Il Duce and His Women

by Roberto Olla

  At the same time as the exercise book with Mayerling mysteriously went missing and Claudia Particella was helping to increase the sales of Battisti’s newspaper, Mussolini’s publishing activities were taking a different direction. On 9th January a new socialist weekly started to come out in Forlì: La lotta di classe. Under Mussolini’s editorship it became the leading journal of the movement in the province. The local Socialists found themselves in difficulties; they hoped their new leader would inspire them with the determination and energy to move forward from a period of inertia during which they had lost a lot of ground to the other main “opposition” party, the Republicans. Mussolini’s career as a Socialist leader now began to take off. He succeeded in reorganizing the Federation of Forlì under his leadership and increased its membership by several hundred new subscriptions, almost all of them from the younger generation, he developed his skills in political meetings, showed no restraint in criticizing the central organization of the Italian Socialist Party, which was in the hands of the reformist wing, and harshly denounced the presence of Freemasons within the party.

  At the eleventh National Socialist Congress, held in Milan from 21st to 25th October 1910, the reformist line as represented by Turati was victorious, but Mussolini didn’t give up and maintained his ties to the revolutionary wing among the delegates who held intransigently to their positions. Shortly after the congress, on 19th November, his father Alessandro died; tired and ill, he had observed his son’s involvement in that turbulent summer of strikes. The year had been full of social disturbance in the countryside with the conflict over the mechanical threshers: the labourers’ cooperatives had purchased new machines and thus came into direct competition and conflict with the share-croppers. An early agreement had been reached, but this broke down when actual threshing began on 7th July. The army intervened against the demonstrators. In August the Federazione Repubblicana (Federation of Republican Parties), led by their new secretary Pietro Nenni, persuaded the labourers who supported them to form their own independent cooperatives. Mussolini immediately turned on them with the accusation that they had broken ranks with their fellow workers. Relations between the Republicans and the Socialists deteriorated rapidly: on occasion the war of words led to fisticuffs. At the same time the Socialist Federation of Forlì started to differentiate and distance itself from the line being followed by the national party: “The requirements of the political struggle on a daily basis, the initial reorganization of the socialist group in Forlì, the increasingly bitter conflicts with the Republicans, the preparation of the Forlì delegates to take part in the Milan congress, and finally, after the congress, the breaking away of the Forlì Federation from the national Socialist Party – all these matters took up most of Mussolini’s energies and time over the course of eighteen months.”13

  Mussolini’s political dexterity can be seen in the way he reacted to what was known as the “Bissolati case”, when in March 1911 for the very first time, Bissolati, a leading Socialist member of the Italian parliament, was formally involved in the consultations, summoned by the King, to form a new government. Mussolini set a choice before the national Socialist Party leadership: either they withdrew their support of Bissolati’s involvement or the Forlì Federation would secede from the party. He knew very well that the reformist wing in the party (still the predominant one, although they would be expelled from it the following year) would never accept such a demand. Mussolini prepared the ground for the local federation’s congress very carefully. He contacted all the local sections one by one, even individual members, and as a result carried the motion at the local congress that the Forlì Federation should break away from the national party, with twenty-seven sections out of thirty-eight voting in favour (five abstained and six accepted the proposal but wanted the move to be delayed). Mussolini’s strategy had led to the Forlì Socialists isolating themselves from the national party, but at the same time he had increased their membership.

  How this newly acquired isolation would play out politically did not become clear, since the country was overtaken by another crisis: the military campaign in Libya and the war with Turkey. The left wing in Italy was divided on the issue, but the majority, represented by the Republicans and the Socialists, came out against the war. In Forlì the two parties at first held separate demonstrations and meetings, but joined forces when the Confederazione Generale del Lavoro (General Confederation of Labour) declared a general strike. On the morning of 26th September there were clashes with the police, but in the afternoon a huge demonstration passed off without incident: Mussolini spoke on behalf of the Socialists, and Nenni for the Republicans. On the 27th, when the general strike began, there were only a few outbreaks of vandalism across the country, but most took place in Forlì, where telegraph poles were brought down and demonstrators occupied the railway station, with women lying down on the tracks to prevent the military convoy trains from passing through. Mussolini used the situation to declare in an article that the general strike marked the defeat of reformism among the workers.

