WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIA News Journal Update - (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria, July: The Missed Ransom - 12 --- THE NECESSARY TWENTY YEARS (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Silenced the opposition, defeated in the squares and in the polls, for

the nascent regime begins an agitated period made up of internal
struggles and the search for consensus among the wealthy classes which,
although still distrustful, begin to approach the party responsible for
the defeat violence of the proletarian masses. Within the PNF, the clash
takes on heavy tones, Mussolini is defined as "political stooge of
Industrialism, poisoner and blackmailer of the Alta Banca" by G.
Costanza in the periodical "Era Nuova" on 02/26/1924, created in Catania
by of "fascists of the first hour", gradually found themselves on the
margins and slipped into Sicilianist and almost anti-fascist positions.
The Matteotti crime (10-6-1924) caused the collapse of the consensus of
important parts of the island's bourgeoisie (liberals, demosocials,
social reformists) led by Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, who embrace
Sicilianism by relaunching the myth of an Arab-Norman golden age and of
a mafia as a force to repair the wrongs of the Sicilians. While militant
and left-wing anti-fascism is silenced by a ferocious repressive action,
a moderate opposition is formed around economic-cultural areas, such as
the magazine "La Sicilia Industriale e Agricola" which identify "in the
fascists the continuators of the system corruptor of the Giolittian age
and of the political representatives of the 'northern plutocracy'" (1).
If we add to this that already in 1923 other signs of intolerance which
resulted in open dispute had already occurred, the main one being the
movement of the "money", we can deduce that the Sicilian situation was
anything but acquired for the nascent scheme.

Preceded by bitter clashes between ex-combatants and fascists, despite
the unification of the two movements desired by Mussolini, and driven by
the growing discontent with the oppression of the authorities and with
unemployment and the high cost of living, the penny movement spread from
Messina, where it its base among the railwaymen and trammen, throughout
the island, involving vast areas of anti-fascist dissent, albeit on a
legal basis, also promoting violent clashes with the fascists, and for
about a month (May 1923) it represented a real obstacle to fascism of
the island. (2)

The harsh repression and the climate now unsuitable for political action
lead dozens of anti-fascists to leave the island for Tunis, France, the
Americas; the repression of the regime becomes scientific with the
institution, with law n. 2008 of 25 November 1926, of the Special Court
for the Defense of the State, for the widespread assignment to
confinement, or to prison or to admonition, for thousands of figures
belonging to the revolutionary, trade union, political forces, but also
for simple citizens guilty of having expressed his dissatisfaction with
the fascist institutions.

Seeking the consent of the rural masses, the regime launched a great
propaganda effort; but the reintroduction of the tariff on grain is
welcomed only by the big owners who seize the opportunity to abandon any
process of agricultural modernization. The "wheat campaign" causes the
felling of vast areas dedicated to tree crops and resizes animal
husbandry; small and medium-sized producers will bear the brunt of it,
while the landowners will come out richer and more... fascists. "The
measures adopted by the same regime to combat speculation contributed,
however, to 'perfecting the growing financial commitment of the two
major local banks, an intermediation system which ensured the highest
possible remuneration for large producers and gabelloti, the bank and
grain hoarders, while they proved to be completely unfair to peasants,
sharecroppers and small tenants, almost always far from the big centers
and forced, out of necessity, to sell off the grain 'under the machine'
and in moments of disorderly and pressing influx of offerings'". (3) A
profound crisis will strike the peasant classes, forcing them into
hunger, accentuated by the blockage of transoceanic emigration and by
the international economic situation. All this will fuel the "voluntary"
adhesion to the Abyssinian enterprise and to the war in Spain, dictated
by the need to feed families.

The consolidation of the regime also had to go through the elimination
of the patronage and mafia apparatus that had constituted the
intermediation of state power in Sicily. The old mafia that fascism had
used until 1924 to make up for its shortcomings, now had to be
marginalized and, if possible, eliminated. The sending to the island of
the prefect Mori (October 23, 1925), complete with a lot of clamor today
we would say "media" served the case. Mori launched into a violent
policy of attacking the mafia, in reality of aggression of the
territories under mafia control, hitting above all the middle-lower
layers of the mafia or those who supported it.  At the end of the
campaign, which saw the Prefect himself "retired" by the Duce to
extinguish his too much popularity, there was no more talk of the Mafia
in Sicily, declared "definitively defeated" by Mussolini in 1929. It had
only been made to disappear from the newspapers. As Rita Pallida points
out, "In the roundups of Gangi, Misilmeri, Corleone, Prizzi, Cianciana,
Partinico, all the minor and intermediate layers of the mafia were
trapped, made up of landless peasants, poor petty bourgeois, officials,
lawyers, enormously swelled after the war. The police operations were
conducted with extreme ferocity and for them the judiciary pulled out
the filed practices when the mafia served to defend private property and
initiated trials that took place under the banner of arbitrariness. The
big characters closely linked to landed property and speculation,
however, found a way to save themselves. In fact, the very roots of the
mafia could not be hit, which sank into the economic and social
structure that fascism intended to preserve and which in the twenty
years found new ground in which to continue, within the almighty fascist
hierarchy" (4).

