MY FATHER
My father took a profound interest in my development. Perhaps I was
much more observed by his paternal attention than I thought. We became
much more knit together by common interests as my mind and body
approached maturity. In the first place I became fascinated by the
steam threshing machines which were just then for the first time being
introduced into our agricultural life. With my father I went to work
to learn the mechanism, and tasted, as I had never tasted before, the
quiet joy of becoming a part of the working creative world. Machinery
has its fascinations and I can understand how an engineer of a railway
locomotive or an oiler in the hold of a ship may feel that a machine
has a personality, sometimes irritating, sometimes friendly, with an
inexhaustible generosity and helpfulness, power and wisdom.
But manual labor in my father’s blacksmith shop was not the only
common interest we shared. It was inevitable that I should find a
clearer understanding of those political and social questions which
in the midst of discussions with the neighbors had appeared to me as
unfathomable, and hence a stupid world of words. I could not follow
as a child the arguments of lengthy debates around the table, nor
did I grasp the reasons for the watchfulness and measures taken by the
police. But now in an obscure way it all appeared as connected with
the lives of strong men who not only dominate their own lives but also
the lives of their fellow creatures. Slowly but fatally I was turning
my spirit and my mind to new political ideals destined to flower for a
time.
I began with young eyes to see that the tiny world about me was
feeling uneasiness under the pinch of necessity. A deep and secret
grudge was darkening the hearts of the common people. A country gentry
of mediocrity in economic usefulness and of limited intellectual
contribution were hanging upon the multitudes a weight of unjustified
privileges. These were sad, dark years not only in my own province
but for other parts of Italy. I must have the marks upon my memory of
the resentful and furtive protests of those who came to talk with my
father, some with bitterness of facts, some with a newly devised hope
for some reform.
It was then, while I was still in my early teens, that my parents,
after many serious talks, ending with a rapid family counsel, turned
the rudder of my destiny in a new direction. They said that my manual
work did not correspond to their ambitions for me, to their ability to
aid me, nor did it fit my own capacities. My mother had a phrase which
remains in my ears: “He promises something.”
[Illustration:
_From a photograph by A. Badodi, Milan._
Mussolini’s mother and father, Rosa and Alessandro Mussolini.
]
At the time I was not very enthusiastic about that conclusion; I had
no real hunger for scholastic endeavor. I did not feel that I would
languish if I did not go to a normal school and did not prepare
to become a teacher. But my family were right. I had developed some
capacities as a student and could increase them.
I went to the normal school at a place called Forlimpopoli. I remember
my arrival in that small city. The citizens were cheerful and
industrious, good at bargaining—tradesmen and middlemen. The school,
however, had a greater distinction; it was conducted by Valfredo
Carducci, brother of the great writer Giosue Carducci, who at that time
was harvesting his laurels because of his poetry and his inspiration
drawn from Roman classicism.
There was a long stretch of study ahead of me; to become a master—to
have a teacher’s diploma—meant six years of books and pencils, ink
and paper. I confess that I was not very assiduous. The bright side
of those years of preparation to be a teacher came from my interest
in reforming educational methods, and even more in an interest begun
at that time and maintained ever since, an intense interest in the
psychology of human masses—the crowd.
I was, I believe, unruly; and I was sometimes indiscreet. Youth has
its passing restlessness and follies. Somehow I succeeded in gaining
forgiveness. My masters were understanding and on the whole generous.
But I have never been able to make up my mind how much of the
indulgence accorded to me came from any hope they had in me or how much
came from the fact that my father had acquired an increasing reputation
for his moral and political integrity.
So the diploma came to me at last. I was a teacher! Many are the
men who have found activity in political life who began as teachers.
But then I saw only the prospect of the hard road of job hunting,
letters of recommendation, scraping up a backing of influential persons
and so on.
In a competition for a teacher’s place at Gualtieri, in the province
of Reggio Emilia, I was successful. I had my taste of it. I taught
for a year. On the last day of the school year I dictated an essay. I
remember its thesis. It was: “By Persevering You Arrive.” For that I
obtained the praise of my superiors.
So school was closed. I did not want to go back to my family. There was
a narrow world for me, with affection to be sure, but restricted. There
in Predappio one could neither move nor think without feeling at the
end of a short rope. I had become conscious of myself, sensitive to my
future. I felt the urge to escape.
