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On the Social Origins of Agrarian Fascism in Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Frank M. Snowden
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Before turning directly to fascism, we should recall certain facts that form the background to all that follows. In 1919, Italy, a country of about 35 million people, should be characterized neither as industrialized nor as underdeveloped, but as slowly and very unevenly industrializing. Still predominantly agricultural, the Italian peninsula can be divided into three distinct areas with markedly different social structures, each undergoing in very contrasting ways the twin transformations of the rise of industry and of intensive commercialized farming. The North was the most developed of the three areas, with the peninsula's most modern industrial enterprises heavily concentrated in the Milan-Genoa-Turin triangle, while commercial farming was centered in the fertile valley of the Po River. It is important to note, however, that even the North was still in a state of transition and that in the northern countryside more traditional systems of land tenure and cultivation still existed alongside some of the most mechanized farms in Europe. The other two areas of Italy—Center and South—were alike in being traditional societies less affected by modernization, though the Center of the peninsula and the South were very different social systems (1).

Type
“A Sack of Potatoes”?
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , November 1972 , pp. 268 - 295
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Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1972

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References

(1) To give a precise measurement of the varying degrees of modernization in the different areas of Italy is difficult. Perhaps at this point it is enough of an indication to note, for example, that, in 1935, 99 % of the grain harvested in Lombardy was harvested by machine and 95 % in Emilia, as contrasted with 46 % in Apulia and 14,9 % in Campania. Sereni, Emilio, La questione agraria nella rinascita nazionale italiana (Roma 1946), p. 178Google Scholar.

(2) Gramsci, Antonio, Il Risorgimento (Torino 1949), pp. 105–107Google Scholar. All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.

(3) Ibid. For a sharply opposed view, see Rosario Romeo, Risorgimento e capitalismo (Bari 1970). The question of the possibility of a ‘Jacobin’ solution at the time of the Risorgimento has given rise to a vast debate. For our purposes, it is enough to note the consequences of the solution actually taken without going into a discussion of the options available at the time.

(4) Op. cit. pp. 94–95.

(5) Moore, Barrington Jr, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: land and peasant in the making of the modern world (Boston 1966)Google Scholar.

(6) Ibid. p. 477.

(7) On the early social composition of the fascist movement, see de Felice, Renzo, Mussolini il rivoluzionario (Torino 1965), pp. 504 sqqGoogle Scholar.

(8) These were the groups living on fixed or only slowly rising incomes who were faced in the postwar period with an economic crisis of the first magnitude. The source of this crisis was partly the tax burden of paying for the war, which fell heavily on them. Cf. Prato, Giuseppe, Il Piemonte e gli effetti della guerra sulla sua vita economica e sociale (Bari 1925), p. 228Google Scholar. And, in the case of state employees, a special factor was the austerity measures adopted by the government during the conflict, freezing wages and reducing benefits.

The chief factor, however, was the rampant rate of inflation, the postwar “monetary revolution”. The extent of the astronomical rise in prices can be indicated by the cost of living index, which rose above a base of 100 in 1913 to 365.8 in 1919 and 624.4 in 1920. A gram of gold cost 3.49 lire in 1913, but 5.82 in 1919 and 14.05 in 1920 (De Felice, , op. cit. p. 434Google Scholar; Prato, , op. cit. p. 184Google Scholar; Vivarelli, Roberto, Il dopoguerra in Italia e l'avvento delfascismo (Napoli 1967), I, p. 359 n.Google Scholar).

(9) Lanzillo, Agostino, Le rivoluzioni del dopoguerra: critiche e diagnosi (Castello 1922)Google Scholar.

(10) De Felice, , Mussolini il fascista (Torino 1966), p. 5Google Scholar.

(11) Mussolini, Benito, Opera Omnia, edited by , E. and Susmel, D.; 36 vols. (Firenze 1951–1963), XIII, p. 220Google Scholar.

(12) On the slowness with which the army, and especially the officers, were demobilized, see Rochat, Giorgio, L'esercito italiano da Vittorio Veneto a Mussoliniig (1919–1925) (Bari 1967), pp. 26–81Google Scholar.

