Italy needed what? An avenger! Her political and spiritual resurrection needed a worthy interpreter. It was necessary to cauterize the virulent wounds, to have strength, and to be able to go against the current. It was necessary to eliminate evils which threatened to become chronic. It was necessary to curb political dissolution. I had to bring to the blood stream of national life a new, serene and powerful lymph of the Italian people.
Voting was reduced to a childish game; it had already humiliated the nation for entire decades. It had created a perilous structure far below the heights of the duties of any new Italy. I faced numberless enemies. I created new ones—I had few illusions about that! The struggle, in my opinion, had to have a final character: it had to be fought as a whole over the most diverse fields of action.
To express this character of completeness of the whole struggle, I must be able to set it forth in a clear, evident way; it is necessary for me to set forth in subdivisions the different fields in which action was demanded of me and out of which evolved the most significant facts of my governmental life. Deeds and actions, more than any useless subjective expressions, write my true autobiography—from 1922 till 1927.
I never had any interval of uncertainty; fortunately, I never knew those discouragements or those exaltations which often are harmful to the effectiveness of a statesman. I understood that not only my prestige was at stake, but the prestige, the very name of the country which I love more than myself, more than anything else.
I was anxious to improve, refine and co-ordinate the character of the Italians. Let me state what my domestic policies have been, what was charted and what was achieved. From petty discords and quarrels of holiday and Sunday frequency, from many-colored political partisanships, from peasant strifes, from bloody struggles, from the insincerity and duplicity of the press; from parliamentary battles and maneuvres, from the vicissitudes of representative lobbies, from hateful and useless debates and snarling talk, we finally climbed up to the plane of a unified nation, to a powerful harmony—dominated, inspired and spiritualised by Fascism. That is not my judgment, but that of the world.
After my speech of November 16th, 1922, in the chamber of deputies, I obtained approval for my declaration by 306 votes against 116. I asked and without difficulty obtained full powers.
I issued a decree of amnesty which created an atmosphere of peace. I had to solve the problem of our armed Fascist squadrons. I always have had great influence with my soldiers and with the action squads, which in every part of Italy had given proof of their valor, their gallantry, and their passionate faith. But now that Fascism had reached power, these formations were, in such a situation, no longer desirable.
On the other hand, I could not suddenly wipe out or simply direct toward the fields of sport these groups of men who had for me a deep, blind, and absolute devotion. In their instinct, in their vibrant conviction, they were led not only by strength and courage, but by a sense of political virtue. And as the perils had not entirely disappeared, it was imperative to guard the citadel of the Black Shirt’s triumph. I decided then to create a Voluntary Militia for National Security and Defence. Of course its duties had to be well defined. It must be commanded by seasoned veterans and chiefs who, after having fought the war, had known and experienced the struggles of the Fascist resurrection.
I proclaimed that with Fascism at the wheel everything illegal and disorderly must disappear. The decision to transform the squads of action to Voluntary Militia for National Security undoubtedly was one of political wisdom; it conferred on the régime not only authority, but also a great reserve strength.
The organization of the Grand Council, a body exquisitely political, was one of my major aims after my coming to power. I faced the necessity of creating a political organization typically Fascist, one which would be outside and above the various old political mechanisms dominating and misruling our national life. Every day I needed clear answers to questions arising—I needed a body of reference. In all my complex work as chief of the government, I could not forget that I was also chief of the party that for three years had fought in the squares and streets of Italy—not merely to gain power, but above all to meet the supreme task and the supreme necessity of infusing a new spirit into the nation.