Another touted campaign was the complete reclamation of agricultural
land; it turned out to be so modest compared to the announced plans,
that it could be considered a solemn failure, as were the promises of
expropriation of the large properties, the rural settlements in the new
villages only partially built. The collapse of agricultural prices, the
revaluation of the lira, the general crisis in the sector caused the
sale of small farms, the return of listed land to the old owners; the
crisis of all industrial and commercial activities (from manufacturing
to sulfur extraction); the collapse of exports. Unemployment spread
causing dozens and dozens of spontaneous protests, particularly bloody
between 1930 and 1933 in the Caltanissetta and Agrigento areas, against
the duty and consumption tax on wine, bread and work. (5)

With the Ethiopian campaign of 1936 and the proclamation of the empire,
Sicily returned to being at the center of the regime's policies; but it
must be pacified in order to rise to the new role of strategic outpost
in the Mediterranean, a bridge to the African shore. Great military
manoeuvres, arrival of the king and the duke in 1937, and bombastic
proclamations: "it begins - says Mussolini at the Foro Italico in
Palermo on August 20 - for your island one of the happiest times it has
ever had in the almost four millennia of history. This era is linked to
a historical fact that we have had the supreme good fortune to
experience: the foundation of the second Roman Empire. From now on, the
energies of the State will be channeled towards you with greater
intensity, because Sicily represents the geographical center of the
Empire". Among other things we return to talk about the assault on large
estates and the Duce announces the end of the barracks of Messina
earthquake victims for 28 October 1939!

Thus the noose of "imperialist" militarization falls on the island, but
the landowner front that had supported the regime is shattered; Lucio
Tasca di Bordonaro in 1941 wrote a pamphlet clandestinely entitled "In
praise of the Sicilian latifundium", which was then printed in 1943 and
became a sort of manifesto of separatism.

In the midst of this economic but also political and social crisis, the
anti-fascist forces try to regroup; among the numerous episodes, we note
the attempted landing for the purpose of fomenting the insurrection, of
the anarchists Paolo Schicchi, Salvatore Renda and Filippo Gramignano in
August 1930; the attempt to take over the Republic of San Marino by the
brothers Antonio and Luigi Canepa and other university students from
Palermo in 1934 "to demonstrate to Mussolini and the whole world that in
Italy there were still people who did not adapt to the will of the
dictator"; the establishment, between the years '34 and '35 of a vast
regional anti-fascist network, with national connections, called the
Italian Anti-fascist Unitary Front, which managed to publish two issues
of the Italia Anti-fascist journal; various attempts by the communist
party to set up a clandestine network, marked by the most closed
sectarianism. Episodes neutralized by the dense espionage network of the
regime and ended with arrests and years of prison and confinement for
the protagonists and their support networks.

Also noteworthy is the libertarian-anti-fascist project of Sicilianism
launched in Tunis by the Pozzallese Vanni Rosa, at the end of the
Thirties, through various articles in "L'Italiano di Tunisi" and in his
newspaper "Trinacria Redenta".

Sicily comes to war on its knees; the cooperative movement in the
countryside was destroyed, 0.5% of the land reclaimed, the assault on
the large estates failed, no benefits for small farmers and poor
laborers. "The autarkic policy followed by the regime increasingly
highlighted the will to privilege the industries of the north, so that
the very few industrial settlements that still existed on the island
found it difficult to live independently or were increasingly controlled
by financial groups prevailing in the northern regions" ( 5).

Pippo Gurrieri

12 - continues

Salvatore Lupo, "The 'Sicilian question at a turning point'" in academic
year. vv., "Power and society in Sicily in the crisis of the liberal
state", Pellicanolibri, Catania, 1977, p.206

Rita Palidda, "Local power and fascism: the characteristics of the
political struggle", in aa. vv., "Power and society in Sicily", cit.,
p.266-271.

Giuseppe Oddo, "The mirage of the earth in Sicily. From the bell'èpoque
to fascism (1894-1943)", Sicilian Polygraphic Institute, Palermo, 2017,
p. 418.

R. Palidda, cit. p. 289. See also Francesco Filippi, Mussolini has also
done good things. The nonsense that continues to circulate about
fascism", Bollati Boringhieri 2019, Turin, in the edition of la
Repubblica, p.54-59.

Giuseppe Miccichè, "Sicily between fascism and democracy", Feliciano
Rossitto Study Center, Ragusa, 1985, p.82-83.

G. Miccichè, cit. p. 127-128.

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