(Published in Corrispondenza Repubblicana, October 16, 1944)
By Benito Mussolini
Radio Bari, taking its cue from Churchill's recent references to Italian politics and giving a rather amusing interpretation to the words of the British prime minister, announced to its listeners that Italy, "so long as it is subject to the clauses of the armistice, can regard its isolation as coming to an imminent end, an isolation in which it had been imprisoned by foolish Fascist policy". Behold! This is an original piece of news that would make people laugh if it did not reflect the degree of intellectual and moral degradation to which some Italians have been reduced.
The inversion of values and terms invented by Radio London continues to brainwash its listeners into thinking that the invader is a liberator, and that whoever wants a great, strong and respected Fatherland is no longer a patriot, but a traitor; meanwhile those who murder patriots are regarded as the true patriots and heroes. Following this same inverted logic, the policy of national affirmation and confirmation of all our spiritual, military and economic positions carried out by the Fascist Regime over last the twenty years is, according to Radio Bari, nothing more than "a foolish Fascist policy of isolation".
From the ideological point of view, Fascist Italy was isolated from the Anglo-Saxon and Soviet worlds. Nor could one expect otherwise, since it arose precisely in opposition to the two-faced Janus of materialism: Plutocracy and Communism. In return, Fascist Italy had crossed the borders of the peninsula and took root in many other countries, giving rise to political movements similar to the Italian one, but with particular historical and spiritual characteristics. Germany, Spain, Portugal and Romania ideologically aligned themselves on the front of opposition against Plutocracy and Communism. Other countries, such as Poland and Brazil, with some hesitation, placed themselves on more or less the same path; in all other countries, England included, movements similar to Fascism were born and gained ground, with particular success in Belgium and Holland. Thus throughout Europe—and not only throughout Europe—Italy spread a dense network of ideal interests, of which Italy was the shining center. For the first time in the modern era, Italy led the way, giving humanity a doctrine, a creed, a way of life, a completely perfect concept of individuality, sociality and nationality.
Is it therefore correct to say that Italy was isolated? Let's see. Mussolini's Italy inaugurated its policy by rekindling relations with the major allies of the First World War on a level of equal dignity that liberal-democratic Italy had never known. She reinvigorated Italy with full consciousness of her own interests which had been sacrificed at Versailles and with the firm determination to vindicate the respect due to it; but she did not become stiffened by blind national selfishness: right from the very beginning, Italy followed a course of action that aimed at a peaceful and trusting arrangement of European coexistence. She followed this course up to the eve of the present conflict, with a consistency which was never deviated from.
The stages of this policy—inspired by a superior vision of international relations based on a truly modern and current concept of justice among peoples—are still present in everyone's mind: the recognition of the U.S.S.R. (Fascist Italy preceded all other nations of the world in its diplomatic recognition of the Soviets), the Locarno Treaties, the Four-Power Pact, the Stresa Front, the Munich Conference. Can one call "isolated" a nation that for twenty years has been the most lively and active diplomatic center of Europe, a breeding ground for negotiations and agreements, a nursery of inexhaustible political initiatives?
Moreover, Fascist Italy also provided the means of breaking its geographical isolation, first by securing full and effective possession of Libya, which brought our flags to the extreme south of its Saharan borders, then by conquering Ethiopia, which, unified with our older possessions of Eritrea and Somalia, constituted a great colonial empire in the heart of Africa, straddling the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The Empire had the dual function of opening our demographic power and of mining many of the raw materials needed by our industry and of some tropical products equally useful to industry and supply.
Radio Bari now speaks of Italian isolation coming to an end. What does this really mean? It means that in its international relations, Italy—as willed by the traitors and swindlers who control the other side of the Apennines—does not count and would no longer count, it would only receive orders from London, Washington and Moscow; it means geographical isolation, since, with the colonies and the empire lost, Italy would once again return to being the country it was as soon as it first emerged from the struggle for independence; it means ideological isolation, which indeed would no longer exist, because, once its own original doctrine is renounced, Italy would tear itself apart into factions unleashed by foreign ideologies, as is already happening in the occupied part of the country. After being the battlefield of foreign armies, it would become a bloody theater of fratricidal struggle between Italians subservient to French and American democracy, English liberalism and Muscovite Sovietism. The Italians would cease to think for themselves, but they would happily kill each other in a dispute over imported doctrines.
Radio Bari says that isolationism in Italy is about to end. Let's correct them: it is already over. Are there not Englishmen, Canadians, New Zealanders, Indians, Australians, Americans, African and American Negroes, Frenchmen, Moroccans, etc., in Italy? Do you not receive orders from an Allied Control Commission, which, even if it has ceased to exist on paper, continues to rage as before and even more so than before? Has not Royal Italy become the noisiest hubbub in the world? It is no longer isolated: it is a bridge of passage, a convenient corridor for all people and all international and global interests. There is room for everyone and everything in Allied-Occupied Italy, except Italians and Italian interests.
