 Rydyn yw eich gynhyrchu oeddi a'r ddau a'r annibau. Rydyn ni wedi bod nhw'n defnyddio i gael ei wasbyn. Ond oedd maen nhw'n cael ei phaith i'r ffaisism, ac nid oedd wnaeth bod ni'n gwneud o'r stori ar gyfer i wneud y ffaith i'r rhagion ffaith. ..y dyfodol yn hynny'r ffasias. Mae'r ffasias yn ychydig. Mae'n gynllunio'n gweithio'n gyrsloedd. Yn ymwneud o ffasiasm i'w Llywodraeth yma, yn yna y 1920... ..yna'r fforddau a'r fforddau o bwysig. Felly yw'r Ysgrifennid Gwneud gymhreid yw'r Unedig Fy dros er mwynnig yma. Felly mae'r rhaglen yma, ond yn y cyfnod 1918 oed yn 1921, a'n gweithio oedd 1922, ychydig ychydig o'r ffordd o'r ysgrifennid. On ddod y pethu gyd, y 2 yma, oedden nhw'n 1929, yn gymryd i'r Gwyrdau, yw'r bieini Rosso. Felly, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio. Y ffashism wedi'i gweithio, ac y gweithio'r gwaith yw'r gwneud hynny, mae'r gweithio'r cyflwyno yng nghyrch. Felly, y hiddel yn ymdweud yma yn mwysollion mwysollion mewn. Efallai, y ddiwedd y neud o'r Gwyrdau yn ystafell, ac mae'r ffordd yn ymdillwyr yn y cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r ffordd, oherwydd o'r ffordd, o'r ffordd. A'r ffordd yn ymdillwyr yn ymdillwyr. Mae'r ffashism wedi'u gwneud yn Gweithgaredd a Llywodraeth, mae'r ffordd yn ymdillwyr yma, mae'r ffordd yn ymdillwyr yma, mae'r ffordd yn ymdillwyr yn ymdillwyr, ac mae'r ffordd yn ymdillwyr yn ymdillwyr yn ymddillwyr yn ymdillwyr yn droll. Mae'r ffordd yn Unulog iawn gweithio'r ffordd iawn a'r gweFEYFngw enwed y Llywodraeth. Gweithio'r Gr whenevergen arwyr yr hyn yn sylGyff yr wych. A'r Fyfo'r Gymdeithas hyn yn boysig o'rost g'u G translatederfyn i ddyn nhw ierydd Shadowbidell C Jesus�ur yn EurupI? Lenwyrolololololololololololololol Hip tar ylanesaeth Roedd y peth yn cynnig o bryd. Mae'n rhan o'r ffrindio'r ran ychydig i wneud o'r eu bod, ond, y rhan o'r peth yn yn cael ei gydag o'r peth. Felly, y peth wedi cael ei gydag o'r peth yn ei gydag o'r peth yn ei ddefnyddio. Mae'r ysgrifennid yw'r ysgrifennid yw'r ysgrifennid yw'r ysgrifennid. Mae'r rhan o'r peth yn ei ddefnyddio'r ysgrifennid yw'r ysgrifennid, Byddwch yn y cyfnod, rydyn ni'n gweithio'r ysgrifennu, y byddwch yn y cyflodau a'r cyflodau'r ysgrifennu. Mae yna'r gweithio'r cyflodau, ond yn y gweithio'r ysgrifennu, rydyn ni'n dweud i'r gweithio. Yn ymgyrch chi'n gweithio'r ysgrifennu yn rhwng inni 1917. Ond rwy'n credu bod yn ymgyrch yn yr ysgrifennu yn Ysgrifennu yn Ysgrifennu yn 2017, yn y gweithio'r ysgrifennu, ond rwy'n gweithio'r ysgrifennu. Weiddo ddwy eighteen ond yn ei wneud ei stwashedyn eu mwynydd Ac dwi'n cyflodau'r Ysgrifennu yn Helwyr yn urd sentenced yna, Rydych chi'n ddwy'ch cyflodau a'r cyff alg ei diam yng Nghymdd fel oediant i gyflodau oherwydd mae'n fawr o'r ddechrau. Ond ydych chi gyrddwyr wedi bod gael y cyfnod, mae'n cyfnod o'r rhagwm syddol yn ei gwrddr, oherwydd mae'n cyfnod o'r rhagwm syddol, oherwydd mae'n cyfnod o'r rhagwm syddol, a mae'n cyfnod o'r llunig. Roeddwn ni'n ddim yn oed o rysau. Roeddwn ni i am wych. Roeddwn ni'n ddim yn oed yn Oguz 1917. Mae ddefnyddio gyrddwyr yn ddefnyddio fawr o'r rhagwm. Mae'r mastafell wedi gweld i'r dyfnod o'i un i ddweud o'ch gyd-dweud, a'r ddweud o'i un i ddweud o'i wneud o'r ddweud, oherwydd mae'n ddweud i'r boesio ar y diolwyr rhan a o'r gwirion, nid yw'r drwg a o'n gweithio ar y clas. Mae'n ddweud y gwynghau i'r rhan, mae'n ddweud y dyfnod o'r Alpi, mae yna'r llun o'r gwynghau. Mae'n ymddir o'r gweithio, ma'n ydym.がbwysig iawn rygwyddog ac maen nhw'n cigodd yr arddangodd yr ymdd wrth hyn. I wneud y cyffredin o'r fwyfyr. I wneud mae chynig ymddorol haf yn pario'r ymddorol i'n edrych o'r fwyfyr. That's how revolutionary the situation was, in Turin in August of 1917. What did the trade union leaders do? They did everything to limit the scope of the movement. was sent to Milan to ask the leaders of the Socialist Party to spread the movement to the rest of Italy and the conditions were there. They did exactly the opposite. They did everything to hold them back. They even gave leaflets out at one point calling on the workers to go back to work. The result was of course they sent in repressive forces, they fired on the workers. The official death toll was 42 but they reckoned that at least 500 oes yn gweithio yn ymdegwyd yng Nghymru 1917. That is a harbinger o'r cymdeithas o'r gweithio sy'n gyntaf y war nid yw. Ac rwy'n dechrau'r cyffredinol sy'n cymdeithas o'r gweithio'r cymdeithas yw'r gweithio'r cymdeithas. Now, the economic background is this. The public debt. Yesterday we talked about public debt. The public debt in Italy in 1910 was £14 billion lira. yw 1920, 10 ymlaen, yw 95 miliwn. Mae Lira wedi'i ddifaluwyd. Yw 1920, mae'r ffordd 1,5 yw'r ffordd yw 1914. Mae'r ffordd yw 1914 a 1921 mae'r 560%. Mae'r ydych chi'n gwneud o'r ffordd o'r ffordd, ac mae'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r ffordd, ac mae'r ffordd o'r tyryn hefyd. Ac y gallwn niw yw nesaf, yn nesaf, 1918, mae'r ffordd nesaf 1919, yw'r ffordd o'r ffordd. 