The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 11, 1926, Page 10

The “State of Emergency” Drawing hy Vose f By G. AQUILA. gee events of recent days in Italy indicate that the Mussolini government and the fascist regime ave now come to a seriously critical moment. The present situation is the result of two factors partly parallel] and partly intersecting: on the one hand, the strengthening of the anti-fascist feel- ing among the workers, the greater part of the Petty bourgeoisie of town and country, the army officers’ corps, etc.; on the other hand, the strength- ening of the..oppositian tendencies in the fascist camp itself against the big bourgeois policy of Mus- Bolini and of the fascist government. In order to keep down the threatening anti-fascist forces, Mus- ®olini finds himself compelled to make very extens- five concessions to the opposition forces of the petty Dourgeoisie within his own camp. The most important measures for “the safe-guard- ing of the regime” are as follows: 1. Dissolution. of all non-fascist parties, unions end associations. 2. Suppression of the entire non-fascist press. 8. Introduction of compulsory internment of all @hose who have committed acts calculated to over- throw the social, economic or national constitution Of the state, to endanger the security and to frus- frate and hinder the activity of the state adminis- tration, as also those who declare their intention to do anything of the kind. (!) 4. Formation of a fascist political police service @t every headquarter-station of the fascist militia. 5. Declaration of invalidity in regard to all pass- ports for abroad; severe punishments for anybody @ttempting to quit the country without a passport and for those who give assistance in such an at- fempt: obligation to resort to use of arms to prevent anybody from crossing the frontier without a permit, In addition to these “measures,” the so-called “Law for the Protection of the State” was decided upon by the ministerial council on November 5th; in short, the law introduces capital punishment. The most important provisions of this law are: 1. Capital punishment for those who make an at- tempt upon the lif®, person or personal liberty of the king or his regents, of the queen, the heir appar- ent or the prime minister, 2. Capital punishment for those who commit aa act calculated to subject the state to dependence upon foreign countries (?!) or to threaten the inde- pendence of the state; for those who betray the po- fitical or military secrets concerning the security ef the state and who possess themselves of such secrets. 8. Capital punishment for those who commit acte ealculated to incite the citizens to armed insurrec- tion against the constitution of the state; for those who take part in an insurrection; and for those who facite to civil war. 4. Conspiracy for purposes of any of the above- mentioned “crimes” will be punished with 15 to 30 years’ imprisonment; defense of them in the press, with five to 15 years’ imprisonment. 5. The resuscitation of parties, unions and asso- elations, which have*beon dissolved, even though r nl carried out unde. esh nese (D, will be pux- ished with imprisonments up to 10 years. The mem- bers of such organizations will be punished with imprisonment up to 5 years. 6. An Italian citizen, who within the territory of the state, spreads false, exaggerated and tendencious reports concerning the interior position of the coun- try or develops any action injurious to the national interests will be punished with five to 15 years’ im- prisonment. 7... An, Italian or a foreigner who commits the above-mentioned “crimes” abroad, will be condemned by the Italian courts “in contumaciam” (in his ab- sence). ‘8. All the above-mentioned “crimes” will be tried by special courts under the presidency of a general of the army, navy air-service or militia, and which will be composed by five officers of the fascist mil- ttia. In the trials the penal code book valid in times of war will be followed. ‘ Does Mussolini desire to prevent by means of these “measures” and “laws” possible future “at- tempts at assassination”? After the “attempted as- assination” at Bologna, which never happened, and after the recent disclosures of the French police following the arrest of Ricciotti Garibaldi, Mussolini and the fascist press will for some time not dare to talk of attempted assassinations. Garibaldi, who has been arrested in France, a nephew of the na- tional hero of the Italian bourgeois revolution of the fifties and sixties of the last century, admits in view of the flawless evidence of the French police, hav- ing received from the fasgist government 500,000 Hre for the organization of “assassinations” of Mus- solini. He was in constant communication with the chief of the police in Rome, who was the intermed- fary between him and the fascist government. Gari- baldi also organized the “assassination” in Geptem- ber; the French police found in the possession of Garibaldi the papers of the youthful Luccetti, who last September threw a bomb at Mussolini’s auto- mobile in Rome; and Garibaldi admitted that he it was who, under orders from the fascist government, sent Luccetti to Rome to undertake this “unsuccess- ful attempt at “assassination” upon Mussolini, By. the way, it might be said: the disclosures of the French police, or the circumstances that Garibaldi’s machinations have only now been disclosed, indi- cates, on the part of the French government, a po- litical maneuver as neat as it is despicable. For months the French police and the French govern- ment were aware of the role that Garibaldi was play- ing but did not disclose and prevent the~‘attempted assassinations” and the subsequent acts of violence on the part of the fascist bandits. The French gov- ernment kept back the) disclosures until a moment favorable to them in relation to foreign politics, as now presented by the Catalonia conspiracy, about which they had also been informed for months. Whereby—and this should be stated clearly—it was not the intention of the French government to pro- voke a war by accentuating the tension between France and Italy, but merely to serve the purpose, on the one hand, of putting a wedge in between 4 in Italy Drawing by Jerger Mussolini and the Spanish government; on the other hand, to exercise pressure upon Mussolini and com pel him to come to heel. The chief import of the proceedings, however, lies at the moment in domestic affairs, and the problem of further developments is comprised by two ques tions: how will big capita] act in regard to the redis- tribution—perhaps only momentary—of power in the fascist camp, and to the concessions made under pressure of circumstance to the petty-bourgeots fascists? and how will the anti-fascist forces in the country, in the first place the workers andthe - masses of poor peasants, react to the “intensified dictatorship,” i. e. to the limitless accentuation of suppression and oppression, In order to pacify the big bourgeoisie and to con vince them that the concessions made to the petty bourgeoisie are merely sham. concessions, Mussolini now offers the big bourgeoisie an unprecedented rob bery of all the other classes in the country, includ- ing the petty bourgeoisie and also the lower and mid- dle classes of the bourgeoisie, ag well as of the welk to-do peasants and big farmers. A 20-millard loan ig being floated, partly for the purpose of redeeming the short-term national debt bonds, which are now due and have no cover, or to exchange them for “fascio-loan stock,” but chiefly to create ont of the influx of cash a fund out of which credits can be granted to industry. All institutes are compelled by law to sink their available money wholly or partly in the “fascio-loan.” The institutes in_question are obliged, after fulfilling their legal obligations, to use at least half of their cash in hand or means accrm ing to them up to December 3ist, 1927, in purchas- ing “fascio-loan” certificates or place the money in special accounts with the Bank of Italy. Extensive “national propaganda,” based upon the most ruthless means of extortion, is to be employed to “encourage” Private people also to invest in the “fascio-loan.” By this means the bourgeoisie ig gripped at its weakest point; this overt robbery of the whole na tion is to serve as an expedient from the economic crisis, one of the chief factors of which is an acute capital crisis. What will the present and future victims of the robbery, namely, the masses of the. petty bourgeoisie and the seriously affected lower and middle classes of the bourgeoisie, have to say to this “boldest finan cial maneuver of the world?” The other question is: how will the workers and the masses of poor peasants take the latest intenaf- fication of the suppression and oppression they have to suffer? The prohibition of the parties hit the Communist Party harder than any other party in Italy, for the other parties already scarcely had any organization worthy of mention. On the other hand, during the long years of rabid persecution, the Italian Commw- nist Party has learned 16 build its organization be firmly that it defles*every effort of Mussolini to sup press it. The strengthening of the party as an organization (Continued on page 6) .