WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY News Journal Update - (en) Italy, Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA #22: Carlo Tresca - Adriana Dadà (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Eighty years ago, Carlo Tresca, an anarchist and trade unionist, was

killed in New York. For more than twenty years he was director of an
important anarchist newspaper, "Il Martello", with which he waged
important battles for the defense of immigrant workers in the United
States and, in many cases, for the defense of those fighting against
injustice, as in the case of Sacco and Vanzetti. As a sincere fighter
for social justice and supporter of the struggles of workers against the
capitalist system, he was not only well known among anarchists and
left-wing Italian-American circles, but he had continuous relations with
the American socialist and revolutionary wing (1).
Tresca was born in 1879 in Sulmona, where he had very early begun to
fight against local corruption, the role of economic and ecclesiastical
potentates, but above all in workers' struggles. He had developed his
positions as a trade unionist in the local section of the Locomotive
Drivers' Union; his taking sides in the fights alongside the workers and
against the police led him to just 23 years in prison; subsequent
convictions convinced him to emigrate in 1904, as happened to many other
socialists and anarchists involved in the class struggle.
He arrived in the United States with the help of the group of
Italian-American socialists who edited an important periodical, "Il
Proletario", and from that position as director he immediately began his
long career as a journalist and trade unionist. The conditions of the
metal workers and miners in the Pittsburgh area immediately brought him
into the arena of migrant workers' struggles against a powerful and
aggressive employer.
The birth of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the
World, convinced him to abandon "The Proletarian" and move definitively
into the anarchist camp. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), born
in Chicago in 1905, managed to unify the working class in a union by
branches of industry and not by qualifications as happened in trade
unionism, creating an unprecedented impact force against capitalism
strong and organized and against the reformist unions that supported its
development.
Tresca was very active in the struggles of the IWW and became famous
even outside the United States, especially for the strikes of workers in
two important textile centers, which employed a very high percentage of
immigrants, in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912 and in Paterson, New
Jersey in 1913. In Paterson his role was central to the victory of the
50,000 workers who went on strike for about six months; Tresca was
arrested eleven times and underwent two trials for inciting the revolt.
He worked them and earned the friendship and esteem of international
socialist and anarchist leaders such as John Reed, Bill Haywood, Emma
Goldman and Aleksander Berkman. In 1916 he was in the mining area of the
Mesaba Range in Minnesota where a major miners' strike was underway and
in that case too he was arrested and sentenced to long detention; the
campaign for his release had very important echoes in Italy too.
Socialists, trade unionists, anarchists, trade union structures such as
Chambers of Labor will be mobilized in a campaign in defense of Tresca
which will also see a national demonstration in Milan, the publication
of pamphlets and newspapers on the Tresca case, such as the single issue
"For the liberation of Carlo Tresca" published by the Chamber of Labor
of Bergamo.
In 1917 Tresca began his experience as director of the newspaper "Il
Martello", to which he was continuously linked until his death (and
which continued to appear for another three years), one of the liveliest
newspapers of the Italian-American workers' movement and of the
international anarchist movement, which was important in directing the
Italian masses in the United States towards opposition trade union
militancy and against fascist forces.
The period from 1918 to 1932 is the period in which "Il Martello" is
most alive, is most involved in the problems that arise within the
international workers' movement: from the revolutionary explosion of the
post-war period, to the "preventive counter-revolution" put underway
from capitalism in various forms depending on the strength and
structures available in each country, to the attempts at rebellion and
self-organization of the proletarian masses, as in Italy, Germany and
Russia.
In the 19-20s - defined as the National Histeria - hundreds of militants
of the IWW and other left-wing organizations were arrested, tried,
sometimes killed by the private guards of industrial companies,
thousands of immigrants were sent back to their country of origin
because they were considered "subversives" . The police frame-up against
Sacco and Vanzetti which will lead the two anarchists to the electric
chair in 1926 also fits into this climate, an affair which Tresca
follows with extreme commitment with his newspaper and through the
Defense Committee of which he is the main animator. The action against
fascist penetration into the associative and trade union structures of
Italians living in the United States was particularly intense by Tresca
and the Martello group, starting from 1923 and can be defined as a real
action of both physical and that of information. Already in March 1923,
extensive and exhaustive documentation of fascist activity in North
America was presented to the American press and, through L. Spiwak of
the International Service, was published in as many as 500 newspapers.
That the action against fascism has had effective results is
demonstrated by a letter from the Italian ambassador Caetani who,
regarding the "Fasci all'estero" circular with which the Mussolini
government intends to organize fascist penetration, writes: "I don't
want silence my opinion that if the circular by unfortunate fate fell
into the hands of the Trescas and the Giovannittis, it would be
published in all the newspapers of the United States and would put me in
very serious, indeed painful, embarrassment" (2). The initiatives, both
of the specific Martello group and of the Anti-Fascist Alliance of North
America, are many and so wide-ranging that they arrive, with flyers,
issues of the newspaper on tissue paper, even in Italy; the
effectiveness of the action undertaken reaches the point of disturbing,
in a worrying way for the Italian government, the Morgan loan, which had
such importance for the economic policy of fascism.
