HOW FASCISM CAME IN ITALY
IN the light of this general understanding of the
character and role of Fascism, and of the conditions of
its development, it is now possible to examine more
closely the concrete historical manifestations of
Fascism, and, in particular, its development in Italy
and Germany.
For this purpose it is necessary first to review the
conditions of the Œ transition to Fascism in these
countries. It is then necessary to examine more closely
the programme and practice of Fascism, especially as
demonstrated in these two leading countries.
I. The Priority of Italian Fascism.
Why did Fascism, the outstanding development of
modern capitalist policy, develop its first distinctive
and complete form in Italy, a secondary capitalist
country?
The question bears a certain analogy to the question
often asked why the world proletarian revolution should
have conquered first, not in the most advanced
capitalist country, but in the relatively less-developed
Russia.
In both cases a general world development of the
imperialist epoch first reached its specific form, not
at the main centres of world imperialism, but at that
point where the complex of conditions, of extreme
contradictions, made its appearance first possible, and
only more slowly spread beyond the original country.
The reasons for the opening of the world socialist
revolution in Russia have long been cleared. Russia was
the weakest link of world imperialism: it represented
the combination, on the one side, of the weakest
bourgeoisie and of the greatest corruption and collapse
of the old regime; and on the other side, of the most
politically developed proletariat, of the highest
proportion of the proletariat in large-scale industry
and of the most conscious and highly trained
revolutionary party of the proletariat in established
leadership of the majority of the workers.
112 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
The case of Italy and Fascism is more complex. In
fact, embryonic forms of Fascism already developed in
other countries before Italy, notably in Finland,
Hungary, Poland and Germany. But it was in Italy that
Fascism was first elaborated into a complete system and
became during the succeeding decade the recognised
principal model. Why was this? We have seen that Fascism
develops where the proletarian revolution draws visibly
close, but is held in by reformist leadership. This was
certainly the case in Italy after the war. But in the
immediate post-war period did not the proletarian
revolution far more closely threaten in Germany than in
Italy? Why then the difference, and the very much later
development of Fascism in Germany?
The answer lies, not only in the very much greater
strength and long- drawn resistance of the German
proletariat, but in the basic difference of conditions
of the revolutionary movement in the two countries. In Œ
Germany a mass-revolution took place; but the Social
Democracy was able to retain control of the main body of
the working-class movement, and to rob the revolution of
its fruits. In Italy, on the other band, there was only
the menace of a revolution; but the old Social
Democratic leadership lost effective control of the mass
movement. In consequence, the methods of the bourgeoisie
in the two countries necessarily differed.
In Germany the proletarian revolution actually
overthrew the old regime in 1918; but the workers were
robbed of the fruits of their victory by the Social
Democratic leadership. The task of the bourgeoisie in
the first stage became to limit the successful
revolution, whose victory could not for the moment be
questioned. For this purpose the direct governmental
leadership of Social Democracy was essential to the
bourgeoisie as the sole salvation. Only later, as the
influence of Social Democracy weakened, and the menace
of the proletarian revolution grew, in spite of and
against Social Democracy, did the German bourgeoisie
require to bring into play the additional weapon of
Fascism against the working class.
In Italy, on the other hand, no revolution took place
after the war, but only a mass revolutionary wave of
great powerthe highest mass revolutionary wave of those
countries (the victor countries) where the war was not
followed by revolution. There was no question of
strangling an already victorious
113 SOCIALISM IN ITALY
mass revolution by setting Social Democracy in power
as the supposed leadership and voice of the triumphant
revolution. The government remained throughout directly
in the hands of the bourgeoisie. But the old Social
Democratic leadership lost control of the mass movement,
which was rapidly advancing to revolution. The task for
the bourgeoisie became to prevent the menacing
proletarian revolution. For this purpose Social
Democracy could serve as the brake to disorganise the
workers' forces. But to smash the workers' forces
Fascism was necessary. In contrast to Britain and
France, the mass revolutionary wave after the war in
Italy was so high as to make the bourgeois democratic
forms inadequate; extraordinary forms had to be brought
into play. But it was not so high as to reach to open
insurrection and overthrow of the government, and to the
necessity of the bourgeoisie making a show of
surrendering power. The bourgeoisie only required to
change the forms and methods of its power. For this
reason Italy, despite the lower level of revolutionary
development than Germany, gave the first example of the
new Fascist dictatorship, to which Germany only reached
later. Italian Fascism revealed Fascism as a species of
preventive count Œ revolution.
