FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI IN ITALY
At the end of the World War the British and French press begged Italy
to renounce a part, at least, of the spoils promised her by the
secret treaties of 1915. It was feared that a hopeless conflict would
develop at the Paris Conference between Italian imperialism and the
American--or rather Wilsonian--doctrine of self-determination. The
reasons for this plea are easy to understand. Great Britain expected,
as usual, to gather in her advantages from the victory outside Europe;
and France had one objective, to which she was willing to sacrifice
everything else, the achievement of her own security by the diminution
of the German Empire and the shackling of German industries and
commerce. It was felt in London and Paris that if Italy were to stand
on her treaty rights the whole problem of peace would be made insoluble
by alienating President Wilson and by creating antagonism to the
Entente in south central and southeastern Europe.
Alone among the members of the Orlando Cabinet, Signor Bissolati,
the famous Socialist leader, advocated openly the application of the
principle of nationality in the peace settlement. He said that the
Treaty of London did not alter the fact that Italy should abandon her
claim to northern Dalmatia, the Dodecanese, and the southern Tyrol. By
these sacrifices he asserted that Italy would avoid friction with the
Jugoslavs, win the friendship of Greece, and abstain from the injustice
of annexing, for purely strategic reasons, the purely German population
of the Tyrol. When his advice was rejected, Bissolati resigned his
portfolio and was followed by Nitti. A propaganda was launched in Italy
to work up enthusiasm for the Italian claims, to which was added a
demand for Fiume.
Public opinion was aroused to such an extent that when Premier Orlando
failed to obtain complete recognition in Paris for the Italian point of
view he found himself obliged to resign, and was succeeded by Signor
Nitti just before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The Italian
claims as one of the Succession States of the Hapsburg Empire were
kept before the world by the seizure of Fiume in September. The poet,
d’Annunzio, defied the commands of the Peace Conference and the Italian
Government to evacuate the city.
The new premier had formed a coalition Government, representing all
parties except the Socialists. At the General Election in November the
Socialist party doubled its strength, and a newly formed Clerical party
won more than a hundred seats. However, as there was no possibility of
an alliance between Socialists and Clericals, Nitti was able to form
another coalition cabinet without these two parties. Nitti announced
that Italy’s policy would be one of moderation in regard to Germany and
that his Government would seek to solve the Adriatic question by direct
negotiations with Jugoslavia.
Like Orlando at Paris, however, he failed at the San Remo conference of
Entente premiers to gain an advantageous settlement of the succession
of the Hapsburg empire; and it soon leaked out that he had consented to
a treaty with Turkey which Italian public opinion believed to be too
favorable to Greece. Again like Orlando, Nitti was forced out of office
by the failure of his foreign policy. He was succeeded by the veteran
Giolitti, whose return to power caused tremendous surprise abroad: for
Signor Giolitti had opposed to the very end Italy’s intervention in the
World War. Giolitti was able to make a direct agreement with Jugoslavia
and to secure its ratification by the Italian Parliament before the
end of November. The Treaty of Rapallo was hailed by Italian public
opinion as the best possible solution of a difficulty that could not
have been solved to the complete satisfaction of Italy except by war.
The virtual unanimity of the support given to the Treaty of Rapallo was
emphasized by the lack of protest in any quarter when Premier Giolitti
ordered the Italian troops on Christmas eve to oust d’Annunzio from
Fiume.
The surprising reasonableness of public opinion in questions of foreign
policy was due to the menace of internal revolution. We have seen
elsewhere how in the summer of 1920 the Italians, driven from Albania
by a sudden uprising, made no attempt to retrieve their fortunes.