Money I had not—merely a little. Courage was my asset. I would be an
exile. I crossed the frontier; I entered Switzerland.
It was in this wander-life, now full of difficulties, toil, hardship
and restlessness, that developed something in me. It was the milestone
which marked my maturity. I entered into this new era as a man and
politician. My confident soul began to be my support. I conceded
nothing to pious demagoguery. I allowed myself, humble as was my
figure, to be guided by my innate proudness and I saw myself in my own
mental dress.
To this day I thank difficulties. They were more numerous than the
nice, happy incidents. But the latter gave me nothing. The difficulties
of life have hardened my spirit. They have taught me how to live.
For me it would have been dreadful and fatal if on my journey forward
I had by chance fallen permanently into the chains of comfortable
bureaucratic employment. How could I have adapted myself to that smug
existence in a world bristling with interest and significant horizons?
How could I have tolerated the halting progress of promotions,
comforted and yet irritated by the thoughts of an old-age pension at
the end of the dull road? Any comfortable cranny would have sapped my
energies. These energies which I enjoy were trained by obstacles and
even by bitterness of soul. They were made by struggle, not by the joys
of the pathway.
My stay in Switzerland was a welter of difficulties. It did not last
long, but it was angular, with harsh points. I worked with skill as a
laborer. I worked usually as a mason and felt the fierce, grim pleasure
of construction. I made translations from Italian into French and vice
versa. I did whatever came to hand. I looked upon my friends with
interest or affection or amusement.
Above all, I threw myself headforemost into the politics of the
emigrant—of refugees, of those who sought solutions.
In politics I never gained a penny. I detest those who live like
parasites, sucking away at the edges of social struggles. I hate men
who grow rich in politics.
I knew hunger—stark hunger—in those days. But I never bent myself
to ask for loans and I never tried to inspire the pity of those around
me, nor of my own political companions. I reduced my needs to a minimum
and that minimum—and sometimes less—I received from home.
With a kind of passion, I studied social sciences. Pareto was giving a
course of lectures in Lausanne on political economy. I looked forward
to every one. The mental exercise was a change from manual labor.
My mind leaped toward this change and I found pleasure in learning.
For here was a teacher who was outlining the fundamental economic
philosophy of the future.
Between one lesson and another I took part in political gatherings. I
made speeches. Some intemperance in my words made me undesirable to the
Swiss authorities. They expelled me from two cantons. The university
courses were over. I was forced into new places, and not until 1922 at
the Conference of Lausanne, after I was Premier of Italy, did I see
again some of my old haunts, filled with memories colorful or drab.
To remain in Switzerland became impossible. There was the yearning
for home which blossoms in the hearts of all Italians. Furthermore,
the compulsory service in the army was calling me. I came back. There
were greetings, questions, all the incidents of the return of an
adventurer—and then I joined the regiment—a Bersaglieri regiment at the
historic city of Verona. The Bersaglieri wear green cock feathers in
their hats; they are famous for their fast pace, a kind of monotonous
and ground-covering dogtrot, and for their discipline and spirit.
I liked the life of a soldier. The sense of willing subordination
suited my temperament. I was preceded by a reputation of being
restless, a fire eater, a radical, a revolutionist. Consider then the
astonishment of the captain, the major, and my colonels, who were
compelled to speak of me with praise! It was my opportunity to show
serenity of spirit and strength of character.
Verona, where my regiment was garrisoned, was and always will remain a
dear Venetian city, reverberating with the past, filled with suggestive
beauties. It found in my own temperament an echo of infinite resonance.
I enjoyed its aromas as a man, but also as a private soldier I entered
with vim into all the drills and the most difficult exercises. I
found an affectionate regard for the mass, for the whole, made up of
individuals, for its maneuvers and the tactics, the practice of defense
and attack.
My capacity was that of a simple soldier; but I used to weigh the
character, abilities and individualities of those who commanded me. All
Italian soldiers to a certain extent do this. I learned in that way how
important it is for an officer to have a deep knowledge of military
matters and to develop a fine sensitiveness to the ranks, and to
appreciate in the masses of our men our stern Latin sense of discipline
and to be susceptible to its enchantments.
