Speech in Pola, September 21, 1920

By Benito Mussolini

Citizens of Pola! Combatants!

Standing before you is one of the most hated and opposed Italian politicians in the last twenty years of political life. These have exacerbated my eloquence — if ever we can speak of eloquence — to such an extent that I can't help but be flattered.

For me a speech is an action, it is a fight. A direct gaze into the objective. Therefore you will have to believe me when I tell you that I am deeply moved.

We citizens of the old Italy are a bit worn out: we need to spend time among you in order to plunge ourselves back into these magnificent springs of idealism.

I saw the greatness of the Roman Arena emerge, that monument in which our millennial civilization etched its eternal signs. These signs tell us that the Italianness of this city can not perish. I would like to bring those skeptics here who want to see the realization of our victory.

For me the value of our victory is in these signs; it is in the imponderables of the future; it consists in the fact that after fifteen years of slavery, the people realized their victory with their own strength, with their own energies.

Italy's effort in the war was infinitely superior to that of other nations, to whom fortune had given colonial empires to exploit, while we on the other hand achieved victory from our own living flesh and through the bright red blood of our dead.

And this sign of our victory is more visible in Pola, which the Habsburgs had transformed into a lair for their fleet, which never dared to go out into the open sea... From here the Habsburgs dreamed of conquering the Adriatic.

Now this empire is finished, it has collapsed like a house of cards.

I know that in the future, when all Italians become conscious of their victory, they will feel proud and repeat as Napoleon's legionaries did twenty years after the end of the Napoleonic epic: "I was in the trenches; I was at Vittorio Veneto".

Dear friends of Pola, I think that the unity of the Italian race has been realized. Within it is the spiritual value of our victory.

I think that the Adriatic is ours.

Certainly if we had different politicians this value would be more visible, but instead today it is hidden.

The politicians of recent years resemble a descending latter: from Boselli, who was too old, to Orlando, who was always crying, and finally Nitti. He was an economically minded man. Now, I am not saying that the economy is a negligable thing for a large State. But what I am saying is that the whole life of a people can not be seen within that narrow prism to the point that it crushes all spirituality. Nitti was obsessed with material problems more than anything else. He did not see the superbly ideal aspect of national life. Will Giolitti give us the Adriatic peace that we want? I won't hold my breath, because so much renunciation has already taken place.

Such pages of heroism at sea, in the sky and on land have not written by any people of the world like the Italians in this war! I would like to read you the testament of our heroes; that of Decio Raggi and of our own Nazario Sauro; I would like to read the epistles of those young beardless men who went to battle with joy and eagerness, to demonstrate to you how well the Italian people fought. And the agricultural classes fought marvelously, despite having an imperfect understanding of the ideal motives behind our great struggle. I remember the story of a soldier during a battle on the Carso. He said to me: "War is a hob-nailed shoe". And we won it for ourselves and for others. Which nation has been able to make the effort we made in June? None.

Our youths were enthusiastic; they lit bombs the same way they light their cigarettes. It is sufficient to remember Mount Stelvio, Mount Ortigara, the Carso and Monte Grappa. General Diaz announced our victory in a Romanly way in the bulletin of November 3. The value of our victory is, as I said, in the imponderables of the future.

We are in crisis. But all the states of Europe are in crisis. Who hasn't suffered displacement and instability after this war? Perhaps the post-war crisis in France and in England is worse than Italy. Even in Germany and in the states that emerged from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire the situation is worse than Italy.

It seemed like civil war would break out; whereas instead we have achieved a profoundly revolutionary transformation in production relations. I am ready to give the working class the right to control the factories, just as soon as they are able to bring greater well-being to the Nation.

If the ruling class is dying, then—according to the conviction of Vilfredo Pareto—it is necessary that new social elites arise to replace it. But today I deny this superiority of the working class. I deny it especially for the fact that it is dominated by a demagogy that has only changed its colour. Priests have been replaced by new priests.

