Enough!

(Published in Corrispondenza Repubblicana, April 17, 1944)

By Benito Mussolini

With the assassination of Giovanni Gentile, the picture was completed. Every social category is now represented in the long list of dead: from the six-year-old child to the hardworking laborer, from the loyal squadrist to the young recruit, from the silent soldier to the ardent officer of the Decima MAS, from the patriotic priest to the capable federal official—none have been spared; all have been shot by assassins in pay of the enemy. Therefore it is time to shout "enough!" to such havoc and to say a few clear words to the Italians here and beyond the Garigliano Line. First of all this bloodshed must absolutely cease, this anarchy must end, it must be fought and suppressed, and the guilty must be executed without mercy.

The usual right-thinking person might wonder why such incidents do not take place in that part of Italy under Allied occupation. The answer is simple: because even Fascists would not resort to killing Count Sforza, or the carabiniere serving on the Bari-Brindisi railway line, or Francesco Musotto, High Commissioner for Sicily, who is the father of a heroic sailor. It is not our custom to hire Italians to cowardly assassinate other Italians from behind. We do not regard ourselves as enemies of the Neapolitans or the people of Bari who do their duty to maintain a bit of order, in order to alleviate the already many sufferings of the Italian people. We are not anti-Italian. Because it is no longer a question of Fascism: Giovanni Gentile was not killed only because he was a Fascist; he was murdered because he was Italian, and his assassin is not an Italian patriot.

It is time for the Italian people to stop believing that the "Allied" nations are waging war only on Fascism, which, moreover, they claim is dead and buried: they are waging war, plain and simple; everything else is system, propaganda and clever political moves.

Were the several thousand people killed in Treviso all Fascists? Furthermore, the unfortunate month of August 1943 should cause one to pause and think. Badoglio was leading the government, the Fascists were in prison; yet the bombings not only continued but in fact increased in a bloody rhythm never before seen.

They want to conquer Italy and enslave it, plain and simple, and instead having to witness Italy's rebirth is extremely unpleasant to those who approach the sixth year of war and who now realize that there will be no overwhelming victory as the Allies proclaimed.

Italy already suffers the pains of hell without the need for Italians to butcher each other, especially when this struggle only works to the advantage of the foreigner.

When a ship carrying all of us runs the serious danger of sinking, is it reasonable for the crew, rather than uniting to save the salvageable and prevent the sinking, instead argues over possession of the lifeboats and lets everyone sink into the sea?

Let me say to those of you who are listening: the only lifeboat that remains is the one that bears the name of Mussolini. He saved us once; why not believe or at least hope that he can save us a second time?

Some of you say or think that the war can no longer be won and that it was an error or a mistake to have declared it. There are a thousand valid arguments which prove to you that the war could not be avoided. But even granting that the monarchical war has been lost because of the betrayal, why not believe we can still impact or even win the republican war, the war of the people? After centuries of dismemberment, only Mussolini provided Italy with a backbone. Since July 25th the nation belongs again to an order of spineless men, men without a backbone.

You must realize that the only one in Italy who can stand up and deal on an equal footing with Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin is still Mussolini and only Mussolini. Certainly not the House of Savoy or Badoglio, who are puppets kept standing for a political game. If for the moment the Allied press does not cover them with insults, there is no doubt that the judgment of British or neutral historians will certainly not be kind to these two men. Badoglio and Savoy will become synonyms for traitors; and not only this, but the Italian people themselves, each of us will be placed in the same category and the dishonorable poison of contempt will be spit upon us by all languages, as is already happening.

The treacherous blow which struck the Italian people on September 8th was mortal; only the presence of Mussolini has prevented the dagger from reaching the heart. It is no mystery what would have happened without him. Would the bombings have ceased? No. Would this war which is today defined as a "martyrdom" be over? No. The Germans and the English would still be fighting as they are now. It is true that the Government of the Italian Social Republic calls the classes to arms (even Badoglio has done so), imposes new laws and enforces them, by force if necessary, and condemns those citizens who are guilty of crimes against the Fatherland. But do the Italian people want to delude themselves into thinking that they can stand by and watch while the whole world is upside down?

Party considerations do not matter, because today every Italian worthy of the name can not have any program other than that of saving Italy from definitive catastrophe. But do the other parties have real men? The old and new debutants in the Neapolitan theater are full of compromise and their action is flawed due to its prejudicial roots; the one and only thing which holds them together is anti-Fascism. They boast with hypothetical certainty that they are on the side of the victor; but this is far from decided. This is a war of the unexpected and the unpredictable.

Italians, enough! He who kills a Fascist kills an Italian, therefore he is an enemy of Italy. Instead, you should collaborate with those who are trying to rebuild a common home, and work conscientiously and with firm commitment. You young people must present yourselves to the barracks; do not force the authorities to spill more blood. What do you fear? It is better to endure military discipline than to continue to live hidden at home or even in the mountains like the brigands of the past. In doing so, you do not cover yourself in glory, but rather you become only bandits or idiots. You workers and laborers: think of work, here or elsewhere, without worrying about whether it is Fascist work or National Socialist work; it is simply work and only work, and for this you will never suffer any boredom or reprisal. As for you so-called bourgeois, listen less to Radio London and more to your Italian heart, which, you can be certain, will not let you down.

Today all of our lives are at stake, and complaining is of no use. By collaborating with true Italians here or beyond the Garigliano, we can stall for time and bring the tempo down from agitato to andantino, perhaps con brio, but without suddenly planting knives into each other's backs and shortening the life of the purest Italians, who do not want anything other than what the best fighters all want: to save the honor, independence and future of the Fatherland.