Pact of Pacification

The Pact of Pacification or Pacification Pact was a peace agreement officially signed by Benito Mussolini, who would later become dictator of Italy, and other leaders of the Fasci with the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and the General Confederation of Labor (CGL) in Rome on August 2 or 3, 1921.^[1] The Pact called for “immediate action to put an end to the threats, assaults, reprisals, acts of vengeance, and personal violence of any description,” by either side for the “mutual respect” of “all economic organizations.”^[2] The Italian Futurists, Syndicalists and others favored Mussolini’s peace pact as an attempt at “reconciliation with the Socialists.”^[3] Others saw it as a means to form a “grand coalition of new mass parties” to “overthrow the liberal systems,” via parliament or civil society.^[4]

In the accord, Mussolini clearly voiced his opposition and contempt for the provincial paramilitary squads and their landowning allies, declaring that they were “the dullest, deafest, most miserable cast that exists in Italy”.^[5]

The agreement was short-lived since many of the action squads leaders denounced the pacification pact with the socialists, along with Mussolini’s leadership, arguing that the Duce “had not created the movement” and that they could “get along without him.”^[6]

^ Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-1945, University of Wisconsin Press, 1995, p. 100. Historians cannot agree on the exact signing date of the Pact
^ Dahlia S. Elazar, The Making of Fascism: Class, State, and Counter-Revolution, Italy 1919-1922, Westport, CT, Praeger, 2001, p. 141
^ Dahlia S. Elazar, The Making of Fascism: Class, State, and Counter-Revolution, Italy 1919-1922, Westport, CT, Praeger, 2001, p. 141
^ R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy: Life Under the Fascist Dictatorship 1915-1945, New York, NY, Penguin Press, 2006, p.172
^ Dahlia S. Elazar, The Making of Fascism: Class, State, and Counter-Revolution, Italy 1919-1922, Westport, CT, Praeger, 2001, p. 141
^ Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-1945, University of Wisconsin Press, 1995, p. 100

[1] Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-1945, University of Wisconsin Press, 1995, p. 100. Historians cannot agree on the exact signing date of the Pact

[2] Dahlia S. Elazar, The Making of Fascism: Class, State, and Counter-Revolution, Italy 1919-1922, Westport, CT, Praeger, 2001, p. 141

[3] Dahlia S. Elazar, The Making of Fascism: Class, State, and Counter-Revolution, Italy 1919-1922, Westport, CT, Praeger, 2001, p. 141

[4] R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy: Life Under the Fascist Dictatorship 1915-1945, New York, NY, Penguin Press, 2006, p.172

[5] Dahlia S. Elazar, The Making of Fascism: Class, State, and Counter-Revolution, Italy 1919-1922, Westport, CT, Praeger, 2001, p. 141

[6] Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-1945, University of Wisconsin Press, 1995, p. 100

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