Fasci Siciliani
Encyclopedia
The Fasci
Siciliani, short for Fasci Siciliani dei Lavoratori (Sicilian Workers Leagues), were a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, which arose in Sicily
in the years between 1889 and 1894. The Fasci gained the support of the poorest and most exploited classes of the island by channelling their frustration and discontent into a coherent programme based on the establishment of new rights. Consisting of a jumble of traditionalist sentiment, religiosity, and socialist consciousness, the movement reached its apex in the summer of 1893, when new conditions were presented to the landowners and mine owners of Sicily concerning the renewal of share cropping and rental contracts.
Upon the rejection of these conditions, there was an outburst of strikes that rapidly spread throughout the island, and was marked by violent social conflict, almost rising to the point of insurrection. The leaders of the movement were not able to keep the situation from getting out of control. The proprietors and landowners asked the government to intervene, and Prime Minister Francesco Crispi
declared a state of emergency in January 1894, dissolving the organizations, arresting its leaders and restoring order through the use of extreme force. Some reforms followed, including workmen's compensation and pension schemes. The suppression of the strikes also led to an increase in emigration.
While many of the leaders were of socialist or anarchist leanings, few of their supporters were true revolutionaries. Nevertheless, the peasants who assembled into the Fasci were eager for social justice and convinced that a new world was about to be born. A crucifix hung beside the red flag in many of their meeting-places, and portraits of the King beside those of the revolutionaries Garibaldi, Mazzini and Marx. Cheers for the King were often heard in their marches that almost resembled quasi-religious processions. Many of the Fasci were part of the Party of Italian Workers (Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani, the initial name of the Italian Socialist Party
) that had been founded at the conference of Genoa on August 4, 1892.
The rural Fasci in particular were a curious phenomenon: both ancient and modern. They combined millenarian
aspirations with urban intellectual leadership often in contact with workers’ organizations and ideas in the more industrialized Northern Italy. According to the Marxist
historian Eric Hobsbawm
, the Fasci were millenarian insofar as the socialism preached by the movement was seen by the Sicilian peasantry as a new religion, the true religion of Christ – betrayed by the priests, who were on the side of the rich – that foretold the dawn of a new world, without poverty, hunger and cold, in accordance with God’s will. The Fasci, which included many women, were encouraged by the messianic belief that the start of a new reign of justice was looming and the movement spread like an epidemic.
(1887-1891) and coincided with unpopular tax increases and ratification of a series of laws curtailing personal freedom. The Italian economy had been sliding into a deep recession since the late 1880s. New tariffs had been introduced in 1887 on agricultural and industrial goods, followed by a trade war with France, which badly damaged Italian commerce. Many farmers, especially in southern Italy suffered severely.
The first official Fascio was founded on May 1 (Labour Day
), 1891, in Catania by Giuseppe de Felice Giuffrida
. (An earlier Fascio was set up in Messina on March 18, 1889, but was dormant after its founder, Nicola Petrina, was arrested in July of that year and not released until 1892. Another reason why the first Fascio of Messina – formed after the example of the Fasci operai [Workers leagues] constituted in Central and North Italy from 1871 – did not develop was that it brought together not individual workers but the workers' associations of the city, which retained their independence, their status and economic orientation.) Other leaders included Rosario Garibaldi Bosco
in Palermo
, Nicola Barbato
in Piana dei Greci, Bernardino Verro
in Corleone
, and Lorenzo Panepinto
in Santo Stefano Quisquina
. While the ruling elite depicted the men of the Fasci as treasonous socialists, communists and anarchists seeking to overthrow the monarchy; in fact many were devout Catholics and monarchists. The movement sometimes had a messianic nature, characterised by statements as "Jesus was a true socialist and wanted just what the Fasci were demanding." Nicola Barbato was known as "the workers' apostle."
The keenest socialist among the Fasci leaders was Garibaldi Bosco. In August 1892 he attended the Socialist party’s congress at Genoa and on his return obediently purged his fascio of its anarchist and other non-socialist members. His ideal of a united democratic front was shared by the father of Sicilian socialism, Napoleone Colajanni
. The leader in Catania, De Felice, also maintained contact with leading anarchists like Amilcare Cipriani
. On these and other important issues there was much friction between Catania and Palermo.
Crispi was eventually replaced by Giovanni Giolitti
in May 1892. On January 20, 1893, when peasants of Caltavuturo occupied communal land that they claimed was theirs, local authorities killed 13 and wounded 21 in the Caltavuturo massacre
. Disturbances continued throughout the year. The Fasci started out as urban movements, animated by artisans, which evolved into a more popular and combative mass movement with the adherence of sulphur miners, and in a later stage with the involvement of peasants and sharecroppers. In the autumn of 1893, labour conflicts in the cities and the mines came together with the protests and claims of the farmers. The movement reached its greatest breadth in the manifestations against taxes, involving the lowest tiers of the city and the countryside, becoming difficult, if not impossible, to control by its leaders.