2. Socialism in Italy.
The relatively backward economic development of Italy
meant that the industrial proletariat, especially in
large industry, was proportionately much weaker than in
the leading industrial countries, such as Germany,
Britain and the United States. Of the 16.8 million
occupied persons recorded in the 191 1 census, 9
millions, or 54 per cent., were recorded as engaged in
agriculture and fisheries; 243,000 industrial
establishments were recorded as employing 2.3 million
workers. The 1927 Census of Industries reported 2.9
million industrial workers in manufacturing production;
but 1 -5 millions of these were employed in
establishments of less than 10 workers; only 695
factories bad over 500 workers, with a total of 692,000
workers.
Nevertheless, the dominant numerical strength of the
industrial and agricultural proletariat combined,
especially together with the poor peasantry, should not
be under-estimated. On the basis of the 1911 census
statistics it was calculated that of
114 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
the 16.8 million occupied persons the agricultural
proletariat numbered 6.2 millions, and the proletariat
in industry and transport 4 millions, or a total of over
To millions or over 60 per cent.
Further, Socialism, on the basis of a revolutionary
programme, reached an overwhelming mass support after
the war. The Italian Socialist Party, previously weak
and dominated by reformism and collaborationist policies
until 1910, began to move to the left in the fight
against the Tripoli war in 19 11 ; in 19 12 it
strengthened itself by expelling the chauvinist
reformists, under Bonomi and Bissolati, at the Reggio
Emilia Congress; thereafter the membership, previously
dwindling from 36,000 in 1906 to 24,000 in 1910, shot up
from 27,000 in 1912 to 48,000 in 19114. Thus
strengthened, and with the added advantage of a delayed
entry of Italy into the war only after a protracted
dispute which divided also the bourgeoisie, the Italian
Socialist Party was not swept in the wake of the war,
but took the Zimmerwald line; it emerged from the war
with an increased membership Of 70,000 and high
popularity and prestige.
The revolutionary wave after the war reached very
great heights in Italy, affecting all strata, the
industrial workers, the demobilised soldiers, the
agricultural proletariat and the poor peasantry. A
widespread strike movement developed, both economic and
political, land seizures by the peasantry, etc. The
Socialist Party affiliated to the Œ Communist
International in March 1919, by executive decision,
which was confirmed by an overwhelming majority at the
Bologna Congress in October. On this basis the Party
went to the elections in November 1919, on a Communist
programme of dictatorship of the proletariat and
soviets, and for this programme won over one-third of
the total vote of the whole population, emerging as the
strongest party with 156 seats Out Of 508-at the same
time as Mussolini and his Fascists were unable to win a
single seat. The membership of the Party rose to
200,000, and of the Confederation of Labour, which was
allied to the Party, to two millions. At the municipal
elections in 1920 the Party won control of over 2,000
Communes, or one-third of the total. At the height of
the revolutionary wave the Government was powerless to
act, as shown in its passivity during the occupation of
the factories in 1920, since it could not count on the
support of the military forces. The expectation of the
social revolution was general.
SOCIALISM -IN -ITALY 115
Nevertheless, no revolution took place, because there
was no decisive revolutionary leadership. As the
Executive Committe of the Communist International wrote
in October 1920:
The P.S.I. (Italian Socialist Party) acts with too
much hesitation. It is not the Party which leads the
masses, but the masses which push the Party. . . . In
Italy there exist all the necessary conditions for a
victorious revolution except one-a good working-class
organisation.