  On 29th September Italy declared war on Turkey, and the political situation took a new turn. As in all wars, the country had to prepare itself for the possibility of military setbacks and launch a campaign to attract new recruits to the armed forces. The provincial prefecture in Forlì was worried about possible disorder; the police started to examine Mussolini’s and Nenni’s declarations, with the result that both – together with Aurelio Lolli, the caretaker at the local workers’ association – were arrested, under eight separate charges, including the incitement of violence. The socialist weekly La lotta di classe organized a financial appeal to pay the men’s legal costs; leading Socialist and Republican lawyers were hired to defend them. The trial only enhanced the two men’s political stature. Mussolini made a speech in the courtroom which was addressed more to his fellow Socialists than to the presiding judges. He began by declaring: “I categorically deny that the general strike broke out in Forlì because I supported it. This conjecture is absurd. The decision to go on strike lay with the workers of Forlì and not with me. […] The masses have acquired their own voice, they can reason and will; they won’t allow themselves to be towed along by their so-called leaders; on the contrary, the leaders have to follow them in their wake.” Mussolini’s statement – it was more like a harangue – to the court continued amid the encouragement and applause of the public. Unable to reintroduce calm to the courtroom so that the trial could proceed, the judge ordered proceedings to be adjourned to the following day, just as Mussolini reached his summing-up by turning to the bench and declaring: “Let me say this, honourable sirs: if you acquit me, I will be content, because you will have allowed me to continue my work for society. If you condemn me, I will be honoured, because I am no wrongdoer or common criminal standing here before you: no, I affirm my ideas, I stir up men’s consciences, I fight for a faith which demands your respect because it is strong in truth and will shape the future!”14

  A few months earlier Mussolini had become a father. On 1st September 1910 his daughter Edda was born; she would always remain his favourite child, even in the later tragic developments of her life, in the last year of the war, when he ordered her husband, his son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano, to be shot at dawn. But for now his father’s warning to Rachele before she and Mussolini started living together seemed to be coming true: one good reason for not setting up home with him was that she would have to look after the children and the house on her own while he spent time in prison. On this occasion the judges were determined it wouldn’t be a short stay: he was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment, while Nenni received a year and fifteen days, and Lolli six months. When the case came to appeal, the punishment was reduced to seven and a half months for Nenni, five and a half for Mussolini, and four and a half for Lolli.

  In his cell in the ancient fortress of Ravaldino, which had been converted into a prison, Mussolini asked for an exercise book and a pen and started to write La mia vita dal 29 luglio 1883 al 23
novembre 1911. Nenni’s own account of their period in jail includes a description of his socialist friend as cheerful, even boisterous, a model prisoner, kindly with their fellow inmates, patient in putting up with the daily difficulties of life inside, ready to explain everything as the result of social injustice; the lack of space got on his nerves, and he missed playing his violin and especially seeing his baby daughter, now just one year old. Mussolini and Nenni became firm friends during their spell in prison, as did their wives, Rachele and Carmen, who met for the first time as they visited their husbands and from then on began to help each other out. One of Nenni’s memories is of holding Edda while her mother and Mussolini talked and the little girl weeing down his trousers, which happened to be the only pair he possessed in prison. While they were both still inside, the two men celebrated the birth of Nenni’s first daughter Giuliana, while Rachele took Carmen a bottle of Marsala, which was thought to be fortifying for women who had just given birth. Nenni would go on to have two more girls, Eva and Vittoria. Vittoria died in Auschwitz on 15th July 1943. But as Mussolini and Nenni shared their prison rations like two brothers during the Christmas of 1911 and the first few months of 1912, Auschwitz, the racial laws and the persecutions were still far in the future.

