 He became Envoy to Rome in 1920 (a post he held until 1925) and developed an admiration for the growing fascist movement whilst in Italy.On his return to Finland, and with the leaders of the Lapua Movement mostly imprisoned, he joined with Erkki Räikkönen, a fellow Swedish-speaker, and Vilho Annala to form IKL as a slightly more moderate continuation.Driven by an inherent conservatism, Gummerus desired an electoral alliance with the National Coalition Party but soon found that the rank and file of IKL had no interest in this.