The truth of this was abundantly shown in 1919-20. No
Communist Party existed until 192 1, when the main
revolutionary wave had passed. Anarchist and syndicalist
tendencies and confusions on the one side, reformism in
control of the principal mass organisations on the
other, and a passive, hesitating centrist leadership
between- this constituted the main picture of the
leadership of the Italian working class during the
revolutionary wave. Although the Italian Socialist Party
had affiliated to the Communist International in 1919,
it retained at the very heart of the leadership, in
control of the most strategic points, convinced enemies
of Communism, the old reformist leadership under Turati
and D'Aragona, who had dominated the party until 1910.
These bad no longer more than a small following among
the workers, as Congress votes showed; but they were
strong at the certre, dominating the parliamentary group
and controlling the official machinery of the
Confederation of Labour. They remained in the party,
despite the adoption of the Communist programme, openly
in order to defeat the revolutionary line. As one of
their leaders, Prampolini, explained at the Conference
of the reformist wing in September 1922: Œ By remaining
in the Party we were able to fulfil our duty as
Socialists. It would have been quite impossible for us
to have accomplished outside the Party the task we
accomplished inside.
It was manifest that if the party were to achieve its
task of revolutionary leadership, the first necessity
was to remove the enemies of the revolution from the
strategic leading positions and replace them by
revolutionaries. On this demand the Executive Committee
of the Communist International, under the leadership of
Lenin, conscious of the impending danger in Italy if
this were not carried out, exerted the whole of its
pressure and
116 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
authority. The Executive long urged, and finally by
the summer of 1920, when the matter was too serious for
further parleying, demanded in the name of the whole
international movement, the expulsion of Turati and the
reformist leadership. But the centrist leadership under
Serrati refused, and the fate of the Italian revolution
was sealed for many years to come. The issue came to a
head at the Second Congress of the Communist
International in August 1920; Serrati set himself in
opposition to Lenin and to the whole international
leadership, preferring unity with Turati and the
reformists to unity with International Communism; and
the bulk of the party under his leadership passed out of
the International. The break followed at the Livorno
Congress in January 192 1; Serrati and the centrists had
a following of 98,000, Turati and the reformists 14,ooo,
and the Communists 58,000, who thereon formed the
Italian Communist Party. Serrati and his wing, who
styled themselves "unity Communists," were appealed to
by the Communists to unite with them in a single
Communist Party, which would have thus constituted go
per cent. of the old party, freed from reformism; but
they preferred unity with the 14,000 reformists to unity
with 58,000 Communists. Thus the workers' ranks were
broken.
Two years later, on the very eve of Mussolini's
coming to power, Serrati was compelled to recognise his
fatal error; at the Rome Congress of the now weakened
and dwindled Socialist Party in the beginning of October
1922, the Serrati leadership finally carried through the
expulsion of Turati and the reformists, now grown to
nearly half the membership, and applied for re-admission
to the Communist International. "Our fault," declared
Serrati at this Congress, "is that we never sufficiently
prepared ourselves for the events that have overtaken
us. . . . To-day we believe it essential to abandon the
democratic illusion, and to create a combative, active
and audacious Party." But it was then too late; the
irreparable harm had been done; within four weeks
Mussolini was in power. As the message of the Communist
Œ International to the Rome Congress declared:
He cannot be called a leader of the proletarian
masses who with great effort and after the lapse of
several years comes to a correct conclusion, but rather
he who can detect a tendency at its birth and can warn
the workers in time of the peril that menaces them.
WAS REVOLUTION POSSIBLE IN ITALY?
3. Was Revolution Possible in Italy?
This understanding of the inner situation of Italian
Socialism during the critical years 1919-1922 is
essential for the understanding of the failure of the
Italian revolution during those years, despite the
favourable conditions and the readiness and
self-sacrifice of the masses, and the resulting advance
and victory of Fascism.
The revolutionary wave of 19 19-2 0 spent itself in a
conf usion of unorganised partial struggles and
demonstrations without decisive leadership or
concentrated aim. The Socialist Party leadership gave
out the watchword: "The Revolution is not made. The
Revolution comes." Under cover of this fatal nonMarxist
conception the responsibility of leadership was in fact
abandoned. The energy and self-sacrifice of the masses
went to waste in fruitless unco-ordinated actions.
