For Mussolini, the socialist Matteotti was more dangerous than the communists

They knew each other, they both served in the same party. The political reading of those years between fascism, socialism and communism

ROME – “Today we are here to commemorate a free and courageous man killed by fascist squadristi for his ideas”. These are the words used by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, on the day dedicated to the memory of the socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti. Proud opponent of the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, after his speech to the Chamber in where he denounced electoral fraud and asked for the elections to be annulled, he was first kidnapped and then killed and buried in a field near Rome.

MUSSOLINI AND MATTEOTTI IN THE SOCIALIST PARTY

Mussolini and Matteotti knew each other, both were militants in the Socialist Party. They also met at the Rovig congress in 1914, where Mussolini, at the time director of Avanti, won the motion, 309 votes against the 198 votes taken by the Matteotti motion. After the march on Rome, the Acerbo electoral law paves the way for fascism by charging Mussolini with forming the government. It is in the parliamentary halls that Matteotti, every time, challenges the fascists. Many times he speaks as a man of doing, of someone who knows and knows the problems people experience and the solutions. On May 30th his speech against electoral fraud, a speech interrupted several times by shouts, threats and fights. Matteotti does not give up, he is a practical man, he insists, he goes around to find papers and documents on shady dealings of fascism, false financial statements, oil bribes (even then sigh), even clandestine gambling dens. He had the evidence in his hands and on June 11th he would appear in the Chamber again to reveal everything. But the day before, June 10, he was kidnapped and eliminated by the fascists. Mussolini knew.

BETWEEN SOCIALIST REFORMISTS AND REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNISTS

They were terrible years, in 1921 there was the Livorno Congress with the split and the birth of the Communist Party of Italy. Between reformist socialists and revolutionary communists who were looking at the armed seizure of power as had been done in Russia, the clashes were furious. To understand, even Antonio Gramsci, the communist leader who Mussolini years later imprisoned and died behind bars,

EVEN GRAMSCI WAS NOT TENDER WITH MATTEOTTI: “PELLEGRINO DEL Nulla”

To understand, even Antonio Gramsci, the communist leader whom Mussolini imprisoned years later and had died behind bars, was not at all tender towards Matteotti. After his death, in one of his writings, Gramsci defined Matteotti “pilgrim of nothingness” explaining that “Matteotti’s sacrifice is celebrated by working on the creation of the only instrument through which the idea by which he was moved – writes Gramsci – the idea of the complete redemption of workers, can receive implementation and reality: the workers’ class party, the party of the proletarian revolution” with the armed seizure of power. And here lies the difference between the two thoughts, the reformist and practical one of the socialist Matteotti; the more theoretical one of the communist Gramsci. “In certain periods – Ernesto Irmici, an old-fashioned socialist, explains to me – a character like Matteotti, a practical man who spoke to people, made himself known and was always looking for a solution, was considered much more dangerous than an intellectual like Gramsci. Because Matteotti people knew him, they saw him there with them, while Gramsci, taken by revolutionary thought, was more about intellectuals”.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOCIALISTS AND COMMUNISTS

And here lies the difference that has always been seen between socialists and communists: the former convinced that things could gradually change with reformist solutions and not with the armed assault on the building; with the communists, however, convinced that only by “breaking to pieces the old that oppresses” could “a new world be created with the working class free and in control of its own destinies”.