What is Fascism ?

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 39, 5 October 1922, Page 37

What is Fascism ?

AN ANTI-LABOR MOVEMENT OF TERROR. Many a newspaper reader must have seen -references to Fascism and the Fascist! in Italy without having any very clear idea as to whether it was an art or a political movement. 0 In the January Quarterly Review , Mr. Vincent Bugeja gives an interesting account of the rise and influence of this post-war political party. Ever since the great Labor and Socialist victory at the General Elections of November 16, 1919, the country has been in a state of unrest. Old ideas of traditional party government were gone, for the support either of the Socialist or the Popular party (the latter a Catholic party which stood for radical and Christian, as opposed to revolutionary, social reform) was now indispensable. There have been outbreaks, notably the seizure of factories and land in August, 1920, but following these has been a great Nationalist revival, and a revolt against Socialists. In this revolt the growth of the anti-Socialist reaction known as “Fascism” has played a great part. “This movement,” says Mr. Bugeja, “has developed from the patriotic and nationalistic programme of the “Fasci dei Combattenti,” or clubs of ex-service men. At first valuable organisations for the defence of the interests of former soldiers, the Fasci gradually admitted as members large numbers of young men whom the war had left without any certain means of livelihood, and who were too proud or too lazy to work with their hands. The element thus introduced into the Fasci was a turbulent one; and the Fascist! formed excellent material for such military adventures as that of Gabriele D’Annunzio. A considerable proportion of the poet’s legionaries in Fiurne was drawn from the Fasci in different Italian towns.” The commercial classes and- landed proprietors financed the movement, in self-protection against Labor, and Fascism began a campaign of violence. “Their efforts,” says Mr. Bugeja, “are mainly directed against Labor organisa- , tion and Socialist propaganda in any form. Labor newspaper offices and Cemere del Lavoro have been destroyed by them; Socialist literature has been burnt; workmen’s meetings have been broken up; -and Socialist leaders present in cities other than their own have been forcibly marched to the railway stations and compelled to return to the places whence they came. Terror Let Loose. “During the first three months of ,1921 the Faseisti let loose a veritable Terror throughout the length and breadth of Italy. . . The accounts of vendettas by the peasants of the south-eastern provinces -against the landowners were followed by the story of three bloody days in Florence, then by the news of . the burning of the greatshipbuilding yard of San Marco di Trieste. In the Central Provinces there was scarcely a town which did not witness fatal conflicts between the opposing factions of Fascisti and Socialists. The total toll of human life ran into hundreds.” “Wounded were counted in thousands; and the destruction of property at the San Marco yard alone was estimated at more than 30,000,000 lire.” But the movement seems to be likely to perish by its own violence. So far as it fulfilled any useful partisan purpose, as a rallying point for the friends of peace and order against the friends of revolution, that function is likely to be taken over by the State, for — “Another ground of hope is the present widespread belief in Italy in the necessity of the rehabilitation of State authority, which means of course the disintegration of the Fascist movement. The essence of Fascism is the usurpation of the powers of,the State by an organised faction within the State. Although the majority of the Fascisti have been and still are animated by the best of patriotic motives, their ardor has blinded them to the fact that their methods lead straight to anarchy/. Reconstruc- ' tion at home and prestige abroad cannot be secured by the aimless activities of an organisation largely inspired ‘ by-a desire to discredit. Parliament.” . v