The Fascist Program
By Benito Mussolini
Let's move on to more blissful things and talk about our program, which I am willing to fight for without quarter. I must first of all declare that on the whole I admire the show of discipline and dignity that the Congress has given so far. To understand the political activity of Fascism it is necessary to examine Italian economic parties and organizations.
Let's start with the extreme left, where we find the anarchists headed by Malatesia — their saint and prophet — which is a consistent phenomenon that can be admired. It is necessary to establish that Russian Bolshevism was condemned the other day at the Anarchist Congress in Ancona. Judging from what we see in Turin, modern Communism is comparable to that literary current that was led by the journal Lacerba. We accept dictatorship and the state of siege for the sake of the Nation; even the Communists demand dictatorship for classist purposes. Even within Communism there is a right wing and a left wing.
The Socialist Party is based on equivocation and is sickening to us, whether it be Serrati, or whether it be Turati, who plays the role of Myrmex in a party that he no longer believes in. The Socialist Party would be of minimal importance if it did not have the Confederation of Labour behind it. The Republicans, the age-old party that gave Italy Mazzini and Garibaldi, and that gave the flower of its martyrs to the war, are also troubled by a crisis. Fascism can integrate Mazzinian theories, but it will be unable to forget them. We do not need to go looking for prophets in Russia or in other countries when we have prophets of our own who have given us a national doctrine, which is a product of the Italian spirit and Italian civilization.
In the centre we find a chaos of parties, liberal democracy and social democracy. What do these even mean? And who is not democratic nowadays? Who thinks of tearing away all those gracious concessions — universal suffrage, proportional representation, etc. — from the people who do not care and never have cared about such things? Out of more than 11 million voters, only 6 of them vote and only for alcoholic and pecuniary reasons. The democratic parties are a collection of captains without soldiers who officially choreograph well-ordered but pathetic processions only on carefully-chosen dates.
Before booing and hissing the People's Party, let's study it. Now this is undoubtedly a powerful party, because it depends on thirty thousand parishes and has a disciplined political organization that mimics Fascism. It is also powerful because the banks and the newspapers depict it as an expression of the Catholic world. This party too is troubled by internal crises. It attracts many elements of the most putrid neutrality; it has many elements that have sabotaged the war, and in the sphere of agriculture it seeks to outdo Bolshevism itself. Therefore we have two Bolshevisms: Red Bolshevism and the Bolshevism of Guido Miglioli. We have no choice but to fight against this party. It has a right wing element that seeks reconciliation with the Nation, but reconciliation begins first of all by recognizing Rome as the capital of Italy.
The Italian people have a grand history. Just travel down to Rome and you will realize that twenty and thirty centuries ago it was the center of the world and in past centuries the Italians were great in the arts, in letters and in trades. From their people the genius of Dante and Napoleon was expressed. Modern Italy has only been around for fifty years. Only around the 1870's did Italy have men of the Right who—though often erring—understood its future. Those men were full of intellect and above all political probity, who did not have the habit of mystifying the masses.
Fascism desires that within our country there be no more Venetians, Romagnoles, Tuscans, Sicilians, or Sardinians: but Italians, only Italians. Therefore Fascism is against any separatistic attempts. And today when the autonomists demand that autonomy should be a prelude to separatism, we must be against it. We are for administrative decentralization, but not for the division of Italy.
During the last decades of national anguish Italy had only one man who had... You understand what I am saying! I am speaking of Francesco Crispi. He alone knew how to project Italy into the Mediterranean with imperialist thought and spirit. But when I speak of imperialism I do not intend to refer to the Prussian one; I mean an economic imperialism of commercial expansion. Those peoples who are devoid of will and shut themselves up at home are the ones who will perish.
I do not want to be a beardless Moses who tells you: "Here are the Tables of the Law, now swear to above!" No.
I want to make it clear that Fascism must deal with the problem of race. Fascists must occupy themselves with the health of the race, which is what molds history. We start from the concept of Nation, which for us is an indelible, insuperable fact which can not be denied. We are therefore absolutely against all internationalisms. Despite the dreams of the internationalists, those who deny the Fatherland die for it when the hour calls for it.
Starting from the Nation, we arrive at question of the State, which is the Government in its tangible expression. But we are the State: we want to identify the Nation with the State through a special process. The crisis of the State's authority is universal and is a product of the cataclysm of war. However, it is necessary for the State to rediscover its authority, otherwise it will descend into chaos.
Without Fascism, the Unknown Soldier would not sleep today in the sarcophagus of the Altar of the Fatherland. We are not ashamed to have been interventionists, but this does not mean that we intend to unite with certain war enhancers who write bad literature about it. Let us not exalt war for war's sake, let us not exalt peace for peace's sake. We exalt that war which was wanted in 1915 by the people and by us, against all! Understand me! The people felt that this war was their baptism, which was the consecration of their existence, and if today Italy is in Washington to discuss world peace with a few other nations, it owes it to the interventionists of 1915. The people then told Italy: Only by daring will you be entitled to tomorrow's history!
