Муссолини у Рубикона
After years of indecisive Liberal government he was widely welcomed as the young, forceful head of state needed to put an end to the climate of anarchy and violence which his movement had done so much to create, an image that seemed confirmed when soon after his appointment he disbanded the squads and recruited their members into the newly formed Militia (MVSN). But hard-core Fascists were not prepared to take what they saw as the emasculation of 'their' revolution lying down. Former squadristi continued to carry out sporadic acts of violence against anti-Fascists, culminating in the murder of the reformist socialist Matteotti in June 1924.
The assassination of the only deputy to have had the courage to attack the Acerbo Law (which rigged the electoral system to give the Fascists an inflated majority in parliament) provoked a protracted crisis within Fascism, thus bringing to a head the conflict between legalitarians and extremists, party and squadristi, as well as revealing for the first time an extraordinary lack of decisiveness and consistency in Mussolini's leadership. However the failure of the legal opposition to Fascism to take advantage of the unique opportunity handed to them to force Mussolini's resignation enabled him to ride out the storm. It took the publication of proof of his implication in the Matteotti murder and threatened coup by the Militia to force him finally into crossing his own Rubicon by making a speech before parliament on 3 January 1925 in which he assumed full responsibility for the actions of his followers since he had been in office. Anti-Fascist purges started within days and the transition to the Fascist dictatorship had begun (see Lyttleton, 1966; Gentile, 1984).
In its first three years Mussolini's highly heterogeneous form of fascism had completed the transition from a minute grouping on the fringe of politics (its 'natural' state), to a mass movement (possible only in circumstances of extreme state crisis), both of which were broadly consistent with its palingenetic myth. Its next incarnation as constitutional party operating as an integral part of a coalition government (a development only made possible by contingent forces) was a radical contradiction of its palingenetic myth, as the 'intransigents' of all denominations pointed out vociferously. It had now been matamorphosized, almost against its leader's own will or better judgement, into an authoritarian regime exercizing power in the name of a populist revolution. This was the logical fulfilment of the revolutionary goals of Fascist political myth but also the stage in which the ultimately chimeric nature of the 'new Italy' would eventually become too apparent, except, that is, to those among Mussolini's followers who were not merely intransigent but fanatical.
R. Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, 67
The assassination of the only deputy to have had the courage to attack the Acerbo Law (which rigged the electoral system to give the Fascists an inflated majority in parliament) provoked a protracted crisis within Fascism, thus bringing to a head the conflict between legalitarians and extremists, party and squadristi, as well as revealing for the first time an extraordinary lack of decisiveness and consistency in Mussolini's leadership. However the failure of the legal opposition to Fascism to take advantage of the unique opportunity handed to them to force Mussolini's resignation enabled him to ride out the storm. It took the publication of proof of his implication in the Matteotti murder and threatened coup by the Militia to force him finally into crossing his own Rubicon by making a speech before parliament on 3 January 1925 in which he assumed full responsibility for the actions of his followers since he had been in office. Anti-Fascist purges started within days and the transition to the Fascist dictatorship had begun (see Lyttleton, 1966; Gentile, 1984).
In its first three years Mussolini's highly heterogeneous form of fascism had completed the transition from a minute grouping on the fringe of politics (its 'natural' state), to a mass movement (possible only in circumstances of extreme state crisis), both of which were broadly consistent with its palingenetic myth. Its next incarnation as constitutional party operating as an integral part of a coalition government (a development only made possible by contingent forces) was a radical contradiction of its palingenetic myth, as the 'intransigents' of all denominations pointed out vociferously. It had now been matamorphosized, almost against its leader's own will or better judgement, into an authoritarian regime exercizing power in the name of a populist revolution. This was the logical fulfilment of the revolutionary goals of Fascist political myth but also the stage in which the ultimately chimeric nature of the 'new Italy' would eventually become too apparent, except, that is, to those among Mussolini's followers who were not merely intransigent but fanatical.
R. Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, 67