CHAPTER X

FIVE YEARS OF GOVERNMENT

My revolutionary method and the power of the Black Shirts had brought me to tremendous responsibility of power. My task, as I have pointed out, was neither simple nor easy; it required large vision, it gathered to it continually more and more duties.

An existence wholly new began for me. To speak about it makes it necessary for me to abandon the usual form of autobiographic style; I must consider the organic whole of my governmental activity. From now on my life identifies itself almost exclusively with thousands of acts of government. Individuality disappears. Instead, my person expresses, I sometimes feel, only measures and acts of concrete character; these do not concern a single person; they concern the multitudes, they concern and permeate an entire people. So one’s entire life is lost in the whole.

Certainly I know that I took the direction of the government when the central power of the state was sinking to the bottom. We had a financial situation that Peano of the Liberal party had summarized with an astounding figure: six billions of deficit! Individually the people fed on expedients. Progressive inflation and the printing presses gave to everybody the old illusion of prosperity. It created an unstable delusion of well-being; it excited a fictitious game of interests. All this had to be expiated when faced by the severe Fascist financial policy.

Abroad our political reputation had diminished progressively. We were judged as a nation without order and discipline, unable either to prosper or produce. The chronic infection of disorder had withdrawn from us the sympathies of countries better equipped than we were. Worse yet, it had increased the haughtiness and the contempt of many of our enemies.

The Italian school system, in its complex formation, university, middle and lower schools, had turned its energies into purely abstract, theoretical functions; it had withdrawn more and more from a real world, a modern world, and from the fundamental problems of national life; it had been inert as a guide to civil duties. Schools and pulpits should always show the way to ascending peoples.

There still lived, in the national mechanism, strange and hateful regional political formations; these used to bring our solidarity into question, if not into peril. The activities of the government in terms of services, improvements and appropriations were guided and affected, not by real natural necessities, but by the desire to ingratiate this or that population, or region. The treasury was tapped by this base policy of politics—electoral strategy.

A bureaucracy already suffering from elephantiasis increased its distention, generating that spirit of trouble, those characters of instability, of intolerance, of slight love of duty, which are typical of all great accumulations of functionaries, especially when the latter are not well paid, and do not see their moral prestige supported and built up by the authority of the state and by precise and clear definition of individual responsibility.

We still had, as a consequence of our generous struggle, the Fascist squadron formations. They might become, in the new conditions of life, a danger threatening public order and legality.

The army and the navy lived apart from the great problems of national life. As a matter of fact, though this is good in many respects, it is not good when they are set aside in an almost humiliated formation. Aviation was in disorder. It was difficult to give it new strength. One must not forget, when considering aviation, that Nitti had forbidden flight, not only for military planes, but also for private planes. His command was to demobilize aviation, and to sell the motors as well as the airplanes. It was a kind of premeditated murder of a nation which really did not want to be strangled.

In the meantime there assembled in Rome all the arms and legs of anti-Fascism, in all its gradations. The political parties, at first dismayed by the revolution of the Black Shirts and my advent to power, began to revive. They began to find courage to pursue again the general trend of political parties in the equivocal atmosphere of the parliamentary corridors at Montecitorio. The Italian press was, for the greater part, tied to old groups and to old political customers.

It was necessary to reorganize all civil life, without forgetting the basic need of a supervisory force. It was necessary to give order to political economy, to the schools, to our military strength. It was necessary to abolish double functions, to reduce bureaucracy, to improve public services. It was necessary to check the corrosion and erosion of criticism by the remnants of the old political parties. I had to fight external attacks. I had to refine and improve Fascism. I had to divide and floor the enemies. I saw the vision that I must in every respect work to improve and to give tone to all the manners and customs of Italian political life.

It was also imperative not to neglect the ten millions of Italians emigrated beyond the frontiers. We had to give faith again to the zones on our borders. We had to assist in bringing modern improvements and stimuli to the life of the southern regions, and to get in touch with all the men of the healthy and strong provinces, wherever they were.

Infinite then were the problems and the worries. I had to decide everything, and I had a will firm enough to summon up all the political postulates that I had enunciated and sustained with pen and paper, in meetings and in my parliamentary speeches. This was not only a problem of strength to last, to endure, to stand erect in any wind, but also, above all, a problem of will.

I abandoned everything that kept me tied to the fortunes of my newspapers; I parted from everything that could have the slightest personal character. I devoted myself wholly, completely, exclusively, to the work of reconstruction.

To-day there is no change. I want to be a simple, devoted servant of the state; chief of a party, but, first, worthy head of a strong government. I abandoned without regret all the superfluous comforts of life. I made an exception only of sports which, while making my body alert and ready, succeed in creating healthy and happy intervals in my complex life of work. In these six years—with the exception of official dinners—I have never passed the threshold of an aristocrat’s salon, or of a cafe. I have also almost entirely abandoned the theatre, which once took away from me useful hours of evening work.

I love all sports; I drive a motor car with confidence; I have done tours at great speed, amazing not only to my friends, but also to old and experienced drivers. I love the airplane; I have flown countless times.