On May 21-22, 1893, a Congress was held in Palermo attended by 500 delegates from nearly 90 leagues and socialist circles. A Central Committee was elected, composed of nine members: Giacomo Montalto for the province of Trapani, Nicola Petrina for the province of Messina, Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
for the province of Catania, Luigi Leone for the province of Siracusa, Antonio Licata for the province Agrigento, Agostino Lo Piano Pomar for the province of Caltanissetta, Rosario Garibaldi Bosco
, Nicola Barbato
and Bernardino Verro
for the province of Palermo. The Congress decided that all Leagues were obliged to join the Party of Italian Workers.
In July 1893 a peasant conference at Corleone drafted model agrarian contracts for labourers, sharecroppers and tenants and presented them to the landowners. When those refused to negotiate, a strike against landowners and against state taxes broke out over a large part of western Sicily. The so-called Patti di Corleone, are considered by historians to be the first trade union collective contract in capitalist Italy.
In September the state authorities intervened and some of the landowners were persuaded to capitulate. Elsewhere the strike continued until November 1893. Railwaymen of Catania and Palermo, the sulphur-miners and many other workers followed their example winning higher wages or better working conditions.
The successful struggle convinced the Sicilian ruling elite that the "upheaval" had to be stopped. They were seized by panic and some even demanded the closing of all schools to halt the spread of subversive doctrines. Prefects and frightened local councils bombarded Rome with requests for the immediate suppression of the Fasci. Despite the heavy pressure from the King, the army and conservative circles in Rome, however, Giolitti would neither treat strikes – which were not illegal – as a crime nor dissolve the Fasci nor authorise the use of firearms against popular demonstrations. His policy was “to allow these economic struggles to resolve themselves through amelioration of the condition of the workers” and not to interfere in the process.
Nonetheless, Giolitti acknowledged the need to stifle the agitation. From May 1893 onwards, leaders of the Fasci were arrested occasionally and police and military reinforcements were sent to Sicily. In the autumn of 1893 the leadership lost control over the Fasci and the popular agitation got out of hand. Peasant squatters seized land, violent crowds demonstrated for work and against local misgovernment, tax offices were burnt down and clashes with the police grew more frequent and bloody. The violent social conflict almost rose to the point of insurrection. The proprietors and landowners asked the government to intervene.
However, his attitude could not be maintained. Landowners were infuriated by the unwillingness of the government to use force, while the peasants were annoyed by it unwillingness to redistribute land from the latifundia
. Landowners matched the strike with a lockout
, and many peasants, probably a majority in the strike centres, were left without tenancies when the planting season ended in mid-December. In December 1893 the failure of the Giolitti government to restore public order gave rise to a general demand that Crispi should return to power. Giolitti had to resign on November 24, 1893, as a result of the Banca Romana scandal
.
In addition to the unrest in Sicily, a wave of rioting spread through Italy in August 1893, triggered by the killing of a number of migrant workers in the salt pans of Aigues Mortes
in southern France escalated into a more generalized working-class revolt supported by anarchists an violent riots in Rome and Naples. Italy seemed to be slipping to a revolution. By the time Crispi returned to power in December 1893, Italy appeared to many to be on the brink of collapse. Crispi promised important measures of land reform for the near future. He was not blind to the misery and the need for social reform. Before 1891 he had been the patron of the Sicilian working-class and many of their associations had been named after him. Colajanni, the chief architect of Giolitti’s fall by exposing the Banca Romana scandal, was first offered the Ministry of Agriculture, which he refused, then sent to Sicily on a mission of appeasement.
Crispi’s good intentions got lost in the outcry for strong measures. In the three weeks of uncertainty before the government was formed, the rapid spread of violence drove many local authorities to defy Giolitti’s ban on the use of firearms. In December 1893, 92 peasants lost their lives in clashes with the police and army. Government building were burned as well as flour mills and bakeries that refused to lower their prices when taxes were lowered or abolished. These disorders were not the product of a revolutionary plot, but Crispi believed otherwise. On the strength of dubious documents and reports, Crispi decided there was an organised conspiracy to detach his own Sicily from Italy; the leaders of the Fasci were in league with the clerics and financed by French gold, and war and invasion were imminent.
throughout Sicily. Army reservists were recalled and General Roberto Morra di Lavriano was dispatched with 40,000 troops. The old order was restored through the use of extreme force, including summary executions. The Fasci were outlawed, the army and the polices killed scores of protesters, and hundreds wounded. Thousands of militants, including all the leaders, were put in jail or sent into internal exile. Some 1,000 persons were deported to the penal islands without trial. All working-class societies and cooperatives were dissolved and freedom of the press, meeting and association was suspended.
