Fascism must not only not oppose the agricultural masses, but must help them remove their centuries-old and sacred hunger for the land.
Mussolini, IL fascismo nel 1921, 7 January 1921
When, in 1917, a few Italians were sticking it out in the trenches, the men of antifascism were endeavouring to stab them in the back with the revolt of Turin.
Mussolini, Speech to the Senate, 2 April 1925
And if there had been a government which had imposed a severe discipline within, which had dispersed with a whip the evil genius of the draft dodgers, and had severely punished the defeatists and traitors with the necessary lead in the back, today the history of the Italian war would have only luminous pages.
Mussolini, Speech in Milan, 25 October 1932
Down to February 1917 the war had created a sharp polarity for Mussolini between the nation and its enemies. The international politics of the conflict had been simplified further following the Italian declaration of war on Germany in August 1916. But Mussolini’s worldview became considerably more complex in March 1917 when the Russian Revolution destabilized the Entente, reinforced the currents of anti-war dissent in Italy, and posed the question of how the faltering Italian military effort might best be galvanized anew to redeem the soldiers’ sacrifice and achieve the imperial goals for which Mussolini had so ardently advocated Italy’s entry into the war. Revolution, in short, gave a new dynamic to the war and its impact on Italian politics, and it was this that preoccupied Mussolini as he fully reassumed the role of political journalist that he had partly placed in abeyance when he became a soldier. Although he had episodically acted as a political agitator during his eighteen months as a soldier, and had consciously constructed a war diary for political ends, much of his attention had been occupied by the creation of the persona of an exemplary warrior and the incarnation of the elite of the trenches. Now he was not only free to pursue his role as the leading journalist and editorial inspiration of IL Popolo d’ltalia, he was also licensed by powerful figures to do so. It is nevertheless noteworthy that from June 1917 onwards Mussolini went into semi-anonymity, signing his articles with the sole letter M. From behind this half mask he did not abandon the moral and political capital represented by the soldiers’ sacrifice in the punishing war of stalemate. However, as a home front activist of considerable importance he had to find new ways of addressing and using it. IL Popolo d’ltalia again provided the principal vehicle for this endeavour, and with the war diary placed in a drawer until 1923 the newspaper articles once again become our primary source.
In Russia between 7 and 11 March a wave of strikes and demonstrations hit Petrograd. Entire regiments mutinied and passed over to the side of the strikers. At the end of the five days thousands of workers and soldiers (most of whom were peasants) marched on the Parliament (Duma). On 12 March the Petrograd Soviet (council) of Workers’ Deputies was formed. It demanded an end to the Tsarist regime and the convocation of a Constituent Assembly. With no significant military force behind him, Nicholas II abdicated on 14 March in favour of his brother Michael, and two days later Michael was forced to follow in his brother’s footsteps. Workers wanted the eight-hour day and control over production; the peasantry, encouraged and supported by the soldiers, wanted the land; finally, workers, soldiers and peasants, men and women, wanted an end to the war. Political representatives of the Soviet did not, however, take power. Convinced that the revolution had to pass through a ‘bourgeois’ phase before socialism could become a reality, the ‘orthodox Marxist’ Mensheviks conceded the reins of the State to representatives of the order whose principal figure had just abdicated.
A Provisional Government was formed on 14 March with a nobleman, Prince George Lvov, as Prime Minister and Paul Miliukov, a key figure in the formulation of foreign policy under the Tsar, as Minister for Foreign Affairs. This did not augur well for peace moves and, indeed, pointed towards continuation of the war along previous imperialist lines. Contradictions were therefore rife between the Provisional Government and the Soviets of workers, soldiers and peasants which were propping it up. The Petrograd Soviet’s ‘Order no. 1’, issued on 14 March, did away with badges of rank in the army and invoked the creation of political committees in every army unit. On 27 March it called on all peoples to end the war without annexations, without indemnities and in the framework of the rights of peoples to self-determination (Trotsky, 1967, I: Chs 7 and 9; Lincoln, 1994: Ch. 11). All of this spelled danger for the Entente and Italy, since it meant that Russia might pull out of the war and free up many of the approximately eighty-three German and forty-eight Austro-Hungarian divisions from the eastern front. Ostensibly compensating for this possibility was the fact that America declared war on Germany on 6 April. But American men and material would be slow in getting to Europe. In the meantime, the morale of the French Army received a major blow following the quick collapse of Nivelle’s 16 April offensive on the Aisne against the Chemin des Dames. In May and June mutinies broke out involving tens of thousands of men, mostly from the area of the attack (Pedroncini, 1967).
