Meanwhile, we had anti-Fascist assaults and ambushes. This was a stormy year. It must be regarded as a period of settling and one of difficulty. I had to guard Fascism from internal crises, often provoked by intrigue and trickery. I succeeded in this by being always inexorably opposed to those who thought they could create disturbances and frictions in the party itself. Fascism is a unit; it cannot have varying tendencies and trends, as it cannot have two leaders on any one level of organization. There is a hierarchy; the foundation is the Black Shirts and on the summit is the Chief, who is only one.
That is one of the first sources of my strength; all the dissolutions of our political parties were always born not from ideal motives but from personal ambitions, from false preconceptions or from corruption, or from mysterious, oblique and hidden forces which I could always identify as the work of our Italian Masonry. I took account of all this. I resolved not to yield a hairbreadth. When the more urgent legislative problems had been settled by parliament I decided to dissolve the chamber, and after having obtained extension of full powers, I announced elections for April 6th, 1924.
This signal for elections was sufficient to calm political agitations of dubious character. All the parties began their stock-taking and the revision of their forces. All got ready to muster the greatest number of votes and to send to the chamber the greatest possible number of representatives.
An election may be considered a childish play, in which the most important part is played by the elected. The “Honorables,” to be able to become so, do not overlook any sort of contortion, of demagogy and compromise. Fascism did not want to submit to the usual forms of that silly farce. We decided to create a large National list on which places had to be found not only for known, tried and faithful custodians and trustees of Fascism, but also for those who in the active national life had been able to uphold the dignity of their country. Fascism by this policy gave full proof of great political wisdom and probity. It even tolerated men of opposing or doubtful position because they could serve. In the National list were included ex-presidents of the Council, such as Orlando, and of the Chamber, such as De Nicola; but the main body of the list was made up of new elements. It was, in fact, composed of two hundred veterans, ten gold medals, one hundred and fourteen silver medals, ninety-eight bronze medals, eighty mutilated and war invalids, thirty-four volunteers. The majority of the list was drawn from the aristocracy of the war and the victory.
The Socialists, divided from the Communists, sharpened their weapons, and so did the Populars. But from the ballot boxes of April 6th there flowed a full, irrevocable, decisive victory for the National list. It obtained five million votes against the two millions represented by all the other lists put together. My policy and our régime was supported by the people. I then could be indulgent toward our adversaries, instead of pressing them harder, as I might have done.
I directed that political battle staying in Milan. I attached no great importance to the results of the electoral struggle, but it interested me as an expression of the support and the enthusiasm which, in every Italian city, had already been given to the National Fascist list. This indorsement by the people encouraged my thesis and my governmental work. Having gone back to Rome I was received as a returning victor, and, from the balcony of the Palazzo Chigi, while I saluted the people and the city of Rome, I congratulated the new and greater Italy, in which men of good faith were all in harmony.
This was my synthesis: Let Parties die and the Country be saved.
On May 24th, with unusual solemnity, came the opening of the Twenty-seventh Legislature. His Majesty the King made a very impressive speech. The hall had the appearance of a great occasion. For petty political reasons, the elements which denied the country and belittled Italian life determined to stay away. The inauguration of the Twenty-seventh Legislature, however, did not lose anything in its fulness and moral value. Particularly well received were the veterans, some of whom were very much decorated. Now there stirred, in that old chamber, so used to mean and petty political intrigues, a breath of new life; there was present a heroic sense of the new soul of Italy, a sense of a living aspiration for greatness.
All these things irritated the Socialists. In their hearts they had hated the war, had debased our victory. The old parliamentary world could not adjust itself to this magnificent gathering of youth. The congenital cowardliness of Montecitorio, the seat of parliament, would certainly refuse homage to the bravery symbolized by these golden medals!
The deep dissension between the new and the old Italy was revived again at Montecitorio. This dissension persisted in the atmosphere of parliament even after it had been beaten and overcome by Fascism in the squares and streets of Italy and in the hearts of the nation. In the historic meeting of May 24th, 1924, that sad antipathy was to have its epilogue. Not by mere chance had I chosen the precise date of our entrance into the war.