Page 41 - Studio International - April 1973

in the Primo manifesto politico of 19o9 and the (Left)
Programma politico futurista of 1913. 'Abolition Catalogue cover for the first exhibition of futurist
architecture 1928
of marital authorization, easy divorce, gradual
(Below)
devaluation of matrimony, gradual Front page of Futurismo no. 3 1932
preparation for free love and state children.
Preparation for the future socialization of the (Bottom)
Front page of La Citta Futurista 1929
land with its vast reserves, properties of
the Opere Pie (Church lands), public
corporations, and the expropriation of all land
not cultivated or inefficiently cultivated. Heavy
taxation of inheritances and limitation of major
heirs . . . Legal maximum of eight hours work.
Equal pay for equal work between men and
women. Substitution of the present rhetorical
anticlericalism by action to rid Italy of the
church, priests, friars, nuns, madonnas, candles
and bells . . . Freedom of the press to strike, to
assemble, to organize. Police purged and
reorganized. Abolition of the Political Police.
Abolition of the intervention of the army to
establish order . . . Confiscation of two-thirds
of all profit coming from war supplies.'4
A programme of this tenor, republican,
anarchistic, socialistic, as well as anticlerical
in the vague terms bequeathed by the
Risorgimento which Italian socialism, too,
had inherited, was designed to accommodate
personages from all quarters; and, in fact,
adhesions came not only from old futurists but
from those like Bontempelli who had never
been futurists and from men like Bottai and
Bolzon who were shortly to have front-rank
functions in the fascist movement. In the
founding of the Futurist Political Party,
Marinetti had at his side men like the writer
Mario Carli, and the sculptor Ferruccio Vecchi,
who succeeded in attracting into the party large
numbers of arditi (special volunteer shock
troops who had, on occasion, gone into battle
stripped to the waist, dagger between their
teeth and a grenade in each hand, and who
supplied the core of D'Annunzio's forces in the
Fiume exploit. Tr). In this way the fasci
futuristi (futurist bands of attack) were formed
in the principal Italian cities, to be transferred in
March 1919 to the fascist party. Marinetti and
his friends were, in fact, present at the
constituent meeting on the 23rd of that month,
in Milan, in the hall of the Circolo Industriale e
Commerciale in Piazza San Sapolcro. He was some light upon the character of the relations enemies. Marinetti and his friends came out in
actively present at the attack upon the socialist between the futurists and the fascists. After the the conference hall itself, 'not having been able
procession going from via Dante to the Piazza resounding electoral defeat of 1920, the second to impose upon the fascist majority their
del Duomo, on April 15th, after a mass meeting Fascist Congress was convened in Milan. It was antimonarchist and anticlerical tendency'.5 The
in the Arena, though he subsequently denied the occasion of the final shift to the right of futurists were the fractious left of fascism, in
taking part in the setting fire to the offices of Mussolini and that wing of the fascist party their way intolerant of any show of excessive
Avanti! which succeeded the attack. He was most tied to the interests of great industrial and prudence.
later present at the first congress of the Fasci di landed bourgeoisie. The antimonarchist and Reading the Marinetti texts of this period,
Combattimento in October of that same year, anticlerical items of the fascist programme were one learns the reasons for the futurist reactions
and along with Mussolini, Arturo Toscanini, dropped to secure the support of the army and of against what they had to judge as a true and
Bolzon, and Podrecca, the former editor of the the 'bien-pensants'. Many of the founder proper about-turn on the part of the fascists.
review Asino, was on the fascist list of members, above all those who had come from Inflammatory anarchistic inventions rattle and
candidates for the elections. the ranks of the socialists, anarchists, libertarian volleys deafen in an unholy din:
It serves little purpose to chronicle all the syndicalists, and republicans, among them `Abolition of conscription, a volunteer army . . .
acts and all the gestures, not to mention all the Marinetti and his friends who had been shut Abolition of the police . . . The whole present
declarations of the futurists in those up in the San Vittore prison along with system of order is worm-eaten, reactionary,
circumstances. However one particular episode Mussolini for twenty days, left the fascist ineffective, stupefied and often criminal . . . Is
merits attention in the interests of shedding movement, some of them to become avowed not the destructive gesture of the anarchist,
167