The final climax of the revolutionary wave was
reached with the occupation of the factories in Northern
Italy in September 1920. This action of the workers was
undertaken in response to a lock-out begun by the
employers and threatening to be made general. Beginning
from the metallurgical industry in Milan at the end of
August, it spread to all industries until by September 3
half a million workers were in unchallenged occupation
of the factories, establishing their own workers'
committees and armed guards. The government and
employers were powerless. The troops could not be
counted on to act against the workers. The classic
conditions of revolution were present. The Prime
Minister, Giolitti, temporised. The extra-legal Fascist
formations were then only an impotent handful, and found
it more prudent to applaud the workers' movement from a
distance, proclaiming noisily their "sympathy" for the
occupation in which they had no part, and which
Mussolini declared in his journal to be "a great
revolution" (Popolo d'Italia, September 2 8, 19 2 0).
The bourgeoisie in this situation could only count on
the reformist leadership to save them. But the reformist
leadership did not fail them. It was obvious that the
occupation of the factories, if it remained a passive
economic movement, with political power remaining in the
hands of the bourgeoisie, could only end in
stultification and failure. The condition of victory was
that the movement begun by the Œ occupation of the
factories should be extended to the conquest of
political power by the
118 FASCISM AM SOCIAL REVOLUTION
workers, which the bourgeoisie was then powerless to
resist. just this the reformists resisted, insisting on
confining the movement as "purely an economic movement"
(the same tactics as in the British General Strike in
1926), and negotiating with the Government for a
settlement. The critical decision was taken on September
II at a combined conference of the Socialist Party and
the Confederation of Labour; by a vote of 591,245 to
409,569 control was placed in the hands of the
Confederation of Labour, that is, of the reformist
leadership. The reformist leadership entered into
immediate negotiations with Giolitti; and on September
19 a settlement was reached, by which evacuation of the
factories was conceded in return for a 20 per cent. wage
increase and a promise of a share of "workers' control"
in industry (the promise went the way of all such
promises; the subsequent joint commission established to
work out the details of the scheme broke down; finally,
the Government in 192 1 introduced an emasculated Bill
of Labour Control, similar to the German Works Councils
Act). The essence of the settlement was the evacuation
of the factories. The reformist leaders ordered the
workers to leave the factories. What neither the
employers, nor the Government, nor the police, nor the
armed forces could effect, this was effected by the
reformist leadership-to get the workers out of the
factories and hand them back to capitalism.
Was the victory of the working-class revolution in
Italy possible in the situation of September 1920? Of
this there can be no doubt in the united evidence of all
parties. The liberal anti-fascist historian, Salvemini,
who is mainly concerned for the purposes of his argument
to minimise the revolutionary issues of the situation in
Italy before Fascism in order to deny this bourgeois
"justification" of Fascism, nevertheless writes of this
period:
Had the leaders of the General Confederation of
Labour and of the Socialist Party wished to strike a
decisive blow, here was the opportunity. . . . The
bankers, the big industrialists and big landlords waited
for the social revolution as sheep wait to be led to the
slaughter. If a Communist revolution could be brought
about by bewilderment and cowardice on the part of the
ruling classes, the Italian people in September, 1920,
could have made as many Communist revolutions as they
wished.
(G. Salvemini, The Fascist Dictatorship, 1928, Vol.
1, P. 41.)
Œ
WAS REVOLUTION POSSIBLE IN ITALY? 119
The leading Italian journal, the Corriere della Sera,
wrote at the time in its issue of September 29, 1920:
Italy has been in peril of collapse. There has been
no revolution, not because there was anyone to bar its
way, but because the General Confederation of Labour has
not wished it.
The reformist leadership themselves boasted of having
averted revolution by their action, and thereafter, in
exactly the same way as the German reformists later,
complained bitterly of the ingratitude of the
bourgeoisie in repaying their services by the blows of
Fascism:
"But after we bad the honour," stated the Secretary
of the General Confederation of Labour in a speech
delivered two years after the occupation of the
factories, "of preventing a revolutionary catastrophe-
Fascism arrived." (Daily Herald, April 12, 1928.)
