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When, in the now distant March of 1919, I summoned a meeting at Milan through the columns of the Popolo Italia of the surviving members of the Interventionist Party who had themselves been in action, and who had followed me since the creation of the Fascist Revolutionary Party (which took place in the January of 1915), I had no specific doctrinal attitude in my mind.
I had a living experience of one doctrine only — that of Socialism, from 1903-4 to the winter of 1914 — that is to say, about a decade: and from Socialism itself, even though I had taken part in the movement first as a member of the rank and file and then later as a leader, yet I had no experience of its doctrine in practice.
My own doctrine, even in this period, had always been a doctrine of action.
A unanimous, universally -accepted theory of Socialism did not exist after 1905, when the revisionist movement began in Germany under the leadership of Bernstein, while under pressure of the tendencies of the time, a Left Revolutionary movement also appeared, which though never getting further than talk in Italy, in Russian Socialistic circles laid the foundations of Bolshevism. Reformation, Revolution, Centralization — already the echoes of these terms are spent — while in the great stream of Fascism are to be found ideas which began with Sorel, Peguy, with Lagerdelle in the “ Mouvement Socialiste,” and with the Italian trades-union movement which throughout the period 1904-14 was sounding a new note in Italian Socialist circles (already weakened by the betrayal of Giolitti) through Olivetti’s Pagine Libre Orano’s La Lupa and Enrico Leone’s Divenire Sociale.
After the War, in 1919, Socialism was already dead as a doctrine: it existed only as a hatred.
There remained to it only one possibility of action, especially in Italy, reprisals against those who had desired the War and who must now be made to “ expiate ” its results.
The Popolo Italia was then given the sub-title of “The newspaper of ex-service men and producers,” and the word producers was already the expression of a mental attitude.
Fascism was not the nursling of a doctrine worked out beforehand with detailed elaboration; it was bom of the need for action and it was itself from the beginning practical rather than theoretical; it was not merely another political party but, even in the first two years, in opposition to all political parties as such, and itself a living movement.
The name which I then gave to the organization fixed its character.
And yet, if one were to re-read, in the now dusty columns of that date, the report of the meeting in which the Fasci Italiana di combattimento were constituted, one would there find no ordered expression of doctrine, but a series of aphorisms, anticipations and aspirations which, when refined by time from the original ore, were destined after some years to develop into an ordered series of doctrinal concepts, forming the Fascist political doctrine — different from all others either of the past or the present day.
“If the bourgeoisie,” I said then, ‘‘ think that they will find lightning-conductors in us, they are the more deceived; we must start work at once. . . .
We want to accustom the working-class to real and effectual leadership, and also to convince them that it is no easy thing to direct an industry or a commercial enterprise successfully. . . .
We shall combat every retrograde idea, technical or spiritual. . . .
When the succession to the seat of government is open, we must not be unwilling to fight for it.
We must make haste; when the present regime breaks down, we must be ready at once to take its place.
It is we who have the right to the succession, because it was we who forced the country into the War, and led her to victory.
The present method of political representation cannot suffice, we must have a representation direct from the individuals concerned.
It may be objected against this programme that it is a return to tiie conception of the corporation, but that is no matter. . . .
Therefore, I desire that this assembly shall accept the revindication of national trades-unionism from the economic point of view.
Now is it not a singular thing that even on this first day in the Piazza San Sepolcro that word “ corporation ” arose, which later, in the course of the Revolution, came to express one of the creations of social legislation at the very foundation of the regime?
The years which preceded the march to Rome were years of great difficulty, during which the necessity for action did not permit of research or any complete elaboration of doctrine.
The battle had to be fought in the towns and villages.
There was much discussion, but — what was more important and more sacred — men died.
They knew how to die.
Doctrine, beautifully defined and carefully elucidated, with headlines and paragraphs, might be lacking; but there was to take its place something more decisive — Faith.
Even so, anyone who can recall the events of the time through the aid of books, articles, votes of congresses and speeches of great and minor importance — anyone who knows how to research and weigh evidence — will find that the fundamentals of doctrine were cast during the years of conflict.
It was precisely in those years that Fascist thought armed itself, was refined, and began the great task of organization.
The problem of the relation between the individual citizen and the State; the allied problems of authority and liberty; political and social problems as well as those specifically national — a solution was being sought for all these while at the same time the struggle against Liberalism, Democracy, Socialism and the Masonic bodies was being carried on, contemporaneously with the “ punitive expedition.”
