We come to another question: discipline. I am in favour of the most rigid discipline. We must first sternly discipline ourselves, otherwise we shall not have the right to discipline the nation. And it is only by the discipline of the nation that Italy can make herself heard in the councils of the other countries. Discipline must be accepted. If it is not, it must be imposed. We put aside the democratic dogma that one must for ever proceed by sermonising and lecturing in a more or less liberal manner. At a given moment discipline must show itself under the form of a command or of an act of force.
I exact discipline, and I do not speak to the men of the Friulian district, who are—let me say—perfect as regards sobriety and correctness, austerity and quiet living, but I speak to the Fascisti of all Italy, who, if they must have a dogma, must have one which bears the clear name of discipline. Only by obedience, by the humble and sacred pride in obedience, can the right to command be conquered. And only when it is conquered can it be imposed upon others; otherwise, no! The Fascisti of Italy must take note of this. They must not interpret discipline as a call to order of the administrative kind or as the fear of shepherds who foresee the scattering of their flock. This cannot be, because we are not shepherds and our forces cannot be called, by any means, a flock. We are an army, and it is just because we have this special organisation that we must make discipline the supreme pivot of our life and action.
Violence! I come now to the question of violence. Violence is not immoral. On the contrary it is sometimes moral. We dispute the right of our enemies to bewail our violence, because, compared with that which was committed in the unlucky years of ’19 and ’20 and with that of the Bolshevists in Russia—where two million people have been executed and another two million still pine in prison—our violence is child’s-play. On the other hand violence is decisive, because at the end of July and August, after having made use of it systematically for forty-eight hours, we got results which we should not have obtained in forty-eight years of sermons and propaganda. When, therefore, violence removes a gangrene of this sort, it is morally sacred and necessary.
But, my Fascista friends, and I speak to the Fascisti of all Italy, our violence must have certain Fascista characteristics. The violence of ten to one is to be disowned and condemned. There is a violence that frees and a violence that binds; there is moral violence and stupid, immoral violence. Violence must be proportionate to the necessities of the moment, and not made a school, a doctrine or a sport. The Fascisti must be careful not to spoil with sporadic, individual and unjustifiable acts of violence, the brilliant and splendid victories of August.
This is what our enemies are waiting for. As the result of certain episodes—let us frankly admit disagreeable episodes—such as that at Taranto, they have been led to believe and to hope that violence has become a sort of second habit, and that when we no longer have a target upon which to practise, we shall turn against ourselves and against each other, or the Nationalists. Now the Nationalists differ from us on certain questions, but the truth is this, that in all the battles we have fought we have had them by our side. It may well be that among them there are leaders who do not see Fascismo as we see it, but it must be recognised and proclaimed that the “blue shirts”[[9]] at Genoa, Bologna and Milan, and in another hundred centres, were with the “black shirts.” In consequence the occurrence at Taranto was most displeasing, and I hope that the leaders of Fascismo will act in such a way that it remains an isolated incident to be forgotten in a local reconciliation and in a national manifestation of sympathy and solidarity.
[9]. The Nationalists.
Our Syndicalism. Another argument which raises the hopes of our enemies is the existence of the masses. You know that I do not worship the new divinity, the masses. It is a creation of Democracy and Socialism. Just because they are numerous, they must be right. Not a bit of it, the opposite has often proved to be true that the masses are against the right. In any case history proves that it has always been the minorities, a handful from the first, that have produced profound changes in human society. We do not adore the masses, even if they have got work-worn hands and brains. We shall bring, instead, into our examination of social life, ideas and elements new at any rate in Italian circles. We could not turn away the masses; they came to us. Ought we to have received them with kicks on the shins? Are they sincere? Do they come to us as the result of conviction or fear, or because they hope to get from us what they failed to obtain from the Socialists? These questions are really superfluous, as no one yet has found the way to penetrate into their inmost minds.
We have, therefore, had to adopt syndicalism, and we are doing so. They say: “Your syndicalism will end by being in every way exactly like that of the Socialists, and you will have, of necessity, to promote class war.” The democracy, or a section of them, that section which does not seem to have any better object than stirring up the mud, continue from Rome (where they print too many papers, many of which do not represent anybody or anything) to work in this direction. But our syndicalism differs from that of the others, because we do not allow strikes in public services under any pretext, and we are in favour of co-operation among the classes, especially in a period like the present one of acute economic crisis. We try to make this conception penetrate the brains of our syndicates. But it must be made equally clear that the industrial workers and their employers must not blackmail us, because there is a limit which must not be passed; and these workers and their masters—the bourgeoisie in a word—must take into account that the nation also consists of the people, a mass which labours, and one cannot think of the greatness of the nation if this portion is restless and idle. The task of Fascismo is to make the people organically one with the nation, so that they may be ready to-morrow when the nation has need of them, as the artist takes his raw material in order to create his masterpiece. Only with the masses forming an intimate part of the life and history of the nation can we have a foreign policy.
Foreign Policy. And now I come to the subject which, at the present moment, is of the greatest positive importance. It is evident that at the end of the war it was not understood how to make peace. There were two alternatives: the peace of the sword, and the peace of approximate justice. But, under the influence of a pernicious democratic mentality, the peace of the sword was not made by occupying Berlin, Vienna and Budapest, and neither has the approximate peace of justice been accomplished.
Men, many of whom were ignorant of history and geography (and it seems that these famous experts who thus disarrange and rearrange the map of Europe at their will really know as little about it as their masters), have said: “The moment the Turks give trouble to the English, we will suppress Turkey; but the moment that Italy, in order to become a Mediterranean power, ought to have the Adriatic as her inland gulf, we deny Italy her Adriatic rights.” What is the result? The result is that this kind of treaty naturally falls to pieces before the others. But, since everything depends upon the making up of these treaties, since they are all connected with each other, so the failure of the Treaty of Sèvres may possibly involve the failure of all the others. Moreover, if the position becomes more involved, you will see the indestructible Russian Cossack, who changes his name but not his nature, coming forward again. Who armed the Turkey of Kemal Pasha? France and Russia. Who may possibly arm Germany to-morrow? Russia. Considering what we aim at in our foreign policy, it is very fortunate that besides our national army, of glorious tradition, there is the Fascista army.