Italy, Gentlemen, wants peace, wants quiet, wants work, wants calm; we will give it with love, if that be possible, or with strength, if that be necessary.
You can be sure that in the forty-eight hours following this speech the situation will be clarified in every corner. We all know that this is not a personal fancy, not lust for government, not base passion, but only infinite and powerful love for my Country.
These words, restrained till then, together with my disdain and my force of expression, suddenly awoke Fascist Italy. The situation, as I had foreseen, was clarified in forty-eight hours. The papers of the opposition, which till then had been full of envy, hate and defamatory attacks, began to slink into their holes again. A new situation, full of power and responsibility, was developing. Fascism had now all the attributes—after the long “quartarellista” parenthesis—to enable it to march onward and to govern by itself.
It was on that occasion that the Liberal ministers Sarrocchi and Casati, and also the minister Oviglio, a tepid Fascist, asked to resign from the ministry. I replaced them with three Fascist ministers. We were coming back by the force of events to the historical origins of our movement, back to pure irreconcilableness.
Fascism, after my words full of my faith and my willingness to show audacity, was coming back to its warrior soul. Immediately, all those who were out of Fascism wanted to participate in our movement, but in order not to load too much on our party the membership lists were closed.
Victory was complete. The maneuvre of the former premiers definitely failed and became ridiculous, just as did other artificial structures attempted about that time. One was a movement inspired by Benelli, under the name of the Italian League, to create secessions from Fascism, and another an underhand maneuvre by some shortweight grandchildren of Garibaldi.
At the end of January, 1925, the Aventino, with all our opponents, appeared to have been destroyed, torn to pieces by a thousand internal discords and differences. I was winner again on the whole front and I was getting ready to channel the Fascist revolution into institutions and into constitutional forms.
On October 28th, 1924, the National Militia, which represents the best of Fascism and which has always been my beloved creation, had sworn loyalty to the King. Now it was necessary to bring the Constitution of 1848 up to date and to create new representative institutions, worthy of the new Italy.
With this aim I brought about the nomination of a commission of eighteen experts on statecraft. I charged them with the preparation of proposals of reforms to be presented to our legislative organs.
The commission was then called the Commission of the Solons. It concluded its work, after a certain time, suggesting some improvements in the old Constitution and the creation of new institutions. I afterward used the recommendations as a base. The commission at the time did not lay down definite lines, but it contributed to the reforms which later on I began to see taking clearer shape and which were approved by the two branches of the national parliament.