BOOKS OF THE DAY

Italy Under Fascism (Dr. Herman Finer) Franz Kafka (Edward Sackville West) . A Champion of Reason (A. J. Ayer) • The Framework of France (Prof. Paul Vaucher) The Arts in Russia (John Rodker) -

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Life is My Adventure (J. M. Hone) Edward Thomas (Edmund Blunden) Civitas Dei Fiction (Forrest Reid) .. Current Literature . .

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154 156 156 158 16o

ITALY UNDER FASCISM

By HERMAN FINER EACH of these-hooks has its special appeal. The Triumph of Barabbas happens to interest the reviewer more than The Fascist, because it is -a direct and authentic account of things seen and suffered, while the latter is a book distilling other books. Mr. Ashton's volume is an attempt to make clear to the American electorate (which, not unlike other electorates, is confused on the subject) the nature of Fascism in Italy and Germany. It supplies no new facts ; but it has the merit of being a thoughtful and highly intelligent explanation of the movements which seem determined on fighting the Great War all over again in the hope that the issue will fall out differently. It lacks the penetration which 'comes to those who have seen the animal in its own habitat, and is wanting in the definition that *given only by statistical analysis and the citation of vital documents..

Signor Giglio was from 1919 to 1924 the Daily Herald cone- spot:dent. in Rome,- whence. he was expelled at 24 hours' notice for having reported the Italian situation without iudicious reticence.. Thereafter he " covered " Italy at Chiasso, Lugano and Nice. In 1930 he was actually but inexplicably invited back to resume his. duties in Rome, being given personal assurances of good treatment by Signor Grandi in some.very affable conversations.

Alas ! When he returned to Rome he was under continual observation by detectives. He was " unofficially " thrashed for indiscreet reporting. Giglio describes the other tricks used by the Italian Government, which is anxious that the outer world shall know only the truth about Fascism : the continuous espionage, the delation by the sycophantic news- paper correspondents of " friendly " nations, the alternate withholding and presenting of- information, the censoring of telegrams, and the seductive gift of free telegraphic facilities to accommodating journalists. All these were insufficient to prevent Giglio being true to his task, and when the con- vulsions of the Dictator reached their climax in April, 1936, Giglio was sent packing again. He has further special qualifica- tions, for he was a political journalist in Sicily before Fascism, and was in Roman journalism between the end of the War and the March on Rome. He is a Socialist ; but this has not embittered him. He is level-headed, and all that he says, and worse, of the Italian abomination has been said by a dozen• foreign observers with immaculate credentials and as many exiles. It could also be said by hundreds of political prisoners and men like the two Rosellis, murdered only the other day, had not the principle, " Dead men tell no tales," been made part of the routine public policy of Italy. Few have- analysed so well that blend of nobility, public spirit, pacifism and ineptitude which at a critical juncture divided and confused the Italian Socialist Party, and yielded the keeping of Italy's fortunes and the world's peace into the hands of a man with a lifelong record of violence, hatred and revenge.

The longer Fascism lives, the plainer becomes its infamy. By no means enough attention was paid, for example, to the callous revelations of Marshal de Bono's recent book. But since so many men-and women seem to pass by the accumu- lated and tested evidence, the present work is a skilled reminder, written with the vividness and directness of an observer inside the events.

" Three hatreds," says Giglio, were" allied against the Italian

The Triumph of Barabbas. By Giovanni Giglio. (Gollanez. ns. 6d.)—The Fascist: His State—and his Mind. By E. B. Ashton. (Putnam. 8s. 64.) -

Socialist Party ; Mussolini's hatred, the generals' and the war parties' hatred, the industrialists' and the shopkeepers' hatred. Of these three hatreds that of the generals and the war parties was the strongest and most implacable ; that of the industrialists and shopkeepers held the second place in the scale ; and, contrary to a widespread belief outside Italy, Mussolini's hatred was the least virulent of the three." Not one of these hatreds was other than what English utilitarian philosophers used to term " interest-begotten prejudice." They did not seek the public good. They arose to destroy the steady and entirely constitutional development of the socialist movement in Parliamentary strength, in municipal government, and in the co-operatives and Trade Unions. And the mildness of Mussolini's hatred was temporary and tactical ; it remained mild only until he was convinced that the. Socialist Party from which he had been a renegade in shady circumstances would not have him back at any price.

The development of this theme enables Giglio to show perfectly clearly that the old, old story which has completely suborned so many noble minds from the defence of strategic Imperial interests, namely, that Mussolini arose to save Italy and then Europe from Bolshevism, is a cool audacious lie. For this is the Fascist technique : to propagate a myth that will divide opinion in other countries and so paralyse their will at critical moments and in favourable diplomatic situations that Italian demands will be accepted as a fait accompli without challenge. And as the essence of the Fascist system is an embittered nationalism, foreign policy (as Mr. Ashton clearly shows) also has followed the line of applying this method within nations and between nations, with the deliberate purpose of catching such fish as the troubled waters yield up.

Both authors explore the psychological degradation which inevitably results from the Fascist theory of individual subjection to the State. Giglio, in particular, reveals the military nature of the dictatorship : all classes, all occupations and all indus- tries, and the one Church, Christ's vicar on earth, are chained to the chariot of war.

The implacable hatred which has been the sole consistent principle of the Fascist regime has for many years been concen- trated against England by the arch-hater Mussolini. That is a fact which patriots should appreciate ! He does not ask whether England has the right to her world-wide dominion, nor whether it is exercised beneficently, nor whether the power has been acquired by labour or seized by rape. It is enough that England is rich and powerful that she should be hated. What, therefore, is astounding is what Giglio demonstrates by several examples : tk e apparent connivance of the British upper classes in this infamous regime. Giglio even suspects the Foreign Office of an independent and persistent policy, in this direction. One always expects a democracy to act, as Benedetto Croce declared, so as to favour democracy abroad. No one, surely, will assert with any confidence that this is what England has stoutly attempted during the last fifteen years. We have not shown any Quixotic desire to encourage the Spanish Government to keep alive ; and General Franco has acted, and will act, true to his proto- types. Let there be no mistake about this : he will shortly be a thorn in our side : it is the logic of Fascism.

The fulfilment of Voltaire's injunction, ecrasez l'infame cannot come from within Italy or Germany. Machine-guns and bombers have settled that issue for a generation. And we, the powerful, who swear that we love liberty, have not even shown a steady official disapproval of the massed iniquity.