Speech in Cremona, September 7, 1920

By Benito Mussolini

Now that you have applauded me so vigorously, please listen to me carefully and do not interrupt me until the end. I address the same prayer to my opponents and to my enemies, if they are present here.

A philosophical proposition teaches us that it is very difficult to persuade men with words; in order to persuade them, events must take place. However, I would consider myself proud if I could convince those who, without even knowing me personally, are victims of the most common type of idiocy. There are so many of them that I have had to adopt the most curious polemical system...

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Everyone accuses us of something: the Republicans accuse us of defending the bourgeoisie; pacifists accuse us of imperialism and of always wanting new wars; lovers of the quiet life depict us as the architects of all violence. In short, they have a false and incomplete conception of us.

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Our Fascism, the program of the Fasci di Combattimento, has nothing to do with the interventionist league created by Salandra during the war. In fact, our league was founded on March 23, 1919, and did not immediately have a well-defined program.

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Our postulates were and remain these: to defend the national war, to exalt the Italian victory, and to strenuously oppose the Russian imitation of our socialism.

We Fascists do not belong to the disgruntled species of repentant Magdalenes. And we are brutal in this affirmation. If we were to repeat the situation of May 1915, we would, without hesitation, repeat our gesture.

As for the Socialists, who oppose us so much due to our firm position of interventionism in a national war, they should be grateful to us! Without us they would not be where they are today! These spiritual sharks of the war, the Socialists, falsely curse that fact because without it, which they skillfully and wickedly exploited, they would not have their 156 howling monkeys in Parliament, nor would they have their 1,800,000 votes.

Our action was not in defense of war itself and for itself, but in defense of our war. Moreover, even the Socialists themselves do not denounce all wars, but rather distinguish between wars that can be done and wars that must be done. They distinguish, it is fine, but for their theories all wars should not be equal.

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We were anticipators, that is all; we did not defend war, but our war, which was imposed on us: the national war. And if, due to insufficient and deficient diplomacy or the unawareness of the people, it did not provide the results that logically come with victory, this is not to be attributed to the war, nor to those heroes who fought it.

Our program? We are a minority and we do not want to be a majority. We prefer excellent quality to mediocre quantity. One million sheep will always be dispersed by the roar of a single lion. We are the gypsies of Italian politics. Gypsies, because we have a long way to go, and despite having a goal, it is not dogmatic; gypsies, because in our camp there is a place for all political ideas, provided they have a common love for the Nation.

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We are completely dedicated to Fiume; not only because of the Italian city, but also because after the Treaty of Versailles, where European plutocracy gave itself a hateful spectacle, D'Annunzio's gesture was the only truly beautiful and effective one. We have made it our cause. D'Annunzio can count on us to the last man. I for one consider myself a disciplined soldier for his cause.

In 1920 we continued our work. Propaganda in the redeemed lands has given excellent results: in Trieste we have ten thousand Fascists, including a thousand women. In Trieste there was also an enemy nest: the Hotel Balkan. It went up in flames and was exposed as a true enemy fortress on Italian soil.

Are we Imperialists? Everyone who is not dying or impotent is an imperialist, and likewise a people who are young and strong are imperialist. However, there is a difference between our imperialism and other imperialism, and there is a difference in approach. We are not like the Prussian imperialists, who are eager for eternal military conquest; we are Roman imperialists, because we want to sustain, according to the immortal laws of Rome, a legitimate conquest carried out by arms.

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Yesterday they took Valona away from us; little by little they will take away Libya from us tomorrow; and they will even take away Trieste if some foreign or domestic Yugoslav will want it! But the French continue to occupy Syria and Cilicia and fight to maintain it; and the English will not abandon Mesopotamia, where they fight to maintain their rule, and they have not given us Malta, and they have not returned Gibraltar to Spain, nor Egypt to the Egyptians, nor Ireland to the Irish!

We will renounce our imperialism when other countries renounce theirs. But as long as others continue, and with the conscientious approval of the whole proletariat (because in England there is no worker who does dare entertain the thought of abandoning colonial rule), we believe that Italy is at least entitled to its legitimate expansion in the Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean to the Mediterraneans! And since Italy truly occupies the first place in this sea, since Spain's right is far below ours and France is a predominantly Atlantic nation, Italy has the right not to be sacrificed. And we want the Adriatic as our water basin, like the enclosed gulf of Venice, because we no longer want to be harassed by anyone.

And is all of this imperialism? Of course not; it is simply an accurate view of necessity and reality!

Are we monarchists? I begin first of all with this aphorism: a people must always have those institutions that are suitable to its nature. There have been aristocratic and oligarchic republics; and there are popular monarchies, like in England, where the king is but a symbol of representation. If tomorrow the monarchy became an obstacle to Italian progress, then we would abandon the monarchy, because we are not bound by any prejudices regarding the form of government. But today, in 1920, we do not believe it is useful to accept a republican government.

And now we arrive at the question of the labour movement.

To say that we are opposed to the workers is to speak stupidity. The working class is too essential an element in the life of the nation, whatever its number may be. I am full of admiration for the workers and peasants. It would be absurd if I did not love those who print my articles, or the farmer who works the land for twelve or fourteen hours a day. I fight only the degeneration of the workers' movement mystified by the new priests [i.e. the socialists]. And I think the allusion is clear enough.

