CARLO SFORZA

Bolshevism must live and die of itself, without pressure from abroad.

The nationalist right and the nebulously but fervently revolutionary left found each other once more in Fascism with its double face of conservatism and subversion.

It was demographic necessities which constrained Italy to this policy of reforms; and it was also geographic necessities, for with her naturally poor south she had to overcome in some way the economic inequality between her regions.

Certain sections of the upper classes abroad, identifying conservatism with mere material repression, are given to praising Signor Mussolini

The fusion of elements united solely by a faith in violence--the lack of a precise political and moral program--the fact that most of the enthusiastic rank and file of Fascism boasted of impersonating "dynamic action" and not doctrinally defined principles--all combined to create a situation in which the Fascist movement evolved quickly, and without the knowledge of the majority of its followers, into an instrument of reaction.

Italy is in truth a poor country with a population which does not all find employment in its native land--whence the phenomenon of emigration. She also possesses large numbers of intellectual proletarians who have got to eat even if they find no employment after graduation from school. It is, therefore, only too explicable that there has had to be a social policy leading to the creation of numerous officials, some of which may be noxious to the development of certain branches of national activity. For the same reason it was natural in a country with moderate capitalist enterprise that laws should be enacted favoring cooperation. Thus we came to have thousands upon thousands of cooperative enterprises in Italy …

Abandoned by the industrial aristocracy, abandoned by the ex-soldiers who have once more been impregnated with the ancient democratic spirit of the nation, and by the generals who had led the Italian armies to victory and who on becoming members of the Senate have voted there against the Government, Fascism finds itself supported solely by the landed proprietors and by its own militia, which constitutes the only army of a party known to modern Europe.

There were the well-to-do intellectuals, pushed toward Fascism by their hostility to the working masses and by their disdain of the uncouth ways of the Socialists who, without adequate preparation, had taken possession of many municipalities and had been administering them in a manner even more ridiculous than dishonest.

The landed proprietors as a class are little qualified to pass judgment as to the real and the fictitious in certain social phenomena; on the other hand, they are naturally inclined to follow any conservative tendency, afraid as they are of a return of serious disorders .... The great industrialists were not thinking of combatting Bolshevism, which they knew very well did not threaten them any longer; they were up in arms against the socialist, or socializing, spirit of reform which had been gradually developing in the first twenty years of this century

The longevity of the Fascist regime can well be measured by the stability and consistency of the norm which has become its central idea: that is, the negation of classes and of class struggles, even the negation of political parties, because every human being and every spiritual force in the country must be entirely subservient to the nation-state, which in its turn is interpreted exclusively by Fascism.

What is certain is that today, though many great land owners still favor Fascism--which is only natural because the agricultural classes are always the slowest to change--captains of industry have already expressed through their authoritative spokesmen the opinion that Fascist excesses in the way of political reaction and repression of the workers represent a grave danger for the industrial classes.

It was demographic necessities which constrained Italy to this policy of reforms; and it was also geographic necessities, for with her naturally poor south she had to overcome in some way the economic inequality between her regions.

Italy is in truth a poor country with a population which does not all find employment in its native land--whence the phenomenon of emigration. She also possesses large numbers of intellectual proletarians who have got to eat even if they find no employment after graduation from school. It is, therefore, only too explicable that there has had to be a social policy leading to the creation of numerous officials, some of which may be noxious to the development of certain branches of national activity. For the same reason it was natural in a country with moderate capitalist enterprise that laws should be enacted favoring cooperation. Thus we came to have thousands upon thousands of cooperative enterprises in Italy …

The landed proprietors as a class are little qualified to pass judgment as to the real and the fictitious in certain social phenomena; on the other hand, they are naturally inclined to follow any conservative tendency, afraid as they are of a return of serious disorders .... The great industrialists were not thinking of combatting Bolshevism, which they knew very well did not threaten them any longer; they were up in arms against the socialist, or socializing, spirit of reform which had been gradually developing in the first twenty years of this century

The fusion of elements united solely by a faith in violence--the lack of a precise political and moral program--the fact that most of the enthusiastic rank and file of Fascism boasted of impersonating "dynamic action" and not doctrinally defined principles--all combined to create a situation in which the Fascist movement evolved quickly, and without the knowledge of the majority of its followers, into an instrument of reaction.

The longevity of the Fascist regime can well be measured by the stability and consistency of the norm which has become its central idea: that is, the negation of classes and of class struggles, even the negation of political parties, because every human being and every spiritual force in the country must be entirely subservient to the nation-state, which in its turn is interpreted exclusively by Fascism.

Abandoned by the industrial aristocracy, abandoned by the ex-soldiers who have once more been impregnated with the ancient democratic spirit of the nation, and by the generals who had led the Italian armies to victory and who on becoming members of the Senate have voted there against the Government, Fascism finds itself supported solely by the landed proprietors and by its own militia, which constitutes the only army of a party known to modern Europe.

Certain sections of the upper classes abroad, identifying conservatism with mere material repression, are given to praising Signor Mussolini

The nationalist right and the nebulously but fervently revolutionary left found each other once more in Fascism with its double face of conservatism and subversion.

There were the well-to-do intellectuals, pushed toward Fascism by their hostility to the working masses and by their disdain of the uncouth ways of the Socialists who, without adequate preparation, had taken possession of many municipalities and had been administering them in a manner even more ridiculous than dishonest.

Bolshevism must live and die of itself, without pressure from abroad.