Sunday 4 March 2012

Speech in Rome, May 9, 1940

To the Albanian Fascist Hierarchy in Rome

By Benito Mussolini

Dear Albanian comrades, I thank you for coming to Rome today, on the fourth anniversary of the foundation of the empire, an empire which you have entered with equal duties and equal rights to the Italian people, since I regard the Italian people and the Albanian people as brothers.

My directives are clear and definitive. The Albanian Fascist Party has an important and fundamental task in this new community that launches Albania on the path of progress and prosperity.

As in Italy, so in Albania the Party must at all times be the exact, ready and selfless interpreter of the needs, hopes and soul of the people.

If I said that the regime must go to the people in Italy, then I must say this is especially true for Albania.

With great interest I noticed that the Albanian Fascist Party already has tens of thousands of members. And I noticed what you said: the Fascists must represent the operating aristocracy of the popular community. And precisely because they represent this aristocracy, they must take pride in serving the people, in elevating them morally and materially to a higher level of life.

I do not need to tell you that I follow your work with particular sympathy and I beg you to bring my most cordial and fraternal salute — a salute from the bottom of my heart — to all the Blackshirts of Albania and to all the Albanian people who have joined its own destiny with what is and will be the destiny of Italy's imperial grandeur.