Thus in the agreed testimony of the bourgeoisie and
of the reformists alike, the Communist revolution was
fully possible in Italy in September 1920, and was only
prevented by the reformist leadership. Fascism played no
part in this.
It was only after the revolution was already
defeated, after the working-class ranks were
disorganised and disillusioned by the reformist
betrayal, after this had begun to show itself in a rapid
collapse of membership and organisation, that then
Fascism stepped forward to show its prowess in beating
the already defeated workers.
The surrender of the factories took place in
September 1920. From that point the Italian
working-class movement went downwards. "After the
occupation of the factories in September 1920, the idea
spread among the people that the revolution had failed,
and they grew discouraged" (Salvemini, op. Cit., P. 43).
The membership of the party and of the trade unions
began rapidly to fall (the party membership fell from
216,000 in 1920 to 170,000 in January 1921).
In November 1020, the first Fascist terrorist action
of blood and fire against the workers was launched at
Bologna.
The sequence of dates is obvious. The Fascist jackal
strikes only the already wounded proletarian lion.
Fascism was not the weapon of defence of the bourgeoisie
against the advancing proletarian offensive, but the
vengeance of the bourgeoisie against the retreating
proletariat, after reformism had broken the workers'
ranks, to follow up the victory by smashing the
working-class organisations.
Œ
120 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
4. The Growth and Victory of Fascism.
Fascism had existed in germ in Italy since the
beginning of 1919-in fact since the hired
interventionist campaign of 1915. The former Socialist
Party agitator, Mussolini, who had throughout his career
performed a doubtful role of advocacy of bomb attentats,
Herveist extravagance, etc., changed his coat with the
usual celerity of social chauvinists, and passed within
a few weeks from editing the Socialist anti-war A vanti,
wherein he had denounced the "bourgeois war" during
August and September, to founding, with French
Government funds, the interventionist Popolo d'Italia in
November. The Fasci di Azione Interventista, which he
founded at Milan in 1915, were the nucleus of future
Fascism. After the war Mussolini and his followers,
their previous campaigning basis gone with the end of
the war, sought for a new one, and founded the first
Fascio di Combattimento at Milan in March 1919, on a
confused chauvinist, republican and revolutionary-
sounding programme. This was the official starting-point
of Fascism. The Fasci were constituted a political party
in December 11920.
During 1919 and up to the autumn of 1920, that is,
during the revolutionary wave, Fascism had no strength
or popular support. The official authorities encouraged
it; the Popolo d'Italia was distributed by the Army
authorities free among the troops in 1919 and 192o. But
Fascism could win no support. At the elections in
November 1919, Fascism could not win a seat; Mussolini
received 4,795 votes in Milan against the Socialist
18o,ooo. The total membership throughout the country was
small. Fascism had to swim with the revolutionary
stream. Its programme called for the abolition of the
monarchy and nobility, confiscation of war profits,
international disarmament, abolition of the stock
exchanges, the land for the peasants, workers' control
of industry, etc. Its propaganda glorified strikes, food
riots, calling for the hanging of speculators, the
seizure of land by the peasantry, occupations of
factories by the workers (Dalmine), and denounced the
State as the enemy-"Down with the State in all its
forms!" (Popolo d'Italia, April 6, 1920).
During this period Fascism was still in preparation
and had no important place among the weapons of the
bourgeoisie to meet the proletarian offensive. In the
face of the strength of the revolutionary wave the
bourgeoisie had to use other
Œ THE GROWTH AND VICTORY OF FASCISM 121
methods. So far as an attempt was made to build up an
alternative new party to counter and outbid the
Socialist Party, this attempt was concentrated on the
Catholic "Popular Party," which was constituted in 1919
with a demagogic programme, and was utilised to split
the rural proletariat and peasantry, winning 100 seats
in 1919 against the Socialist 156. But the main method
of the bourgeoisie was the method of liberalism and
concessions, so long as their forces were unprepared,
the granting of shorter hours, wage increases, the
Labour Control Bill and similar legislation. This was
the line of the successive governments of Nitti,
Giolitti, Bonomi and Facta. They calculated on the
reformist socialist leadership to break the
revolutionary offensive. Meanwhile, under cover of this
policy of seeming "weakness" and retreat, they were
preparing the armed counter-revolution. The gendarmerie,
or Carabinieri, were increased from 28,000 at the end of
the war to 60,000\ by the summer of 192o. A new special
force, the Royal Guard, was created, 2 5,000 strong. At
the same time the Fascist hooligan bands were being
equipped and armed by the authorities.