But, since there was inevitably some lack of system, the adversaries of Fascism have disingenuously denied that it had any capacity to produce a doctrine of its own, though that doctrine was growing and taking shape under their very eyes, even though tumultuously; first, as happens to all ideas in their beginnings, in the aspect of a violent and dogmatic negation, and then in the aspect of positive construction which has found its realization in the laws and institutions of the regime as enacted successively in the years 1926, 1927, and 1928.
Fascism is now a completely individual thing, not only as a regime but as a doctrine.
And this means that to-day Fascism, exercising its critical sense upon itself and upon others, has formed its own distinct and peculiar point of view, to which it can refer and upon which, therefore, it can act in the face of all problems, practical or intellectual, which confront the world.
And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace.
It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism — bom of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice.
War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it.
All other tri^s are substitutes, which never really put men into the position where they have to make the great decision — the alternative of life or death.
Thus a doctrine which is founded upon this harmful postulate of peace is hostile to Fascism.
And thus hostile to the spirit of Fascism, though accepted for what use they can be in deaUng with particular political situations, are all the international leagues and societies which, as history will show, can be scattered to the winds when once strong national feeling is aroused by any motive — sentimental, ideal, or practical.
This anti-Pacifist spirit is carried by Fascism even into the life of the individual; the proud motto of the Squadrista ‘‘Me ne frego,” written on the bandage of the wound, is an act of philosophy not only stoic, the summary of a doctrine not only political — it is the education to combat, the acceptation of the risks which combat implies, and a new way of life for Italy.
Thus the Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide: he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, life which should be high and full, lived for oneself, but above all for others — those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after.
This "demographic” policy of the regime is the result of the above premise.
Thus the Fascist loves in actual fact his neighbour, but this ‘‘ neighbour ’’ is not merely a vague and undefined concept, this love for one’s neighbour puts no obstacle in the way of necessary educational severity, and still less to differentiation of status and to physical distance.
Fascism repudiates any universal embrace, and in order to live worthily in the community of civilized peoples watches its contemporaries with vigilant eyes, takes good note of their state of mind and, in the changing trend of their interests, does not allow itself to be deceived by temporary and fallacious appearances.
Such a conception of life makes Fascism the complete opposite of that doctrine, the base of so-called scientific and Marxian Socialism, the materialist conception of history; according to which the history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production.
That the changes in the economic field — new discoveries of raw materials, new methods of working them, and the inventions of science — have their importance no one can deny; but that these factors are sufficient to explain the history of humanity excluding all others is an absurd delusion.
Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect.
And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class -war is also denied — the natural progeny of the economic conception of history.
And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society.
These two fundamental concepts of Socialism being this refuted, nothing is left of it but the sentimental aspiration — as old as humanity itself— towards a social convention in which the sorrows and sufferings of the humblest shall be alleviated.
But here again Fascism repudiates the conception of “ economic ” happiness, to be realized by Socialism and, as it were, at a given moment in economic evolution to assure to everyone the maximum of well-being.
Fascism denies the materialist conception of happiness as a possibility, and abandons it to its inventors, the economists of the first half of the nineteenth century: that is to say.
Fascism denies the validity of the equation, wellbeing-happiness, which would reduce men to the level of animals, caring for one thing only — to be fat and well-fed — and would thus degrade humanity to a purely physical existence.
After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application.
Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently levelled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage.
The democratic regime may be defined as from time to time giving the people the illusion of sovereignty, while the real effective sovereignty lies in the hands of other concealed and irresponsible forces.
Democracy is a regime nominally without a king, but it is ruled by many kings — more absolute, tyrannical and ruinous than one sole king, even though a tyrant.
This explains why Fascism, having first in 1922 (for reasons of expediency) assumed an attitude tending towards republicanism, renounced this point of view before the march to Rome; being convinced that the question of political form is not to-day of prime importance, and after having studied the examples of monarchies and republics past and present reached the conclusion that monarchy or republicanism are not to be judged, as it were, by an absolute standard ; but that Aey represent forms in which the evolution — political, historical, traditional or psychological — of a particular country has expressed itself.
Fascism supersedes the antithesis monarchy or republicanism, while democracy still tarries beneath the domination of this idea, for ever pointing out the insufficiency of the first and for ever the praising of the second as the perfect regime.
To-day, it can be seen that there are republics innately reactionary and absolutist, and also monarchies which incorporate the most ardent social and political hopes of the future.
"Reason and science,” says Renan (one of the inspired pre-Fascists) in his philosophical meditations, are products of humanity, but to expect reason as a direct product of the people and a direct result of their action is to deceive oneself by a chimera.
It is not necessary for the existence of reason that everybody should understand it.
And in any case, if such a decimation of truth were necessary, it could not be achieved in a low-class democracy, which seems as though it must of its very nature extinguish any kind of noble training.
The principle that society exists solely through the wellbeing and the personal liberty of all the individuals of which it is composed does not appear to be conformable to the plans of nature, in whose workings the race alone seems to be taken into consideration, and the individual sacrificed to it.
It is greatly to be feared that the last stage of such a conception of democracy (though I must hasten to point out that the term ‘ democracy ’ may be interpreted in various ways) would end in a condition of society in which a degenerate herd would have no other preoccupation but the satisfaction of the lowest desires of common men.”
Thus Renan.
Fascism denies, in democracy, the absurd conventional untruth of political equality dressed out in the garb of collective irresponsibility, and the myth of ‘‘ happiness ” and indefinite progress.
But, if democracy may be conceived in diverse forms — that is to say, taking democracy to mean a state of society in which the populace are not reduced to impotence in the State — Fascism may write itself down as “ an organized, centralized and authoritative democracy.”
Fascism has taken up an attitude of complete opposition to the doctrines of Liberalism, both in the political field and the field of economics.
There should be no undue exaggeration (simply with the object of immediate success in controversy) of the importance of Liberalism in the last century, nor should what was but one among many theories which appeared in that period be put forward as a religion for humanity for all time, present and to come.
Liberalism only flourished for half a century.
It was bom in 1830 in reaction against the Holy Alliance, which had been formed with the object of diverting the destinies of Europe back to the period before 1789, and the highest point of its success was the year 1848, when even Pius IX was a Liberal.
Immediately after that date it began to decay, for if the year 1848 was a year of light and hope, the following year, 1849, was a year of darkness and tragedy.
The Republic of Rome was dealt a mortal blow by a sister -republic — that of France — and in the same year Marx launched the gospel of the Socialist religion, the famous Communist Manifesto.
In 1851 Napoleon III carried out his far from Liberal coup d^etat and reigned in France until 1870, when he was deposed by a popular movement as the consequence of a military defeat which must be counted as one of the most decisive in history.
The victor was Bismarck, who knew nothing of the religion of liberty, or the prophets by which that faith was revealed.
And it is symptomatic that such a highly civilized people as the Germans were completely ignorant of the religion of liberty during the whole of the nineteenth century.
It was nothing but a parenthesis, represented by that body which has been called “The ridiculous Parliament of Frankfort,” which lasted only for a short period.
Germany attained her national unity quite outside the doctrines of Liberalism — a doctrine which seems entirely foreign to the German mind, a mind essentially monarchic — while Liberalism is the logical and, indeed, historical forerunner of anarchy.
The stages in the achievement of German unity are the three wars of '64, ’66, and ’70, which were guided by such “ Liberals ” as Von Moltke and Bismarck.
As for Italian unity, its debt to Liberalism is completely inferior in contrast to that which it owes to the work of Mazzini and Garibaldi, who were not Liberals.
Had it not been for the inter vention of the anti-Liberal Napoleon, we should not have gained Lombardy; and without the help of the again antiLiberal Bismarck at Sadowa and Sedan it is very probable that we should never have gained the province of Venice in ’66, or been able to enter Rome in ’70.
From 1870 to 1914 a period began during which even the very high priests of the religion themselves had to recognize the gathering twilight of their faith — defeated as it was by the decadence of literature and atavism in practice — that is to say.
Nationalism, Futurism, Fascism.
The era of Liberalism, after having accumulated an infinity of Gordian knots, tried to untie them in the slaughter of the World War — and never has any religion demanded of its votaries such a monstrous sacrifice.
Perhaps the Liberal Gods were athirst for blood?
But now, to-day, the Liberal faith must shut the doors of its deserted temples, deserted because the peoples of the world realize that its worship — agnostic in the field of economics and indifferent in the field of politics and morals — will lead, as it has already led, to certain ruin.
In addition to this, let it be pointed out that all the political hopes of the present day are anti-Liberal, and it is therefore supremely ridiculous to try to classify this sole creed as outside the judgment of history, as though history were a hunting ground reserved for the professors of Liberalism alone — as though Liberalism were the final unalterable verdict of civilization.
But the Fascist negation of Socialism, Democracy and Liberalism must not be taken to mean that Fascism desires to lead the world back to the state of affairs before 1789, the date which seems to be indicated as the opening years of the succeeding semi-Liberal century: we do not desire to turn back; Fascism has not chosen De Maistre for its high-priest.
Absolute monarchy has been and can never return,any more than blind acceptance of ecclesiastical authority.
So, too, the privileges of the feudal system “ have been,” and the division of society into castes impenetrable from outside, and with no intercommunication among themselves : the Fascist conception of authority has nothing to do with such a polity.
A party which entirely governs a nation is a fact entirely new to history, there are no possible references or parallels.
Fascism uses in its construction whatever elements in the Liberal, Social or Democratic doctrines still have a living value ; it maintains what may be called the certainties which we owe to history, but it rejects all the rest — that is to say, the conception that there can be any doctrine of unquestioned efficacy for all times and all peoples.
Given that the nineteenth century was the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, and of Democracy, it does not necessarily follow that the twentieth century must also be a century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy : political doctrines pass, but humanity remains ; and it may rather be expected that this will be a century of authority, a century of the Left, a century of Fascism.
For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism (Liberalism always signifying individualism) it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism, and hence the century of the State.
It is a perfectly logical deduction that a new doctrine can utilize all the still vital elements of previous doctrines.
No doctrine has ever been born completely new, completely defined and owing nothing to the past; no doctrine can boast a character of complete originality; it must always derive, if only historically, from the doctrines which have preceded it and develop into further doctrines which will follow.
Thus the scientific Socialism of Marx is the heir of the Utopian Socialism of Fourier, of the Owens and of Saint-Simon; thus again the Liberalism of the eighteenth century is linked with all the advanced thought of the seventeenth century, and thus the doctrines of Democracy are the heirs of the Encyclopedists.
Every doctrine tends to direct human activity towards a determined objective; but the action of men also reacts upon the doctrine, transforms it, adapts it to new needs, or supersedes it with something else.
A doctrine then must be no mere exercise in words, but a living act; and thus the value of Fascism lies in the fact that it is veined with pragmatism, but at the same time has a will to exist and a will to power, a firm front in face of the reality of "violence.”
The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim.
Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State.
The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious, and has itself a will and a personality — thus it may be called the “ethic” State.
In 1929, at the first five -yearly assembly of the Fascist regime, I said:
“For us Fascists, the State is not merely a guardian, preoccupied solely with the duty of assuring the personal safety of the citizens; nor is it an organization with purely material aims, such as to guarantee a certain level of well-being and peaceful conditions of life; for a mere council of administration would be sufficient to realize such objects.
Nor is it a purely political creation, divorced from all contact with the complex material reality which makes up the life of the individual and the life of the people as a whole.
The State, as conceived of and as created by Fascism, is a spiritual and moral fact in itself, since its political, juridical and economic organization of the nation is a concrete thing : and such an organization must be in its origins and development a manifestation of the spirit.
The State is the guarantor of security both internal and external, but it is also the custodian and transmitter of the spirit of the people, as it has grown up through the centuries in language, in customs and in faith.
And the State is not only a living reality of the present, it is also linked with the past and above all with the future, and thus transcending the brief limits of individual life, it represents the immanent spirit of the nation.
The forms in which States express themselves may change, but the necessity for such forms is eternal.
It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity; harmonizing their various interests through justice, and transmitting to future generations the mental conquests of science, of art, of law and the solidarity of humanity.
It leads men from primitive tribal life to that highest expression of human power which is Empire: it links up through the centuries the names of those of its members who have died for its existence and in obedience to its laws, it holds up the memory of the leaders who have increased its territory and the geniuses who have illumined it with glory as an example to be followed by future generations.
When the conception of the State declines, and disunifying and centrifugal tendencies prevail, whether of individuals or of particular groups, the nations where such phenomena appear are in their decline.”