(13) The interpretation of fascism as essentially a movement of the petty bourgeoisie is one of the most influential accounts of the movement. Gramsci, for example, early denned fascism as the “ultimate, incarnation of the petty bourgeoisie”. Cf. De Felice, , Le interpretazioni del fascismo (Bari 1969), pp. 148–149Google Scholar. A classic early expression of this interpretation is Salvatorelli, Luigi, Nazionalfascismo (Torino 1923)Google Scholar.

(14) As Mussolini said when speaking of the spread of fascism in the countryside in the fall of 1920 and the winter of 1920–21: “From a minority [the movement] tends to become a mass” (Mussolini, Il fascismo e i rurali, loc. cit. XVIII, p. 202).

For a concise statement of the importance of the rural fasci to the movement, see De Felice, , Mussolini il fascista, op. cit. I, pp. 5–11Google Scholar. Luigi Preti also writes: “Only in the countryside of Emilia—and, in part, that of Tuscany—does fascism […] earn its stripes as a class movement, and attract the attention of the whole nation. It is therefore with reason that one can hold that fascism was not born in Milan at Piazza San Sepolcro in March 1919, but in Bologna in November 1920. It is the agrari of Emilia who ‘discover’ fascism, rescuing it from a path leading nowhere and setting it on the high road to success” (Preti, Luigi, Le lotte agrarie nella valle padana (Torino 1955), p. 449Google Scholar.

(15) For my account of fascism in the northern countryside I have relied primarily on the following: Luigi Arbizzani, Lotte agrarie in provincia di Bologna nel primo dopoguerra, in Zangheri, Renato (ed.), Le campagne emiliane nell'epoca moderna (Milano 1957), pp. 283–332Google Scholar; Corner, Paul, Fascism in Ferrara (unpublished D. Phil, thesis, Oxford University, 1971)Google Scholar; Moore, op. cit.; Rosario Muratore, Il dopoguerra rosso e le origini del fascismo nel Novarese, , Rivista storica del socialismo, II, (1959), 604–636Google Scholar; Preti, op. cit.; Salvadori, Rinaldo, Il dopoguerra e le origini del fascismo nel Mantovano, Rivista storica del socialismo, I, (1958), 285–309Google Scholar; Seheni, , op. cit. and Il capitalismo nelle campagne (1860–1900) (Torino 1948)Google Scholar; Serpieri, Arrigo, La guerra e le classi rurali italiane (Bari 1930)Google Scholar; and Vaini, Mario, Le origini del fascismo a Mantova (Roma 1961)Google Scholar.

(16) Among the most explicit statements on the internal political calculations behind the decision to intervene is that of Giovanna Procacci, according to whom Salandra wanted a “strictly Italian war which, he hoped, would generate popular support for the victorious ruling classes, so confirming the liberal leadership of the country. It was a leadership which he thought had been heavily compromised by the Giolittian decade, when the socialists had increased their power both in a parliament elected by universal suffrage and in local government […] Hence, for Salandra, it was a national and popular war destined to forge the people's link with the state […] against the expansion of socialism”. Procacci, Giovanna, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 1917–1919, Journal of Contemporary History, III (1968), p. 154Google Scholar.

(17) As Gramsci describes this process: “Selfish individualistic instincts were weak ened, a common united spirit was formed […] a habit of social discipline was born: the peasants conceived of the State in its complex enormity, in its measureless power, in its intricate construction […] Bonds of solidarity were created that other wise only tens and dozens of years of historical experience and of continuous struggle could have created; in four years, in the mud and slaughter of the trenches, a spiritual world was formed, ready to take shape in enduring and dynamic social institutions”. Ferrata, Giansiro and Gallo, Niccolo (eds), 2000 pagine di Gramsci (Milano 1964), I, p. 405Google Scholar.

(18) Serpieri, , op. cit. p. 267Google Scholar.

(19) The general price index of wholesale goods (1913 = 100) rose to 502 in 1919–20 and to 610 in 1920–21. Agricultural prices, however, were far from rising at the same rate. The Bachi index (Serpieri, Arrigo, op. cit. p. 219Google Scholar) shows this clearly:

With regard to the effect of the war on the economic position of agriculture, Serpieri writes (ibid. p. 106): “The rural classes during the war experienced an agricultural income whose buying power was lower than before the war. The monetary agricultural income, as an average for the four years, rose from 100 to 221; the general wholesale price index from 100 to 287.” “Comparing the two indices, we must conclude that in the four years of the war the effective buying power of the total agricultural income declined by about one fourth.”

