A new sunshine broke over the multitudes of our provinces. We could all breathe with full lungs. The brave effort of Fascism was now rising with the flood tide of its full efficiency. Critics of reputation, historians of wide-world fame, studious people from every part of the earth were beginning to regard with quickening interest the movement I had created and dominated and was leading toward victory.
While I was penning some editorials against representatives of the sceptics, I wrote: “Fascism is to-day in the first stage of its life: the one of Christ. Don’t be in a hurry; the one of Saint Paul will come.”
I was preparing then every minute the details of the conquest of Rome and of power. I was certainly not moved by any mirage of personal power, nor by any other allurement, nor by a desire for egotistical political domination.
I have always had a vision of life which was altruistic. I have groped in the dark of theories, but I groped not to relieve myself, but to bring something to others. I have fought, but not for my advantage, indirect or immediate. I have aimed for the supreme advantages of my nation. I desired finally that Fascism should rule Italy for her glory and her good fortune.
I cannot, for obvious reasons, discuss all the measures, even some of the most simple, that I took in this period. Some are of political and secret character about which reserve is absolutely necessary. The Popolo d’Italia, my paper, without attracting too much attention from outsiders and from my enemies, had become the headquarters of the spiritual and material preparation for the March on Rome. It was the hub of our thought and action. The military and the political forces both obeyed my command. I weighed all the plans and proposals. Having made my own plan at last I gave the necessary orders. Then there began extensive preparatory maneuvres, such as the occupation of Trento, of Ancona and of Bolzano—places which might threaten our strategy.
I wanted to inform myself about the state of mind of the Fascisti, about their efficiency and their determination. Accordingly I went to make four important speeches in different parts of Italy. In those speeches I set forth the policies of to-morrow. I defined the ultimate goal of Fascism. It was candidly stated. It was the conquest of power. I didn’t want to ingratiate myself with the masses. I have always spoken with naked candor and even with brutality to the multitudes. That is a distinct contrast to the contemptible courtship made for their favor by the political parties of every time and every land.
On September 17th, 1922, for instance, one month before the March on Rome, I wrote that it was necessary to “throw down, from the altars erected by the ‘Demos,’ His Holiness the Mass!”
The Fascisti meetings which I attended were held in Udine, which is in northern Italy, in Cremona, which lies in the valley of the Po, in industrial Milan and in Naples, the centre of southern Italy. I wanted to be personally acquainted with the spirit of those districts, each with a nobility of its own. I was acclaimed as a conqueror and a saviour. This flattered me, but be sure that it did not make me proud. I felt stronger, and yet realized the more that I faced mountains of responsibility. In those four cities, so different and so far one from the other, I saw the same light! I had with me the honest, the good, the pure, the sincere soul of the Italian people!
I assembled the Central Committee of the Fasci Italian! di Combattimento—the Bundles of Fight—and we came to an accord on the outlines of the movement, which was to lead the black shirts triumphantly along the sacred roads to Rome.
Speaking in those days at the Circolo Sciesa of Milan I said to my trusted men that we finally had come to the “sad sunset of Liberalism, and to the Fascist-dawn of a new Italy.”