WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #36: Review: "Civil War. Bologna from the First Postwar Period to the March on Rome" (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Bologna has often been an important crossroads in Italian history (just

think, in the second half of the twentieth century, of the 1977 movement
and the massacre of August 2, 1980) now the well-documented research by
Antonio Senta and Rodolfo Vittori "Civil War. Bologna from the First
Postwar Period to the March on Rome, 1919-1922", Zero in Conduct, 2024
euro 20.00 allows us to appreciate its role even in the period
immediately following the First World War.
The authors highlight how anti-proletarian violence began in the city
immediately after the end of the conflict. Already the day after the
"victory", on November 5, 1918, the socialist mayor Zanardi was
attacked, on June 15, 1919 the first victim of squad violence, the farm
worker Geltrude Grassi, was killed, and the nationalists tried to
attack, weapons in hand, the confederal labor chamber. So if it is
correct to speak of a "preventive counter-revolution" (according to the
expression coined by Luigi Fabbri): a reactionary violence that
contrasts with the revolutionary mobilization of the subaltern classes,
it seems instead necessary to blur the traditional partition that sees a
"red two-year period" (1919-1920) with a proletarian prevalence followed
by a "black two-year period" in which fascist violence spreads. Rather,
there is a harsh opposition between revolutionary aspirations and armed
reaction from the very beginning.

The research highlights the preponderant role of the nationalists in the
"urban squadrismo" of 1919 while the first Bologna Fascio appears to be
ineffective and paralyzed internally by the contrasts between the
nationalist soul and the democratic interventionist one (represented by
figures such as Pietro Nenni, who initially believed in the possibility
of impressing a progressive character on the new movement). The
nationalists gather officers, students and former interventionists in an
"alliance between the chair and the barracks", generously supported from
the beginning by the bourgeoisie and supported by the armed forces and
the police headquarters.

The book also gives due emphasis to the importance of anarchism within
the proletarian movement in Bologna (an aspect often overlooked by
traditional historiography): until the move to Milan in July 1920, the
central committee of the USI met in Bologna and the weekly "Guerra di
classe" was published; here in 1919 the subscription for the creation of
an anarchist daily was promoted and in July 1920 the founding congress
of the Italian Anarchist Union was held. The "old labor chamber" of the
USI in Porta Lame gathered consistent membership in opposition to that
of the CGL and the anarchists worked strenuously to try to attract the
socialists into a truly revolutionary alliance.

The problem was the absence of a true shared revolutionary strategy: "we
witness a continuous tension towards the general strike, mythologized as
a possible moment of insurrectional explosion; but when it is called or
breaks out spontaneously, even lasting several days, the insurrection,
since it is not prepared in a coordinated manner, does not occur" (p. 101)

In the meantime, while the State responds to the workers' and farmhands'
agitations with frequent proletarian massacres (Imola, Decima, Modena,
etc.), the landowners, intimidated by the proletarian mobilization,
begin to organize self-defense forces, relying first on the
nationalists, then on the fascists.

In the agricultural field, the rivalry between the majority socialist
Federterra, the anarchist unions and above all the Catholic
sharecroppers' associations introduce dangerous divisions in the field
of labor, which will then be skilfully exploited by the employers.

During 1920, Bologna fascism is reorganized by the squadrista Arpinati
who turns it into a powerful war machine, progressively taking away
followers (and employers' funding) from the nationalists. If in Trieste
the fire at the Hotel Balkan (the center of Slovenian organizations) on
July 13, 1920, constitutes the baptism of organized squadrism, the
massacre at Palazzo d'Accursio (November 21, 1920) had much greater
resonance at a national level, preventing the installation of the
socialist municipal administration in Bologna. A bandit operation
covered up by the police headquarters that placed all responsibility on
the attacked (according to a script that would become the norm).

In September the occupation of the factories had ended ingloriously (the
last chance according to Fabbri to unleash a revolution in Italy) and
the reaction was now raging. Borghi was arrested in Bologna on October
13, and in a few days the entire editorial staff of "Umanità Nova"
(which would continue publishing), Malatesta, and almost the entire
national council of the USI were arrested. Socialist solidarity was tepid.

In this climate, the fascist squads operate through a skillfully
coordinated strategy, concentrating their forces even from different
provinces to strike a single location in conditions of preponderant
superiority, sowing death and destruction. In this way, the proletarian
strongholds are dismantled one by one. When they encounter unexpected
resistance, they prefer to retreat in good order, waiting for a better
moment. On the contrary, the "subversive" forces rarely manage to escape
from a local perspective. What is worse, the anarchist appeals for
united armed resistance fall on deaf ears. The socialists prefer a
suicidal, nonviolent and legalitarian strategy. The communists soon
retreat to form their own phantom armed formations. Unitary examples
such as the "Red Guard" of Imola, which forces the fascists to retreat
both in December 1920 and March 1921, are an exception. In this climate
of division, even the Arditi del popolo struggle to spread (only to then
be quickly hit by state repression).

1921 and 1922 saw an uncontrolled escalation of squadrist violence
throughout the province, with destruction of people's homes and
cooperatives and targeted killings of subversive militants - a sad
chronology of blood accurately reconstructed by the authors in detail up
to the March on Rome. The fascists (with some internal conflict) also
created "autonomous" trade union organizations into which to
"spontaneously" bring in the remaining disorganized workers (D'Annunzio
- then at odds with Mussolini - would define the operation as "agrarian
slavery"). The Catholic sharecropping organizations shortsightedly
supported the anti-socialist battle (within a few years they too would
be swept away by the construction of the totalitarian state).

A book that is useful to read, not only to learn about the past but also
to understand a present represented by an authoritarian government that
passes increasingly repressive laws against social protests (most
recently the DDL 1660 now under discussion in the Senate) and in which
the black shirts return to parade in front of the Bologna station.

Mauro De Agostini

https://umanitanova.org/recensione-guerra-civile-bologna-dal-primo-dopoguerra-alla-marcia-su-roma/
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