1,800 ffordd yw'r ffordd o'r 1,5 miliwn ffordd in 1919. Yw 1920, 2,000 ffordd o'r ffordd, rwy'n ddifodol 2,3 miliwn ffordd. Mae'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r ffordd. Mae'r Lleidydd CGL, y llyffordd ym maen nhw, a'r gweithio'r gweithio. Y 1918, mae'n gweithio cael 250,000 o'r ddweud. Felly, yng Nghymru, mae'n gweithio cael 2,150,000 o'r ddweud. Y gweithio'r gweithio'r ddweud, ychydig, yn ddweud y ddweud o'r 11,000 o'r ddweud, yn gweithio'r 160,000 o'r ddweud. Yn y gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r ddweud, yn gweithio ar y loedd y mewn gyfnoddau gion gweithio'r gweithio gyda gwelli Gwyrdd, y gygechwynig a'r CVL. A'i gweithio hefyd yn parwyr i ysgrifennu, lawer, wedi gwneud o'r gweithio, a'i gweithio'r gweithio. Y gweithio, a wneud o'r gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio i'w agorasgwyr. Ond mae'r gweithio'r tradd�fwyngol yn y ddweud o'r cwneud yn gyshosio'r ddiogelio ar y cwymdeithasol dioledau'r hyn. Mae'r gwirionedd y Dde-facto Nbyrw Ysbryd, yn y ddweud o'r cwymdeithasol, felly yw'r union wedi'i bydd yn i'r union. Mae'r union i'r union i'r union, i ddechrau'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r cwymdeithasol, i ddiogelio i'r disemball neu dipynigio i'r deallu mewn axon. Mae'n bwysig i'r storfodol yn Cirin. Felly, mae'n ddweud y llwyddiad yng Nghymru, mae'n ddweud i'r llwyth gael y llwyth i'r llwyddiad, ac mae'n ddweud o'r Llyfrgell. Mae'n ddweud y gallai'ch gweithio hosilu'r unioniaid, ond mae'n gweithio'r unioniaid i'r llwyddiad sy'n gweithio'r hynny o'r llwyddiad. A oedden nhw'n gweithio'r bosid yma, yn ddweud â'r llwyth honno, a'r llwyth honno, yma yma yna yma yma yma yma, y ddyn nhw'n gweithio'r cyfnod, y cyfnodio'r cyfnod yn Chirin a eu gwirio'r cyfnod i'r gwirio'r cyfnod. Mae'n ddiddordeb am ysgolwgau Shopsdewydau at Theat. Mae'n ym March 1920, mae gweithio'r cyfnod o'ch bod yn cyfnodol yn Chirin. Mae'n gweithio'r cyfnod i'r ffordd i yn enw, a'u gwirio'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r gwirio'r cyfnod, ymateb o ddeunyddion sydd wedi gwirionedd yn sylwgr yn troi gennych. Mae'r CEO wedi bod yn iawn i'r cadw'r byw, a mae'n unrhyw ni'n hoffa mewn ymarchegol. a'r cyfnodd, a'r cyfnodd, a ydy hefyd y gall Lord Rhysgwr, yw'r rhysgwr yn ymgyrch gan y Gymru yng Nghymru. Mae'r rhysgwr yn ymgyrch yn rhywbeth sydd yn ymgyrch. Ynghorif yw, o'i Gweithgwr yma, o'r wych ar gyfer y Cyfnodd, mae'r 6080 ar gyfer, a'r 50 miliwn yn ysgwrdd, ac mae'r sefydliadau yn eu bwrdd, o'r cyfnodd yn ddechrau. The demobilised soldiers were very radicalised. I described what happened to the CGL membership, but the PSI, the Italian Socialist Party, end of the First World War had 60,000 members. Within two years it had 200,000, 215,000 members. Mae gennym Llyfrgell gyda'r unig yn diwylliant yma i'r unig iawn, a'r unig iawn i'r unig iawn i'r unig iawn, a'r unig iawn i'r unig iawn i'r unig iawn. Maen nhw'n meddwl yr Eilol, mae'r Cil wedi'i unig iawn, a'n meddwl 1,800,000. Bydd 2020, ddif wneud 4 miliwn workede Caerdydd, o'r unian nhw. Mae ydy'r union iawn yn 5 yma yn cyffredinol, mae'n angen i'r gweithio. A meddwl yw'r rhywbeth yw'r cyffredin niadio'r adegwadau. Mae rwy'n meddwl dod yn gwneud ein masygaeth cyffredin niadio yn y gweithio ymlaen nhw. Mae'r gweithio arnynnu masygaeth yn cyffredin niadio yn y gweithio ymlaen nhw. Mae'n cyfan wasio cyffredin niadio'r gweithio ymlaen nhw. Mae'r cyfnod yn y cwntes, byddwch, oherwydd y proses yw ysgrifennu'r ysgrifennu arall. Mae'r cyfnod i'r ffigurau ar gyfer y Uniau yn Franthol, ar gyfer y 1914 a 1920, y CGT yw'r 1 miliwn i'r 2.4 miliwn. Y Uniau yn Yn Gwrthwyll yn 2.5 miliwn i 8 miliwn yn 1920. Ac yn Yn Gwrthwyll yn 1913, yn 1.5 miliwn yn y Uniau. Yn 1924, yn 3 miliwn, yn y gyfnod i'r Uniau, yw ysgrifennu'r ysgrifennu'r ysgrifennu'r yng nghyrch yn y Uniau, ac yn gwybod i'r ysgrifennu, ac yn gwybod i'r ysgrifennu i'r gael i'r busau. Yna, wrth gwrs, mae'r gwaith hefyd yn yrwyf i. Mae'r gwrthwydd yn olyg, yn gweithio'r fflus. Mae'r gwaith honi. Mae'n gweithio'r gweithio, ac mae'r Gweithio'r gweithio'r gwaith hefyd. Gyda mynd oes i'r lleol yma i'w cael ei wneud i gweithio. Mae'r 19a yma ei wneud i'w lleol. Mae'r gwrthoedd ymlaenau, yn ymgyrchol yn teimlo, yn 32.3% a gynnydd 156 MPs. Mae'n gweithio'r gwrthoedd yn parlymynd. Yna, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio, a'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gwaith i'w gweithio'r gweithio, yr argyn, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio. Felly dyna, rytwoli'r Cyfranau Radolion ddir ar y Parlymy. Y Disgrifennu Ysgrifennu yw'r Cyfraffwyd yw 2,800 ysgrifennu. Vo'r ganifed y Caesif yr ysgrifennu yw'r Cymru. Felly mae yw'r peth ffyrrod Person yn 2013, y Disgrifennu Ysgrifennu byr yn 52nd o ffyrurd� yma, ond mae'r drodi wrth ei bêl. Felly mae'r rhae phanwaith mawr yn fawr yn ydyles cyforthaeth yn ysgrifennu. As I said, during the war, wages had been eroded, and this unleashed this wave of strikes in 1920. The demands were, of course, for wage increases to stand line with inflation. The eight hour day, a long historical demand of the movement. In February 1919, the engineering workers actually won the eight hour day with no loss in pay. This is how strong the movement was. July 1919, there was a general strike. The mood was revolutionary. The feeling within the working class was, our day has come. And the mood was, we can do like the Russians. Russia, the Russian revolution had a huge impact on the consciousness of the Italian working class. Now, the factory councils, as I said, was this new phenomenon, a spontaneous development within the factories. The socialists