In Mussolini's senate address on June 8, 1923, the Duce asserted that “the dominant fact in 1919– 1920 . . . the occupation of the factories, the continual and permanent strike of state employees” had been eliminated and punished, thanks to the Fascists' replacement of a state “devoid of virility” with one that “was growing stronger and stronger and could impose discipline upon the nation” (ibid., fol. 75). Th e British embassy described this speech as “convincing”: “his speech shows the Fascista movement in its true light as the reassertion of 'authority' against 'liberty' as the idea of government . . . the complete subordination of the rest to the Fascisti” (FO 371/8885, fol. 73).

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 1369