Thus the transfer from the policy of a Giolitti to
the policy of a Mussolini was no sudden volte-face of
the Italian bourgeoisie. They were the two halves of a
single policy; Mussolini was the foster-child and
creation of Giolitti, just as Hitler was the
foster-child of Bruning. The task of Giolitti and the
"liberal" "democratic" governments was to fool the
proletariat with sham concessions, so long as the
proletarian forces were too strong to be defeated, and
assist the reformist leadership to break them up from
within. Meanwhile these "liberal" "democratic"
governments were secretly equipping and arming Fascism.
When this first stage was completed, and the proletarian
forces had been disorganised by reformism, the violent
counter- revolution was let loose. The violent offensive
of Fascism was carried forward under the benevolent
protection of Giolitti and his successors. This second
stage continued from the autumn of 1920 to the autumn of
1922. Reformism continued to retreat and trust in
parliamentarism for defence. When the second stage had
done its work, and the proletarian forces had been
smashed and beaten up, the final transference to open
Fascism was accomplished, Giolitti and his successors
peaceably made way for Mussolini. The cycle was
complete. The continuity of policy runs in practice
right through.
122 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
This mechanism of the transition to Fascism, exactly
repeated in Germany, is the essential key to the correct
understanding of the real relationship of bourgeois
democracy and Fascism.
Fascism grew up and grew strong after the autumn of
1920, and was Œ able to exercise its wholesale violence,
only under the direct protection and assistance of the
bourgeois democratic governments, of the military
authorities, of the police, of the magistracy and of the
big bourgeoisie. From the autumn of 1920 the big
landlords and the big industrialists poured support to
the Fascist bands to exercise terrorism against the
peasantry and the proletariat. The membership shot up,
according to Mussolini, from 20,000 in 192OtO 248,000 in
1921. The army authorities supplied arms. Professional
officers trained the bands and directed operations. The
General Staff issued a circular (October 20,1920)
instructing Divisional Commanders to support the Fascist
organisations. The workers and peasants were rigorously
disarmed; the Fascists carried arms with impunity. The
police and gendarmerie either directly assisted the
Fascists or remained passive. The magistracy habitually
subjected to savage sentences workers who attempted to
defend themselves, while releasing Fascists.
The conscious policy of Giolitti and Bonomi in
permitting and supporting Fascist violence has been
already noted (p. I 0 I ). The semi- official spokesman
of Fascism, Luigi Villari, in his Awakening of Italy (p.
123) notes that Giolitti "refused to interfere with the
repressive actions of the Fascists, illegal though they
were." The pro-Fascist A. Zerboglio, in his standard 11
Fascismo, 19 2 2, wrote:
The Government more or less openly made use of
Fascism.
The Socialist Press are piling up proofs of
Government tolerance towards the Fascists, and it cannot
honestly be disputed that some of this evidence appears
convincing.
The leading American journalist, Mowrer, recorded:
In the presence of murder, violence and arson, the
police remained "neutral." . . . When armed bands
compelled the Socialists to resign from office under
pain of death, or regularly tried, and condemned their
enemies to blows, banishment or execution, the
functionaries merely shrugged their shoulders. . . .
Sometimes Carabineers and Royal Guards openly made
common cause with the Fascists, and paralysed the
resistance of the peasants. Against the Fascists alone
the latter might have held their own. Against
THE GROWTH AND VICTORY OF FASCISM 123
the Fascists and the police together they were
helpless, and their complaints merely caused the
authorities to arrest them as guilty of attempting to
defend themselves. Socialists were condemned for alleged
crimes committed months, years before. Fascists taken
redbanded were released for want of evidence." Œ (E. A.