The Government’s hands were tied by a railway strike. The railwaymen
had refused to transport to Brindisi troops destined for Albania. It
was clear that under these circumstances, had Italy gone to war with
Jugoslavia, the existing social order might have been overthrown. The
lesson of Russia was before the minds of Italian statesmen. The Chamber
of Deputies acquiesced when Giolitti, in his statement on June 24,
1920, said in reference to foreign policy:
Our principal object is to insure complete and definite peace for
Italy and the whole of Europe--an essential condition for a solid
beginning of the work of reconstruction.... In order to achieve
this complete peace we must, without delay, establish friendly
relations with all other peoples, and, without restriction, begin
normal relations even with the Russian Government.
The veteran premier, to win the support of the Socialists against the
Communists, whose spread was alarming, promised a bill amending the
constitution to make declarations of war and treaties and agreements
with foreign powers subject to the sanction of Parliament.
It was none too soon. In the middle of September the industrial
workers, especially in the north, seized steel factories in a large
number of localities and established Soviets. They insisted that the
employees should supervise the buying of raw materials, the selling
of the finished product, the adjustment of the scale of wages, and
the general conditions of work in the factories. The next month there
were peasant risings in Sicily. Revolution seemed imminent. But the
Government matched its moderation in foreign policy with a conciliatory
attitude toward the workers. Instead of using force, Premier Giolitti
announced his intention of introducing a measure, sponsored by the
cabinet, imposing a form of syndical control upon the manufacturers. It
was also proposed to confiscate war profits, increase death-duties and
taxes on unearned incomes, and encourage copartnership in industries.
These wise concessions enabled the Giolitti Government to cut the
budget deficit by lessening the subsidy on imported cereals. This
raised the price of bread, a courageous measure. The General Election
of May, 1921, was far more peaceable than had been anticipated. The
Socialists lost thirty seats, and the Clericals (Popolari) gained
eight. A new party, which had been opposing Socialists and Communists
in many places by violence, entered the Chamber with twenty seats;
they called themselves Fascisti. The majority of the Cabinet in the
new Chamber was so small that Giolitti resigned, and was succeeded
by Signor Bonomi. In the autumn of 1921 the Fascisti held a congress
at Rome, in which they transformed their organization into a regular
political party. During the congress the street fighting that had begun
earlier in the year in other cities broke out on a small scale for
the first time in Rome. When Parliament reopened on November 24, the
Fascisti took issue in a noisy fashion with the Communists.
The Bonomi Cabinet was forced out of office at the beginning of
February, 1922, by a combination of circumstances difficult to analyze.
The immediate cause was the union of the Democratic coalition with the
Socialists, who protested against Bonomi’s _rapprochement_ with the
Vatican. But that this was not a real issue soon became evident. The
new Cabinet, headed by Signor Facta, failed to win the confidence of
the country, which was becoming, under the impulsion of the Fascisti,
impatient of government by compromise. Successive cabinets had failed
utterly to suggest, much less put into execution, fiscal measures
for rehabilitating the finances of Italy. The country was gradually
drifting toward anarchy.
In the late summer of 1922, when parliamentary leaders, after the
resignation of Signor Facta, appealed to Giolitti to come to Rome to
advise the King, a sudden _coup d’état_ put an end to the “rule of the
old men.” Fascisti from all over Italy poured into Rome on every train,
wearing black shirts and armed, and singing the death-knell of the old
political system:
“Giovinezza, giovinezza
Primavera di bellezza.”
Socialists and Communists were quickly cowed. The governmental troops,
most of them members or sympathizers of the Fascisti, could not be
counted upon. The King had the choice of calling Benito Mussolini,
leader of the Fascisti, to form a cabinet, or of losing his throne. The
Fascist movement had made such great progress in Italy since 1920 and
was so well organized that civil war was out of the question. Almost
everybody sympathized with the program of the Fascisti. So Mussolini
became premier, and has been the uncontested, though unconstitutional,
ruler of Italy for more than a year.
