The majority of the lower classes, most of whom were Socialists, were encouraged by the impotence of the Neutralist Government, Orlando, Nitti, Giolitti, and the despair of the middle classes. Overwhelmed by revelations of the incapacity of the country's diplomats relative to war settlements, and encouraged by the Government's spinelessness, they began revolution on their own account, a revolution without ideals. From the beginning the middle classes looked on indifferently, almost with a secret hope that something better than that which was being vouchsafed them might come from it. But soon they were convinced that such hope was ill founded. What could they legitimately expect from the ignorant classes tutored by weak Government and lessoned by bad example in which thirty years of Socialistic propaganda had caused them to lose every faith and every ideal? It was soon apparent that the revolution would be based on class hatred and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Within less than two years Socialism in Italy had grown into a tyranny which was operative against its members, the great majority of whom, however, continued to remain in the ranks of the party because of fear. The borghesi had a premonition of their impending ruin. Amid rampant lawlessness, with all the organs of Government paralyzed, the situation appeared hopeless. At this juncture they began to stir, and the spirit of reaction against repeated outrages developed. They would no longer be gored without resistance. "We are willing to accept you as co-workers, but not as masters," expressed their attempt at conciliation.

The Fascisti came to the rescue, to restore the engine of order and law. Not only those who had property to defend were numbered in its ranks. Mussolini, editor of the Popolo d'Italia, had organized his groups into a disciplined army, with its General Staff, its officers, and ranks, its code of discipline and its decorations. From the beginning it appealed to and later enlisted the sympathies of the sane, serious well-wishers of the country of all classes from the highest to the lowest. The majority of this civilian army, however, were youths for whom the word patria had not become mockery, youths who clung to the illusions and

ideals which ennoble life and were ready to give their lives for Liberty and Justice. And many of them, by falling victims to Communist ferocity, made the sacrifice. Wherever there was an act of lawlessness, an insult to the flag or to the army, an offense to mitigate, a wrong to right, in country or in town, a band of Fascisti would be rushed to administer adequate punishment, varying from the arson of the local Socialist headquarters to burning of red flags, from bodily castigation to compelling offenders to shout "Long live Italy!" or to drink a glass of castor oil in public. Blood was shed only when the murder of Fascisti was to be avenged or resistance was offered, or in case of selfdefense.

Fascismo gradually undermined the reign of terror which the Extremists had succeeded in establishing. It soon became evident that the Socialists and Extremists were not as courageous and terrifying as they had appeared to be when they were sure of immunity. When they felt that Fascismo was gaining favor in public opinion and was sufficiently strong to guarantee them protection, they began to leave the Socialist Party, at first little by little and finally in great numbers. A number of towns and cities passed en masse to Fascismo, and the Italian flag, which had been ostracized in them, was again saluted deliriously. Moreover the King of Italy was able to visit these cities with safety and with welcome.

By a sort of natural selection, the red flag remained in the hands of the most fanatic enemies of social order. Some parts of Italy where specially favorable conditions prevailed became their citadels, ill-famed theatres of their worst revolutionary outbursts. The invasion of factories; the organization of the revolutionary and blood-thirsty Red Guards; bomb outrages like that at the "Diana" of Milan, where innumerable innocent spectators, women and children, lost their lives; the barricades of Florence; the organized slaughter of Palazzo Accursio in Bologna, where several city councillors were murdered by their Communist Colleagues; the outrageous murder of Scimula and Soncini, condemned to a barbarous death by a Red tribunal in which some women acted as judges; the wholesale slaughter of the sailors at Empoli; the frequent attempts against express trains; the revo

lutionary movement at Ancona, where the rebels had seized the forts and could be subdued only after systematic siege and the free use of artillery by the regular army, were the desperate convulsions of a party conscious that the ground was rocking under its feet and in panic lest its edifice should topple.

Nitti's government was swept away by a wave of indignation caused by his wavering policy. Giolitti followed with Enrico Corradini as Under-Secretary for the Interior. Giolitti had been suspected by the Socialists of having secretly encouraged Fascismo. Nothing can be said at this time with certainty, but those who have been witnesses of the ineptitude of Italian Government agents in times past doubt it. It is likely that he was in no way responsible for the organization and subsequent rapid growth of the movement. But he permitted it to develop without interference by either the civil or the military authorities into a great private army. Fascismo was a natural phenomenon of reaction, nourished by idealism and motivated by patriotism. The violent offensive of the Nationalists against Nitti is a proof of the internal vitality of that party which afterwards revealed itself in the birth of Fascismo. Giolitti must have sensed it as a force antagonistic to Socialism. With his fine intuition he must have seen the chance of restoring equilibrium by the play of opposing forces, and he probably hailed the Fascist movement as an unhoped-for aid from heaven, and decided to use it as a tool for saving a tottering régime-Fra due litiganti il terzo gode.

