Anti-Fascist Demonstration in Italy on the 100th Anniversary of the March on Rome
Every year, on the anniversary of the rise of the Italian fascists to power on October 30th, 1922, old and new fascists hold a demonstration in Mussolini’s homeland of Predappio. Participants organize a procession to the grave of Il Duce, raise their hands in a Roman salute, and shout “, Mussolini is with us!”
This year, the anti-fascist forces mustered their own demonstration against this fascist holiday. This year is special not only because of the centenary of the infamous March on Rome (recently revealed to have been funded by the British state) but because, for the first time since the Second World War, a fascist apologist party (the kind which has been the bane of Italian politics since the foundation of the neo-fascist MSI and its campaign of terror) has been elected to power.
On Friday, October 28, several thousand anti-fascist demonstrators gathered in Predappio. The demonstration was organized by the parliamentary “Democratic Party” (Partito democratico), the Italian National Association of Italian Partisans ANPI, trade unions and other public organizations. The city’s mayor refused to support the demonstration, as a member of “the Brothers of Italy” party whose candidate Meloni is now Prime Minister.
Anti-fascist actions were organized in cities throughout Italy. In Rome, representatives of the Democratic Party urged city residents to gather at the monument of opposition socialist Giacomo Matteotti, murdered by at the beginning of Mussolini’s rule. Other demonstrators gathered at the Colosseum with portraits of Mussolini upside down with the inscription “We know how it all ended.”
The head of the local branch of the ANPI, Miro Gori, expressed the hope that anti-fascist actions throughout Italy would counterbalance those nostalgic for the Mussolini regime. He assured: “there are forces in the country – associations, trade unions and other civil society groups – that guarantee democracy.”
Bourgeois parties like the “Democratic Party” of Italy cannot guarantee democracy since they represent the interests of a small political and economic elite and not the people’s interests, and their capitalist state apparatus cannot prevent internal fascization. In their attempts to advocate the preservation of capitalism, such parties have already brought fascists to power in 1922 and again in 2022. It would be naïve to place any hope with them to become an effective counterweight to fascist power. Only the Communist Party, which unites the working class and represents the people’s interests, can defeat the fascists, as the 20th century shows.