Nitti thought and acted only as a consequence of physical fear. Attacked full front and exasperated in his mad and miserable dream, he plotted with every means to overcome the resistance of the Fiumean legionaries. The soldiers were declared deserters. The city was blockaded so that economic pressure would squeeze the spirit of the citizens. Parliament was closed and the elections were fixed for November 16, 1919, under the troublesome proportional system.
From a photograph by Brown Brothers.
Commander Gabriele d’Annunzio.
The elections re-established, for a moment, an apparent truce. Every party wanted to measure the masses and the groupings. The Socialists, who were speculating on the misfortunes of the war and were pointing to the danger of another war due to the D’Annunzian enterprise, were the favorites. The Church, which in politics always has an ambiguous attitude, urged on the activity of the priests in the villages so that the Partito Popolare, which had been created originally by the lay Catholics, in service of the church policy, might play the preponderant part in parliament. The Liberals, Democrats and some radicals built up a block that passed under the name of the Forces of Order. They were changeable forces, without any ideal base and without precise aims. They were another grouping among groupings whose futilities I had observed for years.
I wanted the Fascisti to try alone the chance of the elections. We did not ally ourselves with any other party, even with the nearest to them—the Nationalists. The atmosphere was against us, but it was necessary to count our own heads. It was necessary to know, even through the means of elections, what point had been reached by the Italian nation in moral disintegration and in moral reawakening as a victorious nation. I created an electoral committee with little means, but with ample courage. I ordered meetings for the principal towns of Italy and especially in Milan.
I remember so vividly the meeting on the Piazza Beligioioso. How typical it was! The place was a lonesome corner of old Milan, where from a camion that was used for a tribune on a dark night, by the light of torches, I addressed a big, closely pressed crowd. They were people not only from Milan but from other towns. The Fascisti of Bologna, of Turin, of Rome and of Naples had in fact sent their representatives in order to have precise rules and sure orders for the impending electoral battle.
I made on this occasion some declarations of principles that still stand in the Fascist line. They have served me as a guide in all my political actions.
I said that revolutions were not to be denied a priori; that they might be discussed. I said that the Italian people could not copy Russian Bolshevism. We have in the history of our political struggles our own elements of greatness of concept. These have given to the spirit of the time all the strength of their Italian genius and the qualities of their Italian courage.
“If a revolution,” said I, “has to take place, it is necessary to make one typically Italian, on the magnificent dimensions of the ideas of Mazzini and with the spirit of Carlo Pisacane.”