Mussolini:

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVI, Issue 86, 27 March 1926, Page 9

Mussolini:

A Patriotic Socialist

Brief Story of His Life

(By UMBER! O MORELLI, in the English Review.)

“I am afraid,” says Umberto Morelli, the writer of the following article in the English Review, that instead of writing a review of Signora Margherita Sarfatti’s most interesting book ‘The Life of Benito Mussolini,’ I have written a criticism. And because a criticism should be an explanation, I have tried to lay stress on some points in the book which might not have been quite clear to English readers unfamiliar with the pre-war conditions of Italy.” And this is the man Mussolini and his work for Italy, as seen by Umberto Morelli: —

J do not wish, here, to discuss the influence which omens may have on the mind of man. I shall limit myself to stating one such belief which undoubtedly has been fulfilled. It is that of the Sonntags Kind, so dear to Goethe, who, being himself one, held that a child born on a Sunday was destined to meet with a happy fate and to achieve success in everything. Benito Mussolini was born on July 29, 1883 —a Sunday. The son of a generous blacksmith and of a delicate schoolmistress, he was to inherit from his father a patrimony of unselfishness ; from his mother the iron determination which now and then pierced the veil of her constant gentleness; and from rugged Romagna one of her deeprooted characteristics—chivalry. For Romagna, the green and sunny Romagna of Dante, Carducci, and Pascoli, lying between the Apennines and the River Po—the Romagna which takes her name from the Eternal City, and still prides herself on those same virtues of frugality, laboriousness, courage, and fidelity which belonged to the one-time masters of the world—was the cradle of this newly-born child, who, like his ancestor of Bologna, was to become a capitano del popolo,* equally valiant in his armour and in hrs robes ; now scattering foreign hosts, now the internal foes ever rebelling for selfish causes. Mussolini’s life—like the lives of the great men of all ages—has been a masterpiece of continuity along one straight line; a life dominated' by one idea —regeneration. And as regeneration is not to be achieved without preliminary demolition, we shall find young Mussolini among the revolutionaries; nay, at the head of them, but with this difference—that while his companions were getting ready solely for destruction, he was all the time planning the reconstruction of Italy. That is why, when (after having achieved his revolution) he set out to build the new order, his former idolaters called him a “traitor” and his foreign critics a ‘‘turn-coat. ” Of course, nothing is so disappointing to a “liberal” mind as the spectable of a man who threatens to upset the world, but instead of doing so in the classical way, with blood and thunder, sits quietly at a table and works. At this point, I think, we might pause a little and examine Mussolini’s Socialism. ITALY AFTER THE WAR. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the generation of giants

which had made the new Italy was dead. In its place had grown up a j generation of mushrooms, wnu— j tired of high political ideals —had abandoned them for a cynical commercialism. Southern Italy clamoured in vain foi' roads, railways, bridges, aqueducts, sanitation, schools. The Premiers (very often Southerners themselves, like Nitti) and the Members of Parliament did not want to be bothered. The only thing they were concerned with was to remain in office. It was immaterial to them if this “office” was only to be bought with flasks of wine from the ignorant voters, or with pledges of blind obedience to the will of the all-powerful Freemasonry of the French rite, which by now controlled not only the banks and the Press, but also the State itself, in this way establishing a new form of nepotism, which in a, short time was to make of a young nation a corrupted and decadent; body steeped in materiality and, scoffing at anything noble, generous, | and high. Fair competition—the only thing that can better the human race —had been banished, because any born idiot who became a Free'mason was sure to climb higher than any intelligent man who' would not sell his honesty. The crucifix had been routed out of all the schools. The beautiful night prayer of the sailors watching at sea had. been equally forbidden, severing thus the last chord to remind sons that their mothers had entrusted to them their defence. Italy—ironically called one I . of the Great Powers of Europe— | had been made to bend her knee' before any foreigner who raised his ' voice. Not even the memory of] those who died for the national' independence was to be respected longer; not even the Garibaldian' songs—real national anthems—were to be allowed, since our “dear ally,” Austria, had made known hcf dislike ' for them. In short, it was an epoch '■ of slow suffocation for whoever was born with or acquired ideas different from those allowed by the Free- * masons. And to think that our I foreign friends, the Liberals, arc shedding so many tears on the coffin of the dead Italian. Masonry! Perhaps to-morrow—if they forget also what Gladstone wrote to the Times —they will advocate the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne of Naples. Nothing, indeed, could be more consistent. THE RISE OF MUSSOLINI. It is, then, not to be wondered at that, as Turati, the Socialist leader said: “Everybody who was not a good-for-nothing turned Socialist, ’ for it was a striking fact that the new recruits were not drawn from the common people, but from the i middle classes, and even from the : aristocracy. Nor is it to be won-: dered at that Mussolini, the very man for surgical action, could not ? remain aloof and wait for the putri- , fied corpse to come back to life. [ No! He had brain, he had courage. I He had to become a Socialist, a ‘ revolutionary, an armed prophet; ’ but, unlike the others, he was an ; Italian first. • His companions talked of inter- • national bliss; he studied economics, ! finance, agriculture, trade, industry, 1 1 While others were swollen with the I wind of their own rhetoric on the [ subject of tyranny and liberty, he ; was storing power for his revolution. - Every time he cast his eye over the ‘ boundary—that boundary which he, , the Socialist, could not bdar to think of because on the other side there ’ were still millions of Italians under , Austrian rule—ho averted his gaze . with rage, the rage of one stung in . his national pride. On the one side there was civilisation, while on Ins ’ side there were fattened Masons, i misery, and lack of discipline. And from the top of his Socialistic ladder he struck his first mighty ’ .blow at Freemasonry—no Freemason J was to be allowed in the Socialist i ranks. The second, and still more 1 terrible blow, was to be delivered by ‘ the same man when at the height of his power, both as a Fascist I leader and a Prime Minister—no Civil Servant could be a Free1 mason. ■ Italy, freed at last from her dreadful cancer, was ready for pro- ■ gress HIS WAR SERVICES. , [ Anne Kuliscioff had guessed right: “He (Mussolini) is nothing [ of a Marxist, nor is lie really a ■ ' Socialist at all.” 1 Mussolini sympathised with the ' economic difficulties of the working ■ classes, and had fougnt to obtain for them better conditions of life, 1 . but he was nothing of the “Inter- ; national Red.” He was an Italian, ! and. as an Italian he could not possibly think of siding in the World War with the Central Powers, of allying with Austria, the nation which still held two Italian provinces — Trento and Trieste. In the beginning, there- ’ ■ fore, all his efforts were concentrated against the Nationalists. i I who were inclined to favour fighting ; against France, and he paralysed I their machinations by the following • declaration printed in Avanti, the

