialist movement:

' D’Annunzio,’ he wrote on April 5, ^ is concerned with
present reality, national reality and European reality.
The social question arouses his respect and interest. . . .
It suffices, without going too far back, to remember that he
chose a syndicalist, Alceste de Ambris, as chief of his
Fiume cabinet, that he settled a general strike in Fiume
in the workers’ favour, and that from Gardone he has
always condemned the legionaries who have become
yellow ”5 “ white guards ”, or agrarian slave-drivers
. . , Many of the legionaries are men of the people and
in contrast to the fascists have very advanced ideas. . . .
In the Violet book of Fiume there is an appeal for the
freedom of peoples addressed to the Clarte groups ...
and the d’Annunzio government at Fiume had decided
to renew not only commercial but also political relations
with Soviet Russia.’

The press mentioned d’Annunzio’s possible appointment
as President of the Federation of Maritime Workers, along-

^ Signor Nino Daniele, who later accompanied Antonio Gramsci, editor of
the Turin communist daily, the Ordim NuovOy to BXTBiigt an interview with
dAnnunzio at Gardone.

2 The French pacifist group founded by Henri Barbusse.

184 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

side Captain Giuletti. Baldesi’s visit was only tentative,
with both sides feeling their way. On May 26 d’Aragona
himself, the secretary-general of the General Confederation
of Labour, paid a A’isit to the ‘ commandant Next day
d’Annunzio received Tchitcherin, the leader of the Soviet
delegation to the Genoa conference, and had a long talk
with him. D’Annunzio presented the Confederation with a
portrait of Dante, and was thanked in a letter written in the
‘ d’Annunzian ’ style. Dante, said the letter, is the symbol of
the exile; ‘ lit by the sacred lamp ’, his face shows ‘ the
restrained anguish of the child driven from town to town,
longing for a great nation to be renewed in the greater
empire of united nations, and abhorring the municipal
squabbles ’ which are raging in Italy to-day, ‘ more fiercely
and less gloriously ’ ; the Confederation, too, was to have
‘ its sacred lamp, fed by the constant tears of the humble and
by the blood shed by the workers ’.

This very unsuccessful effort in the style of the ‘ com¬
mandant’ was written by Turati, normally a plain and
sober writer. The fascists treated this pastiche with appro¬
priate sarcasm, and made the sacra lampa the subject of endless
jokes. Actually they w'ere extremely annoyed and disturbed
at this rapprochement between d’Annunzio and the Confedera¬
tion, wLich still threatened to hold up their work of
destruction. Mussolini continued to treat d’Annunzio with
formal respect, acknowledged his good intentions, but stated
that: ‘ Henceforward the situation is beyond the control of
human powers, even if they are as exceptional as those of
d’Annunzio ’, and on May 30 he passed a resolution in the
IslUlzafascio denouncing the Soviet regime ‘ responsible for
the treaty of Brest Litovsk ’ and the socialist ‘ wreckers of
victory’, remarking that ‘ all the forces of plutocracy and
anti-national demagogy have tacitly chosen Gabriele
d’Annunzio as the executioner of fascism ’, and inviting
fascists ‘ to remember nothing of d’Annunzio but his ardent
support of Italy’s intervention in the European conflict, his
warlike heroism and his loyalty to victory, and to ignore his
personal attitude, which will not succeed in damaging the
National Fascist Party, henceforward victor over all its foes,
and the sole interpreter and inspirer of the reawakened

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 185

national conscience \ Separation was thus achieved without
the Fascist Party being directly affected.

While the Confederation was lighting the sacra lampa^
the fasci were pursuing and intensifying the struggle on its
own ground of syndical organization. Here the economic
crisis helped them. The number of unemployed, only
102,156 at the end of 1920, quickly rose to 388,744 in July
19215 512,260 in December, and 606,819 in January 1922.
The industrialists and landowners now had the whip hand
and did not hesitate to act. The Confederation was
paralysed in many country districts by the fascist occupation,
and fell back on the defensive. On October 9, 1921, one
year after the factory occupations which were to have
inaugurated workers’ control and begun " a new epoch
the administrative council of the Confederation proposed a
suspension of the agitations caused by employers’ efforts to
reduce salaries and the setting up of a commission of inquiry,
composed of state representatives, employers and workmen,
to investigate conditions in various industries, causes of the
rise in the cost of living and the possibility of an adjustment
in wages. The government accepted the proposal, the Con¬
federation of Industry opposed it. Postponement of the
revision of wage rates until spring 1922 was, however, won
in Lombardy by means of negotiation, and in Liguria as
the result of a general strike. All the same it was obvious
that the tables had been turned. The ‘ control of industry ’
which was to have given the working class a new place in
production, and had been hailed by some as a beginning of
expropriation and socialization, turned out to be nothing
but a means of defence against an excessive reduction of
wages, already enforced in some places by the joint pressure
of the crisis and fascist intimidation. The few steps
taken towards the transformation of ‘ wage-earners ’ into
‘ producers ’ were lost; once more they were simply wage-
earners, their wage their only connection with the producer’s
world.

Free syndical association was no longer the church
triumphant, whose every move was crowned with success ;
it was only the church militant, whose service was hard and
defences uncertain. Here and there the fascists were

l86 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

percolating into the working classes, having at their disposal
radical recruiting methods ; violence and terror. Important
fascist syndical organizations only grew up in districts
already conquered by armed squads and as a result of such
conquest. Fascist syndicalism ‘ flourishes like a weed amid
the charred ruins of houses ’. Concentration of squads in a
district was invariably followed by the destruction of the
Chamber of Labour and other syndical offices, by the
assassination or expulsion of local syndical leaders. This
razzia was the necessary preliminary to the setting up of a
fascist ‘ corporation ’ in which all members of the organiza¬
tion just destroyed were forced to enrol. Having destroyed
the former organization, the fascists were left with the
workers on their hands, and to avoid letting slip all they had
gained they were forced, as the heirs of the red organizers,
to tackle the problems they had solved. ‘ Rather delicate,
this organization,’ wrote Italo Balbo in his Diary ; ‘ Labour
is over plentiful, and only syndical discipline can ensure
work and bread for all.’ This ‘ discipline ’ bore a close
resemblance to the ‘ monopoly ’ against which the fascists
had been clamouring a few months before. Often, having
no one at their disposal capable of running the syndical
‘ league ’, the fascists would force the previous secretary to
carry on, giving him an occasional thrashing, to keep him
in his place and inspire him with a wholesome fear of his
new masters.

Mussolini had always been suspicious of fascist syndicalism,
as of all definitions and interpretations that might endanger
his freedom of action ; besides, he had watched the opposi¬
tion flaunt the flag of ‘ national syndicalism ’. Nevertheless
he permitted this independent syndicalism of the fascists,
so long as it did not affect the balance of forces inside the
fascist movement to his own disadvantage. He fully realized
that this syndical activity widened the gulf between himself
and the socialists and would give him a chance to hasten
the internal crisis of the sociahst movement and capture the
leaders of the General Confederation of Labour. ‘ We never
thought,’ said Mussolini in later days, ‘ when a few dozen
of us met in the Piazza San Sepolcro on March 23, iqiq,
that we should form syndical organizations. . . . Fascism

THE CAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 187

has become syndical owing to the physiological needs of its
development.^

In January 1922 the Fascist Party held a conference at
Bologna which set up the General Confederation of National
Syndicates. The question then arose, what was to be the
relation of the new organization to the party ? Was it
to be a direct subsidiary, or independent so as to be able
to increase its own membership ? This was put to the
National Council of the party at the beginning of April, and
it was Mussolini again who provided the very typical solution
that ‘ the organizations should be made either strictly
fascist or autonomous according to conditions of time and
place The public services’ syndicates, for example, must
be strictly fascist, since they would eventually have to be
used as a starting-point for an action against the state.
In spite of the conception of a syndical democracy and a
syndical state, embraced—more and more half-heartedly—
by Grand! and his friends, fascist syndical organization was
accepted only as a weapon in the political struggle for power.

This was made clear at the first national congress of
Syndical Corporations held in Milan in June. Mussolini
summed up the significance of this phenomenon in his
speech : ‘ Gentlemen, to win, one must harass and destroy
the enemy in every one of his hiding-places and trenches.’
The new organization announced a membership of 458,000,
including 277,000 peasants and agricultural labourers
(60 per cent) and 72,000 industrial workers (15-7 per cent) ;
the rest were spread out among the public services, transport,
local government officials, intellectual and technical workers.

‘ The bulk of the Corporations ’, said Mussolini at the time,
‘ is made up of agricultural labourers ’, and chiefly from
districts where fascist agrarian violence had exterminated
the ‘ red ’ organizations.

Fascism thus had a new end in view, to win recruits for
its ‘ own ’ syndical organization, and its offensive became all
the more methodical and determined. The debates in the
Chamber at the end of November 1921 and during the
crisis of February 1922 came to nothing. The socialist group
returned to the attack in March, but the resolution
they put forward only obtained a majority of 82 to 79,

l88 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

almost two-thirds of the Chamber abstaining. Under the
Facta ministry the local authorities, now entirely reassured,
placed themselves more and more at the service of thtfasci.
Italo Balbo noted this with satisfaction in his Diary : ‘ We
are masters of the situation,’ he writes, with reference to
Ferrara. ‘ We have not only broken down the resistance of
our enemies, but we also control the departments of state.
The Prefect has to submit to the orders I give him in the
name of the fascists.’

Justice had become a one-sided affair. In the early
months of 1922, in Rome, Venice, Vercelli, Cerignola
(Apulia), Reggio Emilia, Bologna, Florence, Alessandria, all
fascists accused of murder and ‘ private violence ’ were
acquitted and borne away in triumph by their friends.
Those who had gone too far were sent for a trip abroad, to
Fiume, or simply to another town. In Signor Chiurco’s
History one can trace the wanderings during several months
of one of the squadrista leaders, Giovanni Passerone, an
ex-lieutenant, who had distinguished himself in several
engagements at the head of the Montferrato squads. He had,
for example, attacked the Chamber of Labour at Casale
(March 6,1921); he had taken part with his squad in puni¬
tive expeditions with the fascists of Lomellina (Marches) ;
he had burnt the Balzola (Casale) Chamber of Labour ;
he had gone to Valenza (Alessandria) to complete the
destruction begun by the local fascists (June 9). After May
hh progress became more colourful. On May ig he went to
Casale Popolo, and ‘ as a revenge against the local Chamber
of Labour band, which had refused to play at a fascist
celebration he entered the hall where the band was
playing,^ turned out the women and children and beat up
the musicians, forcing them to surrender their instruments,
‘which were carried in triumph to the Casale’.1
About thirty people were wounded on this expedition.

Next day he was arrested for robbery with violence, but the
fascists mobilized, ‘ and the authorities were forced to free
him a few hours later ’. On June 12 he went to Asti with
eleven sqmdristi from Casale. ‘ Avoiding the Royal Guards,
the soldiers and the police, the sqmdristi did their work

* The passages quoted are taken from Chiurco’s History.

THE CAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 189

brilliantly. Report for the day : 57 minutes spent in iVsti,
10 buildings wrecked, Chambers of Labour, clubs, co-opera¬
tives, private houses ; twenty broken heads. Garters’
whips were here used for the first time as weapons of war.’
In July Passerone became even more active. On July 18
he marched with his battalion to Novaro, where he took
part in the attack on the Chamber of Labour and on
socialist and communist clubs. From there he pushed on to
Arona and Meina on lake Maggiore, returning afterwards to
Trecate, where the fascists installed one of their number as
mayor, and destroyed the Chamber of Labour ' by hitching
lorries to the pillars supporting the arcades, and blowing up
the rest’. From Trecate, with 150 fascists from Casale,
he drove by lorry to Magenta on the road to Milan. To
keep their hands in they pillaged and wrecked, on the
evening of July 23, the co-operative, the recreation club, the
offices of the railwaymen’s club and the People’s House.
As a result of their doings in Novara, Trecate, Magenta, a
warrant was issued for the arrest of the ‘ consul ’ Giovanni
Passerone and his friend Natale Cerutti. ^ They were forced
to leave Casale to avoid arrest. But they continued to
take part in various expeditions to Turin, Ivrea, Biella, and
Santhia, keeping in touch all the time with the Montferrato
blackshirts. Cerutti went to Sampierdarena (Genoa) to
organize fascist action there, and at the time of the August
general strike he summoned the Casale squads to Liguria and
directed their operations.’

Life was very different for the socialist organizers exiled
from their own districts. They generally began by hiding
in the provincial capital, since it was easier to hide in a town,
and persecution was more difficult. But later on the town,
too, was ‘ occupied ’ by the fascists, and they had to go further.
Gradually the number of possible hiding-places diminished.
Life was still possible in Rome, IVlilan, Turin, Genoa.
Life ? Most of these exiles had no means of existence. The
first-comers sometimes found work to start with in the
workers’ co-operative societies; some were helped by
their families, or by friends from their own district, who
subscribed amongst themselves to send them a little money.
Little collections were made everywhere, and the workers,

igo THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

whose sense of solidarity was tremendous, gave with inex¬
haustible generosity. But the increasing numbers who
never stopped arriving rendered the sums collected more
and more inadequate, and these men torn from their jobs
and families led a precarious, and worse, a pointless existence.
For the fascist a change of town meant a new arena for his
exploits, whereas the socialist felt himself uprooted, and was
lost to the movement, even if his energy was unimpaired.
For the fascists diffusion made for wider and more effective
action, for the socialists, constraint and feebleness.

The fascists could, with impunity, even persecute and
expel public officials who would not place themselves at
their disposal or who resisted their will. Captain Jurgens,
who with a dozen men had defied 500 fascists outside the
station at Sarzana,^ was hunted like a ‘ bolshevist ’ from
town to town. He was recognized in Spezia, chased through
the streets, and forced to leave the town in haste to escape
from his attackers. On February 17, 1922, there was a fascist
demonstration in Prato (Tuscany) ; the state forces blocked
the road and prevented the column from passing. ‘ Next
day,’ Chiurco tells us, ‘ the fascia ordered all factories and
concerns to remain closed until the anti-fascist police com¬
missioner was dismissed.’ A deputation approached the
prefect, who granted everything that was asked : dismissal
of the commissioner, permission to organize a big meeting,
punishment of the ‘ guilty ’ Royal Guards. ‘ When the
lock-out had attained its object, the fascia ordered its
termination.’ In April, Balbo organized the occupation of
Ferrara to obtain the concession of public works. A crowd
of 45,000 unemployed from the province camped in the
town for two days. Balbo would not demobilize until the
prefect had promised, not only public works, but also the
liberation of his friend Baroncini, a squad leader of Bologna,
arrested a few weeks previously after countless acts of
violence. The prefect gave in.

Towards the end of May, the prefect of Bologna, Signor
Mori, issued a decree forbidding the movement of labour
from place to place in a certain number of provincial com¬
munes, so as to put an end to the innumerable clashes between

1 Pp. 144-155.

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM I9I

local workers and the blacklegs recruited and escorted by the
fascists. On the 2 7^, the fascist directory in Bologna resigned
in protest, resigning its powers to a committee of action.
There followed fascist demonstrations in front of the pre¬
fecture, demanding the dismissal of the prefect, and the wreck¬
ing of the EnU Autonomo dei Consumi^ the headquarters of the
municipal provision stores, and the offices of the provincial
Federation of Agricultural Labourers. The general secre¬
tariat of the Fascist Party published on the 29th the following
order :

^ GENERAL MOBILIZATION OF ALL BOLOGNESE FASCISTS

' The struggle in the province of Bologna is becoming
intensified. The local political authorities, in league with
the anti-national parties, are trying to destroy the political
and economic organization of fascism. From now on the
powers and functions of the Directories of all the fasci
of the province of Bologna are handed over to the
committees of action. All the Bolognese/^z.ra are mobilized.

‘ The undersigned, in his capacity of secretary-general
of the National Fascist Party, is transferring to Bologna
until the end of the struggle.

' Signed : Michele Bianghi.’

Why did the prefect's decrees give rise to such alarm ?
Because, if the fascists were debarred from moving about
freely from place to place and making use of unemployed
workers from other localities, and even other provinces, to
crush the resistance of local workers, the free syndical
organizations could continue to function. The fascists had
to be able to manceuvre the army of unemployed as they did
the fighting squads, so as to crush ' red ’ organizations and
starve the workers who still upheld them into giving way.
As soon as a body of ‘ fascist' unemployed shepherded by
a squad arrived in a district, the local landowners could
ignore the syndical employment bureau and tear up the
labour contract without fear of a strike, since the unem¬
ployed, brought to the district by armed fascists, were there
to replace the local workers. Fascists and landowners were
determined not to give up this terrible weapon, and that is

192 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

why Bologna was occupied for five days by tens of thousands
of fascists from every province of Emilia, who refused to
leave the town until Mori was dismissed. The government
did not yield immediately, and Mussolini ordered demobi¬
lization, fearing an incident which might force the govern¬
ment to interfere and also the possibility of public opinion
turning hostile. But soon afterwards Mori was removed to
Bari in Apulia, where the fascists prepared another hostile
demonstration, announcing that they did not want ‘ this
gift

The great gatherings in Ferrara and Bologna, the first to
involve tens of thousands of fascists, were important in other
ways. They sustained the fighting spirit of the fascists, which
had little outlet locally : ‘ The fascists need to be inspired,’
explains Signor Balbo, ‘ their fighting spirit must be kept
at a high pitch. This is the responsibility of their leader.
There will be trouble if they are left to themselves.’ In
addition, such manoeuvres were invaluable training for
operations on a larger scale.

‘ As far as immediate objectives were concerned,’
wrote Balbo, who had directed the entire expedition,
‘ the Bologna affair was not of great importance. But it
has demonstrated the mobility of the squads. They have
left their homes and fought for political objectives quite
outside the scope of their purely rural mentality. They
have obeyed unknown leaders, have formed a flying
column, have stood on the defensive for several days
without complaint, have slept on straw and lived off tinned
food. This means that the Bologna episode, which I
regard as a sort of grand manoeuvre of the fascists of
Emilia, can be repeated on a larger scale in a revolt
against the established powers. A dress rehearsal for
revolution. If the manoeuvre calls for the rapid transport
of battalions from the north to the centre, ^ we can be
certain that the squads will march, disciplined and
enthusiastic, under any conditions. We must begin our
work again, recruit more units. During the five days of
the Bologna action 60,000 fascists were mobilized.’

^ Rome.

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 103

In the Italian penal code there were clauses forbidding
armed assemblies and punishing the formation of armed
companies.^ The Facta government made no more effort
to apply them than had the Bonomi government which it
succeeded. Decrees of dissolution were very rare, and were
imposed only when the scum of the population, lavishly
distributed among the fasci, and particularly in the fighting
squads, got out of hand and threatened to compromise
fascism and its allies too greatly. The following, for example,
were the grounds for a decree of dissolution issued by the
prefect of Venice against the squad of the ^ Knights of
Death ’ in June 1922 :

"... The Association of the Knights of Death in the
town and province of Venice largely consists of elements
which, in view of their penal and political antecedents,
must be adjudged dangerous to public order; . . . the
said Association, while affecting patriotic and humani¬
tarian aims, actually directs its activities to personal ends
and for unlawful profit, for it carries out unjustified and
illegal reprisals ; imposes on traders, business men and
private citizens levies which are fixed by the leaders of
the Association themselves ; settles disputes of a private
character by illegitimate means and through intimidation
of the public by the arrogant bearing of its members ;
seizes houses against the will and the interest of those who
have the right to dispose of them ; aids arrested persons
to escape ; forces citizens to submit to the violation of
their rights of assembly and circulation ; imposes lock¬
outs and the closing of shops, the removal of badges and
emblems and the flying or lowering of flags. . .

Similar crimes and worse could be imputed to all the
fasci; but they were allowed to carry on their illegal and
even criminal activities quite openly, without being dis¬
turbed and without any legal sanction being invoked
against them.

Nevertheless, in spite of this unending and widespread
violence, and partly because of it, Italian public opinion
was turning away from fascism. Mussolini referred to this
" ■ ■ ^ p. 169.

13

194 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

fact again at the National Council in April 1922, and took
advantage of it to impose his policy :

‘ Our position is not startlingly good. The aura of
sympathy which surrounded us in 1921 has vanished.
We are opposed by Popolari, republicans, communists,
socialists, and democrats. We have got to keep up an
armed organization, while preventing the squadristi
elements from becoming so strong that they can impose
their will on the political elements in control of fascism.
We must not even exclude the possibility of the fascists
co-operating with the powers of the state. We must
assert that the fascists will not hesitate to lend their men
to the government to-morrow, if the higher aims of the
state demand it.’

In his speech Mussolini did not reject the possibility of a
coup d etat and a march on Rome, but he emphasized his
preference for a governmental coalition. The problem for
him, ^ as for every real tactician, was that of time, and
conditions, as he pointed out, were not too favourable. To
go on fighting indefinitely against the reds, while remaining
outside the government, might become dangerous. What he
feared was that a sudden change in the situation might force
him to choose between collaboration and insurrection, at a
moment when he was not free to make the choice. His
constant fear was of being ‘ too early ’ or ‘ too late ’. He
kept a close watch on daily events, always on the look out
for a fresh enemy to fight or a possible ally to be gained.

By the middle of 1922 Mussolini was no longer enjoying
the complete freedom of movement he always liked to possess.
Fascist development since 1919 had got rather out of hand.
Mussolini, who had simultaneously led and followed the
movement, found himself well to the right, although
reactionary forces and interests openly prevailed throughout
the movement. The ‘ bolshevist ’ danger had been crushed
long since, and the masses were on the defensive, their
leaders s^ttered, incompetent or powerless. Fascism took
root precisely when it had no further excuse for existence, at
any rate as a reaction against working-class and socidist
excesses , and had turned into reaction pure and simple.

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM I95

This was most obvious in the Po valley, where socialism
had been at its strongest a few months earlier, and where it
had changed even the physical appearance of the country¬
side and its inhabitants, transforming the workers in a few
decades from diseased medieval serfs into members of
' leagues ’ and co-operatives. So far from saving socialism,
this historic feat was the main cause of the implacable war
of revenge waged on it by the landowners. In this district
fascism counted its greatest military, political, and syndical
strength. 'As early as 1921,’ writes Balbo, 'the great
quadrilateral between Ferrara, Mantua, Bologna and
Modena formed the arena of our collective action on a
large scale. . . . Emilia provides Italian fascism’s greatest
reserve of man-power.’

The character of fascist action in this district determined
the orientation of fascism generally. Agrarian attacks on
labour contracts went hand in hand with fascist attacks on
socialist organizations. This explains the syndical disputes
which went on during the first half of 1922, during the months
when fascist policy was becoming openly reactionary. In
March the fascist' corporations ’ in the provinces of Piacenza
and Milan, and in April those of Parma concluded a new
labour contract with the Agrarian Association.

The substance of these contracts was the same every¬
where. They sometimes retained, on paper, the former
wages, or did not cut them down very drastically, but
they did away with all the guarantees with which the
socialists had hedged in the contracts to ensure their
strict application. Wage-earners and farmers were once
more individually at the mercy of their employers and
landlords. For example, in the Milan provincial contract
the rates were liable to be revised every three months,
which, in the absence of any organization prepared to
defend the workers’ interests, left them to treat individually
with their employers, who could easily impose their own
conditions. Any collective character of the labour contract
was suppressed by Article 26, which allowed ' the parties to
add to the contract special or individual clauses which
were to be written by hand oh the copy signed by the
organizations ’/stipulating that ' these clauses were not to

196 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

be subject to the jurisdiction of the responsible organiza¬
tions, nor to that of the Commissions of Arbitration set up
by the general agricultural pact’. The collective labour
contract itself was rendered practically worthless by the
clause relating to the free employment of labour, which
eliminated all the old syndical employment offices, and
which, in the Po valley where unemployment was chronic,
gave the landowner power of life and death over the workers.

In the province of Brescia the Agrarian Association had
renewed the old labour contract with the red organizations,
but directly the fascist offensive reached the province and
began breaking up the workers’ syndicates and forcing
socialist municipal councils to resign, the more energetic
members wanted to get out of the contract they had just
signed. With this object in view they left their Association
and formed a fascist Landlords’ Syndicate, chiefly recruited
from the provinces already occupied by fascism. Tlie new
syndicate signed an agreement with the Provincial Federa¬
tion of the Fascist Party. The latter agreed to force the
destruction of the old labour contract, on condition that the
landowners dealt only with the fascist organization, refused
to recognize the employment offices of the red syndicates
and applied the new contract only to workers who belonged
to or were willing to join the fascist syndicate.

_ The red organizations declared a general strike against the
violation of the contract already in force. But, according to
the Popolo (T Italia of June. 23, once the agreement between
fascists and landowners had been signed ‘ the struggle has
begun, and the enemy are alarmed to see streaming into the
southern end of the province hundreds of workers generously
provided by Lomeliina, Venetia, and the provinces of
Cremona and Mantua, while the valiant blackshirts from
these provinces and from Brescia break down the bolshevik’s
attempts at resistance ’. For, in the Italy of 1922, to defend
a^ contract signed a few weeks earlier and to defend the
dignity of labour, was considered ‘ bolshevism ’. ‘ The

masses were infuriated ’ against the strike-breakers, but how
were they to fight simultaneously against squads armed to
the teeth, against an invasion of imemployed who, like
locusts, destroyed anything left alive of the old organiza-

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 197

tions, and against the police, who were there to protect the
‘ freedom of labour ’ ? After a few days’ struggle the
‘ leagues ’ gave way and hoisted the fascist flag on such of
their houses as remained standing.

The same thing was happening in the province of Pavia,
in the rice country. At the season of the monda (weeding the
rice-fields) there was for a few weeks a shortage of labour,
and mondine (for the work was done by women) had to be
imported from other provinces. These provinces were now
under fascist control, and consequently the fascists and
landowmers of Lomellina were able to organize the monda
in such a way as to crush the local red organizations, whose
members were not engaged but were replaced by rmndine
escorted by fascist squads. Here and there resistance was
attempted, but the local squads, assisted by others from
outside, occupied the district, destroyed what was left of
leagues and co-operatives and firmly installed the dictator¬
ship of the landlord. Sometimes the fascists did not even
have to break strikes, but were able to take preventive
action. For example, at the end of June, while the syndical
organizations of the province of Vicenza were discussing the
renewal of the labour contract with the Agrarian Association,
the Vicenza fascio announced that ‘ without concerning
themselves with the question at issue’, they would ‘use
every means to resist a strike ’. Thus the workers saw
themselves deprived in advance of their only weapon, and
since the landlords were inflexible their fate was certain.

Another typical situation was that of Cremona, where the
coloni (small farmers) were organized in moderately left-
wing catholic syndicates. It was in this province that an
agreement was drawn up between Popolari and sociahsts,
in April 1922, for the defence of syndical and municipal
liberties.^ In June 1921, after a bitter struggle in which the
workers actually seized cascine (farms), the landlords were
forced to agree to the drawing up by a committee of
arbitration of an agreement involving ‘ the introduction of
a profit-sharing contract and the responsible control of
agricultural enterprise ’ by the workers concerned. In
August the committee announced its decisions in a report

igS THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

entitled lodo Biancht, after its chairman, a professor who
held an ‘ itinerant chair of agriculture a first-class tech¬
nical expert. It recommended the creation of ‘ an agricul¬
tural administrative body based on the participation of the
workers in the results of enterprise, collective participation
with accounts to be settled yearly and at the end of the
lease ’ (R. Bachi. VItalia Economica nel 1^21). Immediately
on publication ‘ this scheme of organization was recognized
as technically efficient, and was praised by experts The
principles were fundamentally the same as those of the
Popolari: a share in profits for the workers, and the con¬
version of wage-earners into small-holders, ^ a policy which
the fascists had revived in their igig programme and which
aimed at the ‘ abolition of the wage-earner There was
nothing^ bolshevik about it, since such principles were
dianietrically opposite to the ‘ proletarianization ’ and
socialization ’ aimed at by the socialists. But the land-
owners of the province of Cremona went to law to evade the
findings of the committee of arbitration, and when their
action failed they simply refused, in January ig22, to abide
by them. At this point 80 per cent of them combined in a
ascist syndicate, as a prelude to the open attack that they
were planning against the lodo Bianchi. ‘ The landowners ’
Chiurco says, ' banded round the deputy Farinacci and
fascism, rejected arbitration.’ The fascists of the province
went into a state of permanent mobilization ; the govern¬
ment gave way, and in May the prefect authorized a new
committee to draw up another contract. The findings of the
first commission and the decisions of the magistrates having
een allowed to lapse, the new contract was imposed by law
and the landowners let themselves be bound by their
signatures the moment they had a satisfactory verdict. The
loao itzawm was thus safely buried.

Thej'omt advance of fascism and ‘ agrarian slavery ’ went

THE CAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM I99

beyond the purely syndical sphere. In the same province of
Cremona the landowners had, in May 1921, got their own
representative, Giannino Ferrari, elected on the national
coalition list, and he had joined the agrarian group in the
Chamber. But, by the beginning of 1922, the Provincial
Federation of Employers’ Syndicates, formed under the
asgis of fascism, was dissatisfied with him, because, although
a direct representative of the landowners, he always, in this
very serious situation, adopted a passive attitude ’, and in
the same resolution the Federation reminded ‘ the agrarian
associations throughout Italy that the name of Cremona
ought to be the signal for a great national movement to
prevent liberal governments, by their foolish and untimely
actions, from artificially reviving subversive organizations
which are at the point of death The landowners wanted
no state interference between themselves and the workers’
organizations, and no ' legal ’ obstacles put in the way of
the attack that they were determined to carry through to
the end.

So it was that the different elements to be found in fascism
in 1919-20, although they did not totally disappear, became
gradually absorbed in a more consistent movement, which
by 1921, and particularly by the first half of 1922, could
be defined as essentially ‘ a bourgeois assault on reformist
socialism in municipalities, collective labour contracts,
employment offices and co-operatives, and particularly
against agrarian reformism—an assault led by the landed
proprietors of the Po valley, Tuscany and Apulia

For this reason Mussolini, though he had not committed
himself to any one policy to the exclusion of another, and
though he admitted that fascism had lost many sym¬
pathizers,^ was pinning his hopes more and more on a
coalition government in which the socialists would have no
share. The socialists were entirely paralysed by interna!
difficulties. At the time of the Bonomi crisis in February
1922 the party executive had in a lucid interval authorized
the parliamentary group to act as the situation demanded,
but it immediately took fright at its own daring and revoked
this order in March. On one side—the right wing of the

1 P. 194*

200 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

party and the General Confederation of Labour, under
pressure from representatives of the districts occupied by
the fascists—a less short-sighted and fatalistic policy was
demanded, and on the other—the left wing—a group of
third-internationalists was formed, who largely adopted the
point of view of the communists. Under fire from these two
quarters the executive stuck more and more uncompromisingly
to such formula as justified it in maintaining its eternal
passivity. The difference between the party executive and
the parliamentary group came to a head suddenly. On June i
the socialist deputies passed a resolution proposed by
Zirardini, deputy for Ferrara, in favour of supporting ‘ a
ministry that should guarantee the restoration of peace and
freedom The executive, meeting on the same day, dis¬
avowed the resolution and summoned the National GounciF
to crush this sedition. The Council met in Rome on June
10-14, in the presence of the leaders of the General Con¬
federation of Labour. After a completely vague discussion
and the failure of four or five resolutions they finally approved
by 13 votes to 6 (with 5 abstentions) a motion proposed by
Serrati, the editor of the Avanti, condemning ‘ collaboration,
whether direct or indirect ’, that is to say, not only collabora¬
tion and support, but even abstention from voting, whatever
the government in power; deploring the attitude of the
parliamentary group and reminding the Confederation of
the respect it owed to its treaty of alliance with the party.
This pact, signed on September 27, 1918, left the responsi¬
bility for political action to the party executive, which,
although it had not been at all anxious at the time of the
factory occupations in September 1920 to take advantage
of this provision and ‘ make revolution ’, now remembered
it in time to prevent the socialist deputies and the General
Confederation of Labour from having any freedom of action
in the parliamentary crisis.

Serrati, it must be admitted, had hesitated. The night
before the meeting he revealed his doubts to a friend, but
to rid himself of them he decided in favour of an absolutely
rmcompromising attitude. To agree with the argument of

•.v delegates from the provincial Federations, not to be confused

With the party executive.

THE CAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 201

the parliamentary group meant admitting that he had been
badly mistaken right up to the present, and exposing himself
to the taunts of the communists who were preparing to fall
upon the ‘ traitorsThe communists asked for nothing
better than that the socialists should definitely commit
themselves, hoping thus to discredit them in the eyes of the
masses, while benefiting from their rise to power. But the
decision of the National Council destroyed any possibility
of successful parliamentary action in support of public
liberties. The parliamentary group rebelled, and appointed
a new executive. This completed the split between socialists
and maximalists, while at the same time the importance of
an accession of socialist votes to a.new government was
reduced to a minimum. The ‘ collaborationists ’ could
only reckon 6o votes out of the 145 socialist and communist
deputies. The new parliamentary weapon was destroyed
as soon as it was drawn by this now unavoidable schism.
Besides, as time went on, and the fascist squads continued
their occupation of the country, socialist collaboration began
to lose its value. A year earlier mere abstention from voting
on the part of the socialists would have reversed the situation,
driven the fascists into political isolation and prevented them
from surviving the crisis of the second half of 1921. In
February 1922 abstention was no longer enough, and
socialist support would have been necessary to any govern¬
ment arising out of the Bonomi crisis if it wanted to instil a
respect for law and order into the fascists. By the middle
of 1922 neither abstention nor support would have been
enough, only collaboration. This, too, was rapidly losing its
value, as Mussolini noticed when commenting on the
socialist National Council in June : ‘ In the meantime plenty
of water is flowing under the bridges of the Tiber, and it is
probable that the collaboration offered by the collabora¬
tionists will soon have so diminished in value that they will
not be able to find a dog to collaborate with them.’

On June 16 the Fascist Party executive and parliamentary
group both declared themselves opposed to any socialist
participation in government, which would be ‘ an obstacle
to the economic reconstruction of the country ’ ; decided
that ‘other parties lending themselves in any way to such

202

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

an experiment made themselves responsible for treason
against the country’s interests ’ ; and reserved for themselves
‘ the right to take action accordingly In other words
they threatened to extend their hostilities to any parties
that accepted socialist collaboration, which nearly everyone
had sought in 1919-20, and which had been solicited by
Mussolini himself a year earlier. ^

Other parties and groups besides Mussolini began to
show a lack of enthusiasrn for socialist collaboration, which
in view of the general situation seemed more and more
doubtful. The Popolari, whose secretary, Don Sturzo, had
afways been fundamentally opposed to an agreement with
the socialists, had_ extracted a promise from Signor Facta
that the three bills in which they were particularly interested
concerning the state examination, the agricultural contracts
^ertini s bill), and the latifundia should be considered by the
Chamber before the recess, and they were anxious to avoid
any ministerial crisis. The democratic parliamentary group
which was formed in the autumn of 1921, caused the fall of
the Bonomi ministty, and should have been one of the main¬
stays of a left coalition, was broken up again in May The
implacable rivalry between Nitti and Giolitti, and the
fascist sympathies of various followers of this group acted
as a disruptive force. The two resumed their freedom of
manoeuvre, each one hoping to bring about, to the exclusion
o he other, a great national coalition, in which the fascists
would take^part, just as earlier each had hoped to gain the
upper hand by bringing the socialists into the government.
Giohtti now felt that he could no longer rely on the socialists.
In a conversation with them he made it clear that he would
not be content with a sleeping partner, but would insist
on their sharing all the responsibilities of government
Considering the internal state of their party, the socialists

Thm agreement.

Thus the possibility of collaboration seemed very far

?tagr;o"thl£e™"°^*^^

The fascists of the Po valley had undertaken the con-
diem districts which still resisted

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 203

‘ Fascism/ explained the communist Bordiga in a
report to Moscow, a month later, after the march on
Rome, ‘ has collected all ex-servicemen who could not
fit into post-war society and has taken advantage of
their military experience. ... It has attained a dominant
position in Italian politics by what may be called territorial
methods, which may be followed on a map. Starting
from Bologna fascism has advanced in two main directions,
on one side towards the north-western industrial district,
Milan, Turin, Genoa ; on the other towards Tuscany and
central Italy, so as to encircle and threaten the capital.’

On July 15 the Popolo (PItalia came out with an enormous
headline across the front page : ‘ Imminent collapse of last
strongholds of P.U.S. Congratulations to the fascists of
Cremona, Rimini, Andria, Viterbo, Sestri Ponente. Fascist
mobilization at Novara.’ What was happening ? Mussolini
himself explained in the editorial :

‘ Italian fascism is at present engaged in fighting several
decisive battles to effect local clean-ups. According to the
latest news fascists have managed to force their way into
Rimini and gained control of it. This is the turning-point.
With Rimini we hold the key position which gives us a
hold on Emilia and the Romagna, and a passage to the
neighbouring Marches. Active fascist advance guards at
Pesaro, Fermo, Pergola, and Jesi are seeing to it that the
Marches will not long resist our fateful advance. At
Andria our militia is victorious, and the reversal of the
situation in this town is of extreme importance to our
campaign in Apulia. The Bari fascio must make up its
mind to get a grip of the situation there. In Latium the
last few days have seen the Viterbo affair and the fascist
concentration that followed it. The time has come to
show all friends of Italy that the fascist forces in Latium
are very numerous * each little township in this vast
district has it^ fascio, and the whole movement is drawing
strength from the fresh vitality with which the Rome
fascio to be endowed. Further north we find the

forces of fascism engaged in Liguria. There is nothing to
worry about there. Sestri Ponente (where the socialist

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

204

council has resigned) will never be won back by the reds ;
neither will the vile socialist-masonic-/>o/?^?/ar^ coalition
succeed in winning back Cremona. At Novara, too, we
are triumphant. One has only to read our adversaries’
newspapers to see that the greatest confusion reigns in the
enemy camp. One calls for help from the government,
another threatens a general strike, another encourages
individual crime, some recommend patience. . . . No
orders, no plan. . . . They continue to call us bandits,
scum, barbarians, slave-drivers, brigands, corrupt. A
lot we care. You are printing useless insults, gentlemen.
Our retort, political and syndical, is to break your bones :
surgery, ruthlessly applied.’

This sort of talk, making due allowance for the element of
blackmail it contained, gives a savage but veracious picture
of the situation. However, the Popolari were somewhat
perturbed by events in Cremona, and parliament with
them. On July 12 the prefectorial commissioner and the
police chief were discharged, because they had sided too
shamelessly with the fascists. The executive of the fascio
immediately replied by delegating its powers, as usual, to a
secret committee of action, which organized a big meeting
of protest the same evening. Here it was decided to shut
every office, shop, and bank until the government withdrew
the measures it had taken. There was a big demonstration
before the army headquarters ; fascist squads began to
arrive from the surrounding country, and the town was
occupied. During the following afternoon, the Chamber of
Labour, the offices of the socialist paper, a communist press,
several co-operative societies, and the flat of a Popolare
deputy were ransacked and burnt. Later, they forced the
police cordon that guarded the prefecture and broke into it.

When the news reached the Chamber the government
was savagely attacked. Mussolini feared that his friends
might suffer, and ordered the immediate evacuation of
Cremona. But nothing could stop a further cabinet crisis.
The Popolari announced their willingness to ‘ shoulder their
responsibility ’ and form a more energetic government.
This time Giolitti’s friends did not respond, for Giolitti
preferred to leave Facta, his lieutenant, whom he believed

THE CAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 205

to be loyal, to keep his place until the autumn, when
directly after the recess he meant to return to power. But
the crisis occurred and Mussolini stepped in to prevent all
his plans from being wrecked. The right wing had decided
to vote for the Facta ministry, and the fascists were preparing
to follow their example, when Mussolini hastily prevented
them. The old danger, which he had believed to be over,
was revived, and in spite of all he knew about the chaos
inside the party, he feared that socialist collaboration
might come to pass after all. k\diat particularly annoyed
him was the attitude of certain ‘ democratic ’ groups,
Nitti’s followers for example, who held that a left ministry
need not necessarily be a ministry committed to take legal
reprisals against the fascists. This might attract the Popolari
to the coalition and any others who were unwilling to declare
openly their fundamental opposition to fascism. Mussolini
was not taken in by this : the new cabinet would be further
to the left than the Facta one, and would be all the more
dangerous in that it would revive the pacification programme
which he, Mussolini, had repudiated. Besides, even if the
new government did not wish to be anti-fascist, it might be
forced to take action against the squads, now more lawless
than ever, and in any case could no longer assure them
state aid ; without this, as Mussolini saw clearly, their final
victory was impossible.

To get out of the difficulty he broke abruptly with the
right wing. His reasons were not political ; in fact his
opinions and wishes were more right-wing than ever. On the
very day of the Cremona affair he wrote in the Popolo d'Italia :

‘ Four months after the Genoa conference European
society displays a very pronounced ^ right-wing—anti¬
socialist and anti-democratic—orientation. Having kept
a close watch on this process of reaction, we have been
able fundamentally to revise the historical and theoretical
outlook of fascism, and fascism has gradually been
stripped of its earlier trappings which might have made
it appear a left-wing movement or something like it. To
return to its origins,^ as some would like, that is to go

1 But see the article of July 27, 1921, where Mussolini himself called for
a return to first principles (p. 147)-

206 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

back to the 1919 programme which has already borne
poisonous fruit, would be childishness, or senility. Fascism
is and must be the organized expression of this tendency
of contemporary feeling, this classical revival of life
against all subversive theories and peoples. While
Europe and the whole world are moving to the right,
there are in Italy a few clowns in the Montecitorio
theatre, who dream like half-wits of left-wing solutions.
It is time for Italy too to move to the right. Let us have
done with left-wing policy.’

Why then did Mussolini desert the right, to vote with the
left against the Facta governinent ? The answer is that he
was repeating his manoeuvre at the time of the Giolitti
crisis in June 1921, and the Bonomi crisis in February 1922.
If the fascists voted for the Facta government, it would
still be in a minority in the Chamber, and, if it fell, would
drag the fascists with it. Besides, Facta could be turned out
by a left coalition which included Popolari, democrats, and
socialists, which would be dangerous because it would
indicate very clearly how the new government could be
formed. Mussolini succeeded in making the fascists vote
with their opponents. This alone was no longer sufficient
to ward off the danger he had managed to avoid in February
1922 after the Celli motion. This time the Popolari were
determined, against Don Sturzo’s advice, to collaborate with
the socialists ; and the syndicalists, whose organizations
were being attacked by fascist squads, had made their
parliamentary group come to the same decision. The
Popolari deputies went so far as to demand a more united
cabinet, and the exclusion of the right ^Nmg pmtarella which
was included in the Facta ministry.

On July 19 their leader, the catholic syndicalist Longinotti,
moved on their behalf in the Chamber that' The Chamber,
noting that the efforts of the government have not resulted
in the internal pacification that is necessary for economic
and financial recovery, proceed to the order of the day ’.
Turati interposed to say that the socialists were voting
against a government, ‘which in five months has not
punished a single offence against the penal code and that

THE GAPORETTO OF SOGIALIS^M 207

they supported the motion of the Popolari. But the maxi¬
malist deputies declared that they would ‘ not share any
of the responsibility for solving the crisis h This completed
the split in the parliamentary socialist group ; and at this
crucial point Mussolini declared that the fascists were also
going to vote against the government, saying that the
proposal for socialist collaboration cut both ways.

‘ It remains to be seen whether this marvellous collabora¬
tion is a mere windbag or a definite contribution to the
government of to-morrow. Judging by figures it seems
to be a pretty barren affair. There are only 50 socialist
deputies ready to vote for a new ministry, even one with
an anti-fascist programme. Such a ministry would be
opposed not only by the fascists but also by a third
socialist party which is bound to emerge at the Rome
congress,^ if the collaborationists go there already pledged
to its support. Frankly it is to our advantage that
socialism should split further into three or thirty mutually
hostile sects. It is to our advantage to encourage these
divisions which help us to exterminate the party.’

Mussolini did not object to the presence of the socialists
in the new government, but accepted and tried to make his
friends accept the possibility, regarding it simply as an
opportunity for annihilating the socialist movement. What
he wanted once more to prevent was a socialist-democratic-
popolare coalition from which the fascists would be excluded.
He finished his speech by offering the Chamber the alterna¬
tives of fascist participation in national life through ‘legal
conquest and saturation or armed revolt against ‘ anti¬
fascist reaction

The immense confusion of passions and motives which
formed the essence of the Italian situation and which, even
to-day, is hard to straighten out, underwent an extra¬
ordinary simplification in the mind of Mussolini, while
it simply befogged his opponents. The latter, too timid to
pursue boldly either their ambitions or their ideals, groped
about encumbered by outworn beliefs and plans. Mussolini

^ The Socialist Party executive had summoned an. extraordinary national
congress to be held in Rome on August 6 to 8.

