My autobiography

by Benito Mussolini

In order to make myself acquainted with the real efficiency of our party, I started reconnoitering in several provinces. I received an enthusiastic welcome at the beginning of April in Bologna, a fortress of socialism and a barometer indicating the level of the whole Po Valley. Bologna greeted me in a jubilation of colors, with parades, fanfares of welcome and speeches favoring Italian resurrection. The butchery of the Palace of Accursio was still too fresh and red in memory. Fascism was in a hot fervor; therefore my presence could not fail to whip up in all the young men a singular strength of will, hope and faith.

From Bologna I went to Ferrara, another stronghold of socialism. And there again there was waiting for me an unforgettable demonstration of strength. Bologna and Ferrara are two magnificent towns, centres of regions exclusively agricultural. In those days I could measure by my youth and intimate knowledge the strength, the mentality, the ways of thinking and the longing for order of the workers of the land. I understood that their thinking had lost its way, but it was not dominated by red propaganda. At bottom their mentality is that of people wise and praiseworthy, who have always been, at the crucial moments, the bulwark of the fortunes of the Italian race.

The electoral struggle lasted exactly a month. During that period I made but three speeches—one in Bologna, once in Ferrara and one in Milan, on the Place Borromeo. Contrary to what happened during the political elections of 1919, I succeeded this time in getting a plurality not only in Milan but also in the districts of Bologna and Ferrara. Great demonstrations of joy followed the news. Furthermore, all Fascism in the electoral field was gaining in undoubted strides.

In November, 1919, I had not succeeded in getting more than 4,000 votes. In 1921 I was at the head of the list with 178,000 votes. My election to the Italian Chamber caused a great rejoicing among my friends, my colleagues, my assistants. To all my faithful sub-editors, Giuliani, Gaini, Rocca, Morgagni and others, I recalled the episode of 1919, when I said to my discouraged and perplexed assistants that within the space of two years I would have my revenge. The prophecy had proved true within two years. A new moral atmosphere was being breathed by every stratum of our population. Though not many Fascists entered the parliament, the few represented in themselves a tremendous force for the new destinies of Italy.

At Montecitorio, the House of Parliament, in order to follow the rules of the chamber, the Fascists formed their own group. There were only thirty-five representatives. It was numerically a small group, indeed, but it was composed of men with good livers and excellent courage.

During the session I made few speeches. I think I spoke five times and that was all. Certainly I tried in all cases to give my oratory a spirit and to make it stick to realities. Certainly I confined it to a devotion to the interests of Italian life. I put aside parliamentary triflings and the tin sword play of parliamentary politicians.

In a speech made on the twenty-first of June, 1921, I criticised without reserve the foreign policy of the Giolitti ministry. I put on a firm, realistic basis the question of Northern Italy, the Upper Adige. I pointed out the feebleness of the government and of the men placed in authority over the new provinces. One of these, Credaro, was “bound also by means of the symbol of the political compass and triangle to the immortal precepts” of false liberalism—to wit, he was swayed by that Masonry which in Italy was representing a “web of foreign and internationalistic ideas.” Therefore, I affirmed solemnly: “As the government of Giolitti is responsible for the miserable Salata and Credaro policy in the Upper Adige, I vote against him. Let us declare to the German deputies here in our present Italian parliament that we find ourselves at the Brenner Pass now, and that at the Brenner we will remain at any price.” I took up again the hot, impassioned subject of Fiume and Dalmatia. I assaulted violently the shameful foreign policy of Sforza, leading our land to humiliation and ruin.

I spoke of our domestic policy. I stripped the covering from the Socialists and Communists and made them face Fascism. I pointed out with irony the fact that, among others, with the Communists stood Graziadei, who, at other times, had been my opponent when he was a Socialist reformer. I exposed to the light the utter lack of principles to be found in representatives who dipped their paws into this or that party group or programme solely for the purpose of gaining petty power or personal gain.

The speech, which had only the purpose of clarification, gave some needed hints as to our political action as Fascists in destruction of the methods and principles of our adversaries. To my surprise it created a deep impression. It had a vast echo outside the chamber and was undoubtedly among the factors which finally doomed the Giolitti ministry, like all the rest, to topple over like a drunken buzzard.

I was not alone in the parliamentary struggle. The group was helping me valiantly and with ability. Already the Deputy Federzoni, since then a distinguished official of the Fascist state, had started a review and revision of the whole work of Count Sforza, Giolitti’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, and particularly of the Adriatic policy. There had been dramatic sessions in which the work of the aforesaid minister not only was put under a strict and inexorable examination, according to both the logic and conscience of Fascism, but was examined in the light of the negotiations and treaties, open or secret, which the parliament had to know and approve.