On May 30, Giacomo Matteotti, the son of a wealthy family from the Veneto, a graduate of the law faculty in Bologna, and the leader of the United Socialist party, who had persistently criticized Mussolini and carried tremendous prestige, accused the fascists of intimidation and outright fraud, and demanded that the elections be annulled. “I’ve said my piece,” he concluded. “Now you prepare my funeral speech.”155 Eleven days later he was bundled into a car, stabbed multiple times with a carpenter’s knife, and beaten to death.