Mowrer, Immortal Italy, p. 361.)
And again:
From the army the Fascists received sympathy,
assistance and war material. Officers in uniform took
part in the punitive expeditions. The Fascists were
allowed to turn national barracks into their private
arsenals.- (Ibid., p. 144.)
Similarly the notorious advocate of Fascism, Odon
Por, notes in his Fascism (p. III) that "the Fascists
had been equipped largely on the quiet, from the regular
army." Another American journalist who was in Italy in
192 1, J. Carter, reports:
The Fascisti had carte blanche to beat up their
opponents throughout Italy, while the Government
pretended to be neutral.
(J. Carter, New York Times Book Review, June 12,
1927.)
One of the standard writers on Fascism, generally
sympathetic, G. Prezzolini, in his Le Fascisme, 192 5,
writes (p. 97):
They could organise themselves in armed corps and
kill right and left, with the certainty of impunity and
with the complicity of the police. It is thus no
overstatement to recognise that the Fascists fought with
99 chances out of 100 of gaining the victory.
The Fascist offensive of terrorism, destruction and
murder, which was launched at Bologna in November 1920,
with the overthrow of the newly elected Socialist Town
Council and sacking of the Chamber of Labour, was
thereafter systematically developed and extended, with
the manifest planning of a military campaign, through
the industrial region, and with wholesale sporadic
violence in the agricultural areas. Socialist, trade
union and co-operative buildings, painfully erected by
millions of sacrifices of a generation of workers, were
burned and sacked; workers' newspapers and printing
presses were destroyed; socialist municipal councils
were expelled from office; militant workers and peasants
were beaten up or murdered. All this went forward with
the connivance of the civil authorities, who normally
followed up each Fascist coup expelling a duly elected
socialist municipal council by appointing a Special
Commissioner in its place. The normal procedure when a
124 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
workers' building was threatened by the Fascists
would be for a special force of armed police or Royal
Guards to appear first to "protect" it; these would
search for and remove any arms, disarm the workers in
it, Œ and prevent any workers' demonstration approaching
it; the Fascists would then arrive with full arms, and
machine-guns; the police forces would then declare
resistance impossible and retire; and the Fascists would
be left free to work their will on the defenceless
building and disarmed workers.
Between January and May 192 1, according to figures
published by the Italian Socialist Party at the time,
the Fascists destroyed 120 labour headquarters, attacked
243 socialist centres and other buildings, killed 202
workers (in addition to 44 killed by the police and
gendarmerie), and wounded 1,144. During this period
2,240 workers were arrested by the police; 162 Fascists
were arrested. During 1192 1 -2, up to the Fascist
dictatorship, 500 labour halls and co-operative stores
were burned, and goo socialist municipalities were
dissolved.
How did Reformism and Centrism, in control of the
majority of the working class, meet this offensive of
the bourgeoisie? They preached to the workers to put
their trust in legal and pacific methods and the use of
the ballot. In May 1921, Giolitti held a general
election, hoping that the reign of violence would have
already broken the workers' forces. The total Socialist
and Communist vote, nevertheless, actually exceeded the
1919 total, reaching 1,861,000, against 1,840,000 in
1919; 122 Socialists and 16 Communists were returned,
totalling 138, as against only 35 Fascists. The workers
were endeavouring to use the ballot in their defence.
The Socialist organ, Avanti, in illusory triumph,
proclaimed: "The Italian proletariat has submerged the
Fascist reaction under an avalanche of red votes." The
reality was otherwise. The "avalanche of red votes" made
no difference to a situation of civil war. The violence,
in place of being diminished, was increased.
The next step of the reformist leadership was to
spread even more disastrous illusions as to the real
character of the struggle. They endeavoured to enter
into a formal treaty of peace with Fascism. On August 3,
19 2 1, the Fascist-Socialist Treaty was signed,
proclaiming an end to all acts of violence. This was
signed by Mussolini and his colleagues on the one side;
on the
THE Growth and vist OF FASCISM 125
other by the Executive of the Socialist Party, of the
Socialist Parliamentary Group and of the General
Confederation of Labour. The Communist Party refused to
take part in this criminal comedy. The agreement was not
worth the paper it was written on. The Fascist violence
went forward; and Mussolini explained the violation of
his pledge by declaring that he had been "overridden" by
his supporters.
