I had already in my mind, clear and strong, the concept of complete rebellion against the decrepit old state that did not of itself know how to die.
The elections of the sixteenth of November took place and the Fascisti were beaten. I faced, and all of us faced, complete defeat. Not one of us had the necessary votes to become a member of parliament. Some Nationalists saved themselves in Rome and were later excellent interpreters of the national idea in the wallow of general bewilderment. At Milan, I was a long way off from the number of votes necessary to be elected. It was tragic, our record, but in the passage of time it is amusing and may be remembered by all losers.
Our uneasiness was now profound. The crowd was anti-Fascist. Under the skin of the population a sad illusion was being fed; in their minds a dark hope was stirring. The coming of Bolshevism! The plan for seizing the means of production, the installation of the soviets in Italy!
The Avanti had already published the general scheme and its details. My defeat did not bother me out of any personal consideration. It gave me a clear and precise idea of the desperateness of our situation. The Socialist newspaper wrote on that occasion a short notice about me: “A dead body has been fished up from the Naviglio.” It was said in this note that in the night, in the modest Naviglio canal that cuts Milan in two, a dead body had been picked up. According to the documents they said it could be identified as the dead body of Benito Mussolini—his political corpse. They did not say that its eyes were gazing ahead.
Amidst the general feast of their victory the Socialists did not forget to imitate a regular funeral. This parade passed through the streets with a coffin, surrounded with burning candles. There were ribald psalms on the air. The strange procession, however, showed the distress and shoddiness of its ranks; it passed up and down the city of Milan—a city that had become now the absolute property of the Socialists. The procession passed under the windows of my house, where my family was living in anxiety amidst the general anxieties and with violence trembling in the air. I have not forgotten the episode, but I always see it in its frame—the frame of the misery and of the threadbareness of the paraders.
The elections had given 150 seats to the Socialists in parliament. They were themselves frightened by their staggering success. The situation was saved by the South of Italy—always more faithful to men than to organized mass parties.
The victory, of course, swelled up in most Socialists a desire to dominate. It distended their impudent abuse of power. Enormous processions with red flags, howling in the streets, strikes called not for protest but for celebration, occupied a whole week.
At Milan a crowd of 30,000 demanded that the red flag should be exposed on the Municipal building. During the cock-crowing over victory, all institutions, rules and regulations and orderly life were upset.
Nobody thought about work. That last of all! Only an audacious handful formed by Fascisti, arditis and Fiumean elements resisted the intoxication. An incident was provoked because of this. Bombs were thrown, a few were killed and many wounded. A commission of Socialist members of parliament, headed by Filippo Turati, marched up the stairs of the Prefetura, the governor’s office of Milan, to claim my arrest and the arrest of the Fascisti chiefs.
That was an episode of political partisanship useless and evil. The authorities showed weakness and fear. They wanted to give satisfaction to the Socialists. But my clear and straight-lined political action did not suffer from this abuse of power. Having been let out after only one day of imprisonment, I consulted with my associates as to the whole work before us. What should we do now? How could we act before the damage to Italy became irreparable?