Mussolini as revealed in his political speeches (November 1914-August 1923)

by Benito Mussolini

THE FASCISTA DAWNING OF NEW ITALY

Speech delivered at Milan at the “Sciesa” on 6th October 1922.

At the seat of the local Fascista group “Antonio Sciesa,” Mussolini pays his tribute to the memory of her two dead who fell, as Garibaldi fell, during the days of August, and then devotes himself to the analysis of a well-matured plan, strategic and tactical, for the coming battle.

I agreed to come and speak to the “Sciesa” group this evening for three reasons—first sentimental, second personal, and third political. For the sentimental reason, because I wished to pay the tribute of my admiration and profound devotion to our unforgettable and magnificent fallen—Melloni, Tonoli and Crespi; the first two of your squad and the last of the “Sauro.” I remember them perfectly. Then I agreed also because of the way in which this group has interpreted this meeting. Lastly, in view of the general attitude of suspense all over Italy at this moment, I did not wish to let the opportunity slip for defining certain points, a definition which is necessary in these difficult times through which we are passing.

You feel, to judge from your silent and austere bearing, that if the flesh is corruptible, the spirit is immortal. You feel that here in this little hall this evening the spirits of our fallen are still with us. We feel their presence, because the soul cannot die, and they fell in the most heroic action yet accomplished by Fascismo in the four years of its history. Many times when the Fascisti have gone forth to destroy with fire and sword the haunts of the cowardly Social-Communist delinquents, they have only seen the backs of the flying enemy, but the members of the “Sciesa” squad and the two fallen, whom we remember, and all the squadrons of the Milanese Fascio, went to the assault of the offices of the Avanti as they would have attacked an Austrian trench. They had to scale the walls, break through barbed wire, burst open doors and face the leaden hail which the enemy poured forth from their weapons. This is heroism. This is violence. This is the violence of which I approve and which I uphold, and which Fascismo—and I speak to the Fascisti of all Italy—ought to make hers. Not little, individual, sporadic acts of violence, but the great, wonderful, relentless violence of the decisive hour. It is necessary, when the moment comes, to strike with the utmost decision and without pity. You must not think that I wish to hide the very strong sympathy I have for the Milanese Fascio, because my love, above all, is for the cause. When a cause has been sanctified by so much pure young blood, it must not, at any cost, become defiled in any way. Our friends have been heroes, their action has been that of warriors, their violence saintly and moral. We exalt them, we remember them, and we will avenge them. We cannot accept the humanitarian, Tolstoyan moral standard, the moral standard of slavery. In times of war we adopt the formula of Socrates: “Overcome friends with kindness, overcome enemies with evil.”

Nation and State. Our line of conduct is perfectly correct. Those who do good to us will have good; those who do ill, ill. Our enemies cannot complain, if being such, they are treated hardly, as enemies must be treated. We are in an historical period of crisis which every day becomes more acute. The general strike, which was averted by the sacrifice of blood of the Fascisti, was an episode in this crisis. Dissension lies between the State and the nation. Italy is not a State, she is a nation, because from the Alps to Sicily there is the fundamental unity of our race, our customs, our language and our religion. The war fought from 1915 to 1918 consecrates this unity, and if this is enough to characterise the nation, the Italian nation exists, full of power and resource and impelled towards a glorious destiny.

But the nation must create for itself the State. And there is no State. To-day the paper which represents Liberalism in Italy, the paper with the largest circulation—and which, for this reason, by upholding absurd arguments has done a great deal of harm at times—stated that there are two Governments in Italy, and if there are two, there is one too many. There is the Liberal Government and the Fascista Government; the State of to-day and the State of to-morrow. “Wanted, a Government,” said the Corriere della Sera. We agree, a Government is wanted.

The Lesson of Two Episodes. Two occurrences during these last days—one characteristic of our activity in the cause of humanity, the other of our activity in the cause of national rights—have proved the superiority of the Fascista over the Liberal State, and have shown that Fascismo is capable and worthy to succeed that State.

At San Terenzo of Spezia, if all the dead were buried and the wounded taken to the hospital, if the country was cleared of débris, and the furniture and belongings safeguarded from the base attempts of human jackals, if the soldiers had their supplies in good time, it was by the activity of the Fascista State. And the mayor of Lerici—who is not a Fascista—telegraphed his great gratitude, not to the Prime Minister, but to us, as you learnt in the Popolo d’Italia.