2o8 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

outstripped them because, besides keeping a sharp look-out
for anything likely to affect the disposition of political forces
in the country, he could see further ahead. He wanted to
attain power quickly and by any possible means, so as to
direct Italy’s foreign policy,^ This alone could satisfy his
ambition and round off the adventure which began with his
break with the socialists in October 1914. A few days
before the cabinet crisis broke out he delivered a violent
attack, in the Popolo dUtalia of July 8, on Schanzer, the
foreign minister in the Facta cabinet, who had just returned
from London where he had been negotiating with the
British government over the compensations promised to
Italy by the April 1915 agreement. Once more Mussolini
expounded his own foreign policy, which was to be followed
by his own government after the march on Rome.

‘ What does Signor Schanzer’s visit to London really
amount to ? Setting aside the bombastic humbug about
'' European reconstruction ”, have Italy and England
really any interests in common ? Is there any identity of
European interests with regard to Germany and Russia ?
In appearance, yes ; in reality, no. This habitual anglo-
phile policy is doing us harm throughout the entire Near
East. It is alienating the sympathies of Islam. It is
logical for London to try and maintain the status quo.
London has arrived. She lives on her income. What
she cannot stomach she rejects. The English are a
bourgeois nation, we are a proletarian one. . . . We distrust
Signor Schanzer’s policy, we distrust his reconstructionist
mentality. He is still infected with Wilsonism. He is
too much of a European to remember that it is the duty
of an Italian foreign minister to be Italian.’

Mussolini was eager to get power, because he wanted to
make Italy play her part, that is to say to play Italy’s part
himself, in the concert of Europe. The old figure-heads
beyond the frontier, the overfed and drowsy nations would
meet the same fate as the old politicians and parties inside
Italy, who were befogged by their scruples and humanitarian
dreams and paralysed by their inability to put them into

1 P. 133.

THE CAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 200

practice. This was a further reason for his not wanting the
socialists in the government, except as prisoners. Internal
pacification for him meant simply an effective background
for a bold foreign policy, expansionist and aggressive. If
the Socialist Party continued as a force they could prevent
its being carried out; therefore they must be relentlessly
exterminated.

The socialist movement was doing its best to facilitate this
task. On July 17 the new executive of the parliamentary
group, which included Turati, Treves, Matteotti, Modigliani,
D’Aragona, and Baldesi, passed a resolution appealing to
the workers to support the action of the group, which aimed
at ‘ the freedom of syndical organizations, the solution of the
economic crisis with the least possible injury to the prole¬
tariat, and the pacification of Europe They were opposed
by the maximalist ‘ parliamentary committee ’, which was
‘ opposed to any programme which involved collaboration
and joining a ministry and the party executive, which
called for a declaration of allegiance from all deputies,
allowing them four days to reply to this ultimatum. The
communists were delighted, for, they said : ‘ The fall of the
Sociahst Party is raising the Communist Party to the leader¬
ship of the Italian working class and its revolutionary
struggle.’ As a matter of fact they were beginning to feel
rather anxious. After the fascist occupation of Novara,
with its direct threat to the Milan, Genoa, Turin triangle,
the communists of Turin felt themselves cut off and sur¬
rounded. With the idea of saving what they could from the
wreck of the situation, they made overtures to the left wing
of the Popolari and even to the liberal group centres round
the Stampa, edited by the senator Frassati, a great friend of
Giolitti. After the first contacts had been made a delegation,
consisting of a representative from the communist section
and one from the Chamber of Labour, went to Rome to
report on the situation as it appeared in Turin and to ask
the Communist Party to take definite action, or at any rate
to authorize the formation of a common front with the
socialists and other anti-fascist groups. The delegates were
coldly received in Rome by the party secretariat and sent
home, having gained nothing but abuse.

14

210 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

The Communist International had appealed some time
ago for a ' united front' on the following grounds :

' We thought we should be able to wrest the support
of the masses from the socialists by sheer propaganda and
by opposing their organization with ours. It must be
admitted, though, that the socialist movement dies hard
and that our methods have proved ineffectual. They
must be changed. The socialists are still our worst
enemies, but we must pester them with proposals for a
united front ” and in that way set the masses against
them and against their leaders.’

The Communist Party executive in Italy refused to apply
these tactics. While their objective was the destruction of
socialist equipment and organization, the Italian com¬
munists chose to exterminate the enemy by frontal attack.
Moscow preferred encircling movements. In this dispute
the fate of the Italian working class and of the Italian people
meant nothing. Russia looked on the workers, the Socialist
Party and even the Communist Party as mere instruments
for the working out of a plan whose trustee she was by
historic right, after the victory of October 1917. A good
deal of theorizing was done in Moscow, but the distinction
between communist principles and fascist lack of them, and
the antagonism of the social forces they stood for, were all
one to the Italian working class. The plans that were made
for them, whether to raise them to power or to depress them
for ever, were drawn up without reference to them, and
depended on other plans, beyond their control or even their
comprehension. From the human and personal point of
view it was just as impossible for Zinoviev to act contrary
to his immediate interests and taste for power, as for
Mussolini to escape the devouring fire of his ambition.

The cabinet crisis had begun with the fall of the Facta
ministry, outvoted by 288 to 103 votes, and had become
increasingly serious. Mussolini had taken steps to ensure
his being in a winning or at least a strong position. He had
sounded Nitti some time ago about the formation of a great
united national cabinet, asking for himself a minister’s
portfolio and under-secretaryships for two of his friends,

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 2II

for party reasons, and to avoid giving the impression that
he had carried out a purely personal operation’. The
intermediary betAveen Mussolini and Nitti was General
Capello, an important dignitary of the Palazzo Giustiniani
freemasons, voted president of honour by the Fascist
Congress of Rome. He was later condemned to thirty years’
imprisonment by the special tribunal for his alleged com¬
plicity in the attempted murder of the Duce by Colonel
Zaniboni in November 1925. Without mentioning Musso¬
lini’s proposals, Nitti sounded the Popolari and the socialists,
but did not succeed in making them accept his scheme.
Mussolini’s other hope was Orlando, to whom he had
suggested a coalition ministry, to include the fascists and
the representatives of the General Confederation of Labour.

One after the other Orlando, Bonomi, De Nava, Orlando
again, and De Nicola tried unsuccessfully to form a govern¬
ment. The Popolari maintained their twofold ban on
Giolitti and the right. The socialists went so far as to
promise support, but refused participation. And right in
the middle of the crisis, on the 25^, the press came out with
a letter from Giolitti, who declared himself opposed to the
pact between Popolari and socialists, the reason being that
he wanted to avoid important changes until November,
when he proposed to take office again himself. In this letter
he criticized the ‘ unjustified impatience ’ of those who had
provoked the crisis, and attacked them roundly. ‘ What
good can a Don Sturzo-Treves-Turati coalition do the
country ? ’ he asked, giving vent to all the bitterness he
retained from his set-back of May 1921.

In face of all these difficulties and complications which
threatened to prolong the crisis indefinitely, the socialist
group decided, on the morning of the 28th, to take a step
forward, and announced that they ^ would not shrink from
any action that could compel respect from those who owed
it to the clearly expressed desire of the National Assembly
for freedom and the right of organization ’ ; in other words,
they would not shrink even from participation in the govern¬
ment. But the Popolariy although they did not want the
right wing included in the new government, were alarmed
by the increasing seriousness of the situation and the pro-

212 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

longing of the crisis, and now accepted the puntarella. Once
again the socialists had come too late. A week earlier, and
their decision might have led to a ministry of the left, but
they had stopped at giving only their support ; now that
they were ready for participation, the Popolari deserted them
and turned to the right. Next day (July 29) Turati, sum¬
moned to the Quirinal by the king, was all in favour of
forming a ' centre' government, excluding the right wing
and the socialists, although the latter promised their
support.

Turati received the impression that the king ^ either does
not know what he wants or is not saying anything and he
made a point of describing the completely abnormal state
of the country. The king only broke silence to hint that
a constitutional king cannot do very much. . . .’ The
communist press was exultant and made clear what its
attitude would be if the socialists joined the government :

' Turati has gone to see the king,’ it announced ; ‘ the
socialist movement is breaking up. This means one dead
weight less to drag along in future.’

Events in the country encouraged and then annihilated
the intentions and hopes aroused in parliamentary circles
by the open crisis that followed the fascist occupation of
Cremona. Fascist expeditions and outrages in Novara,
Magenta, Macerata, Ancona, were followed by general
strikes in Piedmont, Lombardy, and the Marches. The
local organizations called on the Labour Alliance to
announce a general strike of protest throughout Italy. The
Alliance hesitated, allowed the local strikes to fizzle out, and
promised to launch an attack at the first opportunity.
Events in Ravenna provided this opportunity. Italo Balbo,
who had already organized an expedition to this town in
September 1921J set out again, this time with the intention
of ' exterminating ’ the enemy. During the 26th and 27th
a general strike was begun by one side, and mobilization by
the other, Balbo arrived with his squads, forced the gates
of the town and began his work of destruction. A few
extracts from his Diary show the methods igised and the
objects gained.

^ Pp. 121-122.

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 213

July 285 Ravenna.

‘ Last night the squads began the destruction of the
vast premises of the Provincial Federation of Socialist
Co-operative Societies. ... As usual the fascist action was
quite unexpected. The old palace, once the dwelling-
place of Byron, was completely destroyed.^ The fascists
only do this kind of thing when they are driven by
absolute political necessity. There are no half-measures
in civil warfare. The supreme aim is to ensure the safety
of our country. We carried out this exploit in the same
spirit in which w^e used to destroy enemy depots during
the war. During the night the burning of this huge
building lit up the whole town with a lurid glare. We,
too, must strike terror into the hearts of our enemies.’

July 30, Ravenna.

" I went to the chief of police, leaving Dino Grandi in
command of the thousands of fascists who had collected
in the suburb of San Roch. I announced that I would
set fire to and destroy the houses of all the socialists in
Ravenna, if within half an hour he did not place at my
disposal the necessary means for getting the fascists away.
It was a dramatic moment. I demanded an entire fleet
of lorries. His officials completely lost their heads ; but
half an hour later they showed me where I could find
lorries, ready filled with petrol. Some of them actually
belonged to the Chief’s office. My ostensible reason was
to get the unruly fascists out of the town, but in reality
I was organizing a “ column of fire ” (as the enemy have
described it) to increase our power of reprisal in the
province, I took my place with Baroncini, Caretti of
Ferrara and young Rambelli of Ravenna in a car at the
head of the long column of lorries, and we set out. This
journey began yesterday morning, the 29th, at ii o’clock,
and finished this morning the 30th. Nearly twenty-four
hours of driving, during which no one rested for a moment
or touched food. We went through Rimini, Sant’

^ The Federation, which had bonght this historic palace, was presided over
by NuHo Baldini and united ninety-two co-operatives, possessed 6000 hectares
of land and rented almost as much again.

214 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

Arcangelo, Savignano, Cesena, Bertinoro, all the centres
and towns between the provinces of Forti and Ravenna,
and destroyed all red buildings, and offices of socialist and
communist organizations. It has been a terrible night.
Our passage was marked by high columns of fire and
smoke.’

As a result of these events, the general councils of the two
Chambers of Labour at Rome (socialist and anarchist) met
on the evening of July 28 and invited the central committee
of the Labour Alliance to proceed' immediately to a national
general strike, while warning the central committee that if
it hesitates, if it shirks its unavoidable duty, if it does not
decide shortly on a general movement, the organs of pro¬
letarian defence in Rome will denounce its authority
A general strike was proclaimed on the evening of July 31—
to begin at midnight of that date—by the ‘ secret committee
of action ’ of the Labour Alliance, which issued the following
appeal :

‘ By proclaiming a general strike the Committee means
to defend the political and syndical liberties menaced by
the reactionary factions. ... It is the duty of all lovers of
freedom to break, by the strength of their joint resistance,
the reactionary attack, thus defending the conquests of
democracy and saving the nation from the abyss into
which it would be cast by the madness of dictatorship.

. . . The government of the country must take a solemn
warning from the general strike, so that an end may be
made of all violation of civic liberties, which should find
their protection and their guarantees in the application
of the law. During the general strike the workers must
refrain absolutely from committing acts of violence, which
would impair the solemnity of the demonstration and
would quite certainly be exploited by our enemies ;
except only in the case of legitimate defence of persons
or institutions, if by mischance enemy violence should be
directed against them. Only those orders emanating
from responsible organizations are to be carried out.
Workers, arise in defence of civilized man’s most sacred
possession, freedom ! ’

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 215

The Rome correspondent of the Popolo d'Italia wrote the
same day that :

' the extremist elements of the party have attempted to
make a skilful diversion by imposing practically by force
on their more lukewarm comrades the proclamation of a
general strike^ which must be considered therefore as a tactical
manmvre against the reformists^ to stir up the masses at a
moment when an attempt is being made to divert them
from the class struggle h

The executive of the Fascist Party, on the other hand, said:
the general strike which is to begin at midnight is cowardly
and contemptible, because its object is not to liberate the
working classes from fascism but to establish the so-called
Left Ministry Which of these two versions coming from
fascist centres was correct ?

In actual fact the general strike was not called for either
of these reasons, but was the direct and inevitable result of
the situation created by the Ravenna incident. After the
fascist occupation of Novara (July 16), which followed the
fascist exploits in Cremona, Rimini, Andria, Viterbo, Sestri
Ponente, a general strike was proclaimed all over Piedmont,
then Lombardy, and would have reached Liguria as well,
had not the ^ autonomous ^ socialist leaders of Genoa
prevented it, thus breaking the pledges they had exchanged
with the workers^ organizations in Milan and Turin. The
general strike infected the Marches, where a small fascist
army from neighbouring Umbria had occupied Macerata,
Fabriano, and Ancona, the ‘red’ town of June 1914
and June 1920.^ Everywhere the workers’ organizations
demanded that these protests should be immediately com¬
bined in a general strike which would show their desire to
have done with fascist terrorism. The Confederation leaders
hesitated and did nothing, for the ministerial crisis was in
progress and they were afraid of compromising the issue.
But pressure from the more militant elements was so strong
that the central committee of the Alliance of Labour, while
ordering strikes in progress to be broken off, promised to
prepare a concerted movement which should be launched

^ Pp. 1-2 and 68.

2 i 6 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

at the first opportunity. This was provided a few days later
by the serious events in Ravenna. If it is true that the strike
was proclaimed on July 31 under pressure from the anarch¬
istic elements in the National Syndicate of Railwaymen—
who had founded the Labour Alliance—and that some of
them went so far as to threaten with a revolver Azimonti,
representing the General Confederation of Labour on the
secret committee, this was only possible because all the
workers were looking forward to a decision in favour of
a general strike. The reformist elements could hardly
oppose it since they had themselves just been flirting with
the idea of using a general strike as a bargaining weapon
in the negotiations for solving the (ministerial) crisis. When
the calling of the strike had become inevitable, the majority
of the secret committee took care to launch it as a perfectly
lawful demonstration, for the defence of legality: ' a

legalitarian ” strike Turati calls it. The appeal was
addressed to ^ lovers of freedom in the name of the defence
of political and syndical liberties ’ and ‘ the conquests of
democracy and called only for the re-establishment of
the rule of law. But in spite of its cautious language and
intentions, the strike swept away nearly all that remained
of the political and syndical liberties ’ it was supposed to
be saving.

Here the drama of the collapse of the Italian working-class
and socialist movement reaches its climax. The threat or
at any rate the proclamation of this strike ought, according
to some, to have brought a left government into power, or,
according to others, to have revenged the working class in
the class struggle. Actually it disappointed both expectations
and brought failure to both projects.

The strike was certainly ‘ legalitarian ’ since its only aim
was the re-establishment of civil liberties and the rule of
law. But the character of a movement is not confined to its
own objects ; the reactions it provokes also form part of it,
and end up by transforming it, willy-nilly, at the crucial
moment. The reformist leaders had hoped in September
1920 to use the occupation of the factories as a means for
compelling the Socialist Party and the workers to form a
government. Their methods had had the opposite effect

THE CAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 217

and had alienated the masses, while leaving the bourgeoisie
resigned and even partly in favour of such an event. Not
only was the July strike ten days too late, but it followed on
a campaign in which maximalists, communists and anarchists
had described it as the ‘ necessary and sufficient ’ means for
turning the tables and liquidating fascism, without any help
from the state or compromise with non-proletarian forces.
The authors of the appeal for the general strike had taken
careful precautions in drawing it up to show the connection
between the movement they were starting and state action,
which they called upon to defend their outraged liberties.
But if the working classes and the state were to work for
a common end there had to be some sort of connection
between them, in fact there had to be collaboration. By
calling the strike on July 31, however, the working classes
materially severed their connection with the state. Even
supposing (quite unjustifiably) that the state had decided
to cope with the fascist gangs, it would have been entirely
paralysed by the strike in the public services and the
railways, while the fascists, with several months’ advantage
in distributing their forces, could cover a wide area in their
columns of lorries. ‘ A solemn warning to the government
of the country ’, said the secret committee’s manifesto. But
neither to those who took part in it nor to those who suffered
it did the strike appear merely as a ‘ warning ’. There was
practically no government in existence, in consequence of
the cabinet crisis which had now lasted a fortnight; besides,
the ‘ warning ’ could not be conveyed to the ‘ government ’,
for the strike had destroyed all points of contact between the
workers and the state. Conceived as a ‘ demonstration ’, it
failed in its effect. In Rome the Popolari, worried by the
length and gravity of the crisis, had decided to agree to the
inclusion of right-wing elements in the new government.
In the country the catholic syndicates, the same which had
won over the Popolari to the idea of collaborating with the
right-wing socialists, refused to take part in the general
strike ; and thus at the critical moment allies were lost whose
help in assuring the ‘ defence of liberty ’ was indispensable.
The king, who still had Giolitti in mind, broke off all
negotiations, and on August i—the strike having beg;un at

2i8 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

midnight—summoned Facta and once again asked him to
form a cabinet. At five o’clock it was re-formed exactly as
before, and was to be the last of the parliamentary regime.

In the country the struggle was begun in the most un¬
favourable conditions. In Piedmont, Lombardy and else¬
where the workers had finished a few days previously a
protest strike lasting several weeks. They were rather
exhausted and many hesitated or did not come out. In
northern Italy, in Genoa and Turin, the order to strike came
forty-eight hours early, either through misunderstanding or
treachery, and this added to the confusion and depression.
The secret committee was so secret that the workers’
organizations did not know where to apply for orders.
Also the general strike was purely defensive ; the manifesto
quoted above allowed fighting ' only in the legitimate
defence of persons and institutions ’ and on this ground the
inferiority of the workers’ forces, unprepared and un¬
supported, was obvious. On the whole, leaving aside any
strategic consideration, the course of the movement, which
really did have the support of the majority of the workers,
showed how much more they were worth than all their
leaders put together. As things were at the end of July 1922,
the almost universal success of the general strike was an
act of faith that, wonderful and moving as it was, was quite
fruitless. These men who refused to resign themselves to
slavery—railwaymen who were driven back to work at the
point of the revolver, while their homes were burnt behind
their backs, workers who ever since the war had been striking
in support of principle and unity and were doing it once more
because they were told it would check the fascist offensive-
all these people who were allowed to wear themselves out in
misapplied efforts deserved other leaders and a different
fate.

The fascists had been expecting a general strike for some
time and were preparing their counter-attack, profiting by
the delay accorded them after the events of Novara by the
hesitation and petty scheming of the socialist and syndical
leaders. In fact, on July 31, immediately after these events,
the secretariat of the National Fascist Party sent out to its
branches a circular which announced ; ‘ According to latest

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 219

information the attempt at a national general strike is
abandoned for the time being. Nevertheless, to save our¬
selves from being taken by surprise if another attempt is
made with the help of the red ” railway men, the fascists
should at once make sure of having the necessary means for
rapid transport: cars, lorries, motor-bicycles. . . On
July 31 the same secretariat, being well informed, sent out
another circular letter, which read as follows :

National Fascist Party—^Rome
Press OflBce.

Private circular letter Rome,

[to be read and destroyed), 1922.

To the Provincial Fascist Federations

(Please pass on immediately to subsidiary

It appears that the Labour Alliance means to
proclaim to-day, as from midnight, a national general
strike, including the state services. If this critical news is
confirmed by the facts a manifesto by the Executive of
the Fascist Party on this subject will be published in
to-morrow’s newspapers. The Federations and iht fasci
must fall in with the instructions given in the manifesto.
Their more detailed orders are :

( i) To carry out the immediate mobilization of all the
fascist forces.

(2) If within forty-eight hours of the proclamation of
the strike the government have not succeeded in ending
it, the fascists will make it their own duty to do so.

(3) If the strike continues after the forty-eight hours,
the fascists will proceed to the provincial capitals and
occupy them.

(4) The fascists of the Carrara and Lomellina zones
and those of the province of Alessandria must keep some
of their forces at the disposal of the fascists of Genoa.
Those of the provinces of Bologna and Ferrara must keep
some of their forces at the disposal oitht fasci of Romagna
and of the Ancona zone.

(5) To keep watch over the main road junctions,

(6) The fascists must only obey orders issuing from

220 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 wnrking-class resistance in Tuscany.

The fascist executive issued an ultimatum addressed to the
strikers and the state : ^ 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 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 minds from Rimini to
Novara and Ravenna, 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,

THE CAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM

221

but because of the strike, the particular method of suicide
chosen by the workers’ organizations.

With the strike the situation took a definitely reactionary
turn, and the cabinet crisis which had followed the Cremona
acts of violence ended in fascist terrorism on a nation-wide
scale receiving what was practically an official blessing.
The conservative and ‘ liberal ’ press had shown no en¬
thusiasm for the attempted peace pact and had blamed the
fascists for contributing towards socialist participation by
their excesses ; the bourgeoisie, with Giolitti, had expected
nothing but harm to come of the crisis begun by the vote of
July 19 in the Chamber J but now both showed revived
anxiety for ‘ the authority of the state ’ against the workers
on strike, and congratulated the fascists who were con¬
tinuing and extending, in the name of the state, the work of
destruction to which they had devoted themselves with

renewed fury in the past few weeks.

The Labour Alliance decided to end the strike at midday
on August 3, prolonging it for twelve hours so as not to give
the impression of having given way to the fascist ultimatum,
which expired at midnight on August 2. But the fascists
were not going to be baulked of their expected gains.
Michele Bianchi, the secretary of the party, telegraphed the
following circular to all the provincial federations:

‘ Although the attempted strike has, on the whole, failed
and the Labour Alliance been forced to declare it officially
ended, it must not pass unpunished. The “ collaborationist ”
socialists are the most to blame, and the fascists, returning
to their homes and demobilizing—where the situation
allows—must not forget it.’ ^ The fascist offensive, then, had
a double political objective : to spread out and occupy other
districts and to strike especially hard at the ‘ collabora¬
tionist’ socialists. The parliamentary offensive which
Mussolini had planned against them from the beginning of
the crisis was completed under arms throughout the county.
The government connived at it, and wherever its authority
was in the hands of the military, it was used almost every-

^ P. 21I.

s Referring to the strike while addressing the Central Committee of the
Fascist Party on August 13, Bianchi repeated that ‘ it was conceived by
‘ collaborationist ’ ’ socialism ’.

222 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

where to help xht fasci. Their activity greatly increased
after August 3, i.e. after the end of the strike. Mussolini
was jubilant, and wrote in his newspaper on August 5 :

' If the three secretaries of the Labour Alliance had been
fanatical fascists they could not have done more for the
cause of fascism.’ To prove it he published the list of
fascist victories. This list (see Appendix) includes the names
of forty-three towns in which the headquarters of socialist
and communist clubs and co-operatives, Chambers of
Labour and newspaper offices had been burnt down and
socialist municipal councils forced to resign ; in addition,
so lavish was the victory, there were a number of others
which there was no room to print.

The fascist push went on for several days, and demobiliza¬
tion w^as not ordered by the secretariat of the party until
August 8, five days after the end of the general strike. Even
then, while demobilizing, the fascists were to ' act in
accordance with the local situation The meaning of this
phrase was explained in a circular letter of the 7 th :

" If nothing has happened by the end of the day we shall
give the order to demobilize this evening. In districts
where the situation may not be favourable to us a garrison
must be left. It appears, now that things are quiet, that
the authorities intend to begin seizing arms. Issue strict
orders on this subject so that arms and munitions can be
taken at once to a safe place.’

The fascists had meant to take advantage of the general
strike to attain various important strategic objects, in
particular—as may be seen from the circular letter sent out
from the party secretariat on July 31^—^the Genoa district
and the city of Ancona.

In Genoa the working-class movement was in the hands
of the ‘ autonomous ’ socialists, who were outside the official
party, held right-wing views and had favoured Italy’s
intervention in die war. Their leaders had played a fairly
important and somewhat ambiguous part in the central
committee of the Alliance of Labour. They were supported
by a powerful network of co-operative societies which
^ P. 219--220.

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 223

monopolized all the work of the port and placed a formidable
vested interest in the way of the fascist advance. But there
was a gap in this imposing facade which the fascists intended
to force. The work of the port—lading, unlading, caulking,
and repairs of all sorts—was done by several thousands of
workers who were members of the co-operative societies,
each one of which performed a special function in accordance
with strict rules reminiscent of those of the old corporations.
These societies were ' closed ’ and their members given
priority of employment. Each morning a list was prepared
of the demands for various forms of labour caused by the
arrival and departure of ships, and if there were any jobs
to spare ‘ outside ’ workers were engaged. During the war
and immediately afterwards there was work for everybody,
and the system served to protect high wages, from which
non-members also profited. But when the economic crisis
broke out and the activity of the port was reduced, the
system was threatened from two quarters. Owners and
merchants wanted to bring down prices, while the growing
number of unemployed, allowed fewer and fewer shifts of
work, turned against the barriers of the co-operative
societies and trade unions which were shutting them out of
the promised land of the port. A few days’ work a week
was enough to give a livelihood, and wages were so high
that members sometimes gave up their shifts to outsiders in
return for a percentage of their earnings. During the time
of prosperity, real or artificial, there had been enough profits
for everybody, contractors, co-operative workers and lumpen-
proletariat The margin of profit was now narrower and the
fight for the spoil had begun. In this fight the contractor
had a natural ally in the unemployed. Attacked on these
two sides, the system could not hold out, and collapsed in a
few days. The attack was led by the fascists. The shipping
magnates placed a million and a half lire at their disposal
to organize a punitive expedition against Genoa on a large
scale. A fierce onslaught was made against the closed
co-operative societies, in order to make them open to every¬
body. Work in the port was not unlimited, and for this
reason alone some system of regulation was necessary.
Actually once the victory had been won the societies were

224 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

to be closed once more, and closed more firmly than before ;
but socialist officials were to be replaced by fascist ones, or
were to change their labels. In the meantime two great
results were obtained : a death-blow was struck at the
political and economic mainstays of the ultra-reformist
socialism of Genoa, and wages in the port were considerably
reduced.

The method by which this victory was gained is not
without interest. The orders of July 31^ had been carried
out, and on the summons of the Genoa fascia, the squads of
Carrara, commanded by Renato Ricci, reached the town
in a short time ‘ after destroying the Chamber of Labour in
Spezia on the way Other squads came from Alessandria,
led by the fascist deputy Torre. The Fascist Party attached
exceptional importance to the conquest of Genoa, and the
committee of action formed in the town included, besides
Ricci and Torre, Massimo Rocca, a member of the party
executive, Edmondo Rossoni, the secretary of the Con¬
federation of Fascist Syndicates, and the deputy De Stefani,
afterw'ards finance minister in Mussolini’s first cabinet : in
short, a small general staff for the direction of the campaign.
During the strike there was fighting almost everywhere, and
the workers held out until August 4. The state forces came
to the help of the fascists ; armoured cars and machine-guns
were brought into action and the last barricades destroyed.
The railway staff were forced to give in, and on the morning
of the 5th most of them returned to work. But the fascist
leaders were determined to gain all the objects for wffiich
the ‘ march on Genoa ’ had been planned. The co¬
operative societies and socialist unions in the port had to be
destroyed. All the economic activities of the port were
under the control of a public body, the Autonomous Con¬
sortium of the Fort,® representing all the different interests
and presided over by the senator Ronco. The Consortium
controlled and distributed labour and without it the fascists
could not have gained their hold over the ‘ system ’. On
August 5 the strike ended, but ‘ in the morning the committee

^ P. 219, section 4.

® The passages quoted are taken from Ghiurco’s History*

* Consorzio Atitonoino del Porto di Genova.

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 225

of action, now established in the Bristol Hotel, decided to
destroy a number of socialist organizations and to attack
the porth Senator Ronco was invited to the Bristol where
a member of the committee cut short discussion by reading
him the following ultimatum :

1. The Executive Committee of the Consortium of the
Port of Genoa henceforward annuls all contracts with the
existing co-operatives, revokes any authorization to work
and re-establishes the freedom of labour in the Port itself.

2. The existing co-operatives henceforward will be
denied all concessions.

3. The same Executive Committee declares that it
recognizes implicitly the principle of different co-operatives
for each branch of work.

4. Within three months from to-day the revision of the
lists of the Consortium must be completed, and in them
inscribed all the members of the co-operatives formed
during that period.

5. The Executive Committee may dispose of the
guaranty funds of the co-operatives in the Consortium to
compensate at least in part for the damage done to trade.

The Committee of Action gave senator Ronco half an
hour to accept these conditions. Signor Ronco, an old
liberal, replied that he had received his appointment from
the king, and left the Bristol Hotel. But shortly afterwards
the fascist squads went to the Palazzo San Giorgio, the
headquarters of the Consortium, and forced him to sign the
following order :

‘ The Executive Committee of the Autonomous Con¬
sortium of the Port has decided to revoke the authorization
given to the co-operatives to work in the Port, and to
return to the free choice of the workers inscribed in the
list of the Consortium until such time as the co-operatives,
which are to be newly constituted with no limitation of
membership for each class of labour, can be authorized
according to regulations ; also to revise the lists of the
Consortium with power to inscribe new members.’

226 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

At the same time the committee of action published an
indictment of senator Ronco, although he had yielded under
the threat of fascist revolvers.

' Citizens! The Palazzo San Giorgio, formerly the seat
of austere and wise justices of the sea, must return again
to the dignity and impartiality of the law.

' The petty tyrant of the Palazzo San Giorgio, bogus
protector of the poor, and clever speculator, must rule
no more.

‘ President Blockhead, trembling and incapable, must
learn to keep his place or go quietly into retirement.

' In our Port, according to the spirit and the letter of
the law, the principle of liberty must be kept sacred, and
no monopoly of organization must subordinate the
dignity of human labour to one party.

‘ Men of Genoa ! When we have several co-operatives,
instead of a single one with exclusive rights, strikes will no
longer be necessary or so frequent, and will no longer
discredit and ruin our Port.

Long live the free and multiple co-operatives.

^ Long live freedom.’

‘ President Blockhead ’ gave way to all the demands of
the fascists, who left the Palazzo singing Giovinezza. Their
victory was complete. But before the 5000 fascists concen¬
trated in Genoa returned home they carried out a few more
minor operations. Two co-operatives, the office of the
reformist daily II Lavoro, a socialist printing-works and other
workers’ clubs were sacked and burned. A great number
of syndical leaders were forced to leave the town within
twenty-four hours. The fascists also occupied the Chamber
of Labour and handed it over to the military authorities.
For during the fascist occupation of Genoa the government
had delegated full powers to the military authorities in the
town.

The second objective had been Ancona, which the fascists
of Umbria had occupied for the first time in the middle of
July. This time the fascist concentration was more general :
squads arrived from Bologna, Perugia, Foligno, Romagna,
Ferrara, from the whole of Umbria ; more than 3000 men.

THE CAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM

22 ^

The offices of workers’ organizations were set on fire, after
the state forces had driven out the defenders. The battle
raged furiously in the suburbs, and especially at San Lazzaro,
where the strikers attacked and besieged the barracks of the
carabinieri, and even tried to occupy the fort of Monte
Acuto. In spite of the workers’ heroism the struggle was too
uneven and Ancona too, passed under the control of the
fasci.

The speed acquired in action and the favourable military
and political conditions made it possible for fascism to attack
two more important positions, Milan and Parma. In Milan
the fascist mobilization was carried out under the orders
of Captain Cesare Forni, leader of the squads of Lomellina.
On August 3 the Palazzo Marino, the town hall, was
occupied, and d’Annunzio made a long speech from the
balcony about the ‘ pacification of minds ’ and the greatness
of Italy, without making the slightest allusion to fascism.
This was all part of his ‘ saviour ’ performance ; but his
presence among the leaders of the fascist bands amounted
to support, since it sanctioned the violence perpetrated
against the socialist council. His words were blown away
by the wind, the gesture alone counted and served to swell
the fascist success. Michele Bianchi, the secretary of the
party, sent a congratulatory telegram from Rome : ‘ The
National Fascist Party echoes your cries of “long live
fascism D’Annunzio had certainly not shouted ‘ long
live fascism ’ ; he was furious at the lie and at being thus
annexed, and telegraphed in reply : ‘ My own cry is the
only one that should be exchanged between Italians to-day,
“ Long live Italy ! ” I know no other.’ But the Popolo
d’Italia, which had published Bianchi’s telegram to
d’Annunzio, took good care not to publish the poet’s reply.
For this piece of misrepresentation d’Annunzio had only
himself to blame. The following day, August 4, the fascist
squads decided to destroy once again, for the third time since
April 1919, the offices of the socialist paper, Avanti. After
considering bombarding it from an aeroplane :

‘ the fascists decided to attack it from three sides, with

columns made up of strong groups of squadristi firom Milan,

228 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

Pavia and Cremonaj under the command of Farinacci,
and with a column of forty lorries. While shots were
fired into the air to distract the attention of the state
forces, the squads climbed the gates, got into the premises
and attacked the staff with bombs and rifles. The
defenders switched an electric current through barbed-
wire, which had been prepared in advance, and electro¬
cuted Emilio Tonoli; while Gesare Melloni was blown
up by a bomb. But finally the fire took hold, destroying
the paper-stores and ruining the building.’

Eight fascists were wounded.

^ In the Via Canonica another fascist was wounded by
the rebels, a battle started and the communist club was
sacked. The state forces were brought into action, but
the resistance offered by this rebel district was extra¬
ordinary. Armoured cars had to be resorted to, bombs
were thrown, and two were killed and several seriously
wounded.’

During the fascist occupation the police made 600 arrests,
exclusively among the workers and the ^ rebels ’. Mussolini
was in Rome, where on August 2 he was holding a con¬
ference on the imperial task of fascism and he did not
conceal his delight. As some newspapers had reported that
he disapproved of the violence and crimes of the fascists in
Milan, he sent the fascists a message of support : ' The acts
of reprisal you have carried out have my entire approval.
The Rome newspapers which have referred to an alleged
disobedience of my orders should realize that if I had been
in Milan I should have seen to it that reprisals were on a much
bigger scale.’

Although they won in Milan the fascists failed to gain
Parma, which remained a thorn in the side of Po valley
fascism until the eve of the march on Rome. It was Italo
Balbo once again who decided to take the opportunity of
finally destroying this island of anti-fascist resistance. The
working-class movement in Parma was peculiarly situated.
Before the war the city had been the Mecca of revolutionary
syndicalism. Its Chambers of Labour had been led by

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 229

Michele Bianchi, Rossoni, Amilcare De Ambris, Filippo
Corridoni ; the last had joined up and been killed in the
war, the first three had later gone over to fascism. The
syndicalists, torn between opposing tendencies, had been
abandoned by the workers, the majority of whom supported
the federal Chamber.of Labour controlled by the socialists.
The growth of socialist influence was quite recent and the
local workers maintained a certain spirit of independence,
if not of mistrust, of political parties. Further it was the
only town where, despite the socialist and communist veto,
there was a proper and well-trained organization of arditi
del popolo.

On the second day of the general strike, which the local
socialist leaders had already decided to end, fascist squads
began to arrive from the province and from Cremona.

^ A hundred fascists from Cremona,’ says Ghiurco,
‘ with Farinacci, were received on the third day of the
strike, at the Garibaldi gate, with rifle-shots and hand-
grenades. The state forces intervened, armoured-cars
were brought into action ; the battle lasted several hours.
Thousands of fascists poured in from all directions and
occupied the railway stations ; fighting broke out every¬
where ; bombs were thrown ; rebel squads penetrated
right into the centre of the town and attacked the
headquarters of the fascio,^

The same evening Balbo arrived with more squads, which
destroyed two railwaymen’s clubs and the presses of the
paper, II Piccolo, But the leaders of the arditi del popolo were
determined to hold out to the end.

At dawn,’ according to the account of Guido Picelli,^
who had not forgotten what the war had taught him, ^ the
workers went into the streets with picks, shovels, and other
tools to help the arditi to take up the roads and pavements,
tear up tram-lines, dig trenches, build barricades with
carts, benches, beams, sheet-iron, and anything else they
could find. Men and women were there, young and old,

^ Ouido Picelli was killed at the beginning of January 1937 fighting
heroically in defence of Madrid for the freedom of the Spanish people and the
peoples of the world.

230 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

of all parties or no party, bound by a single bitter resolve,
to resist the enemy. In a few hours the popular districts
of the town began to look like an armed encampment.
The section occupied by the defenders was divided into
four parts ; each squad was composed of eight to ten men
and armed with 1891 rifles, carbines, service revolvers,
S.LP.E. bombs. There were only enough rifles or muskets
for half of the men. The entrances to squares, streets and
alleys were barricaded ; in some places entrenchments
were reinforced by barbed-wire entanglements. Church-
towers were turned into observation-posts. The whole
fortified zone was put under the command of the arditi
del popolo. The tradespeople were in sympathy with the
rebels and supplied them with equipment and food.’

It is impossible here to give a detailed account of the fight.
The fascist leaders insisted that the prefect should get the
army to break up the ' rebels’ ’ fortifications. Troops
occupied the Trinit a district, where the men at the barricades
welcomed them with shouts of: ‘ Long live our soldier
brothers while in the Oltreterrente district the Arditi
refused to disarm. The fascists were furious at the result of
their action and determined to resume hostilities, issuing
the following statement :

^ The authorities have been fooled by the bolshevik
strikers. The cessation of the strike has been made to
look like an alliance between the troops and the demon¬
strators, who are betraying their country. If the chosen
guardians of Patriotism, the most sacred ideal we possess
to-day, are incapable of defending it, then it is for us to
rise up in defence of the dignity of the nation and of the
insulted army. To arms, fascists ! We return to the
fight in the name of immortal Italy.’

The army had been insulted, according to the fascists,
because the workers who were defending their liberties had
welcomed and fraternized with the soldiers instead of
shooting at them. The fascists’ new attack, directed this
time against the Oltreterrente districts of old Parma, wilted
before the desperate and well-organized resistance of the

THE GAPORETTO OF SOCIALISM 23I

arditi and of the entire population. Mussolini, who was still
in Rome and whom Balbo consulted by telephone, advised
demobilization. The fascist leaders managed to save
appearances by getting their powers delegated to the
military authorities, who took over the job of occupying
and clearing the working-class districts.

The reason that the workers and people of Parma wxre
able to resist the fascist assault, although it concentrated
several thousand squadristi, was that the defence of the
working-class districts was organized on military lines,
remembered from the great war. It was under a supreme
command, w^hich included ex-servicemen ; it was non-party;
it was supported whole-heartedly and with wild enthusiasm ;
the orders of the arditi del popolo were obeyed ; it was
backed by a stern determination to fight, if the fascists
succeeded in breaking the front lines, from street to street,
and house to house ^ until every position is destroyed or
burnt b Another consideration, of decisive importance, is
that in Parma the army took no part in the attack on the
' rebel ’ defenders, who were wise enough to take up the
sensible attitude towards them that so infuriated the fascist
leaders.

Although the workers’ resistance foiled the fascist attempt
on Parma (as it did also in the old quarter of Bari), taken as
a whole, the objectives aimed at by the fascist leaders in
anticipation of the general strike were gained and in many
instances exceeded. In the often-mentioned Milan, Genoa,
Turin triangle, Milan and Genoa had succumbed. The
general strike left the socialist movement and the working
classes in a stupor. Could they be revived and saved ?
The reformist socialists printed in the August 12 number
of their paper, Giustizia^ the tale of defeat:

‘ We must have the courage to admit that the general
strike proclaimed by the Alliance of Labour has been our
Caporetto. We emerge from this test well beaten. We
have played our last card and lost Milan and Genoa,
which seemed the strongest points in our defence. In the
Lombard capital the party newspaper has once more
gone up in flames, the administration of the town has

THE RISE OF ITALIAN- FASCISM

232

been snatched from its lawful representatives, and our
best fighters are threatened with banishment. In Genoa,
which was strongly held by the seamen and the workers
in the port, the headquarters of our organizations have
been occupied by fascists, and nothing but ashes are left
of the socialist newspaper there. It is the same elsewhere.
Every important centre bears the marks of the fascist
hurricane. We must face facts : the fascists are masters
of the field. Nothing is to prevent them dealing more
heavy blows in the certainty of winning fresh victories.’

After emphasizing the lack of proletarian armament and
the absence of any organization or co-ordination during the
strike, the article went on :

' Our present unhappy and disastrous situation is the
result of solutions that were thought of long ago being
tried out too late. Too late, the collaborationist ”
solution, which to be successful should have been adopted
after the elections of May 1921 ; too late, the general
strike of protest, which was attempted after the enemy
had already broken down some of our strongholds and
had had time to build up a formidable army.’

After Caporetto the Italian army had managed to
reorganize and hold out on the Piave. But could the
workers and socialists find their Piave line to hold up the
enemy and block the way to the capital ?

X

THE M. 4 RGH ON ROME

A FTER the ' legalitarian ’ strike parties and politicians

/ \ expected a few months respite, to adapt themselves
A Ato the new conditions and decide on their tactics
for the reassembly of parliament in the autumn, when
everything would at last be settled. Giolitti had only
intervened in June and saved Facta because he reckoned
on getting into power after the recess and holding fresh
general elections in the spring ; although he meant first to
strike a heavy blow at the socialists and Popolari by abolishing
proportional representation. This would make it possible
to form a coalition government in which the socialists, or
at least some of the leaders of the General Confederation
of Labour, would be only too glad to take part. His general
idea was to carry on with the plan already begun in May
1921, and this time there was a chance of success, thanks to
the achievements of the fascists, the new split in the Socialist
Party—now well under way—and the possibility of a return
to majority elections.

Accordingly when the second Facta ministry met the
Chamber on August 9 it easily secured a majority. Although
it contained neither socialists nor fascists it was a thoroughly
patchwork affair, comprising friends of Giolitti and Nitti,
Popolari^ ‘ national ^ socialists, genuine democrats like
Amendola, and right-wing extremists like Riccio. It was as
chaotic as the state of affairs it was supposed to be dealing
with, and, existing as it did only through the weakness and
mutual tolerance of its members, it had no strength at all.

The fascists took part in the discussion on the government’s
programme, but this time Mussolini put up an obscure
deputy to state his point of view. In the set speech that had
been prepared for him Signor Dario Lupi put forward the

233

234 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

alternatives : ‘ Either the state absorbs fascism or fascism
absorbs the state.’ Did he mean by this that fascism was
ready to join the state, to obey the law and share the respon¬
sibility of power ? That had been Mussolini’s attitude in
April/ but now the same phrases did not bear the same
meaning. This is what Signor Lupi had to explain. Fascism
did not want equality of rights within the framework of a
state that guaranteed similar equality to all parties and all
its citizens. Fascism rejected the idea of a state that was
' restricted by such absurd limitations of neutrality ’ ; the
party would join the state if it became a party-state. The
state must follow a fascist policy : ^ To settle the present
crisis,’ declared Signor Lupi, ‘ the nation’s enemies must
be routed. If the present ministry is incapable of doing so,
fascism will press on with enthusiasm and faith to accomplish
the national task that has been entrusted to it by God and
by Destiny.’ Mussolini’s own style is easily recognizable
in this peroration. Two years ago he had spat upon ' every
form of Christianity ’ ; now he invoked God through his
spokesman, while he announced his intention of carrying
on his drive against the socialists and the workers. This
invocation of God—coupled with Destiny, since some god
has to be found for those who do not believe in God—was
intended to disarm the Vatican, and was soon to bear fruit.

Two days later the National Council of the Fascist Party
reassembled in Milan to consider the situation. Michele
Bianchi, the secretary-general of the party, stated that recent
events had shown that fascism possessed ^ greater strength
than had been imagined " Our victory, for which we
cannot adequately thank our enemies,’ said Grandi
ironically, has been shattering, complete beyond all
expectation.’ Everybody agreed with Bianchi and Mussolini
that fascism must be merged into the state, either by legal
means through new elections, or if necessary by direct
action. The seizure of power had become an urgent neces¬
sity, and Mussolini’s impatience matched the demands of
the movement. The fact was that the destruction of the
socialist organizations had thrown on to the hands of the
fascists tens of thousands of workers, and they had no idea

194.

THE MARCH ON ROME

235

what to do with them. As fascism triumphed it came up
against the practical problems with which the free syndicates
had been concerned. Thanks to the terror it could brush
aside or postpone some of these, but there were others
which it had to face.