Even when I was kept busy by the cares of power, I needed only a few lessons to obtain a pilot’s license. I once fell from a height of fifty metres, but that did not stop my flying. Motors give me a new and great sensation of strength. A horseback ride on a magnificent sorrel is also for me a joyous interruption, and fencing, to which I devote myself, often with remarkable physical benefit, gives me the greatest satisfaction. I ask of my violin nothing more than serene hours of music. Of the great poets, such as Dante, of the supreme philosophers, such as Plato, I often ask hours of poetry, hours of meditation.

[Illustration: Mussolini walking along the seashore, May 1, 1928. From a photograph presented to Mr. Richard Washburn Child. ]

No other amusement interests me. I do not drink, I do not smoke, and I am not interested in cards or games. I pity those who lose time, money, and sometimes all of life itself in the frenzy of games.

As for the love of the table; I don’t appreciate it. I do not feel it. Especially in these last years my meals are as frugal as those of a pauper. In every hour of my life, it is the spiritual element which leads me on. Money has no lure for me. The only things at which I aim are those which identify themselves with the greatest objects of life and civilization, with the highest interests, and the real and deep aspirations of my country. I am sure of my strength and my faith; for that reason I do not indulge in any concession or any compromise. I leave, without a look over my shoulder, my foes and those who cannot overtake me. I leave them with their political dreams. I leave them to their strength for oratorical and demagogic exertion.

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.

The Grand Council had to be the propelling element of Fascism, with the hard and delicate task of preparing and transforming into legal enactments the work of the Fascist revolution. There were no—and there are none now—heterogeneous elements in the Grand Council, but virile Fascists, ministers, representatives of our deepest currents of public opinion, men of expert knowledge and of interests. The Grand Council has always succeeded. I preside over it, and let me add, as a detail, that all the motions and the official reports which have appeared in the papers in concise form, have been written by my hand. They are the product of long meditations in which Italian life and the position of Italy in the world have been examined and dissected by the Fascist soul, spirit and faith. The Grand Council, which to-day I want framed in the legislative institutions of the régime, has rendered in its first five years a magnificent, unparallelled service.

One of the problems which presented itself first of all was that of the unification of the police forces. We had the ordinary police, with the different branches of political and judiciary police; the Royal Carabinieri, and, finally, the body of the Royal Guards. This last institution, created by Nitti, was made up of demobilized elements and was a useless organization finding its place somewhere between the carabinieri and the usual forces of public security. I decided immediately to suppress the Royal Guards. That suppression in the main was not attended by unfortunate incidents. In some cities, such as Torino and Milano, there were riots and attempts at resistance. I gave severe orders. I called into my office or telephoned to the chiefs responsible for certain local situations. I ordered them to fire, if necessary. In six hours everything was calm again. The instant dissolving of an armed body of forty thousand men cost only four dead and some tens of wounded. The officers were incorporated into other organizations, or took up activities according to their own wishes; the privates reached their districts and homes without further trouble.

Our Italian form of political Masonry, which at first had seemed to have adjusted itself to the new conditions, submitting to the advent of Fascism to power, now began a stupid and deceitful warfare against me and against Fascism. In a meeting of the Grand Council I proclaimed the impossibility for Fascisti of membership at the same time in Masonry. As a leader of the ranks of socialism I had already pursued the same anti-Masonic policy. We must not forget that this shady institution with its secret nature has always had in Italy a character typical of the briber and blackmailer. It has nothing of protection, humanitarianism, benevolence. Every one, even those who were benefited, are convinced that Italian Masonry has been nothing more than a society for mutual aid and for reciprocal adulation of its members. Every one knows that it has diffused in every way a worship of self-interest, and methods of privilege and intrigue, neglecting and despising rights and prerogatives of intelligence and morality. My struggle against Masonry was bitter; I carry the tangible signs of it still, but it constitutes for me, for my sincerity, and my probity, one of the most precious titles of merit.

In 1923, after negotiations carried on with unwavering constancy, I united Italian Nationalism with Fascism. For a certain time an identical vision had been shared by these two organizations about everything concerning the ends and aims of our national life. Political developments, however, had led them along separate paths. Now that victory had been concluded and the better elements of Nationalism were already collaborating with the new régime, the unification was more than a wise move; it was also an act of political sincerity. Black Shirt and Blue Shirt—the latter was the uniform of the Nationalists—united in a perfect accord of chivalry and political loyalty. This new and deep unity permitted us to enjoy the prospect of more favorable auspices for a new future, one worthy of that great Italy which had been prophesied, desired and finally created by Nationalism and Fascism.

In April, 1923, in Turin, there assembled the national congress of the “Popular Party.” It was a verbose and academic meeting, not very different from the other political congresses that for decades had hypnotized Italian public life. They naturally discussed the policies of the Fascist régime for a long while and, after various divergencies of opinion, the majority of those assembled voted in favor of a middle-ground position with an anti-Fascist leaning.

Among the members of my ministry there were some of the “Popular Party”; they found themselves, after the meeting, in a difficult and delicate situation. I naturally put before them the problem of giving thought to their opportunity of staying in the Fascist government in the new state of things created by the attitude of their party. There were some explanations. Differing opinions alternated, but, in order to initiate that process of political clarification that I had foreseen as inevitable, I advised the members of the government of the Popular party to give up their places so that they could avoid dissensions between their parliamentary group and the Fascist party.