of Turin, we didn't have the Communist Party yet, Gramsci and his group around a paper called Lordi Nenuovo, The New Order, they promoted and they were very closely linked to the factory councils. This brought them into conflict, by the way, with the national leadership of the Socialist Party, who considered it against the line. You know the absurd position, I might refer to this later on. The Socialist Party of Italy was a member of the Communist International. So radicalised was the movement, so strong was the pressure from below, that the Socialist Party leaders were forced to join the common intern. If you look at the old symbol of the Socialist Party up until the 1970s, I can remember that. They had the hammer and sickle in the symbol of the party, which was from the days when they were in the common intern. But the Socialist Party leaders said, no, no, we must form Soviets, and they even had an elaborate plan of the rules and regulations of how the Soviets should function. And yet here in the factories you had the factory councils, real genuine embryonic Soviets, genuine expressions of the working class, and they rejected them because it was against their position. This appeared systematically throughout the whole process. The paralysis of the leadership of the Socialist Party. Now the bosses faced with such an onslaught were terrified by what they saw, the revolutionary potential. They began to organise, they organised the bosses union, later on they organised the landowners union, and they coordinated their actions to try and defeat this rising working class. They decided in August 1920, in a meeting, no more concessions are going to be made to the working class. They had to take on the working class head on. And they threatened to move in the direction of lockouts. Any protest by the workers would be responded with the factory closures. The FIOM, the engineering union of the CGL, held a special congress in Milan. And they voted in favour of the policy which they called obstructionism. You could call it, I suppose, a slow down, or a work to rule in English, i.e. reduced to a minimum production. Only apply every rule in detail to slow down production. And they announced in that congress, if the bosses move towards a lockout, we occupy the factories. And that's what happened. At the end of August, the Romeo plant in a car plant, you've heard of Alfa Romeo, Romeo was one of the early Italian car companies, had a plant in Milan of about 2000 workers. They declared a lockout. The FIOM called on the workers and they occupied the 300 engineering factories in Milan. The movement spread very quickly to Turin, then to Genoa, and beyond. Factories were occupied in Rome, they were occupied in Naples, they were occupied in Florence. Even in Palermo, you had factories were occupied. But of course the core was in what was called the industrial triangle, Turin, Milan, Genoa, where the working class was at its strongest. And at one point, close to half a million workers were occupying the factories. There was another phenomenon, the Red Guards in Turin. The workers armed themselves in Turin. They controlled neighbourhoods, they controlled the roads, they had roadblocks. Production continued in the factories under the control of the working class. Railway workers would send material to the Fiat plant so they had the materials to continue producing. The working class showed for several weeks they were capable of running the factories without the bosses. This terrorised the Italian bourgeoisie. They had revolution staring them in the face. And the working class had a taste of what was possible. The state in that particular moment was paralysed. They didn't have the forces to destroy this movement. Joliti and other leaders were discussing, we don't have enough troops. If this were to spread to every corner of Italy, the army, the police is not enough. And also, remember what happened in 1917? Some of these soldiers may not have been so trustworthy, asking them to shoot their own people. So you have this tremendous movement in September 1920. But the leader of the Fium, Boatsi, he announced he was prepared to accept a wage increase. The workers have factory control. The Red Guards. Power was there for the taking. The Socialist Party was the biggest party in Parliament. And yet he turns up negotiating a wage increase. September 10th, in the middle of the occupation, the CGL leadership meets together with the PSI executive. And the PSI talked revolution, but never acted. They said, we are for the Socialist Republic and for the dictatorship of the proletariat. We are for a social revolution. The CGL leaders were against that. They met, what did they do? Well, they decided to put it to a ballot. They asked the working class, do you want a revolution or do you want workers control? Within capitalism, obviously. That's actually what happened. They held a referendum of the CGL membership, by the way. Not the railway workers, not the maritime workers, not the peasants, not the workers who are not in unions, just within the CGL. And even then, 590,000 voted for workers control, 490,000 voted for revolution. The leaders of the Socialist Party gave a sigh of relief that their proposal was lost. Look, Nenny, who became a future leader of the Italian Socialist