The political offensive had pushed fascism towards
syndicalism, and this in its turn was forcing it to conquer the
state. How to make use of the resources of the state was the
principal problem before the National Council. Farinacci
emphasized the danger to the fascist syndicates of unemploy¬
ment during the coming winter. Grandi, in an interview
in the Giornale d'ltalia, expressed the problem in a more
definite form :

^ A passive but numerically important force is growing
up alongside fascism. I refer to the well-organized body
of our syndicates which to-day contains over 700,000
members. The coming winter may hold surprises for all,
ourselves included, whose effects no one can foretell.
We are faced to-day by an insurrection of the middle
classes, and by a political revolution. It must also be
remembered that this insurrection is likely to be com¬
plicated by a social crisis. What would happen were these
two phenomena to meet before we managed to take up
our share of the responsibilities of the state ? ’

This mixture of anxiety and blackmail was genuinely
effective. Fascism displayed itself to the bourgeoisie as the
only force ^ capable of absorbing the anti-state forces without
endangering liberal institutions ’, and without having to
pay the price of socialist collaboration. ‘ Our collaboration,!
Grandi assured them ‘ has all the advantages and none of the
dangers of socialist collaboration. Fascism must become
the mainspring of government immediately ; and to bring
this about general elections must be held in November.’

The alternatives, legality or insurrection, put forward by
Mussolini and fascism, only affected methods, for the object
was the same in either case : the attainment of power.
Mussolini had succeeded in persuading Grandi and his
friends, especially the deputies among them, that it would be
better to take the path of legality ’, and that by following

236 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

it they had every chance of success. Nearly all parties,
from Popolari to nationalists, were either in favour of or
resigned to the fascists joining the government, though they
meant to restrict them to a reasonable share of it. But now
that the squads were closing in on Rome Mussolini was
not going to be content to play the part of a mere lieutenant.
The post he wanted, and regarded as his own, was the
ministry of foreign affairs. He wanted his name to be
reverenced beyond the frontiers. Europe groaned under the
weight of the peace treaty, the League of Nations was
' utopian \ England was the most formidable guardian of
this system, and it was against her, against the " conservative ’
powers, that Italy must align herself. Mussolini became
obsessed with this idea, to the point of monomania. He
proclaimed himself more and more revisionist and anti-
British. In June 1922 he got the fascist parliamentary
group to pass a resolution condemning the ratification of
the Syrian, Libanon and Palestine mandates. He tried to
stir up Egypt against England. In the middle of July he
proudly quoted in the Popolo dUtalia a resolution of the Arab
Nationalist Committee which congratulated the Italian
fascist and nationalist press on its attitude towards Near
Eastern problems, It is clear he wrote in this connection,

" that we hold excellent cards to play in the Eastern Mediter¬
ranean’, particularly ‘Arab nationalism in full swing’.
Certain Italian diplomats remained obstinately pro-British,
‘ goodness knows why ’, but ‘ all that will soon come to an
end ’.

In August the National Council of the Fascist Party passed
another resolution, proposing ‘ to prevent by all possible
means the ratification and carrying out of the Italo-Jugo-
slav conventions of Santa Margharita and Rome’. On
August 28 Mussolini once more denounced the foreign
minister Schanzer,^ for ‘ sacrificing the independence of
Italian foreign policy to the League of Nations’. On
September 6, referring to Asia Minor, he demanded that
Italian foreign policy should ‘ take up a realistic attitude
and abandon completely all hollow theorizing, breaking
away once and for all from its subjection to England ’.

^ He was minister for foreign affairs in both the Facta cabinets.

THE MARCH ON ROME

237

Later, on October i, four weeks before the march on Rome,
he explained his hostility to England and the League of
Nations.

‘ During the four years that have followed the armistice
England has practised the most complete deception
possible on Europe and the world. It is from London
that the post-war doctrine of reconstruction has emerged.
. . . We have never for one moment been taken in by
that solemn league of tricksters which sits at Geneva
oblivious of the ridicule that surrounds it. Nor have we
ever believed in English pacifism or English reconstruc¬
tionism, or any of the nebulous league theories which
are wafted over from the Anglo-Saxon world. ^ We must
be ready for an essentially anti-English policy. It is not
in Italy’s interest to support the British Empire ; it is in
her interest to contribute to its downfall.’^

There was a close theoretical and practical connection
between this view of foreign politics and MussoUni’s fight
for power, both in cause and effect. Hatred of' Wilsonism
of European reconstruction, of the ‘ league spirit ’ abroad,
went hand in hand with hatred of socialism and democracy
at home ; the one was a function of the other, its counterpart
on a different scale : an easily grasped parallel.

‘ The century of democracy is over,’ wrote Mussolini
on August 19. ‘ The ideals of democracy are exploded,
beginning with that of “ progress Ours is an “ aristo¬
cratic ” century which followed the old democratic one.
The state of all will end by becoming the state of a few.
The new generations are not going to let the corpse of
democracy block their way into the future.’

He stressed this again on September 17 :

‘It is not our programme which divides us from
democracy, since all programmes are alike, but our

^ In Tsarist Russia the ‘ nationalist populist ’ Prougavin foretold a fatal
conflict between bourgeois and parliamentary England and the Holy Russian
Empire, autocracy incarnate, supported by the will of hordes oimujiks. ‘ The
historian,’ remarks Tchernoff in his memoirs, From Nijni-Novgorod to Paris^

‘ cannot help remarking how in periods of reaction dictatorships, of whatever
kind, are fundamentally hostile to the English parliamentary regime.’

^ See below, on p. 257, the end of Mussolini’s speech in Milan on October 4.

238 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

conception of the future trend of history ; and it is from
this that our mentality and methods are derived. For we
are more and more convinced that the world is moving
towards the right, the ideas and the institutions of the
right, and above all in the direction of anti-socialism. . . .
We are more and more convinced that for our salvation
we have got to establish a new order, no matter how
reactionary our methods. . . . The democratic con¬
ception of life is essentially political, the fascist essentially
warlike.^

. The masses are so much cattle ; the prey of
spasmodic, fluctuating, and irresponsible forces ; inert
matter, without volition, and without future. We must
overthrow, therefore, the altars raised by Demos to their
Holiness the Masses. This does not mean that we must
neglect their well being. On the contrary we must bear
in mind the statement of Nietzsche, who desired that the
masses should enjoy the highest material well-being so
that their complaints and troubles should not disturb
the higher manifestations of the spirit.’

It is from the people, according to the principle of
democracy, that power is derived. But according to the
fascist conception they are simply the masses, a sort of
primary material which must be immobilized, though not
obliterated. And as soon as the people lose all independent
existence, all self-determination, they nourish and serve
the ‘ will to power’. Fascism is like the barbarian horde
marshalled against the city ; but marshalled in a new way,

^ So far as it is possible to speak of a mussolinian doctrine it may be summed
up in a single phrase—the glorification of war. In the article on fascist doctrine
that Mussolirii himself wrote for the Italian Encyclopaedia he gives the following
definition ‘ Above all, as far as concerns the future and development of
humanity in a general way, fascism does not believe in either the possibility
or the usefulness of eternal peace. It repudiates pacifism, which runs away
firom the struggle and shrinks from sacrifice. War alone screws all human
faculties to their highest pitch and sets the seal of nobility on the peoples who
have the courage to face it. . . . Consequently a doctrine founded on the
assumption of peace is no more consistent with fascism than are international
mstitutions with the spirit of fascism.’ And in his speech in the Chamber of
May 26, 1934, which may be regarded as the starting-point for fascist action in
Africa and in the Mediterranean, Mussolini proclaimed that : ‘War is to man
what maternity is to woman. I do not believe in eternal peace ; in fact I think
It wastes and denies the essential virtues of man, which can only be fullv
displayed in bloodshed and strife.’ ^ ^

THE MARCH ON ROME

239

with iron discipline, trains running to time, the mobilization
of the body and mind of every member. A horde which
will become a modern army, before which in its turn the
free city will seem a confused mob. Modern war is mass
war, involving the entire resources of a country. Dictator¬
ship becomes a necessity, for the masses must be compelled
to march, either by force or by isolating and exciting instincts
and reflexes which social habits, democracy and city life
have weakened and bridled. Hence it is that the struggle
to guide a nation into knowing and obeying no other law
than that of war demands the destruction of social institu¬
tions, those stages by which civilization consolidates its
slow and difficult advance. To deprive the people of their
communes, their syndicates, their co-operatives was like
pushing them backwards down a slope from which every¬
thing that might arrest their fall had been removed. To
ensure its own freedom of movement, fascism had to sup¬
press all liberty, and substitute for bodies which might
use it as a means to a freer social life others devoted to
absolute stagnation. Mussolini thoroughly understood that
to impose a ' warlike mentality ’ on Italy he had to de¬
stroy democracy and in particular its only serious support,
the working-class and socialist movement. Socialists and
Popolari^ the two great popular parties, which really reflected
the hopes of the masses, were genuinely pacifist. Nowhere
on his European journey did Wilson receive more spon¬
taneous and disinterested homage than in Italy. To make
such a people warlike ^ democracy and socialism had to
be exterminated ; and fascism had to have not only power,
but a monopoly of power.

In the course of its violently rapid growth the character
of fascism became more and more military, a foreshadowing
of the pattern of organization and life that its chiefs were to
impose on the Italian nation. In order to turn the nation
into a barracks fascism had to begin by being a barracks.
To those who looked for a breakdown owing to the immense
number of new recruits Mussolini replied on August 26 :
* The river of fascism continues to increase its waters, which
have already burst through several dams and soon will be in
full flood. Our enemies pretend to be pleased at this

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

240

impressive and rapid growth of our numbers which they
hope to see ebbing with the same speed/ But the Fascist
Party is not like all the other parties. There is no argument,
no formation of ' tendencies no fear of schism. ‘ Fascism
is quite different. Its members are first and foremost soldiers.
The party ticket is a mobilization paper. The politico-
military structure is now firmly established. Military
discipline involves political discipline. People are there to
fight and not to argue. With this type of organization the
dangers of proselytism are greatly reduced.' A year earlier
Mussolini had faced an internal crisis in fascism by backing
the ' political' elements against the ' military ’ ; now he
congratulated himself that fascist organization was military
in structure, performance and mentality, as was fitting for
an army of occupation. It was also favoured not only by
the neglect, blindness and self-deception of its adversaries,
but by the concrete support of a combination of interests ;
primarily the landed interests, and, more or less directly
connected, the most reactionary groups of Italian society :
big bankers—especially the shadier sort, heavy industry—
armament manufacturers in particular, some sections of
the army, and the Vatican.

Between August and the beginning of October the energies
of the fascist movement were completely absorbed in turning
to account the immediate results of its victory over the
general strike. In Genoa Senator Ronco, president of
the Consortium of the Port, ended by resigning, and the
government approved the work of the fascist Committee of
Action. On August 15 the municipal council of Cremona
was dissolved. A month earlier the first Facta cabinet had
been turned out of office for not saving the town from
fascist violence ; now the second Facta cabinet sanctioned
this violence with the decree of dissolution. Two weeks later
Milan suffered the same fate ; there also the state merely
^ legalized ' the occupation of the Palazzo Marino./*- At the
end of the month came the turn of Treviso, which the
fascists had attacked in July, 1921.^ At the beginning of
September the fascists took two strategic positions which
were to help them in their march on Rome : Terni, in
^ P. 227. ^ P. 149.

THE MARCH ON ROME

241

Umbria, and Civitavecchia, some few dozen miles from the
capital. The great steel works of Terni had been closed
since July, as there were no government contracts, and the
‘ red ’ syndicates had obtained a promise that the works
should be reopened on September i. But the directors of
the Terni works had joined forces with the fascists, and on
the first, despite the promise, the hooters were silent. The
fascists trooped in from all the towns of Umbria and
the Marches, and occupied and terrorized the town. The
fascist Committee of Action placarded the town with the
following notice : ^ Liars as usual, the socialists promised
you the reopening of the works to-day. They have not
been opened. Incapable of admitting their cowardice, the
socialists did not promise what has actually happened—
their flight." The fascists ^ punished ’ the socialist deputy,
Nobili, who had remained in the town, by beating him with
a manganello (bludgeon). The two Chambers of Labour,
confederal and syndicalist, were burnt down. Socialist
and communist clubs in the neighbourhood were similarly
destroyed. As soon as this affair was ended the directors
decided to reopen the works, but henceforward they would
only deal with fascist ‘ syndicates

In Civitavecchia, where the socialists had won control of
the municipality at the 1920 elections, the local fascist
movement was insignificant. In 1921 the Rome fascists had
several times tried to gain access to the town, but without
success. On August 4, 1922, again, after the general strike,
the fascists of the Maremma, ‘ by previous arrangement
with the fascists of the town, entered Civitavecchia. But the

^ A month later a somewhat similar episode occurred at Leghorn, The
Orlando shipbuilders had at the time an order from the government for eight
destroyers, but on various pretexts they were demanding an appreciably higher
price than the one agreed upon. Upon the refusal of the government to submit
to these fresh demands, which amounted to several millions, and after an
attempt at compromise which failed through the obstinacy of the shipbuilders,
the latter closed down their works. The fascists intervened and the Marquis
Dino Perrone Compagni issued an ultimatum inviting the ‘ Orlando company
and the government to reopen the works by October 12 ; if not the fascists
would occupy them.’ The government gave in and the same day ordered the
re-opening of the works. Messrs. Orlando, who had inspired the fascist
ultimatum, obeyed joyfully : in gjving these orders the government accepted
all their demands. And the fascists, who had thus gained much wealth for
their friends, the shipbuilders, appeared absolute saviours to the workers of
Leghorn. Fascist syndicalism scored heavily in this town.

■ 16

242 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

action, though well planned and commanded, was a failure
Chiurco gives no other details and blames the under¬
prefect of the town for his ‘ hostility ’ to the fascists, which
only amounts to saying that he did not help the squadristi by
every means in his power, as was usually the case. About
four hundred of them had arrived and occupied the station,
after firing a grand fusillade, before leaving the train, to
frighten and disperse the railway workers. The troops,
who should have opposed the entry of the fascists into the
town, did nothing, and the colonel commanding the local
military college put himself at the head of the fascists and
with them forced the cordons of police. The alarm was
given and the workers in the port and in the working-class
districts rushed to the centre of the town to meet the fascists.
The carabinieri tried to disarm them, but had to give way
before the firm attitude of the crowd. Thus the fight began,
and the invaders, for once unsupported by troops and
demoralized at being attacked, gave way, and began to
escape down side-streets. Their leaders’ appeals, insults
and blows were in vain. Finally the troops appeared and
the squads left the city under their protection, leaving behind
them one dead and six wounded. This had to be avenged ;
and at the beginning of September the fascists arrived in
greater strength froih Maremma, Rome, Pisa, the Roman
Campagna, Orvieto and all over Umbria. Though the
workers resisted the fascists entered the town on September 4,
the socialist council resigned, and the port authority
accepted the terms laid down by the victors.

The fascists continued to crush the few centres of working-
class resistance and to impose their will generally. On
September 7, for instance, when eight fascists were arrested
at Massa : ‘ The fascists of the area,’ Chiurco relates,

‘assembled in the town. The affair was organized by
Renato Ricci and Edmondo Rossoni, members of the party
executive. Over six thousand blackshirts paraded in full
war equipment through the town. The ultimatum to the
authorities demanding the release of the fascists expired the
same evening. The fascist mobilization covered all Luni-
giana, and on the morning of the 8th there was a further
demonstration : an endless colunm, headed by fascist

THE MARCH ON ROME

243

cavalry, marched through the town. Meanwhile the
magistrates had hastened to examine fresh witnesses, with
the result that at 3 p.m. the arrested fascists were set free.’

Again in September the fascists attacked Molinella, a large
rural centre where the working-class population, under the
leadership of the mayor, Giuseppe Massarenti, was entirely
socialist. Here the authorities had taken strong measures to
prevent fascists from outside approaching the neighbour¬
hood. The \0c2l fascia and the landowners were furious and
demanded that this ‘ scandal ’ should be stopped. Mussolini
supported them by declaiming in the Popolo d'ltalia against
this ‘ silly comedy ’. ‘ The situation,’ explains Ghiurco,

‘ remained the same for several days. The leaders of the
fascia protested against the excessive police precautions,
which amounted to martial law and unfairly restricted the
liberty of honest citizens. Landowners declared a lock-out
against socialist labour, and were joined by manufacturers
and tradesmen. The fascists occupied the country-side.’

A month later they occupied the town hall. These were
but a few events among thousands which were occurring
every day, especially on Sundays, all over the country. In
the meantime what changes and vicissitudes had affected
the different parties ?

The working-class movement was beginning to disin¬
tegrate. Before the end of August the National Syndicate
of Railwaymen and the Italian Syndical Union (anarcho-
syndicalist) broke away from the Labour Alliance. The
extremists who had forced the Committee of Action into
proclaiming the strike were the first to quit the sinking ship.
The Printers’ Federation, very right-wing, declared a few
days later that it ‘ reserves the right to decide for itself on
each occasion as to its participation in political strikes ’,
that is to say it no longer recognized the alliance between the
General Confederation of Labour—to which it belonged—
and the Socialist Party. On October 6 the Confederation
itself renounced the pact and declared its independence.
This pact had subordinated the actions of the syndicates to
the foolishness and inefficiency of the political party, and
had helped to bring about the workers’ failure. But at this
moment such a decision could only signify a hasty retreat

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

244

before the foe, whose demands were accepted under the
illusion that damage could thus be limited and complete
ruin avoided.

During August and September the Socialist Party was
still a prey to internal dissension. On August 28 the
right-wing section, the ' concentrationists ’ (a last homage
to the ghost of party unity) issued an appeal, declaring
themselves frankly in favour of legality and collaboration
with the government. This division, which had been in
virtual existence for several months, led to a fresh cleavage
at the socialist National Congress, which took place in
Rome early in October. Since the end of 1920 the Socialist
Party had lost a great part of its strength, now reduced to
73,000, of whom 61,000 were represented at the congress.
Its maximalist leaders proposed the expulsion of the ' con¬
centrationists ’, on various grounds, accusing them first and
foremost of' manoeuvres which aim at helping to solve the
ministerial crisis by the promise of eventual support to
government policy h The voting went in favour of the
maximalists by a small majority—32,106 against 29,119 ;
the two tendencies being thus more or less equal, as at
Leghorn. The split was dramatic because it seemed so
unusually pointless. Separation from the reformists was
not going to make the new majority of the party less feeble
or incapable. The speech made by its leader, Serrati,
showed an appalling misapprehension of the real state of
affairs :

‘ You say,^ he thundered at the reformists, "that we
can help to settle the bourgeois crisis and pick up some
trifling advantages, as we did in 1912. You seek alliance
with democracy and say that socialism too is democratic.
But socialism is proletarian democracy, real democracy,
while the other is bourgeoisy the falsification of true demo¬
cracy. ... Let all who wish to work for the revolution come
with us and all who wish to thwart it go with the
bourgeoisie.^

Serrati was simply persisting in his pre-war hostility
towards the reformists, and all the events of 1919-22 had
passed over his head without effect. The problem raised by

THE MARCH ON ROME

245

the right-wing socialists—it is to their credit that they did
raise it and to their shame that they had not done so earlier
and more boldly—was not how to ^ pick up trifling
advantages but how to rescue, together with ‘ bourgeois ’
democracy, in short with democracy altogether, the bare
conditions for the existence and development of the working-
class and socialist movement. By the beginning of October
1922, and even earlier, the question was no longer whether
the ‘ revolution ’ was being thwarted, but whether the
victory of fascism and its attainment of power could be
prevented. The rather dull minds of the Italian maximalists
had not grasped this fact within four weeks of the march
on Rome.

For the reformists, who had now regained their liberty
of action, the situation was no less dramatic. What use
could they make of the freedom they had gained ? Breaking
with the communists in January 1921 and with the maxi¬
malists in October 1922 had meant breaking with so great a
porportion of the masses that even if their new policy was
still practicable it could only count on a very limited support
in parliament and in the country. The article in the
reformist paper, quoted at the end of the previous chapter,^
after pointing out that the policy of collaboration and that
of the general strike had been adopted too late, had reached
the following conclusion : ' The cause of this delay lies in
the fundamental confusion of method which is still the bane
of the Socialist Party, The Rome congress ought to tear
up the Bologna programme of 1919 and go back to the Genoa
programme of 1892 Actually it is doubtful if this return
to first principles would have been of any assistance in face of
the existing situation, for by then there was just as much
risk of its being inadequate and too late.

But even after August 1922 the triumph of fascism was not
absolutely inevitable. In spite of everything fascism was
still only an army of occupation. Its numbers were increas¬
ing in swarms, but it was not a solid force, and it was very
far from sweeping away the nation. A victory for the
forces of anti-fascism alone was no longer possible ; nothing
short of a complete mobilization of the nation would have
^ Pp. 231-232. 2 p. 5^.

246 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

served. The reformists were too routine-bound, too
paralysed by their fear of alienating the masses and endan¬
gering syndical unity to be able to initiate any such move¬
ment. They were vaguely aware that such a way out of the
difficulty might be found, but they were almost ashamed to
consider it. They tried out new catchwords which sounded
false even to their own ears and attempted to give them a
literary turn by vague references to the sacra lampa?- For
to them the idea of the nation was just another means to
an end, which had turned up at the last moment and
which they had snatched at in the hope of evading the
enemy who were at their heels. But between ' nation ' and
' working class ’ there was an unbridgeable void ; years of
propaganda and the slogan of ‘ red versus tricolour ’ made
it impossible for the workers to see what their place could
be in this ' nation or why they should associate themselves
with this new attitude. Besides, the fascists were not going to
give up their monopoly of patriotism. The result was that
the right wing suspected a trap and the left thought it was
treason. The only way of ending the deadlock would have
been for the united working class to face the problem of
forming a government aiming not only at smashing fascism,
but also at building a new Italy. At no less a price could
fascism be abolished. Only by fulfilling to the utmost the
duty they owed to themselves and to the community,
whose conscience and driving power they should have been,
could the workers defend their own rights. Duty, responsi¬
bility and initiative were the price of liberty. Only in such
conditions could fascism have been beaten back in the
second half of 1922.

From August to September the fascist movement gained
momentum by means of a series of political and syndical
congresses, mobilizations mxd^ admate. Provincial or regional
congresses of Jasci took place in Pescara (for the Abruzzi),
Rimini (for Romagna), Pola (for Istria), Porto Maurizio,
Tolentino (for the province of Macerata), Avellino, Ferrara,
Modena, Igiesias (for Sardinia), Foggia, Messina, Como,
Parma, Vicenza, Siena^ Pesaro (for the Marches). Con¬
gresses of fascist syndicates were held in Padua, Arezzo,

,■■■■ . I'P. 184..

THE MARCH ON ROME 247

Turin, Genoa (for the sailors’ organizations), Leghorn,
Ravenna, Andria (for the whole of Apulia).

In addition the party organized great regional adunaie,
where tens of thousands of blackshirts assembled—Septem¬
ber 20 in Udine, Novara, Piacenza, on the 24th in Cremona,
the 29th at Ancona.

All these demonstrations served as useful training for the
militia and increased the pressure on the government. In
the meantime the fascists had other and more definite aims
in the territorial as well as the political sphere. There were
two regions still exempt from fascist control : the south,
except Apulia, and the part that the Italians call Alto Adige
and the Austrian South Tyrol. The question of fascist
penetration into the south was raised at the National
Council in Milan (August 14), when it was decided to hold
a special meeting to form a ‘ complete political, economic
and military plan of action ’ for this part of the country.
In an interview with the Mattino of Naples Mussolini praised
the workers of the south as being ^ less infected with the
germ of subversiveness and the south itself as ‘ the nation’s
storehouse of man power, an inexhaustible reserve of soldiers’.
He also stated that the next National Congress of the
National Fascist Party would be held in Naples on
October 24. A conference of delegates from the south,
arranged by the National Council, took place in Rome
on September 6 and 7. In this part of Italy fascism had to
contend with political forces of some strength and importance,
contributing a great number of deputies to various ‘ demo¬
cratic ’ groups under leaders ranging from Nitti to Amendola.

Backed by strong local influence these forces were firmly
entrenched, and in certain regions, such as Sardinia, they
developed autonomous tendencies, harnessing the ex-
servicemen’s movement and certain sections of the petty
bourgeois to nt-w parties (‘Sardinian Party of Action’) far
removed from fascism.

In the ‘ redeemed ’ country of the Adige valley the majority
of the population were German born. The South Tyrol had
returned four deputies, all German, in the March 1931
elections. Where the Italian element prevailed, as in
Trent, the whole administration was in the hands of the

248 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

Popolari. It was impossible for the fascists to reach Rome
while this area of opposition existed on the frontier. As early
as September i Michele Bianchi had sent a memorandum
to Facta, the prime minister, demanding from the govern¬
ment an active policy for the Italianization of the district.
Early in October the fascist forces of Venetia and other
provinces of Northern Italy, led by the deputies, De Stefani,
Giunta, Farinacci, occupied Trent and Bolzano and forced
the government commissioners, Credaro and Salata, to
resign and clear out. All the fascist demands were at once
agreed to in Rome. The fascist leaders ordered demobiliza¬
tion and handed over the headquarters of the Trent deputies,
which they had occupied, to the military authorities. ' At
their request this transfer of authority from fascist squads to
regular troops was accompanied with all the ceremony of
changing guard and saluting colours.’

In the purely political sphere Mussolini had other objec¬
tives. Whatever policy circumstances might compel him
to follow, he needed the neutrality, if not the support, of
the monarchy and the army. The relations of fascism with
the monarchy would depend largely on its relations with the
army, since the latter continued deeply loyal to the house of
Savoy. Mussolini was sufficiently contemptuous of the king
to do no more than blackmail him. The Giornale d'Italia had
published a letter by a group of officers who showed their
sympathy with fascism, but at the same time were anxious
about its republican tendency, and declared that they were
prepared to fight for the Crown, even against the fascists.
Mussolini replied in the Popolo d'Italia on August 23 :

Nobody drags the Grown into our quarrels to-day,
though there are plenty of reasons for doing so. We have
given up stressing the famous republican tendency ”,
and furthermore, Fascism has in many towns—Lucca,
Reggio Emilia, Trieste—^paid formal homage to the
king. We have banished from our minds the threefold
amnesty to deserters. After which we have the honour to
assert that Fascism follows the wide law, do ut des'^.
The Crown is not at stake, so long as it keeps out of the
game. Is that clear ? ’

THE MARCH ON ROME 249

About a month later in his speech at Udine Mussolini
went still further, continuing his policy of blackmail, and
even raising his price :

' I think that the regime in Italy can be profoundly
altered, without touching the monarchy. On its side the
monarchy can gain nothing by opposing what may in
future be known as the fascist revolution. It can gain
nothing, for by so doing it would become a target which
we with our lives at stake could not spare. Those who
sympathize with us should not stay in the background ;
the king must have the courage to be a monarchist. Why
are we republicans ? In one sense because we see a king
who does not play his part. The monarchy could well
represent the continuity of the nation, a great task and
one of the utmost historical importance.'

The effect of the squadristi and the fascist syndicates had
been to win the landowners in a body over to fascism, to
such a degree that it would be more accurate to say that the
fascists had rallied in a body to the side of the landowners.
They had still to gain the upper middle classes, of whom
only a few, though very important, sections had taken any
direct part in the fight. To do this Mussolini extended the
action he had already begun for the ' demobilization ’ of
the state, and he launched the party on a systematic
campaign for ^ restoring the national finances h One may
well understand how attractive to Italian capitalists were
the pictures drawn by Mussolini in his Udine speech on
September 20 :

^ We want to strip the state of all its economic
functions. Enough of the state which acts as railway
owner, postman, insurance company. Enough of the
state which functions at the taxpayers' expense and
exhausts the finances of Italy. With the police, the
education of the rising generation, the army to ensure
the integrity of the fatherland, with foreign policy, no
one can say that the state thus restricted is diminished
in stature. No ; it is still very great, retaining all its
spiritual realm and renouncing the material oned

250 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

Such vague and incoherent language enabled Mussolini
to offer everybody the fulfilment of his dearest hopes. The
capitalist saw all the public services restored to private
enterprise, the shopkeeper saw himself released from taxa¬
tion and all state supervision and trivial regulations; and
the petty bourgeois idealist was delighted to turn over the
^ material realm ’ to them, imagining himself something—
minister or hall-porter—in the ‘ spiritual realm Mean¬
while the party did not stop at these grand principles, but
prepared a long report, drafted by Signori Corgini and
Massimo Rocca, for a series of meetings on the financial
restoration which continued to be held in the principal
towns of Italy from early September up to the eve of the
march on Rome. In this report and at the meetings were
demanded : the reform of the civil service ; the transfer of
state industries to private firms ; the abolition of useless
state bodies ; the abolition of subsidies and privileges granted
to officials, co-operatives, and municipal shops in receipt of
‘ preferential treatment to that shown to private traders ’ ;
simplification of the tax system ; reduction of duties on
inheritance, on business transactions, and in some cases on
luxuries, for such duties led to the ' destruction of the
family and of private property ’ ; the balancing of the
budget, not by raising taxes, but by extending the number of
taxpayers and increasing taxes on consumption goods
rather than by directly taxing riches.

In the course of 1922 Italy’s financial and economic
situation was showing signs of improvement, as a result of
measures adopted by the various governments, especially
after 1921. The adverse trade balance was diminishing,
sayings bank deposits were increasing, the note circulation
was gradually getting back to normal. Here are the relevant
figures up to December 31 of each year :

Adverse

Deposits at

general and post office

Note

trade balance

savings banks

circulation

1919

12,694

(in thousands of lire)

10,643

18,551

1920

10,557

13=213

22,000

1921

15,048

15=576

21=475

1922

8,647

17,250

20,279

THE MARCH ON ROME

251

Taking into consideration the state budget alone it is clear
that between 1919 and 1922 Italy had made an effort of
recovery in which fascism had taken no part at ail. The
state had included war debts in its ordinary budget, instead
of budgeting for them specially, and provided for them
from its own normal resources. The deficits of 1919-22
were due, not to the normal functioning of the state, but to
the payment of the heavy costs of war which entirely
absorbed all budgetary surpluses and affected all this period
particularly strongly.

The following figures, based on the elaborate evidence
given by Professor F. A. Repaci in his great work on the
Italian budgets of 1913 to 1932,^ show the actual progress
of Italian finance during the years immediately following
the w^ar :

Annual

W'ar

Percentage

Budgetary

increase

Total

costs

of war costs

period*^

Receipts

of

Expenses

deficit

paid

of total

receipts

off

expenses

(in

thousands of lire)

1918--19

7.512

—

30,857

23.345

25,683

83-23

1919-20

10,210

13,134

2,698

21,704

11.494

12,424

57-24

1920-21

2.974

34,139

20,955

22,339

65-43

1921-22

15,444

2,260

32,613

17,168

18,264

56

1922-23

15,912

468

19,172

3,260

4,867

25

There are several conclusions to be drawn from these
figures. Between July i, 1918, and June 30, 1922—^four
months before the march on Rome—the state received a
total of 64,350,0005000 lire ; during the same period it
spent 78,710,000,000 lire on war expenses, that is to say
more than the total deficit, which was 72,962,000,000 lire.
In the 1922-23 period, of which the first four months were
previous to the march on Rome, the deficit was 13,908,000
lire less than that in the previous period, but at the same
time the amount devoted to paying off war costs was
reduced by 135397,000,000. This shows that the successive
Italian governments since the armistice had already effected
a considerable improvement in the financial situation

La Finanza Italiana nel Ventemio Turin, ed. Einaudi, 1934.

See also Marcello Soleri, JSfote sul bilemio, in Rivista di Politica Economica.
March 31, 1927.

^ The budget year begins on July I.

252 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

without having recourse to foreign loans, and had in four
years paid off some 79,000,000,000 of war costs.

The campaign that Mussolini and his party launched in
September had rather different aims ; more precisely their
intention was to gain the confidence and the support of
Italian financial circles, by proving how completely fascism
had abandoned its 'demagogic’ programme of 1919-20,
and that it had decided to attack the workers on financial,
as it already had on syndical and political ground. The
Corriere della Sera, the great' liberal ’ paper of Milan, gloated
over the Corgini-Rocca programme, which it regarded as a
triumphant return to the pure tradition of the Manchester
school. . . . Thus on September 6 this paper was ' delighted
that a party, whatever it may call itself, is returning to the
old liberal tradition, drinking the pure life-springs of a
modern state, and it hopes that this party will not falter, but
will strive earnestly to achieve the liberal programme pure
and unadulterated The editor, Senator Albertini, had
applauded the fascist occupation of the Palazzo Marino,
and a month earlier, on the presentation to the Senate of
the new Facta ministry, had spoken against socialist col¬
laboration, ' in view of the danger it involves in the present
financial position of the state Whenever the Corriere della
Sera mentioned a punitive expedition it gave the fascist
version, as if the lorry loads of blackshirts were out on
innocent jaunts which were spoiled by the inevitable
' communist ambush \ ^ The kidnapping of deputies by
fascists, which became common as time went on—Miglioli
in Cremona, Fradeletto in Venice, Benedetti in Pescia—
was recorded in its columns without a word of regret. After
the congress held in Bologna on October 8-10 it was
obvious how far this party had moved to the right, although
it still called itself liberal. The moving spirits of this congress

^ The cowardice and collusion of the press before fascist terrorism shows
clearly the anti-working-class and anti-socialist feeling of Italian ‘ liberalism
The economist, Luigi Einaudi, one of the principal contributors to the Corriere
della Sera, in orie of his articles compared the ‘ proletarians \ whose birth rate,
according to him, was falling, with the ^ bourgeois women, who breed healthy
children, skilful wielders of the bludgeon V (allusion is to the ^2iscist mariganello).
Later on Senator Albertini suffered the same fate as Senator Bergamini (see
P-1 53 ^) • The fascist government deprived him of his property and the control
of his paper. Professor Einaudi’s review, la Riforma Sociale, was also suppressed.

THE MARCH ON ROME

253

were the fanatically conservative Sarocchi and Belotti
Senator Albertini and various nationalists. A proposal to
call the party ' liberal-democratic ’ was crushed by 45,426
to 21,091. The congress was definitely hostile to collabora¬
tion with the socialists, and the Giornale d'Italia commented
as follows on the results : ' The Liberal Congress of Bologna
has declared for the pure party tradition and decided to
steer firmly to the right. ... By rejecting the adjective

democratic ” it clearly washed to indicate that the
association of liberalism with democracy is to cease.’
Grandi, though he reproved the congress for not having
made quite clear how liberalism stood in relation to fascism,
remarked : Once more it was really Mussolini who

presided over the Liberal Congress. The right wing had
its way over the question of the name to be given to the
party ; the w^ord “ democracy” is the bite noire of fascism,
and it was thought that its rejection would please the
fascists.’

In these circumstances it is hardly surprising that the
attempt, revived in August, to build up a great democratic
party should have been doomed to failure. The earlier
‘democratic coalition’ of autumn 1921 had broken up
early in June 1922.^ The new attempt was faced with all
the difficulties that had wrecked the old one, in an aggravated
form. Rivalry between Nitti and Giolitti was as before,
while most of the politicians of the centre had succumbed
either to fear of fascism or to the desire to come to terms with
it. The members of the ‘ democratic ’ groups had planned
a great campaign of meetings to introduce to the country
the new political party, which was going to play the part
of mediator between the extremes of right and left. Signori
Cocco-Ortu, Bonomi, De Nicola, Orlando, and even Giolitti
and Nitti were to speak. But the scheme of amalgamation
broke down, even in the form of a federation of the various
parties. Cocco-Ortu was to have made the first speech of
the series at Naples, at a conference of the southern deputies,
but he cried off on the grounds that ‘ very few democratic
deputies have agreed to support the plan’. Later on, in
September, Giolitti delivered the coup de grace by expressing

1 P, 202.

254 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

in print his dislike of the proposed coalition. The leaders of
the centre parties were either on holiday or else preferred
to hold their tongues and not compromise the future.
Senator Albertini made caustic reference to this in his
speech

^ Our rulers are not conspicuous for their courage.
See : they hardly ever speak ; they commit themselves
as seldom as possible. Last Wednesday^ we were expect¬
ing an important debate. Well ; neither Giolitti, Nitti,
Salandra, Orlando nor Bonomi turned up. I watched
this sad spectacle from the top of our gallery, while fascists
and socialists fought it out amid the indifference of nearly
everybody else.’

After August, Mussolini and his friends rained alternate
threats and reassurances on public opinion and the govern¬
ment. At the beginning of the month, during the fascist
mobilization, the Avanti explained the fascist ' plan ’ for the
march on Rome :

‘ The fascist plan of campaign,’ wrote the socialist paper,
skilfully drawn up by the generals and officers who
command the squads, is being carefully and methodically
worked out. ... At the moment there is a hitch. But
only for a few days, or even hours. The fascist army is
getting ready for its last task, the conquest of the capital;
and not just for the fun of burning down the People’s
Houses and the headquarters of a few socialist organiza¬
tions. Now that they have finished their campaigns in
Emilia and northern Italy, the fascist forces, who are
possibly better armed than the regular army, supplied
with rifles by the military authorities, and led by regular
officers, are concentrating in Ancona, in the south of
Umbria and near Civitavecchia. It is common talk
everywhere among the fascist leaders that it will be Rome’s
turn next.’

The Popolo PItalia declaxcd that the scheme was fantastic ’
and attributed the article to socialist " funk ’. The fascist
press bureau began its series of disclaimers which continued

^ P. 252. 2 August 9.

THE MARCH ON ROME

255

right up to the march on Rome : ^ The rumour that has
been circulated that the fascists are aiming at Rome in
order to bring about a coup d'etat is entirely baseless.’ A
few days later, on August 11, in an interview with II Mattino
of Naples, Mussolini said :

^ The march on Rome has begun. It is not a question
of the actual march of the three hundred thousand black¬
shirts that form our redoubtable army. Such a march
is strategically possible by three routes : by the Adriatic
coast, the Mediterranean, and the Tiber valley, all of
which are in our power. But it is not yet politically
inevitable. Remember the alternatives I suggested in my
speech in the Chamber.^ They are still open, and the
next few months will provide the answer. It is quite
certain that fascism means to become the state, but it is
not so certain that the attainment of this objective involves
a coup d'etat. Still, that possibility must be regarded as a
possibility. Apart from this I repeat, the march on Rome
has begun, if not from a strictly insurrectional aspect,
at least from an historical one ; since at this very moment
a new political class is in process of being formed, to
which will be confided quite soon the difficult task of
governing—I say governing—the nation.’

Rumours of a march on Rome quickly spread and multi¬
plied. Everybody was discussing it; only government
circles remained sceptical. Baron Beyens, the Belgian
ambassador at the Vatican, relates in his memoirs

‘ In September I travelled with an Italian manu¬
facturer, Baron Blanc, an enthusiastic supporter of fascism,
to whom I offered a seat in my reserved compartment
. . . he informed me that quite shortly, in a few weeks’
time, Mussolini was going to bring off a coup d'etat. The
blackshirt bands would be mobilized and provided with
rifles and machine-guns. After assembling for the Naples
Congress they would march on Rome.’

Towards the end of the same month, September, Musso¬
lini made a speech at Cremona, the meaning of which was

A Pp. 207, 234. ^ Quatre Ans a Rome, Vdons^

256 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

clear to anybody, though its menacing frankness failed to
shake the inertia of the government :

* What we have done so far is nothing to what remains
for us to do. A strong and healthy Italy is getting ready
to make a clean sweep of the scum of Italian society.
Let our enemies have no illusions. We mean to make our
organization even more effectively disciplined, military
and forearmed, so that should a decisive stroke become
necessary, all of us down to the last man—let traitors
and deserters beware !—all of us will do our duty.
In short we mean Italy to become fascist. That is simple.
That is obvious. We mean Italy to become fascist because
we are fed up with seeing her governed at home by
men who continually waver between carelessness and
cowardice, and above all because we are fed up with
seeing her looked upon abroad as a negligible quantity.

. . . Our banners were raised at Vittorio Veneto. It
was on the banks of the Piave that we began this march,
which cannot end till we have reached our final goal,
Rome. Nothing can stand in our way, no man can
prevent us.’

Mussolini knew that the critical moment was at hand and
redoubled his care and his activity. Political parties were
in such a state of disruption, the air was so full of animosity
and reaction that he could allow himself to make proposals
of the most violent kind without causing any unusual stir.
On the evening of October 4 he spoke at Milan before the
squadristi of the Sciesa group, and explained his intentions :

‘ Those who help us will be well treated. Those who
harm us will be harmed. Our enemies will have nothing
to complain of if they are treated as enemies, harshly.
... To-day there are two governments, that is to say,
one too many: the liberal government and the fascist
government. The state of yesterday and the state of
to-morrow. . . , The fascist state is infinitely better than
the liberal state, and it is therefore worthy to take over
the mandate from the liberal State. . , , The citizens are
asking, What state will end by imposing its laws on the

THE MARCH ON ROME

257

Italians ? ’’ We have no hesitation in replying, The
fascist state ’h How are we to give the nation this
government ? In this way : if they have not become
completely soft-witted in Rome they must summon the
Chamber early in November, pass the new electoral
law, and call on the people to give their votes during
December.’

Any further parliamentary crisis would be futile. If
the government did not follow the method indicated by
Mussolini, fascism would have to adopt the other method :

‘ Observe that our tactics are perfectly open. In any
case, when one is attacking an entire state, one can hardly
stop at the sort of petty conspiracy which remains secret
up to the last moment. We have to give orders to hun¬
dreds of thousands of men, and it would be expecting
too much to hope to keep them dark. So long as it is
necessary, our cards are on the table.’

Mussolini then expounded home and foreign policy :

^ We shall not give liberty, even if the demand for it is
couched in the faded forms of immortal principles !
This election frippery is not the only thing that separates
us from democracy. Do people want to vote ? Well,
let them vote. Let us all vote till we are sick of it, till
we go crazy ! Nobody wants to abolish universal suffrage.
But we are going to introduce a policy of severity and
reaction. We divide the Italians into three categories,
the indifferent, who await events at home, the sympa¬
thisers, who will be allowed to come and go, the enemy,
who will not.’

As to foreign policy, he again summarized his usual
programme, unaltered

VBy hurling the Italians as a single force towards world
tasks, by turning the Mediterranean into an Italian lake,
by allying ourselves with those who dwell on the Mediter¬
ranean and driving out those who are its parasites, by
accomplishing this difficult, long, cyclopean work, we
1 Pp. 236-238.

17

258 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

shall truly inaugurate a magnificent period in Italian
history.’

A few days later, on October 6 and 7, the cabinet met to
consider the situation. It was rumoured that they meant
to call up two classes to the colours, that they were going to
take energetic measures to suppress the trouble. Facta and
Taddei, minister of the interior, held long discussions with
General Diaz, who was summoned to Rome by telegram,
with General Badoglio and with Soleri, the minister for
war. General Badoglio was certain that the fascists could
never reach Rome : ‘ After five minutes under fire fascism
will collapse,’ he said. Mussolini was rather perturbed and
wrote in the Popolo PItalia :

We do not think that General Badoglio’s sinister
intentions will materialize. The national army will not
march against the blackshirt army, for the simple reason
that the fascists will never march against the national
army, for which they cherish the highest respect and
infinite admiration. ... In spite of everything we are
confident that General Badoglio will not attempt the
useless task of butchering Italian fascism.’

The fascist leaders also feared an immediate political
crisis, which was constantly suggested in the papers, and
Bianchi and Grandi visited Facta, who reassured them.
The Corriere della Sera explained that the fascists did not want
Facta’s resignation, " since they could not hope for a more
obliging ministry than the one over which he presided ’.
The Facta ministry survived; the Chamber was to be
assembled at the beginning of November, when the crisis
would solve itself. In this way the fascists gained three
weeks, which enabled them to defeat all the schemes of their
opponents.

The Facta ministry were becoming more hopeful. Against
the march on Rome Facta and his friends had one supreme
weapon : three days before the opening of parliament, on
November 4, Gabriele d’Annunzio was to make a great
speech in Rome, in which, from the summit of the Capitol,
he was to make an appeal for the pacification of the country .

THE MARCH ON ROME

^59

He would be surrounded by thousands of disabled soldiers,
who had assembled in Rome to celebrate the great event.
Orlando went to see the poet at Gardone, and on his return
to Rome on October 13 he said : ‘ D’Annunzio’s love for
our Italy reaches at once such a height of exaltation and
perfection that to hear him speak is to imagine oneself at
the very source of our national life.’ So the fascists ran the
risk of encountering d’Annunzio actually in Rome, and
with him ‘ the heroes and martyrs of the war ’. D’Annunzio
would in fact be making a sort of preventive march on
Rome, likely to make Mussolini’s impossible.

In the first half of 1922 many people had looked on
d’Annunzio as a possible rival to Mussolini and the eventual
‘ executioner’1 of fascism. Even his presence in Milan
among the occupants of the Palazzo Marino^ had not
discouraged those who rested their last hopes on him. A
deputation of ex-soldiers, ‘ legionaries ’ of Fiume, with
Alceste de Ambris, Luigi Campolonghi, and former com¬
rades in arms of the ‘ Commandant ’, went to Gardone after
the general strike, on August 6, and appealed to him to
intervene and save the country from fascist dictatorship.
D’Annunzio replied that he meant to summon to Rome a
great adunata of ex-soldiers of all parties, to restore order,
while retaining parliamentary government; three months
of dictatorship being followed by normal free elections.
According to his idea the dictator would, of course, be
himself. He exhorted his visitors to get to work and bring
together in Rome as many ex-soldiers as they could, and
for slogan he gave them ‘ sine strage vici, strepitu sine ullo
The deputation met together again in Milan immediately
afterwards ; Colonel Amleto Pavone, now a general and a
fascist, suggested dividing Italy into ten areas and sending
emissaries to recruit anybody who was prepared to ‘ march ’
and ultimately to fight in order to win a victory for the
‘ Commandant’s ’ plan. The latter did his best to strengthen
his connections with some of the Working-class organizations.
Shortly after the meeting of the Central Committee of the
National Syndicate of Railwaymen (August ig), at which
they had decided to quit the Labour Alliance and had sent
^ P. 184. ^ P. 227.