It was not immediately apparent to opinion in the Entente countries that revolution would weaken the Russian war effort rather than strengthening it. The precedent of the French Revolution suggested that it might unleash the energies of a national-democratic mobilization against an enemy now deemed to be a counterrevolutionary menace. This was the view, for example, of Irakli Tseretelli, a Menshevik, who argued in the Soviet for a reconciliation of the struggle for peace and an unwillingness to weaken the army’s resolve to defend the revolution. Not even this was good enough for Miliukov, who viewed it as the use of socialist terminology to mask a German-inspired plan to undermine the war effort (Lincoln, 1994: 360). From both these perspectives, Lenin’s and the Bolsheviks’ attempt to harness the pervasive sentiment for bread, peace and land could only be interpreted negatively. It was seen as directed against the revolution, inimical to the Entente, a subversive attempt to overthrow existing social relations, and, from all these angles, a domestic version of the foreign enemy.
Giovanna Procacci has traced in some detail the Italian interventionists’ unfolding misinterpretation of the ‘February Revolution’ (February according to the Russian calendar of the day. All dates mentioned here in relation to the revolution are, however, as per the Western calendar). At first they saw in it a confirmation of their own perceived role in pushing Italy into the war in 1915, that is as a victory of the ‘revolutionary’ pro-war elements over the anti-national and peace-mongering ‘enemy within’. They believed that in Russia one pro-war wing of the ruling class had taken power from another. But at the end of March, with diplomatic channels reopened and censorship eased, it became evident that the Russian masses and the Petrograd Soviet had been decisive in the overthrow of the Tsar. Procacci has shown that the Italian interventionists simply reworked this news so that it conformed to their previous biases. They concluded that the possible ‘degeneration’ of the Russian Revolution into a separate peace could only be down to the Leninists having stirred up the masses against the war. By early June interventionist pro-war illusions regarding the revolution had disappeared: now it was merely proof of the disaster to which the ‘enemy within’ could lead if its work was left unchallenged (Procacci, Gv., 1999: 253-315).
Il Popolo d’ltalia shared in the original illusion as to the revolution’s character. Its 16 March headline announced the ‘victorious revolution against the Germanophile reactionaries’ and it assured any concerned readers that the promoters of the movement had been recruited from liberal elements. Together with other Italian newspapers, it negatively assessed Lenin’s return to Russia. On 21 April it referred to him as ‘Germanophile’ and reported that on arrival in Russia he had been ‘crushed’ by the indignant shouts and whistles of workers and soldiers. Mussolini, too, was involved in this original misunderstanding and consequent clarification of what was happening in Russia. On 24 May, in his first serious journalistic outing since his ‘injury’, he viewed the revolution positively, claiming that without it Russia would have already arrived at a separate peace. He recognized that the masses were an active component in the revolution, and suggested that the current instability of the republican government was normal (OO, VIII: 277-9).
The instability to which he was referring was no doubt the one issuing from the crisis provoked by Miliukov’s 1 May note which reaffirmed Russian ambitions for territorial expansion. When the Soviet got word of the content of this document, mass demonstrations were called and political heads began to roll. On 15 May news was leaked of the resignations of Miliukov and Minister for War Alexander Guchkov. In the meantime, on 10 May, Lvov invited members of the Petrograd Soviet to join the Provisional Government. The new cabinet was formed on 18 May and included Alexander Kerensky, a Social Revolutionary (historically speaking a peasant-based party which, however, was now primarily urban) who became Minister for War. It is not clear just how much Mussolini knew about this transformation, since his article referred to Russia as ‘the republic of Miliukov’, when by 15 May Miliukov had already gone. What is evident, however, is that Mussolini was identifying the revolution with what in fact was a counter-revolutionary figure. He claimed that Miliukov would ‘save Russia and the republican idea’. Yet Miliukov was neither a republican nor a revolutionary, and in fact worked to use the war against the revolution. Seeing in the Tsar the symbolic guarantee of landed interests, he had been involved in post-revolution attempts to restore him to power. He was almost certainly behind the injured veterans’ pro-war demonstration of 29 April, a counter-revolutionary initiative which sought to prepare the ground for the publication of the note of 1 May (Trotsky, 1967, I: 176-7, 318). In its turn, IL Popolo d’ltalia had supported the 29 April demonstration, interpreting it as proof of the anti-Lenin and pro-war content of the revolution. And as if to show that neither his nor his newspaper’s support for such an anti-popular figure as Miliukov was fortuitous, Mussolini argued that the popular demonstrations in Russia were ‘follies of the people’, that the masses would eventually ‘come to their senses’ and that ‘if needs be’ this would be with ‘shootings’ (OO, VIII: 277-9).