The final step of the reformist leadership was to
endeavour to enter into a parliamentary ministerial
combination. After the resignation of Œ Facta in July
1922, Turati as the Socialist parliamentary leader saw
the King. When the attempt to secure agreed terms for a
ministerial coalition was unsuccessful, the Reformist
leadership conceived the idea of calling a general
strike at this late stage as a weapon of extra-
parliamentary pressure to bring about the formation of a
coalition government. The general strike was called on
August I, wholly without preparation, and was explained
by Turati to be a strike "in defence of the State."
Under these conditions the general strike was inevitably
a failure, reaching only a section of the membership of
the Confederation of Labour, and winning no general
response, because of the utter lack of serious
preparation or fighting lead. The effect was only to
play into the hands of the Fascists, who intensified
their attack.
The conditions were now complete for the final step
of the open transmission of power by the bourgeoisie
into the hands of the Fascists. This took place in
October. The transmission was carried through by the
combined action of the King, the army chiefs and the
Facta Cabinet. A theatrical "March on Rome" of Fascists
was organised for October 28. This march was in fact
organised under six army generals; and the
Commander-in-Chief of the Army addressed an enthusiastic
Fascist gathering on the evening of October 27. The
Facta Cabinet went through the form of proclaiming
martial law; this only had the effect that the civil
authorities handed over their powers to the military
throughout the country, who promptly allowed the
Fascists to occupy the public offices, railways, postal
and telegraphic offices, etc. After this bad been
successfully achieved, the King announced on the morning
of October 28 that he refused to sign the decree of
martial law; martial law was accordingly withdrawn; it
was in consequence declared impossible to "defend" Rome
against the Fascists. The Facta
12 6 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
Cabinet, which had already been in negotiation with
the FASCISTS resigned. Mussolini was invited to form a
Ministry, and arrived at Rome on October 30 in a
sleeping-car. Such was the so-called Fascist
"revolution," which was in fact carried through from
start to finish by the bourgeois dictatorship from
above. The full forms of the Fascist dictatorship were
not immediately decided and carried through, as in
Germany eleven years later, because the methods were
still being experimentally discovered. At first, a show
of parliamentary forms and permission of opposition
parties and Press was maintained, alongside wholesale
governmentally maintained violence and terrorism in
practice. It was not until 1926 that the completed
Fascist dictatorship was finally established, with
complete suppression of all other parties, organisations
and Press, the workers' trade unions being officially
incorporated in the Fascist syndicates, and the
principal Reformist Œ trade union leaders, including
D'Aragona, passing over to Fascism. The Italian example
provides the classic demonstration of the transition to
Fascism. The lines of development, the roles of the
different elements, the successive stages of this
tragedy of the working class stand out clear and sharp
for all to learn. What are the principal conclusions
that stand out? First, the revolutionary wave in Italy
was broken, not by the bourgeoisie, not by Fascism, but
by its own inner weakness and lack of revolutionary
leadership, by Reformism. Second, Fascism only came to
the front after the proletarian advance was already
broken from within and disillusionment had been spread.
Fascism appeared on the scene after the battle in order
to play the hero (under police and military protection)
in harassing and slaughtering an army already in
retreat. Third, the transition to open Fascist
dictatorship was no sudden abrupt break and reversal of
bourgeois policy, but a continuation of bourgeois policy
into new forms. Fascism was prepared and fostered within
the conditions of bourgeois democracy (alongside a show
of "liberalism" and concessions, so long as the
bourgeois forces were unprepared), to be placed in power
when the conditions were ripe. All these lessons were
demonstrated in the classic example of Italian Fascism.
Nevertheless, they were not yet learnt by the
international working class. They were to be
demonstrated anew on a yet wider scale in the next
decade in Germany.