26 o the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

a telegram to d’Annunzio hoping for his return to health,
one of the leaders of the syndicate said ;

' A few days before his accident some of the railwaymen’s
delegates had a long conversation with d’Annunzio.
We are certain to have the support of the majority of the
railwaymen, and with d’Annunzio we shall soon have a
formidable organized bloc of workers. At the moment
we have only the sailors and the railwaymen, but other
strong and important federations are ready to follow our
example.’

A Rome paper announced that ‘ for some time there have
been signs of d’Annunzian tendencies among the post office
workers, and it is not impossible that before long the P.T.T.
may make a decision similar to that of the railwaymen
The Federation of Legionaries of Fiume busied itself about
preparing a ‘ Syndical constituent assembly which was to
build up working-class unity afresh round d’Annunzio and
his programme.

All this time d’Annunzio was also trying to gain the
support of various politicians, among them Nitti, who at
the time of Fiume had been his bite noire. But he preferred
Nitti to Giolitti, because he could not forgive ' that butcher’
for turning him out of Fiume. Besides, to the poet Nitti
seemed an ' expert ’ in economic and financial matters, and,
moreover, an expert with culture and imagination.
D’Annunzio’s envoy went to Agnano, where Nitti was
taking the waters, and laid before him the soldier-poet’s
scheme for a great ‘ reconciliation of all ex-soldiers ’. Nitti
agreed to meet d’Annunzio, but on certain conditions.
He refused to go to Gardone, because d’Annunzio had too
heinously insulted him in the past; he knew that d’Annunzio
would never so hunailiate himself as to come to him. So it
was arranged to meet at a neutral spot, half-way between
Gardone and Rome. Nitti also pointed out that no pacifica¬
tion would be possible if Mussolini were not present. Further
he demanded guarantees for Ms personal safety, since to
reach the rendezvous in Tuscany he had to go through
country swarming with riotous fascist squads to whom he
would be fair game. All arrangements on these lines were

THE MARCH ON ROME

261

completed ; Mussolini agreed to meet d’Annunzio and
Nitti, and the latter was to travel with two cars, accompanied
by the fascist deputy, Aldo Finzi, his friend, Schiff Giorgini,
and one Brambilla, the owner of the villa in which the three
chiefs were to meet. All was ready when a telephone message
came through : ‘ D’Annunzio is dying.’ The Commandant
had fallen out of a window of his museum-convent-bachelor
retreat of a villa after a quarrel between two of his lady
friends, his ‘ sisters ’ as he liked to call them. This put
him out of action for some weeks and left him in a ver^^ weak
state, though he did not abandon his plans. On Septem¬
ber 12, the anniversary of the march on Ronchi, he issued
an appeal, in which he regretted that he had not his legion¬
aries round him, hoped that in their minds ‘ liberty and
light would be one ’, and to the slogan they already knew,
sine strage vici, added a word of hope, ‘ insperata floret ’.

The Popolo PItalia published this message on its fourth
page without comment. Mussolini’s craving for power was
stronger than ever. The idea of a march on Rome was in
the air. It would be the natural outcome of the fascist
‘ offensives ’, which were becoming wider and wider in
scope, moving on to the annexation of new territories from
those which were already subdued.^ The whole Po valley,
all central Italy, Tuscany, Umbria and the Roman
Campagna were occupied by the blackshirts. By October
only a few towns still remained ‘ free ’ : Turin, Parma,
besides the south, more or less neutral. The impetus
attained by the expeditions and fascist adunate was bound to
reach Rome ; it was logically inherent in the whole move¬
ment just as much as in the determination of Mussolini
and the other fascist leaders. During the strike in August
Facta had yielded up Milan, Genoa, and Leghorn to the
fascists in return for a promise that they would not occupy
Rome. Accordingly the advance of fascism and the feeble¬
ness of the government combined to make Rome the last,
the key position, on whose fate depended that of the regime,
and which the fascists had got to seize or lose aU their
previous gains.

There were other pressing reasons why power must be
^ See Mussolini’s article of July 15, quoted on pp. 203--204.

262 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

captured immediately. Already, at the Central Committee
o?Fasci, held in mid-August in Milan, several delegates had
expressed anxiety at the increasing numbers of working
men whom fascism had somehow to take in and shelter after
destroying their organizations.^ To cope with this pressure,
control the masses and satisfy their most elementary wants
was only possible if fascism had the full resources of the state
at its disposal. Various events emphasized the danger that
fascism might have to face inside its own improvised and
overgrown syndical system. In the province of Siena the
fascists had occupied, in Poggibonsi, San Gemignana,
Casole, and Serre di Rapolano, various agricultural proper¬
ties {tenute), evoking protests from the provincial federation
of the Agrarian Association, whose paper, II Solco, wrote
at the beginning of September ;

‘ The fascists of Siena want the landed proprietors to
employ a constantly increasing number of labourers,
there being now so many unemployed. They have
threatened to invade and actually have invaded farms,
because proprietors have refused to take on more hands!
We freely admit that these proprietors are not saints, but
this is no justification for invasions, real or threatened.
Otherwise the socialists too would be justified, since they
used the same arguments to support their own violence.’

Mussolini, irritated, sent a telegram calling on the fascist
federation of Siena to account for its actions. In Ferrara,
too, for the same reason, the situation was strained. The
landowners had profited by the complete victory of sqmdrismo
to lengthen working hours and reduce wages. The sugar
manufacturers, of whom there were many in this province
where beet was widely grown, reduced wages by from six
to eight lire a day. All this caused discontent and even
disunion among the fascists of Ferrara. The party executive
ordered an inquiry and the branch was dissolved, while
dissension between ‘ official ’ and ‘ autonomous ’ fascists
broke out.

The fascist mihtia was becoming a serious problem.
These tens of thousands of men could not be left to terrorize

^ Pp. 234-235.

THE MARCH ON ROME 263

and rob the population. Having once slaughtered, burned,
and occupied as widely as they could, some other form of
activity had to be found for them under the asgis of the state.
They were extremely expensive to maintain ; and although
landowners, manufacturers and bankers subscribed lavishly,
the money had to be solicited and could not go on for ever.
The financial problem became acute as the numbers of the
militia rose. A regular source of income, such as the state
only could provide, had to be found. The militia was to
become an organic part of the new state, the fascist state.
In an article of October 24 the Popolo d’ltalia foreshadowed
its character and functions :

‘ To the question, what shall we do with the sqiiadre di
combattimento when we are in power ? will they be dis¬
solved ? a voice, instinctive rather than rational, answers
from the bottom of our heart and says : no, sqmdrismo
cannot, must not die. For us it would be suicidal ; if
force is needed to seize power, it is needed all the more to
hold it. The fascist militia will be transformed. The
squads will cease to be organs of a party and become
organs of the state. Transformed by pre-military instruc¬
tion, they will be the living ideal of the nation in arms.
Once sqmdrismo has been militarized the danger of rivalry
between it and the other national armed forces will end,
as its task will be separate. The volunteer army incor¬
porated in the organization of the new state will be the
surest guarantee of the future.’

The nationalists were stiU a potential source of danger
and rivalry.^ They, too, had their squads, they had their
blue shirts as the fascists their black shirts. On September 9,
at Genoa, one of these squads seized the Vulcania, a ship
belonging to the Navigazione Generale, because a nationalist
member of the crew had been discharged. The nationalist
flag was hoisted to the mainmast. Elsewhere there were
various brushes between nationalists and fascists, one
particularly serious at Taranto, at the ceremony of presenta¬
tion of colours to the local nationalist section. The fascists
attacked the nationalists in the street, fought with fists.

264 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

bludgeons, and pistols, and even threw ‘ hand-grenades
which spread terror through the town The treasurer of
the nationalist group was killed and many were wounded.
The fascists were angry because several deserters from the
local fascia had joined the ranks of the nationalists. The
executives of both parties, fascist and nationalist, intervened
and deplored these incidents, ‘ which could only help the
common enemy ’. In a speech in Ivlilan on the morning of
October 15 the nationalist deputy Federzoni heaped compli¬
ments on Mussolini and fascism, but that afternoon in the
same town there was an adunata of ‘ blueshirts ’ from
Bologna, Vicenza and Genoa. This did not fail to disturb
Mussolini, who had no intention of letting the nationalists
rob him of the fruits of his labour at the first opportunity.

The possibility of the formation of a Giolitti ministry was
the gravest danger that still remained. On October 7 the
cabinet had decided not to resign ; nevertheless a crisis
might break out at any moment. For Mussolini the problem
was rapidly resolving itself into the concrete question of the
direct seizure of power. At the last meeting of the Central
Committee of the National Fascist Party (August 13), Italo
Balbo and Michele Bianchi had proposed the following
resolution, which was passed unanimously : ‘ The Central
Committee, after examining the military situation of fascism,
entrusts to a supreme command of three the task of carrying
out any military action that circumstances or the needs of
the fascist programme may demand.’ The party executive
appointed as triumvirs Italo Balbo, De Vecchi and General
De Bono. The last two met on September 15 to draw up
the new regulations of the fascist militia, which were first
published in the Popolo d'Italia on October 4. On October 6
Balbo went to see Mussolini, who questioned him on the
possibilities of success for a revolutionary action against
Rome, asking not for general assurances, but for precise
information and accurate details Balbo’s impression was
that Mussolini was inclined to attempt an insurrection.
The march on Rome was decided in principle on October 16
at a meeting of the general staff, which took place in Milan
in the presence of Mussolini and of the party secretary,
Bianchi, and at which the generals Fara and Ceccherini

THE MARCH ON ROME 265

were also present.’- The following account of the meeting
is taken from Italo Balbo’s Diary, for October 16 :

‘ Mussolini goes straight to the heart of the question.
In the course of a particular^ clear general summary he
declared that events are moving fast and that fascism
may at any moment be led to start an insurrection. He
thinks the movement should culminate with a march on
Rome to force the government to resign, and induce the
Crown to form a fascist cabinet. He adds that we cannot
wait for a parliamentary solution, which would be against
the spirit and the interests of fascism. The manoeuvres
of the last few days are serving to distract the attention
of public opinion and even of the government. The direct
seizure of power is the only solution worthy of our move¬
ment, which has acted outside and above the laws of a
decrepit regime. We will not lower ourselves to com¬
promise, we will make our strength felt. Mussolini asks
all present, demanding absolute frankness, if they believe
that the military forces of fascism are ready, morally and
materially, for their revolutionary task.

‘ De Bono and De Vecchi, who, like me, have visited in
person during the past few weeks all the centres of their
zones,® inspected the legions, and been in direct contact
with the men, consider that the fascist forces are not yet
ready and that we ought to wait some time.

‘ I say that I am worried by the turn taken by political
affairs in the last few days. I consider any delay dangerous.
The old political parties are beginning to play a cautious
game. In spite of itself fascism risks being caught up in the
plot that is being hatched against it and in the snare of
the elections.

‘ I think that if we do not attempt a coup (Tetat at once,
by the spring it will be too late. In the mild atmosphere

^ On October 22, 1924, General De Bono resigned from the general
staff of the fascist militia. Mussolini thanked him on this occasion for his
services ‘ since October 16, 1922, the da-y he had summoned him -with other
generals to Milan, 46 Via San Marco, to arrange for the march on Rome.’
Via San Marco was the headquarters of the Popolo d’ltalia.

* At the Oneglia meeting (p. 178) of Januapr 1922, Italy had been divided
into military zones ; a division that was modified in October (pp. 282-283).

266

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

of Rome liberals and revolutionaries will come to an
agreement; it will not be difficult for the new cabinet
to take more energetic police measures and to en?aee
the army against us. To-day we have the advantage of
surprise. So far nobody seriously believes in our revolu
tionary intentions. In short a six months’ delay would'
multiply our difficulties by ten. Much better make our
final attempt to-day, even if we are not completely ready
than wait till to-morrow and give our enemies time to
complete their own preparations.

_ . Michele Bianchi supports my views and adds

important political arguments. Mussolini says he agrees
with us and De Bono and De Vecchi are won over without
pressing their views further.

_ The puce concludes this rapid survey by saying that it
IS impossible to decide if the insurrection should take place
at once, but that it must be attempted at the first oppor¬
tunity. He suggests fixing the date of the rising after the
review of fascist forces which takes place in Naples on
October 24. ^

‘. . ._ The leadership and organization of the action is
then discussed. MussoHni explains that the party is to
invest its powers in a Quadrumvirate consisting of the
three commanding officers-De Bono, De Vecchi and
balbo—and the party secretary, Michele Bianchi. Once
the mhtary action is begun all the political hierarchies,^
local or national, are to disappear. The military
command, imbued with full powers, will take their

_ Thus in the middle of October Mussolini thought that
insurrection was inevitable, but, as in all the circumstances
of his life, he wanted to reduce the risks of the enterprise to
a imnimum. He would have liked everything to happen
as if the march on Rome had taken place, without actually
hainng to carry it through. At the beginning of the month
he had prepared the call to action which the Quadrumvirate
was to announce to the fascists and the country when the

of the expression describing the higher members

THE MARCH ON ROME oQy

moment came, and he reserved the right to modify it at the
last minute to suit the circumstances. Rome could not be
annexed like any ordinary town or province occupied bv
fascist squads. From such a step there could be no retreat.
Tremendous political skill was needed to allay the suspicions
and aggressiveness of rivals, to gain fresh allies, and to ensure
the neutrality of the various armed forces of the state.
During the last three weeks before the march on Rome
Mussolini made frenzied efforts in every direction to ensure
such political advantages. He neglected nothing, from
d’Annunzio to Giolitti, Salandra to Nitti, the monarchy to
the republicans, the freemasons to the Vatican.

The first step, which he took charge of himself^ was to
ehminate d’Annunzio. To do this he had to make him a
few concessions and let him think that he could go on playing
the part of the saviour of Italy, ‘ without bloodshed and
without upheaval’. D’Annunzio was closely associated
with the Federation of Maritime Workers, led by Captain
Giulietti, who had secured the return of Malatesta to Italy
and had helped greatly in the provisioning of Fiume.i This
federation had placed itself under the protection of the
‘ Commandant ’ and made him large gifts of cash, which
were badly needed for the ‘ franciscan ’ retreat at Gardone.
After the fascist ‘ conquest ’ of Genoa the federation was
threatened ; the local shipbuilders and the local fascist
leaders demanded its liquidation. At the beginning of
September a congress was held at Genoa by the ‘ National
Maritime Corporation ’, a fascist organization which meant
to displace that led by Giulietti. Bianchi and Rossoni,
secretary of the fascist syndicates, were present, and
Mussolini sent a personal message. The congress decided
that war must be declared on Giulietti’s federation, and also
called on the government to give up all its levies on excess
war profits and its demands on the shipbuilders, so as to
‘ help in the resumption of maritime activity ’, for the
sake, of course, of the unemployed. Thus commenced a
desperate struggle which could only end in the victory
of the new fascist monopoly. Giulietti, however, was
cunning and though he hung on to d’Annunzio he began

* P.50.

268 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

making advances to Mussolini. The ‘ Commandant ’ was at
this period on very bad terms with the fascists. On
October 13 he had announced the mobilization of his
legionaries in Fiume. On the i8th the Fascist Party press
bureau published a communique forbidding fascists to go to
Fiume. On the 19th Captain Coselschi, d’Annunzio’s
secretary, made the following announcement in the Rome
Tribuna :

‘As you are aware, the Commandant has decided to
convert the federation of his legionaries into a genuine
and powerful organ of national propaganda, destined
for the pacification of the country and the spiritual
uplifting of the Italian people, divorced from all party
tendencies. . . . The headquarters of the federation will
be moved from Milan to Florence. The organization of
the legionaries will not represent a party, but will be a
group of disciples united to defend the faith of Gabriele
d’Annunzio.’

As for the agreement between Mussolini and d’Annunzio,
Coselschi continued : ’

‘ I cannot give any details, as we are pledged to secrecy.
I can, however, confirm that this agreement, which has
to do with syndical forces, really exists and concerns an
event of great importance for national pacification,
with consequences affecting political as well as syndical
affairs/

^ Mussolini, d’Annunzio and Giulietti had in fact just
signed a pact dealing with the Federation of Maritime
Workers. The text of the pact, signed at Milan on
October 16, was not published till October 22 in the
Popolo d"Italia. These are its essential points :

In Milan, between the Italian Federation of Maritime
Workers, under the protection of Gabriele d’Annunzio,
and the executive of the National Fascist Party, repre¬
sented by Benito Mussolini, after declarations of mutual
esteern, the following pact has been ratified to protect the
integrity of the Italian mercantile marine and to ensure
national peace :

THE MARCH ON ROME 269

I. Tlic F6ci6rs.tioiij wiiich. is considering demanding

from the shipowners fair treatment for their crews, will
gladly submit any request of this type for the examination
of the fascist representative before agitating in parliament
or making direct application to the shipowners; with a
view to proving the legitimacy of such a request and
giving an opportunity to take common action in the
matter.

‘ 2. The fascist representative will examine these
requests with the representatives of the Federation, so as
to arrive at an agreement as soon as possible, and in any
case within three days at the latest.

‘ 3. As soon as agreement has been reached on these
requests the representatives of the Federation will com¬
municate them to the shipowners and open negotiations
with them.

‘ 4. If these negotiations are broken off, fascism,
which is personified in Mussolini, will fight with all its
forces, joined to those of the Federation, to obtain justice
by direct action.

‘ 5. Within a maximum of thirty days after signing this
pact the Fascist Party solemnly promises to dissolve the
Maritime Corporation and to order its members to return
immediately to the ranks of the Federation, which shall
continue in the same functions and under the same control
as at present.’

This pact, which was signed by d’Annunzio, Mussolini,
and Giulietti, stupefied the fascists of the maritime towns,
who had been fighting Giulietti’s federation ever since
August, and meant to replace it by the fascist ‘ Maritime
Corporation ’. The fascists did not understand how the
decisions of the Genoa congress^ could be reversed at
the wish of three people who had taken no part in it. The
‘ liberal ’ and conservative press gave a place of honour to
their protests. The CbmVe della Sera expressed the fear that,
thanks to Mussolini and d’Annunzio, Giulietti would be
confirmed in his all-powerful position, and would take the
opportunity ‘ to continue his demagogic and anti-national

1 P.267.

270

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

policy Three days later at the Naples congress a fascist
representative from Genoa said that in signing the pact the
executive had perpetrated ‘ a colossal blunder which has I
cut the ground from under our feet in the syndical as well
as in the political sphere The reaction was such that on
October 24 the Popolo PItalia declared that : ‘ It was a
question of an agreement in principle, drawn up with the
intention of making peace and that further agreements
should be made during the thirty days ‘ to make the treaty
a really effective peacemaker ‘ We postpone,’ added
the paper, ‘ our comments and impressions for thirty
days.’ ^

^ Nothing in the text of the agreement warranted such an
interpretation. Article 5 was explicit; the promise made by
the executive of the Fascist Party to dissolve the fascist
‘ corporations ’ was subject to no condition. But Mussolini
was forced to trim his sails. The fascists, the uncompre¬
hending mob, must be allowed their howl of complaint
being unable, Hke Mussolini, to conceive of subordinating
everything to the plan for which he was feverishly working.

He had no doubt that the operation he had just carried out
was both opportune and useful, and his confidence was
justified. The advantages of the treaty were numerous and
important. On the eve of decisive events it bridged over the
d^erence between fascism and d’Annunzio, and made
Mussolini look like a peacemaker and a supporter of
d Annunzio s political designs. By temporarily saving the

1 j Workers from the fascist attack, he

led d Annunzio to believe that the victory of fascism would
not meamthe abolition of national syndicalism, and of the
labour idea which Mussolini himself had had in mind in
1919 and early in 1921, and which d’Annunzio still hankered
alter. It flattered d’Annunzio to be able to show what his
protection was worth, while on the other hand he felt
rathernn the debt of Mussolini, whose personal intervention
had been ffecisive. On October 20 he ordered the .
emobihzation of his legionaries, whom he had summoned
_o Flume a week earlier.i It is true that it was announced
in the press on October 21 that he would speak in Rome on

^ P. a68.

]

i

€

1

C

c

I

V

1

F

b

C

ti

d

b

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THE MARCH ON ROME 271

November 4, as arranged by the ex-servicemen in con¬
junction with Facta, Orlando and Amendola. But as
early as October 25 his secretary, Coselschi, gave out in
Florence that the Poet was ‘ very tired after the hard work
of the last few days that his doctors had ordered him rest
and that ' in the circumstances it is impossible to guarantee
that he would be able to go to Rome on November 4, as he
would have liked h

By signing this treaty Mussolini fostered the hopes of
members of the General Confederation of Labour and other
workers’ organizations which they had begun to fix on
d’Annunzio. The Federation of Maritime Workers, which
played such an important part from the technical point of
view, since it controlled practically all sea transport, would
no longer obstruct fascist action. Captain Giulietti, it was
announced in the Avanti, had even placed the ships of the
federation at Mussolini’s disposal for the transport and
supplying of the fascist army in the event of a campaign in
Dalmatia. In case the advantages he expected turned out
disappointing or too many difficulties arose in the applica¬
tion of the agreement, Mussolini had taken his usual
precautions. It did not come into full force for thirty days,
and before they were past the march on Rome or the
accession of the fascists to power by some other means would
have taken place. By then he would have no particular need
of d’Annunzio or Giulietti and he could maintain, transform,
or destroy the pact as circumstances demanded.

Giolitti was more difficult to dispose of. He was an
unimaginative man, and not a great initiator of policy. He
was quite willing to hold new elections, but not just yet;
he would prefer the spring, after a few months of office.
Mussolini was negotiating with him through Lusignoli, the
prefect of Milan, who had already acted as intermediary
between them at the time of the action against Fiume.^
Giolitti wanted the fascists to join his cabinet and he insisted
that they should be represented there by Mussolini. But the
demands of the fascists, who felt or believed themselves to
be masters of the country, were more ambitious than a few
months ago, and this made negotiations difficult.

272 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

‘ It is said that the fascists/ said the Corriere della Sera
of October 19, ‘ have asked for representation in the new
cabinet proportionate to their real strength in the country
and not merely to the number of seats they won at the
last elections ; that they have asked for three important
portfolios and the right to appoint a new foreign minister.
Giolitti, on the other hand, would like Mussolini to join
the government and would offer him a place as minister
without portfolio. As to the electoral reform, agreement
should not be difficult since Giolitti and Mussolini
both want a revision of the existing law to favour
absolute majorities, applying the proportional method to
minorities.’

On the same day the Popolo d'Italia denied the existence of a
political understanding between Mussolini and Giolitti, and
even denied that discussions had taken place, while Michele
Bianchi explained at Montecitorio that the negotiations had
fallen through because the fascists had not been offered
adequate representation. Actually relations between Musso¬
lini and Giolitti were not broken off, but Giolitti announced
that he was prepared to form a government at all costs, even
without the fascists, if they insisted on their exorbitant con¬
ditions. On October 23, when opening the session of the
provincial council of Coni, he explained his attitude towards
them :

‘ A new party has entered Italian political life, attended
by much commotion, violent in some parts of the country,
less so in others. There it should take the place to which
the number of its supporters entitles it; but by legal
means, which alone can give a party, within the con¬
stitution, real and lasting authority, and which alone can
enable it to realize the fundamental part of its programme,
which is to restore the authority of the State for the
safety, greatness and prosperity of the country.’

Up till the last minute Mussolini allowed Giolitti to believe
that they were in agreement on essentials and that they only
differed over the sharing of places in the cabinet. Giolitti,
for his part, thought he could get the best of the bargain by

THE MARCH ON ROME 273

passing the word round among his friends that he would
eventually do without the fascists altogether.

On October 23, at Turin, Giolitti met Corradini, his
one-time Under-secretary of State, the prefect Lusignoli, the
ministers Bertone [Popolare) and Teofilo Rossi, Zanetti,
editor of the Sera of Milan, and Giovanni Borelli, who, at
the last liberal congress in Bologna, had spoken in favour of
alliance with the fascists. These discussions and negotiations
had in view the formation of a new government, but any
decision was postponed until after the speech Mussolini was
to make in Naples. The same day Lupi, who had acted
as Mussolini’s mouthpiece in the Chamber in August,^
announced that the fascists agreed to the elections being
held in March ; this would have been a concession to
Giolitti and a possible basis of compromise with him.

Salandra fell straight into the trap set for him. He cherished
the secret hope of gaining fascist support and becoming prime
minister once more. When the fasci of Gapitanata held a
congress in Troia, his native town, they sent a delegation to
pay him their respects. Much flattered, Salandra replied
^ that he considered himself an honorary fascist, and would
sign on as a militant one if he were not seventy years old.’
Pointless to talk of a dictatorship in Italy : * There is no
danger of it,’ he insisted, ^ the right man, the dictator, is
missing.’ Italy was to have another Salandra ministry, in
which there would be, of course, plenty of room for the
fascists.

As for Nitti, Mussolini knew that he was suspicious, and
that a tempting bait must be prepared. The accident which
put d’Annunzio out of action in August had also interrupted
the negotiations between Nitti and Mussolini. ^ But Mussolini
resumed them on his own towards the end of September.
He sent Schiff-Giorgini to Acquafredda, who told Nitti:

"I have come from Mussolini. Italy is being ruined.
Facta is an idiot. Mussolini has been approached by
Giolitti, he has an understanding with Salandra, but he is
convinced that only you can succeed. An extra-parlia¬
mentary crisis must be provoked. You must make a
^ A 233. Fp. 260“26 i.

274 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

speech which will prepare the way for the summoning of

parliament, the resignation of Facta, and the formation

of a coalition government.’

Nitti replied that he could not deal with Schiff-Giorgini
who had no proper authority. He wanted serious guarantees
to avoid compromising himself to no purpose. Mussolini
must send someone of importance on such a mission.
Mussolini yielded and charged the ambassador Romano
Avezzana to continue the discussions. The latter went in
person to Acquafredda, confirmed Mussolini’s first message,
^itd insisted that ISiitti should as soon as possible make the
declaration asked for by Mussolini. Nitti then asked a
number of definite questions : (i) What were Mussohni’s
immediate demands ? Would he be content with one
ministry and two under-secretaryships ? (2) Why had

Mussolini also approached Giolitti and Salandra ? (3)

What would he do with th&fasci ? (4) Was he prepared to
go so far as to take military action to suppress them?
Mussolini^ replied : (i) It is now impossible for us to be
content with one ministry and two under-secretaryships. The
fasci have expanded. They have liquidated the general
strike. _ Circumstances have altered, and we want two
ministries and three under-secretaryships of State, though
we do not want the pohtical or military ministries. (2) I
am surprised that Nitti should take exception to my negotia¬
tions. I carried on negotiations with Giolitti because his
friend the prefect, Lusignoli, allows me a free hand in Milan
and I have to go carefully with him. Salandra does not
count. (3 and 4) The/orri will be dissolved at once.

Baron Romano Avezzana once more went backwards and
forwards between Milan and Acquafredda and a course of
action was finally decided upon. Nitti was to make a speech
enlarging on the seriousness of the situation and emphasiz¬
ing the need for new elections. The Popolo PItalia would pub¬
lish It without comment. Mussolini, who preferred to know
nothing of any march on Rome, would speak at the Naples
congress and damn everybody except Nitti. The crisis
would take place and a fine new ministry with Nitti and
Mussolini would be formed for the salvation of Italy.

THE MARCH ON ROME 275

Nitti carried out his part of the plan and made a speech
on October 20 in the little theatre in Lauria, in Basilicata
devoted chiefly to financial questions. The Popolo PItalia
enumerated the principal points as follows ;

1. Italy needs the restoration of the economic unity of
continental Europe.

2. In the present unsettled European conditions, Italy
must keep her army ready for action, concentrating
on the officer class, and strengthening aviation.

3. To obtain the necessary means for the defence of the
country, credit must be restored, strict economy
practised, and confidence given back to capital. Now
that the enquiry into war contracts which has seriously
disturbed so many industries has been completed, the
question of excess profits must be settled, the stock
market revived, and any scheme for the registering
of stocks by actual holders abandoned at once.

4. The state budget must be balanced.

5- The state must give up all services not essential for its
proper functioning, re-estabhsh the security of the
public services and declare any strike in these services
a criminal offence.

6. All reforms Hkely to impede production or discourage
the investment of capital must be abandoned.

This speech was followed by a banquet at which Nitti
said exactly what Mussolini had asked him to say.

‘ The present government is incapable of coping with
a single one of the fundamental problems that face the
country or with any of the live forces outside the govern¬
ment. After what has happened in the last few days one
is compelled to ask oneself if the present difficulties ought
not to^ be dealt with by methods outside the ordinary
administration, and if it is not time the country were
quickly consulted. There is a distinct cleavage between
the situation in parliament and the situation in the
country. . . . Democracy exists, socialism exists, but
fascism too exists as an ethico-social phenomenon and has
developed to such an extent that no statesman can neglect
it. . . . We should utilize all live forces, and welcome

276 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

the idealistic part of fascism, which has been the cause
of its progress, and we must at the same time make use
of the healthiest and most industrious sections of the
working classes, guiding both into the legal framework of
our institutions. We must have a strong government,
and the only way to get it is to go to the country as soon
as possible.’

Nitti thus echoed most of the Fascist Party’s demands for
the financial restoration of the state, the very ones which
had won for it the sympathy and help of Italian financial
circles. His views on the military question were very
different from those he had professed in 1919-20, while
finally he supported the fascist argument on the necessity
for immediate elections, a further point of disagreement
with Giohtti, who wanted to go to the country in six months’
time. The Popolo PItalia published Nitti’s remarks without
comment, as arranged, but with an unsympathetic headline,

‘ Fhppant speech by Nitti ’. Italo Balbo in his Diary says :
‘ Nitti’s aim is a little straighter in his last speech ; but the
old pirate has nothing to hope for from fascism except a
firing squad.’ His comments might have been diflferent
had he realized that the Lauria speech had been prepared
in collaboration with Mussolini and at his request.

Up till now Italian freemasonry had been rather in favour
of fascism ; the lower middle-class sections through patriotic
and nationalistic feelings, or because they were attracted by
the republican tendency Mussolini had made so much of;
the industriahsts and capitalists through instinctive con¬
servatism and reaction against the socialist advance, and the
Order as a whole because its hopes were raised by the
violently anti-clerical terms of the fascist programme of
1919 and the fascists’ growing hostility towards the Popolari.

In Milan there was a group of freemason industrialists
closely connected with Mussolini, amongst them Cesare
Goldmann, who had been a candidate in 1919 on Musso¬
lini’s list, and Ceresola, who later brought De Bono a large
subsidy from freemasonry for the march on Rome. General
Gapello^ was at once a fascist and 33 of the Grand Orient.

THE MARCH ON ROME

277

A large number of fascists belonged to the Grand Lodge of
Piazza del Gesu A Cesare Rossi, Italo Balbo, the Marquis
Perrone Gompagni, the deputies Edouardo Torre, Acerbo,
Terzaghi, Lanfranconi, Oviglio, Capanni. Between 1919
and 1922 a fair number of fasci were formed through masonic
influence, and Domizio Torrigiani, Grand Master of the
Palazzo Giustiniani freemasonry, boasted, although he
afterwards regretted it—too late—that he had several times
put the Milan fascio on its feet again. Dissension inside the
Florence fascio had its repercussions among the masons,
leading to the creation of rival lodges and mutual excom¬
munications. However in some fascist circles the feeling
against freemasonry hardened as fascism gradually became
more and more anti-democratic. At the end of September,
1922, the deputy De Stefani moved at a meeting of the
secretaries of the fasci of Vicenza a resolution affirming that
‘ membership of the National Fascist Party is incompatible
with active participation in freemasonry ’. A few days later
he asked Mussolini his views on this subject and was told :

‘ As to freemasonry—which I have always disliked—the
question you raise seems to me inopportune. It can be
revived when things are calmer. We must not bite off more
than we can chew.’ He thus checked De Stefani’s zeal,
which might have lost him valuable support. On October 19
the Grand Master, Domizio Torrigiani, sent a circular
letter to all the lodges of his order in which he emphasized
the importance of the masonic contribution to fascism in its
earlier stages :

‘ When the terrible post-war crisis began we decided
that our order must give all its energies to the defence
of the state, and we are glad to say to-day that groups of
our Brothers, who enjoy high authority, have contributed
to the birth and development of the fascist movement.
The number of our Brothers in the fasci is still increasing.
In the conflict of tendencies that accompanied the evolu¬
tion of the fascist phenomenon, they have done their best
to encourage the elements most consistent with the spirit
of freemasonry. As with all our other Brothers in the

7 P. 48.

278 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

different parties, we have never attempted to control their
liberty of action, which is limited only by our fundamental
precepts. The fascist leaders, I feel sure, realize and
appreciate the loyalty of fascist freemasons.’

Freemasonry had helped in the work of national settle¬
ment and recognized the salutary part that fascism had
played in it.

^ And when we saw,’ continued the letter, ' that youth
was turning enthusiastically towards the fascist movement,
we were among the first to notice and point out that this
great political phenomenon must correspond, however
indirectly, to a great national need. We believe it would
be superficial to judge it solely from the theoretical
declarations of its leaders. We must observe its content
and its real meaning. In politics it shows a desire for
violent change. Economically, fascism already controls
several hundred thousand organized workers. Considered
in relation to masonic principles these facts controvert the
fascist theory of opposition to all democratic doctrine.
A large mass of workers, organized for economic conquests,
cannot succeed in disowning liberty, fraternity, equality.
The ordinary idealistic middle bourgeoisie who are the
backbone of the fasci are incapable of wanting to build
up oligarchies and diminish liberty. One may criticize
the parliamentary democracies and worn out parties,
but one cannot deny the reality of the mass movements of
the day nor the fact that they are irresistibly democratic.’

This optimistic analysis, which bears witness to the
deliberate blindness of the Grand Master and his friends,
did not altogether succeed in allaying a certain uneasiness,
which was nevertheless quickly overborne :

‘ K freedom were suppressed, if essential private
liberties were interfered with, if a dictatorship or an
oligarchy were established, every freemason would know
where his duty lay ; he knows that it would be a sacred
cause for which, as our glorious tradition shows, men
can live and die. But we do not believe these threats. A
new force is entering the life of the nation. Freemasonry

THE MARCH ON ROME 279

hopes that it will be for the good of Italy, which it looks
on as its religion.’

And so it was that it contributed three and a half millions
towards the march on Rome. ^

Mussolini did not want the question of the freemasons
raised just then, because, though he did not want to alienate
them, he was equally unwilling to appear to favour them
in case he should alienate the Vatican and check the
Fopolarv’s drift to the right. As early as September 19
a group of eight Popolari senators had sent a letter to Don
Sturzo emphasizing the impossibility of any collaboration
with the socialists : ‘ It is worth while reaffirming once again
one’s conviction that there are unions so lacking in all the
most sacred and vital principles of social life that they cannot
be tolerated and still less invited.’ A month later, on
October 21, the National Council of the Italian Popolare Party
issued an appeal to the country, which, although it con¬
tained vigorous and even courageous declarations in favour of
liberty and democracy, nevertheless reflected on the whole
the general turn to the right taken by all political forces in
the country after the end of August. It was in favour of new
elections, but in ‘ the atmosphere of liberty through which
alone the sovereignty of the people can be made clear ’, and
on the basis of proportional representation, which Mussolini,
Giolitti and Nitti wanted to abolish. The elections must
turn on ‘ the policy of financial recovery and the willingness
of the new forces that have grown up in the nation to rally
to the constitution and give up their hankering for rebellion
and armed organization’. This ‘centrist’ appeal of the
Popolari passed almost unnoticed, for the authority of the
party was diminished by the numerous communications
from the Vatican. The Italian press published almost at the
same time a letter sent out by Cardinal Gasparri, a secretary
of state, to the ecclesiastical authorities, which in the circum¬
stances seemed to disavow the Popolari:

‘ Your Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lordships
are aware that recently the Holy See has been accused

^ Eugenio Chiesa, a freemason and one time deputy, revealed in 1926 that

a group of high officials of the order had spent three and a half millions in
contributing to the cost of the march on Rome.

28 o the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

and attacked in the press for its alleged connection with
the Popolari, as if the latter were an emanation of the Holy
See or represented the Catholics in the country or in
parliament. Against these insinuations the Holy See has
always energetically protested, constantly declaring that,
faithful to its principles of keeping outside political
rivalries, it has remained and means to remain in the future
totally separate from the Popolari^ as from all other political
parties; and that it intends to censure or blame them,
like any other party, if they act in opposition to the
principles of religion and Christian morality.^

The right wing of the Popolari won an important victory
over the list for the municipal elections in Milan after the
' legal ’ dissolution of the socialist council. At an early
meeting the idea of putting up a separate list had prevailed,
but on October 23, after a referendum, over which the
Archbishop of Milan brought all his influence to bear, the
proposal simply to support the list of the national bloc was
carried by a large majority.

At that time the Republican Party was greatly reduced in
strength, though it had important centres in the Romagna
and in Genoa, the city of Mazzini. In the Romagna hatred
of the socialists had thrown some of the republicans into the
arms of the fascists, who had made a point of showing
republican tendencies. In August, after the general strike,
the republicans withdrew the ' moral support ^ they had
given to the Alliance of Labour.

During the second half of 1922 the many Moyalist ’
declarations made by Mussolini and other fascist leaders
had diminished their enthusiasm and their hopes of founding
some sort of republic with the aid of fascism. But Mussolini
was busy fostering a separatist movement inside the small
Republican PaiTy. Towards the end of August republican
fasci' began to appear, the first of which, in Genoa, an¬
nounced Mts perfect agreement with the methods used by
the National Fascist Party to combat the political and
economic aims of every sort of anti-nationalist party A On
October 16 there was founded in Rome the 'National
Mazzini Union ’ on the initiative of an adventurer of the

THE MARCH ON ROME

281

worst type, Carlo Bazzi, a freemason and one of the chiefs
of the (fascist) ‘ National Syndicate of Go-operatives
the funds of which were used to subsidize the march on
Rome.

It was to the Quirinal, where in the last instance the fate
of fascism would be settled, that Mussolini devoted his most
serious attention. From the time of his controversy with
the Giornale d'ltalia up to his Udine speech he had not
ceased to address his ' advice' and threats to the Grown,
in public, so that Rome might know what to expect. He
unhesitatingly applied to the Grown the same policy of
internal disintegration that he had used against the socialists,
the Popolari^ the liberals, and the republicans. The king was
too faithful to Giolitti, whom he hoped soon to see in power,
dragging behind his triumphal chariot the pinioned forces
of fascism and socialism, the latter now entirely harmless.
In the middle of October, when he was in Brussels during
the engagement of the crown prince Umberto to princess
Marie-Jose, he told king Albert how optimistic he was
about the Italian situation. Giolitti had the ministry
in his pocket and would form a government immediately
after the reopening of parliament on November 7.
Mussolini, however, had strong support even inside the
royal household.

The king’s cousin, the Duke of Aosta, married to a
member of the Orleans family, was ambitious and ready
to favour the plans of Mussolini, who dangled the
hope of a regency before him. The duke as early as
1920 had suggested to the king that he should set up a
regime like that of Horthy in Hungary, that is a ruth¬
less anti-working class and anti-socialist dictatorship.
In 1919-1920 he had applauded the Fiume enterprise.
Now he thought he was near his goal, for d’Annunzio, the
freemasons of Piazza del Gesix, and some of the fascists,
including Mussolini, had all considered him as a possible
candidate for the throne, in case King Victor Emmanuel
refused to accept the new situation. In any event Mussolini
allowed the most alarming rumours to circulate. The duke
was only an instrument to him, a pawn in his game, though
an extremely valuable one.

282 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

Another influence was being exerted at court in favour
of fascism ; that of the queen mother, Margaret of Savoy,
widow of Umberto I, and the inspirer of the despotic policy
which had led to his assassination by Bresci. When the three
commanding officers of the fascist military forces, De.Bono,
De Vecchi and Balbo, went to Bordighera to complete the
preparations for the march on Rome, Queen Margaret
asked them to dine at her palace. De Bono and De Vecchi
accepted, realizing that she knew the reason for their presence
in the town. When they took their leave she ‘ gave them her
best wishes for the success of the fascist schemes, which aspire
to the safety and aggrandisement of the nation ’ : so wrote
Balbo in his Diary,

The fascist high command drew up its plan : General
De Bono decided to concentrate the fascist troops at Santa
Marinella, near Civitavecchia, Monterotondo and Tivoli.
They were not counting on the southern forces. The head¬
quarters of the Quadrumvirate were to be in Perugia ;
in Foligno, also in Umbria, they could concentrate, as a
reserve force, the troops that arrived late. On October 20
there was a meeting in Florence of the three officers with
Michele Bianchi and the deputy Giurati. They made the
final arrangements for the Naples admata and appointed
' inspectors general ’ for the twelve zones into which Italy
had been divided.^ The ist and 2nd zones (Liguria, Pied¬
mont, the province of Pavia, Lombardy) were allotted to
Captain Cesare Forni; the 3rd (Alto Adige, part of
Venetia), to Italo Bresciari; the 4th (part of Venetia, the
whole of Julian Venetia) to the deputy, Major Giovanni
Giurati; the 5th (Emilia and the Romagna) to Major
Attilio Teruzzi; the 6th (Rome, Perugia) to Lieutenant
Ulisse Igliori; the 7th (Tuscany) to the Marquis Dino
Perrone Compagni ; the 8th (Marches and Abruzzi) to
Captain Giuseppe Bottai; the gth (Campania and Basilicata)
to Captain Aurelio Padovani * the loth (Apulia and Cala¬
bria) to the deputy Captain Giuseppe Caradonna ; the
iith (Sicily) to Captain Achille Starace ; the nomination
to the 12th (Sardinia) was postponed. The fascist columns

THE MARCH ON ROME

283

of Santa Marinella were to be commanded by the Marquis
Compagni jointly with General Ceccherini ; those of
Monterotondo by Ulisse Igliori and General Fara, and those
of Tivoli by Bottai. General Zamboni was later to be put
in command of the reserves in Foligno.

The review of the fascist forces took place in Naples on
October 24, and Mussolini made an opening speech in the
morning at the San Carlo theatre. After recalling the
victory of 1918, marred ‘ by the absurd and false democratic
conception of war, which managed to prevent our victorious
battalions from marching into the “ ring ” in Vienna and
through the streets of Buda-Pest Mussolini announced that
the moment had come ‘ when the arrow flies from the bow,
for the string is stretched to breaking point He went on
to explain how fascism and its demands stood in relation
to the Italian political situation :

‘ You remember ’, said he, ‘ that my friend Lupi and I
propounded a question, which concerns Italy as well as
fascism: Legality or illegality ? Parliamentary or revolu¬
tionary conquests ? How is fascism to become the state ?
For we mean to become the state. Well, on October 4,
in my speech at Milan, 11 had already solved the problem.
... I ought not to have had to make any choice. The
feeble government now sitting in Rome (where the weak,
honest and ineffective Facta is attended by the three black
spirits of the anti-fascist reaction : Taddei, Amendola,
and Alessio) see the problem in terms of the police and
public order ! ... To the question—fascists, what do
you want ?—we have already replied very definitely that
we want the dissolution of the Chamber, electoral reform,
elections at short notice. We have asked the state to
abandon its grotesque attitude of neutrality towards the
national and anti-national forces within it. We have
asked for drastic financial measures, the postponement of
the evacuation of the third Dalmatian zone, five port¬
folios, as well as the Emigration Commissariat. We have
categorically demanded the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

^ Pp. 256-257.

284 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

the Ministry of War, the Admiralty, the Ministries of
Labour and of Public Works. I am sure none of you
will think these demands excessive ; and I may add that
by the terms of this “ legalitarian ” solution I was to have
no personal share in the government, and I will tell you
why. To keep control of fascism I must have great
freedom of movement in journalism and in discussion.
What was the reply ? Nothing. Worse still, ridiculous
offers were made to us. Ministries without portfolios,
undersecretaryships were talked of, all of which is con¬
temptible. We have no intention of getting into the
government by the back door, of selling our wonderful
birthright for a ministerial mess of pottage. This problem,
as a problem of history, has been misunderstood ; now
it has to be faced as a problem of force.’

Mussolini ended his speech by singing the praises of the
monarchy and the army, and with a hymn to Naples,

‘ future queen of our Mediterranean ’.