This process of clarification I had foreseen as soon as I went into power. The climate and altitude of Fascism was not adapted to all minds of that time. There were still many dissenters. Many people fed on the illusory hope that they would be able to influence and bend the methodical and straight courses laid out by Fascism. For this purpose, I was approached by those who were skilled in twistings, turnings and slidings. Naturally, they always found me as resistant as flint.

In 1923, for the first time, our Labor Day passed without incident; the people worked calmly, without regretting that old date which now in Italy had lost every meaning. Later on I wanted to get in touch with the public opinion of Italy and to measure how deep Fascism had penetrated the masses. First I went to Milan and to Romagna. Afterward I went to Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Sicily and Sardinia; finally I journeyed to Piacenza and Florence. I found everywhere warm, vibrant enthusiasm, not only among my lieutenants and the Black Shirts, but also among all of the Italian people. That people finally was sensing that it had a government and a leader.

The Black Shirts, the makers of the revolution, hailed me as a leader with the same changeless enthusiasm they had shown when I was only the chief of the party and when I was developing that programme of journalistic attack which had added so much to my popularity. The Italian temperament at times is much more adapted to faction than to action. But now my old comrades were just as near to me in their daily tasks and their regimental discipline. Their attitude not only made me proud but moved me deeply. I could not ignore this warm youth so full of ardor, and I was quite decided not to sacrifice it to compromises with an old world which was destined to disappear. The population felt that it had recovered a real liberty; they had experienced liberation from the continuous blackmail of parties which deluded the masses. They blessed my political work. And I was happy.

It was in this period that the campaign of the opposition opened again. Not being able to beat me on the field of conciliation and compromise, the opposing elements, led by the _Corriere della Sera_, began a series of depressing prophecies and calamity howling. They launched deceitful attacks and spun their polemic webs. I put into effect, however, a new electoral law, because I did not want to fall into the pitfalls of our old proportional representative system. I had alienated the “Populars,” the Democrats, and some of the Liberals. The reforming of the school, about which I will have more to say, had invited some hostilities.

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.

After some days the usual parliamentary discussions began. The seating of new deputies roused violent diatribes. The Socialists, who were absent from the ceremony of May 24th, had again taken up their posts of combat. The atmosphere was red-hot. I knew that it would be necessary to give a different tone to all our political life, especially to parliamentary life—there was no use my cherishing illusions about that. With very great patience I succeeded in appeasing the first tumultuous meetings. Nothing proved more effective in elevating the plane of the discussion than a speech delivered on June 6th by the blind veteran, Carlo Delcroix. On June 7th I answered all the opponents exhaustively. I denounced their maneuvres. I remember that I admonished every one in the name of Fascist martyrdom and in the name of the peace of souls, to attend solely to productive activities. I added: “We feel that we represent the Italian people and we declare that we have the right to scatter to the winds the ashes of your spites and of our spites, so that we may feed with powerful lymph, in the course of years and centuries, the venerable and intangible body of the country.”

I felt the necessity of making in parliament a high appeal for calm, for a sense of balance and justice. I was animated by a deep and sincere desire for peace. But the success of my words was apparent only; in the ardors of the parliamentary political struggle scenes unworthy of any assembly took place.

The Socialists had been hit in their most sensitive spots; they had been slammed against reality. They were outnumbered, amazed by the rush of Italian youth, dismayed by the new direction events were taking. All the new political realism was in full antagonism to their leanings; they were beaten and they felt it. In such a situation, the Socialists wanted as a last resort to squeeze out some way of avoiding surrender, at least, in parliament.

Skillful and astute in every political art, they protracted without end all the annoyances they could devise. It was a game played with the deliberate aim to destroy and tear down. In this subtle work of exasperation, Matteotti, the deputy, distinguished himself above all others. He was a Socialist from the province of Rovigo, whose arrogant spirit held tenaciously to the principle of political dissolution. As a Socialist he hated war. In this attitude he reached a degree of absurdity even beyond that attained by any other Socialist. In the tragic period after the defeat at Caporetto, he had set himself against our Venetian refugees. Matteotti denied shelter to those unhappy people who fled from the lands then invaded by the enemy and in which the Austrians were committing every sort of violence. He said that they ought to remain under Austrian domination!

To this parliamentary battle of polemics he now brought his whole bag of tricks and devices. Being a millionaire, he considered socialism as a mere parliamentary formula. It is to be remembered, however, that he was an ardent fighter, well able to irritate his adversaries in the whirlwind of the struggle, but he was far from being able seriously to imperil the assembly and to silence such a party as the Fascist. Matteotti was not a leader. In that same Socialist party there were individuals who surpassed him in powers of debate, in talent, and in coherence. In his electoral districts he had had violent fights with the Fascists, and in the chamber he had at once revealed himself as a most zealous and pugnacious opponent.

One day Matteotti disappeared from Rome. Immediately it was whispered about that a political crime had been committed. The Socialists were looking for a martyr who might be of use for purposes of oratory, and at once, before anything definite could possibly be known, they accused Fascism. By my orders, we began a most painstaking and complete investigation. The government was determined to act with the greatest energy, not only for the sake of justice, but also to stop, from the very first moment, the spread of any kind of calumny. I threw the Prefect and Police Chief of Rome, the Secretary of the Interior, Finzi, and the Chief of the Press Office, Cesare Rossi, into the task of clearing up the mystery. Activity on the part of the police for the discovery of the guilty persons was ordered without stint. Very soon it was possible to identify the guilty. They were of high station. They came from the Fascist group, but they were completely outside our responsible elements.