Fascismo is primarily a movement of the youth of Italy, under youthful
leaders, most of them born half a century after Giolitti, and none
of them in the same generation with the men who were the political
leaders of Italy up to the summer of 1922. Despite the pronouncement
of the first Rome congress, in the autumn of 1921, Fascismo is not a
political party. Its strength as such is negligible. Born at a meeting
in Milan in 1919, its purpose, in the words of Mussolini, was defined
as a movement “of the spiritual forces of Italy to awaken in Italians
the full sense of their own greatness and destiny as a nation.... And
it proposes at any cost, even at the cost of Democratic conventions, to
crush any tendency that may threaten to drag the Italian people into
the morass of Socialism, Bolshevism, and Internationalism.” From the
beginning of the movement Mussolini has insisted that the future of
the nation must be in the hands of those who are to live that future,
and that the time had come to put Italy into her true place among the
nations of the world.
From 1920 to 1922 Italy was ripe for revolution. Several parties
formed armed bands. The Socialists lost because of Communist excesses
and the ungenerous attitude they adopted toward army officers. After
all, the war, with its heavy sacrifices, had captured the imagination
of the young; and there was much idealism and sincere patriotic
feeling among the youth of Italy. They reacted strongly against the
Socialist teaching of pacifism and internationalism. The middle class
in the cities began to be alarmed at the tendency of the Socialists
to assume that only those who worked with their hands were useful
members of society and had rights. It was inevitable that the Socialist
bullying and terrorism should lead to armed resistance on the part
of the more conservative elements. Mussolini, himself of the lower
classes, was keen enough to realize that the great mass of the Italian
people would welcome a movement directed against the lawlessness
of extreme radicalism. He and the principal men he gathered around
him to direct Fascismo had all up to the last year of the war been
militant Socialists. They had come into prominence through fighting
the Government, and the outlaw spirit dominated them. They abhorred
politics. And so, although they were sincere syndicalists, they had
broken with official Socialism when the movement became a political
party, using its energies to win votes.
Mussolini believed that suffrage did not offer the remedy, and he was
contemptuous of his friends who hoped to advance their theories by
getting themselves elected to Parliament.
The Italians were sick of financial and political chaos, and were so
apprehensive of Communism that they were ready to stand behind any
movement that would combat the Socialist terrorism, even if it meant
fighting fire with fire. The Fascist leader appealed to the instinct of
self-preservation in the middle classes; and in the course of eighteen
months he rallied round him the youth of the middle classes, many sons
of the aristocracy, and the support of big industries. All the while he
considered the Government as negligible, and not any more to be taken
into account than in the old days of his militant Socialism.
The advent to power of Mussolini was wholly illegal, if we regard the
philosophy of form. The Fascisti could hardly have won a parliamentary
majority in the General Election. Mussolini knew that; but he knew
also that Italy was behind him, and would remain behind him regardless
of Parliament, if he succeeded in governing firmly and at the same
time putting into effect fiscal and other sorely needed reforms. When
the King asked him to form a cabinet, he decided upon a coalition
Government, five Fascisti, three Democrats, two Catholics, one
Nationalist, and one Liberal, and he gave the portfolios of war and
navy to General Diaz and Admiral di Revel. He declared that the new
Government was going to act and not talk and summed up his program in
two sentences:
Our policy in internal affairs will be one of strict economy,
discipline, and the restoration of our finances. The Fascisti
movement, which began as bourgeois, now has become syndicalist,
but syndicalist in the national sense, taking into account the
interests of workmen and those of employers and producers.
It is always true that power sobers a man and that the possession of
governmental responsibility makes things take an aspect different
from the one they bear to the political candidate, the agitator, the
reformer. Had Mussolini not changed when he became the Government, he
would have been an amazing exception. We have seen in recent years
the evolution of Lloyd George, Millerand, Briand, and Viviani, all of
whom started out as pacifists and advocates of violence against the
constituted authorities in order to secure the triumph of their ideals.