The regime! After the elections it was said that I had ruined my career due to a statement of mine... I remembered in those days that among the parties there was also the Republican Party and I said that Fascism had republican tendencies. When I said this I did not mean to throw the country into revolutionary insurrection. With that statement I only intended to open a path towards the future. Who can say with certainty that the current institutions will always be able to defend the interests and ideals of the Italian people? No one can say that. Today a republican movement would be destined for failure. It could succeed at first, but would be overwhelmed by a subsequent motion. If Italy could exist as a republic, it could never be the kind that Nitti and his colleagues have been longing for! Nor can it be the kind of republic desired by the official Republican Party.
As regards the question of the regime, Fascism must be agnostic, which means vigilance and control. Because it is the regime that should adapt itself to the Nation rather than the Nation adapting itself to the regime.
In economics we are openly anti-socialist. I do not regret having been a socialist. I cut all ties with the past; I have no nostalgia. It is not about entering into socialism, but about getting out of it. In economic matters we are liberals, because we believe that the national economy can not be entrusted to collective and bureaucratic bodies. After the Russian experiment, we have seen enough. I would, however, return the railways and telegraph offices to private companies, because the current system is monstrous and vulnerable in all its aspects.
The ethical State is not the monopolistic State or the bureaucratic State, but is one which reduces its functions to those which are strictly necessary. We are against the economic State. Socialist doctrines have collapsed: international myths have fallen, class struggle is a fable because humanity can not be divided. The proletariat and bourgeoisie do not exist historically; they are two sides of the same coin. We do not believe in these tales. The proletariat, even where it has had power, is imprisoned by capitalism. We are anti-socialist but not necessarily anti-proletarian.
It is said that it is necessary to conquer the masses. There are also those who say history is made by heroes, while others say it is made by the masses. The truth is somewhere in between. What would the masses do if they didn't have their own interpreter which finds expression in the spirit of the people and what would the poet do if he didn't have the material to mold with? We are not anti-proletarians, but we do not want to create a fetish for "His Majesty" the Masses. We want to serve it and educate it, but when it is wrong we whip it. We must promise them only those promises that we mathematically know we can keep. We want to raise its intellectual and moral level because we want to insert it into the history of the Nation. Because the national economy can not be elevated with a riotous, pellagrous and malarial proletariat. And we tell the masses that when the interests of the Nation are at stake, all the selfishness—both proletariat and bourgeoisie—must be quelled.
Can Fascism find its full doctrine in the statutes of the Italian Regency of Carnaro? In my opinion, no. D'Annunzio is a man of genius. He is the man who comes through in exceptional hours. But he is not a man of daily practice. However, there is a spirit and an imponderable in the statutes of the Regency of Carnaro that we can make our own: the pride of feeling Italian, and the intention to work for the greatness of our common Fatherland. In saying this we express a territorial, political, economic, and above all a spiritual concept. Now this spirit is found, if not in words, at least in the essence of those statutes. Thus we must look at those statutes the way we look at a star, because we shall drink from that source. There are directives in them that will prevent our movement—becoming too political or too social—from hindering the eternal values of our race.
Others will speak to you about foreign policy. However, I still owe you a word about the relationship between Italy and the Vatican. The State is sovereign in every field of national activity. Caution must be exercised before revoking the Law of the Guaranties. Vatican diplomacy is more skilled than that of the Consulta. Respect for every faith must be imposed; because for Fascism religious faith belongs to the field of individual conscience. Catholicism can be utilized for national expansion. As for our attitude towards the People's Party, we will adjust depending on their attitude.
It is said that this program is just like the others. But all men are equal; the feet are all of one form, the difference is in the brains. And therefore we must look to the spirit of the program. ... I believe that the fragments of other constitutional parties will be gathered around us. We will absorb the liberals and liberalism, because through our method of violence we have buried all previous methods.
I am grateful that you allow me this satisfied feeling of speaking before such an impressive assembly; perhaps the most impressive from the 1870's to today. I collect the fruit of these seven years of hard-fought battles. I am not saying I did not make mistakes: I admit to having a bad temper. There are two Mussolini's fighting within me: one an individualist who does not like the masses; the other a man who is absolutely disciplined. That man may have launched harsh words; but they were not directed against the Fascist Militia, but were directed against those who intended to subjugate Fascism to private interests, whereas Fascism must guard the Nation. I prefer the work of the surgeon who sinks his shiny scalpel into the gangrenous flesh rather than the homeopathic method that lingers in the process. I want to disappear from the new organization, because you must get over my illness and walk alone. Only in this way—facing responsibilities and problems—are great battles won.
I urge you to keep faith in the animating principle of Fascism. In one of the cantos of his Paradiso, Dante exalts the figure of the poor man of Assisi who, after having married Lady Poverty, "loved her more strongly each day". This, dear Fascists, is our oath: to love more strongly each day this adorable mother known as Italy.
(An enthusiastic ovation welcomes the final words of the Duce: flowers are thrown to him when he steps off the stage; he is embraced and lifted in triumph by the squadrists).