Party, said that the leaders of the PSI at that joint meeting had liquidated the political solution. That meant they had liquidated revolution with the cooperation of the party executive. And he says, this is Nenny, who was never a revolutionary, which had wanted to lose. That was the policy of these so-called lefts. Tasca explains that he said that the leaders of the party gave a sigh of relief. Angela Tasca has written a very good analysis of fascism. It's called the rise of fascism. He was a communist with Gramsci. He lived through the process. He was expelled as a right-op positionist in 1929 and unfortunately continued to move to the right after that. Now, at this moment in time, the fascists are a small force. Mussolini started to organise, but this is how Angela Tasca describes the fascists then. They were anemic and almost non-existent prior to September 1920, but they multiply in the last three months of the year. Once the factory occupations were defeated because they were not spread to the rest of Italy, they were isolated and that famous vote to basically they accepted some wage increases, which the bosses are always prepared to give. The bosses even gave the eight-hour day to the working class. The bosses are prepared to give anything if the working class is threatening to take power, as long as it serves to demobilise the working class and get it back into the factories. Later on, they took it back with a vengeance, as I will explain. Tasca says something important. It is not fascism that defeated the revolution, but the inconsistency of the revolution that promotes the emergence of fascism. Fascism is not the instrument that destroys the revolution. It is the reformist leader of the working class that do that. Fascism comes in later at a second stage. The factory occupations had challenged the bosses in their very property rights. They were terrified and determined to re-establish bourgeois order. In effect, the factory occupations were the swan song of the movement. It was the last real gasp and it marked a turning point, a very important turning point and the beginning of a shift in the balance of forces in that period. Now, November 1919, how weak was Mussolini? Well, he stood in the elections in Milan. He got 5,000 votes out of a total of 268,000 votes. That's 1.8%. That's how small he was. He was rather disappointed. The socialist party in Milan in those elections got over 50%. That was the real balance of forces in 1919. Yet by 1922, this party, the fascists, becomes a huge force. In 1921, they were still weak numerically, although they were on the march. They barely had 30,000 votes. Now it's interesting to look at the figure of Mussolini. You see, he was the son of a socialist. His father was a socialist with anarchist inclinations. This is his background. Mussolini knew what he was talking about when he analysed the socialist party because Mussolini had read Marx and Engels. In 1911, Mussolini led a riot, a protest against the imperialist war of Italy in Libya. He got a five months jail sentence for that. On his release, he campaigned against the right wing of the socialist party. He campaigned to get the right wing expelled from the socialist party. That's how left he was. When he was in Switzerland, he worked as a building worker temporarily, he had a medallion round his neck with Karl Marx on it. That's where Mussolini's, that's his background. But he's like, it's interesting to analyse the figure. I think Trotsky does it with Stalin. Tasker actually says about Mussolini. He was never a socialist. Mussolini was always a Mussolinist. I.e. I come first. And I will go down any road that serves that purpose. He became the editor of Avanti, the paper of the socialist party, a member of the national executive. He was a very important figure on the left of the party. When the First World War broke out, he was still against the war in the very early days. But, a little bit like Boris Johnson, when he had those two articles about whether to leave or join the European Union. He was weighing up, which is the best one. Apparently, Tasker explains it. He saw the mood in the party was still anti-war, so he published an article anti-war. But in private meetings, he was declaring his sympathies for intervention. And he was exposed publicly for that. You privately say you're for the war. He realised that he was going to be exposed. He shifted very quickly. He put all his money on the intervention. And he came out in favour of Italy joining the First World War, which he did in 1915. That led to a break between Mussolini and the Socialist Party. He launched his own paper, Popolo d'Italia, financed by Bourgeois. He started to get a taste for money. Tasker describes how Mussolini, in the later, he was no longer that bohemian, rough-looking guy. He was wearing the smart suits and he was having a good life. He started to get a taste for money and Bourgeois friends. But he sets up the first fasci. Fascia in Italian just means bundle. So fascism means bundleism. And if you're a fascist, you're a bundleist. Because it comes from the old Roman Empire symbol of the fasci, which is a bundle. Which means you tie it together and it gives you strength with an axe in it. That was the symbol from the days of the old Roman Empire. They took it on as a