As soon as Mussolini became premier, he was confronted with the problem
of what to do with the youth of Italy. Precisely because he had taught
them to take the law into their own hands had he reached his exalted
position! The first preoccupation of the new premier was to make his
followers understand that now that Fascismo had become a Government
there must be no more disorders. This was no easy task. It required the
adoption of an uncompromising attitude toward many to whom much was
owed for the success that had been attained. Local leaders, who refused
to look to Rome for guidance in Fascisti activities, were expelled.[16]
A serious outbreak at Turin, in which the Fascisti took the law in
their hands in the old fashion, was followed by rigorous measures.
Mussolini knew that he would be lost if he did not keep control
of his own organization and at the same time use it to intimidate
recalcitrants in Rome and in the provinces. He disbanded the Royal
Guard, created by Premier Nitti in 1920, and replaced it by a new
militia, the Black Guards, composed of 80,000 picked Fascisti, whose
personal loyalty to the leader had been tested. Those members of the
Royal Guard who were Fascisti were put in the Carabinieri. The other
groups that had started as the Fascisti had started were forcibly
disarmed and disbanded. They included the followers of d’Annunzio, the
Blue-Shirt Nationalists, and the Arditi del Popolo, whose clashes with
the Fascisti had been going on for two years.
When Parliament reopened on November 16, 1922, Mussolini did not ask
for a vote of confidence; he ordered it. He told the Chamber that there
would be no discussion as to who had the power; it would be futile.
He did not want to dismiss the Chamber, unless they made such action
necessary. Having at his call “300,000 fully armed youths, resolved to
anything and almost mystically ready to obey my orders, it is in my
power to punish all who defame and attempt to throw mud at Fascismo. I
can make this hall a camping-place for my bands. I can close Parliament
and constitute a purely Fascist Government.” Mussolini went on to say
that if the vote of confidence were not awarded there would be a new
election made “with Fascist clubs.”
After this threat, a vote of confidence was a farce. The sitting of
Parliament was a farce. The deputies had to listen to threats and abuse
from their Fascist colleagues. The only thing to do was to preserve
at least a form of constitutionalism by granting Mussolini what he
intended to take without the leave of the Chamber. A resolution was
adopted granting Mussolini full powers to do as he pleased, his decrees
to have the force of law until December 1, 1923. To save their faces,
the deputies added that Mussolini should be called upon in March, 1924,
to give an account to Parliament of the use of the powers conferred
by this law. Less than 300 of the 535 members of the Chamber were
present. The rest absented themselves, by reason of antagonism, fear,
or indifference. The Chamber was not convoked again until February 7,
1923, when the ratification of foreign treaties was necessary. The
parliament building was surrounded by Black Guards, and Mussolini
refused to be interpellated on domestic questions. Throughout Italy,
in local elections, the Fascisti took charge of the polls. No other
than Fascisti could be voted for. But the voters were not allowed to
remain away from the polls as a protest. In many places, absentees were
assumed to be ill, and large doses of castor-oil were administered!
The first year of the Mussolini régime has been marked by a tendency
toward the Right. Labor organizations have been forcibly disbanded,
coöperative stores closed, and censorship of radical journals
established; and the principle of private ownership of railways and all
other state industries, including the post-office, is being adopted.
Many schools, too, have been turned over to private management. The
Mussolini Government is charged by its enemies with plunging Italy
into the worst sort of reaction at a time when the rest of Europe
is moving toward Liberalism politically and socially. His attack
on Freemasonry was startling and marked the cutting away from the
traditions of the last half-century. At the same time, Mussolini
frankly announced the intention of granting official recognition to the
Catholic Church.