Exactly in the early days of January a meeting of the Central Committee of the Fasci took place in Palermo to discuss the position of the movement. Two sharply contrasting positions emerged. De Felice Giuffrida, known for his anarchist tendencies, supported the need to take advantage of the situation of unrest to provoke a revolution on the island. However, the majority took an opposite view, arguing the need to proceed peacefully. A revolt was not only inappropriate, but it would be detrimental to the movement. The meeting condemned the violent incidents in various parts of the island, and launched an appeal to stay calm and not to retaliate. In the end De Felice Giuffrida accepted the position of the majority. But the die was cast for the authorities to arrest De Felice, Montalto, Petrina, and others. Garibaldi Bosco, Barbato and Verro were arrested on board the steamship Bagnara that was about to leave for Tunis.
“In front of you,” Barbato told the judges, “we provided the documents and evidence of our innocence. My friends thought it necessary to support their defence legally; I will not do so. Not because I have no confidence in you, but it is the law that does not concern me. So I do not defend myself. You have to sentence: we are the elements that destroy your sacred institutions. You have to sentence: it is logical, human. I will always pay tribute to your loyalty. But we say to our friends outside: do not ask for pardon, do not ask for amnesty. Socialist civilization should not begin with an act of cowardice. We demand a condemnation, we do not ask for mercy. Martyrs are more useful to the holy cause than any propaganda. Condemn us!”
The heavy sentence aroused strong reactions in Italy and in the United States. In Palermo a group of students went to the Teatro Bellini and asked the orchestra to perform the hymn of Garibaldi. And the theatre applauded. In March 1896 a new liberal national government under Prime minister Antonio Di Rudinì recognized the excessive brutality of the repression. Many Fasci members were pardoned and released from jail. Di Rudinì made it clear though that a reorganization of the Fasci would not be tolerated. After their release, De Felice, Barbato and Bosco were met by a large crowd of supporters in Rome, who released the horses form their carriage and dragged them to the hotel, cheering for socialism and denouncing Crispi.
. The industrial workmen’s compensation scheme from 1883 was made obligatory with the employer bearing all costs; and a voluntary fund for contributory disability and old age pensions was created.
Many former adherents of the Fasci left Sicily. Life had grown hard and employment difficult to find because of their involvement with the movement. For those in Sicily who wanted to change their life for the better in those days, there were only two alternatives: rebel or emigrate. After the failure of the rebellion many had to choose emigration.
According to Hobsbawm, the Fasci were a prime example of primitive agrarian movement that became modern by aligning itself with socialism and communism. Many of its leaders continued in the Socialist Party and continued the struggle for land rights and land reform once they were released. Despite the 1894 defeat, permanent movements were set up in some areas of Sicily using modern socialist models of organisation. After World War
I the communist movement built on these. The Fasci inspired social struggle in Sicily well into the 1950s.
. However, the leagues were not only led by socialists and anarchists; some were run by local gentry and mafiosi. The Mafia bosses Vito Cascioferro and Nunzio Giaimo led the Fasci in Bisacquino
in alliance with Verro. The Mafia was sometimes needed to enforce flying pickets with credible threats of violence and to make the strike costly to landowners by destroying their property.
In order to give the strike teeth and to protect himself from harm, Verro became a member of a Mafia group in Corleone, the Fratuzzi (Little Brothers). However, during the great strike of the Fasci in September 1893, the Fratuzzi mobilized to boycott it, providing the necessary manpower to work on the lands that the peasants refused to cultivate. Since then Verro broke away from the mafiosi, and – according to police reports – became their most bitter enemy. He was killed by the Mafia in 1915 when he was the mayor of Corleone.
Fascio
Fascio, plural -sci /'faʃʃo, ʃi/ is an Italian word literally meaning "a bundle" or "a sheaf", and figuratively league, and which was used in the late 19th century to refer to political groups of many different orientations...
Siciliani, short for Fasci Siciliani dei Lavoratori (Sicilian Workers Leagues), were a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, which arose in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
in the years between 1889 and 1894. The Fasci gained the support of the poorest and most exploited classes of the island by channelling their frustration and discontent into a coherent programme based on the establishment of new rights. Consisting of a jumble of traditionalist sentiment, religiosity, and socialist consciousness, the movement reached its apex in the summer of 1893, when new conditions were presented to the landowners and mine owners of Sicily concerning the renewal of share cropping and rental contracts.