The sternest proceedings were instituted against them without limit or reservation. Severe measures were taken—so severe indeed that in some cases they proved to be excessive.

The suspects were arrested at once. Among the responsible elements, those who had had relations with the guilty ones, merely because they were under suspicion retired, though innocent, from public life. No threat of restraint was laid on the authorities, the police and the courts.

All this should have stilled the storm.

On the contrary. This dramatic episode was destined to disturb the austere serenity that I had imposed on myself and on every one, in the general policy of the country. Though we were still living in an atmosphere incandescent with passion, with polemics and violent battles, it seemed hardly possible that only a few days after the opening of the Twenty-seventh Legislature, a group of men of position could carry through an enterprise which, begun as a jest, was to conclude in a tragedy. I always have had harsh and severe words for what happened. But despite the faithful and energetic behavior of the central government, there now burst out an unparalleled offensive against Fascism and against its leader. The opposition in the chamber gave the first signal of an attack in grand style. I perceived and foresaw immediately the ignoble game, which grew, not from any love for the poor victim, but solely from hate for Fascism. I was not surprised. In the chamber, when weak men already were hesitating, I said:

“If it is a question of lamenting, if it is a question of condemning, if it is a question of regretting the victim, if it is a question of pressing our prosecution of all the guilty and those responsible, we here repeat that this will be done calmly and inexorably. But if from this very sad happening some one seeks to draw an argument for anything but a wider reconciliation of all men on the basis of an accepted and recognised need of national concord—if any one should try to stage upon this tragedy a show of selfish political character for the purpose of attacking the government, it must be known that the government will defend itself at any cost. The government, with undisturbed conscience, sure of having already fulfilled its duty and willing to do it in the future, will adopt the necessary means to crush a trick which, instead of leading to the harmony of Italians, would trouble them with the deepest dissensions and passions.”

These words did not penetrate minds already hardened. And there happened exactly what I had foreseen; the opposition threw themselves on the corpse of Matteotti in order to poison the political life of Italy and to cast calumnies on Fascism both in Italy and abroad.

The course of Italian public life from June till December, 1924, offered a spectacle absolutely unparalleled in the political struggle of any other country. It was a mark of shame and infamy which would dishonor any political group. The press, the meetings, the subversive and anti-Fascist parties of every sort, the false intellectuals, the defeated candidates, the soft-brained cowards, the rabble, the parasites, threw themselves like ravens on the corpse. The arrest of the guilty was not enough. The discovery of the corpse and the sworn statement of surgeons that death had not been due to a crime but had been produced by trauma was not enough.

Instead, the discovery of the corpse in a hedge near Rome, called the Quartarella, unstopped an orgiastic research into the details which is remembered by us under the ignominious name of “Quartarellismo.”

Fortunes were built on the Matteotti tragedy; they speculated on portraits, on medals, on commemorative dates, on electric signs; a subscription was opened by subversive newspapers and even now the accounts are still open.

The opposition parties and their representatives in the chamber retired from Montecitorio and threatened not to participate further in legislative work; to this movement and to those who espoused it was given, by false analogy with the well-known event of Roman history, the name of Aventino. But the Aventino group was here reduced to a grotesque parody, in which hate and nakedness of power now reunited men of the most diverse political complexions. They ranged all the way from Socialists to Liberals, from Democrat-Masons to Populars, who pretended to be called Catholics. Clandestine meetings were held. They abused in every way the liberty of the press and of assembly, in order to destroy Italian life. Fanatical elements waited hour after hour for Fascism to be overthrown. In the background of this ignoble dramatic farce, there stood out the figure of senator Albertini, the happy owner of the newspaper. This man was willing to scrape in the garbage, to listen to all the dirty rogues, to collect the most mendacious pamphlets, trying somehow, sometime, somewhere, to hit at me and at Fascism.

I did not have a moment of doubt or discouragement. I knew the attitudes, postures and poses of these adversaries. I knew that if they could they would have ignobly used the corpse of the Socialist deputy as an anti-Fascist symbol and flag. But their ghoulish politics passed the bounds of my imagination. Besides these speculators, there were those on the timid and flabby fringes of Fascism. They let themselves be led astray by the political atmosphere. They did not perceive that an episode is not the stuff of which history should be made. In the name of a sentimental morality, they were willing to kill a great moral and political probity and knife the welfare of an entire nation.

In this situation there were also many repentant Magdalenes, and many, impelled by the sad habit of many Italians to consider as pure gold the acts and the work of any opposition, hid their Fascist insignia and, trembling, abandoned the Fascist nation, already grown red-hot from a thousand attacks and counter-attacks of its adversaries.

We were going back into the depths of a revolutionary period, with all the excesses of such an abnormal time, all its spites, troubles, and explosions. An atmosphere was formed in which many magistrates, often under Masonic influence, could certainly not give equitable and faultless judgments. Various parties beyond the borders were giving help to the Socialists at home. It was then clear to what extent anti-Fascism was still abroad in certain international zones where Democracy, Socialism and Liberalism had consolidated their weight of patronage, blackmail and parasitism.