This is a question of mercy, humanity and national solidarity. Let us transfer our attention to Bolzano. Here it is a question of our rights and the Italian law. Who stood up for those rights and imposed the Italian nationality in a city which ought to be Italian? Fascismo. Who banished Perathoner who for five years held in check five Italian Ministers? Fascismo. It has been Fascismo that has given a school and a church to the Italians in the Upper Adige and inspired them with the sense of their own dignity. Who placed the bust of the king in the Council Hall? The Fascisti. The Germans are astonished at seeing before them all these young Fascisti, splendid physically and morally. Inhabiting as they do without right our Italian soil, they seem to wonder: “What Italy is this?” And we answer: “By the action of the defeatist ministers and as a result of the unfortunate peace, you Germans are accustomed to the Italy of Abba Garima; now you must accustom yourselves to the Italy of Vittorio Veneto, which has force and energy, and which says: ‘We are at the Brenner, and there we mean to stay! We do not wish to go to Innsbruck, but do not imagine that Germany and Austria can ever return to Bolzano!’”

This is the Fascista State which reveals itself to Italian eyes in two typical moments of everyday history, the disaster of San Terenzo and the occupation of Bolzano.

For the Italy of To-morrow. The citizens wonder which State will end by dictating its law upon the nation. We have no hesitation in answering that it will be the Fascista State. The Corriere della Sera says that something must be done quickly, and we agree. A nation cannot live nursing in its bosom two States, two Governments, one in action and the other in power. But what is the way to give the nation a Government? I say Government, because when we say State we mean something more. We mean the spirit and not merely the inert and transitory form. There are two ways, gentlemen. If the whole of Rome was not suffering from softening of the brain, they would summon Parliament at the beginning of November, and having passed the Bill for Electoral Reform, make an appeal to the electors in December. Because the crisis for which the Corriere asks could not alter the situation. Thirty crises in the Italian Parliament as it is to-day would mean thirty reincarnations of Signor Facta. If the Government does not follow this path, gentlemen, we shall be obliged to take the other. You see our tactics are now clear. When it is a question of assaulting the State it is no longer possible to have recourse to little plots, of which the “to be or not to be” remains a secret to the last. We must give orders to hundreds and thousands of men, and it would be merely absurd to try to keep it secret. We play an open game. We leave our cards on the table until it is necessary to lift them; and we say: “There is an Italy which you Liberal leaders no longer understand. You do not understand it because your mind works on old-fashioned lines, you do not understand it because Parliamentary policy has killed your spirit. The Italy which has come from the trenches is strong, and full of life.”

Fascismo, the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. It is an Italy which deserves to begin a new period of history. There exists, therefore, a dramatic contrast between the Italy of yesterday and our Italy. The conflict appears inevitable. It is a question now of developing our forces, summoning all our energies and strength, so that the conflict shall end in victory for us—and, as a matter of fact, upon that score there can be no doubt.

Now the Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face, it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building. There is force but there is no spirit behind them. All those who ought to uphold it feel that it is approaching the extreme limits of incompetence, impotence and absurdity.

On the other hand, as I said at Udine, we do not wish to stake everything on the game, because we do not present ourselves as the saviours of humanity, nor do we promise anything special to the people. We may even impose greater discipline and more sacrifices upon them. And we shall make no difference between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, because there is an infected proletariat just as there is a bourgeoisie still more infected. There is a part of the proletariat that must be chastised in order that it may be redeemed afterwards, and there is a part of the middle class which detests us and tries to throw our lines into confusion, which finances anti-Fascista slander, which has hitherto ignobly courted the anti-national forces, and for which I do not feel one ounce of pity. We are surrounded by enemies, and those who are our open foes, and who belong to the Bolshevist parties, have now perfected themselves in the art of ambush and assassination.

A Warning! But there are other insidious enemies who try to harm Fascismo under cover of the tricolour and other similar emblems, who try to insinuate themselves into our movement and to create simulacra of organisations in order to weaken us just at the time when it is most necessary for us to remain united. Now I must say that if we do not have mercy upon those who attack us from behind hedges, neither shall we have mercy upon those who attack us thus insidiously. When the clock of history strikes the hours, we must speak as the peasants do, simply, sincerely and loyally.

We have no great obstacles to overcome, as the nation is waiting for us, the nation hopes in us and feels itself represented in us. Certainly we cannot promise to plant the tree of liberty in the squares. We cannot give liberty to those who would profit by it to assassinate us. The shortsightedness of the Free State lies in this, that it gives freedom to all, including those who use this freedom to overthrow it. We shall not give this universal liberty, not even if it assumes the garb of immortal principles. Finally, it is not electoral subterfuges which divide us from Democracy. If people wish to vote, let them vote. Let us all vote until we are sick of it! Nobody wants to suppress universal suffrage.

Policy needed. But we shall carry out a severe and reactionary policy; we are not afraid of doing so. If the representative organs of Democracy say that we are reactionary it does not offend us, because what distinguishes us from the Democrats is mentality and spirit. History does not follow a given itinerary; it is made up of contrasts and all kinds of vicissitudes, there are no centuries which are all light and no centuries which are all darkness. It is not possible to transport Fascismo out of Italy, as Bolshevism has been transported out of Russia.