symbol and the name. Now, Mussolini was very ambitious personally. Had no scruples and no principles. Tasker explains he would be prepared to use any idea to destroy the enemy of the day. And he would shift his position the next day. He had no problems in changing his ideas. He abandons the class struggle and he becomes basically a bourgeois populist, demagogue, nationalist. But with a lot of rhetoric and left, I will quote the programme in a minute. Now, as I said, there was a very powerful influence of the Russian Revolution in the period 1917-21. The CGEL itself was playing with the idea of a constituent assembly. The PSI executive was further to the left. Their position quote was for the Socialist Republic and the dictatorship of the proletariat. That was formally the leadership of the Socialist Party. But as I said, a lot of talk but no action. But it reflected the mood in the ranks. At the same time as the working class was moving, we have to remember there was a huge movement of the peasants. Now Italy was still fundamentally overwhelmingly a peasant nation. Over 50%, 55% of GDP I think was agriculture, although industry had already become an important part of that. The peasantry was on the move. There were massive land occupations in Italy, particularly in the south. In Sicily it was very strong. In some provinces, the entire Latifundia, all the land of the landlords were occupied and taken over by the landless peasants, often led by the ex-soldiers who had been demobilised. In Trapani, for example, in the province of Sicily, 150,000 peasants involved in the land occupations. Not a single socialist MP went there to talk to the peasants. They didn't turn to them. They didn't raise the slogan of land to the peasants. Serrati, he was the leader of the party. He said this about this movement which was led by ex-soldiers and popular party activists. He defined it a petty bourgeois demagogic movement. It's incredible when you read this history and you see what they did. All the socialist party had to do was say, land to the peasants and the popular party would have been destroyed. Gramsci actually says at one point, the popular party stands to the socialists, he got his comparisons a little bit wrong, like the Menshaviks to the Bolsheviks. What he meant was we can destroy the popular party. The only way that could have been done was if the socialist party had adopted the slogan, land to the peasants, they never adopted that slogan. Therefore, the popular party was able to hold on to the peasantry and behind the popular party and the leader of the popular party was a Catholic priest, was the Catholic Church. It was set up as a barrier between the peasantry and the working class. But it wasn't just the peasantry which had radicalised and was on the march. For the socialist party to have won so many votes in 1919, it meant a significant layer of the middle classes in the cities had turned to the left. Even the shopkeepers, the professional people, these people were radicalised, they were looking to the socialist party. They'd been told the socialist want revolution and they looked for revolution in the socialist party. But the socialist party did not act, the CGL leaders consciously tried to hold the movement back and the socialist party leaders betrayed the movement at every step. Now, this explains why the original programme of the fascists was, you could say, almost socialist. In fact, the Germans call themselves National Socialists, it wasn't by chance. Mussolini, 1919, of course Mussolini wasn't, as I said, he had no principles and he had no intention of applying this programme. But the founding programme in 1919 of the fascists was this, I'd read it to you. Universal suffrage, votes for women, the abolition of the senate, that's like abolishing the house of lords here. The call for a kind of constituent assembly, for a republic, for the eight hour day, for the minimum wage, for workers' participation in industry, not ownership participation. Social security, pensions at the age of 55, a special tax on capital, expropriation of church property and even sequestering 85% of war profits. Now, that's what you call quite a radical programme. But it shows you how they built up their initial base by presenting themselves like this. Mussolini, after all, remember, he was still seen as coming from within the socialist movement, a leader of the left of the socialist movement. At one point, the fascists even adopted the slogan, the land to those who till it. They went further than the socialists and then they would poke fun, they would say to the peasants, you see the socialists, they promise you this and they promise you that and they give you nothing. But we are giving you all of this, of course, they didn't actually give very much. But you can see how this can begin to develop a movement. But combined with this, of course, is the nationalist rhetoric, the idea that Italy had been badly treated after the First World War, it didn't get ffume, which they claimed as Italian, it didn't get Dalmatia, the coast of Yugoslavia and also Mussolini claimed that Italy has a right to colonies like all the others. The English have their cause. He used to take the piss out of the British, they talk about democracy. Look at their empire, look at what they're doing. We