Page:L. W. - Fascism, Its History and Significance (1924).pdf/29

 Rh at a critical time a mass of largely unemployable men used to securing their ends by violence and liable to increase the difficulties of their late employers. The Fascist forces had by this time developed a hierarchy which ably pushed their interests as a corporate body before the eyes of those in power. Every concession had to be made, therefore, by the Government to the armed body that had brought them to power and on whose strength they must continue to rely. The means taken to keep the Fascist troops in being under the pretence that their purpose was a national and not a party one was to enrol the black shirts in a Militia for Public Safety. The militia, which is responsible to Mussolini and not to the King, and is strictly Fascist in membership, control and objective, exists to this day. In one sense it is Mussolini's main support; in another it is one of his chief difficulties. The unanimity with which the Liberal and Democratic parties demand its disbandment shows that it is a valuable support to the Fascist Government. On the other hand, the militia has constantly tended to get out of hand and to pursue an extremist policy regardless of Mussolini's desire for moderation. After the Matteotti murder, Mussolini made frantic efforts to placate the opposition and promised among many other things the fusion of the militia into the regular army. Efforts to achieve this seem to have been made, but they have not really gone far. The militia, though its members are now to be required to take an oath of allegiance to the King, remains in effect the organ of a party and the practical means by which Mussolini in a crisis can keep himself in power. The "constitutionalisation" of the militia was postponed again and again and recent public utterances of its chief officers show clearly that its loyalty is to the Fascist Party and not to the crown.

The bourgeoisie to-day is by no means united in supporting Fascism, and the future of the movement is threatened as much by dissensions among the bourgeoisie as by the opposition of the proletariat. Quite apart from the antagonism of the land-owning classes who were deprived of their control of the State machine by the instrumentality of Fascism, there are important cleavages of interest in this matter among the capitalists themselves. For example, Nitti has shewn considerable fear of the developments of Fascism. This politician is the instrument in Italy of English and American financial interests, which have watched with keen anxiety the rise of Fascism backed by heavy industrialists in close association with French coal and iron magnates. Giolitti was originally a protagonist of agrarian interests and was keenly anti-fascist. But early in 1922 the financial group (headed by the Commercial Bank) on which he depended began to develop industrial interests which had formerly been the preserve of the Discount Bank (bankrupt in