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Various declarations were made in connection with this. One was:We have so little concern for the bourgeoisie that we have put at thehead of our program a demand for the ¢i) confiscation of fortunes, (2)confiscation of war profits, (3) heavy taxation of capital.We will accept no form of dictatorship.Another announced that "the budget must be balanced by meansof rigid economies and the suppression of all useless expenditure."Put differently, the new fascist reformers said "demagogic financemust be eliminated, savings encouraged, subsidies to parasitic organizationswithdrawn." 2In this platform of principles there is no sign of what shape fascismwould actually take. What we are now concerned with is whatfascism actually turned out to be. For this fact—that the announcedprogram of its founders and the system of society which they putinto effect were oceans apart—is one of the profoundest significancefor us.As we survey the final result, we cannot escape asking ourselveswhy Mussolini announced one program'and put into effect a whollydifferent one. Can it be that, instead of Mussolini molding the mindsand the plans that were stewing in the fevered minds of the peopleof Italy, it was the people of Italy who molded Mussolini's plans?Here we are confronted with a demonstration of the fact that whatwas done in Italy was not wholly the work of Mussolini. We cannotconclude that had there been no Mussolini there would have beenno fascism in Italy. The materials of fascism were there, as we shallpresently see. Of course it is an obvious fact of history that it wasMussolini who organized fascism in his country. It is probably certainthat had there been no Mussolini all that followed would havebeen quite different. He invented its nomenclature, its jargon; hecomposed its incidental music and arranged the scenes. Had therebeen no Mussolini fascism in Italy might well have been as differentas two performances of Shakespeare's Hamlet directed by two differentstage managers and with different stars.We cannot escape the conviction that fascism came to Italy becausethe most powerful forces there were driving in that direction.*Tbe Fascist Experiment, by Lu¡gi Villari, London, 1916.46