the proletariat. Parliamentary activity was to be used solely for propagandist purposes.
Once again a bold left policy was successful. In the Parliamentary elections of December, 1919, the Party achieved unprecedented successes and became the largest single party in the Chamber. In the municipal elections which followed, 2,500 out of 8,500 communes elected Socialist majorities, including the important towns of Milan, Turin and Leghorn.
This rise of the P.S.I. was proceeding, as appeared in the previous chapter, side by side with a progressive decay of the bourgeois social system. Prices were rising; there was a constant shortage of the raw materials on which Italian industry depends; the processes of commerce and manufacture were hindered by a succession of Strikes. The incapacity of the Government to re-establish capitalist order was patent. Ministry after ministry found the position hopeless and resigned. The probability of a revolution became almost a certainty. A brief summary of the rise and fall of the ministries will show the instability of the political situation.
The war had been commenced under the premiership of Salandra, a nominee of North Italian Steel interests. In its early Stages the war went very ill for the Italians, and Salandra took the opportunity offered by a defeat on a vote of confidence following a series of military reverses to resign. An attempt was then made to secure a ministry which should embrace all parties and all interests, the premier being an aged politician named Boselli. This ministry lasted from June, 1915, to October, 1917, and was called on to deal with the Strong anti-war campaign of 1917. This was by no means limited to Socialists, being supported by Giolitti's paper, La Stampa, and to some extent by the Catholics. How effective the anti-war propaganda was among the troops it is difficult to say. It certainly had a profound effect on public opinion at home, and enabled the Italians to avoid some of the grosser excesses of war-hysteria that characterised this country and France.
The vast military debâcle of Caporetto, which laid open to invasion the rich plains and cities of Northern Italy, swept away the Boselli ministry, and Orlando (a prominent southerner) took office. He was still Premier when the armistice was signed, and he, Baron Sonnino and Salandra represented Italy at the Peace Conference. Nitti was at the Treasury until early in 1919, when he resigned. The negotiations at the Peace Conference were, it will be remembered, protracted and contentious; in particular, the Italians found it impossible to secure the support of the Conference to their claims in the Adriatic. Ultimately, Orlando returned to Rome to report on the situation, was defeated in the Chamber, and resigned. He was replaced by Nitti, a Liberal Imperialist.
