Sansepolcrismo
The Sansepolcrismo takes its name from the rally organized by Mussolini at Piazza San Sepolcro in Milan on March 23, 1919, where he proclaimed the principles of Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, and then published them in Il Popolo d'Italia, on June 6, 1919, the newspaper he co-founded in November 1914 after leaving Avanti!
[6] The night before, supporters began to organize in Milan, almost all veterans of World War I,[6] but the morning of March 23 was found to be quiet at Piazza San Sepolcro and confirmed by Carlo Meraviglia, who had arrived in advance specifically to review the situation.
(Published in Il Popolo d'Italia of March 24, 1919)[8] After Mussolini, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti spoke, inviting those present to oppose the Italian Socialist Party, who he accused of launching the Biennio Rosso, which he called an assault on the country.
[12] Then came the speech of Malusardi and Giovanni Capodivacca who required the assembly to give a precise content of fascist action and especially to take up the urgent problems of assistance to the victims of war.
Capodivacca's speech brought further remarks from Mussolini, who took the floor again, laying the foundations of the Corporatism and anticipating the creation of Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni (Chamber of Fasces and Corporations).
[14] His stated purposes see Mussolini creating the "Third Position" between the two opposite poles above the divergent opinions of the major left-wing and right-wing political parties and the growing modernist theories on "New Man": We would like to be aristocrats and democrats, conservatives and liberals, reactionaries and revolutionaries, legalists and illegalists, depending on the circumstances of time, place and environment The historian Emilio Gentile uses the same expression, "fascist movement", a term already used by Il Popolo d'Italia in 1915 that defines a new kind of association, the anti-party, formed by free spirits of militant politics rejecting the doctrinal and organizational constraints of a party.
[15] Mussolini's movement advocated a nationalist revolution to institute a government that brought the nation a new ruling class, one made up primarily by the "fighters" of World War I disappointed by the Vittoria Mutilata ("Mutilated Victory", a phrase attributed to Gabriele D'Annunzio), which was present to an extent across all parties.
[16] The immediate objective of the movement was fighting the irredentist claims concerning Fiume and Dalmatia[16] and the Socialists in general (Bolsheviks),[17][18] who were at the head of the strikes and labor unrest, often violent over the years 1919–1920, a period known as Biennio Rosso that affected much of Europe.
On June 6, 1919, Il Popolo d'Italia published the Manifesto dei Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, the drafting of which had been done in close collaboration with Alceste De Ambris.
But later, when Mussolini became head of state, thousands of people claimed the honor of having participated in what was lauded as the founding meeting of Fascism and succeeded in obtaining, somehow, an official recognition of their status as Sansepolcrismo.