On the other hand, the Fascist principles make Fascismo inimical to
genuine Conservatism. While disclaiming state control of industries
and crying out against Bolshevism, Mussolini finds himself, by the
very nature of his hold upon the country, nearer Lenin in spirit and
practice than any other ruler in Europe. Because Fascismo has now
actually become the Government, individualism must be submerged to
the state. Mussolini cannot be other than an autocrat. He has spoken
with enthusiasm of a _rapprochement_ with the Church and has allowed
crucifixes to be hung in the rooms of public schools. But when the
Catholics at their spring congress in 1923 adopted a program in
conformity with their own interests, Mussolini demanded that certain
resolutions be withdrawn. His command was not literally obeyed. The
Catholics simply tried to explain diplomatically that they had meant no
offense. Mussolini would not tolerate divided loyalty. He immediately
asked for the resignation of the Catholic members of his cabinet.[17]
Where Fascismo now stands is explained by Mussolini in a short
article, under the caption “Forza e Consenso,” in the March, 1923,
number of “Gerarchia,” the Fascist review. Mussolini declares that
Liberalism is not the last word in the art of governing; well suited
for the nineteenth century, which was dominated by the development
of capitalism and national sentiment, it is not necessarily adapted
to the needs of the twentieth century. Since the war our experiences
have shown us that Liberalism has been defeated. Russia and Italy
are proving it to be possible to govern outside, above, and contrary
to, Liberal ideology. Communism and Fascism have nothing to do with
Liberalism.
The premier of Italy, conscious of his strength, believes that
parliamentary government has caused a general nausea in the country.
Giving liberty to a few, he says, destroys the liberty of all; and
he asks when it has happened in history that a state has rested
exclusively upon the consent of the people without the use of force.
Consent is as changing as the shifting sands. Take away armed force
from a government, leaving it only its immortal principles, and it
falls a victim to the first organized group bent upon overthrowing it.
It is the right and duty of the party in power to fortify and defend
itself against all opposition.
The Italians, in the opinion of Mussolini, are weary of the orgy
of liberty, and that is why the younger generation is drawn toward
Fascismo by its roll-call of order, hierarchy, and discipline. Men
are longing for authority. After the years of war and the failure
of nations with representative institutions to establish internal
prosperity or international harmony, the day for strength and
resolution and unswerving purpose to do for people what ought to be
done for them, what they want done, but what they do not know how to
do, is at hand. In peroration, Mussolini writes:
Fascismo, which did not fear in the first instance to call itself
reactionary when many Liberals of to-day lay prone before the
triumphant beast, has no hesitation whatsoever now in declaring
itself un-Liberal and anti-Liberal. Let it be known, once and for
all, that Fascismo recognizes neither idols nor fetishes. It has
passed once, and, if necessary will tranquilly return, across the
more or less decomposed body of the Goddess of Liberty.
Signor Giolitti, just before the advent of Mussolini, told the King
that a party led by hesitating men, dominated by fear, could no longer
hope to wield power in Italy. Signor Mussolini is certainly not
dominated by fear. His minority party is supported by a majority of
the people. But has not the Fascist program been hailed exuberantly at
home and abroad because it is a new broom sweeping clean? The success
of the Fascist reforms is not yet certain, and neither in speeches nor
in action has the Mussolini Government revealed the clear outlines of
a definite and constructive internal and foreign policy. What does
Mussolini propose to put in place of Liberal ideology?
While not so much interested in foreign affairs as the Nationalists,
and at times, in their clashes with the Blue-Shirts and the Fiume
Legionaries, seemingly asserting the all-absorbing interest of Italy in
internal reforms, the Fascisti have none the less made foreign policy a
cardinal part of their program. They have not been avowed imperialists.
They are insisting upon Italy’s equal place and dignity with other
nations. The nature of the policies of premiers from Orlando to Facta
has been a secondary consideration. What has incensed the Fascisti
is the tendency of Great Britain and France to look upon Italy as a
little brother, useful at times to help them, but not worth helping.
Mussolini’s first entrance into international politics at Lausanne
marked the change Fascismo determined to give to Italy’s foreign
relations. Mussolini made Curzon and Poincaré come to him at Territet.
Why should they assume that the Italian would naturally come to them?