All this might have created for a moment, in certain political atmospheres, the illusion that the government had weakened. In December, 1924, at the end of that painful three months, some were calculating the days of life of our ministry. A great hope sprang up in the hearts of the politically hungry. There was, in fact, a miserable maneuvre on the part of the three former presidents of the council; they were able to delude themselves and others. But these professional political men have so little practical sense that they could not understand that with one breath I could have given an order to the Black Shirts which would have overturned once and for all their fancies and their dreams.

The swelled frogs waited for their triumph. The corrupt press gave the maximum of publicity to the calumnies, to incitation to commit crimes and to spread defamation. The Crown, supreme element of equilibrium, was violently menaced with blackmail and worse. As ever, there were adventurers who were eager to speculate on any turn in the tide of events in order to create again for themselves a political rebirth. This base and pernicious crew I, for my part, have always eliminated from the sphere of activity and position controlled by me.

As if all this were not enough, in that dark December of 1924, to complete the picture, Cesare Rossi, the former chief of the press office, tried a rascally trick. This man, cast out from Fascism because he was implicated in the Matteotti affair, prepared a memorial which was a tissue of lies and libels. He aimed to involve the régime in guilt, and consequently to involve me. Everything that had happened or was happening in Italy he endeavored to put on my doorstep. This memorial, written by such a man, pretended to present a “moral indictment” of me. But in that field I cannot be attacked; every attempt of this sort is empty. I was informed beforehand of the plot that Rossi was going to attempt; I knew the contents of his memorial and the day on which it was to be printed in the papers of the opposition. I put an end to the miserable maneuvre. I published the memorial in a friendly paper; in this way I indicated that I gave no value to it. It was a jest and a delusion. The theatrical stroke fell on emptiness; the bubble swelled by slanders flattened like a pricked balloon.

The contemptible game lasted six months. The half-hearted had sunk beneath the surface; the singers of the doleful tunes felt their throats becoming parched. The speculators were now disgusted with themselves. In that period a former minister, decorated with the Collare dell’Annunziata, the highest order of Italy’s sovereign, alligned himself with the cult of Republicanism and with the worst elements of the Socialists!

I held the Fascist party firmly in my hand during this period. I curbed the impulses of some Fascists who wanted violent reprisals with a clear order: “Hands in the pockets! I am the only one that must have his hands free.” In Florence and Bologna, however, there occurred episodes of extreme violence. I understood then that it was time to speak and act.

In all that time I credit myself with the fact that I never lost my calm nor my sense of balance and justice. Because of the serene judgment that I endeavor to summon to guide my every act, I ordered the guilty to be arrested. I wanted justice to follow its unwavering course. Now I had fulfilled my task and my duty as a just man. Now against my adversaries I could play my own game—in the open.

When the menace of a general strike in the Province of Rome arose, I ordered the Florentine legions of the Militia to parade in the streets of the Capital. The armed Militia with its war songs is a great agent of persuasion. It is an argument. In September, 1924, I had visited the most intense zones of the Tuscan Fascism; I went among the strong populations of the Amiata, among the workers and peasants, among the miners of the province of Siena. On that occasion, while opponents hourly awaited my fall—and that was also the secret hope of many enemies beyond the borders—I delivered to the Fascists an audacious sentence in which I sounded an affirmation of strength and victory:

Of our adversaries, I said, “we will make a litter for the Black Shirts.”

The opposition press made a great fuss about these words; but their chattering had no importance. That became clear on January 3rd, 1925. On that day, when Rome was already full of the exiled from the provinces and of those who tremblingly awaited the conclusion of the political struggle, I made in parliament this speech, which certainly was not lacking in reserve:

Gentlemen,

The speech I am going to make before you might not be classed as a parliamentary speech. It may be possible that, at the end, some of you will find that this speech is tied, even though a space of time has elapsed, to the one I pronounced in this same hall on November 16th. Such a speech can lead somewhere, but it cannot lead to a political vote. In any case let it be known that I am not looking for this vote. I do not want it; I have had plenty. Article 47 of the Statute says: “The Chamber of the Deputies has the right to accuse the Ministers of the King and to bring them to face the High Court of Justice.” I formally ask if in this Chamber, or outside it, there is any one who wants to make use of Article 47. My speech will then be very clear; it will bring about an absolute clarification. You can understand this. After having marched for a long time with comrades to whom our gratitude always will go out for what they have done, it is good sense to stop to consider whether the same route, with the same companions, could be followed in the future.

Gentlemen, I am the one who brings forth in this hall the accusations against me.

It has been said that I would have founded a “Cheka.”

Where? When? In what way? Nobody is able to say. Russia has executed without trial from one hundred and fifty thousand to one hundred and sixty thousand people, as shown by statistics almost official. There has been a Cheka in Russia which has exercised terror systematically over all the middle classes and over the individual members of those classes, a Cheka which said it was the red sword of revolution. But an Italian Cheka never has had a shadow of existence.

Nobody has ever denied that I am possessed of these three qualities; a discreet intelligence, a lot of courage and an utter contempt for the lure of money.

If I had founded a Cheka I would have done it following the lines of reasoning that I have always used in defending one kind of violence that can never be eliminated from history.