I can say that in every regard I was an excellent soldier. I might have
taken up the courses for noncommissioned officers. But destiny,
which dragged me from my father’s blacksmith shop to teaching and from
teaching to exile and from exile to discipline, now decreed that I
should not become a professional soldier. I had to ask for leave. At
the time I swallowed the greatest sorrow in my life; it was the death
of my mother.
One day my captain took me aside. He was so considerate that I felt in
advance something impending. He asked me to read a telegram. It was
from my father. My mother was dying! He urged my return. I rushed to
catch the first train.
I arrived too late. My mother was in death’s agony. But from an almost
imperceptible nod of her head I realized that she knew I had come. I
saw her endeavor to smile. Then her head slowly drooped and she had
gone.
All the independent strength of my soul, all my intellectual or
philosophical resources—even my deep religious beliefs—were helpless to
comfort that great grief. For many days I was lost. From me had been
taken the one dear and truly near living being, the one soul closest
and eternally adherent to my own responses.
Words of condolence, letters from my friends, the attempt to comfort
me by other members of the family, filled not one tiny corner of that
great void, nor opened even one fraction of an inch of the closed door.
My mother had suffered for me—in so many ways. She had lived so many
hours of anxiety for me because of my wandering and pugnacious life.
She had predicted my ascent. She had toiled and hoped too much and
died before she was yet forty-eight years old. She had, in her quiet
manner, done superhuman labors.
She might be alive now. She might have lived and enjoyed, with the
power of her maternal instinct, my political success. It was not to be.
But to me it is a comfort to feel that she, even now, can see me and
help me in my labors with her unequaled love.
I, alone, returned to the regiment. I finished my last months of
military service. And then my life and my future were again distended
with uncertainty.
I went to Opeglia as a teacher again, knowing all the time that
teaching did not suit me. This time I was a master in a middle school.
After a period, off I went with Cesare Battisti, then chief editor
of the _Popolo_. Later he was destined to become one of the greatest
of our national heroes—he who gave his life, he who was executed by
the enemy Austrians in the war, he who then was giving his thought
and will to obtaining freedom of the province of Trento from the rule
of Austria. His nobility and proud soul are always in my memory. His
aspirations as a socialist-patriot called to me.
One day I wrote an article maintaining that the Italian border was not
at Ala, the little town which in those days stood on the old frontier
between our kingdom and the old Austria. Whereupon I was expelled from
Austria by the Imperial and Royal Government of Vienna.
I was becoming used to expulsions. Once more a wanderer, I went back to
Forli.
The itch of journalism was in me. My opportunity was before me in the
editorship of a local socialist newspaper. I understood now that
the Gordian knot of Italian political life could only be undone by an
act of violence.
Therefore I became the public crier of this basic, partisan, warlike
conception. The time had come to shake the souls of men and fire their
minds to thinking and acting. It was not long before I was proclaimed
the mouthpiece of the intransigent revolutionary socialist faction. I
was only twenty-nine years old when at Reggio Emilia at the Congress in
1912, two years before the World War began, I was nominated as director
of the _Avanti_. It was the only daily of the socialist cause and was
published in Milan.
I lost my father just before I left for my new office. He was only
fifty-seven. Nearly forty of those years had been spent in politics.
His was a rectangular mind, a wise spirit, a generous heart. He had
looked into the eyes of the first internationalist agitators and
philosophers. He had been in prison for his ideas.
The Romagna—that part of Italy from which we all came—a spirited
district with traditions of a struggle for freedom against foreign
oppressions—knew my father’s merit. He wrestled year in and year out
with endless difficulties and he had lost the small family patrimony
by helping friends who had gone beyond their depth in the political
struggle.
Prestige he had among all those who came into contact with him. The
best political men of his day liked him and respected him. He died
poor. I believe his foremost desire was to live to see his sons
correctly estimated by public opinion.
At the end he understood at last that the old eternal traditional
forces such as capital could not be permanently overthrown by a
political revolution. He turned his attention at the end toward
bettering the souls of individuals. He wanted to make mankind true of
heart and sensitive to fraternity. Many were the speeches and articles
about him after his death; three thousand of the men and women he had
known followed his body to the grave. My father’s death marked the end
of family unity for us, the family.