On the afternoon of the 24th Mussolini was present at
the march past of 40,000 fascists concentrated in Naples,
and later at a meeting in the Pia2za del Plebiscito, where
he took leave of the blackshirts in these terms : ‘ I say
to you wth all the gravity that befits this moment, hence¬
forward it is a question of days, perhaps of hours, whether
we are given the government or whether we seize it by
hurling ourselves on Rome.’ The Corriere della Sera in its
editorial the next day remarked that ‘ the march on Rome,
daily disavowed in articles and interviews, makes a definite
reappearance in these parting words spoken by Mussolini;
instead of marching on Rome”, the words used were
actually “hurling ourselves” on Rome, as if on some
prey . ^Bfind and deaf by choice, the great ‘ liberal ’ paper
added. We are willing to beheve that the Naples speech is
a sign of impatience rather than the announcement of a
decision. This view was not shared by the blackshirts who
were shouting ‘ To Rome, to Rome ’ in the Piazza del
Plebiscito.

After this frenzied occasion and in this over-heated
atmosphere a last meeting was held at 10 p.m. in Mussolini’s

THE MARCH ON ROME

285

private room in the Hotel Vesuvio to make the final decisions.
Teruzzi, Starace and Bastianini were there as well as
Mussolini and the Quadrumvirate, De Bono, De Vecchi
Balbo and Bianchi. Mussolini proposed that the political
leaders of the party should hand over their powers to the
Quadrumvirate at midnight on October 26 : ‘ The aim of
the movement must be the seizure of power, with a cabinet
including at least six fascist ministers in the most important
posts.Immediate mobilization was fixed for October 27.

Then, on the 28th, action against the nearest objec¬
tives, prefectures, police stations, post offices, telegraph
exchanges, wireless stations, anti-fascist newspapers and
clubs, Chambers of Labour. Once the towns are con¬
quered, swift concentration of the squads on Santa
Marinella, Monterotondo, Tivoli in columns ready to
march on Rome. Where the entire population is fascist
and conquest of the towns is assured, as in the Po valley
and Tuscany, a limited number of fascists will be left to
guard the positions ; all the rest must be sent to the
concentration points. But where the conquest of a town
is impossible or doubtful no attempt even is to be made
on the public buildings, and every single fascist must be
sent to the meeting place. The plan must follow the lines
laid down in Milan and Bordighera and under the com¬
mand of the officers chosen in Florence. On the morning
of the 28th the three columns will leave simultaneously
for the capital. On the same morning, Saturday, the
Quadrumvirate’s manifesto will be issued from Perugia.
... As for arms, the Quadrumvirs have fixed on two or
three depots on which an attempt may be made. In any
case the fascists will be able to disarm the small detach¬
ments of carabinieri in the country districts. Separate plans
for the offensive in Milan, Turin and Parma have been
drawn up.’2

^ Details of this meeting are given by Italo Balbo, who kept the minutes.

® The day before, another meeting had been held in Naples at the head¬
quarters of the/arcio, which had been attended by the commanding oiEcers,
zone inspectors and officers commanding the columns. The same plan was
under discussion : ‘ The action will be carried out in two parts, fct, mobiliza¬
tion of forces during the night of Thursday, s6, to Friday, 27, so that by
Saturday at midday all movements are complete and the fascists are in a
commanding position. Secondly, all possible pressure must be brought to

286

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

On the evening of October 24 the squads began to dis¬
perse. The fascists who had come to Naples from all over
Italy were taken home in special trains. Mussolini left the
town early in the afternoon next day, and other fascist
leaders left as well, carrying the order of mobilization to
their own districts. The march on Rome, then, was going
to take place. . . . Did Mussolini really want it ?

The official historians of fascism are sure that he did ;
others deny this, quoting the evidence of various colleagues of
Mussolini’s, who describe him as vacillating and anxious to
compromise, even saying that he had to be ‘ kicked into
Rome ’ ; others describe him as a double-dealer, treating
with everyone and letting everyone down, leaving his
decision to the last minute, to see how the land lay and to
suit his own selfish interests. Each of these ‘ close-ups ’
portrays a genuine attitude of the Duce at a given moment,
but does not answer our question. Between the spring of
1921 and the general strike of August, 1922, Mussolini was
considering an accession to power by taking part in a coali¬
tion government: a government of the three ‘ mass parties ’
in July, 1921 ; a national coalition (with a right-wing slant)
in 1922, wth eventually a socialist puntarella. After the
August strike he still considered, for a few weeks longer, the
formation of a coalition ministry, not led by himself: he
thought of Giolitti, Salandra, and Nitti in turn. Perhaps
wanted to trick them, to conceal his preparations for
the march That would have been possible had Musso¬
lini been entirely free to choose his own path, and able to
ignore the time factor. He had already begun to feel, after
the great fascist offensives, that he must reach power as

® official action and seize all organs

Af ^ far as possible any disturbance in the nomal

functionmg of the public services and the daily rhythm of public and private
I e. The fascist legions will remain in occupation of the towns while those
who are to form^ the columns for the march on Rome vdlT^roceed to the
appomted places. (Chmrco, History, V, p. 20). The general stratesv of t-lip
march antiapated an ‘ ultimatum to the Facta government, calling on it to
surrender the authority of the State followed by an enSl into S and the
m h T f mmistries. In the event of defeat, the fescist militia were to

THE MARCH ON ROME 287

quickly as possible, and now the urgency was even greater.
But he was not at all certain that violence could lead to a
fascist success. He knew very well that the state, feeble
though it was, could crush any outbreak with the greatest
of ease. The idea of celebrating his victory by a spectacular
entry into Rome at the head of the fascist legions sometimes
appealed to him, but he was instinctively on his guard against
any romanticism and preferred to turn to less brilliant and
less risky solutions. If the march involved too many risks
other methods must be found at all costs : hence the
negotiations with the old politicians. In putting forward
the alternatives of legal conquest or violence he was sincere,
because he was following the situation and his own interests
to their logical conclusion, and because this was the real
choice that was being forced on himself and the fascist
movement. On the one hand he knew how much the
situation had changed in his favour, and, how much
fascist violence, the negative attitude of the state, and the
mistakes of his enemies had contributed to his own strength.
He wanted to exert this strength to the utmost and convert
it into political power.

On the other hand he realized that matters had gone so
far that a decision could not long be postponed. Even at
the beginning of October he was afraid he would be forced
to choose between a Giolitti government and insurrection,
and he did all he could to avoid the dilemma. Towards the
middle of the month, of all the reasons which were driving
him to make up his mind two in particular forced his hand :
Giolitti’s determination to form a government with or
without the fascists, and the demonstration in Rome that
the Facta government were staging on November 4 for
d'Annunzio and the ex-servicemen around the ‘ altar of
their country’. It was at this moment that the National
Fascist Party called for the immediate convocation of the
Chamber and new elections. According to Italo Balbo this
was only a manoeuvre. ‘ We are playing hide and seek ’,
he wrote in his Diary. ^ The election scare is more than
enough to take in the old parliamentarians, who are tumbling
over each other to gain our alliance. With this bait we shall
do what we like with them. We may have been born

288 THE RISE OF IT A LI AN : F AS GISM

yesterday but we are cleverer than they/ Probably this
was the explanation given him by Mussolini ; but his
manoeuvre was subtler than it appeared to his enthusiastic
colleagues. Mussolini could well afford to talk about
elections, as he was sure to win big successes in . them. On
October i6 and 23 the administrative elections in the
provinces of Rovigo and Reggio Emilia resulted in big
majorities for the fascist lists. The socialists, victorious in
November, 1920, had to give up the struggle. In Milan
Popolari and democrats joined the national coalition list
together with the fascists in order to win the town council
from the socialists.^

The negotiations with Giolitti had fallen through, but
Mussolini still thought of the ' march on Rome or rather
the mobilisation of the military forces of fascism, as a means
of enforcing the solution that Giolitti did not want. As he
had explained at the meeting in the Hotel Vesuvio, the
movement must insist on ' the formation of a ministry which
includes at least six fascists in the most important posts h
Even after October 16 Mussolini did not surrender himself
entirely to the myth of the ‘ march h For him it was still a
means like any other, more dangerous than the others, and
one which in his heart he hoped he would not have to use. ^

The officers of the militia and the leaders of the squads,
on the other hand, could conceive of no other solution.
At the Naples meeting it was they who had demanded
‘ immediate mobilization to gain our ends k Mussolini
tried to keep his hands free and went on negotiating without
giving the other fascist leaders any detailed information,
and sometimes without saying a word, as in the case of his
dealings with Nitti. It must have been about this time that,
according to Massimo Rocca, he exclaimed in irritation
against the impatient partisans of direct action : 'For the
second time I have made myself a personal force in fascism,
and if fascism does not obey me I will crush it.’ The deputy

^ P. 280.

2 According to the instructions drawn up in Naples for the march : ‘ If
armed resistance by the government is encountered, avoid clashes with the
troops as far as possible, and show them sympathy and respect. Do not accept
any help that regiments may offer to the squads. This possibility will be
examined by the Quadrumvirate only if fighting actually takes place.’

THE MARCH ON ROME

289

Gino Olivetti, secretary of the General Confederation of
Industry, who was concerned in the political parleys with
Mussolini on the eve of the march on Rome, said later to a
socialist deputy : ‘ Mussolini manoeuvres with diabolical
cleverness. He negotiated with everybody up till the last
minute and, when he had made sure of being well placed
in any ministry, he launched, or allowed, the march on
Rome.’ Mussolini’s wish was not only to deceive and dis¬
tract his enemies but to be able to fall back on alternative
solutions. He looked on the march as a means of forcing
his negotiations to a conclusion.

Finally by delegating full powers to the Quadrumvirate
he rid himself of all direct responsibility for the adventure
and left himself free to act in a wider field. At heart he
had more faith in his own diplomatic skill than in all the
military resources of the ‘ high command ’. Gaetano
Salvemini is right in drawing attention in his penetrating
study ‘The Advent of Mussolinito the fact that after
leaving Naples on the 25th, he went through Rome without
stopping and straight on to Milan instead of joining the
Quadrumvirate in Perugia. If he had been confident in
the success of the movement ‘ he would surely have gone to
Perugia to claim all the glory of the fight and the victory
at the very heart of the insurrection’. He preferred,
however, to stay in Milan, five hundred miles from Rome,
but only two hours from the Swiss frontier, thus keeping
open, not only a line of retreat but even the possibility of
flight in case things took a turn for the worse.

After the events of the 24th the fascist congress in Naples,
which opened the next day, lost all significance. It was held
all the same. ‘ The congress,’ remarks Italo Balbo, ‘ is
almost empty. But there are a few determined people who
have prepared their speeches and want to make them.
The congress farce must go on, at least till to-morrow night.
It is the only way that we can take in the government and
public opinion.’ Actually the congress could only take in
those who wanted to be taken in, for there were frequent
allusions to the impending adventure. Michele Bianchi
made a brief speech in which he said : ‘ It is we who count
^ In tlie review Mes Publica, October 1932, p. 598.

19

290 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

for most in. politics and in the Italian nation to-day. We
may pride ourselves on the present situation. Until a few
days ago we hesitated, but you feel, as I do, that during
the last twenty-four hours all hesitations have vanished and
given way to a firm and clear determination which must
and will conquer. How are we going to obtain Victory ?
A full congress is no place for such a discussion, nor is the
secret committee with its more than seventy members. We
need only look at each other to understand, and I think
that we do already fully understand.’ And as the discus¬
sions still went on Bianchi interrupted, shouting : ‘ Fascists,
it is raining in Naples ; why are you still here ? ’ The
next day, however, the discussions still went on. Resolu¬
tions were passed on various questions, but without settling
them, for quite soon they had to be faced again when the
party was in power. For instance, on the electoral question
Grand! remarked : ' The political officials no longer count ;
they have delegated their powers to the general staff.
To-day there is no need of discussion, but only of obedience.’
Dudan’s report on foreign policy provoked a short discussion,
during which a member of the congress, after demanding
a solution of the problem of the Italians in Tunisia and
rejoicing that ' international chaos is favourable to our
cause, since we can hope for a revision of treaties and an
improvement in our position advised prudence, on the
grounds that ^ a party which finds itself on the eve of occupy¬
ing the Consulta does well to promise nothing ’.

In Rome government circles had followed events in
Naples with mixed feelings. Those who had feared that
the fascist squads would march straight on the capital were
reassured. Those who had hoped for incidents which might
lead to vigorous repressive measures were disappointed.
But Mussolini’s speeches, his threats and his allusions drove
the Facta cabinet into an intolerable position. They had
to make some decision, and it was no longer possible to wait
until November 7 and the reassembly of the Chamber.
The right wing were on the look-out and decided to pre¬
cipitate the crisis and make any Giolitti coalition impossible.
At the request of the fascist deputies, De Vecchi and Grandi,
Salandra invited Facta to resign. He hesitated, so the

THE MARCH ON ROME

291

minister, Riccio, the friend and confidant of the right wing
and the fascists, threatened to resign alone. This made
possible a compromise, on the afternoon of the 26th, after
a meeting lasting from six till seven, by which ministers did
not resign but placed their portfolios ‘ at the disposal of
the premier, so that he could examine the situation with
greater freedom At one in the morning on the 27th
Bianchi described the situation to Mussolini by telephone
and received the reply, ‘ No change in decisions taken.’

The cabinet met again on the 27th and after a three hour
discussion, ending at 7.30, it resigned. At the same time,
since it was known that the fascist mobilization had begun,
various measures, planned in advance, were decided upon,
and after midnight the military authorities were put in
charge. The resignation of the cabinet made things worse
and still further weakened the government, which was giving
up its authority at the very moment when it should most
vigorously have asserted it. The right-wing parties wanted
to prevent the march on Rome by forming a coalition under
Salandra and getting it accepted by exploiting the fascist
menace : the tactics that had succeeded in 1914. All the
conservative and liberal papers, from the Corriere della Sera
to the Giornale d’Italia, demanded a ‘ strong government ’
in which the fascists should have a share. The Idea Kazionale,
a nationalist paper, openly called for an extra-parliamentary
solution of the crisis. ‘Facta,’ wrote this paper, ‘ has shown
that he understood the needs of the moment by hanfting
in the resignation of the cabinet without waiting for the
result of a vote in parliament. But the resignation of the
cabinet is not enough. . . . The solution of the present
crisis cannot come through parliament. It was not caused
by any shifting of parliamentary forces, but by a revulsion
of conscience in the country and the maturing of fresh
energies that have been waiting to break out at any moment.’
Meanwhile negotiations and manoeuvring continued. Or¬
lando and the prefect, Lusignoli, went to Cavour to see
Giolitti, whose eightieth birthday was being celebrated.

After his agreement with Mussolini, d’Annunzio had
become rather dubious about going to Rome on November 4; ^

^ '271. ■ ■ ■

292 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

now he became more and more hesitant. The leaders of the
Association of Disabled Soldiers, Ruggero Romano and Carlo
Delcroix, went to Gardone to persuade the ‘ Commandant ’
not to depart from his plan. This step failed, for on the 27th it
was announced that the ceremony of November 4 would not
take place, ‘ to prevent the noble impulse of the wounded
and the name and person of d’Annunzio from being made
to serve the ends of shady political intrigues.’ Facta got in
touch with the king and with Mussolini, and asked both of
them to come to Rome. The king, who was enjoying a
country holiday in San Rossore, was in the capital by eight
in the evening. Mussolini refused. That evening Facta
called on the king and handed him the resignation of the
cabinet. The king, apparently, was not at all pleased at
the turn taken by events, but Facta reassured him and tried
to show that the situation was not too serious, and that the
measures taken left time for a solution to be found. For
he too had his solution. In his Naples speech Mussolini
had praised his ‘ straightforwardness ’ and censured the
‘ anti-fascism ’ of the ministers Taddei, Amendola, and
Alessio.^ Might not a third Facta ministry be possible, in
which they would be replaced by three fascist ministers
But the statements made to the press by Bianchi on the
evening of the 27th and on the 28th removed any hope
of such a solution : ‘ This is an extra-parliamentary crisis,’
he said, ‘ the Chamber is left out of it. It has made no sign.
The succession therefore must pass to those who, outside
parliament, have precipitated the crisis ; that is the
fascists. . . . In the light of common sense there ought to be
a Mussolini cabinet. ... A Salandra, Giolitti, Orlando or
Giolitti-Orlando cabinet does not make sense ; and in

1 P.283.

^ 2 Count Sforza, in his Builders of Modern Europe, has divulged the confidences
J^P^ted to him after October 1922 by Giolitti and the senator Taddei:

when I expressed my astonishment to Giolitti that he had not thought it his
duty to come to Rome and take power in autumn 1922, the reply I received
was that he was probably wrong, but that the objections of every kind raised
by Facta to prevent him stirring from his country house at Gavour were endless
and inexhaustible. Facta even telegraphed, once his departure from Gavour
to go to Rome had been determined on, to say that the floods had made the
journey dangerous. Giolitti’s explanation was that Facta had allowed himself
to be taken m by private overtures from the fascists, who had dangled before
otS^Lcte ’ premier in a new cabinet containing Mussolini and

THE MARCH ON ROME

293

any case remember that any combination that includes the
fascists must reserve the Ministry of the Interior for them.’i
Bianchi ended his statement by giving ‘ a nev/ and definite
denial to the rumours of a march on Rome, a general
rising and coup d’etat \ ‘ The conquest of Rome is in process
and we have no need of any mobilisation or coup detat.”^

At the same time news arrived in Rome which could no
longer be ignored of the fascist mobilisation which was
taking place, and of the occupation of barracks and public
buildings in various Tuscan towns. The Popolo ditalia
came out the next morrung with the headUnes : ‘ Italian
history at the cross-roads—Mobilization of fascists in Tuscany
—^All the barracks in Siena are occupied by fascists—The
soldiers fraternise with the blackshirts.’ Facta was thus
forced to summon a cabinet meeting during the night,®
and it was decided to proclaim martial law as from noon
on Saturday, the 28th.

Italy’s fate was settled during the morning of the 28th.
The resignation of the government had suddenly put the
king into the position of arbiter of the situation. Round the
Quirinal and the Viminal the tragi-comedy was being played
out, hour by hour. At 9 o’clock Facta brought for the
king’s signature the decree proclaiming martial law, of
which the country had already been informed by a govern¬
ment announcement.^ But before this interview took place

^ On the other hand the Interior was the only important ministry that
Mussolmi had not demanded in his Naples speech.

^ ^ hours later, Bianchi, who had gone to Perugia, headquarters of

me Quadrumvirate, went to the prefecture and rang up the Ministry of the
Interior. It so chances, relates Balbo in his Diaty, ‘ that Pacta himself rushed
to the telephone, thinking it was the prefect. Michelino Bianchi then informed
him 01 the forced changing of the guard at the prefecture of Perugia and the
occupation of the town by the fascists.’

3 Though the cabinet had resigned this was still possible, as the king had not
summoned anyone else.

Here is the text : ‘ Seditious demonstrations are taking place in certain
Italian provinces, organized with a view to obstructing the normal functioning
cu the powers of the State, and capable of bringing the most serious trouble on
the country. The government has tried every form of conciliation in the hope
01 restoring harmony among conflicting views and of assuring a tranquil
solution to the crisis. Faced with attempts at insurrection it is the duty of the
resignmg government to maintain public order by any means and at any price,
it will discharge this duty in full, for the safeguarding of citizens and of free
constitutional institutions. Citizens should keep calm and trust in the measures
of security which have been adopted. Long live Italy ! Long live the King I'
This proclaniation was only published in Rome, while the telegram declaring
martial law had arrived everywhere ea,rly in the morning, and was in some
places received by the fascists themselves who had seized the telegraph offices.

294 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

steps had already been taken to try to prevent the execution
of the ministerial decree. Pressure had been brought to
bear on the king from the early hours of the morning. At
7.3O5 says ChiurcOj ' Doctor Ernesto Civelli/ who came
by himself and before anyone else, explained the situation
to the king, telling him of the concentration of 70,000
fascists, who were surrounding Rome. He assured him
that the fascists were with the king, certain that the king
would be with them.’ On the other hand, at 6 o’clock in
the morning, the nationalist deputy Federzoni and Roberto
Forges-Davanzati, editor of the Idea Mazionale^ went to
Facta and asked him if he still was in touch with the leaders
of the fascist movement. When he said that he was not they
offered to put him in touch again, and from the very office
of the president of the council they telephoned to De Vecchi
at Perugia, headquarters of the Quadrumvirate, and to
Mussolini at Milan, inviting both to Rome. De Vecchi
accepted, Mussolini refused once more. Facta returned to
the Viminal and told the cabinet that the king was hesitating.
The cabinet instructed him to return to the king and insist
on his authorising the declaration of martial law already
proclaimed. It was probably between Facta’s first visit
and the second, which took place at about 10 o’clock, that
others started to intervene : Federzoni, who announced the
mobilization of the Nationalist Party, and Admiral Thaon
de Revel, who asked the king to avoid any conflict between
the fascists and the army. News also reached him that his
cousin, the Duke of Aosta, was at Bevagna, not far from
Perugia, in touch with the Quadrumvirate and ready to
allow himself to be placed on the throne if the king abdicated
or was deposed by the fascists. Consequently Facta
was faced with a second and absolute refusaP and the
cabinet had no alternative but to withdraw the decree.

^ Ciyelli, with the engineer Postiglione, had been told off to attend to ‘ all
the services required by the mobilized fascist militia

2 Ag^n^according to the very trustworthy evidence of Count Sforza, the
senator Taddei, Mmister for the Interior in the retiring cabinet, was convinced
on the evidence of a number of small signs which at the time had seemed
msig^c^t, Aat Facta, disregarding the formal mandate twice entrusted to
nim by the cabmet, had advised the king not to sign the decree of martial law.

I he reason he put forward was the lack of authority of the cabinet, which was

resigning, an action to which he was holding them.

THE MARCH ON ROME 295

At 11.30 a.m. the Stefani agency was authorized to publish
the fact that the measure concerning the proclamation
of martial law was withdrawn
The king s decision, disavowing his own government,
removed its last scrap of authority and completely altered
the situation. In fact it proved decisive.

^ By cancelling the declaration of martial law,' writes
the historian, Salvemini, the king had not only paralysed
the outgoing cabinet; he had renounced his right to
appoint the new premier. Up till 12.15 on October 28,
the time when the Stefani message was transmitted to the
newspapers, it was open to Salandra and the king to
negotiate with the fascists to bring them into the cabinet
in a subordinate capacity. But after that moment
Mussolini became the master.'

Throughout the afternoon of the 28th the king continued
to take counsel. De Vecchi arrived in Rome at i o'clock
and saw the king, who also received the president of the
chamber, De Nicola, and the deputies Cocco-Ortu, Orlando,
De Nava and Salandra. Giolitti and Mussolini were sum¬
moned but did not appear. At 5 o'clock the king received
Facta once more and, for the second time, De Vecchi, who
explained to the king the highly patriotic aims of the move¬
ment.' ^ While speaking thus, the papers related, the ^ quad-
rumvir was greatly moved j so was the king, who embraced
him and declared that it was he alone who had refused to
sign the decree, and that he would give to Italy, ^ while
scrupulously observing the limits of the constitution, the
government which would answer best to the needs of the
nation'. To form this government the king summoned
Salandra at about 6 o'clock. He at once got into touch with
the fascist leaders, De Vecchi, Ciano and Grandi, and
explained his intentions. The GioTnale Italia brought out
a sixth edition^ between 9 and 10 p.m., with the news of
the formation of the Salandra-Mussolini cabinet, in which
four portfolios were reserved for the fascists.

It is probable that this was a mere manoeuvre designed
to prepare public opinion and involve the fascists. But

^ Which was dated the 29th,

296 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

behind it lay the fact that the fascist leaders accepted it in
principle, on condition that Mussolini agreed, which they
had no doubt of his doing. According to an article by Gio¬
vanni Marinelli, the administrative secretary of the National
Fascist Party and treasurer of the march on Rome, the
majority of the fascist chiefs wanted to accept Salandra’s
proposal. He described later how the negotiations were
broken off :

‘At II p.m. on the 28th, after the final conversations
at the Quirinal in which Salandra, De Vecchi and others
had taken part, there was a further meeting at the Rome
office of the Resto del Car lino at which De Vecchi, Marinelli,
Grandi, Postiglione and Polverelli were present. After
a level-headed discussion of past events, of the negotia¬
tions they had just been engaged in, and of their intentions
for the future, they decided with surprising forbearance
in favour of a Salandra-Mussolini coalition. The present
writer and Postiglione were entrusted with the unpleasant
task of describing this difficult business over the telephone
to the Duce. We did so with the feeling that the result
would be something very different. We entered the almost
deserted Viminal at one in the morning. We went up
to the office of the Minister of the Interior. Taddei was
nowhere to be found, and we saw only the under-secretary,
Fumarola, and the permanent under-secretary. Our
coming surprised and alarmed them, but they allowed us
to get through to Milan, which was the object of our
visit. Postiglione, as soon as he was connected with the
Duce, read out the details of the suggested coalition.
Mussolini listened without interrupting, and when it was
finished, after asking if there was anything further to say,
replied : It was not worth while mobilizing the fascist
army, causing a revolution, killing people, for the sake
of a Salandra-Mussolini solution and four portfolios. 1
will not accept. And we heard the click as he hung up
the receiver. Deeply moved we reported the Duce’s
refusal to De Vecchi, who was waiting for us at the
Moderno hotel.^i

account Mussolini was in two minds over his friends’
offer, when the deputy, Aldo Finzi, who was with him in Milan, snatched the

297

THE MARCH ON ROME

When Mussolini was rung up by Postiglione (1-1.30 in
the morning of the 29th) he had already written the leading
article for the Popolo PItalia of the 29th :

‘ This is the position : a large part of Northern Italy is
in the hands of the fascists. The whole of central Italy,
Tuscany, Umbria, the Marches, Upper Latium is oc¬
cupied by the blackshirts. Where they have not taken
the police stations and prefectures by storm the fascists
have occupied the stations and post-offices, the nerve
centres of the nation. ... We have already won an
extensive victory. We are not going to spoil it by last-
minute coalitions. It was not worth while mobilizing
for the sake of making a deal with Salandra. The
government must be purely fascist. . . . Any other
solution must be turned down. The people of Rome
must understand that the time has come to make an end
of pretentious formalities, which on less serious occasions
have been frequently disregarded. They must understand
that there is still time for an orthodox and constitutional
way out of the crisis to be found, though to-morrow it
may be too late. It is up to them to decide. Fascism
wants power and will get it! ’

By the evening of the 28th Mussolini had begun to realize
that the first part of the fascist plan had succeeded almost
without a hitch, and that the cancelling of the decree of
martial law had delivered Rome and power into his hands.
In Rome the notion of a Salandra-Mussolini coalition was
still current, for several fascist chiefs such as De Vecchi and
Giano, the king, the army leaders and the nationalists were
in favour of it. Mussolini would probably have accepted it
a few days before, and would have fallen back on it if the

telephone and answered for him : ‘A Salandra cabinet is no good, we must
have a Mussohm cabinet.’ On the same evening (the 28th), however, the
Gwrnale dItaha published the news that ‘Mussolini has wired to Facta and
told him that he had attempted to get into touch with Salandra, but had not
succeeded ; that he had asked Facta to give Salandra a message on the
subject of the crisis, to the effect that he had no intention of j'oining a Salandra
cabinet and his friends would have nothing to do with any such arrangement
wther. Mussolini added that he had a cabinet all ready; but he would not
leave tor Rome until he saw a chance of carrying out his plan/ On the morning
o the 29th, at seven o_ clock, De Vecchi and Acerbo made another attempt to

draw Mussolini into the new coalitiom ^

298 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

fascist mobilization had failed, but now he did not see why
he should not exploit to the full the victory he had just
won.

On the eve of the adventure he had written to d’Annunzio
to suggest the formation of a triple dictatorship, himself,
d’Annunzio, the Duke of Aosta. D’Annunzio had refused.
But that evening Mussolini was in a position to send another
message to Gardone :

‘ My dear Commandant, the latest news assures our
triumph. To-morrow Italy will have a government. We
mean to be intelligent and cautious and not to abuse our
victory. I am sure that you will hail it as the greatest
dedication of the resurgent youth of Italy. A voi, per
voi.’

D’Annunzio was told by those who brought him this
message that the king had refused to sign the decree of
martial law and ‘ it appeared that he was certain to ask
Mussolini to form the new government.’ Mussolini’s
assurance was based not only on the general trend of events
but on the solid support that he was being given. While
Rome was chasing the illusion of a Salandra ministry, hard
work for Mussolini’s cause was being done in Milan. There
were lively discussions between Mussolini, the prefect
Lusignoli and the leaders of the General Confederation of
Industry, the deputies A. Stefano Benni and Gino Olivetti.
The heads of the Banking Association, who had financed the
march on Rome to the tune of twenty millions, the heads of
the Confederation of Industry and of the Confederation of
Agriculture telegraphed to Rome to tell Salandra that a
Mussolini government was the only possible way out.
Senator Ettore Conti, a great electricity magnate, and
Senator Albertini, editor of the Comerr della Sera, which
the fascists harmed next day, telegraphed to Facta, asking
him to request the king to entrust Mussolini with the forma¬
tion of a ministry. On the same day the Pope made an
appeal for peace, which amounted to an appeal for dis¬
armament and the condonation of fascist sedition. Chiurco
informs us that the Vatican took its precautions in good
time . At this point the Holy See sent word through an

THE MARCH ON ROME

299

important emissary that it would be obliged if Mussolini
would state what were the political intentions of fascism
towards the Church.’ The fascist reply ‘gave the most
loyal assurances Mussolini was therefore the favoured
candidate of the plutocracy, of the ‘ liberals who preferred
him to the old politicians such as Salandra, and of the
Vatican. In a few hours’ time he was to have the backing
of the monarchy as well.

Salandra had postponed his reply to the king till the
following morning (Sunday the 29th), when, at 10 o’clock,
he went to the Quirinal, declined the task of forming the
new cabinet and said that Mussolini was the ordy man
capable of doing so. The king then asked De Vecchi to
telephone to Mussolini and ask him to come to Rome.
Mussolini’s answer was that he would not leave Milan until
he received a telegram from the king definitely charging
him to form a cabinet. General Gittadini, the king’s A.D.C.,
sent the following telegram at once : ‘ H.M. the King
requests you to come at once to Rome, and desires you to
form a cabinet.’ Mussolini decided to leave for Rome by
a special train at about 3 p.m., but changed his mind and
did not leave Milan until the evening on the 8 o’clock train.

During the crisis caused by the resignation of Facta’s
cabinet, between the afternoon of the 27th and the morning
of the 29th, the fascist officials had carried out the first
part of the plan whose final details had been settled in Naples
on the 24th. Power was to be handed over to the Quad-
rumvirate on the night of October 26, and the squads were
to mobilize secretly during the night of the 27th. Local
objectives were to be attained during the morning of the
28th and the three columns destined for Rome were to
begin their march. The fascist delegates who left Naples
between the 24th and the 26th took with them orders for
universal mobilization and instructions for local actions.
According to the original plan, practically all the fascist
forces were to go to the meeting places from which the
columns were to set out for the ‘ march on Rome ’. Mobiliza¬
tion and local action were only the first stage of the march,
to which everything was subordinated. But between the

300 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

morning of the 25th and the 26th or 27th this plan was
greatly modified. Only a few ‘ legions ’ from Tuscany,
some centuries ’ from the Po valley,^ the squads of the
Abruzzi and of the province of Rome were appointed to
' march' on the capital. The local actions now became
the most important part of the plan. This was diie to a
change in the political plan ; for Mussolini and his closest
advisers reckoned that mobilization and local action would
exert sufficient pressure to enforce the solution demanded
by the fascists. The fascist political leaders were now
largely concerned to keep the blackshirt columns as far
from Rome as they could without spoiling the stage effect of
the ‘ march This was to be kept as a threat, though
without hindering the normal development of the crisis that
resulted from Salandra’s refusal to form a ministry.

On the night of the 27th the prefects delegated their
powers to the military authorities, who made no attempt to
prevent the fascists seizing buildings or to evict them when in
occupation. Practically all senior officials, civil or military,
displayed a benevolent neutrality, amounting occasionally
to open complicity, in face of the fascist mobilization. The
few cases of resistance were due to the individual initiative
of a few officials and soldiers during the period of martial
law on the morning of the 28th. When the Stefani agency
announced its cancellation the authorities felt themselves
more than ever encouraged in their attitude, and there was
a rush to welcome the new government directly it was learnt
that the king had summoned Mussolini to form it.

The Quadrumvirate had decided to direct the conquest of
the capital from Perugia, and installed themselves openly
at the Brufani Hotel, opposite the prefecture. A platoon
of soldiers could have seized the ‘ high command ’ of the
fascist revolution if some N.C.O. had taken the initiative.
Actually the reverse happened, for three fascist delegates
called on the prefect at about midnight on the 27th and
summoned him to give up his powers to the fascist com¬
mand. Although the prefecture was defended by the Royal

According to the Regulationsfor the formation of fascist squads drawn up at the
beginning of 1922, the squadre consisted of from twenty to fifty men, the
‘ centuries * included four squadre, the ‘ cohorts ’ four centuries, the legions
from three to nine cohorts.

THE MARCH ON ROME

301

Guard, the government representative agreed within half
an hour. Squads of blackshirts replaced the Royal Guard
and also occupied the post office, the provincial adminis¬
trative headquarters and the pohce station, all without a
shot being fired. ‘ The worthy citizens, most of whom were
ignoratit of the night’s events, learnt of them from a notice
which the new fascist authorities posted up on the walls.’^
By the morning of the 28th it almost seemed as if the prefect
had played the traitor for nothing, as the military authorities
had been ordered to take over the powers that had been
yielded to the fascists. But in spite of a few disagreements
the military and the fascists remained on excellent ter ms .
At 11.45 a brigadier-general went to the Brufani Hotel to
negotiate with General De Bono, and was received with
military honours. ‘ At 1Q.30 the fascist supreme command
intercepted another telegram from Rome which enlivened
and cheered both legionaries and citizens : martial law was
revoked. Radiant with joy the fascist deputy Pighetti rushed
to the Divisional Headquarters to pass on the good news.
From now on they were all confident of complete victory.’

The events of Perugia were repeated almost identically
in a number of towns that the fascists had been able to
occupy without resistance. At Alessandria in Piedmont,
at three o’clock on the 28th, the general commanding the
division summoned the fascist chiefs who had already
occupied the prefecture, the police station, the station, the
telephone exchange and a barracks, to inform them that
he was ‘ awaiting precise orders from the government ’. At
Casale ‘ the prefecture was rapidly occupied, for the sub¬
prefect handed over his powers immediately ’. At Bergamo
in Lombardy, ‘ after some parley the military authorities
recognized the fascist occupations’. At Brescia ‘the
principal centres were occupied and the fascists were in
complete command of the situation ’. At Como an army
major, a fascist, ‘ saw to it that the troops did not oppose
fascist occupation of the public buildings’. In Sondrio
the fascists managed to occupy the garrison command, a
barracks and a customs office without a shot being fired.

^ This and future quotations for which no reference is given arc from
Chiurco. ;..

302 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

At Pavia, when the fascists made an attempt on the pre¬
fecture, ' the Royal Guard had levelled their rifles against
the fascists when the timely action of the fascist offlcers and
the Chief of Police averted a tragedy h In Venetia the chief
aim of the fascists squads was to isolate Venice and occupy
the great railway junctions of Mestra and Verona, ‘which
were the key to all local communications. At Venice ^ on
the evening of the 27th, the GonsuP Magrini met Admiral
Mortola, commanding the naval division and the fortifica¬
tions of Venice. The interview, which had its dramatic
moments, revealed the great Italian heart of the Admiral,
who, without forgetting the sacred call of duty, showed
that he understood the great ordeal of deliverance to which
the country was called h He understood so well that,
certain of his ‘ neutrality’, the fascists were able to isolate
Venice from all communication with the government ’,
garrisoning it with only one cohort of from four to five
hundred men. . . . The remaining fascist forces could be
concentrated in Mestra, where the station was occupied,
and take part in other local operations. Belluno, Udine,
Trevisa, Padua, Vicenza were all occupied. In Julian
Venetia the good terms that had existed between military
and fascist authorities were maintained under fresh con¬
ditions. The fascist deputy, Giunta, has recorded what
happened in Trieste :

' On the evening of October 27 there was a banquet
in honour of the governor Mosconi. Signor Mosconi
was popular in the town and we ourselves were on very
friendly terms with him because, admittedly, he well
understood and favoured the valuable function of fascism
in Julian Venetia. Thus there was nothing strange in
the fascist leaders being seen that evening at the dinner
table while I continued to direct the mobilization and
drink m Asti spumante the health of the representative of
the government I was preparing to overthrow. On the
28th I entered the prefecture with 3,000 blackshirts. . . .
The prefecf Crispo Moncada, was awaiting us in his

1 In the fascist military system a ‘ consul’ corresponded to a general and
commanded a legion.

THE MARCH ON ROME

303

office. When I told him that I was taking possession of
the prefecture in the name of the revolution which at
that moment was knocking at the gates of Rome, the
prefect, pale with emotion, replied that he accepted our
conditions and begged us with tears in his eyes to think
only of Italy. Knowing as I did his patriotic soul and
noble loyalty, I asked him to remain at his post and carry
on with his routine work. There was still an unknown
factor ; the army. What were its orders ? Extreme
prudence was necessary, for the Jugo-Slavs had consider¬
able forces on the frontier. Accompanied by my little
general staff I went to army headquarters. On the way
I met General Sanna, the commandant, in his car.
Directly he saw me he got out and came to meet me.
“ Now I shall have you all shot,” he said with a would-be
serious air. “ Do, excellency, but you will need more
than one firing squad.” ’

The conversation continued on these lines until finally, ‘ his
heart won and the general came with us to the prefecture,
where we decided that the army should remain neutral,
unless orders to the contrary came from Rome ’. In the
meantime the fascists occupied the general post office and
telephone exchange and cut all communications with the
peninsula. The whole of Istria passed under their control
and in Gorizia ‘ relations between the civil and military
authorities and the leaders of the revolt were entirely
cordial ’.

During the 28th the fascists took over, unresisted, in
almost every town in the Po valley; at Piacenza, where
the prefect ‘ enthusiastically ordered that the fascists should
occupy every administrative office ’ ; Parma, and Ferrara,
where ‘ in view of the correct attitude of the prefect who
had shown tact and understanding, the prefecture and the
police station were not occupied ’ • Modena, Resffio
Emiha, Rovigo.

In Tuscany they took action as early as the 27th, which
threatened to start the movement too soon. For instance,
at Pisa the fascist executive had put up a notice announcing
the march on Rome, and at Siena ‘ handfuls of fascists had

304 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

walked peacefully into the barracks of the local garrison
without meeting any resistance ; after taking possession of
the arms and munitions they found there they marched
through the middle of the town, singing, up to the head¬
quarters of thtfascio \ In Florence the general post office
was occupied from midnight on the 27th onwards. On the
afternoon of the same day news had come of the mobilization
in Tuscany, which, according to the Stampa correspondent
' people had been talking about for days h There had been
a fascist demonstration in favour of General Diaz, the com-
mander-in-chief of the army, who happened to be in the
town and made no secret of his sympathy for the movement.
During the morning of the 28th, the fascist military and
political leaders, the consul Tamburini and the barrister
Marziali called on General De Marchi. ^ The object of
the interview,’ according to the Stampa correspondent,

' was to examine the situation resulting from the declaration
of martial law. General De Marchi explained that it was
his duty as a soldier to turn the fascists out of the public
buildings that they had occupied. Signori Marziale and
Tamburini replied that there were claims of feeling stronger
than any oath, especially one that conflicted with conscience,
logic and justice, But,” replied the general, after forty
years in the army I cannot disobey the king.” The king
is with us,” they assured him, and we are with the army.”
General De Marchi then advised them to telephone to the
fascist leaders, while he telephoned to Rome for confirmation
of the reassuring news that the consul Tamburini had given
him. ’ To calm the fears of the military authorities the fascists
brought out a special edition of a newspaper announcing
that the king had asked Mussolini to form a government.
At the time this was pure invention, but it served to put a
stop to any steps taken by the military authorities, who were
already inclined to a benevolent neutrality by the contra¬
dictory news they were receiving about the enforcing of
martial law.

The situation thus caused, resulting from two years of
collusion everywhere between fascists and army officers,
could not be changed in a few hours, especially as the govern¬
ment in Rome was resigning and in disagreement with the

THE MARCH ON ROME 305

king over the measures to be taken. Nevertheless in the
few places where the authorities even partly carried out
their duties, the fascists were crushed or held up. At Turin
they had to be content with holding an evening meeting
on the 28th in front of the police station, and when, next
day, they occupied the railway station the mere order of a
police officer was sufficient to turn them out. In Milan
they were thrown on the defensive, and built barricades
round the headquarters of the fascio. The deputy Finzi
and Stefano Benni, leader of the General Confederation of
Industry, came to an arrangement with the prefect Lusignoli
to avoid incidents. An attack on the offices of the Avanti
was beaten off by the Royal Guard, and the fascists who had
entered the Manara barracks were forced to leave at once
by an energetic colonel of Alpini who refused to budge even
when Mussolini intervened in person. They were not able
to occupy the prefecture of Bologna until October 30, and
in Cremona, on the evening of the 27th, an attack was
repulsed ; and the fascists, leaving three dead and four
wounded, had to fall back for the moment. In Genoa the
fascist mobilization fell foul of the measures taken by the
military authorities, but the latter, instead of arresting
the fascist leaders for sedition, entered into negotiations with
them. The fascist Triumvirs of Genoa were summoned
before General Squillace, the divisional commander, who
informed them of the declaration of martial law and said
that the orders from Rome would be strictly carried out.’
This did not prevent the fascists from occupying the pre¬
fecture on the 29th without meeting the slightest resistance.

In Rome during the night of the 27th troops were posted
at all strategic points, with barbed wire entanglements,
chevaux de frise and armoured cars. The two principal
railway lines connecting Rome with the north were cut,
and yards of rail torn up. The Royal Guard occupied the
headquarters of the fascio after negotiations with the fascists,
who left by agreement. ‘The fascist officials,’ said the
correspondent o£ the Corriere della Sera, ‘ went away taking
their documents with them and installed themselves in a
restaurant in the Piazza Barberini j consequently nothing
came of the search made at their headquarters. ’ However,
20

3 o 6 the rise of Italian fascism

during the morning of the 28th the fascists kept very much
in the background, and it was not until early in the after¬
noon, when it became known that the king had not signed
the decree enforcing martial law, that fascists and nationalists
appeared in the streets, though they contented themselves
with a demonstration in honour of the king.

In the south of Italy the fascist mobilization was slow ;
the fascist squads did not leave Naples after the Congress
until October 29, and concentrated at Foggia. There they
occupied the prefecture and a barracks. In Apulia they
seized various public buildings without meeting any
resistance.

The proclamation of martial law ought to have brought
the authorities down on the mobilized fascists who were
attacking public buildings, stations and barracks. The
fascist plan of mobilization and occupation should have
been countered by measures for the restoration of public
order. This was done nowhere save in Rome, Turin, and
partially in Milan. The military authorities sat waiting
for instructions, as if they were not automatically obliged
to take the necessary steps against rebellion.^ Nearly every¬
where, on the contrary, a compromise was arranged, as a
result of which the fascists did not occupy military head¬
quarters, nor, with a few exceptions, attack barracks.
Everyone waited on events in Rome, as if such inaction
made no difference. Up till noon on the 28th the govern¬
ment in Rome could still have saved the situation, for the
army was intact and the fascists could not have stood up
against a serious attack. The rapid development of the
crisis and the king’s appeal to Mussolini on the morning of
the 29th, which was practically common knowledge by the
afternoon, created an optimistic atmosphere which made any
serious clash between the army and the fascists impossible. ^

^ 1 Apppently there was only one exception. ‘ In Casale/ says Ghiurco,
the fascist leaders went, on the morning of the 27th, to the colonel com¬
manding the 1st artillery regiment to inform him of the situation and suggest
that he should at least remain neutral in the conflict. The colonel said nothing,
but- drew his revolver and fired at the handful of fascists, luckily without
hurting anyone. He then hurried into the street to return to his barracks,
where he shut himself up to prepare for defence.’

