Speech in Milan, November 1, 1936

By Benito Mussolini

Blackshirts of Milan! By means of the speech which I am about to make to you and for which I ask, and you will give me, a few dozen minutes of your attention, I intend to lay down the position of Fascist Italy with regard to its relations with other peoples in this so turbid and disquieting moment.

The high level of your political education allows me to lay before you these problems which elsewhere are debated in so-called parliaments or after so-called democratic banquets.

I shall be extremely brief, but I add that every one of my words has been weighed.

If one wishes to clarify the European atmosphere it is first necessary to clear the table of all illusions, of all commonplaces, of all conventional lies that still constitute relics of the great shipwreck of Wilsonian ideology.

One of these illusions that is already flat is the illusion of disarmament. No one wishes to disarm first, and for all to disarm together is impossible and absurd. And still, when the conference for disarmament meets in Geneva, the illusion functions in full. The result is a mountain of bombastic oratory. On this mountain is concentrated for some days all the glare of the projectors of world publicity. Then, at a certain moment, out from the mountain comes a tiny mouse, which finally is lost in a labyrinth of procedure which for fertile invention has no precedent in history.

For us Fascists, in the habit of examining with cool eye the reality of life and of history, another illusion we reject is that which passed by the name of collective security. Collective security never existed, does not exist, and will never exist. A virile people provides within its own borders its collective security and refuses to confide its destiny to uncertain hands of third persons.

Another platitude which is necessary to reject is indivisible peace. Indivisible peace could have only this meaning: indivisible war. But peoples refuse, and justly so, to fight for interests that do not concern them.

The very League of Nations is based upon an absurdity which consists of the criterion of absolute juridical parity among all States; whereas the States are different from one another, at least from the viewpoint of their historic responsibility. For the League of Nations the dilemma is expressed in very clear terms, either to reform itself or to perish. Since it is extremely difficult for the League to reform itself, as far as we are concerned it can perish in peace.

In any event, we have not forgotten and we shall not forget that the League of Nations by diabolical methods has organized an iniquitous siege against the people of Italy, has tried to starve these people, men, women, and children, has sought to shatter our military force and the work of civilization being carried on 2,500 to 5,000 miles distant in another land. It did not succeed: not because it did not want to, but because it found itself faced by the compact unity of the Italian people, capable of all sacrifices and of fighting the fifty-two coalition States.

Now, in order to make a policy of peace it is not necessary to pass through the corridors of the League of Nations. Here, dear comrades, I made what in navigation is called the ship's position.

After seventeen years of polemics, recrimination, and misunderstandings of problems left in suspense, accords with France were reached in January 1935. These accords could have and should have opened a new epoch of truly friendly relations between the two countries. But sanctions came along. Naturally, the friendship experienced its first freezing. We were then on the eve of winter. Winter passed; spring came and with spring our triumphant victories. Sanctions continued to be applied with truly meticulous vigour. For almost two months after we were in Addis Ababa sanctions still continued. It is a classic case of the letter which kills the spirit; of formalism which strangles the living, concrete reality of life! France today still holds her finger pointed at the yellowing ledgers of Geneva, saying: "The empire of the dead ex-lion of Judah is still alive." (Much laughter). But beyond the masters of Geneva, what in reality does our victory mean? That the empire of the ex-Negus is more than dead.

And it is quite evident that as long as the French Government maintains toward us an attitude of waiting and reserve we cannot but do the same toward her.

One of the countries bordering Italy, with whom our relations were and are and always will be extremely friendly, is Switzerland. It is a little country but of very great importance both for its ethnical composition and for its geographical position, which it occupies at the crossroads of Europe.

By the accords of July 11 a new epoch was opened in the history of modern Austria. The accords of July 11—let all hurried and badly informed commentators take note—were known and approved by me as of June 5, and it is my conviction that such accords strengthened the governmental make-up of this State, giving greater guarantee for its independence.

Until justice shall be rendered to Hungary there cannot be a definite systematization of interests in the Danubian Basin. Hungary is truly the great mutilated nation. Four million Hungarians live outside the present frontiers. In trying to follow the dictates of a justice that was too abstract, another injustice, perhaps greater, was committed. The sentiments of the Italian people towards the Hungarian people are stamped with the clear recognition—which, for that matter, is reciprocated—of its military qualities, its courage and its spirit of sacrifice. There will perhaps come very soon a solemn occasion on which the sentiments of the Italian people will find public recognition.