I have always said—and those who have always followed me in these five years of hard struggle can now remember it—that violence, to be useful in settling anything, must be surgical, intelligent and chivalrous. Now, all the exploits of any so-called Cheka have always been unintelligent, passionate and stupid.

Can you really think that I could order—on the day following the anniversary of Christ’s birth when all saintly spirits are hovering near—can you think that I could order an assault at ten o’clock in the morning in the Via Francesco Crispi, in Rome, after the most conciliatory speech that I ever made during my Government?

Please do not think me such an idiot. Would I have planned with the same lack of intelligence the minor assaults against Misuri and Forni? You certainly remember my speech of June 7th. It should be easy for you to go back to that week of ardent political passion when, in this hall, minority and majority clashed every day, so much so that some persons despaired of ever being able to re-establish those terms of political and civil cooperation most necessary between the opposite parties in the Chamber. The shuttles of violent speeches were flying from one side to the other. Finally on June 6th Delcroix with his lyric speech, full of life and passion, broke that storm-charged tension.

The next day I spoke to clear the atmosphere. I said to the opposition, “I recognize your ideal rights, your contingent rights. You may surpass Fascism with your experience; you may put under immediate criticism all the measures of the Fascist Government.”

I remember, and I have still before my eyes the vision of this part of the Chamber, where all were attentive, where all felt that I had spoken deep, living words, and that I had established the basis for that necessary living-together without which it is not possible to continue even the existence of any political assembly.

How could I, after a success—let me say that without false or ridiculous modesty—after a success so clamorous that it was admitted by all the Chamber, opposition included, a success because of which the Chamber opened again the next Wednesday in a good atmosphere, how could I think, without being struck with mad extravagance, to order, I won’t say a murder, but even the slightest, the most petty offense against that very adversary whom I esteemed because he had a certain courage which looked like my courage, and an obstinacy which appeared like my obstinacy in sustaining a thesis?

They have the minds of crickets who pretend that I was making only cynical gestures on that occasion. Such gestures are the last to be tolerated by me; they are repugnant to the very depths of my conscience. And I feel as strongly against the show of strength.

What strength? Against whom? With what aim? When I think about that, Gentlemen, I remember those strategists who, during the War, while we were eating in the trenches, made strategy with little pins on the maps. But when the problem is to get something done at the place of command and responsibility, things are seen in another light and have a different appearance. And yet on enough occasions, I have proved my energy. I have usually not failed to meet events.

I have settled in six hours a revolt of the Royal Guards. In a few days I have broken an insidious revolt. In forty-eight hours I brought a division of Infantry and half of the fleet to Corfu. These gestures of energy—and the last one amazed even one of the greatest generals of a friendly Nation—are cited here to demonstrate that it is not energy that fails me.

The death punishment? But that is a joke, Gentlemen! First of all, the death punishment must be inflicted under the penal code and, in any case, capital punishment cannot be the reprisal of a Government!

It must be inflicted with restrained, better let us say very restrained, judgment, when the question is the life of a citizen. It was at the end of that month which is carved deeply into my life, that I said, “I want peace for the Italian people and I want to re-establish normal political life.”

What was the answer to this policy of mine? First of all the secession of the Aventino—anti-constitutional secession, clearly revolutionary! Then a campaign of the press which lasted throughout the months of June, July and August. A dirty, miserable campaign which dishonored us for three months. The most fantastic, the most terrifying, the most frightful lies were affirmed extensively in the press.

Investigations of underground happenings were also made; they invented things, they knew they were lying, but it was done all the same! I have always been peaceful and calm amid the storm. That storm will be remembered by those who will come after us with a sense of intimate shame. On September eleventh, somebody wanted to revenge a killing and shot one of our best men. He died poor—he had sixty lires in his pocket. But I continue my effort to normalize. I repress illegalities. I state the bare truth when I say that even now in our jails there are hundreds and hundreds of Fascists.

It is the bare truth when I recall to you that I reopened the Parliament on the fixed date and that the discussion covered, with no lack of regularity, almost all the budgets.

It is the bare truth that that oath of which you know is taken by the Militia and that the nomination of all the generals for all the zone commands is conducted as it is.

Finally a question which raised our passions was presented—the question of accepting the resignation of Giunta. The Chamber was excited. I understood the sense of that revolt; however, after forty-eight hours I used my prestige and my influence. To a riotous and reluctant assembly I said: “Accept the resignation,” and the resignation was accepted.

But this was not enough; I made a last effort to create normal conditions—the plan for electoral reform. How was that answered? It was answered by an accentuation of the campaign and by the assertion, “Fascism is a horde of barbarians camped on the Nation, and a movement of bandits and marauders.” Now they stage, Gentlemen, the moral question! We know the sad history of moral questions in Italy.

But after all, Sirs, what butterflies are we looking for under the arch of Titus? Well, I declare here before this assembly, before all the Italian people, that I assume, I alone, the political, moral, historical responsibility for everything that has happened. If sentences, more or less maimed, are enough to hang a man, out with the noose! If Fascism has only been castor oil or a club, and not a proud passion of the best Italian youth, the blame is on me!

If Fascism has been a criminal association, if all the violence has been the result of a determined historical, political, moral delinquency, the responsibility for this is on me, because I have created it with my propaganda from the time of our intervention in the War to this moment.