The rapid construction and deconstruction of war myths was further accentuated by a renewed Italian offensive in May, the Tenth Battle of the Isonzo. The offensive aimed at the Bainsizza plateau which, together with the plateau of Ternova, would need to be captured in order to cover the left wing of 3rd Army troops advancing through the Vippacco valley against the Trstely-Hermada bulwark. Following an artillery bombardment on 12 and 13 May, General Luigi Capello’s Zona di Gorizia (a special command formed on 10 March) went over the top on 14 May. The Kuk fell into Italian hands as did Mount Santo, though the latter was lost again that evening during a counter-attack. At a meeting with Capello on the evening of 15 May Cadorna became convinced of the possibility of capturing Mount Vodice. He thus allowed Capello to keep the heavy artillery which was supposed to be transferred to the Duke of Aosta’s 3rd Army by 18 May. Capello’s men in fact conquered Mount Vodice, though this seems to have been at the price of a lost opportunity: that same day, 18 May, the 3rd Army was faced with only one division of enemy soldiers. Aosta’s offensive was first of all put off until 20 May (when the heavy artillery eventually arrived), and then for a further three days due to bad weather. This gave the Austro-Hungarians sufficient time to use internal lines to transfer troops from the Mount Kuk-Mount Santo line to the exposed area. The 3rd Army nevertheless captured the salient of Hudi Log, moved into the zone of Fornazza and penetrated over 4 km at Flondar. When the offensive was called off on 28 May there were 111,794 Italian and 75,700 Austro-Hungarian casualties (Rocca, 1985: 196-203; Pieropan, 1988: Ch. 37; Isnenghi and Rochat, 2000: 195-200; Schindler, 2001: 205-15).
The setback on the Isonzo front triggered renewed misgivings in political circles about the capacity of the Italian war effort, as currently managed, to achieve victory and to quell the anti-war sentiment that was becoming more pronounced. Already in March a parliamentary grouping of right-wing interventionists had given life to a fascio which aimed to put pressure on the government to take firmer measures against internal anti-war tendencies. ‘Committees of internal defence’ were formed in the major cities. The government weakness to which they referred was in relation to the popular agitations which had been taking place all over Italy since the beginning of the year. Most recently, between 30 April and 10 May thousands of women from the countryside had converged on Milan (4,000 in the centre, 8,0 in the hinterlands, at least according to official reports) in protest against the war, arms production and in favour of the return of their menfolk (De Felice, 1963). Orlando, Minister for the Interior, was convinced that coercion alone would not have contributed to the prosecution of victory and that it was necessary to respect fundamental civil liberties (Orlando, 1960: 47-55). Yet between December 1916 and April 1917, 880 people were reported to the authorities for spreading ‘false and alarming news’, 2,300 with participation in ‘subversive demonstrations and demonstrations against the war’, while another 3,901 were arrested for the same ‘offence’ (De Felice, 1963: 468).