If we remernber that, among the rural classes, those who most felt the pinch of the reiative decline in prices were the landlords (ibid. pp. 154–6), then the political conclusions are obvious, though among the landlords one needs to make distinctions according to the type of tenure system, the longevity of labor contracts, and the particular crop grown.

(20) Giusti, Ugo, Le correnti politiche italiane attraverso due riforme elettorali, dal 1909 al 1921 (Firenze 1922), p. 28Google Scholar.

(21) Santarelli, Enzo, Storia del movimento e del regime fascista (Roma 1967), I, p. 173Google Scholar; Giusti, , op. cit. pp. 32–33Google Scholar. Serpieri, (op. cit. p. 192)Google Scholar writes of the landowners’ sense of the need to resort to selfhelp that, “in domestic politics there is an almost complete renunciation of all effective protection of property rights. In the violent struggles over agricultural contracts and agricultural labor […] the government is absent, or passively watches every violation of right […] Thus the conviction is widespread […] among the agrarian bourgeoisie that only by their own self-help, by their own force, can they protect their interests. The alternative is for them to resign themselves to the final collapse of the existing social order”.

(22) Santarelli, , op. cit. pp. 136–137Google Scholar.

(23) On the imponibile and collocamento di classe, see Barbadoro, Idomeneo, Problemi e caratteristiche storiche del movimento sindacale italiano, Rivista storica del socialismo, VI (1963), 248–252Google Scholar; and Zangheri, Renato, ‘Introduction’ to Lotte agrarie in Italia. La Federazione nazionale dei lavoratori della terra, 1901–1926, edited by Zangheri, R. (Milano 1960), pp. XXXVIII sqq. and esp. p. LIVGoogle Scholar. Also useful is Preti, , op. cit. pp. 385–389Google Scholar.

(24) Sereni, , La questione agraria nella rinascita nazionale italiana, op. cit. p. 229Google Scholar; Seton-Watson, C.I.W., Italy from Liberalism to Fascism (London 1967), p. 599nGoogle Scholar; Cordova, Ferdinando, Le origini dei sindacati fascisti, Storia contemporanea, I (1970), 973–975Google Scholar.

(25) On the fascist unions the only recent monograph, to my knowledge, is Cordova, , op. cit. pp. 925–1009Google Scholar. On the use of the unions to straitjacket the workers, see also Preti, , op. cit. pp. 471–447Google Scholar.

(26) Chiurco, G. A., Fascismo senese (Siena 1923), p. 90Google Scholar.

(27) Quoted in Chiurco, G. A., Storia della rivoluzione fascista, 5 vols. (Firenze 1929), III, p. 335Google Scholar.

(28) Palmiro Togliatti makes this point when he writes, ‘Very often the term ‘Fascist’ is used in a very loose way, as synonymous with reaction, terror, etc. That is incorrect. Fascism does not only mean the struggle against bourgeois democracy, and we cannot simply use the expression whenever we have that struggle. We should use it only when the fight against the working class develops a new mass base of a petty bourgeois character […]’. Togliatti, Palmiro, Lezioni sul fascismo (Roma 1970), p. 9Google Scholar.

(29) On the geographical distribution of various forms of tenure within the Po Valley, there is much useful information in Pagani, Aldo, I braccianti della valle padana (Piacenza 1932)Google Scholar.

(30) As Santarelli writes: “At least until the turn of the century, it is a fact that in the countryside of the Marches the prevailing figure was that of the middle peasant, of the mezzadro, who, if not well off, was passive and resigned.” Aspetti del movimento operaio nelle Marche (Milano 1965), p. 27Google Scholar.