Upon the rejection of these conditions, there was an outburst of strikes that rapidly spread throughout the island, and was marked by violent social conflict, almost rising to the point of insurrection. The leaders of the movement were not able to keep the situation from getting out of control. The proprietors and landowners asked the government to intervene, and Prime Minister Francesco Crispi
Francesco Crispi
Francesco Crispi was a 19th-century Italian politician of Arbëreshë ancestry. He was instrumental in the unification of Italy and was its 17th and 20th Prime Minister from 1887 until 1891 and again from 1893 until 1896.-Sicily:Crispi’s paternal family came originally from the small agricultural...
declared a state of emergency in January 1894, dissolving the organizations, arresting its leaders and restoring order through the use of extreme force. Some reforms followed, including workmen's compensation and pension schemes. The suppression of the strikes also led to an increase in emigration.
Characteristics
The Fasci movement was made up of a federation of scores of associations that developed among farm workers, tenant farmers, and small sharecroppers as well as artisans, intellectuals, and industrial workers. The immediate demands of the movement were fair land rents, higher wages, lower local taxes and distribution of misappropriated common land. Between 1889 and 1893 some 170 Fasci were established in Sicily. According to some sources the movement reached a membership of more than 300,000 by the end of 1893. The Fasci constituted autonomous organizations with their own insignia (red rosettes), uniforms and sometimes even musical bands, their own local halls for reunions and congresses.While many of the leaders were of socialist or anarchist leanings, few of their supporters were true revolutionaries. Nevertheless, the peasants who assembled into the Fasci were eager for social justice and convinced that a new world was about to be born. A crucifix hung beside the red flag in many of their meeting-places, and portraits of the King beside those of the revolutionaries Garibaldi, Mazzini and Marx. Cheers for the King were often heard in their marches that almost resembled quasi-religious processions. Many of the Fasci were part of the Party of Italian Workers (Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani, the initial name of the Italian Socialist Party
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...
) that had been founded at the conference of Genoa on August 4, 1892.
The rural Fasci in particular were a curious phenomenon: both ancient and modern. They combined millenarian
Millenarianism
Millenarianism is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed, based on a one-thousand-year cycle. The term is more generically used to refer to any belief centered around 1000 year intervals...
aspirations with urban intellectual leadership often in contact with workers’ organizations and ideas in the more industrialized Northern Italy. According to the Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
historian Eric Hobsbawm
Eric Hobsbawm
Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm , CH, FBA, is a British Marxist historian, public intellectual, and author...
, the Fasci were millenarian insofar as the socialism preached by the movement was seen by the Sicilian peasantry as a new religion, the true religion of Christ – betrayed by the priests, who were on the side of the rich – that foretold the dawn of a new world, without poverty, hunger and cold, in accordance with God’s will. The Fasci, which included many women, were encouraged by the messianic belief that the start of a new reign of justice was looming and the movement spread like an epidemic.
Foundation and rapid growth
The Fasci were the result of the revolt of the Sicilian peasants against the introduction of capitalist relationships into the rural economy aggravated by the world depression in agriculture of the 1880s. The agrarian crisis between 1888 and 1892 led to a steep decrease in wheat prices. The island’s main sources of wealth – wine, fruit and sulphur – suffered a heavy blow. The dominant landowning class channeled most of the economic burden on to the peasantry, in the form of higher rents and discriminatory local taxation. As social tension rose, a handful of young and hitherto quite unknown socialist intellectuals – many of them recent graduates of Palermo University – seized their opportunity. The movement grew under the first government of Prime minister Francesco CrispiFrancesco Crispi
Francesco Crispi was a 19th-century Italian politician of Arbëreshë ancestry. He was instrumental in the unification of Italy and was its 17th and 20th Prime Minister from 1887 until 1891 and again from 1893 until 1896.-Sicily:Crispi’s paternal family came originally from the small agricultural...
(1887-1891) and coincided with unpopular tax increases and ratification of a series of laws curtailing personal freedom. The Italian economy had been sliding into a deep recession since the late 1880s. New tariffs had been introduced in 1887 on agricultural and industrial goods, followed by a trade war with France, which badly damaged Italian commerce. Many farmers, especially in southern Italy suffered severely.
The first official Fascio was founded on May 1 (Labour Day
Labour Day
Labour Day or Labor Day is an annual holiday to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers. Labour Day has its origins in the labour union movement, specifically the eight-hour day movement, which advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for...
