The Tragedy of Fiume. Two months of polemics and daily articles during November and December bear witness to my support of the cause of Fiume, and my open and strong opposition to the Parliament.
It is a pity that oblivion falls so quickly on the words of a daily paper; and I have not the melancholy habit of unearthing what I publish. But the undeniable truth is this: that day after day I fought so that the Government at Rome should recognise the Government at Fiume; so that the representatives of the Regency should be invited to Rapallo; and so that the Government at Rome should avoid any armed attack on Fiume. At the outset I called the attack of Christmas Eve an enormous crime, and I always upheld the spirit of justice, liberty and free-will which were the inspiration of the legions of Ronchi.
The Audience in the Gallery. It sometimes happens in history as in the theatre, that there is an audience in the gallery, which, having paid for its tickets, demands that the performance shall run to a close at all costs. Thus in Italy to-day there are two types of individuals: those who blame D’Annunzio for having lived to see the end of the Fiume tragedy, and those who blame Mussolini for not having brought about that easy, pretty little thing which is called a revolution! I have always disdained the cowardly method by which, in Italy, impotence, anger and misery are laid upon the heads of real or imaginary scapegoats. The Fasci had never promised to bring about revolution in the event of an attack on Fiume, nor have I ever written or made known to D’Annunzio that revolution depended upon my caprice. Revolution is not a Jack-in-the-box which can be worked at will. I do not carry it in my pocket, any more than those who fill their noisy mouths with its name and in practice do not get beyond disorders in the squares after unimportant demonstrations accompanied by a providential arrest to avoid any more serious complications. I know the breed. I have been in politics for twenty years. In the war between Caviglia and Fiume, either great things should have been accomplished, or else, for reasons of self-respect, excessive shouting and raising of smoke, which vanished at once without trace and without bloodshed, should have been avoided.
With Whom and Where? History learned from far-off events teaches men little; but that which we see written daily under our eyes ought to be more successful. Now these chronicles of every day tell us that revolution is made with an army and not against an army; with arms, not without arms; with movements of trained squadrons, not with the untrained masses called to meetings in the squares. They succeed when they are made in an atmosphere of sympathy on the part of the majority; if this is lacking they die down and fail. Now in Fiume the army and navy did not fail. A certain revolutionary spirit of the eleventh hour did not take definite shape; it was the work sometimes of anarchists and sometimes of Nationalists. According to some emissaries it was possible to put the devil and holy water together, the nation and that which was against the nation: Misiano and Del Croix. Now I reject all forms of Bolshevism, but if I were obliged to choose one, I should choose that of Moscow and Lenin, if for no other reason because at least it has gigantic, barbaric and universal proportions. What revolution was it to be, then? National or Bolshevist? A great uncertainty, complicated by a great many minor considerations, confused men’s minds, while the nation, in a mood of revolt against that which had happened round Fiume, abandoned itself to an attitude of grief, in which the only bright spot was the hope that the episode would retain its local character and come quickly to a peaceful conclusion.
Hypotheses and Certainties. If there had been an insurrection on our part—and this was not possible owing to the armed forces which the Government had at its disposal—there must have been one of two results: defeat or victory. In the first case, everything would have been irretrievably lost in the abyss of civil war. Let us, for the sake of argument, presuppose the second hypothesis: that of victory with the fall of the Government and of the régime. After the more or less easy period of demolition, what form would the revolution take? Social, as some Bolshevists wish—those with the motto “Always further Left,” the equivalent of the grotesque “Go to the reddest”—or national, Dalmatian and reactionary, as others desire?
There is no possibility of reconciliation between the two currents. In a revolution of the social order, what importance would the territorial questions, and more precisely that of Dalmatia, have had? In the other event of a national revolution against the Treaty of Rapallo, everything would have been limited to a formal annulment of the treaty and to a substitution of men; to be followed later by another treaty in another Rapallo, in order that one day or another the nation might have her peace. An episode of civil war was not remedied by letting loose a bigger war in times like these through which we are passing, and nobody is capable of prolonging and creating artificially historical situations which are over and done with. Only the man who knows how to lift himself above common passions, who knows how to draw conclusions from conflicting elements and how to distinguish the pure grain from the equivocal chaff, is able to understand that Fiume Christmas, which can be called the tragic crossroads between the reasons of the State and of the ideal: the meeting-place of all our deficiencies and all our greatness.
Suspended Problems. The first is that of Fiume. We do not feel the necessity of reaffirming our sympathy for the sacrificed city. We have given the most tangible proofs, recently, of our solidarity with the Fascio of Fiume, in order to put it in a position to undertake the struggle against the Croats, who are now beginning to show signs of life. The action of the Fascisti must tend, for the moment, towards economic annexation of Fiume to Italy, to arousing the interest of the Government and private individuals, and at the same time keeping alive, by every means, the torch of Italy, so that in due time economic will be followed by political annexation. We shall achieve this in spite of everything. All the Fascista force, national and parliamentary, must be concentrated on Zara, so that the little city shall be able to accomplish her important and delicate mission in history. There must be efficacious education for the Italians who have remained in the principal cities of Dalmatia, and no separate constituencies for the Slavs in Istria and the Germans in the Upper Adige. It is not possible to establish such a precedent, as it would carry us far. The French of the Val d’Aosta, who are in reality excellent Italians, have no special constituencies and privileges of that sort. These duplicate constituencies would be a grave mistake. It is up to the Fascisti of Trento and Trieste to prevent this happening at any cost.
Old and New Directions. The lines of the programme laid down at the meeting at Milan in May last year have not become out of date or in need of revision. Fascismo has the name of being “imperialist.” This accusation goes together with that of being reactionary. Fascismo is against renunciations when they mean humiliation and diminution.
Given these general premises—first, that Fascismo does not believe in the principles of the so-called League of Nations nor in its vitality; secondly, that Fascismo does not believe in the Red Internationals, which die, reproduce themselves, multiply and die again: for they are small, artificial organisations, small minorities compared to the masses of the population, which, living, dying, progressing or retrogressing, finishes by deciding those changes of interests before which the international organisations of the first, second and third order crumble to pieces; thirdly, that Fascismo does not believe in the immediate possibility of general disarmament, and fourthly, considers that Italy, in the present historical period, should follow a policy of European equilibrium and conciliation—it follows that the Italian Fascio of Fighters demands:—
1. That the treaties of peace shall be revised and modified in those parts which have proved inapplicable, or which might prove in application the cause of formidable hatred and new wars.