[IRST OF TWO PARTS BY BOB SUTCLIFFE. Fascism…]

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IRST OF TWO PARTS BY BOB SUTCLIFFE.

Fascism in Italy was founded as a political p arty in March 1919. Within little more than three years Benito Mussolini had become Prime Minister.

The speed with which the tascists gained power was all the more frightening given that those three years had seen the greatest mobilisations in the history of the Italian working class.

Fascism rode to power over this immensely strong and militant workers' movement, which by 1927 had been ruthlessly destroyed.

It was big business which financed and abetted the fascists; and the political representatives of small and medium capitalists who invited them to take power; but it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the ultimate political responsibility for Mussolini's success lies with the leaders of the parties and organisations of the labour movement.

FATEFUL SPLIT

The origins of fascism go back to che beginning of the First World War. Both right and left were divided over whether Italy should intervene in the war.

And in 1914 a fateful split took place in the Socialist Party. Benito Mussolini was the editor of the Socialist Party's paper, Avanti! (Forward!) and posed as a leader of the left of the party.

In 1914, however, he began a demagogic campaign for the entry of Italy into the war. He had justiApril 1945, fascists pay the penalty at the hands of partisans

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The fascist high command that led the march on Rome. CONTINUED NEXT EDITION.

SOCIALIST PRESS. wedn Turin wrecking " the offices of Avanti! fied this position with anti-capitalist, syndicalist rhetoric saying that the upheaval of the war would unsettle and des the bourgeoisie.

But after Italy finally declared war on Germany and Austria in 1915 the substance of Mussolini's position became more and more obviously chauvinist and reactionaor tahouting for territorial gains Mussolini and his small group of followers were expelled from the Socialist Party, which adopted a cowardly compromise position towards the war-"neither support, nor sabotage" though its members of parliament did vote against war credits.

Later, after the Russian Revolution the party changed in words to something close to a revolutionary tral defeatist position-but took no action at all against the bourgeois At the end of the war Italy's government was in the hands of a series of weak coalitions led by the Liberal and Radical Parties.

The traditional bourgeois parties looked on in terror at the growth of workers organisations and the increasing militancy of the working class as well as of the poor peasantry which was conducting a massive campaign of land occupations.

The major landmarks in these years of struggle were the general strike in Milan on April 29, 1919 in protest against police violence against a socialist rally, the political near insurrectional, general strike of July 4, 1919, the national general strike of July 20-21 called in solidarity with the Soviet and Hungarian revolutions, the huge gains of the Socialists in the general elections of November 1919 and the historic wave of factory occupations in August and September 1920.

WORKERS COUNCILS

In Turin, where Gramsci and the group of revolutionaries around the L'Ordine Nuovo, (The New Order)

played a leading role, this movement led to the establishment of Soviet-type workers' councils.

For two years the bourgeoisie was for good reason seized with a terror of revolution.

But there were fatal deficiencies in the national leadership of the sections of the party which Socialists-including the Walen nominally supported a socialist programme (the 'Maximalists' led by Serrati).

By withdrawing at the crucial moment of every struggle, the Socialist leaders ensured that the revolutionary upsurges were quelled every time.

The government, however, did not feel confident that the Socialist leaders could maintain control of their followers and increasingly it looked elsewhere for political salvation-to the extreme right.

In 1919 the most organised section of the extreme right was a nationalist party led by Gabriele d'Annunzio, who with an illegal military legion occupied the Yugoslav town of Fiume from September 1919 until the end of 1920.

FASCES

Many of d'Annunzio's followers were to join the new movement which Mussolini founded at a meeting in Milan on March 23, 1919.

The movement was called the Fasci di Combattimento (Fasci referred to the fasces-a bundle of sticks bound together which was the Roman Empire's symbol of authority).

The initial programme of the Fascists was a confused jumble of chauvinism amd imperialism on the one hand and "syndicalism" and "workers control" on the other.

The confusion reflected the groups that initially came together around Mussolini: they included people who considered themselves anarchists, syndicalists and socialists, as well as a number of Army commandos.