We also have no prejudices against property. The patrons of our socialism now too recognize the need for small private property. There was a convinced Communist who once said that flower pots on house windows will never be kept in a collectivist regime. We look at the problem from the point of view of production and well-being. If it can be demonstrated that collective property is more beneficial and productive, then we will declare our support for it; but if it is proven that private property is more useful to the national economy, then we will support that.

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But we are opposed to certain exaggerations. The working mass, as a whole, is insufficient to sustain a national economy closely linked to the global economy. And then, in Italy, out of a total of fourteen or fifteen million urban and agricultural workers, we have only two million organized workers and these are still divided between five organizations. There are still too many independent and therefore individualistic people. In summary, regarding the workers, our program is as follows: maximum freedom and maximum well-being. But we despise when workers become a blind instrument in the hands of a political party. In such cases we must strike without mercy; and if we also have to damage the sheep in order to strike the shepherds, that is too bad for them.

I must now clearly establish the position of the Fascists with regards to the other parties: the historical ones and the modern ones.

Among the historical ones, I want to talk about the Republican Party. I infinitely admire this party; I only regret that its components are melancholic and I hate melancholy people.

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The Republican Party had great men and great names. Mazzini should be the gospel of the new generations. ... Unfortunately, our sympathy towards the party is not reciprocated.

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I am reactionary and revolutionary, depending on the circumstances. It's better to say, if I may use this chemical term, that I am a reagent. If the wagon falls, I think I do well if I try to stop it; if the people run towards the abyss, I am not reactionary if I stop it, even with violence. But I am certainly revolutionary when I go against all overriding conservative stiffness and against every libertarian tyranny.

Regarding the Italian People's Party, I declare immediately that I am not anti-clerical in principle. The anti-clericalism of those who continue to speak of perpetual intrigues by priests, is something that is now stale and outdated. I wish to add, moreover, that we are not anti-Catholic. In Italy we have a great recognized force; Rome speaks to some 400 million men. Rome, besides being the capital of Italy, must be regarded as the capital of an immense spiritual empire. If nationalism utilized the strength of Catholicism for the purpose of national expansion, I believe it could of great value. And this force of Catholicism exists; France proves it; after a trial lasting for many years, they have now reconciled with the Church.

The Italian People's Party is also a force, but not without serious dangers. It is a force because, still being very young, it already counts two hundred and fifty thousand votes, one hundred deputies and three representatives to the government. But its political work is no competition for the Socialist Party. ... Moreover, for a long time this party has conducted a work of base demagoguery, and as you people of Cremona know well, their campaigns are full of lying propaganda.

Now let's talk a bit about the Socialist Party.

We are not opposed to socialism itself, but to its current Bolshevik mask. Russia today is still an enormous prison and an enormous monastery. We want nothing to do with them. We accepted the first Russian Revolution, the one that destroyed Tsarist autocracy, but we do not accept today's so-called dictatorship of the proletariat. In Russia all the fractions of socialism are opposed to the current regime. And despite so much big talk about equality, small property still exists; and they have made twenty-seven categories of wages, categories that differ not according to the needs of the the worker's family, but according to individual merits; and they have a police force in Russia, a red police, capable of crushing our own; and they have a powerful army. Such a situation can not be inflicted upon us Mediterraneans, who are accustomed to light and to open warfare; and if there is anyone who wants to bring it here, then we are ready to defend ourselves, even if it means civil war.

The Socialist ringleaders should thank us because we saved them. If we did not fight [the Bolsheviks], then their experiment would have been implemented here.

In Russia the experiment has lasted for years, but it is about to end; certainly they no longer follow the original movement. In Hungary, Communism lasted 133 days. In Italy, due to our special conditions, it would not last more than two or three weeks; and then there would be hunger, then desolation, and then, perhaps, national dismemberment.

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Today the Socialists are trying to accomplish the same work that, when exercised by us, has been called 'reactionary'. We must thank them for exposing themselves as comedians. Historical reality does not change in twenty-four hours: in a day you could change the coat of arms and depose a king, but it is not possible to change a national economy that has suffered for centuries.

Today, the national economy is very complex: close to the big owners, we find cooperatives, but anyone who wants to break the main springs that hold it together will inevitably lead the economy to irreparable disaster.

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What I have outlined above are the fundamental features of the Fasci di Combattimento. To conclude, we are not imperialists, but we want to vindicate Italy's just claims; we are not monarchists, but we do not follow republican prejudices; we are not opposed to collectivist workers' management, as long as it provides a guarantee of greater well-being for the nation.

I am not a priest holding a bag of alms and asking you to join the Fasci di Combattimento. I am not here to engage in proselytism. We are not propagandists...

I have been explicit, clear and honest. We are not for war, but we will not hesitate to fire upon those who attack us. ... It is not imperialism that we speak of, but the absolute necessity of national expansion. I believe that the intermediate parties are shrinking due to lack of men. They are all the same, and only concern themselves with breaking the scepter of power against each other. Even the war veterans are unable to find political unity.

Now is the time for anti-demagogic Fascism; the time for a healthy political activity that brings national life back to its proper place, free from the burden of tassels and statutes. Because our only ideal is the maximum greatness of Italy.

(The closing of the speech is greeted by a great ovation. While on stage, around Mussolini, the flags shake due to the frenetic applause and dramatic shouts, including shouts of "long live Italy", "long live Mussolini" and "long live Fiume". Demonstration is renewed upon seeing the flag of Fiume, which waves in front of all the others. Applause lasts several minutes; then, little by little, the people dispierse and take part in the formation of the procession.)