from the failure of the recent violence in Milan.
Giolitti, who became prime minister for the
second time in 1903, saw the involvement of the
masses in politics as inevitable and so sought to
work with the new forces of socialism and to tame
them in political combinations. But he looked
beyond this to genuine social and fiscal reforms.
The rise of socialism in the 1890s had one ben-
eficial result for the embattled state. It alarmed the
Church and led to a revision of the papal interdic-
tion against such activities as participation in
government and parliamentary elections. The
temporal rights of the Church – the ‘occupation’
of Rome – were becoming a question of history
rather than one of practical politics. Pope Leo XIII
expressed the Church’s concern for the poor and
urged social reform as a better alternative to
repressive conservativism on the one hand and
atheistic socialism on the other. The Church was
coming to terms with twentieth-century society.
His successor, Pope Pius X, though more conser-
vative, in 1904 permitted Catholics to vote wher-
ever Socialists might otherwise be elected. This
marked the cautious beginning of collaboration
between Church and state, and a beginning, too,
in creating a Catholic political force (Christian
Democrat) to keep the Socialists out of power in
collaboration with other groups. Catholic support
was welcome to Giolitti. His progressive social
views did not mean he wished to allow Socialists a
decisive voice in government.
From 1903 onwards the Socialists were split
into violently hostile factions: a minority, the
reformists, were still ready to collaborate within
the constitutional framework and to work for
practical reform; the majority, the syndicalists,
were intent on class revolution to be achieved by
direct action and violence through syndicates or
trade unions. The weapon that they hoped would
overthrow capitalist society was the general strike.
The split into reformist socialists, revolutionary
socialists and syndicalists further weakened the
Socialists, faced in the new century with the over-
whelmingly difficult task of changing a well-
entrenched capitalist state. The great strikes of
1904, 1907 and 1908 were defeated, the Socialist
Party in parliament was small, the forces of law
and order, strong; a Catholic labour movement,
too, successfully diverted a minority of peasants
and industrial workers from socialist trade unions.
The absence of strong parties and the com-
manding position established by a few politicians
were the most noteworthy characteristics of Italian
political life before the First World War. The
Catholic political group was embryonic, unlike
those in neighbouring France and Germany.
Italian socialism could not overcome the handicap
of the fierce factional struggles that characterised
the emergence of socialism in Europe. Regional-
ism, the Church and the backwardness of much of
the country also prevented the development of a
broadly based conservative party. So government
was dominated by the ‘liberal’ groupings of the
centre, agreeing only on the maintenance of law,
order and national unity, and bound by a common
opposition to conservative extremism and revolu-
tionary socialism. Were these characteristics of
Italian political life the inevitable consequence of
this stage of uneven national development, of the
continuing regional particularism of a sharply dif-
ferentiated society and of a limited franchise? Or
should the arrested form of parliamentary govern-
ment be regarded as forming the roots of the later
fascist dictatorship and the corporate state? It is
not helpful to look upon Giolitti as a precursor of
Benito Mussolini. The two men and their policies
must be examined in the context of the conditions
of their own times. The shattering experience of
the First World War separated two eras of modern
Italian history, Giolitti’s from Mussolini’s.
Giolitti was a politician of consummate skill in
parliamentary bargaining. He followed broad and
consistent aims. The first was to master the
whirlpool of factions and to reconcile the broad
masses of workers and peasants with the state, to
accept the upsurge of mass involvement in politics
and industrial life and to channel it away from
revolution to constructive cooperation. ‘Let no
one delude himself that he can prevent the
popular classes from conquering their share of
political and economic influence’, he declared in
a remarkable parliamentary speech in 1901. He
clearly accepted the challenge and saw it as the
principal task of those who ruled to ensure that
this great new force should be harnessed to con-
tribute to national prosperity and greatness. He