Journal de Genève
- The Public Safety Laws in Italy
- Nine Years of Soviet Dictatorship
- In memoriam
The Journal de Genève's front page of 11 November 1926 carried an editorial signed W. M. on Italy's new "public safety laws". It argued that regimes of force had always failed when they tried to rule by terror, and said the writer was astounded that an ambitious twentieth-century government would rest its power on so fragile a base. A second article marked nine years of Soviet rule. It recalled that professional prophets had given the Bolsheviks three months at most, and noted that new prophets now said the regime was here to stay. A short item headed "In memoriam" told how the Federal Council ordered the 1st Division called up for 11 November at 8 p.m., and how Police Commissioner Sessler, with drummers and gendarmes, read the order aloud in the town's main squares. The selected passage does not give the year of that call-up.
Translation
The Public Safety Laws in Italy
When one considers that for thousands of years every regime of force has tried to rule by terror, and that every one has failed; when one considers that it has been proven a thousand times over that terror, far from frightening its opponents, awakens in them a taste for martyrdom, and that blood calls for blood, one is left astounded that, here in the twentieth century, a government that has great ambitions for its country, and for which endurance is a condition of success, could build its rule on so fragile a foundation.
Nine Years of Soviet Dictatorship
7 November 1917–1926! Already? Who could have believed in such an anniversary when the Soviets came to power? Certainly not the professional prophets, who gave them only "three months — at most." So monstrous did the idea of a communist regime in Russia seem at the time. And yet it has lasted. It is lasting still. And new prophets now claim that this time "it's here for a long while!"
In memoriam
The Federal Council has decided to call up the 1st Division to its assembly points for 11 November, at 8 p.m. Police Commissioner Sessler, wearing his sash and preceded by drummers and gendarmes, went through the town and read out the call-up order in the main squares.
Context
The Bologna shooting that preceded the new laws
W. M.'s editorial on Italy's "public safety laws" appeared eleven days after the attempt on Mussolini at Bologna. On Sunday 31 October 1926, as Mussolini left the university after opening a science congress, a fifteen-year-old named Anteo Zamboni was said to have fired at him, and the crowd stabbed the boy to death on the spot. The London Spectator reported on 6 November that the boy's family had been arrested. It added that no evidence of accomplices had yet been found, even though Italians firmly believed in a widespread conspiracy, and that all opposition newspapers had been suspended indefinitely. Later historians have questioned the official account. The terrorism scholar J. Bowyer Bell judged that the boy was probably innocent and that the affair was either staged or a plot among Fascists. The attempt led to laws that created Mussolini's secret police. The passage of the Geneva editorial translated here does not retell these events. Instead, it attacks the new measures in general terms, arguing that rule by terror has always failed.
4 attempts in a year and the tightening of control
The Bologna shooting was the fourth attempt on Mussolini's life in less than a year. On 4 November 1925 the former Socialist deputy Tito Zaniboni was arrested for planning to shoot him. Historians believe that Mussolini's own administration engineered the plot as a pretext to consolidate power, and laws enacted in late 1925 enabled the suppression of any opposition political organisation. On 7 April 1926 Violet Gibson fired a pistol at Mussolini, and the bullet grazed his nose. On 11 September 1926 the anarchist marble worker Gino Lucetti threw a bomb at Mussolini's car at Porta Pia in Rome, injuring four other people. Both the Zaniboni affair and the Zamboni shooting were followed by new repressive laws. W. M. condemned this pattern when he wrote that terror breeds a taste for martyrdom in its opponents and that blood calls for blood.
The Special Tribunal and the regime's staying power
Among the bodies created in 1926 was the Special Tribunal for the Defence of the State, a special department of Fascist Italy's government used to judge crimes against the regime. Mussolini set it up through the leggi fascistissime, the series of laws that consolidated the totalitarian regime. W. M. said he was astounded that a government for which endurance was a condition of success would found its rule on terror, which he called a fragile base. The editorial stressed that fragility, but the Fascist regime kept power for more than sixteen years after the article appeared. Mussolini lost office only in 1943, when the King dismissed him as prime minister. Tito Zaniboni, who had been sentenced to 30 years, was released that same year.
The NEP behind the Soviet Union's 9th anniversary
The Geneva article recalled early forecasts that Soviet power would last "three months at most". The regime's early years did bring real collapse. By 1921, civil war and war communism had devastated the economy and depopulated many cities. In March 1921 the Tenth Party Congress launched the New Economic Policy, which legalised some private trade and made concessions to peasant farmers to raise agricultural output. Lenin described NEP as a temporary retreat before advancing further towards socialism, while opponents in the party feared it would revive capitalism and eventually lead to the overthrow of the Soviet government. As the article said, the regime was still standing in November 1926, but its internal politics were changing. In 1926–1927 Stalin defeated the United Opposition of Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, and historians date the end of NEP to the winter of 1927–1928. The new "prophets" mentioned in the article were therefore judging a regime that was about a year away from a sharp change of course.
Original
Les lois de salut public en Italie
Si l'on songe que, depuis des milliers d'années, tous les régimes de force out essayé de régner par la terreur et que tous ont échoué; si l'on songe que la preuve a été faite mille fois que la terreur, loin d'effrayer ses adversaires, crée en eux le goût du martyre et que le sang appelle le sang, on reste stupéfait qu'en plein XXe siècle un gouvernement qui a de grandes ambitions pour son pays et pour qui la durée est une condition de succès puisse asseoir sa domination sur une base aussi fragile.
Neuf ans de dictature soviétique
7 novembre 1917-1926! Déjà? Qui aurait pu croire à un pareil anniversaire au moment de l'arrivée des soviets au pouvoir? Certes, pas les prophètes professionnels, qui ne leur donnaient que «trois mois - tout au plus». Si monstrueuse paraissait alors l'idée d'un régime communiste en Russie. Cependant il a duré. Il dure encore. Et de nouveaux prophètes prétendent aujourd'hui que cette fois - «c'est pour longtemps!»
In memoriam
Le Conseil fédéral a décidé la mise sur pied de la première division sur les places de rassemblement pour le 11 novembre, à 8 h. du soir. M. le commissaire de police Sessler, ceint de son écharpe et précédé de tambours et de gendarmes, parcourut la ville et donna lecture, sur les principales places, de l'ordre de mise sur pied.