But none of this satisfied interventionists. They awaited the anniversary of Italian intervention on 24 May and used this occasion to seek Cadorna’s support for a campaign against Orlando’s policies and against the ‘internal enemy’, proposals which Cadorna backed. Two days later the Milanese committee, with the support of Bissolati’s IL Secolo, published a document which argued for the installation of a ‘war government’, hinting that such a government already existed and could be found at the High Command headquarters in Udine (Melograni, 1969: 311-23; Rocca, 1985: Ch. 11). In short, a storm was brewing over dictatorship. On 5 June, in the first of a series of letters to Boselli, Cadorna blamed the military setback on poor troop morale, defeatist propaganda and government lethargy. He was almost certainly favourable to a more authoritarian, perhaps military, form of government, as is evidenced in his otherwise unnecessary visit to Rome in early June, which was called off only because of the success of a localized Austrian counter-offensive at Flondar on 4 June. On 6 June Bissolati, together with his colleague Ivanoe Bonomi and the republican Ubaldo Comandini, used Sonnino’s declaration of Albania as an Italian protectorate as a pretext to open up a government crisis. They then demanded that Orlando be replaced by a more energetic and less Giolittian figure. Cadorna backed up this manoeuvre by sending two further letters to Boselli on 6 and 8 June. In the ensuing political crisis the ‘Committees of internal defence’ pushed for a non-legal solution. But Bissolati feared that pushing things too far might provoke an Italian version of the Russian Revolution. By 12 June he and the other two ministers were back in government and a cabinet reshuffle by Boselli saw Cadorna met half way by the removal of Minister for War Morrone and his replacement with General Gaetano Giardino (Rocca, 1985: 218-22).
As during the government crisis in June 1916, Mussolini remained silent until the political dilemma was over, resurfacing only on 15 June to ridicule what he saw as the inadequacy of the cabinet facelift (OO, VIII: 280-82). The following day he argued that the anti-war agitations of early May had been of Austrian doing and that not the weak government ‘but the bulletins of the Carso offensive’ had ‘suffocated’ them, since once the offensive was underway the whole country had been ‘run through with a purifying enthusiasm’ (OO, VIII: 283-5). That same day IL Popolo d’ltalia’s front page demanded the substitution of the government with a war committee. Mussolini’s 17 June article focused on precisely this issue, though it is not altogether clear what he meant by this term. He specified that while a war government would have ‘no scruples when it comes to going beyond what in normal times constitutes the inviolability of laws, of institutions, of prejudices, of men,’ he did not support the idea of a dictatorship as such, since this did not coincide with what he termed ‘our libertarian political conceptions’ (OO, VIII: 286-8). He seems, in other words, to have accepted extra-legal and dictatorial measures but wanted these embedded in some type of legal framework. At any rate, the immediate task of this legal-illegal government was made clear two days later in an article which reiterated the need to crystallize the enemy into one and one only: Germany. This now included a call for the removal of rights of circulation for German subjects on Italian territory and, as also demanded in his 15 June article, the confiscation of their goods (OO, IX: 5-8).
Hence as Mussolini’s writing gained pace in terms of quantity and regularity he at no point borrowed the idea from the Russian Revolution that social reform (such as the Soviets’ demand for land distribution) should characterize a renewed Italian war effort. Concerned over weakening home front morale in Italy and the failure of renewed Italian offensive operations he merely demanded more authoritarian government. But in Mussolini’s eyes, the focus of a campaign for national remobilization remained the front line soldier for whom, speaking now from outside rather than as one of them, he claimed unspecified recognition. He argued, in his 15 June article, that the wealth expropriated from German subjects on Italian soil should be put towards a fund for the families of Italy’s fallen (OO, VIII: 280-82). In an article of 27 June he explained the rationale behind this move towards satisfying the material interests of the combatants:
If words are to remain impressed in the spirits [of the soldiers] as a stimulant to the carrying out of [their] duty and are not to be lost together with the echoes of speeches, then after ideal arguments the arguments of the ‘real’ need to be touched upon. The mediocre politicking government has not known what to say and has not wanted to say to the soldiers what needs to be said. We need to get out of the repertoire of vague phrases and assume concrete, solemn commitments which can be actuated immediately. (OO, IX: 18-20)
He then went on to list these ‘concrete commitments’ which were identical to those of the 15 June article. This was a far cry from calling for the expropriation of Italian landowners’ property and its distribution to the peasant soldiers and their families. Yet these proposals represent an important move away from the nonmaterial mobilization based on personal charisma, scintillating gestures and the officers’ recounting of heroic actions which had so marked his war diary. How, then, did this new dependence on more ‘concrete’ social issues develop in the context of the deepening crises in Russia and Italy and in relation to the Italian interventionists’ proposed war government?