The newspaper, its director and editorial team, as well as
correspondents from various places in the United States are deeply
embedded in the milieu of left-wing immigrants - not just anarchists -
and have contacts and connections with the anarchist movement
internationally. Malatesta himself wrote a letter of praise for the
newspaper "for the energetic battle it supports against fascism" (3).
The only dissident voice is the individualist and anti-organisational
anarchist current of the Stirnerian or Galleanist variety which since
1922 - a period of crisis for all US opposition movements - has had a
magazine, "L'Adunata dei Refrattari". Until its death in 1971, the
newspaper remained on a clearly anti-organisational position and an
unbridled individualism which led to the conception of the emergence of
the "anarchist" individual, the true revolutionary, without distinctions
between the exploited and the exploiters. In short, a trend that in
Italy was already well highlighted and liquidated by Luigi Fabbri since
the beginning of the twentieth century(4). The periodical which
according to its declaration was openly created "to disturb a certain
harmony in the anarchist field"(5), has a substantial part of its pages
dedicated to the controversy with other anarchist newspapers and
particularly with Tresca and the editorial group of "Il Martello" .
This controversy grows with the arrival of Armando Borghi, former
secretary of the Union of Trade Unions, who renounces his trade union
and organizing experience to move towards anti-organisation positions,
giving a strong hand to the Gathering group also with regards to action
against politics unitary anti-fascist movement that the majority of the
Italian-American left, in agreement with sectors of trade unionism and
the US left, is profitably developing through united front structures
and the foundation of the Anti-Fascist Alliance of North America.
Borghi's evolution is astonishing: from Malatesta supporter to
anti-organiser, from trade unionist to ardent anti-unionist, from
supporter of the Revolutionary United Front over the years
20 in Italy (6) as a ferocious scourge of every hypothesis of a united
front, completely aligned with and supporter of the line of the
Gathering which does not disdain, in this controversy, to turn to foul
language. For his conference tours with which he will survive in exile,
Borghi places the condition that the comrades who request it are not
engaged in united front organizations! Martello's decisive answers are
tempered by irony, as in the "Pinshots" column.
The attacks reach their climax with the "excommunication" launched
against Carlo Tresca identified as the person most responsible for the
heretical positions of the "Hammer", to the great satisfaction of
fascism who could not wait for Tresca to be eliminated. A document from
the Italian Political Police from August 1928 demonstrates the effects
of this action by the Gathering:
"it is mainly due to[Borghi]the dispute with Carlo Tresca which
threatens to become the Trojan horse" of Italian anarchism", and, more
clearly in October "the definitive liquidation of Carlo Tresca[...]would
be a blow deadly to anti-fascism which is based heavily on Tresca" (7).
Tresca had been defined by the Italian consular authorities in the USA
since 1916 as "one of the most dangerous propagandists of the anarchist
movement"; in 1923 for his activity in the Alliance, the strong
denunciations of fascist policies, but above all his effective action in
preventing the penetration of fascists into the political and social
organizations of Italian-American immigrants led the US authorities,
under pressure from the embassy Italian, to find a pretext to exclude
him from the political battle. In August 1923, Tresca was arrested under
the Federal Obscenity Law for publishing advertisements for birth
control and sentenced to one year and one day, although he would have
his sentence reduced to four months while Italy in 1926 will go so far
as to take away his Italian citizenship.
The Thirties will be difficult years for Tresca and the Martello group,
also due to the economic crisis of
29, a crisis that the newspaper considers inherent in the capitalist
system and which hits workers hard, creating millions of unemployed. The
turning point made by Roosevelt with the policy of the New Deal is
evaluated as a system of recovery of capitalism through its
rationalization, also with a wise use of relations with workers'
organizations, seen as interlocutors who allow action on wages, thus
guaranteeing the exploited that right purchasing power that could
guarantee the recovery and prosperity of capitalism. "Il Martello" sees
with satisfaction the resumption of the struggles, the strengthening of
the union structures and the factory occupations of the 37-39 cycle.
These are mainly the years from 1936 to
39 years of hope for the Martello group which sees in the uprising of
the Spanish masses a possible antidote to the spread of reactionary
forces in Europe and the world; a hope that is substantiated by both
military conquests and the reorganization of Spanish society in a
libertarian sense, but which comes to a halt in the harsh reality of the
clashes with the Stalinists who are becoming increasingly stronger and
highlighting in all its tragedy the the impossibility of coexistence
between these forces. The newspaper supports groups such as the "Friends
of Durruti" and reports rich documentation of the repression against
anarchists and members of the POUM.