The Italians can be divided into three categories: the indifferent, who will stay at home; the sympathetic, who will have freedom of movement; and the antagonistic, who will have their freedom restricted. We shall make no promises. We shall not give ourselves out as missionaries who bring the revealed truth.

But I do not think that our enemies will place serious obstacles in our way. Bolshevism is defeated. Look at the Congress of Rome. What a pitiful sight! When the leader of a congress behaves like the lawyer of Busto, then you understand that we are upon the bottom rung of the ladder. There was one Socialism, to-day there are four, and there is a tendency towards further divisions. And not only this, but each of these divisions claims to represent the authentic party. It is no wonder that the proletariat scatters, discouraged and disgusted by the attitude of Socialism. As I have already said, the day of Socialism is not only past as a party, its philosophies and doctrines no longer stand. The Italians and the Western peoples in general must burst with logical criticism the grotesque bubble of international Socialism. Perhaps, looking at things from an historical point of view, it is a struggle between the East and the West, between the chaotic, fatalistic East (look at Russia) and us, we people of the West, who cannot be carried away by flights of metaphysics and require hard concrete realities.

Let us flee from Imitations. Italians cannot be mystified for long by Asiatic doctrines, which are absurd and criminal in their practical application. This is the essence of Italian Fascismo, which represents a reaction against the Democrats who would have made everything mediocre and uniform and tried every way to conceal and to render transitory the authority of the State, from the supreme head to the last usher in the law courts; consequently everybody from the King to the lowest official has suffered from this false conception of life. Democracy thought to make itself indispensable to the masses, and did not understand that the masses despise those who have not the courage to be what they ought to be. Democracy has taken “elegance” from the lives of the people, but Fascismo brings it back; that is to say, it brings back colour, force, picturesqueness, the unexpected, mysticism, and in fact all that counts in the souls of the multitude. We play upon every cord of the lyre, from violence to religion, from art to politics. We are politicians and we are warriors. We are syndicalists and we also fight battles in the streets and the squares. That is Fascismo as it was conceived at Milan, and as it was and is realised. And, my friends, we must maintain this privilege, and Fascismo must be kept up to this level of strength and wisdom. We must not abandon ourselves to imitations, because that which is possible in a particular agricultural region in a given time and place is not possible here in Milan. Here the situation has been dominated more by the spontaneous maturing of events than by men’s violence or by circumstances. Here our domination becomes more and more decided.

But, my friends, we must prepare ourselves with hearts free from preoccupation for the tasks which await us. To-morrow it is probable, almost certain, that the formidable burden of the direction of a modern State will be on our shoulders. And it will be on the shoulders not only of a few men, it will be on the shoulders of the whole of Fascismo.

Towards a more Glorious Destiny. And millions of eyes, many of them malicious, and millions of men, many of them beyond our frontiers, will be looking at us. They will want to see how we are organised, how justice is administered in the Fascista State, how honest people are protected, how we deal with the problems of the school and the army. And the wrong-doing of any man, his error and his shame will react upon the whole organisation of the State and of necessity upon Fascismo. Have you, my friends, realised how formidable is the task which awaits you? Are you spiritually prepared for it? Do you think that enthusiasm alone is enough?—because it is not enough. It is necessary, because it is a primitive and fundamental force in human nature, it is impossible to do anything not inspired by intense passion or religious mysticism; but that is not enough. Together with these must work the reasoning forces of the brain. I think that in the case of a general crisis Fascismo would have all that was necessary to impose itself and to govern, not according to the ideas of demagogism, but according to the ideas of justice. And then, by ruling the nation well, by leading her towards a more glorious destiny, by conciliating the interests of all classes without increasing the hatred of one and the selfishness of another, by uniting the Italian people to face the world-task, by fulfilling with patience this hard and cyclopean task, we shall inaugurate, thus, a really great period in Italian history. Thus will our dead be made immortal and their names written in the gold book of the Fascista aristocracy. We shall point them out to the rising generation, to the children who are growing up and who represent the eternal spring of life. We shall say: “Great was the effort and hard the sacrifice, and pure was the blood that was shed; and it was not shed to safeguard the interests of individuals, class or caste, it was not shed in the name of materialism, it was shed in the name of an ideal, of all that is most noble, beautiful and generous in the human soul.” With the example of our dead before you, I ask you to remember to be worthy of their sacrifice and to examine daily your own activity. Friends, I have faith in you. You have faith in me. In this mutual trust is the guarantee and certainty of our victory. Long live Italy! Long live Fascismo! Honour and glory to the martyrs of our cause! (Loud applause.)