A whole literature, in fact, grew up regarding the putative value of mezzadria as a bulwark against socialism and mass peasant protest. Exemplifying this view of mezzadria, Pasquale Villari wrote: “The contract of mezzadria, as has been repeated a thousand times over, has here (i.e. in Tuscany) achieved its best form, and makes the peasant happy, honest, and at ease; it puts him in perfect harmony with the landlord, who has become his partner. This is the true solution to the social question; here socialism has not penetrated, and never will. If something similar could be done in industry, how many reasons for discontent, how many dangers could be avoided!” Quoted in Ernesto Ragionieri, La questione delle leghe e i primi scioperi dei mezzadri in Toscana, , Movimento operaio, VII (1955), p. 454Google Scholar. On this problem, see Giorgio Mori, La mezzadria in Toscana alia fine del xix secolo, ibid. pp. 479–480.

(31) Pagani, , op. cit. p. 96Google Scholar.

(32) On the organizational, theoretical, and programmatic failures of the PSI and the Federterra with respect to the intermediate peasant strata, see Arbizzani, op. cit.; and Bahbadoro, , op. cit. pp. 227–295Google Scholar.

(33) Mussolini'S article, Il fascismo e i rurali, op. eit., discusses the attitude of various peasant strata to fascism. Obviously, however, it is deliberately misleading on certain points, most notably the relationship between the agrari and the fasci.

(34) Arbizzani, , op. cit. p. 308Google Scholar.

(35) Corner, op. cit. chap. VI.

(36) Zangheri, , ‘Introduction’, op. cit. p. LXXXVIIIGoogle Scholar. On the errors of the socialist agrarian program, see the works cited above in note 29.

(37) On the effectiveness of the fascist agrarian program, see Catalano, Franco, Potere economico e fascismo: la crisi del dopoguerra, 1919–21 (Milano 1964), pp. 239 sqqGoogle Scholar.

For the fascist program at this time with regard to the land, see, among others, Mussolini's, articles, Fascismo e terra, loc. cit., vol. XVI, pp. 170–3Google Scholar; and Da provincia rossa a provincia fascista. Il fascismo e il problema terriero nel Ferrarese, ibid. pp. 229–230.

(38) Quoted Catalano, , op. cit. pp. 246–247Google Scholar.

(39) Corner, op. cit. chap. VI.

(40) Mussolini, Fascismo e terra, op. cit.; Santarelli, , Storia del movimento e del regime fascista, op. cit. I, pp. 280–281Google Scholar.

(41) In Emilia, according to corrected figures for the 1921 census, affittuari constituted 10.5 % of the agricultural population, and the mezzadri 32.9 %. Serpieri, , op. cit. p. 369Google Scholar.

In this region in 1921, the total agricultural population of 1,112,528 was thus subdivided: proprietors: 251, 312; affittuari: 116,318; mezzadri: 366,116; salariati: 22,579; and braccianti: 356,203 (ibid. p. 361).

(42) In the province of Bologna, for instance, the socialist paper Avanti! reported that small proprietors “did not take part in the agrarian movement” (Le lotte agrarie nel Bolognese, Avanti!, 9 February 1921).

(43) See above, note 40.

(44) Sereni, , La questione agraria nella rinascita nazionale italiana, op. cit. p. 116Google Scholar; Giovanni Lorenzoni, L'ascesa del contadino italiano nel dopoguerra, in Inchiesta sulla piccola proprietà coltivatrice formatasi nel dopoguerra (Roma, Istituto Nazionale di Economia Agraria, 1938), XV, p. 9Google Scholar.

For statistics on the number of sales of land by region for the years 1914–25, see Serpieri, , op. cit. p. 474Google Scholar.

(45) Preti, , op. cit. pp. 409–10Google Scholar; Serpieri, , op. cit. p. 370Google Scholar; Seton-Watson, , op. cit. p. 522 nGoogle Scholar.

(46) For the regions with which we are most concerned, De Felice gives the following yearly minimum unemployment figures:

De Felice, , Mussolini il fascista, op. cit. I, p. 143 nGoogle Scholar. For complete month-by-month national statistics on the course of unemployment in the years 1920–22, see Ibid. p. 142 n.

(47) Quoted in Arbizzani, , op. cit. p. 331Google Scholar.

(48) Sereni, , La questione agraria nella rinascita nazionale italiana, op. cit. p. 236Google Scholar.