The fourth country bordering Italy is Yugoslavia. Recently the atmosphere between the two countries was greatly improved. You will remember that about two years ago in this same square I made a clear reference to the possibility of establishing relations of cordial friendship between the two countries. Speaking again on this same subject today, I declare that necessary conditions, moral, political, and economic, exist today for putting relations between these two countries on a new basis of true and concrete friendship.

In addition to these four countries bordering Italy, a great country recently aroused vast sympathy from the masses of the Italian people: I speak of Germany. The meetings at Berlin had as a result an understanding between the two countries on definite problems, some of which are particularly troublesome these days. But these understandings which have been consecrated and duly signed—this Berlin-Rome protocol—is not a barrier, but is rather an axis around which all European States animated by the will for collaboration and for peace may collaborate.

Germany, although surrounded and solicited, did not adhere to sanctions. By the accord of July 11 any element of dissension between Berlin and Rome disappeared. May I remind you, even before the meeting in Berlin, Germany had practically recognized the Empire of Rome. It is no wonder if we today raise the banner of anti-Bolshevism. This is our old banner! We were born under this sign! We have fought against this enemy! We have conquered him through our sacrifices of blood! This is because what is called Bolshevism and Communism is today—listen well to me—only super-capitalism of a State carried to its most ferocious extreme. It is not, therefore, the negation of a system, but the development and sublimation of this system, and the time has come to put an end to it. This might be by opposing Fascism and democracy to it. Truly, one can say that this, our great Italy, is still the great unknown.

If many of those Ministers and Deputies and such who speak in order to hear the sound of their own voice decided just once to cross the frontiers of Italy, they would be convinced that if there is a country where concrete, real, and substantial democracy has been realized, this country is the Italy of the Fascist Era. We are not like reactionaries of other countries. We are not embalmers of the past: we are anticipators of the future.

We do not carry to its extreme consequences the capitalistic civilization, above all in its mechanical, almost inhuman aspect. We create a new synthesis through which Fascism opens the road to a true humane civilization of work.

I have concerned myself up to this point with the Continent. But Italy is an island. It is necessary for Italians little by little to take on an insular mentality, because it is the only method for understanding all problems of naval defense of the Nation in their true light. Italy is an island which emerges from the Mediterranean. This sea—I address myself here also toward the English, who perhaps at this moment are listening by radio—this sea for Great Britain is a highroad, one of the many highroads or, rather, short cuts through which the British Empire reaches its outlying territory more rapidly.

Let it be said between parentheses that when the Italian [Leo] Negrelli projected the cutting of the Isthmus of Suez he was considered—above all, in England—as scatterbrained.

If the Mediterranean is for others a highroad, for us Italians it is life. We have said a thousand times, and I repeat before this magnificent multitude, that we do not intend to menace this road, we do not intend to interrupt it. But we demand on the other hand that our rights and vital interests be also respected. There are no other alternatives. The reasoning brains of the British Empire must realize the thing is done and is irrevocable. The sooner the better. Bilateral conflicts are not to be thought of, and even less a conflict which from bilateral would become immediately European.

There is, therefore, only one solution: direct, rapid, and complete understanding on the basis of recognition of reciprocal interests.

But if this does not come about, if in fact—and I refuse to believe it from today on—one is really thinking of suffocating the life of the Italian people in that sea which was the sea of Rome, very well! Let it be known that the Italian people would spring to their feet like one man, ready for combat with a determination which would have scarce precedence in history.

Milanese Comrades, let us turn to our own affairs: Marching orders for the fifteenth year of Fascism are the following: Peace with all, with those near and afar. Armed peace! Therefore, our program of armaments for land, sea, and sky will be regularly developed.

Acceleration of all productive energies of the Nation, in agricultural and industrial fields. Development of the corporative system to its definite realization.

But here is a duty I confide to you, dear Milanese of this most ardent and most Fascist Milan which in these days has revealed its great soul. I confide to you, dear Milanese of this generous working and untiring Milan, this duty, which I feel sure will become to you at the same time that I pronounce it an imperative duty, is that you should place yourselves, as you will do, at the vanguard for the development of the empire so as to render it, in the shortest possible period, an element of well being, of power, of glory for the Nation.