^ Apart from Cremona the only serious resistance was put up by the
carabinieri in three small places, who defended their barracks against the
ascists. Three fascists were killed in San Giovanni in Groce (Cremona),

THE MARCH ON ROME goy

Owing to Mussolini’s influence the fascist leaders in general
scrupulously carried out instructions concerning relations
with military authorities. ^ In their proclamations they took
the utmost care not to offend the army’s loyalty to the
crown. These all ended with ‘ Long live Italy ! Long hve
the king ! and were couched in the most reassuring terms.
For example the fascist governors of Umbria announced,
when installing themselves in the provincial government
building at Perugia : ‘ Our occupation affects nothing except
the government and the spirit of the government
for Italy, for the King, for Fascism ! ’ The appeal issued
from Foggia to ‘ the Italians of Apulia, Calabria and Basili¬
cata , assured them that we do not want to overthrow
the regime, nor in any way upset the established order.
We only want to give the Nation a government worthy of
its superb vigour ’. The fascist executive committee of
Reggio Emilia explained : ‘ The fascists are not acting
against the existing constitution nor against the king. His
Majesty Victor-Emmanuel III of Savoy. We only want him
to be truly king of Italy and to govern by getting rid of
his present half-witted collection of ministers.’ The fascists
of Verona addressed the army direct : ‘ Officers and men,
our brothers. Our hearts beat as one. We have a common
passion, Italy ! We have defended her in war and in peace
and we want to save her to-day from those who, but for us,
would have left the monarchy defenceless and sacrificed
the King. Listen to the voice of your hearts, which is the
true voice of the country. It bids you open your arms to
us. Flere are we, brothers. Long live Italy ! ’

The proclamations of the fascist supreme command were
in the same vein. The Quadrumvirate published one on
the 27th in Perugia, which had been drawn up by Mussolini
in the^ middle of October. In its original form, after an¬
nouncing the delegation of authority to the secret Quad¬
rumvirate of action with dictatorial powers ’, it went on
to say :

two Mled and two wounded in San Ruffillo (Bologna), one kiUed and eight
wounded in Fiorenzuola d’Arda (Piacenza). The total fascist losses in fights
with the state forces between October 27 and 29 were thirteen dead (six in the
attacks on the carakmeri barracks) and forty-seven wounded, of whom four
died ; the rest for the most part only had slight wounds or mere bruises.

Jr. 200, n, 3.

3 o 8 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 inconipetents
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.’^

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 foil ow ing
terms : ‘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.’ In
addition, the passage intended to reassure the workers was
preceded by another, far more eloquent, to reassure the
bourgeoisie : ‘ The producing classes of the bourgeoisie must
realize that fascism desires to impose a single discipHne on
the nation and to help all the forces capable of augmenting
its economic expansion and well-being.’ On October 29,
at the very ptes of Rome, the ofl&cer commanding the forces
assembled in Tivoli made an announcement that the sole
aim of the march was ‘ to give the nation a strong and
wise government’.

The Quadrumvirate at its headquarters in Perugia was in
reality exercising none of those ‘ military, poHtical and

. ^ MussolinFs handwriting, of this first version is reproduced

m Chiurco, V, pp. 22-25.

THE MARCH ON ROME

309

administrative powers of the party executive ’ which were
supposed to have passed into its hands. The mobilization,
as arranged in Naples, took place in the different parts of
Italy, but without the Quadrumvirate being able to follow
its fortunes and its growth. In northern Italy the fascist
leaders- kept in touch with Milan and occasionally with
Mussolini himself The fascist deputy Torre brought
Mussolini’s instructions from Milan to Alessandria and kept
in touch with him during the days that followed. The
Quadrumvirate only intervened once during the mobiliza¬
tion : Balbo was sent to Florence on the afternoon of the
27th, because the fascists in Pisa had begun too soon, and in
Florence as well the squads had ‘ given the alarm to the
military authorities by going into action too soon. The
same evening Balbo was back in Perugia and from that
moment the Quadrumvirate ceased to have any direct
connection with the mobilization, and was therefore in¬
capable of controlling the movements of the columns
assembled for the march on Rome which it was supposed
to be directing. It had already had some difficulty in meet¬
ing at all. On the very morning of the 27th Bianchi, who
was in Rome, after looking everywhere for De Vecchi and
failing to find him, left a letter at his hotel at 9 a.m., saying,

‘ I leave for Perugia in a few hours’ time. From now on
there can be no retreat. The latest events favour our
plan. 2 We must see things through to the end. You must
do your utmost to get to Perugia to-morrow morning.
Enormous responsibility rests on the Quadrumvirate and it
is essential that we should be in full agreement so as to avoid
a fatal confusion of orders and counter-orders.’ This letter
shows that a few hours before the morning of the 28th when,
according to the Naples programme, the three columns were
to leave simultaneously for Rome, two of the Quadrumvirs
had not even managed to get into touch with each
other. It shows too that as yet their political views were
quite divergent. De Vecchi was trying for a compromise
with Salandra, and went on trying until the morning of the

1 Pp. 303-304.

_ Bianchi was alluding to the decision, made by ministers the day before,
to place their portfolios at the premier’s disposal.

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

310

29th ; while Bianchi, Balbo and De Bono wanted a Musso¬
lini government.^ It so happened that the four members
of the Quadrumvirate represented severally the forces which
had contributed most to the growth of fascism. The pre¬
war ‘ interventionist ’ syndicalists, the remains, now older
and wiser, of the Fasci d'azione rivoluziomria were represented
by Michele Bianchi, party secretary and politically the
closest to Mussolini ; the old conservative and monarchist
classes by De Vecchi, himself a great landowner ; the new
elements, ex-servicemen, the natural products of the war,
by the squadrista, Italo Balbo ; the regular army, represent¬
ing virtually the tolerance and complicity of the state, by
General Emilio De Bono. But as Mussolini was not there
to hold together the divergent tendencies, its unity was
impaired and the importance of its role diminished.

De Vecchi finally appeared in Perugia on the morning
of the 28th, only to leave almost at once.^ Italo Balbo
describes how the Quadrumvirs used on the 28th the full
powers with which they had been invested :

‘ De Vecchi described the situation in the capital. It
is still uncertain and chaotic. Some say that martial law
has been declared, others contradict it. Such information
as he was able to get before leaving for Perugia confirms
it. . . . De Vecchi went straight back to Rome. From
this moment we in Perugia are in utter ignorance of the
government’s intentions. The news which arrives from
time to time is mostly bad. The government is apparently
making intensive preparations against us. We are badly
in need of reliable information. At any moment we may
find ourselves quite out of touch. Our plan of action is
also dependent on the government’s attitude and the
measures it takes. . . . There is a good deal of appre¬
hension at headquarters. We know that even the day
before the fascist leaders had not made up their minds
to act. Some thought it too soon, others would have
preferred a parhamentary solution. The rumours that
continue to arrive in Perugia, becoming more definite

1 At the last minute the Quadrumvirate had co-opted, as their chief of
statt, Otrandi, who favoured compromise.

2 P. 394.

THE MARCH ON ROME

3II

towards the everxing, seem certaiu of a cabinet in which

Mussolini will not be premier and in which the fascists

are to be oddly mixed up with people of every kind of

political complexion.’

Very worried, Balbo went off to Rome. But first he signed,
as De Bono and Bianchi had already done (De Vecchi at
this moment was not in Perugia) a curious document to
the effect that : ‘ The undersigned members of the supreme
fascist Quadrumvirate, invested with full political and
military powers, have decided, now the fascist forces are
mobilized, that the only acceptable solution is a Mussolini
cabinet.’ Was this meant to be a kind of precautionary
guarantee taken by three of the Quadrumvirate against a
last minute surprise coalition ? Against whom was it
directed : the fourth Quadrumvir, De Vecchi Grandi
and Giano ; or Mussolini himself? In any case the docu¬
ment is of purely academic interest, for the Quadrumvirate
never had the slightest opportunity of affecting the outcome
of the crisis. All the negotiations took place between the
king, the right-wing parties (Salandra and the nationalists),
Mussolini who remained in Milan, and a group of fascist
leaders, who remained in Rome (De Vecchi, Giano, Grandi).
And directly the king’s A.D.C. telegraphed to Mussolini,
on the morning of the 29th, the invitation to come to Rome
to form the cabinet, Mussolini prepared his list, took it with
him to Rome, and altered it at the last minute, without
once consulting the Quadrumvirate, who were still officially
in possession of ‘ full powers ’.

Luckily the situation in Rome took the most favourable
turn for the fascist designs when martial law was revoked. 2
General De Bono, who published his journal of the campaign
in a fascist review^ a short while ago, quotes for October 8,
1922 :

, j During the few hours he spent in Perugia, before going back to Rome to
loilow the discussions, De Vecchi is said to have had a fairly violent quarrel
with Bianchi on the subject of the monarchy.

^ Balbo, who left for Rome on the evening of the 28th, was not at all clear
as to what was going on : ‘ Is martial law in force, or is it not ? ’ he asked in
his Diary. ‘ It was announced and then revoked, but the military preparations
which are being carried out at the Rome Divisional Command prove that in
practice it is in force.' For even after the revocation the military authorities
were still in charge.

® The Ottohre xGvitvsT for October 28, 1930.

312 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

‘ The Quadrumvirate is almost entirely cut off from the
actions that are taking place in the provinces.

‘ We are fairly well in contact with the columns march¬
ing on Rome.^

‘ Zamboni^ sends me word from Foligno that he has
mustered about 3000 men, of whom rather more than
300 are armed. Rifles have got to be found for them.

‘ Bianchi is trying in vain to telephone to Milan and
Rome.®

‘All telegrams are sent up to us from the telegraph
office, and at about 10 a rather discouraging one arrives :
martial law is proclaimed and orders given to arrest all
leaders of the movement, wherever and whoever they
may be.

‘12.45, 3. cipher telegram arrives ordering that no
account is to be taken of the telegram proclaiming martial
law.

‘ Michelino (Bianchi) and I embrace each other.^

‘21.30 Much coming and going at the Hotel Brufani,
crowds staring, cameramen appear. The whole drama
is beginning to look like a play with a happy ending.’

Next day the Quadrumvirate did not trouble to carry
out its plan of seizing the arms factory at Terni, and shifting
its headquarters south to Narni, so as to be near Rome.
Thus the supreme command ’ of the Quadrumvirate came
to an end without having commanded anything.

As for the march on Rome, we have seen that, contrary
to the original plan, the forces to be used were reduced.
The fascist columns were to be concentrated in three places,
distributed as shown on the adjoining plan.

According to the Naples plan, ‘ On the morning of the

_ 1 We shall see that they were in contact, rather ineffectively, at the besin-
28th, but later on hardly at all.

- The general commanding the ‘ reserves ’ concentrated in Foligno.

to Rome during the night. Thanks to Facta,

VecddTo ®

p' of the withdrawal of martial law all the fascist leaders were
overjoyed. In Perugia the fascut deputy Pighetti ‘ beamed withj'oy ’ (p. 301)
^d m Rome, according to Chiurco, ‘Ciano, De Vecchi and Grandi wept

TTTl “WS that the king had refused to give his

consent . Clearly they all felt that they were at last safe.

I. Headquarters of Quadrumvirate.

II. Perrone column, with general Ceccherini.

III. Igliori column, with general Fara.

IV. Bo ttai column.

V. Reserves, with general Zamboni.

314 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

28th, simultaneous departure of the three columns for the
capital By following the adventures of each of these three
columns it may be seen that this part of the plan was not
carried out at all.

The Marquis Dino Perrone Compagni, who commanded
the second column, arrived at Civitavecchia just before
midday on October 28, and found the fascist squads of the
provinces of Pisa, Lucca, Leghorn and Tuscan Maremma
already in Santa Marinella. No preparations for billeting
them in this tiny place had been made, and it was pouring
with rain. The Carrara squads had been delayed by
difficulties met with chiefly during the occupation of Massa.
They had to be waited for, and did not appear until the
next day, the Qgth. Moreover, no trains could go on to
Rome, because, on orders from the capital, the regular
troops had torn up yards of rail.

At the Monterotondo-Mentana rallying point (III) about
2000 men arrived during the night of the 27th from upper
Latium, ‘ in every sort of conveyance, lorries, antediluvian
motor cars, bicycles, carts of every description, and some on
foot’. But the forces from the north were held up at
Orte, on the Florence-Rome main line, where the line had
been torn up by the troops. One train, bringing three
thousand men from Siena, by going back and using another
line, managed to get to Monterotondo towards noon. In
addition five hundred men arrived from Orvieto during the
course of the day, three hundred from Sabina, and the first
Florentine legion with two thousand men. Lieutenant
Igliori, seeing his little army beginning to grow, cast about
for food a,nd lodging ’. On the evening of the 28th Italo
Balbo ai rived from Rome, where he had gone to find out
what was going on, and was back on his way to Perugia.
Igliori told him that he had not yet had any news from
headquarters, and that the continual arrival of new forces
was^ making his position impossible ’. But they had to wait
until the railway line was repaired, so that the contingents
coming from Tuscany and Bologna could leave Orte and
get to Monterotondo.

^000 Ji^en under Giuseppe Bottai
at the Tivoh and Valmontone meeting place (IV) comprising

THE MARCH ON ROME

315

the militia of the Abruzzi and ^he Sabines was completed in
the morning of the 28th. But he was faced with the same
problem. ' There was a shortage of food/ for the train
' with the provisions collected by the Intendant-General to
feed the revolutionary army could not get through because
of the break in the line.’

A reasonably accurate reply can thus be given to the
question asked by Salvemini^ on the number of fascists ready
to pit themselves against the regular army on the morning
of October 28. There were about 4000 at Civitavecchia
and Santa Marinella under Perrone, some thirty-eight miles
from Rome, and without rail transport; 2000 at Monte-
rotondo under Igliori (for the Siena legionaries did not
arrive until noon), nineteen miles north of Rome ; and about
8000 men at Tivoli under Bottai, fifteen miles east of Rome.
Altogether 14,000 men, armed with rifles, muskets, revolvers,
daggers and some only with bludgeons, with almost no
machine guns and not a single heavy gun,^ against whom
the government could have brought 12,000 men of the Rome
garrison equipped with all the resources of modern offensive
and defensive warfare. A few tanks and aeroplanes could
easily have scattered these troops, who were without proper
arms, without food, and, in spite of the heavy showers with
which they were continuously drenched, without water ;
quite apart from the fact that the columns were almost
entirely out of touch with each other and with the head¬
quarters in Perugia.

The Foligno reserves were a long way away, and according
to De Bono only 300 of their 3000 were armed. ^ A raid on
Spoleto enabled general Zamboni, who commanded them,
to supply them with rifles, but the column did not get

^ In the study, already quoted (p. 289).

® The Spanish journalist, Rafael Sanchez Mazas, correspondent of the
Madrid described the equipment of these troops as follows : ‘ There

was an infinite variety of equipment and uniforms. , . . They carried rifles,
muskets, sticks, whips, clubs, shot-guns and carbines. . . . In their belts they
wore daggers, pistols, sickles and other agricultural implements.^ The
evidence from widely differing sources is in agreement about this.

® In his Diary, on the 28th, Balbo speaks of 5000. The Quadrumvirate did
not even agree on the number of effective forces near Perugia with whom they
were able to keep in touch. Balbo at least realized that the reserve forces were
inadequate, particularly as they ‘ might play a decisive part in the revolution h

3 i 6 the rise of Italian fascism

back to Foligno after this adventure until 7 o’clock on the
morning of the 29th.

On Sunday the 29th the Perrone column was still in the
same plight. The legion from Carrara had arrived, it is
true, but this merely increased the difficulties attending the
concentration. At 9 in the evening Perrone despatched a
squadrista on a motor bicycle with the following message to
the supreme command :

" Up till now 6143 blackshirts have arrived at Santa
Marinella, of whom 2413 are in Santa Marinella and
3730 in Civitavecchia (station). Our forces are divided,
because no more shelter can be found in Santa Marinella
in this frightful weather.

' Meeds —we are short of water, food and money. ^
Liaison —it is impossible to keep in touch with the
supreme command. It took nine hours to get from
Perugia to here going at top speed in a Fiat 510. I am
asking for an immediate connection through Rome, which
would ensure us quicker communications with head¬
quarters. At present no order, however urgent, can reach
us in less than nine or ten hours.’

All day long on the 29th more troops kept arriving in
Monterotondo, for the railway line, broken near Orte, had
been repaired. There were 2000 men from Arezzo and
Valdarno, 3000 from the second Florentine legion, 500 from
Bologna, making a total of available forces of 13,000 men.
During the afternoon there arrived General Fara,^ who was
to command part of the militia, and De Vecchi, on his way
back to Perugia. De Vecchi promised to send orders, but

^ Igliori, commanding the third column, complained, too : ‘ Not a brass
farthing to hire cars and send out orders for the meeting.’ (Ghiurco, V, p. 175.)
All the same, from the contribution of the Freemasons and the Bankers’
Association alone, the sum set aside for the march on Rome amounted to some
24 millions. Other substantial subsidies had been provided by the Agrarian
Confederation, by the National Syndicate of Co-operatives, by other associa¬
tions and by private individuals. The fascist leaders in fact had several tens
of millions, of which only a veiy small fraction was used for the march. The
intendants of the march, Civelli and Postiglione, only played a secondary
part; the real treasurer was Giovanni Marinelli, administrative secretary of
the National Fascist Party, who, by arrangement with Mussolini, was keeping
the money in reserve in case of a reverse.

2 Six generals took part in the march on Rome : De Bono, Fara, Geccherini,
Zamboni, Novell! and Tilby.

THE MARCH ON ROME

317

when by 8 p.m. nothing had arrived, Igliori decided to
organize the departure for Rome the next morning. The
rain and the lack of food were getting on the nerves of the
legionaries and their leaders, and forcing them to close in
on the capital. Igliori sent a letter to Bottai in Tivoli to
explain that ' in view of the impossibility of remaining in
Monterotondo he was leaving for Rome, and to ask him
to do the same.

That evening at about 10.30 Bottai, who was in command
of the Tivoli concentration, sent the following reply to
Igliori’s invitation :

‘ I must point out to you that your decision may seriously
affect the outcome of the political conversations now in
progress, which are leading up to a complete victory for
us. Our deputies. Grand! and Ciano, were here to-day,
and they emphazised this danger and the necessity of
obeying orders. Mussolini will be in Rome this evening,^
and he it is who must tell us the exact moment to enter.
I am in touch with Rome all the time.’

After saying that he too intended to go as near Rome as
the Ponte Mammolo, Bottai continued, ‘ I advise you to do
the same ; in this way we can get nearer Rome, while
awaiting the orders that will certainly be given us by
Mussolini as head of the government.’ Thus on the evening
of the 29th, the Perrone column had no intention of marching,
the Igliori column only wanted to leave because it was so
horribly uncomfortable at Monterotondo, and the Bottai
column was waiting for Mussolini to open the gates of Rome
in his capacity of head of the government.

On Monday the 30th Mussolini went by train to Civita¬
vecchia on his way to Rome. At the Santa Marinella junction
he wanted to talk with the leaders of the fascist columns.
Neither Perrone nor General Ceccherini, who had arrived
during the night, were there. However, he met Renato
Ricci, leader of the blackshirts from Carrara, and asked him
for news of the men who were bivouacking in Santa Marin-

1 Mussolini Had, in fact, decided to leave Milan on the 28th early in the
afternoon ; but he then postponed his departure (p. 462).

3 i 8 the rise of Italian fascism

ella. ^ When he learnt/ relates a representative of the
Stampa^ who was travelling with him, ^ that these men,
about 3000 in number, had neither tents nor lodging, he
ordered that they should be moved to Civitavecchia so that
they could have food and shelter.’ The marquis Perrone
was busy holding a review of his militia in honour of general
Ceccherini, ‘ one of the very gallant generals, as he says in
his Journal^ beloved by the army, whom Mussolini wanted
to accompany the fascist troops in uniform, so as to avoid,
as far as possible, any clash with the troops.’

A superfluous precaution, for Mussolini arrived in Rome
before the fascist columns, and they did not begin their
march until he gave them their orders, after becoming head
of the government. The Perrone column received the order
on the evening of the 30th and arranged to depart the next
morning, after instructions had been given for billeting the
legionaries in schools in Rome. On the morning of the
30th two trains took the Igliori columns from Monterotondo
to the bridge of the Via Salaria. It was pouring with rain.
Igliori ought to have waited there for orders, but, as he
himself put it, ‘ there was not a single house in the neigh¬
bourhood to shelter our men, who were soaked to the skin
and had eaten nothing since the day before ’. He was
‘ extremely worried at having to keep a column in such bad
conditions at the gates of Rome ’, and so he went off to
find shelter in the outskirts. The column arrived near the
city towards midday and put up in the railwaymen’s garden
city near Villa Savoia. Chiurco, who was in command of
the Siena legion, has preserved the telegram he sent his
friends as soon as he could get out of the deluge which had
driven them all into the city : ‘ Fascist command, Siena.
Arrived victoriously among the first, machine guns to the
fore; all goes well.’ The other column commander,
General Fara, had gone ahead in his motor car to within
a hundred yards of the garden city. ^ The general was
nearing the bridge when a cavalry colonel presented himself
and informed him that the order had been given to remove
all troops defending the bridges. On behalf of the army
corps commander the colonel placed himself entirely at
General Fara’s disposal, and announced that His Excellency

THE MARCH ON ROME

319

Mussolini had been sent for by the king.’^ The Bottai
column left Tivoli Mn a terrific deluge ’ on the morning
of October 31 ; it went by special train to Tor Sapienza and
then marched to the quarters that had been specially pre¬
pared in the town. The Foligno ^ reserves ’ also left on the
morning of the 30th : ' ten trains in succession brought
them to Rome for the great adunata ’ which took place on
the afternoon of the 31st.

Why did Mussolini, who had done his utmost to prevent the
fascist columns from converging on Rome, now want them to
enter the gates of the city on foot ? Because now that he had
formed his government it was absolutely essential to produce
something resembling a ‘ march on Rome b The advantage
of coming to power in a haze of heroism and violence was
that it gave him an excuse for an eventual repudiation of
time-honoured procedure and combinations. Dangerous
and useless as a means for acquiring power, the march ’
became a precious means of consolidating the power already
won. It gave satisfaction to thousands of squadristP who had
been rotting in the rain for three days, giving them the
feeling, confirmed by their march through the streets of
Rome, that they had won a grand victory, while at the
same time it showed the old parties and politicians that
Mussolini now had the joint forces of the state and of the
Fascist Party at his disposal. Powerless against the state, if
it had made the slightest attempt to defend itself, fascism
became supreme as a ^ state party and by creating the
‘ party state ’ that Mussolini and the other leaders had
aimed at.

When he received the king’s invitation at Milan, Musso¬
lini, instead of leaving at once, preferred to keep Rome

^ This is how the ‘ Bulletin N.4.’, published by the local fascist leaders in
Ferrara, described this event: ‘ The three fascist columns commanded by
Generals Ceccherini, Fara and De Bono have reached the gates of the capital.
A cavalry regiment which was to have opposed the advance of General Fara’s
column has enthusiastically put itself under the general’s orders.’

2 The total numbers of the columns converging on Rome amounted to
about 37,000 men, of whom 6000 were from Civitavecchia and Santa Marinella,
13,300 from Monterotondo-Mentana, 8000 from Tivoli, 4000 from Valmon-
tone, and 5000 from Foligno. But the number of blackshirts who marched
through the streets of Rome during the afternoon of October 31 was much
greater; the current of success swept along towards Rome new contingents
from near and far, increasing hour by hour.

320 'THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

waiting for a few hours, so as to make himself more valuable
and the better to prepare his cabinet. He had a long tele¬
phone conversation with the deputy Acerbo, to whom he
entrusted various missions in Rome and confided his plan
of forming a broad bottomed administration, including
even certain members of the General Confederation of
Labour. He made a short speech to those who came to
cheer him off in the evening at the Milan station : ‘ If I
have the chance of taking power, I can tell you that hence¬
forward the Italian State is going to exist to the fullest
extent of its powers.’ In the train he declared that he would
come before the king, ‘ in a black shirt, as a fascist ’, and
that he would give no demobilization order until he had
formed his cabinet. The list he had ready contained the
names of the economist Einaudi and the deputy Baldesi, one
of the leaders of the General Confederation of Labour, whom
Acerbo had asked on Mussolini’s behalf and who had
accepted. But neither Einaudi nor Baldesi, nor any other
leader of the Confederation, were to appear in the Mussolini
ministry, for the leaders of the right, disappointed by the
failure of their manoeuvre, had vetoed it. Mussolini kept
for himself from the first the premiership, the Ministry of
the Interior and—his ambition at last achieved—the Foreign
Office. The cabinet included representatives of all parties,
except socialists and communists. The fascists had five
ministries, the Popolari two, the various kinds of liberal
democrats had three, the conservatives one and the national¬
ists one. The fascists had nine under-secretaryships, the
Popolari four, the liberal democrats two, the conservatives
one, and the nationalists two.

The share of the right-wing parties in the new administra¬
tion was strictly limited, but there were compensating
advantages; the socialist movement and the workers’
organizations had been put out of action, parliament was
curbed, the inquiry into war expenses was suspended, the
fiscal measures dealing with excess profits and the registra¬
tion of securities were quashed. Above all there was no
longer any opposition to the foreign policy that the national¬
ists had always advocated. A few weeks after the march,
Alfredo Rocco, under-secretary of state, called this to miurl

THE MARCH ON ROME

321

in a speech ; ‘ We await with confidence the imperial Italy
which is to come.’

The population everywhere stood by, surprised but
passive, while these decisive events were taking place.
There were a few incidents here and there, such as took
place .every Sunday in Italian towns and countryside.
Barricades were set up in Parma ; in Rome shots were fired
in the suburb of San Lorenzo, through which the black¬
shirts of the Bottai column passed on their way to the centre
of the town. That was all. The fascist squads, on the other
hand, took advantage of their mobilization in almost every
district to occupy newspaper offices, set fire to Chambers of
Labour, ransack private apartments and turn out such
socialist councils as had survived previous offensives.

The so-called leaders of the working class lost no oppor¬
tunity of showing their incapacity, right up to the last
moment. The communists, although persuaded ‘ that no
defence is possible against such overwhelmingly powerful
forces ’,1 suggested that the Alliance of Labour should be
immediately reconstructed and a general strike proclaimed.
They were quite aware that nothing could come of this,
but their own reaction to the tragic events which had sealed
the fate of the Italian people was to suggest this feeble
manoeuvre, which would give them a chance to do nothing
and cry ‘ treason ’ at the General Confederation of Labour.
The leaders of the Confederation very properly denounced
this as a piece of communist provocativeness, but did so in
a statement which contained this shameful passage : ‘ The
General Confederation of Labour feels that it is its duty
when political passions are running high and forces alien
to the workers’ syndicates are disputing the power of the
state, to warn the workers against the speculations and incite¬
ments of political parties and groups which would drag the
proletariat into a struggle in which it must take absolutely
no part.’

Most of the anti-fascists did not realize how serious
things were. People’s nerves had been on edge for too
long and the first impression was of relief and resignation.
They mostly thought: ‘ On the whole, things are better
^ Rassegna cmmunista, 31 October, 1932, p. 1454.

21

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

322

SO. They^ cannot last two months.’ In Montecitorio a group
of deputies were speculating about the future. Amendola
was optimistic : ‘ There is nothing to be frightened of.
Mussolini too will get caught in the constitutional toils, and
finally we shall have a government.’ A socialist deputy
replied : ‘ That is an illusion ; the fun is only just beginning
and you will be eliminated in your turn.’

Mussolini had as yet no very clear idea of what he was going
to do, but behind him he felt the irresistible and intoxicating
impulse of his success. He had reached power and he meant
to keep it.

At the exhibition of modern Italian art in Paris in the
summer of 1935, there was a large picture showing Mussolini
on horseback at the head of the legions marching into
Rome, Mussolini plunging into the heat of battle like Bona¬
parte at the bridge of Arcole. As an antidote to this outrage
against art and truth, there was fortunately a few hundred
yards away an exhibition of classical Italian art from
Cimabue to Tiepolo. But where can the Italian people turn
for forgetfulness or a new mode of life, when realization
comes of the loss suffered by themselves and humaiuty when
they allowed Mussolini to ride to power in a wagon-lit on
October 31, 1922, a day before the March on Rome, ‘ which
never took place ’.

EPILOGUE

I

W HEN the post-war crisis began, Italian national
unity had been established for barely fifty years,
and the part played by the masses in winning
it had been small. After 1870 the old oligarchies had
only one aim in view : to suppress the fourth estate and
deprive it of every means to direct action and power.
On this point the conflicting forces of Vatican and monarchy
were agreed. There were no democratic or revolutionary
traditions, and the parliamentary system had remained an
artificial improvisation grafted on to the life of the nation,
whose growth had not been helped by the corrupt methods
of Giolitti’s reformism. The only really democratic force
was the working-class and socialist movement, but this
was handicapped by its narrow outlook and concentration
on municipal affairs. Nevertheless the people—^workers,
artisans and peasants—^with the traditions of their own
independent institutions, were slowly making their weight
felt in the state, when their progress was interrupted by the
war. This was begun and carried on in Italy as a civil
war, and coincided with a grave crisis in the ruling classes.
The war was followed by depression and disorder : economic
crisis in the country, which was exhausted and dislocated
by the effort of victory ; moral crisis among the people who,
‘ while being and feeling victorious, were suffering the
humiliation and crisis of the vanquished
Within these wider causes there were other factors which
helped to alter the course and the outcome of Italy’s
post-war history : the failure of the socialist movement ;
the reactionaries’ and particularly the landowners’ offensive
in the form of military action and territorial conquest ;
the economic crisis of 1921 ; the help and complicity of the

■ 323

THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

324

State and its dependent bodies ; the discrediting of Parlia¬
ment ; the part played by Mussolini.

Most important were the socialist feebleness and mistakes,
which were the direct cause, not of fascism itself, -which
appeared in every country after the war, but of its success
in Italy. This becomes evident if one follows from day to
day, as we have done, the policy of all the proletarian
parties—socialist, maximalist, communist—in the years
1919-1922. It is helpful, though, to look still further into
some of their failures and mistakes.

In so doing we may lay ourselves open to a charge of
injustice towards the Italian working-class and socialist
movement. But this is not the history of that movement,
nor the biography of some of its leaders (Matteotti, Turati,
Treves, to mention only those who are dead), whose moral
greatness was sometimes actually a cause of political
inferiority. Nor is this the valley of Jehoshaphat, where
faults and merits are meticulously scrutinized. . . . We are
combatants who accept, as they come, the tasks imposed
on us by the time in which we live. It is our object to record
the causes of a catastrophe where results have been grave in
the extreme and will take long to repair. But we can only
bear the responsibility for the past by a firm determination
to avoid, so far as it is within our power, a recurrence of
the same mistakes and the same disasters. Only candid and
ruthless self-examination can give us the right to draw
publicly the conclusions from our experience, and can trans¬
form our suffering into a message for others.

The fundamental weakness of Italian socialism in every
sphere was due to its lack of true revolutionary spirit. This
spirit is ckawn by two allegiances : the refusal to accept
the injustice, disorder and meanness of existing society, and
the will to arrive at a new economic regime, new institutions,
arising out of new relationships between men. Condemna¬
tion of the present must be enlightened, strengthened and
justified by afiirmation of the future. Only in this sense is
there any truth in Bakunin’s saying, ‘ the passion for
destruction is a creative passion ’. But it has been truly

EPILOGUE

325

said of Italy that ' hatred of everything old deadened even
the desire for a new order and that is why this hatred was
so impotent.

For a class to be really revolutionary it must, says Marx,

‘ first be aware that it is not a particular class, but the
representative of the general needs of society Italian
socialism lacked this leaven, which alone could have raised
it to victory. With a middle class crippled, clinging to its
class point of view in the midst of the great upheaval which
had intensified its egoism and its greed, the socialist move¬
ment had a great part to play. If it had been strong enough
to remain faithful to it, it might have saved the Italian
people.

Instead it shirked its task. It lurked in the background
all through the post-war crisis. This desertion is the sole
explanation of the fascist success. Society, even more than
nature, abhors a vacuum, and the forces of barbarism are
ever ready to rush in and fill it.

The Italian socialists waited for the middle class to die
off naturally, without considering whether its death struggle,
as they assumed it to be, if unduly prolonged, might not
generate seeds of decay which would infect the whole nation,
the socialist movement included. They behaved like the
sole heir to an estate who prefers not to turn up till the last
minute, just before the will is read. While they waited they
confined their activities to ^ separating their own respon¬
sibilities from those of the ruling classes b This separation
was, up to a point, justified and even necessary. But respon¬
sibility for evil committed is always shared by those who
have failed to prevent it; and we have no right to connive
at others’ actions unless we are prepared to step in at the
right moment and succeed where they have failed. It is
all the easier to separate our own responsibilities from those
of the ruling classes if we are able and willing to shoulder
our own responsibilities on behalf of an entire nation. If
not, it is quite simple to avoid ‘ legal ’ responsibilities by
pleading a kind of alibi, the last resOrt of all scoundrels.

Nothing like a alleybi ’ was the advice given by Sam
Weller’s father to Pickwick.) In so doing we incur a much
heavier responsibility to history, whose judgments go

326 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

much deeper than any legal code. Useless, then, ‘ to say
' We were not there.’ The masses, who have lost all, will
want to know why not.

The policy of the Italian communists and maximalists
was to let things get as bad as possible. A policy which
depends on aggravating a situation the better to control
and direct it is justifiable so long as one is ready and willing
to intervene at the right moment and restore order in the
chaos that follows. Such tactics, which must be employed
with the utmost precision, become too easily a game of
chance, depending as they do on the blindest and least
reversible of forces.^

The Italian maximalists and communists had no idea of
tactics : theirs was a state of mind that combined demagogy
with inactivity and was quite devoid of the prophetic passion
which calls down evil in order that virtue may triumph
more brilliantly, and of the creative spirit which is capable
of bringing about a vigorous transition from lowest to highest.

Such failings always imply a lack of humanity : the
syndicate, section, party or class remains hidebound by its
own limitations, and instead of regarding them as such,
ends by making a fetish of them and loses that power of
transcending them, which is the supreme necessity and spirit
of socialism. This was the sole cause of the hiatus between
the labour organizations, political and syndical, and the
mass of the people.

Many of the socialist leaders thought that the vague
popular movement which followed the armistice was just
a ‘ war psychosis ’. This was doubtless true, but it was not
the whole truth. Those who fought in the war came in
contact with the ‘ system ’ and were swept up and con¬
trolled by it for four years. The war had torn them abruptly
from their parish pump outlook and given them a stormy

^ The revolutionary defeatism of the bolsheviks in 1917 had an instantly
paralysing* effect on the October revolution. For not only did Kerensky find
It impossible to carry through the offensive measures demanded by the Allies,
but L^m too was unable to pass from defeatism to revolutionary war ;
hence Brest Litovsk. To-day it may be argued that this worked well, as the
central powers were forced to quit the Baltic countries and the Ukraine, and
ooviet Russia was saved in spite of all. But this resulted not from the military
paralysis 01 the revolution at the beginning of 1918, but in spite of it, and from
a combination of quite unexpected circumstances.

EPILOGUE

327

introduction to real politics. A whole generation was united
in a common experience of an extraordinary nature. After¬
wards the mass of ex-servicemen everywhere felt that they
were on the threshold of a new life. They revolved vague,
half-formulated ideas which led them to seek contact with
each other and to feel conscious of the need to fight for their
common salvation. As was to be expected after the shock
and the bloodshed, their reactions were not always normal.
But there was a real feeling that ^ we must not be taken in
again a feeling which ought to have been directed towards
definite ends. Instead all that was noble and potentially
humane in this emotional upheaval remained inarticulate,
ignored, until finally it was exploited only to rescue from the
past what had better been left there.

The socialist movement failed to realize how the war
had thrown the great unorganized masses into the fore¬
ground. A movement on such a scale was beyond the old
syndicate or party standard. The soldier back from the
front found a society at once too unstable and too orderly
for his liking. The revolution itself was too orderly—party
card, syndicate subscription, membership of the co-operative,
difficulties he could not get over, faced as he was by mistrust
or tolerance, both equally insufferable. The Italian socialist
leaders could no more understand the ex-servicemen of 1919-
1920 than the German syndicates understood the unem¬
ployed of 1929-1932. Even Turati, so humane and so
enlightened, felt that his chicks had turned into birds of
prey. His socialism was a matter of conscience and educa¬
tion. In this he was right, but the time had come for the
pedagogues, however noble, to give way to the prophets and
missionaries. The sheltered flock in the party and the
syndicates ought to have been neglected a little in favour
of the lost sheep wandering in their thousands over waste
land, so that they too could be saved.

Owing to the immense success of their co-operatives.
Chambers of Labour, and town councils, the socialists of
the Po valley believed they were simply going to absorb the
old regime. Every day new institutions were growing up
which to some extent foreshowed a society freed from the
obsession of profit. But in legitimate pride in the results

328 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

obtained they lost sight of their limitations, and socialism
by remaining local and provincial became the victim of its
own success. It went so far as to make a virtue of its faults.
It was no longer only the old Italy, but socialism itself, the
socialism of Reggio Emilia, which far a da se.’>- There'was
no point in considering the problem of the state, .which
supplied credits, grants and public works on demand.
‘ Here,’ explained the socialist chiefs, ‘ we are already in
power. If the whole of Italy becomes a Reggio Emilia
the revolution will be made.’ This ‘ socialism in a single
province ’ lost in breadth what it gained in depth ; and
breadth for socialism is not a matter of mere dimensions
but^ forms part of its very essence. The rate of its spread
decides its nature and its destiny. Through its ignorance or
neglect of the peasants of Apulia and the herdsmen of
Sardinia^ it lost contact with the nation and with the reality
of socialism. It lost too the sound knowledge that none of
its work would last while the ‘ oases of socialism ’ were still
isolated in a desert whose sands might at any moment
submerge them. This kind of socialism not only fails to
lead_ to revolution, but risks losing all its conquests, as it
did in Italy. The real essence of local and gradual action
IS to keep in touch with the state on the one hand and to
further the aims of socialism on the other. In the absence
of this twofold outlet the political capacity, to use Proudhon’s
phrase, that the working class develops in its own institutions
is lost to the community. The Italian socialists were utterly
incapable of relating their ideals to the tasks imposed on
them by circumstances.

Through this lack of perspective a prodigious quantity of
devotion and human material, far superior to that behind
many other political or religious movements, was wasted,
^d the chosen people, who had already arrived at the
threshold of the new city, were disarmed and vanquished.

_ The socialists of the extreme left, on the other hand,
invoked At every step their final aim of ‘ proletarian revolu¬
tion . On principle everything was sacrificed to this. For
them there was no question as to whether their aim was
consonant with the general interest; it was an accepted

appeared duriBg the Risorg^mentc,

EPILOGUE

329

dogma, an historical fact, that it was so. Henceforward
human emancipation was the work of the proletariat, and
of the industrial proletariat in particular, acting through its
leaders and its political party. And in their turn the party
leaders became the trustees of the general interest and
identified themselves with its progress and its demands.
To look back and see if the sanctity of the apostolic succession
had survived so many stages was pointless. There resulted
a sectarian frame of mind dominated by a theological hatred
of all who refused to recognize the divine quality of their
mandate. So at the decisive moments in the Italian crisis
the communists were fiercely opposed to a ‘ united front ’,
which they had never seriously or loyally supported.

The ideas and behaviour of the communists over the
alliance of the proletariat with other social classes were
characterized by the same sort of trickery. These were
used as mere pawns in a strategy which was carried on over
their heads. The alliance was not conceived of as depending
on a common principle to which the proletariat and its
allies were bound in equal measure. On the contrary
‘ partial demands ’ were discussed, for the sake of an agree¬
ment that was only provisional and involved no deep or
lasting obligations. While all goes well such differences
pass unnoticed, but when the pace slackens the other classes
begin to take notice and to claim their independence.
This is what happened in Italy.

The alliance was founded on a very impermanent com¬
munity of interests, and not on a desire for emancipation,
which alone could have made it worth while or durable, and
it ended not in mere disruption but in actual conflict. For
the middle classes fell easy victims to manoeuvres aimed at
turning them against the proletariat. Fascism gave them
an ideology which flattered their worst instincts by allowing
them to believe that they were playing an independent
and decisive part. The ^arbitration- of the middle class
between capitalists and workers was set up against the
‘ hegemony ’ of the proletariat. One conception displaced
another and the human raw material of the ' revolution ’
was sacrificed to it.

330 the rise of Italian fascism

The working-class and socialist movement in Italy was
therefore defeated largely because, as Filippo Turati said
it was reduced to ‘teaching the proletariat to shirk at a
time when the country was faced with the most urgent and
burmng problems A graphical representation of the two
movements would show them to be in some degree comple¬
mentary. The socialist curve rises until the spring of 1920
when it fluctuates (defeat of the Turin general strike)’
hesitates, then rises suddenly with the factory occupations
in September. Then there is a continuous fall till the march
on Rome. The fascist movement, powerless until the early
months of ipo, scarcely revived by the employers’ great
offensive which led to the occupations, rose steeply during
the last three months of 1920 and continued to rise rapidly
in 1921. The decline of the working-class and socialist
movement was due entirely to internal causes, and pre¬
ceded and made possible the victorious outbreak of fascism.
In an article written at the end of 1920 Mussolini said :

In the past three months . . . the psychology of the Italian
working class has changed profoundly,’ and on July 2,
1921, sixteen months before the march on Rome, Mussolini
recorded ; To say that a bolshevist peril still exists in Italy
IS to accept a few disgraceful fears as the truth. Bolshevism
K beaten.’ Mr. Bolton King, who has written the best
history of the Risorgimento, has rightly come to the following
conclusion: °

Fascism had no part in the Bolschevist collapse; it
was as yet not strong enough to make itself felt effectively,
and Mussolini indeed had smiled approvingly on the
occupation of the factories. There is no substance in
the myth that it saved Italy from Bolschevism. But

the myth is a convenient one and it still lives in dark
corners/

In Italy this myth has become the object of an official
cu t very useful for the purposes of the internal and foreign
policy of the fascist regime. It is nevertheless true, however,
that It was not fascism which defeated the revolution in
Italy, but the defeat of the revolution which determined the
rise and victory of fascism.

EPILOGUE

331

Why did fascism only begin really to take hold when its
historical necessity, or as much as it had claimed for itself,
had disappeared ? Because the movement was not merely
defensive, but a deliberate attempt to wipe out the forces
and strongholds of the enemy. In this way alone could
the privileged classes and especially the landowners attain
their object, which was, not to restore equilibrium, but to
profit by its destruction. The retreat of the enemy only
whetted their appetite for reaction and revenge. When,
for a few weeks towards the middle of 1921, Mussolini toyed
with the idea of a general settlement on the basis of a com¬
promise, the fascists in the country districts frustrated his
plans and found support for their intransigence in all
conservative centres. Aggressive fascism of the squadrismo
type was born of the union of the capitalist offensive with
the ambitions and appetites of various sections of the middle
class, left by the ebbing of the tide of war which had carried
them along nicely for four years. Thus, to borrow another
expression from Turati, ‘ a revolution in words which had
broken down after October 20, was followed by a ^ bloody
counter-revolution a ' posthumous and preventive counter¬
revolution b . . .

Just as the capitalist and fascist attack was being launched
another factor began to weaken the workers’ resistance.
The slump became serious after the beginning of 1921, and
the industrialists did not hesitate to use it as a weapon,
proceeding to make wholesale dismissals of their staffs.
The workers’ committees and syndicates began by opposing
them with their veto, but they could not hope to hold out
long with purely passive resistance. The industrialists
threatened to close the factories, and the workers no longer
had any enthusiasm about occupying them. They tried
compromise ; with their strong sense of self-preservation
and unity, the syndicates and internal factory committees
imposed reductions in the hours of work of the whole staff,
which they still had power to do, so as to avoid dismissals.
This sacrifice by all for all considerably reduced wages all
round. Those who were afraid of losing their jobs accepted
this as a lesser evil, those who were or who believed them¬
selves safe, eventually began to feel slightly uneasy and

332 the rise of ITALIAN FASCISM

incapable of resistance. They became resigned to the
elimination of one and then another category of workers •
those who had a patch of ground in the sun, those who had
no families dependent on them, the latest comers to the
factory. This policy of despair gradually impaired the
solidarity of the workers’ front. Those who were saerificed,
with the tacit or formal consent of those who remained'
departed embittered, sometimes desperate. Such a state
of affairs could only be tolerated if it led to something better.
But the workers, on the contrary, felt that they had reached
an impasse, and that their sacrifice was useless, since anyhow
the employers managed in the end to reduce their staff as
much as they liked. The deadlock might have been ended
by a firm policy uniting all the national resources to end the
depression and assure at all events a minimum living wage
to all workers. But who could have carried out such a
policy ? Not the socialists, who had been explaining for
two years that this was a crisis of the capitalist system, that
it was actually the final crisis of this system, and that the
bourgeoisie must be left to shift for itself. Still less the ruling
classes, whose one aim and obsession was the political and
industrial enslavement of the workers. Fascism was there
to simplify their task.

Consequently the slump, which the socialists had reckoned
as an asset, proved their undoing. For every slump starts
a process of social disintegration, with results that cannot
e foretold dependent as they are upon uncertain human
reactions. An exasperated desire to ‘ put an end to things ’
somehow may lead to despondency and panic unless it is
directed towards some concrete aim, and allowed a glimpse
of a new order. The slump crushes those who cannot thus
look ahead and are therefore without hope. Its value as a
revolutionary factor lies in the forces of order it sets in
motion ; if these are not the forces of a new order, it only

serves to consolidate the old.