Here public opinion in all Italian circles supports Mussolini. To the
Italians it seems preposterous that either France or Great Britain
should aspire to dominate the Mediterranean. Great Britain is in the
Mediterranean only by right of conquest, while France has a wide
Atlantic outlet. Both Great Britain and France have colonies all over
the world. Italy, on the other hand, is a Mediterranean state, the only
Mediterranean state among the great powers. When compared with those of
her allies, her colonial possessions amount to nothing. Invoking the
historic after the geographical, economic, and strategic arguments,
Italy has a better claim to be the predominant power in the Near East
than France or Great Britain.
Italians understand to perfection the principle of “whacking up,” and
the treaty of 1915 shows that their motive for entering the war was
sharing its spoils. But for them the spoils have not been forthcoming.
Wherever it was a question of their share, they were confronted
with the ideals of the war and were told that the principle of
self-determination had to prevail. As an example of this cynicism,
they cite Mr. Wilson’s Fiume declaration, written the same week that
Shantung was handed over to Japan. And since the Peace Conference it
has been explained to them that Egyptians and Moroccans have not the
right to self-determination, but that Albanians have. At Paris, when
Signor Orlando was pleading for Smyrna, he answered the argument of
injustice to Turkey and Greece by asking the English how they justify
their presence in Hong-Kong. “That was long ago,” was the answer of
Lloyd George. Clemenceau assented. Signor Orlando got back at him
quickly. “But do you French not base your right to Alsace-Lorraine on
the ground that a title won by force cannot plead prescription?”
The Italians have learned since 1918 that to British and French
statesmen there is still only one law, the law of might, and only one
title, the title of conquest. Italy, not being strong, has had to bow
to her more powerful allies; Italy, not having any conquests worth
while, has not been able to make trades, as the French and British have
done. So Italy’s Near Eastern ambitions frittered away to nothing,
and the Lausanne Conference became, like previous conferences, a duel
between French and British. Thoughtful Italians are beginning to
wonder whether Italy went in on the right side in the World War. Great
Britain holds Malta, and France Corsica and Tunisia. If Italy had
been Germany’s ally and the Central Empires had won, Italy would have
gained almost as much as she holds now at the head of the Adriatic, and
if the German victors had applied the same principles as the French
and British victors, with the tables turned, the war would have ended
with Corsica, Malta, and Tunisia “restored” to Italy. Within the next
generation will not Italy be compelled to fight Great Britain and
France to avoid remaining permanently an economic slave in her own
ocean?
Before Mussolini came to power the state of mind in Italy was well
illustrated by the Turin “Stampa,” the organ of Giolitti. The “Stampa,”
apropos of the British concessions to France and Germany in return for
a free hand in the Near East, commented:
In both camps it would be the triumph of an imperialist policy
which would foster new wars and end in rendering illusory the very
agreement between the contracting parties.... It is not necessary
to point out, besides, the injury to Italy, to Germany, to Turkey,
and even to Greece (really reduced in that case to British
vassalage) implied by this hypothetical division into zones of
influence of the vast stretches from the Rhine to the Euphrates,
from Cologne to Bagdad.
The Young Italian movement has something in common with the Young
Turk movement and the other non-European Nationalist movements that
are labeled “Young.” To win, and then to maintain a place among the
nations, to stand up for one’s rights, a country must be strong. And
a country cannot be strong unless the old political machine has been
swept away, finances put upon a sound basis, and sweeping reforms in
administration introduced. The people as a whole cannot be relied upon
to do this. Thus it falls to the lot of a private organization to
oppose and overthrow the existing Government by force. Lawlessness is
justifiable because it is for the purpose of combating decadence and
anarchy. Overriding the suffrage right of the people is justifiable,
because the Government established by the revolution knows better than
they do what is needed to save the country. Before the revolution the
country was held in contempt among the nations. After the revolution
the miracles wrought will compel the respect of other nations. Then
will the country in which the beneficent revolution occurred, by being
strong, assert triumphantly its rights and further its interests the
world over.