(49) On the differences between urban fascism and rural fascism the fascist Lanzillo, wrote: “There does not exist one fascism; there are several fascisms that have only the name in common. Whereas in the cities and the industrial zones it (i.e. fascism) appears as a romantic movement […], in the agrarian zones it is the party of the big and little landowners, of the leaseholders, and that is the party of a class, and it acts as such” (op. cit. pp. 225–226)Google Scholar.

(50) The fascist Giovanni Pesce stresses the pervasive localism of the landlords' concerns when he writes of the ‘anarchy’ of their associations, too immersed in their direct interests to establish effective coordination among themselves at the regional or national levels (La marcia dei rurali (Roma, 1929), pp. 21–23Google Scholar).

(51) As is well known, the differences between the two wings of the fascist movement led, during the period with which we are concerned, to the point of a rupture during mid-1921, over the issue of the “Pact of Pacification”. As a discussion of this question would take us far from our concerns here, we shall merely refer to the full treatment of the issue in De Felice, , Mussolini il fascista, vol. I, chap. IIGoogle Scholar.

(52) My account of central Italy relies chiefly on: Carla Ronchi Bettarini, Note sui rapporti tra fascismo ‘cittadino’ e fascismo ‘agrario’ in Toscana, in Unione Regionale delle Provincie Toscane, La Toscana nell'Italia unita, 1861–1945 (Firenze 1962), pp. 333–372Google Scholar; G. A. Chiurco, Fascismo senese, op. cit.; Mobi, op. cit.; Radi, Luciano, I mezzadri: le lotte contadine nell'Italia centrale (Roma, 1962)Google Scholar; Ernesto Raguonieri, op. cit., and II Partito Fascista (Appunti per una ricerca), in Unione Regionale delle Provincie Toscane, La Toscana nel regime fascista (1922–1939) (Firenze 1971), vol. I, pp. 59–85Google Scholar; Santarelli, , Aspetti del movimento operaio nelle Marche (Milano 1956)Google Scholar; and the works of Sereni cited above.

(53) De Felice, , Mussolini il fascista, op. cit., I, pp. 8–11Google Scholar; Ragionieri, , II Partito Fascista (Appunti per una ricerca), op. cit. p. 59Google Scholar. For a map showing the distribution of fascist support in the different regions of Italy at this period see Chiurco, , Storia delta rivoluzione fascista, op. cit. I, p. 72Google Scholar.

(54) La questione agraria nella rinascita nazionale italiana, pp. 173–174, 190–195.

(55) Mori, op. cit.

(56) La questione agraria nella rinascita nazionale italiana, pp. 190–194; Mori, , op. cit., pp. 490–491Google Scholar.

(57) Sereni, , La questione agraria nella rinascita nazionale italiana, pp. 192–193Google Scholar.

(58) Giusti, , op. cit. pp. 32–33Google Scholar.

(59) Serpieri, , op. cit. pp. 271–272Google Scholar; Bettarini, , op. cit. p. 340Google Scholar.

(60) Bettarini, , op. cit. pp. 341–342Google Scholar.

(61) For a comparison of unemployment figures in Tuscany with those in Emilia, Lombardy, and Veneto, see above, note 46.

(62) On the diffusion of small peasant property in central Italy, see Lorenzoni, , op. cit. pp. 55–79Google Scholar.

(63) The Tuscan agricultural population of 924,946, according to corrected figures for the 1921 census, was subdivided thus: proprietors: 188,051; affittuari: 18,669; mezzadri: 540,458; salariati: 22,656; braccianti: 155, 112. Serpieri, , op. cit. p. 361Google Scholar.

(64) Fascismo senese, op. cit. p. 91.

(65) See Adrian Lyttelton's contribution to the discussion at the convention, Tuscany under the Fascist Regime (Firenze 23–24 May 1969). Printed in Unione Regionale delle Provincie Toscane, La Toscana nel regime fascista, op. cit. II, pp. 445–446.

(66) These characteristics are described by Ragionieri, II Partito Fascista (Appunti per una ricerca), op. cit.