The economic crisis in Italy coincided with a political
one. very of the state^ police^ executive^ magistracy
and army, gave its support to the fascists, in ways varying

EPILOGUE

333

from tolerance to direct complicity. The ground was pre¬
pared for them, they were supplied with arms and transport,
and they were promised immunity from punishment.
Government decrees mouldered in files or were used
exclusively against socialists. The government itself pre¬
ferred not to be too deeply involved. For everybody was
hoping to make use of fascism : Giohtti, to push the socialists
into the government, the conservatives to keep them out,
employers and landowners to liquidate working-class
syndicalism, the monarchy and the Vatican to buttress the
established order. They all relied on fascism as a temporay
ally which could easily be disposed of later. ^ As matters
stood, the state could only live a hand-to-mouth existence,
going from compromise to compromise, from concession
to concession. It had no source of strength. The mass of the
people was estranged and hostile, and parliamentary crises
followed one after the other continuously and without any
signs of a solution appearing. Confusion, lassitude, and
disgust, skilfully enhanced by controversy, and a kind of
‘ planned defeatism ’ prepared public opinion for the
justification of dictatorship. Liberty, in whose cause nobody,
whether individual or party, was prepared to sacrifice either
ambitions or personal wishes, was left defenceless. The threat
to the state became a threat to democracy.

In addition to the failure of the socialists, capitalist and
fascist aggression, the economic crisis, state complicity, and
the breakdown of parliamentary institutions, there must be
taken into account the personal influence of Mussolini.

During the war he severed all that connected him with
his ancient beliefs. At heart, though, he had never been a
real sociaHst. As a young man, consumed by pride and the
desire to assert himself, and obsessed by the idea that society
was oppressing him, he had broken away and taken refuge
in Switzerland. As society would not give him the position

J*-We know how mistaken such calculations were. At the 1921 elections
Giolitti got the fascists included in the lists of the ‘ national bloc When
Count Sforza warned him of the danger of such a combination, he replied :

‘ These fascist candidatures are nothing but fireworks ; they will make a great
deal of noise but nothing will come of it.’ The king shared the illusion, saying
to Briand as late as December 1924 concerning fascism : ‘ It is not serious,..
it will not last.’

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 hnked 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 ‘ Fasci of
Revolutionary Action ’ 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 new fasci
they would have perished with him. By the end of 1920
the situation had altered : the squadristi and the ‘ 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 ‘ 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 ‘greedy egoism which refuses
any national conciliation’ ; he contrasted the ‘urban
fascism ’ of Milan with the ‘ agrarian fascism ’ of Bologna,

EPILOGUE

335

‘ fascism of the first hour ’ with that which stood for the
defence of ‘ private interests and of the darkest, most sordid
and most despicable classes now existing in Italy Having
announced in Florence : ‘ Our programme is based on

facts he now clamoured for a ‘ return to principles A
few inonths later still, when the situation had developed
further, he trampled on the vague tendencies of Grandi
and his friends towards ‘ democracy ’ and ‘ syndicalism ’,
and from their opposition movement he took nothing but
the bare principle of armed organization, stripped of any
political significance ; a simple weapon for the capture
of power. Besides, although he disguised his plans in 1921
under a pretended ‘ return to principles ’ Mussolini declared
one year later that ‘ to go back to the beginning, as some
would have, that is to get back to the 1919 programme, is
to give proof of childishness and senility His versatility
and complete lack of scruple proved an invaluable asset to
fascism. It was he who prevented the attack on the Bonomi
cabinet in autumn 1921 ; he who persuaded the group to
support the Celli resolution in February 1922 (p. 174) and in
July succeeded in preventing the formation of an anti-fascist
group which might have become a government. If this had
taken place fascism would have lost the support, or at least
the connivance, of the state, and risked defeat. Finally, if
Mussolini had not acted as he did, the march on Rome
would have taken place in earnest and fascism would have
met its doom.

Mussolini is not a genius ; he merely has, as Mr. Bolton
King so justly remarks, ‘ the minor arts of a statesman ’.
But these he possesses to a very high degree. Much of his
strength has come from the weakness of his enemies. In
1919 he was simultaneously outbidding the demagogues and
working for the cause of reaction. This could never have
happened if socialism had not allowed it. Faced with a
constructive, which does not mean a watered-down Socialist
Party, based on the traditions, institutions and powerful
resources of the Italian working-class movement and free
from delusions about soviets, Mussolini’s tricks and man¬
oeuvres would have fallen flat. From the second half of
1921 up to the march on Rome Mussolini managed to exploit

336 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

parliamentary action and squadrismo at the same time, thus
in Lenin’s phrase, combining ‘ 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 ; ‘ 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 ‘principle’ 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 j 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-
sibihties and their final result. New forces were growing

EPILOGUE

337

up in Italy, alongside the prevalent lethargy, and for a
certain space of time these balanced each other. In such
cases momentary influences, including luck, may be decisive.
The slightest variation may upset the balance and change
the whole situation. Then it is that the actions of one man
becorne of first importance, and history becomes a drama
in which everything is linked up and nothing pre-deter-
mined, in which the epilogue may- be changed up to the
last minute, so long as the actors—individuals or groups—
do not themselves rush towards the catastrophe. Contrary
to a common belief, circumstances do not always of them¬
selves create the men who are needed. Past history now
provides a proof.

II

Fascism is a dictatorship ; such is the starting-point of
all definitions that have so far been attempted. Beyond
that there is no agreement. Dictatorship of capitalism ‘ in
the period of its decline ’, dictatorship of large-scale capital¬
ism ; dictatorship of finance-capitahsm ; ‘ openly terrorist ’
dictatorship ‘ of the most reactionary, chauvinist and
imperiahstic sections of finance-capitalism’; dictatorship
of the ‘ two hundred families ’ ; and so on, until sometimes
one meets the definition of fascism narrowed down to the
personal dictatorship of Mussolini or Hitler. Someone has
said, ‘ Italian fascism is Mussolini

Each of these definitions contains some truth, but none
can be accepted as it stands. Further, we shall take care
not to produce a new one, which would of course be the
right one, a pocket formula, which could be brought out
at any moment to clear up our own and everybody else’s
doubts. Our way of defining fascism is to write its history.
We have tried to do this for Italian fascism of the years
I9i9~i922. A theory of fascism can only be evolved through
a study of all its forms, latent or open, modified or unre¬
strained. For there are many difierent fascisms, each one
made up of numerous, sometimes contradictory tendencies,
and capable of developing in such a way that its most
characteristic features may be altered. To define fascism
is to surprise it during this development, and, in a given

338 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

country and at a given time, to seize upon its essential
differences. It is not a subject with definite attributes which
need merely be selected, but the product of a situation from
which it cannot be considered separately. The mistakes of
the workers’ parties, for instance, are as much part of the
definition of fascism as the use made of them by the pro¬
prietary classes.

The present study of fascism has not been carried beyond
the march on Rome, but there is no reason why we should
not glance further. ^ Although conditions in Italy ought
to be comprehensively reviewed and compared with those
in other countries during the years that followed, the present
less enterprising method may at least enable us to point
out a few common characteristics from which some con¬
clusions can be drawn. For this purpose fascism must be
considered in relation to the economic, social, political and
psychological conditions from which it sprang ; to its own
social background and the class struggle ; to its tactics, its
organization; to its consequences and the regime that it
set up ; finally to its own programme and ideology.

Fascism is a post-war phenomenon and any attempt to
define it by looking for an historical precedent, e.g. in
Bonapartism, is fruitless and bound to lead to false con¬
clusions. Foremost among the conditions that made
fascism possible was the economic crisis. No crisis, no
fascism , and this refers not to any economic crisis, but
Specifically to the one that settled permanently over the
world after the war. The war left the world with industrial
capacity beyond its immediate needs and a complete lack
of co-ordination between the various branches of production,
complicated by a reduced purchasing power in all countries!
The result was over-production and famine, inflation and
paralysis. We are no longer faced by classical crises, which
TKc from a terrible slump to a still higher rate of produc¬
tion and consumption. The /periodic’ crises have been

Some use Has here been made of research work undertaken for a more

EPILOGUE

339

succeeded by ‘ chronic stagnation with slight fluctuations
the ‘ alternation of relatively short boom and relatively
long depression foretold by Engels more than fifty years
ago. Even in the United States, where crises are more
oscillatory owing to the possibilities of the home market,
the existence of an irreducible mass of several million unem¬
ployed points to a new kind of depression. Fascism is bred
in these depressions and forms part of the reaction to them.
In countries without the large home market of the U.S.A.,
the British Empire, the U.S.S.R., depressions are more or
less incurable. Economic discomfort fuses readily with
nationalist aspirations and talk of ‘ a place in the sun
This results on the one hand in isolation and the aggravation
of the more artificial and parasitical aspects of the economic
system, on the other in the illusion that the ‘ encirclement ’
can be broken by seeking some violent solution beyond the
frontiers. The capitalist system, having to a great extent
lost its resiliency, oscillates no longer between depression
and boom, but between autarchy and war.^

In every country the end of the war and the beginning
of the depression saw fairly considerable alterations in social
status. The creation of a mass of nouveaux riches, and distinct
changes in the traditional forms of capitalism resulted in the
emergence of a new bourgeoisie. Practically all producers had
become so used to exceptional war-time profits that they
had lost sight of the notion of the rigidity of cost price, while
the stimulus of competition had been entirely removed.
Such considerations were always resurrected when workers’

^ In this sense, therefore, it is true that fascism is the fruit of capitalism in
decline and the expression of a retro^grade economic system. It is also true,
though inadequate,.to say : * to conquer fascism we must conquer the depres¬
sion % and ® fascism must be fought in the world of economics \ Economic
revival undoubtedly checks fascism, but by itself it cannot eliminate me danger
altogether. In March 1937 the socialist minister Spaak,. speaking of the
Rexist' movement, said : ^ I used to think the eventual success of our steady
campaign against the depression would be enough to stamp out this lawless,
bold and dangerous propaganda. I frankly admit that I was wrong, and I
realize to-day that a movement like Rex cannot be fought by a mere improve¬
ment of economic conditions. Although the work of improvement must go <m,
we have got to carry the struggle on to political and even sentimental ground.

In addition, national boundaries to-day render the struggle a^inst^ the
depression hopeless. And a decisive victory against fascism can only be gained
on the political plane by the reconstruction of Europe, after the deadly magic
circle of autarchies has been broken and the way found once more to
collaboration and unity.

340 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

wages had to be discussed, but they had really ceased to
operate, and almost everywhere capitalists were conscious
that they could no longer manage without the direct help
of the state. Its seizure by any possible means became
for them a matter of life-and-death importance.

On the other hand, the war had set the popular masses
in movement, and after the war this movement was acceler¬
ated. The organization of the workers’ parties and the
syndicates was breaking down under the pressure of the
hundreds of thousands and millions of new members. They
had no great stability, and the high tide was quickly fol¬
lowed by a rapid ebb. Moreover, in spite of the growth of
the old organizations, there was a large body of waverers
who remained outside, ready to rush in any direction. This
body has been referred to as the ‘ middle classes ’ ; but it
must be emphasized that they were not the middle classes
of the classical period of capitalism, absorbed after each
crisis into the machinery of increased production and into a
new proletariat. The post-war middle classes no longer had
even the chance of joining the proletariat; the depression
barred both their rise into the bourgeoisie and their descent
into the proletariat. This petty and middle bourgeoisie,
which found itself everywhere excluded, formed the back¬
bone of fascism in Italy and everywhere else. But the
expression middle class ’ must be given a wider meaning,
to include the son of the family waiting for a job or for his
inheritance to declasses of all kinds, temporary or permanent,
from the half-pay officer to the lumpenproletarier, from the
strike-breaker to the jobless intellectual. It includes workers
who are more conscious of being ex-servicemen or unem¬
ployed than of their class, from which they break away in
spirit to join the ranks of its enemies.

With the coming of peace the long pent-up demands of
the masses were released, at a time when, as a result of the
war, there was less than ever to satisfy them. A tendency
to hoard available resources rather than find better ways
of sharing them brought the problem of power into the fore¬
ground. Three factors combined to lead the way to fascism ;
the^ intensification of the class struggle, its increasingly
poHtical character, and the relative equality of the opposing

EPILOGUE

341

forces. Given the first two, the third is of crucial importance.
Such equality is paralysing to any form of government,
whether it be a national coalition, a combination of left-
wing parties, or a social democratic majority. So long
as it continues and no better form of government is found,
the state is at the mercy of blind upheavals caused by some
instinct of self-preservation, by the defence of threatened
privileges, and by the aspirations of classes that have been
upset and thrown out of gear by the depression. By abandon¬
ing the attempt to gain a solution by legal methods, the
working classes turn to the creation of a ‘'second power’,
within the state and opposed to it; the bourgeoisie then
has recourse either to ‘ reactionary transformation of the
state ’ or to fascist violence.

Amongst the general conditions of fascism that should be
mentioned is the existence of a kind of ' climate a special
atmosphere of excitement and frenzy; this is so indis¬
pensable, both before and after victory, that the party
leaders have to strain every nerve to keep it up. In this
atmosphere all reactions are strained, all sense of proportion
is distorted, and ordinary standards vanish. Psychological
shock becomes as necessary as drugs to an addict. Delirium
is exalted as normality. Fascism cannot be dismissed as
mere war psychosis (any more than the Commune could
be dismissed as a ^fiivre obsidionale ’) ; the history of fascism,
however, is one of the most remarkable and disturbing
chapters of social pathology.

Fascism finds its chief support in the post-war middle
class, whose main ,characteristics we have ■just, described.
Must fascism, therefore, be defined as a middle-class move¬
ment taken up and exploited by reactionary capitalism?
There is much truth in this definition, but it cannot be
accepted without reservations. The social significance of
a movement is not entirely decided by its social make-up.
Although most of the supporters of fkscism are recruited
from the middle classes, its first historic role is that of the
exterminator of working-class parties and syndicates.
Afterwards, whatever its pretensions or its supporters, it

342 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

takes a hand in the capitalist offensive. The suppression
of the independent workers’ organizations permanently
alters the balance of social power. Fascists and capitalists
can no longer behave as if these organizations had not been
suppressed. Even when fascism pretends to play the part
of arbitrator between capital and labour, it puts one .of the
parties in an inferior position—by destroying its independ¬
ence—from which it can only free itself by throwing off
fascism altogether.

It was chiefly the urban middle classes which were swept
into fascism. In July 1919 Mussolini believed, not only
that fascism was fated to remain ‘ a minority movement
but that it eould not ‘ spread outside the towns ’. And
although Italian fascism was chiefly established, after 1921,
through the influx of countryfolk into its ranks, ^ its leaders
were largely drawn from the middle classes in the towns,
or were the sons of landowners—officers, students—town-
dwellers with no desire to play the part of Cincinnatus, once
they were back from the front. They were much more
anxious to conquer the towns, the first step towards politieal
power, than to be the leaders in their village. Further,
fa.scism was never successful when eonfined to purely country
districts, and the impulse to victory came less from the Po
valley campaigns than from Rome and Milan. The big
cities always played the leading part.

Fascism finds its chief support in those members of the
middle class who either have or think they have no inde-
pencffint economic standing, and are thus easily ‘ liquidated ’
or a,bsorbed into the new political framework provided by
lascism. It is not pure chance which makes the French
peasant oppose fascism so obstinately : he will obviously
continue to do so as long as his economic basis—the patch
01 ground he owns and tills—and his more or less real inde¬
pendence are threatened. In the Balkans all the authori¬
tarian r^mes—bred in the great cities—^were set up in
ace of the violent resistance of the peasants, who mostly
^pported opposition parties (National-Zaranist party in
Romama, the Croat peasant party in Jugo-Slavia, the

EPILOGUE

343

‘ Agrarians ’ in Bulgaria) ^ In all these countries the land
reform carried out after the war had created an important
class of peasant proprietors, who remained anti-fascist even
in subjection ; while in contrast the absence of such reforms,
or excessive slowness in carrying them out, have made
of fascism a danger or a success in Italy, Germany and
Spain.

Another theory that will not hold water represents fascism
as a revolutionary movement turned reactionary under the
influence of the ruling classes. Fascism is reactionary from
the start. Its first steps are helped and guided by reaction¬
ary influence, and its intervention completely upsets the
political and social equilibrium.^ The coincidence of fascist
development and the political and economic offensive of
the possessing classes is a common phenomenon. Italian
fascism did not begin to be important until 1921, when
‘ agrarian slavery ’ appeared in the Po valley, Tuscany and
Apulia, at the same time as the industrialists’ attack on
workmen’s wages and collective labour agreements. National
Socialism, in embryo in 1923, did not begin to get under
way until after 1928-29, when wages were being cut and
the policy of deflation had begun. After 1922 Mussolini’s
policy coincided with that of the ‘ liberals ’ of the Corriere
della Sera, the conservatives of the Giornale d'Italia, the great
landowners and the Vatican, namely, to keep the socialists
from any share in power ; just as Hitler, in 1930, insisted
on the breaking up of the great coalition and the exclusion
of the socialists from the Prussian government.

The middle classes had to some extent been caught up
by the wave of popular feeling in the yeai*s 1919-20, but
the inability of the socialist movement to find any solution
had cooled them off. Tactless imsistence on the ‘dictatorship
of the proletariat ’, although this was nothing but a form of

» This also sho\v's how difficult it Is for the pea.sant.s to defend themselves

against attacks from the towns and capitals, unless they have dependable allies.
The alliance of tlic peasants with the urban proletariat is a necessity and a
safeguard for both. _

2 The importance of this intervention and of its effects depends on the
balance held between the two great opposite forces, a balance which may be
upset by the appearance of marginal or ‘ interstitial ’ forces. It is therefore
impossible to judge tlie influence of the middle classes simply from a numeiical
point of view.

344 the rise of Italian fascism

words, had helped them to change their minds. Feeling
that their pockets and their beliefs were threatened by the
socialist movement, they turned towards fascism. All their
latent hatred of the man in cap and blouse now came to
the surface, finding expression on the one hand in savage
attacks on the workers, ^ on the other in a vague desire for
independence, and even a kind of idealism. This idealism
and the new language it created made its own contribution
to the victory of the possessing classes, winning over for
them a section of the masses with which they had entirely
lost touch.

The relations between middle-class fascism and the
capitalist offensive were very close at the start, and have
remained so for a long time. Does this mean that they are
incapable of development and change ? Only a very
detailed analysis of these relations in the different countries
at different times could lead one to any conclusion on this
question ; while it must be remembered that, whatever the
relations may be, they are always affected and distorted
by the absence of a third power, that of a freely organized
labour group.

Fascism is not reaction pure and simple, but reaction
employing mass effects, which alone are of any use in the
post-war world. 2 Hence the use of demagogic slogans and
even of socialist terminology : for a long time Mussolini
called his paper a ‘ socialist daily ’, and the Fuhrer^s party
still styles itself National-Socialist. As a result the old
political parties often find themselves left high and dry.

But the real originality of fascism lies not so much in its
mass tactics or its demagogic programme, as in the all-
important and independent part played by tactics at the
expense of programme.® Giolitti used to say, ‘ Mussolini

A squad chief, U. Banchelli, in his Memoirs of a Fascist, explains

^ EveTtL? ^ them wkhorpftyA

involvi atsdut^potr.

EPILOGUE

345

has taught me that it is not the programme but the tactics
of a revolution against which we must defend ourselves.’
The fascist method is tactical rather than doctrinal. Its
supreme resort is the fait accompli, which is of no effect
unless it finally leads to the seizure of power. Absolute
power.alone enables fascism to overcome its inherent incon¬
sistencies and to maintain its advance, for the spoils can
be used to satisfy the most varied appetites, the prestige of
victory to attract supporters, and the power of the state to
crush its enemies into submission for a long while. This is
how the fascist writer Gurzio Malaparte, in his Technique
of the Coup TEtat, describes the political crisis which pre¬
ceded the march on Rome : ‘ These same liberals, democrats,
conservatives, while they were summoning the fascists to
join the National Bloc, were eager to install Mussolini in
the Pantheon of the “ saviours of the country ”... but
they were not so ready to resign themselves to the fact that
Mussolini’s aim was not to save Italy in accordance with the
official tradition, but to seize the state, a much more sincere
programme than the one he had proclaimed in 1919.’

Hence the importance to fascism of organization, especi¬
ally armed organization. Every fascist movement has its
armed organization, without which it is powerless. This
does not mean that every fascist goes about armed, or that
the movement has immediate access to arms dumps and
arsenals. But its organization is military, with its cadre of
officers, discipline, meetings, training, and the firm belief of
every member, from top to bottom, that this organization
is a necessary and effective instrument for the conquest
of power. Fascism always begins by declaring itself ‘ anti¬
party ’ and ends by turning itself into a political party ;
in all the great countries, however, its military organization
remains its chief characteristic. Mussolini was able to
enrol the entire party in the squads in December 1921, and
in 1936 de la Rocque could convert his squads into a party,
with the same aim of saving the military organization by
disguising it. This organization lies at the heart of fascism
and determines its very nature.

346 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

Must fascism be resisted by military means ? The question
of force is undoubtedly involved. But the force behind a
sound policy must come as a natural consequence of that
policy. Military organization may be very extensively
developed, but if it is out of touch with the country its
position becomes desperate; this was the case with the fascist
squads in the middle of 1921 and the socialist Schutzbund
in Austria in February 1934. Both Mussolini and Hitler,
on the other hand, won their chief victories on the political
field (the Facta crisis in October 1922, and the von Schleicher
crisis in January 1933).

It is essential for any anti-fascist movement to be always
in close touch with the masses. It must also associate itself
with the state. 1 In the event of a complete fusion of the
ruling classes and the machinery of state with fascism, there
may be no other alternative but direct revolutionary action
or fascist dictatorship. Even so the consequence is not
inevitably the slippery dilemma of ‘ bolshevism or fascism
which limits the possible courses of action at a time when
they should be as varied as possible. Every example that
can be quoted (Italy, Bulpria, Germany, Austria) proves
that a union of the state with fascism is the worst thing that
can happen. The policy of the working classes fighting
fascism must be to do their utmost to avoid being faced
with such a situation.

The working class and the masses should try to cut
fascism off from the state, and to neutralise and oppose
the influence of those who would subordinate the state to
fascism. Fascism can do nothing without the help of the
state, and less than nothing as its enemy. But it is difficult
for anti-fascism to win if it is simultaneously fighting the
state_ and fascism in their entirety. The Itahan com¬
munists who declared in 1921 that ‘ the issue lies between

1 Matteotti, who was very far from being a coward, advised the Polesina
workers not to be drawn by fascist provocation, saying : ‘ Even sdence and

cowardice are sometimes heroic.’ Turati wrote to the workers in Apulia that
mey must have the courage to be cowards But apart from the fact that the
tascists needed no provocation ’ to destroy what they had quite decided to
destroy, the plan of local non-resistance was pointless, unless the struggle in
Rovigo or Ban was gwen up so as to concentrate every effort on Rome, and
aiterw^ds intervene in these places with the more powerful resources of the
state. But it was absurd, simultaneously to discourage local resistance and leave

tnc state in the hands of the accomplices of fascism.

EPILOGUE

347

proletarian dictatorship and fascist dictatorship and the
German communists who in 1932 gave the order for a war
on two fronts ; ‘ Against Weimar and against Potsdam
ended by fighting neither fascism nor the state A The
struggle against fascism is three-cornered—the anti-fascist
front,.which must be on as broad a base as possible, the
fascist bloc, which has to be broken up, and the state, whose
resources must be mobihzed for the defence of democracy.
Victory is only possible through a political strategy that
takes these three elements into account and aligns them in
such a way that force is on the side of democracy.

To complete this analysis of the nature of fascism we must
study the fruit it bears : its consequences, not only inside
each country, but also on an international scale, which are
closely inter-connected.

Wherever fascism is established the most important
consequence, on which all the others depend, is the elimina¬
tion of the people fi'om all share in political activity. ‘ Con¬
stitutional reform ’, the suppression of parliament, and the
totalitarian character of the regime cannot be judged by
themselves, but only in relation to their aims and their
results. Fascism is not merely the substitution of one
political regime for another ; it is the disappearance of
political life itself, since this becomes a state function and
monopoly. Political doctrines circulate, are abandoned or
modified, but the people have nothing to do with their
adoption or their fluctuations. Even when syndicates, or
even a party, continue to exist, they are mere instruments,
subordinate branches of the state. By becoming part of
the machinery of state their nature does not undergo any
change ; they merely become instruments in the second
degree, the instruments of instruments. With the removal
of all freedom and independence from their institutions the
people are reduced to a malleable raw material whose
properties of resistance and yield can be calculated and

1 Working-class unity is one condition for victory over fpcism. But this
depends on another condition, namely, that unity must not impair power lor
political manoeuvre. For the value of working-class unity eventually boils
down to the value of the policy it lays down and carries out.

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 ‘ 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 :
‘ 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 conception, 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 ‘ 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

EPILOGUE 349

the formation of European consciousness : ‘ Young Italy ’
could only fulfil itself in ‘ Young Europe
Such conceptions take us far from fascism, while at the same
time explaining why the fascists mean to destroy the working-
class and socialist movement. Since the end of the nine¬
teenth-century socialism has almost everywhere taken the
place of democracy in initiating the masses into national
life. They have taken their place in the nation and state
on social grounds. This has brought difficulties in its train
and sometimes confusion and crisis, but it remains a great
historical fact that the masses brought the whole weight of
their needs and hopes with them into national life, and
thenceforward it was impossible for this life to be organized
on any but a higher level of conscience, liberty and individual
well-being. For the fascists, on the other hand, the people
are only the tool of their ‘ will to power ’. This is inspired
by a furious nationalism, which takes over the socialists’
demands only to adapt them to serve their own purposes.
The slogans of the class struggle in its narrowest sense become
the passwords of armed strife between nations ; ‘ young ’
nations versus old, ‘ poor ’ nations versus ‘ satiated ’,

‘ proletarian ’ nations versus ‘ plutocratic Hence in all
forms of national socialism the nationalism inevitably absorbs
the socialism, and in every fascist ‘ armed nation ’ the army
swallows up the nation.^

This leads equally to autarchy and war. The economic
difficulties and contradictions of the fascist regimes speed
up the process,^ but they are not the sole causes. The
fascist systems are not only ‘driven’ into war, all their
activities lead up to it, and it provides the opportunities
and the atmosphere they need. Though choice there may
be, they cannot do otherwise than choose war. Preparation
for war at a given moment ceases to be a means, and
becomes an end in itself, completely changing the economic,
social and political structure of the country. Fascism is

^ In fascist jargon, the very expression * armed nation, ’ has become suspect
and is being replaced by that of ‘ military nation % ‘ warrior nation etc.

2 In his speech in the Chamber of May 26, 1934, Mussolini said : ‘ Three-
quarters of the Italian economic system, industrial,^ and agricultural, is
supported by the state. . . . We touched bottom some time ago : it would be
difficult for us to fall any lower.’ This situation must be considered one of the
immediate causes of the Italian attack on Ethiopia.

350 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

committed to this preparation and can only fight its way
out. For fascism preparation for war does not mean leaving
one of many doors open just in case war should unfor¬
tunately break out, but leaving only one open and shutting
all the rest. War is not merely a possibility which the state
must bear in mind, but a certainty and a necessity to .which
everything is subordinated. Speaking at the meeting of
the Corporations on March 23, 1936, Mussolini explained
his policy and his ideas for the future as follows :

^ Italy can and must attain the maximum of economic
independence for peace and war. The whole of the
Italian economic system must be directed towards this
supreme necessity, on which depends the future of the
Italian people. I now come to the crux, to what I might
call the plan of control for Italian economic policy in the
coming fascist era. This plan is determined by one
single consideration : that our nation will be called to
war. When ? How ? Nobody can say, but the wheel
of fate is turning fast.’^

The fascist economy is a closed and planned economy
with war as its objective. Cost price, competition and even
profit are of no importance in the general scheme. The
political aim of preparation for war is more important than
any economic consideration, and equally the resulting
economic organisation can serve no other aim. In his
speech of May 26, 1934 (quoted above), Mussolini said :

‘ If I wanted to introduce state-capitalism or state socialism
into Italy, I should now have all the necessary external
and objective conditions for doing so.’ Can it be said that
fascist economy is state capitalism? In spite of several
points of resemblance, we believe not. Under fascism the
state does not simply take the place of private capitalists
as the organizer of the economic system, but forces them to
follow its own policy. Fascism is interested in power, not
profit. Naturally profit may one day have to be added
to power, but between the two there is a wide gulf which

^ Those who thought or pretended to think that the conquest of Abyssinia
would appease fascist Italy and turn Mussolini into an apostle of European
peace can now see how arbitrary were their coiyectures.

EPILOGUE

351

the capitalist class, as such, would refuse to cross unless it
were forced.^

But it is being forced to do so by a new political class,
which is a product of the economic evolution of fascism,
and which in its turn reacts on this movement by forcing
it towards its most extreme consequences. The proletariat,
as such, is entirely excluded from this new class. Preparation
for war may relatively reduce unemployment and improve
the lot of some classes of w^orkers, but under a system of
autarchy it is only achieved by sacrificing the standard of
living of the working class as a whole. And since it involves
a great concentration of industry, trade and credit, and
necessitates large-scale agriculture and mass production of
cereals 2 a great proportion of the urban and the whole of
the rural middle class is more or less ruined. The increasing
concentration of industry, the monopoly of foreign trade,
the fixing of prices and the many forms of state intervention
ail tend to the elimination of the lesser industrialists and the
small traders and farmers. On the other hand those mem¬
bers of the urban middle class who have no direct share in
production® benefit considerably from the regime and
pocket a nice share of the profits. They are to be found
everywhere, occupying numerous places on the executives
of the party, militia, syndicates, state institutions new and
old. They form part of the immense fascist bureaucra,cy
which is now the country’s ruling class. Generally speaking
this new class is the result of a compromise between the
capitalists and the middle and lower middle class in the
towns. It is interspersed with army chiefs, and members
of the aristocracy, but the homines novi are in a majority,
and theirs is the prevailing mentality : a mixture of furious
nationalism and state worship, in keeping with both their

1 The ideal of every Italian capitalist is that war should never come,
because it is so risky, but that preparation for war should continue, n possible,

for 'Cvcr» . ■ *

2 In spite of poetic appeals for a * return to the land the fascist regimes,
in which some people imagined they saw a revival of agricultural life, only
tend to encourage town life by their zeal for industrial methods. One 01 the
conditions and results of preparation for war under fascism is that the relations
between the country section and the town section arc always being modifaecl

to the advantage of the latter. . r * +

3 It was this class which contributed most towards forming the lascist

organizations.

352 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

ideology and their interests.^ This new ruling class battens
on the state, indulging in shameless scrambles for gain,
runs through fortunes with ease, exploits and fleeces others,
but has no definite place in the economic life of the country.
Even when he becomes a landed proprietor or a capitalist
this new fascist ruler continues to draw the best part of his
resources from the political monopoly of which he is assured,
and from the perpetual expansion of the machinery of state,
which he encourages with all his might.®

Autarchy and preparation for war make this expansion
inevitable. The expansion of state machinery in its turn
is bound to involve autarchy and war. Nothing inside the
country can break this vicious circle. Fascism has succes¬
sively wiped out the working-class movement, the people,
the nation, every restraining influence. Such is the tragic
balance sheet of the fascist attack of the years 1921-1922,
whose effects stretch far beyond the boundaries of Italy.
The flames which destroyed the Peoples’ Houses were only
the beginning of a greater blaze which threatens to set
Europe alight. The blows that shattered the headquarters
of workers’ syndicates, co-operatives and socialist sections
have struck at the foundations of the new Europe : the
Europe loathed by fascism, since it means the end of war
and fascists alike.

in

For fascism the political programme is a mere makeshift,
concocted to meet the immediate needs of political strategy.
On the eve of the march on Rome, as at the time of von
Schleicher’s resignation, the fascists, like the national
sociaHsts, based their candidature to power on the reality
of their strength and not on their old or new programme.
And it was their strength, directed against the working class

^ 7^^ left-wing ’ fascists, to be found chiefly amongst syndical officials,
are the greatest extremists in foreign policy and are always asking for state
intervention in internal policy and in the economic sphere. In this connection
there is, for example, a considerable distinction in tone and even in attitude
between the syndical paper, II Lavoro Fascista, and // tSo/e, the ‘ organ of com¬
merce, industry, finance and agriculture ^

^ In its present phase Italian fascism may be defined as a ‘ triarchy \ in
exercised by the big capitalists, the bureaucracy and Mussolini

EPILOGUE 353

and the socialists, which the conservative classes meant to
exploit when they helped them to power.

‘ Our programme is based on facts,’ said Mussolini at the
fascist congress in October 1919. This remark described
not merely the party’s intended tactics, but an entire con¬
ception of life, which reduces everything to its value in
relation to the ‘ will to power ’ standard. This is the major
difference between fascism and socialism, over which no
compromise is possible. The fate of humanity for a long
time hangs on the outcome of this conflict, and the issue
lies, not, as it may appear, between two rival philosophies,
but between philosophy and the negation of all philosophy.

‘ Action has dug a grave for philosophy,’ said Mussolini
on his train journey to Rome, where the king was going to
charge him with the formation of the new government.
This ‘ realism ’ that fascism perpetually claims for itself is
the high-water mark of its so-called doctrine. Having once
arrived in power, fascism, like any other parvenu discovering
his noble quarterings, provides itself with antecedents. It
goes back to the Guelph tradition, to the Counter-Reforma¬
tion, to Romanticism : history is ransacked in a feverish
search for ancestors. All that survives of these efforts, before
as after victory, are the by-products of a crude pragmatism,
and the gloriflcation of force, of which a furious nationalism
and worship of the state are the outstanding manifestations.
Behind it all is the ‘ pagan ’ conception of life as struggle
and effort which are their own justification. Hence the
exaltation of war : ‘ War alone,’ writes Mussolini in the
Italian Encyclopedia, ‘ brings all human energies to their
highest tension, and sets a stamp of nobility on the peoples
who have the courage to face it.’

Certainly fascism always preaches duty, self-denial and
discipline, and condemns individual egoisms. But actually
fascism is ‘anti-individualist’ the better to suppress the
universal instinct of humanity in the individual conscience,
which it frees from its inhibitions so as to avoid the necessity
of reckoning with its demands. It sacrifices, not the attri¬
butes of individuality, but the conscious being. Apparently
everything is saved, since moral life is simply transferred to
the state. ‘ For the fascist everything is in the state, and

23

354 the rise of Italian fascism

nothing human or spiritual exists or, a fortiori, has any value
outside the state.’^

‘ For fascism the state is the absolute, before which
individuals and groups are only relative.’^ And since it is
impossible to base a moral imperative on the ‘ relative ’,
we may well ask the meaning of this ‘ absolute ’ which
fascism finds in the state. Mussolini himself gives us an
answer : ‘ The fascist state is a “ will to power ” and to
domination.’® Having started from the will to power,
and subordinated the individuals to it, fascism is bound
to find it again in the state. Moral life itself, and all its
possible foundations, are locked out. The ‘ will to power
and to domination ’ has nothing in common with morality,
even if, following the Hitlerian formula, this serves the
‘ vital needs ’ of a people.

Allowing for its defects, socialism is the greatest attempt
to subordinate to the needs of the human conscience every¬
thing which, in reality, is hostile and alien to it. Socialism
ai ms at putting human before economic necessities, at
‘ humanizing ’ and ‘ moralizing ’ nature and preventing its
brute forces from spreading unchecked. It studies natural
‘ laws ’ in order to make use of them and not to remain bound
by them. It fights to save the human soul from outside
restraints, and to impose its own internal law on the outside
world. Its aim is to control the industrial machine with its
huge productive powers as well as the state machine with
its great power of coercion, particularly as both the powers
and the machines are tending more and more to merge
into one. Socialism is a finalist, fascism an instrumental
doctrine, a sort of drill, a discipline, a stimulant, and as such
it can neither found nor replace a system of ethics either
for individuals or for the state.

The negation of philosophy, fascism is thus the negation
of politics and rehgion. ‘ The democratic conception of
life is essentially political, the fascist essentially warlike,’
wrote Mussolini in September 1922. Fascism can only
tolerate rehgion if it surrenders what was apparently its
own private domain, that of the individual conscience. By

3 These passages are from the article on * fascist doctrine ’ written by
Mussolini for the Italian Encyclopedia.

EPILOGUE

355

helping to break down the resistance of individuals and
groups to their absorption by the fascist state, the Church
has accepted and smiled on the omnipotence of this state
which denies freedom to the independent conscience and to
religion itself. Even, or rather particularly, when official
honours are being heaped on it, religion only survives under
fascism by allowing itself to be used as a tool. Like fascism
it becomes merely a discipline, a useful means of consoling
and restraining the common people, an indispensable
resource that so many atheists, from Voltaire to Mussolini,
have invoked. ‘ Religion for the poor ’ is thus added to
‘ imperialism for the proletariat ’ in the well-filled fascist
armoury of ‘raison d'etat.'''^

Since fascism exalts action and denies philosophy, must
faith in philosophy be signalized by the denial of action ?
The pundits who take this line betray philosophy twice oyer
by betraying both philosophy and action. No conception
of life is true or workable unless it is universally applicable,
and in this case ‘ universally ’ applies to each individual
man, and so to humanity as a whole. Man and humanity
are identical terms. It is impossible to affirm what is human
in individual man without realizing it in the whole^ of
mankind. Hence the human must be supreme, and im¬
press itself on every branch of life. There can be no giving
way to fails accomplis, no surrender to success ; the respon¬
sibilities that are owed to all men cannot be avoided by an
escape into the realm of good intentions. Good intentions
by themselves do no good. It is not enough to be in the
right; one has got to succeed.

Methods and tactics are necessary therefore ; weapons
must be chosen, forces combined, the decision made as to
where they are to be applied ; certain positions must be
abandoned in order to win others; progress must be made
through advances and retreats and cunning manoeuvres
whose meaning only becomes apparent with their comple-

^ Thus on February 26, 1937 , a week after the Addis Ababa massacres, the
Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, Monsignor Schuster, compmed Mussolmi to
the most glorious of the Roman emperors, and hailed the Itah^
who are occupying Abyssinia in order to ensure to ite people the double
advantage of imperial civilization and the catholic faitli .

356 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

tion. But tactics, like all the realities of life and history—
classes, technique, institutions—have a tendency to develop
on their own, forgetful of the end towards which they are
directed. Everything tends to grow like a cancer regardless
of its surroundings and of the very reasons which brought it
into being. This is all the more serious, since a truth derives
its value from the importance which is given to it and the
position it occupies, for it is one thing if it is kept in the
background and quite another if it becomes the centre to
which all other factors are subordinated. On the other
hand a certain degree of independence in tactics is inevit¬
able and even essential for final success. The tactical
‘ theme ’ must be hit upon and renewed in each new situa¬
tion. The forces available to support it must be summed
up and used accordingly, and victory comes only as the
resultant of the calculation.

Victory has not only to be won, but won in a given time.
Each situation has a ^ potential ’ which is variable but not
infinite. Its curve is mobile, but man’s action must take
place within it, for one day it will fall under the influence
of the very forces that have caused it to rise. The point of
incidence may be varied a thousand times, but not for ever.
Circumstances arise in which a general sense of exhaustion
and saturation makes it impossible for action to be post¬
poned any longer, or the opportunity is lost for a long
while. Tactics which are inoperable within a given time
are valueless; the time factor, itself a variable function,
must be taken into account and controlled. In post-war
Italy, as elsewhere, there was a great fund of hopes and
desires turned towards a new order, but the workers’ parties
acted as though this capital could be left unproductive or
wasted at will. Ten years have been enough to dissipate
what seemed inexhaustible, and no one can tell when the
impulse and the opportunity will come again.

To win, and to win in time, contact must be made with
the great masses, and the help of an organization is indis¬
pensable. This does not eliminate the role of individual
appeal and protest, the need for both prophets and skir¬
mishers. The chosen few strike the new coinage, but it
must be put into circulation, and everything depends on

EPILOGUE

357

how widely and how quickly this is done. Contact between
the idea and the people can be achieved only with an
organized system keeping always in close touch with them.
This is a liability as well as an advantage, for the go-
between, the party, tends to become an independent unit
and .builds up machinery, which in its turn becomes more
or less independent. This hardens into party loyalty, with
its defensive and conservative instincts. But it would be a
grave error to treat this as a sign of inertia. Some defence
mechanism is as necessary to collective bodies as to individ¬
uals. The herd instinct is the first victory over chaos ; it
is a bulwark against the outside world and prevents destruc¬
tion or dispersal by outside influences before the individuals
have found time to get their bearings or realize what is
happening. T he mass character ol post-war social and
political action has profoundly altered the conditions for
this action. The very fact that action must take place
through and on behalf of the masses has made it to some
extent inevitable that the struggle should be centralized
and more confidence placed in the leaders. A general staff
which has to make a public explanation of its tactics every
five minutes and justify every step is doomed to defeat.
On the other hand, the modern political campaign cannot be
carried out without publicity, stage management and inuch
significant symbolism. In it agitation (‘ the putting of a single
idea into many minds ’) counts for more than propaganda
(‘ the putting of many ideas into each single mind ).
Regrettable though this maybe, a movemmtwhich refuses
to adapt itself to these new necessities cuts itself off from the
masses and from its goal.

What chiefly stands in the way of this adaptation is an
illusion, cherished largely by ‘ intellectuals , who are
inclined to overestimate the value of the tools that they
themselves have learnt to handle. For them it is important
not only to be right, but to have been right in the past.
They are content to prove their enemies’ arguments weak
or their programme contradictory. The man in the ranks
knows that this is only the beginning of a fight which must
be constantly renewed. The ideas, plans and promises
of the enemy must doubtless be criticised, but it must be

358 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

remembered that the human, mind, as well as the mass
mind, is a stream which needs replenishing. If you block
the spring, however muddy it may be, another must be
provided : one idea can only be replaced by a greater,
one passion by a stronger. The masses forget easily ; their
judgments are based not on the ‘ contradictions ’ of the past,
but on the consolations of the present and the hopes for
the future which are held out to them. But it is the greatest
paradox of political life that any war of principles is also,
and particularly at critical moments, a war of positions.
For no battle is fought without a battle ground, without
positions from which to start the attack, put up defences,
dig oneself in and hold on in face of the enemy assault.
These strategic reasons are obvious, but there are others
which go deeper. It is wrong to suppose that an idea goes
on living after the men and institutions in which it was
embodied have disappeared. In certain conditions it may
be resurrected, but there is no certainty that such conditions
will return. The fascist experiment proves that an idea is
jeopardised when its background is destroyed. Ideas
cannot be killed ’ is a sublime and dangerous commonplace,
which ignores the fact that an idea needs material support
if it is to last. An idea is a generation, or a succession of
generations. If the generation disappears and the succession
is cut, the idea is submerged and the inheritance lost. When
the fascists kill, banish or imprison their enemies, burn their
houses and destroy their institutions, they know what they
are about and do not strike in vain ; especially when they
borrow some of the principles of socialism ; ideas are
menaced as much by falsification as by the destruction of
their protagonists. The use of socialist terminology by the
fascists is a caricature of socialism, its negation ; this
hostly survival is more baneful than death itself.

To make headway and to win, socialism—with the con¬
ception of life it champions—must take stock of the incon¬
sistencies it meets with in all its forms of action. These are
not mere obstacles standing in its path, but lie at the very
roots of the problems it hopes to solve.

EPILOGUE

359

Pre-war social democrats looked upon themselves as the
trustees of ‘ truth ’ and the representatives of interests
which some time or other were bound to prevail. When ?
That did not matter very much. Left and right agreed that
a majority must be won for socialist ideas, and that once
this happened all the rest would follow. The growing
menace of a European war had led Jaures to consider the
problem of a race between socialism and war, which
socialism must win in order to prevent war ; but this idea
never decisively influenced the movement as a whole. Pre¬
war socialism existed in a void and took no account of

tiuie.^ . p , ...

The experience of the war led a section of the socialist
movement to see the problems of conflict and victory in
quite a different light. Thanks to their revolutionary
traditions Lenin and the bolsheviks were to the fore when
the historic moment came. Taken by surprise, like all the
other parties, by the March revolution, they plunged into
it determined to make the most of it in the time at their
disposal. They argued that a political and social movement
cannot always wait until all the perfect conditions for victory
are ofiered, but that circumstances may arise—the collapse
of the autocratic regime in Russia, the wear and tear of the
world war—that impose a responsibility which cannot be
postponed, even if it has not been catered for in the handbook
of the perfect marxist. Then the problem of action, the
necessities of time and place have to be squarely faced.
Victory must be won in Petrograd on November 7 ) oi' the
game is lost. The problem of the majority is no longer the
same ; majorities must be gained in critical places at critical
moments. At this moment all that matters is victory over
the enemy, the creation of the ‘ torrent ’ of which Gorki
speaks, and which must sweep away all resistance.^ In Max
Eastman’s phrase the Marxist ceases to be anything but a
‘ techrucian of revolution The myopic and abstract

mentality of the social democrat’s approach to tactical

problems gives way to a new spirit, which, before every

1 After the elections of September 1930 , which saw the first great advance
of national-socialism, the German so^al-democratic paper
‘ The question whether a socialist majority in the Reuhstag will be attained in
the next few years or in several decades is of secondary importance.

360 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

goal to be attained, every step to be taken, considers what
are the real forces to be used, how they are to be acquired
and how each step can lead to the next.

