4. No steps to be taken without having consulted regularly, by means of a referendum, the masses interested.
The means of obtaining this end may be altered according to time and place. The organisation will promote at times co-operation, and at times war between the classes and the expropriation of class. It will not always be for co-operation, but neither will it always be in favour of class preservation; and when it expropriates, it will not be to make all poor, but to make all rich. In the conquest of a colonial market and in certain questions connected with the customs, the middle classes and the proletariat can work together. When there is division of booty, then class war; but class war in times of under-production is destructive nonsense.
In the Political Field. The Electoral Reform will pass. The scrutiny of lists and proportional representation will pass. That will determine, for obvious reasons, the great coalitions—the Socialist-Leninist, the Clerical-Popular, and, lastly, ours, which might be called the “Alliance for the Constituent,” the Republican Alliance or the group of the “interveners” of the Left.
Our programme is to present candidates who pledge themselves to place the problem of constitutional revision before the new Chamber in the first session.
This is the Constituent as I understand it. This is the lowest denominator to which all of us can pledge ourselves and around which we can all form a union. The moment is particularly propitious for such an organisation. I think that all we who are represented in this Milanese Committee of Intesa e Azione can follow this path.
It is a case of “nationalising” this attempt, of making it general all over Italy. We could, if we wished, number not thousands, but millions of followers. I myself refuse, in the actual delicate economic situation in Italy, to adhere to any movement which makes the path clear for Bolshevism and ruin. The victory cannot and must not be destroyed. I understand a certain impatience, but I beg you to reflect that if the lives of individuals are counted in years, the lives of nations are counted in centuries, and we must not refer egoistically to ourselves that which is of a general nature. Good strategy is calculation and audacity. We do not wish to govern by recourse to the bayonet alone, because that would be dictatorship, which we condemn. We wish first to sound the masses by the coming elections. Once having had our principles accepted, we will spring to action.
The revolution which we desired and obtained in 1915 will be ours again by the victorious peace in its conclusive phase, and it will be called “Well-being,” “Liberty” and, above all, “Italy.” (Loud applause.)
FASCISMO AND THE RIGHTS OF VICTORY
Speech delivered at Florence, 9th October 1919, at the first Congress of the Fascisti.
At Florence was held the first Congress of the “Fasci Italiani di Combattimento,” which was the name originally given to the Fascista movement. This Congress succeeded the improvised, unorganised meeting of 19th March at Milan, and was held in an atmosphere of isolation and hostility, amid continuous tumult and interruption; so much so, that the members of the Congress were repeatedly obliged to suspend their proceedings and go out into the streets to defend themselves against hostile demonstrations.