(67) In the following discussion of fascism in southern Italy I have relied, in addition to general works cited, on the following: Banfield, Edward C., The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (Glencoe, Illinois, 1958)Google Scholar; Caracciolo, Alberto, Il movimento contadino nel Lazio, 1870–1922 (Roma 1952)Google Scholar; Colarizi, Simona, Dopoguerra e fascismo in Puglia (1919–1926) (Bari 1971)Google Scholar; Dorso, Guido, La rivoluzione meridionale (Roma 1945)Google Scholar; Levi, Carlo, Christ Stopped at Eboli (New York 1947)Google Scholar; Rossi-Doria, Manlio, The Land Tenure System and Class in Southern Italy, American Historical Review, LXIV 1958), 46–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sechi, Salvatore, Dopoguerra e fascismo in Sardegna. II movimento autonomistico nella crisi dello Stato liberate (1918–1926) (Torino 1960)Google Scholar; and Tarrow, Sidney, Peasant Communism in Southern Italy (New Haven 1967)Google Scholar. Also highly useful are the novel by Silone, Ignazio, Fontamara (Zurich/Paris, 1933)Google Scholar, and various writings by Gramsci cited.

(68) Of the 1331 fasci operating in December 1921 with 218,453 members, only 256 (ca. 19 %) of the fasci and 56, 258 (ca. 21 %) of the members were from the South, as opposed to about 40 % of the rural population of Italy. De Felice, , Mussolini il fascista, op. cit. p. 6Google Scholar.

The impermeability of the South to fascism might be shown in more dramatic ways. There were whole regions of the South where the movement was barely in existence. Even as late as May 1922 there were but 450 fascists in Molise, 565 in Basilicata, 2075 in Sardinia, 4313 in the Abruzzi, and 9546 in all of Sicily, so that in the five of these southern regions together there were just half again as many fascists as in the single Po Valley province of Bologna. I have calculated these figures from the tables ibid. pp. 8–11.

(69) The Modern Prince and Other Writings, trans. Marks, L. (London 1957), p. 42Google Scholar. See also Gramsci's, article, Operai, e contadini, in 2000 Pagine di Gramsci, op. cit., I, pp. 403–408Google Scholar. Also eloquent on this point are Banfield, op. cit.; Silone, op. cit.; and Levi, op. cit.

(70) Tarrow, , op. cit. pp. 212–213Google Scholar.

(71) La politico agraria in Italia (Piacenza 1925), p. 20Google Scholar. See also Bandini, Mario, Cento anni di storia agraria italiana (Roma 1957), p. 74Google Scholar.

(72) The system of financial backing set up by the central leadership in 1921 was that of a network of ‘producers’ (usually retired generals and other high-ranking military officers) who established themselves in the provinces, each with his own zone of activity, and sought to make the relation between the movement and its financial supporters not one of ad hoc contributions, but rather of steady and continuous subscriptions. The point we should make here is the marked lack of success of the ‘producers’ in the southern provinces. The subscriptions the movement obtained up to the March on Rome came from 26 provinces, 17 in the North, 8 in the Center, and only I (Naples) in the South. De Felice, , Mussolini il fascista, op. cit. I, pp. 292–294Google Scholar. On the finances of the movement, see also De Felice, , Primi elementi sul finanziamento del fascis mo dalle origini al 1924, Rivista storica del socialismo, VII (1964), 223–253Google Scholar.

(73) See above, note 68.

(74) Op. cit. For a clear statement of Gramsci's awareness of the central impor tance of the “Southern Question” in the Italian revolution, see, for example, his articles, II Mezzogiorno e il fascismo, in 200O Pagine di Gramsci, op. cit. pp. 716–720; and Alcuni temi dalla quistione meridionale, ibid. pp. 797–819.

(75) A study of the invasion of the land is Alberto Caracciolo, L'occupazione delle terre in Italia (date and place of publication not indicated). Serpieri estimates that the movement affected 40 to 50 thousand hectares, mainly in Latium, Sicily, Apulia, and Calabria. La guerra e le classi rurali italiant, op. cit. p. 210. For Latium in particular, see Caracciolo, , Il movimento contadino net Lazio, 1870–1922, op. cit. pp. 169 sqqGoogle Scholar.

(76) Op. cit. pp. 240, 253–258.