In this search for ‘ means ’ there is a danger that bol¬
shevism has not avoided. The ‘ means ’ now fill the entire
horizon. When the workers have come to power in the
belligerent countries, thought the bolshevik leaders in 1917,
or when socialism is ‘ constructed ’ in the U.S.S.R., an¬
nounced the rulers of the Soviet State in 1928, then the era
or principles ’ will begin ; until then they can be dispensed
with. Meanwhile everything becomes a ‘ means ’, people,
parties, tactics, individuals. Revolutionary, like industrial
or any other kind of technique, tends to develop inde¬
pendently and subordinate to itself the men and purposes
that it ought to serve. In consequence technique becomes
such an important part of political action that specialists are
required, ‘ professional revolutionaries ’. It is they who
draw up plans of campaign for dragging the masses from
objective to objective up to the final victory ; they who hold
in their hands the thread which leads eventually to the
promised land of ‘ principles ’. This idea, the roots of which
may be found in the Russian revolutionary tradition
(Bakunin, Marodnia Volia), and which was fostered by the
struggle against the Tsarist regime, flourished again after
the failure of the plans which Lenin made during the war,
and which inspired his activities in the years 1917-20.
Lenin thought that in the conditions created by the war the
working class was bound to take power anyhow and any¬
where, in the first country in which the ‘ imperialist front ’
could be broken. Russia offered the first chance because the
Tsarist regime collapsed under the weight of its own help¬
lessness. It did not much matter that Russia was a back¬
ward country in which the proletariat was a small minority ;
what did matter was to profit from the country’s social
weakness so as to seize power and hold on until revolution
had broken out in other countries, especially in Germany.
Then the Russian working class would pass on the torch
to the proletariat of the more industrialized countries.
Meanwhile the position had to be held and all necessary
compromises made with the Russian peasantry until the

EPILOGUE

361

main body of the troops—the world proletariat, and above
all the Germans—had caught up and gone ahead. When
Lenin said at the time of Brest-Litovsk that ‘ land must be
sacrificed to gain time he was still thinking of the time
needed for the victory of the world proletariat to free Russia
from.its contradictions and isolation. For Lenin Russia
was only a pawn, the first available on the chessboard of
world revolution.

World revolution never took place, and for several years
Russia’s isolation was enhanced by the policy of the ‘ cordon
sanitaire ’ followed by other states, particularly by those of
the Entente. So the process was reversed, and the bol¬
sheviks had to rely on their own resources. Although this
reversal was forced on them by the necessity of keeping a
hold on power, the lustre of its more dramatic aspect for
long hid from them its real significance and consequences.
The Soviet State, which was to have brought ‘ direct democ¬
racy’ with it, the ‘people’s State’ of which Lenin had talked
in 1917, set up a dictatorship which became more and more
severe and gradually swept in every kind of organization
inside the community—soviets, syndicates, the Communist
Party itself, and in other countries utilized any force, party,
or principle that might serve its needs, as interpreted solely
by the leaders. Use is made indifferently of anti-militarism
or Chauvinism, the ReicJiswehr or the Red Front; the League
of Nations is denounced as a ‘ fortress of imperialism ’ or
exalted as the ‘ bulwark of peace ’. The defence of demo¬
cratic liberties becomes alternately an unforgiveable sin of
the ‘hangers-on of capitalism’ and the supreme aim of
the Popular Front. Leon Blum is criticized in 1934 for
saying in the Chamber that the socialists would resist a
German attack on France, and violently attacked in 1936
because as head of the government he received Dr. Schacht.
Family feeling, which once stank of the petit-bourgeois, is
honourably reinstated, not because socialism may be en¬
riched thereby, but because the Soviet State wants France
to have a big army and consequently as many recruits as
possible.

This method of completely subordinating the material
interests of the working-class and socialist movement and

362 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

of Other nations to the strategic needs of the Soviet State
puts all the problems and actions involved in a wrong
light, even when the slogans that go round and the solutions
advocated are irreproachable. This subjection of all tactics
and principles to the Russian scale has caused a great
number of people, who joined the communist movement
because they saw it as a perfect combination of theory and
practice, to break with it rather than betray the motives
which first impelled them to join it. Their experience of
fascism has had a great deal to do with this ‘ return to
principle Those who have fought against fascism have
come to the conclusion that they cannot take up the fight
starting from the standpoint of bolshevik communism or treat
principles as mere matters of expediency which may be
modified or abandoned at will.

The struggle against fascism is primarily a struggle for
the liberty and rights of the human being. One can only
carry it on if one really believes in these principles and is
prepared to demand and fight for them under any regime.
The communists have adopted the doctrine attributed
(wrongly) to Louis Veuillot : ' When we are the weaker
party we demand liberty in the name of your principles ;
when we are the stronger we refuse it to you in the name
of our own.’ This attitude offers certain advantages which
attract the average combatant who finds things very easy
the moment truth becomes ' one way only ’ and is found to
be on this side of the Pyrenees Some intellectuals, who
had never been able to stand much of the heady wine of
principle, were delighted to find that their weakness was a
virtue and grateful to bolshevism for having rid them of
their inferiority complex. But such advantages are false
and dangerous, and people must have the courage to give
them up if they want to go on fighting against fascism. It
is a hard fight involving real values and calling for more
than a merely temporary conviction. The absence of such
faith is bad for the fighting power of the combatants, for their
moral sense cannot be so crushed as to deprive them of all
consciousness of wrong-doing when the fascist victory takes
away all their landmarks, factsand leaves them adrift.
Besides, other members of the community who are asked

EPILOGUE

363

to help may wonder if the unscrupulousness of which the
proletarian party boasts as a virtue is not likely to be turned
against them to-morrow, and if, in the absence of some
common imperative, any agreement they make will not
become one-sided.

Much of the individual and collective demoralization that
has followed the victory of fascism in certain countries is
due to the so-called communist ‘ realism which has
infected the very heart of resistance with doubt and feeble¬
ness. No individual deed of heroism can make up for
this blow at the very source of anti-fascism ; especially as
fascism must, in order to win, succeed in destroying the
faith and the material aids that have made working-class
and popular conquests possible. It must break the frame¬
work and the ties that give the masses power to unite and
resist, shattering them until each man is isolated and up¬
rooted and can no longer stand out against the organization
that is forced upon him. All fascist methods have the same
aim ; they destroy workers’ organizations, suppress deino-
cracy and political life itself, use and falsify socialist prin¬
ciples, by stirring up hatred and passion they evoke the
maximum of blind mass reaction, they hold eternal
principles up to scorn. Their intention is to destroy the
hope, on which all great revolutions have been nourished,
of a truth in which men may recognize their common

safety and their highest destiny. ^

Socialism, therefore, cannot be a form of ‘ red fascism .
Though the possibility of its manoeuvring in the same way
is not excluded, it cannot use the fascist creed as the fascists
use the socialist creed. It cannot go far that way and a.void
the risk of going too far. To copy fascist tactics, either
deliberately or in panic, is to play the game which suits
both the nature and interests of fascism and in which it
excels. By suppressing conscience and free thought fascism
creates just the atmosphere and the weapons it wants, and
in these conditions it is bound to outclass its enemy. By
following it on to its own ground socialism, without opening

1 Hence the sympathy of the various forms of fascism for ‘ philosophies ’ of
power and instinct, their borrowings from pragmatism,
their generous consumption of ‘dynamism _^d my* . fascism only
extols the irrational so as to substitute reasons of state for the human reason.

364 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

up any new possibilities^ betrays its own nature and its
real and only claim to superiority. The adoption of the
amoral means and ends of fascism implies the abandonment
of the historic role of the proletariat, which is the ' fulfilment
of philosophyIts mission is to bring back into the world
that sense of universal and human needs which other .classes
refuse to admit. Socialist society and the action leading to
it can only be conceived of sub specie philosophies which means
sub specie generis humani^ The worth of the working class
lies in its philosophical and, consequently, its human content.

By sacrificing this it prepares its own collapse and defeat,
and delivers itself into the hands of fascism. This is not a
merely academic point. The world to-day is suffering from
a profound confusion of material and spiritual values and
from the lack of a common truth and a common task.
Exaggerated nationalism is only one aspect—the most
formidable—of this confusion : each country writhes in
isolation like a sick man. Fascism glories in this situation,
intensifies it, and recognizes no connection with the rest of
the world except through war. Consequently it detests
anything that brings nations together in any other way,
be it international socialism, Christian ethics or the League
of Nations. Thus it marches on, dragging us with it towards
the abyss. There can be no illusions about this. The human
race was barely able to endure the war of 1914-18, though
it possessed great material and spiritual reserves, accumul¬
ated over a long period, which saved it from collapse.
To-day we should begin a new war with less resources and
greater powers of destruction, after a prolonged period of
crisis which in several places has nearly cracked the thin
crust of civilization on which we live. The chances are that
the next war will be a purely fascist one, introducing and
compelling the general adoption of fascist methods ; a war
carried on with the finest technical equipment backed by
the mentality of the cave man.

In face of this threat more is needed than to meet ' auto¬
matism’ with ^automatism’, coercion with coercion, cor-

j cannot be fulfilled without the suppression of the proletariat,

and the proletariat can only be suppressed when philosophy is fulfilled.’
Marx, Contribution to the Critique of the Philosophy of Law.

EPILOGUE

365

ruption with corruption, white army witli red army, or to
befog everyone with a cloud of formulas, as if the only hope
lay in confiision. In point of material and military strength
we must be superior to the fascists, since that is the ground
on which they are trying to force a decision. But unless
some great moral force emerges to prevent war altogether,
or if it comes, to keep its aims clearly defined, some force
that endures unchanged through all events, however frightful
or overwhelming, victory cannot be won, or, if won,
signifies nothing. Such a force is only to be found in the
popular masses, the common people, the workers. Theirs
are the fundamental feelings : love of peace, desire for social
justice, respect for humanity, the sense of brotherhood which
are the mainsprings of humanity. Naturally these feelings
do not predominate all the time ; they have often to be
unearthed, and they can be suppressed or deflected. But
not a single man of the people in any country really believes
that war is ‘ the hygiene of the world ’, or joins in the jeers
of the fascist leaders at the massacres of Addis Ababa or the
martyrdom of the children of Madrid. He has to be educated
up to this stage, trained to forget his genuine impulses.
But once the fever has worn off, or he is brought hard up
against problems from which his attention has been dis¬
tracted, his strong instinct to regard war as a curse reasserts
itself This is the focus of resistance to fascism.

It is not the side with the last cartridge or the last ton of
steel that is going to win the next war. The most indispensable
raw material will be human energy, inspired and sustained
by lofty hopes and aims. Technical efficiency alone cannot
win, especially if the war becomes, as it is bound to, one of
slow attrition. It will be more than ever a war of the masses,
an infantryman’s war. And still more certainly than in the
Great War it will be the last comers and the non-combatants
who will tip the scales. Public opinion will play a decisive part
and its judgments will be worth armies.^ In a war lasting
a few months the fascist formula, automatism plus fanaticism,
may show to advantage, but in a prolonged struggle moral

1 The fascists are well aware of this : for though they affect to despise the
‘ foolish weathercock of so-called public opinion no regime has spent and

plotted so much to corrupt and influence it.

366 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

values will tell. Humanity must find salvation in its deeper
self, and the deepest and most enduring feelings are those
pertaining to enlightened moral consciousness. After the
deluge, if any countries survive, the sun will shine on those
who have managed to preserve those foundations of humanity
that fascism is trying so hard to destroy for ever.

APPENDIX

List of fascist ^ victories ’ during the general strike (see p. 222)
published in Popolo PItalia of August 5. This list, which is given
here in full, only includes information which reached the Popolo
d'Italia previous to the night of August 4, 192 2 A

Alessandria

Ancona

Antignano (Leghorn)
Ardenza (Leghorn)
Campo Canneto (Parma)
Chiappa (Spezia)
Falconara (Ancona)
Figline Valdarno
Florence

Fornovo (Parma)

Genoa

Gravina (Bari)

Intra (Novara)

Leghorn

Milan

Naples

Noceto (Parma)

Occupation of the town hall and
People’s Theatre.

Chamber of Labour, anarchist club,
railwaymen’s club, ‘ Soviet ’ club,
Melloni club.

Socialist club.

Communist club.

Co-operative and socialist club*

Socialist and communist clubs.

Socialist club.

Resignation of socialist town council.

Railwaymen’s bar, Chamber of
Labour, socialist paper, La Difesa.

Co-operative and socialist club.

Railwaymen’s club.

Chamber of Labour.

Chamber of Labour and co-operative.

Chamber of Labour, Socialist Pro¬
vincial Federation, communist club^
socialist divisional headquarters,
the ‘ Swan ’ club, occupation of
the town hall, forced resignation of
socialist town council and socialist
deputies for the province.

Socialist club, tramwaymen’s club,
raiiwaymen’s club, two communist
clubs, railwaymen’s co-operative,
occupation of Palazzo Marino,
headquarters of socialist town
council.

Headquarters of Harbour Federation.

Co-operative and socialist club.

3. Unless otherwise stated, the offices of the organization mentioned were
destroyed, almost always by fire.

367

368 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

Novara
Novi Ligure

Oderzo (Treviso)

Padua

Pavia

Peicastagno (Genoa)

Piacenza

Pisa

Pistoia

Ponte a Signa (Florence)
Rebosco (Genoa)

Rimini

Ronco (Parma)

Saliano (Parma)
Sampierdarena (Genoa)

San Jacopo (Leghorn)
San Secondo (Parma)
Savona (Genoa)

Schio

Spezia (Genoa)

Torre (Padua)

Turin

Trieste

Vicenza

Vigevano

Voghera

Resignation of socialist town council
Chamber of Labour, resignation of
socialist town council.

Communist club.

Chamber of Labour.

Chamber of Labour.

Socialist and communist club.
Chamber of Labour.

Socialist paper, Era Nostra.
Occupation of town hall.

Proletarian league of ex-servicemen.
Socialist and communist club.

Marine Labour co-operative, railway-
men’s co-operative.

Socialist co-operative and club.
Co-operative and socialist club.
Chamber of Labour, railwaymen’s
co-operative.

Socialist club.

Socialist co-opei'ative and club.
Socialist co-operative.

Chamber of Labour.

Federal Chamber of Labour, Syn¬
dicalist (dissident) Chamber of
Labour, Marine Federation, Metal¬
workers’ Syndicate.

Chamber of Labour.

Several communist clubs.

Van belonging to the paper II
Lavoratore.

Chamber of Labour.

Chamber of Labour.

Railwaymen’s club.

The harvest was so abundant that the Popolo PItalia was
unable to quote the full honours list. The following is an
attempt to fill the gap, always confining itself to August 4 as
the limiting date. ^

Ancona

Binasco (Milan)
Leghorn (Tuscany)
Legnaia (Florence)
Legnano (Milan)

Home of the communist deputy
Corneli, and socialist printing
works.

Chamber of Labour.

Railwaymen’s club.

Mutual aid society.

Occupation of town hall.

is almost all taken from Ghiurco’s History of the

APPENDIX

Ovada (Alessandria)

Padua

Parma

Pavia

Pisa

Quiliano (Genoa)

Riva Trigoso (Genoa)
vSala Braganza (Parma)
Savona

Siena

Tavernuzze (Florence)

Varese

Vigevano

Voghcra

3S9

Chamber of Labour, paper VEman-
cipazionc, resignation of socialist
town couiiciL

Railway men’s club.

Railwaymen’s clubs, printing w^orks
of II Piccolo twice burnt and
pillaged, occupation of town halls
of Salsomaggiore, Borgo San Don-
nino, Sissa, San Lazzaro, Lusig-
naiio, Palma, and other socialist
communes in the province.

Resignation of twelve socialist town
councils in the province.

Chamber of Labour, occupation of
railwaymen’s club.

Occupation of town hall.

Chamber of Labour.

^ General conflagration.’^

Railwaymen’s club, occupation of
town hall, Chamber of Labour,
Consortium of Harbour Co¬
operatives.

Chamber of Labour (for the third
time), anti-fascist newspaper stall,
mutual-help club II Risorgimento^
anarchist clubs Germinal and Pietro
Gori.

Communist club.

Occupation of the town hall.

Communist club, printing works of
UIndependente, fascist expeditions in
the district to Siziano, Sairano,
Piccolini di Vigevano, Mezzanine
Po, Gasorate, Garbonara, Mezzana
Corte.

Resignation of socialist town council.

These are only outstanding episodes among thousands of
individual and collective outrages which it is impossible to
relate in detail.

^ Ghiurco IV, p. 214.

24

INDEX

Abyssinia, ri. 349, n. 350, 355, 365
Acerbb, Giacomo, fascist deputy, 277,
n. 297, 320
Adige. See Tyrol

Agnelli, Giovanni, senator, president
of Fiat, 80

agrarian associations, 102, 103, 109,
196, 262. See General Confederation
of Agricidture^ Landoitmers
agrarian reform, Piemonte scheme,
93-94 ; Bertini scheme, n. 198 ; in
the Balkans, 342-343
Albania, 68, 75

Albert I, King of the Belgiums, 281
Albertini, Luigi, senator and editor of
the Corriere della Sera, 77,252,253,298
Alessio, Giulio, minister in Giolitti
and Facta cabinets, 136, 283, 292
Amendola, Giovanni, democrat leader
and minister in Facta cabinet, 233,
271, 283, 292, 322
Ancona, ‘ red week ’ of, i, 2 : revolt
at, 68, 75

Aosta, Duke of, 47,49,281-2,294,298
Arabs, 236

arditi, 2,j.‘ 25, 33, 38, 40-42, 44, 69, 70,

119, 126, 128, n. 138, 144
arditi del popolo, 143, 154, 156-158,
160, 169, 229-231

army, and expedition to Fiume, 44-
48, 86 ; its connection with organi¬
sation o^fasci, 97-99 ; its share in
punitive expeditions, 105,106, 113-
123, 228, 230-231, 242 ; Mussolini
and, 248 ; and march on Rome,
n. 288, 294, 301-310
Assalto, fascist paper in Bologna, 149
Austria, 2, 12, 132, 283, 346
Autonomous Consortium of the Port
in Genoa, 224-226, 240
Avanti, socialist daily in Milan, viii,
27, 130,155, 200, 254, 271 ; edited
by Mussolini before the war, i, 3,
27, 334 ; attacked by fascists April
1919, 41 ; Rome printing works
sacked, July 1920, 70 ; again in
March 1921, 119 ,* again in August
1922, 227-8; attacked in Oct,, 305
Avezzana, Baron, ambassador, 274
Azimonti, General Confederation of
Labour leader, 216

Baci-ii, Riccardo, economist, 198
Badoglio, General, 47, 258
Bakunin, Michael, 50, 324, 3S0

Balabanoff, Angelica, 23
Balbo, Italo, 108, 151, 153, 177, 178,
186, 188, 190, 192, 195, 212-214,
229, 264-266, 277, 282, n.285,287,
289, n. 293, 309, 310, 311, 314
Baldesi, Gino, secretary of General
Confederation of Labour, 147, 183,
184,209,320

Baldini, Nullo, socialist’ deputy and
co-operative, 95, 147, 153, n. 213
Banco Commercials Italimia, 64, 77
Banco Italiana di Sconto, 64, 173
Banchelli, Umberto, sqiiadrista leader,
122, 144, 181, 344
Banks, and fascism, 240, 298, 316
Baroncini, squadrista leader, 190, 213
Barrere, Jean, French ambassador at
Rome, 28, 62, 173, 174
Battisti, Cesare, 24
Bazzi, Carlo, 281
Belgium, 3, 72
Benedict XV, 176

Benni, A. Stefano, deputy and leader
of the General Confederation of
Industry, 298, 305

Bergamini, Alberto, senator and editor
of the Giornale dTtalia, 153,252 & 11.
Bergson, Henri, 22, 135
Bertini, Giovanni, popolare deputy,
198,202

Beyens, Belgian ambassador at Vati¬
can, 255 ^ ■

Bianchi, Michele, secretary of Fascist
Party and quadrumvir, 26, 101, n.
165, 191, 221, 227, 229, 234, 248,
258, 264, 266, 267, 272, 282, 285,
289, 291, 292, 309, 310, 311, 312
Bianchi scheme, 198 ff.

Bissolati, Leonida, socialist leader and
minister during war, 14, 28-30, 32,
72,84

Blanqui, 10, 135

bolshevism and the intellectuals, 136,
138, 142, 194, 361-362
Bolton King, 330, 335
Bombacci, Nicola, communist deputy,
93, 95

Bonomi, Ivanoe, reformist socialist
and President of the Council, 6,85,
99, 144, 160, 161, 171-174, 193,
199,201,206,211,253,336
Bordiga, Amedeo, communist leader,

203, 336 ■ . ,

Bottai, Giuseppe, fascist deputy, com¬
mander of column in march oh

371

372 THE RISE OF I'

Rome, 149, 282, 313, 314, 317,
321

Briand, Aristide, 173
Bulgaria, 132, 343, 346
Buozzi, socialist deputy and secretary
of F.I.O.M., 77

Caillaux, Joseph, n. 48
Cannes, conference of, 62, 173
Gapanni, Italo, fascist deputy, 104,277
Capello, Luigi, 211, 277
capitalism, Mussolini’s views on, 134 ;
connection with fascism, 341-344,
350-352. See Agrarian Associations,
Banks, Industrialists; State capital¬
ism and fascism, 350
Caradonna, Giuseppe, fascist deputy,

118, 153, 282 ^

Catholicism, fascism and, 5, d? 33,163,
354-5 ; Mussolini and, 40, 132, 146
Gaviglia, General, 49, 86
Geccherini, General, 283, 313, n. 316,

^319

Gelli, Guido, reformist deputy, 174,
175. 206, 335

Ghimiento, Pietro, minister in Nitti
cabinet, 60

Chiurco, author of History of Fascist
Revolution, 104,106 ff., 120, 121,188,
190, 198,229,242, 243, n. 286, 294,
298, n. 301, n. 306, n. 308, n. 312,
n.316, 318, 368

Ciano, Costanza, 295, 297, 311,
n. 312, 317

Cittadini, Arturo, A.D.C. to the
king, 299, 311
Givelli, Ernesto, 294, 316
Clemenceau, 4, 30, 31, 54
Cocco-Ortu, Francesco, liberal
deputy, 253, 295

Communist International, 55, 74, 89,
156, 200 ; and popular front, 209,
210 ; and fascism, 346, 347 ; and
Soviet state, 360-362
Communist Party, Italian, 210, 212,
320, 326-329, 330, 346-348 ; foun¬
dation in 1921, 134, 147 ; and
pacification treaty and arditi del
popolo, 1^6-1 ; Mussolini’s threat

of alliance with, 171 ; and popu¬
lar front tactics, 210
Constituent Assembly, 12-17, 27, 34,
54. 57 j 158

Gorgini, Ottavio, fascist deputy, 250,

• 252 _

Corradini, Camillo, 273
Corridoni, Filippo, 23, 24, 38, 229
Corriere della Milan daily, 77,

252, 258, 269, 284, 291
Goselschi, d’Annunzio’s secretary
268,271 ’

Critica Sociale, 73
Croce, Benedetto, 6, 131

ALIAN FASCISM

Dalmatia, 29, 30, 31, 35, 47, 61, 84,
271, 283

d’Annunzio, Gabriele, 6, 30 ; and
Fiume, 42 ; and Gh. IV, 62, 84, 87,
109, 137 ; disagreement with fas¬
cism in 1921, 144, 166, 181-182 ;
rapprochement with General Con¬
federation of Labour, 183-184,
258-262 ; Palazzo Marino speech,
227-228 ; meeting with ' anti¬
fascist ex-servicemen, 259 ; rap¬
prochement with Nitti, 2B0 ; plan
for demonstration in Rome, 258-
261, 270, 291-292 ; agreement
with Mussolini over F.I.L.M., 267-
271 ; during march on Rome, 298
Dante, 72, 152, 184
d’Aragona, Ludovico, 184, 209
de Ambris, Alceste, 49, 183, 259
de Ambris, Amilcare, 229
de Bono, General and quadrumvir, 264,
265, 282, 285, 301, 310, 311, 312,
.^315. n. 316, n. 319
Delcroix, Carlo, 138, 292
Democratic groups, 168, 202, 205,
206, 247,253

de Nava, minister under Nitti, 211,295
de Nicola, Enrico, president of the
Chamber, 147, 174, 211, 252, 20^
Depretis, Agostino, 5 ^

de Stefani, Alberto, fascist deputy,
224,248, 277

de Vecchi, deputy and quadrumvir, 264,
265, 282, 285, 291, 294, 295, 296,
297. 299, 309, 310, 311, n. 312, 316
Diaz, General, 258, 304
Dudan, Alessandro, nationalist
leader, 290

Dumini, Amerigo, 144

Eastman, Max, 359
economic crisis, 18, 19, 26, 58-61, 89,
185,249-253,331-332 ■

Egypt, 236

Einaudi, Luigi, senator and econom-
^ n. 252, 320
Eisner, Kurt, 34

elections, in 1919, 21, 38-39, 52 ; in
1920,83,99 ; 1111921, 83,129-131,
172 ; in 1922, 279, 287-288
England, 5, 32, 35, 58, 66, 132, 173,
208, 235-236, 339

Fabbri, Luigi, communist leader, i8o
Facta, Luigi, president of Council;
first ministry, 175, 188, 193, 205-8,
210 ; second ministiy, 218, 233,
248, 252 ; and march on Rome,
258, 261, 271,273,283, n. 286, 287,

, 290-295, n. 297, 298, n. 312, 346
factory councils, 67, 80, 129
factory occupations, 26, 68, 75-81,
82,129,185,200,330
Fara, General, 264,283,313,316, 318

Farinacci, Roberto, fascist deputy,
142, 151, 228, 229, 235, 248
fasci of revolutionary action, 6, 7, 33
fasci di combatiimento^ foundation and
programme, 33-36 ; and food riots,
19, 141 ; congress of Florence, 15,
37 ; programme of 1919, 33-37 ;
elections of November, 1919,39-41;
strength in 1919-1920, 33-37 ;
drive after factory occupations, 79-
80, 90 ; and Fiume, 84-87 ; in the
Po valley, 90-93 ; May 1921 elec¬
tions, 129-134; national council,
June, 1921, 133 ; manifesto after
events of Sarzana, 144, 145 ; oppo¬
sition to peace pact, 142-158, 160 ;
‘new programme,’ 159-163;
strength on eve of march on Rome,
163 ; Rome congress, 163, 169
Fascism, foreign policy of; breaks
with ‘ Wilsonism,’ 29-31 ; in 1919,
35, 42, 45 ; and Treaty of Rapallo,
^4.^ ^37-^36 ; growing imperialism,
1919-1921, 132-133,162-164,172 ;
and vested interests, 198-199, 238-
240 ; in 1922, 208, 236-237, 257,
283-284, 290, 320 ; connection with
war on working class, 237-238,352 ;
and drift to autarchy and war, 350-
352 ; causes of success, 323-340 ;
definition ol^ 267-268, 33B-355 ;
conditions for its defeat, 346-347,
355-366 ; and religion, 354-355 ;
military organization ol^ 97“99> ^69
-170, I91-193, 239, 262-266, 282
-283, n. 300, n. 302. See fasci,
Fascist congresses, Fascist Party, Puni¬
tive expeditions, Mussolini
Fascist congresses, p-36, 37-38, 131-
132, 161-168, 182, 247, 255, 266,
270, 274, 283-290
Fascist Party, National, Jhi-d become
the party, n. 165, all fascists made
to join squads, 170 ; votes against
Bonomi, 173 ; end of party crisis,
177-183 ; reactionary develop¬
ment, 194-199 ; abandonment of
1919 programme, 205; and general
strike of August 1922, 2^8,^234-
236 ; and adunale, 246 ; in South,
247 ; campaign for financial restor¬
ation, 249-252 ; creation of trium¬
virate, 264 ; Naples congress, 283-
290. See march on Rome
Federzoni, Luigi, nationalist leader,
264, 294, n* 312 ; ' ^ .

Fera, Luigi, minister in Giolitti’s
cabinet, 129

Ferrari, Archbishop, 83, 280
Ferrari, Giannino, 199
Ferraro, Guglielmi, 65, 180
Finzi, Aldo, 261, n, 296, 305
Fiume, and^ Treaty of Paris, 29> 30>

32, 35 ; occupation by d’Annun-
zio, 42, Gh. IV, 43 If., 61, 62, 84-
87, 103, 128, 133, 137-136,15L 165,
181, 260, 270, 281 ; occupation
by fascists, 182, 188. See Quarnero
Forges-Davanzati, Roberto, 294
Forni, Gesare, 227, 282
France, 3, 5, 32, 35, 66, 173, 342, 361
Freemasonry, i, 14, 33, 47, 101, 129,
134, 211, 267, 276-9, 281-2, n. 316
Frassati, editor of the Starnpa, 209

Gandolfo, General, 178
Gaspai'ri, Cardinal, 83,216-17,279-80
General Confederation of Agriculture,
33, 70, ti. 298, 316. See Agrarian
associations, Landlords
General Confederation of Industry,
33, 70, 185, 298. See IndiistriaUsts,
88, 93, 96, 135, 136, 143, 147, 166,
184, 186, 200, 216, 271
General Confederation of I.abour, i ;
its programme for post-war period,
15-16, 24, 45 ; development after
armistice, 66, 69, 71 ; signs pact at
Moscow, 74 ; and factory occupa¬
tions, 78, 79 ; pact of alliance with
Socialist Party, 25, 77, 78, 88, 200,
243 ; signs pacification pact, 147 ;
joins Labour Alliance, 175, 176 ;
rapprochement with d’Annimzio,
182-5 ; march on Rome, 320-1
General Confederation of Labour
(French), 20, 66

General Confederation of National
Syndicates, 187

Gennari, Egidio, communist deputy,

78,93

Genoa, Conference ot, 173, 175, 183,

205

Gentiloni pact, 5

Germany, 32, 44, 62, 66, 132, 173,

181, 208, 344, 346, 347, 352,
n. 359, 361

Giolitti, Giovanni, i, 5, 6, 7, 15, 46,
56, 57,62-65, 70"'7L 75. 79. 62,83-
86, 88, 99, 107, 128, 129, 131, 135,
136-137, 141, 172, 173. 174. 175.
180,181,202,204,211,217,221,233,
253, 260,264,267, 271-3,274, 279,
281, 286-8, 291, 292, 323, 333, 336
Giordani, Giulio, loi
Giornale dV/a/m, conservative daily at
Rome, 120, 153-154. 235. 248, 253,
282, 291, 295, n. 297, 343
Giuletti, Giuseppe, 50, 184, 267-271
Giunta, Francesco, 113, 182, 248,
302-303

Giurati, Giovanni, 47, 49, 182, 219
Giustizia, socialist daily in Milan, 192,
231 ■■■

Gnudi, Oreste, communist mayor of
Milan, 100

374 the rise of Italian fascism

Goldmaniij Cesare, 276
Gramsci, Antonio, communist leader,
73, m 183,336

Grandi, 149-153, 164, 167, 177, 187,
2i3> 235, 253, 258, 290, 296,11. 310,
311, n. 312, 317, 335
Grazioli, General, 43

History of Fascist Revolution. See Chiurco
Hitler, 344, 346, 347
Hungary, 20, 31, 88, 281, 283

Idea Ifazionale, nationalist paper, 155,
291, 294

Igliori, Ulisse, fascist leader, 282, 283,
3 i 3 > 314. 317. 318
Industrialists, subsidise Fopolo dFtalia.,
42 ; and factory occupations, 75™
81, 82 ; and anti-working class
offensive, 123, 124, 128, 129, 185 ;
and fascism, 107,131, 223-226,241,
250.^ 33I“3335 344- See General
Confederation of Industry
Italian Federation of Land-workers,
92“95, 191

Italian Federation of Maritime
Workers (F.I.L.M.), 50, 86, 183,
267-271

Italian Federation of Metallurgical
VVorkers (F.I.O.M.), 75-81, 136
Italian Labour Union, 14,25,26,38,49
Italian Syndical Union, 38, no, 243

Jauri^s, Jean, 359
Jesuits and fascism, 176
Jugo-Slavia, 29, 30, 31, 32, 48, n. 60,
61, 62, 84, 88, 167, 236, 303, 342
Jurgens, Captain, 144, ‘190'“

Kerenski, Alexander, n. 326

Labour Alliance, 175, 214, 21588,
243.259,280,321

Labour party, the idea of a, 25, 142-
M3. J59

Landlords, and fascist aggression,
90 ff., 102, 103, 107, 116, 123, 152,
164,191, 195 j and fascist syndical¬
ism, 101-103, 195. 199, 249. 33 L
333. 343 ; disagreements withYas-
dsts, 262. See Agrarian Association^
General Confederation of Agriculture
Lanfranconi, Luigi, fascist deputy,

114,277

Lavoratore, socialist daily of Trieste
103,105,121,169 ’

LavorO) reformist da,iiy of Genoa, 35^
League of Nations, 35-36, 63, 132*;

162, 236-237, 361, 364
Leases, peasant, 92, 95, in, 114
Lenin, 13, 55^

.359-361

Liberal party, 14, 252-253
Libyan war, 1, 2, 6, 28, 72
Lloyd George, 10, 30, 36, C2, 173

London, Treaty of, 2, 6, 29-30, 32, 163
Longinotti, G. M., popolare deputy,
206

Liipi, Dario, fascist deputy, 233-2'>4,
273,283

Lusignoli, Alfredo, senator and pre¬
fect of Milan, 84, 175, 271,273, 291,
298, 305

Lussu, Emilio, 12

Malatesta, Enrico, anarchist leader,
40,50,119

march on Rome, dAnnunzio’s plan
in 1919-1920,49-51 ; fascism and,
194, 203, 208, 220, 236, 255-259,
261-263 ; decided on, 261-282 ;
meeting at Hotel Vesuvio, 285 ff. ;
mentioned at Naples congress, 283 ;
Facta crisis and summons of Musso¬
lini ^ by king, 291 ff. ; lascist
mobilization, 299 ff. ; the march,
3^2 ff.; how it was financed,
n. 316 ; the numbers taking part,
3 i 4 - 3 U.vP-319
Margaret of Savoy, 282
Marinelli, administrative secretary of
fascis t party, 296, n. 316
Marinelli, F. T., futurist and fascist,
37 ., 132 ,

Marsich, Piero, 151, 181
Marx, Karl, 40, 71, 325, 364
Matteotti, Giacomo, socialist deputy,
lu, 112, 123, 144, 209, n. 265,
324, n. 346

Mattino, Naples daily, 247, 255
Maximalists, Gh. VI, 66-81
Alazzini, 280, 348
rmzzudri^^O, 94, 114
Milleranci, Alexandre, 62, 173
Millo, Admiral, 47, 49, 86, 137
Mlsiano, Francesco, communist
deputy, 138, 140

Modigliani, G. E., socialist deputy, 70,
163, 174

Mori, prelect of Bologna, i go- 192
Mortara, CE, economist, 18', 89 ‘
Mussolini, Benito, before the war, i~
4, 28-29, 333-337 ; and interven¬
tion, 2-4 ; personality and tactics
after armistice, 22 ff. ; demagogy
at end of war, 10, 11, 14, 19, 33Y.34,
37742, , 53 . 55. '65 ; and F.IA.T,
strikes, 68 ; views on foreign policy,
29-32, 35-36, 133-134."207-208,
236-239, 283 ; their bearing on
internal policy, 237 ; acquires a
bodyguard, 24-25, 40, 42; and
fascist movement in 1919, 33-42 ;
and elections of November, 1919,
viii, 39-41 ; and fascist movement
in 1930, 83, 84, 136 ; and Giolitti’s
government, 83-85, t33, 134 ; and
Flume, 50, 51, 83-85., 137-138 ;

IN

arid tile factory occupations, 26-27,
75”795 5 I'rieste speech. 132,

137-138 ; election in May, 1921,
130 ; manoeuvres in 1921, 131-170,

171-173 ; peace pact and contest
with fascist opposition, 139-141,
143-161 ; Rome congress and
reconciliation with opposition, 162-
169 ; political action in first half of
192a, i 7 i-i 77 > 193-194.. ?03 fl’. ;
liquidation of fascist opposition and
struggle against d’Annunzio, 177-
184 ; and fascist syndicalism, 185-
188 ; actions in second half of 1922,
228, 231, 233-240, 247-250, 252 ff.;
efforts to win over industrialists,
249-250; agrees to meet Nitti, 260 ;
military preparation for march on
Rome, 264-266; political prepara¬
tion, 267 ff. ; — d’Annunzio, 260,
267-271, 298; — Giolitti, 271-273 ;
— Salandra, 273, n. 297, 299 ; ^
Nitti, 273-276; — Freemasonry,
276-279 ; — the Vatican, 279-280,
298 ; — the Republican party, 280 ;

>— the king, 281-282 ; and the
march on Rome, 282 ff.; arrival in
Rome and formation of new govern¬
ment, 317-322 ; personal effect on
success of fascism, 333-337 ; views
on war, 349-350 ; the triarchy of
fascism, n. 352

Naldi, Filippo, 3, 28
National Association of Ex-service
Men, II, 14, 39, 40, 968*., 327
Nationalist Party, 2, 7, 30, 31, 38,48,

S3. 65. 84. * 33 . 139 'Ss'iSo, 175,
236, 265-266, 291, 295, 311, 320

Nemii, Pietro, socialist leader, ii, 15,
n. 104

Nietsche, Friedrich, 22, 45, 179, 238
Nitti, F. S., 19, 21, 29, 43, 90, 160-
161, 168,■ 172, 174, 177, 180, 181,

. 202, 205, 233, 247, 253, 279» 283,
286, 336; and Fiume, 46-49;
personality and achievement, 56-
65 conversations with Mussolini,

210, 261, 273-276

Olivetti, Gino, secretaiy of General
Confederation of Industry, 289,298
Ordine Niwvo^ communist daily of^
Tuiin, n. 183,

Orlando, V. E., 10,30,31,43,61, 174,

211, 253, 259, 271, 292, 295, 336
Ottobre, fascist review, 311
Oviglio, Aldo, fascist deputy, 151, 277

Pallazzo d’Agcursio, events in, 99-

lOI

Palermi, R., n. 48

Palestine, 236

Paris Conference, 29-32

DEX 375

Pasella, Umberto, general secretaiy
oi'fasci, loi

Passerone, G., squadrisla, 188-189
Pelloux, Luigi, 5, 45
Perrone, Marquis, 104, n. 149, 178,
_n. 241, 277, 282, 313, 314, 315
Picello, Guido, communist deputy, 2 29
Piemonte, E., 93-94
Pius IX, 176, 298
Pighetti, G., fascist deputy, 301
Poincare, R., 173

Popolo d'ltalia, Mussolini’s paper in
Milan, 3, 19, 32, 33, 42, 47, 51, 84,
87, 107, 118, 140, 149, 153, 155,
159, 161, 164, 168, 196, 203, 205,
208, 215, 222, 227, 236, 243, 248,

Popolare, party, formation and success
in 1919, 21, 38, 52 ; programme,
60, 61, 64, 65 ; action in 1920, 82,
83,85,114; successful action in 1921,
129, 130, 131-134, 146; action in
1922, 173-177, 197, 204-207, 211,
217, 233, 236 ; before and after
the march on Rome, 279-281, 320
Fostiglione, G., intendant of march
on Rome, n. 294, 297, n. 316
Prampolini, C., no
Punitive expeditions, Ancona, 212,
216; x\puHa, 116-117 ; Bologna,
99, 107, 190-192 ; Bolzano, 248 ;
Civita - Vecchia, 241-242 ; Cre¬
mona, 203, 205 ; Ferrara, 101-103,
107-108, 190 ; Genoa, 222-226 ;
Mantua, 109 ; Massa, 242 ; Milan,
227-228 ; against the Avanti, 41-42,
119,227,305 ; Modena, 107 ; Moli-
neiia, 190 ; Novara, 212 ; Parma,
iiQ-iii, 228-231 ; Pavia, 113-
114; Piacenza, ni; Ravenna,
152, 212-213 ; Reggio Emilia, no;
Roccastrada, 149; Rome, 69-70,
167 ; Rovigo, in ; Sarzana, 144-
146; Tuscany, 114-116; Trent,
248 ; Treviso, 149, 240 ; Trieste,
70, 103, 105 ; Turin, 119 ; Julian
Venetia,. 102-104 ; Venetia, 112-
113 ; Viterbo, 149; list of places
affected in first half of 1921, 120-
121 ; ditto, during and after
general strike of August 1922, 367 ;
military character of expeditions,
124-128, 203-204 ; unifying effect
on members, 181;^ destruction of
free syndical organizations, 185-7 ;
progress of typical squadrista, 188-9

ClUADRUMVIRATE, faSCist, 266, 285,
n. 288, 289, n. 293, 294, 300-301,
307-312, n. 315, 316
Quarnero, Constitution of, 85-87,
151, 164,165, 166, 182

376 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

Radical Party, 14
Rapallo, Treaty of, 84-86, 128, 127-
138, 166, 181, 182
Rassegna communista^ 321
Repaci, F. A., economist, 251
Republican party, 14, 39, 267', 280
Resto del Carlino, Bologna daily, 3,148,
296

Ricci, Renato, fascist leader, 144,224,
242,317

Riccio, V., minister in Facta cabinet,
.175^233,291

Risorgimento, the, 4, 14, 31, 166, 330
Rocca, Massimo, fascist leader, 224,
250, 252, 288
Rocco, Alfredo, 320
Romania, 342
Rome, Pact of, 29
Ronco, Nino, 224-226, 240
Rossi, Cesare, 84, 151, 277
Rossoni, Edmondo, 224, 229, 267
Royal Guard, 59, 68, 160, 'iGS, 190
Russian revolution, effect in Italy, 11,
16, 17, 20, 21, 55, 68

Salandra, Antonio, 2, 6, 10, 141,
254, 267, 273, 274, 286, 290, 292,
295j 297, 298, 299
Salvemini, G., 289, 295, 315
San Remo conference, 62
Schanzer, Gino, 253
'Schilf-Giorgim, 261, 273
Schuster, Cardinal, 355
Sera, Milan daily, 273
Serrati, G., editor of Avanti, 55, 87,
89, 200, 244-245

Sforza, Count, minister in Giolitti’s
ministry, 51, 133, n. 292, n. 294,

So(|talist Party, and Great War, 2-6 ;
1917 programme, 12-18 ; riots
of 19-21 ; and Fiume, 50,

87 ; new programme adopted at
Bologna, 54 ; success in elections
of November 1919, and incapacity
to exploit it, 52-56 ; an Ancona
revolt, 68 ; position in 1920, 71-75;
and factory occupations, 78-81 ;
and alliance with General Con¬
federation of Labour, 27, 78, 88,
243 ; administrative elections of
1920, 83 ; Leghorn congress and
rupture with communists, 88-89 ;
and events at Palazzo d’Accursio,
99-101 ; and fascist offensive, 123-
130, 189 ; elections of May, 1921,
129-133, 134; and peace pact,
I 47 j 155-153 ; tactics and internal
crisis in 1922, 175, 176, 187, 199-
201, 206, 209-212 ; and general

The Mayflower Press, Plymmth,

strike of August 1922, 216-217, 221,
231-232 ; fresh rupture in party’
243-245 ; part played in formation
of nation, 323 ; socialist errors as
cause of fascist success, 324-330,
33 L 335-337, n. 34^

Soleri, M., minister in Facta cabinet,
^n. 251,258

Soniiino, S., 2, 6, 28, 29, 31, 43, 65
Soviets, as shibboleth, 17, 20, 49, 73,

93.96,153,335

Spa, conference of, 62, 174
Stampa, Turin daily, 209, 304, 318
Starace, Achille, 282, 285
Strikes, 20, 26-27, 60, 67, 70, 90, 129,
136, 169, 175, 212-222
Sturzo, don Luigi, 55, 60, 64, 65, 174,
177, 202, 206, 211, 279
Syndicalism, fascist, 14, 102, 118, 163,
^ 165, 186-7, 191-8, 224, 234-5, 241
Syria, 236

Taddet, minister in Facta cabinet,
258, 283, 292
Tchitcherin, 184
Thaon de Revel, Admiral, 294
Tittoni, Tommaso, minister in
NittPs cabinet, 19, 55
Torre, E., fascist deputy, 224, 277,309
Torrigiano, D.,freemason, n. 48,277-8
Treves, Claudio, 27, 73, 208, 211, 324
Tribuna, Rome daily, 268
Triple Alliance, 2

Turati, Filippo, i, 16, 64, 71-72, 88,
H 7 . 154. 1^4. 203, 211-212, 216,

324.330.331.346

Tyrol, 30, 35, 133, 246-247

UrnanitaNiiova, anarchist daily, 50, 109

U.S.S.R., 62, 135, 173, 184, 208, 339,

359-361

Vatican, 5, 21, 37, 55, 6i, 65, 82,
I3L 134= 162, 165, 173, 176, 234,
240, 267, 279, 280, 298, 323, 345,
n. 344

Versailles, treaty of, 132,172,236,290
Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy,
2, 69, 132, 174, 217, 248-9, 265,
,281-2, 292 ff., 304, 305-7,311,319

Von Schleicher, General, 346, 352

Wilson, Woodrow, 30, 31, 237, 239

Zamboni, General, 283, 312, 315,
^n. 316, 319
Zanella, 46, 182
Zanetti, editor of tS'^ra, 273
ZanibonijColonel, socialist deputy,211
Zimmerwald conference, 12
Zirardini, Gaetano, socialist deputy,
200

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