), 1891, in Catania by Giuseppe de Felice Giuffrida
Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida was a Sicilian socialist politician and journalist. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Fasci Siciliani a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration.-Early life:Born in a humble family in Catania, he soon lost his father, and spent his...
. (An earlier Fascio was set up in Messina on March 18, 1889, but was dormant after its founder, Nicola Petrina, was arrested in July of that year and not released until 1892. Another reason why the first Fascio of Messina – formed after the example of the Fasci operai [Workers leagues] constituted in Central and North Italy from 1871 – did not develop was that it brought together not individual workers but the workers' associations of the city, which retained their independence, their status and economic orientation.) Other leaders included Rosario Garibaldi Bosco
Rosario Garibaldi Bosco
Rosario Garibaldi Bosco was an Italian politician and writer; a Republican-inspired socialist...
in Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
, Nicola Barbato
Nicola Barbato
Nicola Barbato, , was a Arbëreshë socialist and politician. He was one of the national leaders of the Fasci Siciliani a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration in 1891-1894, and perhaps might have been the ablest among them, according to the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm.-Early...
in Piana dei Greci, Bernardino Verro
Bernardino Verro
Bernardino Verro was a Sicilian sindicalist and politician. He was involved in the Fasci Siciliani a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration in 1891-1894, and became the first socialist mayor of Corleone...
in Corleone
Corleone
Corleone is a small town and comune of approximately 12,000 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy....
, and Lorenzo Panepinto
Lorenzo Panepinto
Lorenzo Panepinto was an Italian politician and teacher. He was the founder of the Fascio dei lavoratori in his hometown Santo Stefano Quisquina, editor of the newspaper La Plebe and member of the Comitato della Federazione Regionale Socialista...
in Santo Stefano Quisquina
Santo Stefano Quisquina
Santo Stefano Quisquina is a comune in the Province of Agrigento in the Italian region Sicily, located about 60 km south of Palermo and about 35 km north of Agrigento...
. While the ruling elite depicted the men of the Fasci as treasonous socialists, communists and anarchists seeking to overthrow the monarchy; in fact many were devout Catholics and monarchists. The movement sometimes had a messianic nature, characterised by statements as "Jesus was a true socialist and wanted just what the Fasci were demanding." Nicola Barbato was known as "the workers' apostle."
The keenest socialist among the Fasci leaders was Garibaldi Bosco. In August 1892 he attended the Socialist party’s congress at Genoa and on his return obediently purged his fascio of its anarchist and other non-socialist members. His ideal of a united democratic front was shared by the father of Sicilian socialism, Napoleone Colajanni
Napoleone Colajanni
Napoleone Colajanni was an Italian writer, journalist, criminologist, socialist and politician. In the 1880s he abandoned republicanism for socialism, and became Italy’s leading theoretical writer on the issue for a time...
. The leader in Catania, De Felice, also maintained contact with leading anarchists like Amilcare Cipriani
Amilcare Cipriani
Amilcare Cipriani was an Italian anarchist patriot.Cipriani was born in Anzio to a family originally from Rimini...
. On these and other important issues there was much friction between Catania and Palermo.
Crispi was eventually replaced by Giovanni Giolitti
Giovanni Giolitti
Giovanni Giolitti was an Italian statesman. He was the 19th, 25th, 29th, 32nd and 37th Prime Minister of Italy between 1892 and 1921. A left-wing liberal, Giolitti's periods in office were notable for the passage of a wide range of progressive social reforms which improved the living standards of...
in May 1892. On January 20, 1893, when peasants of Caltavuturo occupied communal land that they claimed was theirs, local authorities killed 13 and wounded 21 in the Caltavuturo massacre
Caltavuturo massacre
The Caltavuturo massacre took place on January 20, 1893, in Caltavuturo in the Province of Palermo , when during the celebration of Saint Sebastian, some 500 peasants returning from the symbolic occupation of 250 hectares of communal land were dispersed by soldiers and policemen, killing 13 and...
. Disturbances continued throughout the year. The Fasci started out as urban movements, animated by artisans, which evolved into a more popular and combative mass movement with the adherence of sulphur miners, and in a later stage with the involvement of peasants and sharecroppers. In the autumn of 1893, labour conflicts in the cities and the mines came together with the protests and claims of the farmers. The movement reached its greatest breadth in the manifestations against taxes, involving the lowest tiers of the city and the countryside, becoming difficult, if not impossible, to control by its leaders.
