Page:Gaetano Salvemini and Bruno Roselli - Italy under Fascism (1927).djvu/3



HE subject of the meeting today is "Italy under Fascism." There are to be two speakers, Professor Salvemini and Professor Roselli. They are to speak in that order. Each is to speak for thirty minutes. Professor Salvemini, who is the first speaker, was a former Professor of History in the University of Florence, and was elected to Parliament in 1919. He is the author of many well-known books on medieval Italian history, on modern political science, and on the French Revolution. He was a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies from 1919 to 1921, and in June, 1925, was arrested on the charge of being concerned in the publication of some anti-government papers and was released the following month.

For the last two years he has lived abroad, for the most part in England, until he came to this country three or four weeks ago. I am sure you all join with me in welcoming Professor Salvemini as a distinguished scholar and a distinguished publicist.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is not true that Mussolini and the Fascisti saved Italy from Bolshevism or anarchy. During the two years, 1919 and 1920, which immediately followed the World War, we had in Italy many disturbances, many strikes, many riots. This so-called Bolshevism was nothing but an outbreak of restlessness which was an unavoidable result of the Great War. To this restlessness, the worst elements of the Italian ruling classes replied by an exhibition of cowardice out of all proportion with the actual danger.

Towards the end of 1920, the worst of the crisis was over. Then many who had been cowards in 1920 became apostles of terrorism in 1921.

As early as the summer of 1921, not even a shadow remained of the Bolshevist peril in Italy. Mussolini himself wrote on July 2, 1921, "To say that there still exists a Bolshevist peril in Italy to substitute fears for reality. Bolshevism has been vanquished."

The famous march on Rome took place sixteen months after those words had been written. The march on Rome could have been stopped easily enough if the General Staff of the Army had willed it. Not more than 8,000 Fascists took part in the march. They were poorly armed and as disorderly as carnival revelers; they were scattered up and down the country around Rome in small localities where they could not be adequately housed. The forces of the regular army concentrated in Rome might