In these last days not only the Fascists but many citizens ask themselves: Is there a Government? Have these men dignity as men? Have they dignity also as a Government? I have wanted to reach this determined extreme point. My experience of the life of these six months is rich. I have tried the Fascist Party. Just as to try the temper of some metals it is necessary to hit them with a hammer, so have I tested the temper of certain men. I have seen their value; I have seen for what reasons, at some moment when the wind seems contrary, they turn around the corner. I have tested myself. And be sure that I would not have persisted in measures if they had not been for the interests of the Nation. A people does not respect a Government which allows itself to be scorned. The people want to see their own dignity reflected in a Government, and the people, even before I said it, said, “Enough! The measure is filled.”

And why was it filled? Because the revolt of the Aventino has a republican background.

This sedition of the Aventino has had consequences, for now whoever in Italy is a Fascist risks his life! In the two months of November and December eleven Fascists were killed. One had his head crushed, and another one, an old man seventy-three years old, was killed and thrown from a high wall. Three fires happened in one month, three mysterious fires on the railroads, one in Rome, another in Parma, and the third in Florence. Then came a subversive movement everywhere.

A chief of a squad of the Militia severely wounded by subversives.

A fight between Carabinieri and subversives in Genzano.

An attempted attack against the seat of the Fascists in Tarquinia.

A man wounded by subversives in Verona.

A soldier of the Militia wounded in the Province of Cremona.

Fascists wounded by subversives in Forli.

Communist ambush in San Giorgio di Pesaro.

Subversives who sing the “Red Flag” and attack Fascists in Monzambano.

In the three days of this January, 1925, and in a single zone incidents occurred in Mestre, Pionca, Valombra; fifty subversives armed with rifles strolled through the country singing the “Red Flag” and exploding petards. In Venice the Militiaman Pascai Mario was attacked and wounded. In Cavaso di Treviso another Fascist was hurt. In Crespano, the headquarters of the Carabinieri were invaded by about twenty frantic women, a chief of a detachment of Militia was attacked and thrown into the water. In Favara di Venezia Fascists were attacked by subversives.

I bring your attention to these matters because they are symptoms. The Express train No. 192 was stoned by subversives who broke the windows.

In Moduno di Livenza, a chief of the squad was attacked and beaten. You can see by this situation that the sedition of the Aventino has had deep repercussions throughout the whole Country. And then comes the struggle in which one side says: Enough! When two elements are struggling the solution lies in the test of strength. There never was any other solution in history, and never will be.

Now I dare to say that the problem will be solved. Fascism, the Government, the Party, is at its highest efficiency. Gentlemen, you have deceived yourselves! You thought that Fascism was ended because I was restraining it, that the Party was dead because I was holding it back. If I should use a hundredth part of the energy that I used to compress the Fascists, to loosen them.... Oh! You should see, for then....

But there will be no need of that, because the Government is strong to break fully and finally this revolt of the Aventino.

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.

A law against secret societies was voted; so legal sanction was given to the struggle maintained by Fascism against Masonry. In fact, in 1925, it was ridiculous to think that there could exist societies constituted for performing a clandestine public act, outside the control of the person who has the supreme direction of public affairs and beyond the control of all who fulfill any function of the law.

A secret political society in modern, contemporary life is a thing of nonsense, when it is not a menace. I settled it that all associations should be known in their aims, in their formations, membership and developments.

It was at that time that Federzoni, then Minister of the Interior, prepared with my full approval the new law on public safety. Then we intrusted the Communes to the “Podesta,” drawing them away from the old electoral patronages, which were no longer suited to our time and our temper. The Governship of Rome was instituted and there began, because I had made up my mind to it, an inexorable fight against the Mafia in Sicily, the bandits in Sardinia, and against other less widely known forms of crime, which had humiliated entire regions.

In February, 1925, I fell desperately ill. For obvious reasons, and perhaps because of exaggerated apprehension, any exact account of my condition and of my illness was never given out. I admit that the situation was in a certain way very grave. For forty days I could not come out of the house. My enemies now put their great hope in the illusion, revived by their desire, that my end was near. The Fascisti, because of my silence and the contradictory reports that were circulating, were very troubled. Never, so much as then, did I understand that I was indispensable to my men, to my devoted people, to all the great masses of Italian people. I had lively, vibrating and moving manifestations of solidarity, of devotion, of good will. The Black Shirts roared impatiently to see me.

When finally at the end of March, on the sixth anniversary of the foundation of Fascism, I appeared healed on the balcony of the Palazzo Chigi, I had in front of me all of Rome. The sight of me still thin and pale stirred deep emotion. I saluted the multitude in the name of Spring, and among other things I said, “Now will come the best!” This sentence was interpreted in a thousand senses and aroused a wave of plaudits and approbation.

The wise treatment of very clever doctors, such as Professor Bastianelli and Professor Marchiafava, healed me completely. Those miserable persons who had based their hopes upon my illness were baffled. Nothing is more hateful to me than a hope that an illness may end one’s adversary. I am more alive and stronger than ever before. I could repeat what I said one day, after an attempt against my life: “The bullets pass, Mussolini remains.”

