Workers' Demonstrations and Liberals

Workers’ Demonstrations and Liberals’ Condemnations: the Italian Liberal Press’s Coverage of General Strikes, Factory Occupations, and Workers’ Self-Defense Groups during the Rise of Fascism, 1919-1922 By Ararat Gocmen, Princeton University Workers occupying a Turin factory in September 1920. “Torino - Comizio festivo in una officina metallurgica occupata.” L’Illustrazione italiana, 26 September 1920, p. 393 This paper outlines the evolution of the Italian liberal press’s in the liberal press in this way, it illustrates how working-class coverage of workers’ demonstrations from 1919 to 1922. The goal radicalism contributed to the rise of fascism in Italy.1 is to show that the Italian liberal middle classes became increasingly philofascistic in response to the persistency of workers’ demonstrations during this period. The paper analyzes articles from 1 I would like to thank Professor Joseph Fronczak for his guidance the Italian newspapers La Stampa and L’Illustrazione italiana, in writing this paper, especially for his recommended selections treating their coverage of general strikes, factory occupations, and from the existing historiography of Italian fascism that I cite workers’ self-defense groups as proxies for middle-class liberals’ throughout. I am also grateful to Professors Pietro Frassica and interpretations of workers’ demonstrations. By tracking changes Fiorenza Weinapple for instructing me in the Italian language 29 Historians of Italian fascism often divide the years lead- workers’ demonstrations took place during the working-class ing up to the fascists’ rise to power—from the immediate mobilization of 1919-1920, strikes—sometimes even large aftermath of the First World War at the beginning of 1919 to ones—remained a persistent phenomenon in the two years Benito Mussolini’s March on Rome in October 1922—into of violent fascist reaction that followed.7 Additionally, while two periods. The biennio rosso (red years) encompasses the the fascist movement was too small to be a threat to strik- emergence of the radical working-class movement from 1919 ing workers during the biennio rosso, the end of 1920 saw to 1920, a period marked by numerous workers’ demonstra- an outburst in fascist violence against workers that contin- tions and significant revolutionary activity from the Italian ued throughout the biennio nero.8 Reds’ demonstrations and Left. In contrast, the biennio nero (black years) refers to the blackshirts’ suppressions of them thus pervaded 1919-1922 growth of the fascist movement and of fascist violence against Italy. workers from 1921 to 1922, during which Italy witnessed an Historians have thoroughly documented the impact of explosion in both membership in and the number of fasci these workers’ demonstrations on conservative industrialists (local branches of the fascist movement).2 and the growth of the fascist movement. Thefasci recruited This historiographical periodization of 1919-1922 into thousands of new supporters at the end of 1920 and the start ‘red’ and ‘black’ intervals is indicative of a crucial reality of of 1921, an accomplishment which both Adrian Lyttelton the era: beyond the politicians of the Liberal, Socialist, and and Angelo Tasca attribute primarily to the blowback from other parties who concerned themselves with parliamenta- Italian workers’ occupations of factories in September 1920.9 ry matters, the primary actors in Italy between the end of According to Frank Snowden, those factory occupations, in the First World War and the March on Rome were social- the context of the heavy strike activity of 1919-1920, also ist workers and conservative industrialists, and, moreover, led employers to “[push] industrial conflict to an open [and communist reds and fascist blackshirts. Thousands of Italian violent] showdown” and to actively support the fascist move- workers joined labor unions—especially those unions with ment.10 In this way, historians have identified the persistency radical inclinations—during the biennio rosso, representing of workers’ demonstrations as a boon to the fascists’ recruit- a widespread mobilization of the working-class masses.3 In ing efforts and the foremost cause of conservative industrial- response, urban industrialists and rural property owners or- ists’ support for fascism. ganized themselves into their own associations, acting in con- Yet historians of Italian fascism have paid insufficient -at cert to counter the economic and political threat that was the tention to the liberal middle classes’ evolving interpretations working-class movement and contributing to the anti-labor of these workers’ demonstrations over the 1919-1922 period. violence of the biennio nero.4 Throughout both periods, com- They have instead placed their analytical focus on the actions munist and fascist revolutionaries