Giolitti's premiership lasted nearly a year. Toward the end, when he found it impossible to govern with the House which had been elected by Nitti, he dissolved it and called new elections. The result was not what he had hoped, as Nitti's proportional law was not as easy a tool in the hands of the Government to influence elections as the old electoral law. Such, at least, proved to be the case in these first two experiments, perhaps because, being a new tool, the Government, i.e., the bureaucratic organs which are at the Government's service, had not learned to handle it efficiently for its own purpose. At any rate the Socialists returned to Parliament in considerable force, having lost but few seats. The actual result of the election was that 156 seats were held by the Socialists, 106 by the Catholics and 34 by the Fascisti.

Benito Mussolini, leader of the Fascisti, now Prime Minister, received at these elections the greatest number of votes of all of the 535 members of Parliament. His election was styled “un' elezione plebiscitaria". Giolitti recognized defeat but claimed that the quality of the Socialist element in the House had greatly improved. However, he soon resigned. In these elections the Fascisti came forth for the first time as a regularly organized political party. In Parliament their representatives, backed by the Nationalists and other fractions of the never united Liberals, assumed the mission of acting as a check to the influence of the Socialists and the Popolari, and of preventing the Government from being too remissive with these parties. Although the Fascisti had declared against Bolshevism, the party had not yet succeeded in enlisting the active support of a large part of the middle classes, as was shown by the election returns. About sixty per cent of them did not go to the polls.

In the new House, with Bonomi as Premier, verbal violence and foul language on the part of the Extremists were adequately met by the Fascisti. After a prolonged struggle, the latter succeeded in scoring a victory over the Extremists when they brought about the expulsion of the deserter Misiano, whose election was finally annulled. The pressure of Fascismo within the new Parliament and without, in the whole country, compelled the Socialists to change their tactics and to pose as victims. After laborious negotiations presided over by the Speaker, Signor De Nicola, a truce between the Fascisti and their opponents was concluded and signed. The Communists, however, refused to be a party to it. It was a piece of trickery destined to tie the hands of the Fascisti who, despite the truce, continued to be murdered by both Communists and Socialists. The leaders of the latter always washed their hands in innocence, shifting the blame to the shoulders of their Extremist brethren, who had not subscribed to the pact. But who can tell where Socialist ends and Communist begins? In Italy, at least, with few exceptions, they are like the finger and the finger-tip; the syndical revolutionary army. When the game became apparent the Fascisti had to call the truce off. Guerrilla warfare was resumed, but meanwhile the Government had recovered strength and some courage, and the Socialists had

become weakened by internal dissensions, especially on the question of participation or nonparticipation in the Government, for the reports made by Socialists returning from Russia had exploded many illusions concerning that Garden of Eden. When the ranks of Socialism began to thin from the passing of many Socialists to the Fascisti labor organizations, Socialism began to lose its primitive character of extreme virulence and its outbursts became less and less frequent and violent.

The immediate results of the activity of the Fascisti were far from ideal, but the threatening clouds of an impending social cataclysm were dispelled. The lure of Bolshevism vanished. The Socialists were compelled to put water in their revolutionary wine and to turn to the Government for protection, forgetful of the days when they clamored for the abolition of the Guardia Regia. Strikes decreased and travel became safe and pleasant. Thousands of visitors reveled in it. Milan, one of the citadels of Socialism, the city whose administration is entirely in the hands of the Socialists, greeted the King with enthusiastic manifestations of loyalty, and the Crown Prince received quite as warm a welcome in Florence, another hotbed of Communism.

Alarmed by the continued thinning out in the Socialistic ranks, some of the leaders of the party in Parliament decided that the only remedy was to coöperate with the Government, to enter the Cabinet and renounce that systematic opposition which had been the dogma of Italian Socialism from the time of its birth. From 1900 the Socialists had often been invited to participate in the Government. They always refused so that they might not lose caste with the masses. The tactics of constant opposition to the Government was pleasing to the masses and was the strength of Socialism. It was sufficient for the Socialist Deputies to absent themselves from voting. The Government thus did not have them against it. In compensation the Socialists received laws agreeable to them, concessions of public work, or other favors, and when these laws were being enacted they were present and voted for the Government.

This change of tactics on the part of the Socialists had for its purpose, once they had entered into the Government, the use of the armed forces of the State against the Fascisti in order to ex