  His spell in prison increased Mussolini’s political renown. His name began to circulate beyond the Socialist circles in Forlì. He was no longer the delegate of a small and rebellious local federation; he began to be seen as a leader of the revolutionary wing of the national party. When he was released from prison on 12th March 1912, his comrades celebrated with a banquet in his honour. Years later, when they had become lovers, Margherita Sarfatti managed to get hold of the autobiographical account Mussolini had written while in prison – it was no doubt buried among his papers – and used it when writing her own biography of him. Afterwards Mussolini made sure it disappeared again, but the fact that Sarfatti had been able to refer to it as a source was one reason why her biography Dux was so successful, with editions in nineteen languages selling millions of copies. She and Mussolini had agreed to share royalties, and for several years they earned the then impressive sum of a thousand dollars a week – until he reneged on the agreement, using the racial laws against the Jews as the crushing justification.

  Chapter 7

  Banquets and Drawing Rooms

  The Sangiovese wine – deep red, with a vague fragrance of violets, dry with a sharp aftertaste – had gushed out from dozens of demijohns, but it didn’t stay untouched for long on the banqueting tables. The guests waved the empty bottles in the air and the waiters would snatch them up and refill them. As soon as news of Mussolini’s release had reached them, all the women among the Forlì Socialists had taken to making yards of pasta, smoothing it out with a rolling pin, unwinding it in sheets, and cutting the sheets into long strips – the local pasta known as strozzapreti or “priest-strangler” (an appropriate dish for this occasion…) – which they then dressed with a rich meat sauce. There were also large helpings of tortelli al raviggiolo and lasagne with slowly cooked chicken livers and hearts and the fleshy parts of the stomach which remained slightly crunchy. There were dishes of the local pasta with baked sausages, diced bacon, tomato sauce and sprinklings of parmesan cheese and black pepper. Such a spectacular feast had not been seen in those parts for a long time, the kind which could make up for an entire year of living on vegetable broth with, on Sundays, a plate of stew made from a few almost bare bones from the butchers, but you needed an iron stomach to get it all down. Every now and then, amid the cigarette smoke and the steaming fragrant dishes and the animated talk, someone would stand up and salute the hero of the hour, Mussolini, so proud yet friendly too, Benito their dear comrade. It must have seemed as if every political subversive in the country had turned up to celebrate Mussolini’s new-found freedom. After all the courses had been served, while the guests were finishing off the slices of ham and stuffed roast chicken and soft white cheese spread out along the tables, the toasts began to shouts of approval and applause. The room quietened down only when Olindo Vernocchi rose, holding a glass in his hand. He was one of the oldest and most respected of the local party leaders, and when he cleared his throat to start speaking all fell silent and turned towards him. He raised his glass towards Mussolini: “Today, Benito, you are no longer merely the champion of the socialists in Romagna, you are the leader – the ‘duce’ – of all the revolutionary socialists in Italy.”

  Cesare Rossi, who at the time of the banquet was a Socialist in charge of the Workers’ Association in Parma and editor-in-chief of the paper the Internazionale, later wrote this account of the evening: “It was on this occasion, amid the revelry of the guests and the reminiscent speeches, that an old word, once familiar to Dante and to the medieval condottieri, re-emerged, which would later become part of our common political vocabulary – more than that, would come to sum up the history of Italy over the last twenty years.”1

  Mussolini didn’t like the toasts after public dinners, a problem at Socialist Party gatherings, where there was always an abundant supply of Sangiovese. He was overcome by embarrassment and could hardly lift his glass. But he shortly managed to solve the difficulty by letting his circle of supporters know how much he disliked the habit, as is shown by an article which appeared in La lotta di classe on 14th December 1912 on a dinner at which a lawyer, Giommi, had stood up among the other guests round the horseshoe-shaped table to pay tribute to Mussolini:

  When the fruit had been served, Giommi, Valmaggi and others were invited to make a speech. Giommi stood up and said, “Comrades! Benito Mussolini doesn’t want us to toast him or to make any speeches. Let us respect his wish. Yet, in order to show our affection for the man who has been our upstanding duce now for three years, let us demonstrate our gratitude by making a contribution towards Avanti!” All the guests rose to their feet and clapped and cheered in a display of affection which left Mussolini visibly moved.2

