New Interpretation of a State Crime

On June 10, 1924, Giacomo Matteotti, a young member of the Italian Parliament and Secretary of the Socialist Unitary Party (PSU), was kidnapped outside his home by agents of the fascist Ceka, Mussolini’s secret police. Two months later Matteotti’s body was found a few kilometers outside Rome. The barbaric murder marked the end of the so-called legalitarian period (1922–1924) of the Mussolini government. Prior to that date, Mussolini had been successful in skillfully navigating between conflicting pressures within the fascist movement represented by intransigent currents on one side, and moderate sectors on the other. The hardliners were guided by a totalitarian view of the political struggle that envisioned the establishment of a single-party regime. They saw the “moderate” outcome of the March on Rome as a betrayal of the fascist revolution resulting in the formation of a coalition government that included men and political parties they firmly opposed. The other less radical fascists, to the contrary, felt the revolutionary period of fascism had come to an end with the formation of the Mussolini government and supported the “normalization” of Italian political life.