Читать книгу Mussolini as revealed in his political speeches (November 1914-August 1923) - Benito Mussolini - Страница 14

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Speech delivered 20th March 1919 before the workmen of Dalmine.

The episode of Syndicalist strife, during which the present Prime Minister addressed a crowded meeting of ironworkers, is often recalled as a kind of reproach by Italian Socialists. They would like to attribute to Mussolini and to Fascista Syndicalism the initial responsibility for that dark period in our national life which had its dramatic expression in the occupation of the factories.

But the methods of protest adopted by the patriotic Italian workmen of Dalmine (Bergamo), although primitive on account of the moral immaturity and technical incapacity of the proletariat at that time, were provoked by the insolence of employers. For the rest, the protest was kept within the bounds of correct and calm expression.

A significant item in the story, which reveals the state of mind of the workers, is the following: tricolour flags, which were then frequently insulted by organisations of workmen under the thumb of the Socialist Party, flew from all chimney-tops during the occupation of Dalmine works, while in the workshops below the work itself throbbed cheerfully and briskly.

I have often asked myself if, after the four years of terrible though victorious war in which our bodies and minds have been engaged, the masses of the people would return to move in the same old tracks as before, or whether they would have the courage to change their direction. Dalmine has answered. The order of the day voted by you on Monday is a document of enormous historical importance, which will and must give a general direction to the line taken by all Italian labour.

The intrinsic significance of your action is clearly set forth in the order of the day. You have acted on the grounds of class, but you have not forgotten the nation. You have spoken for the Italian people, and not only for those of your class of metal-workers. In the immediate interests of your category you might have caused a strike in the old style, the negative and destructive style; but, thinking of the interests of the people, you have inaugurated the creative strike which does not interrupt production. You could not deny the nation after having fought for her, when half a million men have given their lives for her. The nation, for which this sacrifice has been made, cannot be denied, because she is a glorious and victorious reality. You are not the poor, the humiliated, the rejected, as the old rhetorical sayings of the Socialists would have you be; you are the producers, and it is in this capacity that you vindicate your right to treat the industrial owners as equals. You are teaching some of them, especially those who have ignored all that has occurred in the world in the last four years, that for the figure of the old industrial magnate, odious and grasping, must be substituted that of the industrial captain.

You have not been able to prove your capacity for creation, on account of shortness of time and of the conditions made for you by the industrial leaders; but you have proved your good-will, and I tell you that you are on the right road, because you are freed from your protectors, and have chosen from among yourselves the men who are to direct you and represent you, and to them only you have entrusted the guardianship of your rights.

The future of the proletariat is a question of will-power and capacity; not of will-power only and not of capacity only, but of both together. You are free from the yoke of political intrigue. Your applause tells me that it is true. I am proud of having fought for intervention. If it were necessary, I would carve in capital letters upon my forehead, so that all cowards might see, that I was among those in the glorious May of ’15 who demanded that the shame of the neutral Italy of those days should cease.

Now that the war is over, I, who have been in the trenches, and witnessed daily for long months the revelation, in every sense, of the valour of the sons of Italy—I say, to-day, that it is necessary to go out and meet the returning workers and those, who were no shirkers, who laboured in the factories with minds open to the necessities of the hour. And those who do not see this necessity, involved by the new order of things, or deny it, are either stupid or deluded.

I have never asked, and to-day less than ever, anything from you or anybody. And so I have no anxiety or misgivings as to the effect that my words will have upon you. I tell you that your action has been original, and is worthy, on account of the motives of sympathy which inspired it.

Another observation. Upon the flagstaff of your building you have run up your flag, which is the tricolour, and around it you have fought your battle. You have done well. The national flag is not merely a rag, even if it has been dragged in the mud by the bourgeoisie, or by their representatives; it still remains the symbol of the sacrifice of thousands and thousands of men. For its sake from 1821 to 1918 innumerable bands of men suffered privation, imprisonment and the gallows. Around it during these years, while it was the rallying-point of the nation, was shed the blood of the flower of our youth, of our sons and brothers. It seems to me that I have said enough.

As regards your rights, which are just and sacred, I am with you. I have always distinguished the mass which works from the party which assumes the right, nobody knows why, of representing it. I have sympathy with all the working classes, not excluding the “General Federation of Labour,” though I feel myself more drawn towards the “Italian Union of Workmen.” But I say that I shall not cease fighting against the party which during the war was the instrument of the Kaiser. They wish at your expense to try their monkey-like experiments, which are only an imitation of Russia. But you will succeed, sooner or later, in exercising essential functions in modern society, though the political dabblers of the bourgeoisie and semi-bourgeoisie must not make stepping-stones of your aspirations so as to arrive at winning their little games.

They may have said what they liked to you about me, I do not mind. I am an individualist, who does not seek companions on his journey. I find them, but I do not seek them. While this despicable speculation of the jackals rages, you, obscure workers of Dalmine, have cleared the way. It is labour which speaks in you, and not an idiotic dogma or an intolerant creed. It is that labour which in the trenches established its right to be no longer considered as labour, necessarily accompanied by poverty and despair, because it must bring joy, pride in creation, and the conquest of free men in the great and free country of Italy within and without her boundaries. (Enthusiastic applause.)