From 1929 until to-day, evolution, both political and economic, has everywhere gone to prove the validity of these doctrinal premises.
Of such gigantic importance is the State.
It is the force which alone can provide a solution to the dramatic contradictions of capitalism, and that state of affairs which we call the crisis can only be dealt with by the State, as between other States.
Where is the shade of Jules Simon, who in the dawn of Liberalism proclaimed that, “The State must labour to make itself unnecessary, and prepare the way for its own dismissal”?
Or of McCulloch, who, in the second half of the last century, affirmed that the State must guard against the danger of governing too much?
What would the Englishman, Bentham, say to-day to the continual and inevitably -invoked intervention of the State in the sphere of economics, while according to his theories industry should ask no more of the State than to be left in peace?
Or the German Humboldt, according to whom the ‘‘ lazy ” State should be considered the best?
It is true that the second wave of Liberal economists were less extreme than the first, and Adam Smith himself opened the door — if only very cautiously — which leads to State intervention in the economic field: but whoever says Liberalism implies individualism, and whoever says Fascism implies the State.
Yet the Fascist State is unique, and an original creation.
It is not reactionary, but revolutionary, in that it anticipates the solution of the universal political problems which elsewhere have to be settled in the political field by the rivalry of parties, the excessive power of the Parliamentary regime and the irresponsibility of political assemblies; while it meets the problems of the economic field by a system of syndicalism which is continually increasing in importance, as much in the sphere of labour as of industry: and in the moral field enforces order, discipline, and obedience to that which is the determined moral code of the country.
Fascism desires the State to be a strong and organic body, at the same time reposing upon broad and popular support.
The Fascist State has drawn into itself even the economic activities of the nation, and, through the corporative social and educational institutions created by it, its influence reaches every aspect of the national life and includes, framed in their respective organizations, all the political, economic and spiritual forces of the nation.
A State which reposes upon the support of millions of individuals who recognize its authority, are continually conscious of its power and are ready at once to serve it, is not the old tyrannical State of the medieval lord nor has it anything in common with the absolute governments either before or after 1789.
The individual in the Fascist State is not annulled but rather multiplied, just in the same way that a soldier in a regiment is not diminished but rather increased by the number of his comrades.
The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone.
The Fascist State is not indifferent to the fact of religion in general, or to that particular and positive faith which is Italian Catholicism.
The State professes no theology, but a morality, and in the Fascist State religion is considered as one of the deepest manifestations of the spirit of man, thus it is not only respected but defended and protected.
The Fascist State has never tried to create its own God, as at one moment Robespierre and the wildest extremists of the Convention tried to do; nor does it vainly seek to obliterate religion from the hearts of men as does Bolshevism: Fascism respects the God of the ascetics, the saints and heroes, and equally, God as He is perceived and worshiped by simple people.
The Fascist State is an embodied will to power and government: the Roman tradition is here an ideal of force in action.
According to Fascism, government is not so much a thing to be expressed in territorial or military terms as in terms of morality and the spirit.
It must be thought of as an Empire — that is to say, a nation which directly or indirectly rules other nations, without the need for conquering a single square yard of territory.
For Fascism, the growth of Empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence.
Peoples which are rising, or rising again after a period of decadence, are always imperialist; any renunciation is a sign of decay and of death.
Fascism is the doctrine best adapted to represent the tendencies and the aspirations of a people, like the people of Italy, who are rising again after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude.
But Empire demands discipline, the co-ordination of all forces and a deeply -felt sense of duty and sacrifice: this fact explains many aspects of the practical working of the regime, the character of many forces in the State, and the necessarily severe measures which must be taken against those who would oppose this spontaneous and inevitable movement of Italy in the twentieth century, and would oppose it by recalling the outworn ideology of the nineteenth century — repudiated wheresoever there has been the courage to undertake great experiments of social and political transformation: for never before has the nation stood more in need of authority, of direction and of order.
If every age has its own characteristic doctrine, there are a thousand signs which point to Fascism as the characteristic doctrine of our time.
For if a doctrine must be a living thing, this is proved by the fact that Fascism has created a living faith; and that this faith is very powerful in the minds of men, is demonstrated by those who have suffered and died for it.
Fascism has henceforth in the world the universality of all those doctrines which, in realizing themselves, have represented a stage in the history of the human spirit.
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