Few of them were from the traditional bourgeois parties or from the traditional far right. Virtually all of them were from the urban petty-bourgeoisie.

The fascists grew rapidly: in December 1919 there were 870 members, a year later; 20,000 and by the end of 1921, 200,000.

Less than one in six were workers.

Despite Mussolini's left' rhetoric the fascists soon showed their real nature through their actions. In Apri 1919 they had joined army officers and other right wing forces in violent attacks against the Milan general strike movement including the destruction of the headquarters of the Socialist Party paper Avanti! of which Mussolini had once been the editor.

PHYSICAL ATTACKS

And in July Prime Minister F.S.

Nitti set a pattern by accepting the support of the extreme-right thugs against the general strikes.

The fascist movement thrived on this ruling class support for its policy of physical attacks against the labour movement.

Big business and large landowners poured finance into the movement and came to rely on it for support against strikes and land seizures.

The government authorised thousands of army officers to join the fascists. And from February 1922 the fascists received the open support of the Vatican after the election of the new Pope, Pius XI.

The fascists appeared to the bourgeoisie and the Church as the best defence against "Bolshevism"

From late 1920 onwards the balance of power in the ultra-right began shifting decisively to the active para-military wing of the fascists.

These began in the countryside of Northern Italy under the leadership of Grandi and Italo Balbo, and later spread to the towns.

These squadristi, highly organised and well armed bands of thugs, attacked trade union and Socialist Party headquarters and murdered and tortured militants.

SQUADRISTI

During the two years from October 1920 to the March on Rome, 3,000 anti-fascists were killed by the squadristi.

They also destroyed hundreds of working class homes, and political, union and community centres.

Mussolini's growing power from the squadristi; but in his public statements he also presented a more moderate 'constitutional' posture through which he eased his way into a 'national bloc' electoral alliance with the Liberals led by Giovanni Giolitti in the new general elections of May 1921. This gained the fascists 35 parliamentary seats.

Meanwhile important developments had taken place in the Socialist Party.

In January a revolutionary faction left the Party and established the Communist Party of Italy under the leadership of Amadeo Bordiga.

The Communists had concluded that the total degeneration of the Socialist leadership left the working class defenceless without its own independent party.

The Socialists lost 34 seats in the new parliament (reducing their numbers to 122) and the new Communist Party got 16 seats.

The Socialist leaders were shortly to give proof of the extent of their degeneration. In the face of continuing fascist attacks they agreed with Mussolini a truce Known as the 'pact of conciliation"

This pact was so hotly opposed by the para-military sections of the fascists that Mussolini had to step down as leader until December Age 7 Partisans and eup: - amel Gramsci 1921 when at the Rome conference of the party he successfully reasserted his political authority.

Once that was done, Mussolini abandoned the pact, which was in any case designed as a manoeuvre to convince the bourgeoisie that he represented responsible "political' mascism as against irresponsible 'military' fascism.

Mussolini now gave the green light to a new violent fascist offensive against the labour movement which plunged Italy into a series of virtual civil wars in the local areas.

The fascists were clearly preparing for some kind of coup d'etat.

PARALYSIS

The traditional labour movement watched in virtual paralysis, hoping that the cowering parties of the bourgeoisie would control fascism by using the police and the army which were packed with fascist members and sympathisers.

The unions tried one last pathetic gesture. A broad "Labour Alliance" called a "legalitarian general strike" in August 1922.

The fascists announced that, it the government had not ended the strike within two days, they:

"would demand complete freedom of action and substitute themselves for the State which once again will have shown its impotence."

Meanwhile fascist scabs kept the public services running. The leaders of the Labour Alliance cringed before these threats and called off the strike.

The way was now wide open for the fascists to take power. The government invited Mussolini to join a coalition; but the fascists had bigger objectives.

They set in motion a plan for a March on Rome by 150,000 armed fascists from all corners of Italy.

And that was the final nudge which the bourgeois parties needed to hand over power. • Mussolini became Prime Minister on October 28, 1922. The bourgeoisie heaved a sigh of relief and the Socialist Party leaders raised hardly a breath of protest, hoping that power would tame Mussolini.