Initial success
From its initial origins in Eastern Sicily, especially in Catania, the movement got its real impetus with the establishment of the Fascio of Palermo on June 29, 1892. The Leagues rapidly radiated over all Sicily. In the spring of 1893 the leaders of the movement decided to carry their propaganda to the peasants and miners of the countryside. Between March and October the number of fasci grew from 35 to 162.On May 21-22, 1893, a Congress was held in Palermo attended by 500 delegates from nearly 90 leagues and socialist circles. A Central Committee was elected, composed of nine members: Giacomo Montalto for the province of Trapani, Nicola Petrina for the province of Messina, Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida was a Sicilian socialist politician and journalist. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Fasci Siciliani a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration.-Early life:Born in a humble family in Catania, he soon lost his father, and spent his...
for the province of Catania, Luigi Leone for the province of Siracusa, Antonio Licata for the province Agrigento, Agostino Lo Piano Pomar for the province of Caltanissetta, Rosario Garibaldi Bosco
Rosario Garibaldi Bosco
Rosario Garibaldi Bosco was an Italian politician and writer; a Republican-inspired socialist...
, Nicola Barbato
Nicola Barbato
Nicola Barbato, , was a Arbëreshë socialist and politician. He was one of the national leaders of the Fasci Siciliani a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration in 1891-1894, and perhaps might have been the ablest among them, according to the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm.-Early...
and Bernardino Verro
Bernardino Verro
Bernardino Verro was a Sicilian sindicalist and politician. He was involved in the Fasci Siciliani a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration in 1891-1894, and became the first socialist mayor of Corleone...
for the province of Palermo. The Congress decided that all Leagues were obliged to join the Party of Italian Workers.
In July 1893 a peasant conference at Corleone drafted model agrarian contracts for labourers, sharecroppers and tenants and presented them to the landowners. When those refused to negotiate, a strike against landowners and against state taxes broke out over a large part of western Sicily. The so-called Patti di Corleone, are considered by historians to be the first trade union collective contract in capitalist Italy.
In September the state authorities intervened and some of the landowners were persuaded to capitulate. Elsewhere the strike continued until November 1893. Railwaymen of Catania and Palermo, the sulphur-miners and many other workers followed their example winning higher wages or better working conditions.
The successful struggle convinced the Sicilian ruling elite that the "upheaval" had to be stopped. They were seized by panic and some even demanded the closing of all schools to halt the spread of subversive doctrines. Prefects and frightened local councils bombarded Rome with requests for the immediate suppression of the Fasci. Despite the heavy pressure from the King, the army and conservative circles in Rome, however, Giolitti would neither treat strikes – which were not illegal – as a crime nor dissolve the Fasci nor authorise the use of firearms against popular demonstrations. His policy was “to allow these economic struggles to resolve themselves through amelioration of the condition of the workers” and not to interfere in the process.
Rising tensions
However, his attitude could not be maintained. Landowners were infuriated by the unwillingness of the government to use force, while the peasants were annoyed by it unwillingness to redistribute land from the latifundia
Latifundia
Latifundia are pieces of property covering very large land areas. The latifundia of Roman history were great landed estates, specializing in agriculture destined for export: grain, olive oil, or wine...
. Landowners matched the strike with a lockout
Lockout (industry)
A lockout is a work stoppage in which an employer prevents employees from working. This is different from a strike, in which employees refuse to work.- Causes :...
, and many peasants, probably a majority in the strike centres, were left without tenancies when the planting season ended in mid-December. In December 1893 the failure of the Giolitti government to restore public order gave rise to a general demand that Crispi should return to power. Giolitti had to resign on November 24, 1893, as a result of the Banca Romana scandal
Banca Romana scandal
The Banca Romana scandal surfaced January 1893. The scandal was the first of many Italian corruption scandals, and, like the others, it discredited the whole political system....
.
In addition to the unrest in Sicily, a wave of rioting spread through Italy in August 1893, triggered by the killing of a number of migrant workers in the salt pans of Aigues Mortes
Massacre of the Italians at Aigues-Mortes
The Massacre of the Italians at Aigues-Mortes was a series of events on the 16 and 17 August 1893, in Aigues-Mortes , leading to the killing of Italian workers of the Compagnie des Salins du Midi, by French villagers and blue-collar workers...
in southern France escalated into a more generalized working-class revolt supported by anarchists an violent riots in Rome and Naples. Italy seemed to be slipping to a revolution. By the time Crispi returned to power in December 1893, Italy appeared to many to be on the brink of collapse. Crispi promised important measures of land reform for the near future. He was not blind to the misery and the need for social reform. Before 1891 he had been the patron of the Sicilian working-class and many of their associations had been named after him. Colajanni, the chief architect of Giolitti’s fall by exposing the Banca Romana scandal, was first offered the Ministry of Agriculture, which he refused, then sent to Sicily on a mission of appeasement.