Another train of events which was to mark my complex and difficult existence was the attempts against my life.

Zaniboni initiated the series. He was a vulgar Socialist, who received two checks of 150,000 francs each from the Czechoslovakian Socialists to lead an anti-Fascist struggle. Naturally Zaniboni, a drug addict, used the 300,000 francs to prepare with devilish ability for his attempt against me. He chose the sacred day of the commemoration of the victory. He ambushed himself in a room of the Hotel Dragoni, just in front of the Palazzo Chigi, from the balcony of which I usually review the processions which pass on the way to the altar of the Unknown Soldier to offer their flowers, their vows and their homage.

Having an Austrian rifle with fine sights, the fellow could not miss his aim. Zaniboni, to avoid being suspected, dressed himself in the uniform of a major of the army, and got ready in the morning to accomplish his crime. He was discovered. He had been followed for a long time. A few days before, General Capello had generously given him money and advice. Masonry had made of him its ensign. But by simultaneous action, Zaniboni, General Capello and various less important personages in the plot were arrested one hour before they planned the attempt.

So closed the first chapter.

In 1926, in the month of April, when I inaugurated the International Congress of Medicine, a crazy and megalomaniac woman of English nationality, exalted by fanaticism, came near my motor car and at close range fired a shot that perforated my nostrils. A centimeter’s difference and the shot might have been fatal. It was, as I said, a mad, hysterical woman, led on by elements and persons never clearly identified.

I abandoned her to her destiny by putting her beyond the frontier, where she could meditate on her failure and her folly.

Just after the occurrence, before my nose was out of its dressings, I was speaking to a meeting of officials from all parts of Italy. I felt impelled to say, “If I go forward, follow me; if I recoil, kill me; if I die, avenge me!”

Another attempt which might have had grave results was that of an anarchist, called Lucetti, who had come back from France with his soul full of hate and envy against Fascism and against me. He waited for me in the light and large Via Nomentana, in front of Porta Pia. He was able to meditate his crime in silence. He had been eight days in Rome and carried powerful bombs. Lucetti recognized my car, while I was going to the Palazzo Chigi, and as soon as he saw it he hurled at me the infernal machine, which hit an angle of the car and bounced back on the ground, exploding there after I had passed. I was not wounded, but innocent people were hurt and taken to the hospital.

When arrested, the miserable man could justify his crazy act only by his anti-Fascist hate. I did not attach a great importance to the episode. Having to meet the English ambassador, I went directly to the Palazzo Chigi and the conversation with the foreign diplomat continued calmly enough until a great popular demonstration in the streets interrupted us. Only then the English ambassador, somewhat amazed, learned of the attempt against my life.

The last attempt was made on October 31st, 1926. It was in Bologna, after I had lived a day full of life, enthusiasm and pride.

A young anarchist, egged on by secret plotters, at a moment when the whole population was lined up for the salute, came out from the ranks and fired a gun at my car. I was sitting near the “Podesta” of Bologna, Arpinati. The shot burned my coat, but again I was quite safe. The crowd, in the meanwhile, seized by an impulse of exasperated fury, could not be restrained. It administered summary justice to the man.

Other attempts were baffled. The exasperation was now surpassing any limit. I understood that it was time to stop the doleful game of the adversaries. The secret societies, the opposition press, and deceitful political cults had only one aim: it was to hit the chief of Fascism, so that all Fascism should be hit. The entire movement that dominated Italy they believed turned on one pivot, on a name, on a lone man. All the adversaries, from the most hateful ones to the most intelligent, from the slyest ones to the most fanatical, thought that the only way of destroying Fascism was to destroy its chief. The people themselves perceived this and demanded grave punishments for the criminals. The exasperated Fascists wanted to admonish all those who were conspiring in the darkness.

A policy of force was absolutely necessary. I took over the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and launched the laws for the defense of the régime, laws which were to constitute the one essential basis for the new unified national life.

I abolished the subversive press, whose only function was to inflame men’s minds. Provincial commissions sent to confinement professional subversives. Not a day goes by that we do not feel in Italian life how much good has been wrought by these measures against the forces of disintegration, disorder and disloyalty.

I must then conclude that a strong policy has yielded really tangible results. Every day the country feels intensely the identification of Fascism with the vital strength of the nation. Nobody suffers ostracism in Italy; everybody is allowed to live under the definite régime of law. Many elements of the old popular subversives understand now to what extent a well regulated life is a benefit, not only for one class, but for every class of the Italian people. Few are those who are still confined, and few are those who intend to disobey. As Minister of the Interior, I distributed a circular on January 6th, 1927, to the Prefects, in which I pointed out what their duty in regard to the population must be.

A new sense of justice, of serious purpose, of harmony and concord guides now the destinies of all the peoples and classes of Italy. There are neither vexations nor violence, but there is exaltation of what is good and exaltation of the virtue of heroism. In every class, among all citizens, nothing is done against the state, nothing is done outside the state.

Many have finally opened their eyes to this serene and severe truth; the Italians feel themselves of one fraternity in a great work of justice. The sense of duty, the necessity of action, the manner of civil life mark now an intense reawakening. The old parties are forever dead. In Fascism politics is fused into a living moral reality; it is a faith. It is one of those spiritual forces which renovates the history of great and enduring peoples.