Listen to what I am going to say. When you present the Bill for the Eight Hours Day, we will vote in favour of it. We shall not oppose this or any other measures destined to perfect our special legislation. We shall not even oppose experiments of co-operation; but I tell you at once that we shall resist with all our strength attempts at State Socialism, Collectivism and the like. We have had enough of State Socialism, and we shall never cease to fight your doctrines as a whole, for we deny their truth and oppose their fatalism.
We deny the existence of only two classes, because there are many more. (Comments.) We deny the possibility of explaining the story of humanity in terms of economics. We deny your internationalism, because it is a luxury which only the upper classes can afford; the working people are hopelessly bound to their native shores.
Not only this, but we affirm, and on the strength of recent Socialist literature which you ought not to repudiate, that the real history of capitalism is beginning now, because capitalism is not only a system of oppression, but a selection of that which is of most worth, a co-ordination of hierarchies, a more strongly developed sense of individual responsibility. (Applause.) So true is this that Lenin, after having instituted the building councils, abolished them and put in dictators; so true is it that, after having nationalised commerce, he reintroduced the régime of liberty; and, as you who have been in Russia well know, after having suppressed—even physically—the bourgeoisie, to-day he summons it back, because without capitalism and its technical system of production Russia could never rise again. (Applause from the Right. Comments.)
Let me speak to you frankly and tell you the mistakes you made after the Armistice, fundamental mistakes which are destined to influence the history of your politics.
First of all you ignored or underrated the survival of those forces which had been the cause of intervention in the war. Your paper went to ridiculous lengths, never mentioning my name for months, as if by that you could eliminate a man from life and history. You showed yourselves worse knaves than ever by libelling the war and victory. (Loud approval on the Right.) You wildly propagated the Russian myth, awakening almost messianic expectation; and only afterwards, when you realised the truth, did you change your position by executing a more or less prudent strategic retreat. (Laughter.) Only after two years did you remember, beside the sickle—a noble tool—and the hammer—no less noble—to place the book—(Bravo!)—which represents the rights of the spirit over matter, rights which cannot be suppressed or denied—(Bravo!)—rights which you, who consider yourselves the heralds of a new humanity, ought to be the first to inscribe upon your banners. (Great applause from the Extreme Right.)
THE ATTITUDE OF FASCISMO TOWARDS THE POPULAR PARTY. THE VATICAN AND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
Same speech delivered in the Chamber, 21st June 1921.
Hon. Mussolini. I come now to the Popular Party; and I wish to remind it first that in the history of Fascismo there are no invasions of churches, and not even the assassination of the monk Angelico Galassi, who was killed by revolver shots at the foot of the altar. I confess to you that there have been some chastisements and the sacred burning of the offices of a newspaper which called the Fascisti a band of criminals. (Comments; interruptions from the Centre.)
Fascismo neither practises nor preaches anti-Clericalism. It can also be said that it is not in any way tied to Freemasonry; this, however, should not be the cause of alarm which it is to some members of the Popular Party, as to my mind Freemasonry is an enormous screen behind which there are generally small things and small men. (Comments and laughter.) But let us come to concrete problems.
The question of divorce has been touched on here. I am not, at bottom, in favour of divorce, because I do not believe that questions of the sentimental order can be settled by juridical formulæ; but I ask the Popular Party to consider if it is just that the rich can obtain divorce by going into Hungary, while the poor are sometimes obliged to be tied all their lives.