Even in the anarchist environment of the United States that traumatic
experience induces a reflection within the anarchist movement; "Il
Martello" supported the initiative of the Berneri Group of New York to
call a conference of Italian anarchists and suspended publications from
January 1939 to February 1940 to give space to the movement's newspaper,
"L'Intesa libertarian".
But the winds of war are advancing and on this situation, more and more,
in the pages of the "Martello" there are not only precise analytical
articles but often disturbing cartoons on the advance of fascism in the
world; The entry of the United States into the war at the end of 1941
also brought about important changes in the environment of Italian
Americans. It is clear that the associative structures preparing for the
battle against Nazi-fascism must necessarily mediate to achieve the
defeat of totalitarianism, but "Il Martello" and Tresca are fighting
against the entry of former fascists and communists. In fact, if it is
necessary to hope and work for a victory for the Allied forces against
Nazi-fascism, it is necessary at the same time to develop an action that
does not cause the sincerely revolutionary forces to find, at the end of
the conflict, unprepared but ready to seize the opportunity for
liberation from capitalism. It was in this climate that Tresca was
killed, on the evening when there was supposed to be a meeting of the
Mazzini Society at the headquarters of "Il Martello", a meeting for
which, strangely, no one showed up.
Tresca's funeral with 40 cars carrying wreaths and thousands of
participants demonstrated the importance of this man who had dedicated
his life to the ideas of a better society, while it will never be
clarified who had wanted him killed. The accused of the killing was
Carmine Galante, a gangster belonging to the mafia family headed by Vito
Genovese; we will find the latter a few months after the killing of
Tresca wearing the uniform of the US army as the trusted interpreter of
Colonel Charles Poletti, head of the Allied military command in Italy.

Those who have studied the case also through the documents of the US
secret services have noticed in some cases a strong reticence in the
in-depth analysis of the leads to follow, but have not found certain
documents. The leads on the communists, Mussolini himself, the
Italian-American mafia have never completely satisfied serious
researchers. The incomplete results of the investigations launched by
the New York police leave us with many doubts but also certainties in
light of what was being prepared for the participation of the Allies in
the war on Italian soil. We have certainties about the consequences of
the relations between the secret services and the mafia, about the wave
of returns to Italy under the wing of convenient anti-fascism by people
compromised with fascism, and about the role of the communists in
supporting these defectors from fascism. also for the direction that the
Liberation of Italy will take, despite the thousands of partisans who
believed in real change. In conclusion, I like to mention the work of a
journalist who dedicated himself to the case in the form of a political
detective novel, Enrico Deaglio with Aunt Teresa and the anarchist
Tresca (Sellerio, 2018); his conclusions are those that I have always
thought possible, even if unfortunately we only have clues that he puts
together in a mix between some facts of international politics and the
interest in the elimination of Tresca on the part of various political
and state groups . The question that hovers and questions us is: why
Tresca, always an anarchist communist and opponent of early fascism, was
killed at that moment in which the passage of a group of people of
various origins towards Italy was being organised, and what would it
have changed if Tresca had continued to weave his relations as an
anarchist communist between the United States and Italy or, perhaps as
some said, if he had returned, as he hoped, to Italy? Judging by his
position within the anarchist movement, by his fierce opposition to any
agreement with the fascists and Stalinists, there is some doubt that the
hypothesis of a convergence of interests between various subjects for
the elimination of Tresca existed it seems realistic.
Note
1) On Tresca, in addition to the ad nomen entry in the Biographical
Dictionary of Italian Anarchists, Pisa, BFS, see A. Dadà, "Il Martello",
New York, 1916-46, in L. Betttini, Bibliografia dell'anarchismo, vol.
I,2, CP publishing, 1976, p.198-210; Id., The arrival of Borghi in the
United States between anti-fascist alliance and ideological purism,
"Bulletin of the Risorgimento Museum", 1990, p. 145-160; Id.,
Italian-American radicals in Italian society, "Contemporary Italy",
June. 1982, p. 131-140
2) The document deriving from the Caetani Archive is cited by A. Dadà,
L'avventura di Borghi..., p. 150.
3) Malatesta's applause, "Il Martello", 15 June 1923, p. 1
4) L. Fabbri, The bourgeois influences on anarchism, published in
Spanish, published by Crescita Politica in 1976, now reprinted by Zero
in conduct.
5) Main article of the n. 1 of 15 April 1922.
6) This was part of the strategy that the anarchists had developed in
the Bologna Congress of 1920, A. Dadà, L'anarchismo in Italia
tramovement and party, Milan, Teti, 1984, p. 68-70, 266-72.
7) Documents stored in ACSR, CPC, envelope 5618-19, Tresca Carlo.

Il Cantiere n. 20 ottobre 2023 ilcantiere@autistici.org

http://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
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