Crispi’s good intentions got lost in the outcry for strong measures. In the three weeks of uncertainty before the government was formed, the rapid spread of violence drove many local authorities to defy Giolitti’s ban on the use of firearms. In December 1893, 92 peasants lost their lives in clashes with the police and army. Government building were burned as well as flour mills and bakeries that refused to lower their prices when taxes were lowered or abolished. These disorders were not the product of a revolutionary plot, but Crispi believed otherwise. On the strength of dubious documents and reports, Crispi decided there was an organised conspiracy to detach his own Sicily from Italy; the leaders of the Fasci were in league with the clerics and financed by French gold, and war and invasion were imminent.
Crackdown
On January 3, 1894, Crispi declared a state of siegeState of Siege
State of Siege is a 1972 French film directed by Costa Gavras starring Yves Montand and Renato Salvatori.-Summary:...
throughout Sicily. Army reservists were recalled and General Roberto Morra di Lavriano was dispatched with 40,000 troops. The old order was restored through the use of extreme force, including summary executions. The Fasci were outlawed, the army and the polices killed scores of protesters, and hundreds wounded. Thousands of militants, including all the leaders, were put in jail or sent into internal exile. Some 1,000 persons were deported to the penal islands without trial. All working-class societies and cooperatives were dissolved and freedom of the press, meeting and association was suspended.
Exactly in the early days of January a meeting of the Central Committee of the Fasci took place in Palermo to discuss the position of the movement. Two sharply contrasting positions emerged. De Felice Giuffrida, known for his anarchist tendencies, supported the need to take advantage of the situation of unrest to provoke a revolution on the island. However, the majority took an opposite view, arguing the need to proceed peacefully. A revolt was not only inappropriate, but it would be detrimental to the movement. The meeting condemned the violent incidents in various parts of the island, and launched an appeal to stay calm and not to retaliate. In the end De Felice Giuffrida accepted the position of the majority. But the die was cast for the authorities to arrest De Felice, Montalto, Petrina, and others. Garibaldi Bosco, Barbato and Verro were arrested on board the steamship Bagnara that was about to leave for Tunis.
Trials
The trials against the central committee of the Fasci that took place in Palermo, in April and May 1894, were the final blow to the movement. In spite of an eloquent defence, which turned the Court into a political platform and thrilled every socialist in the country, they were condemned to heavy sentences of imprisonment. On May 30, 1894, the leaders of the movement received their sentence: Giuseppe de Felice Giuffrida to 18 years and Rosario Bosco, Nicola Barbato and Bernardino Verro to 12 years in jail.“In front of you,” Barbato told the judges, “we provided the documents and evidence of our innocence. My friends thought it necessary to support their defence legally; I will not do so. Not because I have no confidence in you, but it is the law that does not concern me. So I do not defend myself. You have to sentence: we are the elements that destroy your sacred institutions. You have to sentence: it is logical, human. I will always pay tribute to your loyalty. But we say to our friends outside: do not ask for pardon, do not ask for amnesty. Socialist civilization should not begin with an act of cowardice. We demand a condemnation, we do not ask for mercy. Martyrs are more useful to the holy cause than any propaganda. Condemn us!”
The heavy sentence aroused strong reactions in Italy and in the United States. In Palermo a group of students went to the Teatro Bellini and asked the orchestra to perform the hymn of Garibaldi. And the theatre applauded. In March 1896 a new liberal national government under Prime minister Antonio Di Rudinì recognized the excessive brutality of the repression. Many Fasci members were pardoned and released from jail. Di Rudinì made it clear though that a reorganization of the Fasci would not be tolerated. After their release, De Felice, Barbato and Bosco were met by a large crowd of supporters in Rome, who released the horses form their carriage and dragged them to the hotel, cheering for socialism and denouncing Crispi.
Aftermath
Nevertheless, the revolt inspired social reforms. In 1898 two measures of social legislation were passed by the minister of the treasury of Di Rudini’s cabinet, Luigi LuzzattiLuigi Luzzatti
Luigi Luzzatti was an Italian political figure and served as the 31st Prime Minister of Italy between 1910 and 1911...
. The industrial workmen’s compensation scheme from 1883 was made obligatory with the employer bearing all costs; and a voluntary fund for contributory disability and old age pensions was created.
Many former adherents of the Fasci left Sicily. Life had grown hard and employment difficult to find because of their involvement with the movement. For those in Sicily who wanted to change their life for the better in those days, there were only two alternatives: rebel or emigrate. After the failure of the rebellion many had to choose emigration.
