slaughter spread throughout all Italy and provoked demonstrations, parades and spontaneous strikes. In particular, souls were inflamed by the calls of Benito Mussolini, socialist at the time and director of Avanti!, who had caught in Ancona, during the XIV Congress of PSI from 26 to 28 April 1914, an important personal success, with plaudits for the results of dissemination and sells of the party newspaper, granted to him personally by congress members. On the number of 8 June 1914 of the socialist newspaper, Mussolini wrote: With his articles, Mussolini, by leveraging on his popularity inside the socialist movement and on the great diffusion of the newspaper, forced the Confederazione Generale del Lavoro (CGdL) to declare a general strike, an instrument which stopped every activity in the country and that the labour union believed it had to be used only in exceptional circumstances. Mussolini exploited the popular revolts for political purposes within the socialist movement: leadership of PSI was in the hands of revolutionary maximalists after the congress of Ancona, but reformist were still the majority in the parliamentary group and in CGdL. On 10 June 1914, a political rally was held in the Arena di Milano in front of 60,000 people, while the rest of Italy was struggling and paralysed, Romagna and Marche were insurgent and rail workers finally announced to join to the general strike. After reformists of all parties said that the strike was not the revolution but only a manifestation against the massacre of Ancona, and that they would not be dragged into a useless carnage, Filippo Corridoni and Mussolini intervened. The latter exalted the revolt and his speech was reported and published by Avanti! on the following day: To prevent the monarchy from feeling threatened and declaring the state of siege, giving public powers to the army, the CGDL concluded the strike after 48 hours and invited workers to resume their activities. That move frustrated the warlike and insurrectionist purposes of Mussolini who, on the Avanti! of 12 June 1914, accused the syndicalist leaders of felony saying: "The Labour Confederation, in ending the strike, has betrayed the revolutionary movement". The general strike lasted only two days, while the revolutionary movement was gradually running out after keeping entire zones of the country in check. On 20 June 1914, the socialist parliamentary group, formed in majority by moderates and reformists, disproved Mussolini about the events of the "Red