#title The Situation
#author Errico Malatesta
#LISTtitle Situation
#date 1922
#source Retrieved on October 28, 2026 from [[https://historykeepshappening.wordpress.com/2026/10/24/the-situation-errico-malatesta-1922/][historykeepshappening.wordpress.com]]
#lang en
#pubdate 2026-10-29T04:25:05.829Z
#authors Errico Malatesta
#topics anti-fascism
#notes Manually translated from ‘Umanità Nova’, December 2, 1922, Rome, edited by Errico Malatesta



Mussolini continues to tower above and parliament crawls at his feet more than ever.

Full powers have been granted with the care of servants who compete with each other in degradation. Mussolini had said, “give them to me or I’ll take them”, and no one had the dignity to answer, take them from us, but don’t force us to play the part in a comedy of the bosses, when we are servants and are pleased to be so.

The socialists themselves have not understood that they cannot remain with dignity in an assembly that functions under the terror of the baton, or of dissolution, and where opposition can only be a farce.

Dictatorship triumphs: a dictatorship of adventurers without scruples or ideals, which came to power and remains there due to the disorientation of the proletarian masses and the anxious avarice of the bourgeois class in search of a saviour. But everyone feels that the situation is such that it cannot last, and the most enlightened conservatives, while paying due homage to the masters of the hour and revealing with every word the fear that dominates them, demand the restoration of the “liberal state”, that is, a return to constitutional deception.

The method by which Mussolini came to power does not allow deception, and this is what torments the innocent souls of the conservatives.

Mussolini, if he manages to consolidate his power, will do no more and no less than any other minister would: he will serve the interests of the privileged class, and will charge for his services. But he won’t make anyone believe that he arrived in government by the will of the people. His tyranny is too recent for him to be able to hide its origin: perhaps for this reason his murky conscience advises him to appeal to God!

We do not want to deal with the new government’s plans and intentions, whether new or old, sincere or otherwise. It’s always the same habitual rehashing of old lies, the old attempt to repair a collapsing house with a coat of paint.

For us, the only important change is this: we were enemies of government because government is no more than the armed defender of all social injustices, the creator of new injustices, the enemy of freedom, the material obstacle along the path of civilization. And we were enemies of fascism because it is a movement intended to defend bourgeois privileges, to impede the ascent of the proletariat, to choke out any aspiration towards a society more just and free; and it used brutal, ferocious and vile means to achieve its goals.

Now government and fascism have become the same thing, and are made up of the same personnel: there is therefore no longer the possibility of hesitation as there was when those two forces of oppression seemed to oppose each other.

Simplified situation: so much the better. So much the better if this can serve to reunite all the forces of progress in the struggle against triumphant barbarism.