actively sought support and reactions of the era’s primary ‘red’ and ‘black’ actors, from the ranks of labor and capital, respectively. While the those who threatened middle-class liberals from the Left and fascists were after industrialists’ financing,5 the communists Right, respectively.11 As Snowden asserts, “the chief sources solicited workers’ support for their revolutionary program.6 of Italian fascism lie in the frontal clash between landlords The ubiquity of workers’ demonstrations in 1919-1922 and peasants,” as well as between industrialists and workers, Italy and the fasci’s constant efforts to suppress them reflect “over the issue of control of the land, the labor market, and the importance of these ‘red’ and ‘black’ actors to historical the local government.”12 With this analytical framework in narratives of the rise of Italian fascism. While many more mind, historians have inadequately studied the role of liberal middle-class philofascism in the fascists’ rise to power, glossing over the precise reasons for which that philofascism over the past year and a half, without which I would have formed and the different degrees to which it did so among been unable to engage in the Italian-language archival research different subsets of the liberal population. In particular, they necessary for this paper. Finally, I owe much to Professor Rebecca have failed to consider the ways in which the persistency of Rix for teaching me how to properly work with primary-source workers’ demonstrations changed the liberal middle classes’ documents in her historical methods course. interpretations of the working-class movement over time, 2 Roberto Franzosi, “The Rise of Italian Fascism (1919-1922): contributing to the development of philofascist sentiments Changing Social Relations in Revolutionary Periods,” Working among middle-class liberals and expanding the Italian pub- Paper (The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America lic’s support for the fascist movement beyond Mussolini’s of Columbia University, 2013), http://italianacademy.columbia. edu/sites/default/files/papers/Franzosi.pdf, 3-5. 3 Angelo Tasca, The Rise of Italian Fascism, 1918-1922, trans. Peter Wait and Dorothy Wait (London: Methuen, 1938), 66. 7 Franzosi, “The Rise of Italian Fascism (1919-1922),” 9. 4 Frank M. Snowden, The Fascist Revolution in Tuscany, 1919- 8 Ibid., 14-17. 1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 94, 148- 9 Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power, 38; Tasca, The Rise of Italian 150. Fascism, 79. 5 Ibid., 147. 10 Snowden, The Fascist Revolution in Tuscany, 143. 6 Adrian Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy, 1919- 11 Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power, 30. 1929 (Bath: The Pitman Press, 1973), 37. 12 Snowden, The Fascist Revolution in Tuscany, 2-3. 30 squadristi (armed fascist squads) and the industrialists who The persistency of general strikes, factory occupations, funded them. and workers’ self-defense groups over the 1919-1922 thus When historians have addressed the question of middle- turned Italian middle-class liberals increasingly sympathetic class liberals’ reactions to workers’ demonstrations, they to fascism. Though the liberal middle classes were not unani- have done so in an analytically sloppy manner. Citing the mous in their philofascist sentiments in the months just be- liberal press as a surrogate for the liberal middle-class citi- fore Mussolini’s March on Rome, the writer Renato Simo- zenry, Lyttelton exemplifies the various problems within the ni was accurate in the declaration he made in his summer existing historiography when he declares that, in the imme- 1922 column for the newspaper L’Illustrazione italiana: “the diate aftermath of the biennio rosso, “the Fascist movement [workers’ demonstration], which was supposed to be a large was welcomed by the great majority of the Liberal press as a protest against fascism, has enabled fascism to demonstrate sign of the revival of the bourgeoisie.”13 First, Lyttelton pres- its merits.”15 Not all middle-class liberals were convinced by ents the Italian liberal press of 1919-1922 as homogeneous, these merits—that is, by the way fascists violently challenged when, in reality, different liberal publications diverged in the radical labor activity and ceaseless workers’ demonstra- their interpretations of workers’ demonstrations. Addition- tions of the biennio rosso—but some certainly were. ally, in referring to a capital-L“Liberal press,” he fails to dis- tinguish between the Liberal-party politicians who focused A Word on Method on the parliamentary implications of fascism and the liberal middle-class citizens who thought about its more general so- Though liberal journalists were members of the liberal cietal

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