  So the title of “duce” was first bestowed on Mussolini by his fellow Socialist Party members. It was not a random choice, inspired by the quantities of Sangiovese wine they consumed. The word “duce” emerged spontaneously from their daily political activity; their dinners and feasts served to mark the beginning of the cult of Mussolini. As the courses went on being served, Mussolini merely tasted them; only the guests sitting near him could see how small a quantity of food he actually consumed. According to Rachele, he always ate very little, and very fast. As secretary to the Socialist Federation of Forlì he earned one hundred and twenty lire a month, and that was what they had to live on, but he gave twenty to the party and paid out fifteen in rent for his office, so there was little left for carefree living. Coffee, bread, soup, long periods at the news-stand browsing the papers he couldn’t afford to buy, and on occasion a plate of tagliatelle for supper with salad or cooked vegetables.

  But it’s also true that the political meetings he attended in the various sections were usually followed by a certain degree of social conviviality. One night Rachele opened the door to find him being carried up the stairs by two strangers. It was almost dawn: the men told her not to worry, it was nothing serious, he had just talked rather a lot and drunk a bit too much. What had he been drinking? Well, some coffee, and then… some brandy, perhaps rather too much brandy. Once inside, Mussolini started to smash up everything – plates, glasses, even the furniture. A neighbour came in and she and Rachele called a doctor. They managed to get him into bed. When the morning came, Mussolini woke with his head completely befuddled; he couldn’t remember a thing, even though Rachele showed him the wrecked apartment and despairingly asked him where they would find the money to buy new things. From then he steered clear of drinking alcohol, although he didn’t advertise his abstinence.

  At dinners he made it look as if he had drunk from the glass by bringing it to his lips; nobody would notice the glass was still full when he placed it down on the table. After that night of complete drunkenness he almost never drank again, althou
gh such abstinence was almost inconceivable in someone who led a political federation – and in Forlì, moreover, which was proud of producing the best wines in Romagna, people wouldn’t have understood his choice. It was important to respect appearances. The Socialist Party members who wanted to subvert the system had found a new leader; the men in charge of the local sections thought that Mussolini was the best candidate. The cult of the strong leader was growing among the party members in the province: someone who would take charge of their movement’s destiny, would guide it to power. Once the man who could lead them had been found, all they needed to do was follow him down the road to revolution.

  A National Socialist Congress had been called in Reggio Emilia, at which the party’s various factions could finally air their differences. On 4th March, before Mussolini had been released from prison, the weekly paper La soffitta (The Garret) announced his imminent return to political life: “When they gather at Reggio Emilia, both the right- and left-wing factions in the party will realize how much the votes from the Forlì section will count, especially now they have a ‘duce’ whom they love and look up to, forceful in character and incorruptible: Benito Mussolini.”

  After the Second World War, the banquet to celebrate Mussolini’s release from prison at which the guests had acclaimed him as their “duce” would have been entirely forgotten had it not been for Cesare Rossi – who had survived Fascism and anti-Fascism, had been both a fervent supporter of Mussolini and a radical opponent of his cult – who thought he could spend his remaining years peacefully writing his memoirs. The political left in Italy has always made sure that words like “duce” and “fascio” are firmly excluded from its own version of its history. The movement of the Fasci in Sicily was seen as belonging to the remote nineteenth century; on the rare occasions they were mentioned it was always with the qualification that they had nothing to do with Fascism. The defeat of the “Fasci Siciliani”, who were brutally repressed by the army, took place in 1894, when Mussolini was just eleven years old and was beginning to accompany his father to political meetings and assemblies. The newspapers reported what was happening in Sicily, members of the Socialist Party would discuss the plight of those labourers in the deep south who were demanding social justice and the abolition of the parasitic and Mafia-like landowning system with their cries of “Give the land to those who work the land”.