won a bit too. That was his position basically. He was pandering to the nationalism of the period. Now he never went back to the programme of 1919. That was just pure demagogy. He actually says later on, we don't have preconceived doctrines, we just have action. Now in July 1919 they had 17,000 members, still a small force, in effect its time had not yet come. The bourgeois could not move directly against the working class in 1919. That's why I was saying, it's not fascism that destroys the movement. The bourgeois were playing with the idea of bringing the Socialist Party into the government. They offered to Rati, come into the government. He had to say, I'm sorry I can't. Not because he didn't want to, he says, my people wouldn't follow me. Basically the party would not support it. In fact, the party had an official position of no collaboration. I can't quote it here. There's a phone conversation between a Liberal MP, Amendola, and the editor of the Corriere de la Cira, 15th of September 1920. Amendola says, but what can we do in this situation? This is the height of the factory occupations. The editor of the Corriere de la Cira says, give power to the general confederation of Labour, to the union. And the Liberal says, but that's extreme. No, no, no. He says, it's much better than what we have now. We cannot continue like this. And the Liberal says, but so you're saying basically let them carry out the revolution and that's the end of it. Just give up. And he says, what can we do? He says, precisely in order to avoid the revolution, we call the union leaders into the government. This was the conversation that was taking place. Now, by the time, of course, we get to the defeat of the factory occupations, that becomes less urgent for the bourgeois. The movement was already beginning to ebb and was in decline. And what we have is Mussolini and his squads stepping up their action. The last three months of 1920 and the first six months of 1921, a systematic campaign, armed gangs financed by the bourgeois, moving around town after town in Ferrari, in Bologna. In Bologna it started with a bomb thrown at a demonstration. This was in 1919 in the early days. But later on it became common shooting at demonstrations. They would go to the headquarters in Milan, say to the mayor and the socialist held council, and at gunpoint forced them to resign. They would take over the council and they did this systematically town after town after town, burning down the headquarters of the socialist party, the communist party, the trade unions, printing presses. They destroyed over 700 buildings. The gang would turn up and they'd burn the whole building down. At least 500 people were killed in this campaign of terror. And Mussolini, you know what he said? At one point he said, and what are the socialists doing? Are they organizing any protests? Are they organizing any reprisals? He said no. He knew them. He knew that they were incapable. You know what they would do? They would be in attack, they'd call a local general strike, but no physical organized attack on the fascists. In February 1920, in an article Mussolini, he talked about the socialists, he talked about their reformist nothingness and their revolutionary nothingness, in the sense they do nothing real in parliament and they do nothing real on the streets. He knew exactly who he was dealing with. If the socialist party, basing itself, for instance, on the Red Guards of Turin, and spreading that to all the cities, armed squads, every time a fascist attack took place, you go to them and you attack them and you physically destroy them, Mussolini would have been destroyed. He could have been destroyed. But they never, ever did this. Time is running out and I have to describe a whole historical period. I will move on, move on as fast as I can. This is, talk about being warned. This is what Mussolini said at one point. He said, describing the socialists. This is in the 1st of April 1920, in the poplar d'Italia. He said, one could add that the crisis of socialism, he meant the socialist party, is even more serious and more tragic than that which troubles the ruling political classes of the old world. As if he's talking to the socialists. You do not need songs and slogans or comrades of socialism, no drunken verbiage, no comedy of gestures, if you thought about tomorrow and the fate that may await you, your veins and wrists would tremble. It is said that there is a bourgeois atonement, but one forgets to add that tomorrow there may be an analogous socialist atonement. He's basically saying, we are going to make you pay and you're going to pay dearly. It was a clear warning, socialist party leaders, they continue to appeal to democracy in the institutions and parliament etc. Now this is what produced the split in the socialist party in January 1921, led by Bordiga, Gramsci was also a leading figure, and it then becomes the official section. They take about a third, roughly about a 60,000 of the membership represented by that congress split to form the Communist Party of Italy. Unfortunately, and here, the communists also played a role in defeating the working class, because they emerged under the leadership of Bordiga, who was an ultra-left. He underestimated fascism right till the very end, he said it would never