[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".
[9] Mussolini found himself under increasing pressure to reduce the anti-socialist violence, finding it difficult to be put in a position to take a “categorically antileftist position,” since he had raised the possibility of forming a sort of “nationalist-leftist coalition government.” [10] By 1921, the fasci movement had expanded to the point where almost every political position in Italy was represented, which was encouraged by Mussolini’s denials that he had “any programme” whatsoever, pointing out that fascism would “appeal simultaneously to ‘aristocrats and democrats, revolutionaries and reactionaries, proletarians and anti-proletarians, pacifists and anti-pacifists.’”[11] Willing to court almost any populist movement, Mussolini found it politically advantageous at first to identify with the nationalistic movement of independent and loosely organized anti-socialist militias, although at the time he “did not want to lose his position on the left,” since he was considering the possibility of a “Fascist Labor Party” or “National Labor Party.”[12] Mussolini envisioned a “coalition of labor syndicalists,” but the increasing violence between socialist and anti-socialist squads was harming his chances to amass a wider political constituency.
This put Mussolini, the former leader of the Italian Socialist Party (1912-1914) and a former Marxist who had supported Lenin’s October Revolution in 1917,[20] into an almost impossible position to achieve consensus among his diverse followers.
[21] In the city of Bologna, posters appeared that accused “Mussolini as a traitor to Fascism.”[22] In many Italian cities, including Florence, the local fasci decided to dissolve their local chapter to “protest against the Pact and Mussolini’s leadership.” There were at least two secret anti-Mussolini meetings where a cloud of resentment focused on “Mussolini’s lingering leftist loyalties.”[23] Many leading ras agitated for a leadership change, suggesting that someone else such as Gabriele D’Annunzio should “replace Mussolini.”[24] Grandi and Balbo sought out D’Annunzio in August 1921, and encouraged him to lead the movement in an “insurrectionary march on Rome.”[25] This proposed leadership change appealed to younger fascists who supported “neosyndicalist principles” found in syndicalist Alceste De Ambris’s Carta del Carnaro (Charter of Carnaro), a constitution written for the seized city of Fiume that combined “modern syndicalism” with a “society of producers.”[26][27] However, D’Annunzio evaded Grandi’s and Balbo’s advances by arguing that he had first to consult the stars of a night sky that was noted as overcast.