| great Socialist daily he edited: “The moment Italy showed inclination to break neutrality in order to back up the Central Powers, the Italian Proletariat would have but the one duty—we say it out clearly and distinctly--that of rising in rebellion!” This was soon after followed up by an assertion that Italians could be “neither friends nor accomplices of Austria, nor of Germany.” And when he had succeeded in compelling Italy to remain neutral, he immediately began to work for the war of liberation of the two Italian provinces. He resigned the editorship of Avanti, founded the Popolo d’ltalia, and started to preach against the murderers of Belgium. Then the war came; and Mussolini joined the army, fought, and received forty-two wounds. By November 4th., 1918, along the River Piave, the Austrian Empire was smashed to bits by the valour of the Italian Army. Germany, realising that she would now jhave to deal with a victorious army j attacking from the south, ceased hostilities on November 11th. But the Italian Ministers of the older generation ,accustomed to see their country constantly on her knees, found it hard to realise that Italy had won the war. They took with them to Versailles their habitual love of conciliation, they reaped many a compliment on the remarkable way in which they spoke French, and returned to Rome with swollen heads and empty hands. COMMUNISM AND VIOLENCE. In a few months’ time the whom country was in the throes of chaos. The Communists sent from Russia were fanning the fires lit here and there by unemployment and by the disgust which many Italians felt fo rtheir wretched Government. In such conditions it is not difficult fot the paid organisers of violence to find recruits amongst the dregs of any nation; and it was esnecially easy in Italy after Nitti ordered that all war deserters should be released from prison. Thus the dregs, encouraged by the conciliatory methods of the Government, grew bolder and bolder every day, until they reached the point of open persecution under the very eyes of the police, and very often even directed their persecution against the police themselves. The Liberals both of Italy and of other countries have advanced since those years of blood and terror, when no one was safe in Italy unless he wore the Soviet badge, although they displayed a very Christian sensitiveness every time ja Fascist compelled a Communist ito drink a couple of ounces of castor oil. Those Liberals would have felt differently even if they 1 had been university students (after ; having served as officers in the war) in towns like Bologna, Milan, or Venice. With my own eyes I have seen students — still in 'uniform, but prevented by the PreI mier Nitti (who now, from abroad, tramples his mother country under foot only because the Italians have not summoned him to the Government) from carrying the revolver which in Italy is part of the uniform —being attacked by a murderous crowd and left dying on the cobbles or in the canals, without ( the police attempting to interfere lor the magistrates to execute jus- ; tice. The Government order was : I “Not to excite the people!” | So it happened that one morning the people of Bologna woke tu realise that there was no bread to be bought that day without producing the Communist card. And, of course, they joined the party for the sake of bread! And another morning, when Turin discovered I that her factories had been occupied by the Communists, two young men were dragged before the revolutionary tribunal formed by anarchists and deserters, and condemned to be thrown alive into the furnaces of a foundry. They were Mario Sonzini and Constantino Scimula. They were young, they had mothers and small brothers entirely dependent on them; tout they had been volunteers in the i war. They were executed after a mock trial of a few minutes. At Molinella —that peaceful Eden of the English Liberal papers, a | village already famous before the I war for the many murders committed by the Reds—a crowd of Communists, men and women, invaded an estate, killed the keepers, disembowelled one of them, and stuffed his carcass with straw. His wife witnessed the whole scene from a window. At Bologna, Dr. Giordani, a war invalid, was shot dead, together with other minority, members, while opposing the Communist majority at a meeting of the Town Council. At Milan, practically all the performers, both in the orchestra and on the stage of the Diana Theatre, were butchered by a Communist bomb. MUSSOLINI BROUGHT SALVATION. Still the Government did not think it wise to interfere. Is it, then, to be wondered at that Mussolini, the man who had become a revolutionary in order to save his country from decay, should take up arms when the cowardice of the Ministers allowed a pack of bloodthirsty wolves, supplied with Russian gold, to put Italy to sack and fire? And is it to be wondered at that the Red Revolution was crushed with its own weapons ? But Mussolini made an original experiment with his revolution. In the past (think of Russia) the revolutionary party has always set up, after a victory, revolutionary tribunals and court-martialled those who did not bend. Mussolini, instead, chose to adhere to constitutional methods. No scaffolds saluted his victory. To future generations history will | bear testimony to the wisdom of his | policy and action. *Capitano del popolo: The chief ' authority in a Free Town, a kind of Lord Mayor, was both a Magistrate and a General.