It would be bad enough if these demagogues were limited to making an economic policy; but they also deal with foreign policy, always placing themselves in opposition to Italian interests and on the side of our national enemies! Hence why Bolshevism is stronger in Trieste and Pola than in Milan; they are trying to damage Italy by creating a danger in our border regions.

I founded the Fasci di Combattimento during a critical hour of Italian political life, an hour in which everyone tried to forget Vittorio Veneto, an hour in which everyone was almost ashamed of having won the war.

I ask myself: where do I find this ideal flame, this faith in our moral victory?

We are a nation that has had 500,000 dead, which has youth that fought tenaciously likes our did, that has energies that impress the world.

But other positive events also strengthen my faith. Among these the greatest is Gabriele D'Annunzio's enterprise! It is the only great act of revolt against the plutocratic oligarchy of Versailles; against the tyrants named Lloyd George, Clemenceau and Wilson! It is the only will in Europe that—straight and taut like the blade of a great Latin sword—did not bow before the violence of Versailles!

Thus we wanted to carry out a very Italian revolution!

What is the history of the Fascists? It is brilliant. We burned [the Socialist newspaper] Avanti! in Milan, we destroyed it in Rome. We destroyed our opponents in electoral struggles. We set fire to the Croatian headquarters in Trieste, we set the one in Pola on fire.

We have demonstrated that we will not allow anyone to destroy with impunity; they must go through us!

Our adversaries slander us: they call us bourgeois. We don't care. These are labels devoid of any meaning. We are right to those who are right, and wrong to those who are wrong.

We are reactionaries, we are reactionary against madness: we saved the masses of people who were on the brink of the abyss. If the Hungarian experiment had been repeated in Italy, the Italian people would have fallen into a chasm.

Reaction certainly would have been victorious. We almost think it was been to let fate happen in order to free the nation from this nightmare.

Today, however, the Socialist Party is no longer the bully: for safety's sake it is forced to hide in the suburbs of Milan.

We can not give credence to their idealistic idiocy which is too universal and too utopian.

Dear Istrians! On our side of the mountains there is an aggressive people who want to reach the Adriatic.

This sea might an Italian-Serbian sea commercially, but it will never be so militarily!

Italy—being the most compact nucleus after Russia and Germany, since it has fifty million people—will be the power destined to direct all European politics from the Mediterranean. From London, Paris and Berlin, the axis will move to Rome. Italy must be the bridge between the West and the East.

As far as our expansion in the Mediterranean and in the East, Italy is driven by demographic factors. Our territory is too small for such an exuberant people.

But to realize the Mediterranean dream, the Adriatic—which is our gulf—must be in our hands. When dealing with a race such as the Slavic, which is inferior and barbaric, we must not pursue the policy of the carrot, but that of the stick.

The Italian people have three qualities that guarantee success: they are prolific, they are laborious, they are intelligent.

In the near future, just as the old Roman citizen, every Italian will repeat: I am proud to be Italian!

We no longer fear the renunciations. If Count Sforza dared to renounce anything, then Gabriele D'Annunzio's legionaries would occupy all those territories which the minister renounced!

Italy's borders must run along the Brenner Pass, Monte Nevoso and the Dinaric Alps. Yes, the Dinaric Alps, because Dalmatia must be redeemed!

Today the work of the Fascists is limited to defending our home territory. Anyone who is in our land illegally or fraudulently must leave.

Our imperialism, which seeks to reach the rightful boundaries marked by God and by nature, and which wants to expand in the Mediterranean, is not the same as the violent Prussian one, nor the hypocritical English one; instead it is the Roman one.

We can not disarm until others disarm; we can not turn our swords into plows until the same thing is done by the other States and by neighboring Yugoslavia!

Enough with the poems. Enough with evangelical idiocy.

Keeping Italy firm in its future battles requires your faith and your oath!