(77) Seton-Watson, , op. cit. pp. 587–590Google Scholar. Even if one makes allowances, as one must, for the fact that the 1021 elections came at a still fairly early stage in the expansion of the movement, still the conclusion as to the restricted nature of fascist popular backing is unavoidable.

(78) The figures for the numbers of strikes and strikers in the years 1920–1922 in agriculture and industry are one clear indication of the collapse of the labor movement. In 1920—the high point of labor activity—there were 1881 strikes in industry involving 1,268,000 strikers and in agriculture 189 strikes involving 1,046,000 strikers. The corresponding figures for 1921 show only 645,000 strikers in industry and just over 79,000 in agriculture. And in 1922 there were further sharp declines. Neufeld, Maurice F., Italy: School for Awakening Countries (Ithaca, N. Y., 1961), p. 383Google Scholar; Serpieri, , op. cit. p. 267Google Scholar.

(79) For evidence and discussion of the connivance of officials with fascism, see Tasca, Angelo, Nascita e avvento del fascismo (Bari 1965), passim.Google Scholar; De Felice, , Mussolini il rivoluzionario, op. cit. pp. 602 sqq.Google Scholar, and Mussolini il fascista, I, op. cit. pp. 24 sqq.; Seton-Watson, , op. cit. pp. 576–577, 596–597, 605–606, 697 nGoogle Scholar.

(80) One of the most famous examples of this process of the rallying of influential liberal politicians to pro-fascist sympathies in the period of rapid socialist gains was that of Luigi Albertini, who in late 1920 characterized fascism as a “holy reaction” (Il Corriere della sera, 19 November 1920, reprinted in Piero Melograni (ed.), Corriere della sera (1919–1943) (Rocca San Casciano 1965), pp. 49–50. See also ibid. pp. 51–54, 72–73, 78–80).

(81) The complicity of judges with fascist illegality has been noted by nearly every student of the period, though as yet, to my knowledge, there is no fully documented study of this point. For a bibliography of the chief works dealing with the relations of magistrates to the fascist movement before the March on Rome see Modona, Neppi, Sciopero, potere politico e magistratura (1870–1920) (Bari 1969), pp. 303–306Google Scholar.

(82) On the relations between industry and fascism, in addition to much material in the works cited above by De Felice, see Melograni, Piero, Confindustria e fascismo tra il 1919 e il 1925, in Il Nuovo Osservatore, VI (1965), 835–873Google Scholar; and Sarti, Roland, Fascism and the Industrial Leadership in Italy, 1919–1940: a study in the expansion of private power under fascism (Berkeley 1971)Google Scholar.

(83) Seton-Watson, , op. cit. p. 549Google Scholar.

(84) A vital factor in determining the king's decision was the attitude of leading admirals and generals. In late October 1922 it seems likely that the king saw Generals Diaz, Giardino, and Pecori Giraldi, as well as Admiral Thaon de Revel, whose attitude, as De Felice sums it up, was that “the army will do its duty, but it would be best not to put it to the test”. Mussolini il fascista, II (Torino 1968), pp. 361–362Google Scholar.

(85) On the pervasive irrationalism and scorn for programs of fascism, see Mannheim, Karl, trans. Wirth, L. and Shils, E., Ideology and Utopia (London 1936), pp. 119–130Google Scholar. On Mussolini's failings as a leader, see Aquarone, Alberto, L'organizzazione dello Stato totalitario (Torino 1965), pp. 303. sqqGoogle Scholar.

(86) With regard to the army and industry, two recent works which suggest an interpretation in terms of a compromise are Rochat, op. cit., and Sarti, op. cit.

(87) The literature on mass society and totalitarianism is vast. Among the most influential works elaborating an approach that I believe is seriously misleading when applied to fascist Italy are Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (London 1938)Google Scholar; Friedrich, Carl and Brzezinsky, Z., Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (Cambridge, Mass., 1965)Google Scholar; Kornhauser, William, The Politics of Mass Society (London 1960)Google Scholar. For a study of totalitarianism in Italy that stresses the limitations of the model, see Alberto Aquarone, op. cit.

A central feature of the totalitarian model, of course, is the assertion of nearly total control over society by the regime or, to quote Aquarone, , the “integration without remainder of society within the state” (op. cit. p. 290)Google Scholar.

(88) Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan.