My autobiography

by Benito Mussolini

The atmosphere was pregnant with the possibility of tragedy. I had mobilized three hundred thousand black shirts. They were waiting for my signal to move. They could be used for one purpose or another. I had in the Capital sixty thousand armed men ready for action. The March on Rome could have set tragic fires. It might have spilled much blood if it had followed the example of ancient and modern revolutions. This was for me a moment in which it was more necessary than ever to examine the field with calm serenity and with cold reason to compare the immediate and the distant results of our daring action when directed toward definite aims.

I could have proclaimed a dictatorship, I could have formed a dictatorial ministry composed solely of Fascisti on the type of the Directory that was formed in France at the time of the Convention. The Fascist revolution, however, had its unique characteristics; it had no antecedent in history. It was different from any other revolution also in its capacity to re-enter, with deliberate intent, legal, established traditions and forms. For that reason also, I knew that the mobilization should last the shortest possible time.

I did not forget that I had a parliament on my hands; a chamber of deputies of sullen mind, ready to lay traps for me, accustomed to an old tradition of ambiguity and intrigue, full of grudges, repressed only by fear; a dismayed senate from which I could obtain a disciplined respect but not an eager and productive collaboration. The Crown was looking on to see what I would do, following constitutional rules.

The Pontificate followed the events with anxiety. The other nations looked at the revolution suspiciously if not with hostility. Foreign banks were anxious for news. Exchange wavered, credit was still vacillating, waiting for the situation to be cleared. It was indispensable first of all to give the impression of stability to the new régime.

I had to see, oversee and foresee everything. I slept not at all for some nights, but they were nights fecund in action and ideas. The measures that immediately followed in the first twenty-four hours of my government bear witness.

Another problem arose from the character of the revolution. Every revolution has in it, besides the great mass of human impact and the conscientious and unselfish leaders, two other types—adventurers and melancholic intellectuals who might be called, by a synthetic expression, ascetics of revolution. When the revolution is over, the mass, which often is moved by the simple intuition of a great historical and social reality, goes peacefully back to its usual activities. It forms the laborious and disciplined leaven of the new régime. The conscientious and unselfish leaders form the necessary aristocracy of rulers. But the ascetics and the adventurers are a dead burden. The first would like to see overnight a perfect humanity, without faults. They do not understand that there is no revolution that can change the nature of men. Because of their Utopian illusions the ascetics are never contented; they waste their time and other men’s energies in sophistry and doubts just when it is necessary to work like fiends in order to go forward. The adventurers always identify the fortune of the revolution with their own fortune; they hope to gain personal advantage from the victory and they harbor resentment when their wishes are not satisfied, and clamor for extreme and dangerous measures.

Now I had to defend the Fascist victory from the ascetics and the adventurers. The adventurers, however, sank rapidly in the Fascist revolution, because it was different and on a higher plane than any other revolution.

But I felt it my constant duty to examine and to ponder, in such a grave moment, every step I made.

First of all in the pressure of events, I desired to assure regularity to the country and to constitute a new government. Order came quickly. There were only a few sporadic incidents of violence, inevitable under such conditions. I felt the necessity of safeguarding Facta, and I called ten black shirts who had each been much decorated for bravery for the purpose of accompanying Facta to Pinerolo, his native town, under their word of honor. They kept their promise. “Nobody”—that was the order—“should touch a hair, mock or humiliate Facta.” He had given to the country his only son, who died in an airplane accident during the war, and Facta deserved respect for that and more.

I forbade reprisals against the leaders of the oppositions. It was only by my great authority that I averted the destruction, not only rhetorical but also actual, of my most rabid enemies. I saved their skins for them. At the same time, in the space of a few hours, I constituted a new ministry. I discarded, as I said, the idea of a Fascist dictatorship, because I wanted to give to the country the impression of a normal life free from the selfish exclusiveness of a party. That sense of instinct for equilibrium accompanies me fortunately in the gravest, the most strenuous, and the most critical moments. I decided then, after having weighed everything, to compose a ministry of a nationalist character.