take place, and then they also had a weakness in that they said all reaction was the same, the fascists are no different, all of the reaction, they're all reactionary expressions of the bourgeoisie. They rejected the United Front, the policy of the common turn, which Lenin, if you read Lenin left-wing communism infantile disorder, is written precisely to educate the leadership of the communist parties, but they rejected it. The bourgeois was only offensive, financing and organising armed squads and fascists from city to city, and killing hundreds of socialists and communists etc. and also destroying the union and building the fascist unions. In June 1922, for example, the fascist union had reached almost half a million members. By 1923, the CGL had been reduced to one-tenth of the strength it had in 1920. But in spite of all this lack of leadership, you see the tremendous spirit of the Italian work in class. In early 1921, they forced the leaders to come together in the Allianza del Labor, the Workers' Alliance, which was an alliance of all the workers' organisations, the CGL, the UC, which is the syndicalist union, the wheel, the seafarers union, the railway workers union. They come together as an alliance, and it was the pressure of the rank and file trying to form a unity of the working class and its organisations to combat the fascists. They were under direct threat, they were being killed, the headquarters were being burnt etc. When this was formed, the communists were invited to attend, they declined. They just sent a letter. Gramsci explained correctly that for the alliance to develop, it had to have roots and a network at the rank and file level, committees in the workplaces etc, which is the last thing the reformists wanted. The reformists had control of the workers' alliance. All decisions had to be unanimous, so there was veto. But you see what happens here. The movement continues to undergo the attacks. At the end of July, under this pressure, through the workers' alliance, a general strike is called, it's called the Choppero legalitario, the legalistic strike. Why is it called that? Because the aims of the strike, this is the incredible thing about this, was it was organised to appeal to the bourgeois in Parliament to defend democracy, to use the state forces to fight the fascists. Instead of fighting them themselves, they appealed to the ruling class. They appealed to the ruling class when the ruling class was financing the fascists. They appealed to Giulietti when Giulietti was already maneuvering with the fascists. This is the incredible scenario that we have. Side by side with the workers' alliance emerged the Arditi del Popolo. This was a spontaneous movement led by ex-soldiers who had experience in fighting, who took guns where they could and organised armed resistance. But the Socialist Party was against. The Communist Party, the Communist Party leadership, because it wasn't under their leadership, sent a circular to the members of the party who were spontaneously joining the Arditi del Popolo to withdraw because their aim is to defend democracy and not socialism. This is the pure sectarianism of the leadership of the Communist Party. They split the working class in this situation, and the Arditi del Popolo, which could have become the armed resistance of the Italian working class, went down to defeat. In a few areas like Parma, you see the potential, a four-day resistance, barricades. The state had to come in with machine guns to defeat. Workers were armed that the working class was fighting back in every neighbourhood. The same happened in Bari and other areas, but these were isolated cases where the local leadership wasn't firmly under the control of the Socialists or the Communists. So the general strike, the legal general strike, flopped. The fascists gave a 48-hour warning. You end the strike or we come for you. The strike was called off and it was a major defeat of the working class. The fascists went on the offensive and stepped up their attacks. By now, the balance of forces had massively shifted in favour of the fascists. In August, they were already talking about the march on Rome. The rumours were spreading everywhere. The petty bourgeois were disillusioned. The urban petty bourgeois were disillusioned with the Socialists. They promised revolution, they never did it. The fascists come along and they say where the men of action will sort out this mess. The same with the peasants. Although there were armed conflicts that continued in that period, the movement was going down. And yet, in spite of this, in the May 1921 elections, although the Socialists and Communists presented themselves split in two parties, their overall vote more or less held up. There was a very small fall, but here's where the manoeuvre comes. The very same Liberals that the Socialists were appealing to form a bloc with Mussolini, the national bloc. It's a coalition that stands in the elections, gets over 100 MPs. 35 of those MPs are fascists, one of them is Mussolini. This is how he gets into Parliament, not by having some massive vote and landslide towards him, but with the collaboration of the Liberals. Then, I have to speed up, I have enough here for about two hours, but another element in 1921, mass unemployment emerges. The unemployed