ITALY: Right Fist Falls

Before the War, one Roberto Farinacci labored as an ill-paid mechanic upon Italian railways. Indeed, in that remote period, one Benito Mussolini toiled under a hodful of bricks.

Fascismo made of the hodcarrier a god. Not quite. Gods have no need of earthly champions, whereas, when Fascismo was rocked by the Matteotti scandal (TIME, June 23, 1924 et seq.), the hodcarrier was perhaps only conserved in his godhood by the railway mechanic.

Roberto Farinacci, whose speech still smacks of the taproom and the railway shop, became Secretary General of the Fascist Party. His single-track mind knew and knows only devotion to Mussolini and ruthless suppression of his enemies. Within a year he has drawn the discipline of Fascismo as tight as a drumhead. He has “governed by castor oil”—introduced into anti-Fascist throats while anti-Fascist noses were roughly tweaked by Farinacci’s Selvaggi (“Savages”). He has earned the title “Right Fist of the Fascist Party.” He has been denounced by Cardinal Gasparri as a “vulgar demagog.” None the less, Mussolini had him made a lawyer so that he might defend the slayers of Matteotti (TIME, March 22). The rude mechanic from Abruzzi secured the virtual whitewashing of his clients from an Abruzzi Fascist jury (TIME, April 5).

“Outlived.” As Farinacci returned to Rome from this supreme triumph, he performed an act which strikingly demonstrates the depths of his loyalty to Mussolini, the heights to which he carries the ideal of loyalty to Fascismo. He resigned last week as Secretary General to the Fascist party. To the press he said: “I have outlived my usefulness to Fascismo as Secretary General.”

Turati. As the loyal mechanic stepped down, there stepped up into his place Signor Augusto Turati of Brescia, a newspaper man of milder temper. It was asserted widely last week that this exchange is designed to mark the end of what has been called the “Fascist phase of terror.” The moderate Fascist clique, headed by Minister of Interior Luigi Federozoni, is announced to have won Mussolini over to a slightly less harsh and repressive policy. Last week the event of significant note was merely that Farinacci did as he was told, resigned. Observers opined that he will certainly be rewarded soon with another post. They admired his soldierlike obedience.