in the moral sphere by the
necessity of order, discipline, obedience to those who are the moral
dictators of the country. Fascism wants the State to be strong,
organic and at the same time supported on a wide popular basis. As
part of its task the Fascist State has penetrated the economic field:
through the corporative, social and educational institutions which it
has created. The presence of the State is felt in the remotest
ramifications of the country. And in the State also, all the
political, economic and spiritual forces of the nation circulate,
mustered in their respective organisations.

A State which stands on the support of millions of individuals who
recognise it, who believe in it, who are ready to serve it, is not the
tyrannical State of the mediaeval lord. It has nothing in common with
the absolutist States before or after '89. The individual in the
Fascist State is not annulled but rather multiplied, just as in a
regiment a soldier is not diminished, but multiplied by the number of
his comrades.

The Fascist State organises the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin
afterward to the individual; it has limited the useless or harmful
liberties and has preserved the essential ones. The one to judge in
this respect is not the individual but the State.

12. The Fascist State and Religion.

The Fascist State is not indifferent to the presence or the fact of
religion in general nor to the presence of that particular established
religion, which is Italian Catholicism. The State has no theology, but
it has morality. In the Fascist State religion is considered as one of
the most profound manifestations of the spirit; it is therefore not
only respected, but defended and protected. The Fascist State does not
create its own "God," as Robespierre wanted to do at a certain moment
in the frenzies of the Convention; nor does it vainly endeavour to
cancel the idea of God from the mind as Bolschevism tries to do.
Fascism respects the God of the ascetics, of the saints and of the
heroes. It also respects God as he is conceived and prayed to in the
ingenuous and primitive heart of the people.

13. Empire and Discipline.

The Fascist State is a will expressing power and empire. The Roman
tradition here becomes an idea of force. In the Fascist doctrine,
empire is not only a territorial or a military, or a commercial
expression: it is a moral and a spiritual one. An empire can be
thought of, for instance, as a nation