Volunteer squads could not defeat fascism because the state backed it.

Evidence

However, as his comments later in this note indicate, he did not feel that working-class “arditi ” could in fact hope to stand up to the fascist squads, who enjoyed the connivance of the State. It was only mass as opposed to volunteer action which could provide a viable response. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2285

Categorization

• XREF: Core to Gramsci’s mass-movement vs vanguard thinking that carries into the war-of-position vs war-of-maneuver framework. — connects to: Defeating Fascism does not guarantee freedom will replace it. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 195