According to Hobsbawm, the Fasci were a prime example of primitive agrarian movement that became modern by aligning itself with socialism and communism. Many of its leaders continued in the Socialist Party and continued the struggle for land rights and land reform once they were released. Despite the 1894 defeat, permanent movements were set up in some areas of Sicily using modern socialist models of organisation. After World War
World war
A world war is a war affecting the majority of the world's most powerful and populous nations. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theaters....
I the communist movement built on these. The Fasci inspired social struggle in Sicily well into the 1950s.
Mafia involvement
Some historians emphasize that the leagues were engaged in class struggle against a coalition of landowners and mafiosi and ignore evidence of strategic alliances between the Fasci and the MafiaMafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
. However, the leagues were not only led by socialists and anarchists; some were run by local gentry and mafiosi. The Mafia bosses Vito Cascioferro and Nunzio Giaimo led the Fasci in Bisacquino
Bisacquino
Bisacquino is a town and comune in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy. It is located 82 kmfrom Agrigento and currently has approximately 5,215 inhabitants. The small town rises on an inner hill zone and is 663 metres above sea-level...
in alliance with Verro. The Mafia was sometimes needed to enforce flying pickets with credible threats of violence and to make the strike costly to landowners by destroying their property.
In order to give the strike teeth and to protect himself from harm, Verro became a member of a Mafia group in Corleone, the Fratuzzi (Little Brothers). However, during the great strike of the Fasci in September 1893, the Fratuzzi mobilized to boycott it, providing the necessary manpower to work on the lands that the peasants refused to cultivate. Since then Verro broke away from the mafiosi, and – according to police reports – became their most bitter enemy. He was killed by the Mafia in 1915 when he was the mayor of Corleone.
In literature and film
- Luigi PirandelloLuigi PirandelloLuigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
's 1913 novel I vecchi e i giovani (The Old and the Young) retraces the history of the failure and repression of the Fasci Siciliani in the period from 1893-94. Although Pirandello was not an active member of this movement, he had close ties of friendship with some of its leading ideologists: Rosario Garibaldi Bosco, Enrico La Loggia, Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida and Francesco De Luca. - The film Il giorno di San SebastianoIl giorno di San SebastianoIl giorno di San Sebastiano is an Italian film written and directed by Pasquale Scimeca. The film is based on true historical events, the Caltavuturo massacre that took place on January 20, 1893, in Caltavuturo in the Province of Palermo , during the celebration of Saint Sebastian.On that day some...
(Saint Sebastian's Day) (1993), directed by Pasquale ScimecaPasquale Scimeca-Filmography:* Il giorno di San Sebastiano * Placido Rizzotto * Gli indesiderabili * Il cavaliere sole * Malavoglia -External links:...
, is based on the Caltavuturo massacre on January 20, 1893, when during the celebration of Saint Sebastian, a firing squad killed 15 peasants who claimed their right to state-owned land. It won a Golden Globe and was presented at the Venice film festivalVenice Film FestivalThe Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
.
Sources
- Alcorn, John (2004). Revolutionary Mafiosi: Voice and Exit in the 1890s, in: Paolo Viola & Titti Morello (eds.), L’associazionismo a Corleone: Un’inchiesta storica e sociologica (Istituto Gramsci Siciliano, Palermo, 2004)
- Clark, Martin (2008). Modern Italy, 1871 to the present, Harlow: Pearson Education, ISBN 1-4058-2352-6
- Cody, Gabrielle H. & Evert Sprinchorn (2007). The Columbia encyclopedia of modern drama, Volume 2, New York: Columbia University Press, ISBN 0-231-14424-7
- Colajanni, Napoleone (1895). Gli avvenimenti di Sicila e le loro cause, Palermo: Remo Sandron Editore
- Debouzy, Marianne (1992). In the Shadow of the Statue of Liberty: Immigrants, Workers, and Citizens in the American Republic, 1880-1920, Champaign (IL): University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0-252-06252-3
- De Grand, Alexander J. (2001). The hunchback's tailor: Giovanni Giolitti and liberal Italy from the challenge of mass politics to the rise of fascism, 1882-1922, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 0-275-96874-X
- Duggan, Christopher (2008). The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN 0618353674
- Hobsbawm, Eric J. (1959/1971). Primitive rebels; studies in archaic forms of social movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, Manchester: Manchester University Press, ISBN 0-7190-0493-4
- Scolaro, Gabriella (2008), Il movimento antimafia siciliano: Dai Fasci dei lavoratori all'omicidio di Carmelo Battaglia, Lulu.com, ISBN 1-4092-2951-3
- Seton-Watson, Christopher (1967). Italy from liberalism to fascism, 1870-1925, New York: Taylor & Francis, 1967 ISBN 0-416-18940-7