start to get used, to get organised. The Reserve Army of Labour, as Marx referred to it, is used against the organised working class. The landowners, the middle classes, the shopkeepers, the capitalists, the professionals, the civil servants, the white collar staff, the teachers and the students. Things have changed a little bit today. These were all part of the base of the fascist organisation. In October, the situation reaches ahead. I have to skip stuff here, unfortunately. The outgoing government, the last government, the factor government, resigns. We had very weak bourgeois liberal governments at this moment in time. The fascists are organising their squads. They're marching towards Rome, camping in different towns around Rome. Mussolini goes to Milan. They've always said Mussolini was hedging his bets. Milan, you see, the advantages of Milan is that if it went badly, he could very quickly get a train to Switzerland. But what happened was, factor resigned, issued on paper a state of emergency, a state of emergency would have meant the army and the police would have to be used against the armed fascists. The king, using the powers that the king has, and Charles has those same powers here, remember that, refused to sign the decree for the state of emergency, which meant the army barracks and the police were not ordered to mobilise, but furthermore, they wouldn't have obeyed anyway, because they were riddled with fascists, army officers, police chiefs everywhere, sympathised, they collaborated. The march on Rome was a farce. There was no march on Rome, in the sense there was no armed organisation of the fascists that marched into Rome and took power. What happened was, Mussolini was in Milan, factor resigned, they offered the premiership to Mussolini. The king calls Mussolini and says, come back to Rome. Mussolini was very cheeky, he said, unless you send me a telegram, in a written statement that you are giving me the job of premier, I'm not coming. So the king obediently sent a telegram, please come to Rome and take up the premiership. So Mussolini, very comfortably, he got on a sleeper train at night in Milan and arrived in Rome the next day, went to the king and accepted. He was a Member of Parliament after all. He accepted the task of forming a coalition. Then the fascists were allowed to come into Rome and they had their victory parade and they all marched gloriously through Rome. But there was no armed takeover. There was the state collaborating and handing over power to the fascists because they needed them to destroy what was left of the movement of the working class. Mussolini, with 35 MPs, could not form a government. Who did he form the government with? All the parties in Parliament accept the socialists and the communists. The same people the socialists had been appealing to defend democracy are forming a government with Mussolini. Then what do they do? They change the electoral law. The electoral law is any party that gets more than 25% get some majority in Parliament. By then the fascists were on the march. They had over 300,000 members. The left was completely demoralised and destroyed. He took an absolute majority and then proceeded to impose the fascist laws, banned the unions, banned the parties, arrested all its leaders and didn't even thank the trade union leaders. Incredibly, incredibly at one point Darragona, the leader of the CGL, was offered a place in the government by Mussolini. Imagine that at the TUC leader being brought into Mosley's government in the 30s. He accepted. He didn't go into it because the more extreme fascists weren't too keen on it. They wouldn't let him in. But these people were arrested, imprisoned, bought C himself, the leader of the engineering works, was shot by the Nazis later on. There's no recognition of the role of the traitors of the working class. And then, of course, the fascist regime was imposed. If you want to know what the essence of fascism is, they tore up all the labour contracts, they increased the working week, they cut wages and I saw one statistic which showed that the real average wage of workers in Italy in that 20-year period was cut by an overall 25% because they had to destroy the organisations of the working class because they still represented a force that could negotiate wage increases, working conditions. The fascists were the tool of the Italian ruling class in destroying those organisations and preparing the 20 years of fascist dictatorship which we then saw. Now, I've got a lot more I'd like to say, but as you can see, I think you can see if the Socialist Party had had the programme of the Bolsheviks, they could have taken power. Conditions in Italy were far more favourable than they were in Russia. They go around saying that it wasn't. It's the opposite. The working class was stronger. The movement was more widespread. The labour organisations were far stronger and they even had the biggest party in Parliament. They could have easily swept capitalism aside, but they didn't and they played a role in handing over the working class to the capitalists without even a serious fight in spite of all the attempts of the workers to do so. Now, I've got a lot more, some of the points maybe I could take up in the conclusions, but that is what happened in the 1920s in Italy.