Admitting that the Nineteenth Century was the Century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy, it is not said that the Twentieth century must also be the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, of Democracy.  Political doctrines pass on, but peoples remain.  One may now think that this will be the century of authority, the century of the “right wing” the century of Fascism.  If the Nineteenth Century was the century of the individual (liberalism signifies individualism) one may think that this will be the century of “collectivism,” the century of the State.  It is perfectly logical that a new doctrine should utilise the vital elements of other doctrines.  No doctrine was ever born entirely new and shining, never seen before.  No doctrine can boast of absolute “originality.”  Each doctrine is bound historically to doctrines which went before, to doctrines yet to come.  Thus the scientific Socialism of Marx is bound to the Utopian Socialism of Fourier, of Owen, of Saint-Simon; thus the Liberalism of 1800 is linked with the movement of 1700.  Thus Democratic doctrines are bound to the Encyclopaedists.  Each doctrine tends to direct human activity towards a definite object; but the activity of man reacts upon the doctrine, transforms it and adapts it to new requirements, or overcomes it.  Doctrine therefore should be an act of life and not an academy of words.  In this lie the pragmatic veins of Fascism, its will to power, its will to be, its position with regard to “violence” and its value.

10.  The Value and Mission of the State.

The capital point of the Fascist doctrine is the conception of the State, its essence, the work to be accomplished, its final aims.  In the conception of Fascism, the State is an absolute before which individuals and groups are relative.  Individuals and groups are “conceivable” inasmuch as they are in the State.  The Liberal State does not direct the movement and the material and spiritual evolution of collectivity, but limits itself to recording the results; the Fascist State has its conscious conviction, a will of its own, and for this reason it is called an “ethical” State.

In 1929 at the first quinquiennial assembly of the Regime, I said:  “In Fascism the State is not a night-watchman, only occupied with the personal safety of the citizens, nor is it an organisation with purely material aims, such as that of assuring a certain well-being and a comparatively easy social cohabitation.  A board of directors would be quite sufficient to deal with this.  It is not a purely political creation, either, detached from the complex material realities of the life of individuals and of peoples.  The State as conceived and enacted by Fascism, is a spiritual and moral fact since it gives concrete form to the political, juridical and economical organisation of the country.  Furthermore this organisation as it rises and develops, is a manifestation of the spirit.  The State is a safeguard of interior and