(en) Anarrkismo.net: Anti-militarist United Front and Italy?s ?Red week?, 1914 by Jonathan Payn

Part 2 in a series of articles on the concept and history of the United Front
The United Front tactic ? aimed at uniting masses of workers in action and winning 
Communist leadership for the working class ? was adopted as policy by the Communist 
International (Comintern) in 1921 and will be discussed later in this series. However, 
there are important examples of working class unity in action which predate Comintern 
policy and bear relevance to the united fronts discussion. One often-cited example is the 
united front to defend the gains of the February Revolution from a military coup in Russia 
in 1917, which will be discussed in the next article in this series. ---- Before looking 
at this, however, there is another example of proletarian unity in action ? that didn?t 
seek to win Communist leadership ? which warrants attention; that of a revolutionary 
worker-peasant alliance. This conception of united front action found expression in 
Italy?s anti-militarist ?red blocs? and it is to these that we now turn.


Prelude to Rebellion

In the early 1900s, there was strong worker and peasant opposition to Italian colonialism 
and military involvement in Eritrea, Abyssinia and Libya, and to the repression of the 
Italian working class by the state?s armed forces. Workers and peasants saw that, although 
soldiers came mostly from the working class and peasantry, the military and its colonial 
adventures only served the interests of the ruling class in its search for new markets and 
new sources of cheap labour and raw materials ? as well as to suppress local working class 
struggles.

However, divisions emerged in the Italian socialist movement between its rank-and-file and 
the Italian Socialist Party?s (PSI) reformist leaders, who rejected revolution ? 
represented by anarchists, Bolsheviks and syndicalists ? in favour of a gradual electoral 
transition to socialism. Shortly before Italy invaded Libya in 1911, the PSI?s youth wing, 
the Italian Socialist Youth Federation ? which rejected ?reformism? ? met with syndicalist 
youth organisations and agreed to co-operate in anti-war efforts. This co-operation, 
extended to anarchist youth as well, laid the basis for an anti-militarist united front or 
?red bloc?.

1914 ?Red Week?

By 1914, a twenty thousand-strong united front of workers and peasants from different 
political tendencies was organised against militarism. On Constitution Day, June 7 1914, 
this anti-militarist front organised a national demonstration against militarism and war. 
Fearing this front could lay the basis for a revolutionary ?Red bloc? the government 
ordered troops to suppress the protests. Clashes between troops and anti-militarists 
erupted leaving three workers dead.

The proletariat took to the streets in response and rebellion engulfed the country. Before 
the dominant General Confederation of Labour (CGL) had responded the Italian Syndicalist 
Union and Chamber of Labour called a general strike. Dock and rail workers asserted their 
power in a crippling wave of protests and 50 000 workers marched in Turin in ?iron ranks 
of class solidarity? when the CGL joined the call.

Although the socialist leadership had been divided over the call for a general strike the 
masses embraced it with revolutionary fervour. Barricades sprang up in the northern 
industrial centres. Self-governing communes were declared in smaller towns and government 
officials forced to flee. About a million people participated and for ten days the city of 
Ancona was under the control of rebel workers and peasants.

The uprising, called the ?Red week?, differed from previous uprisings in extent and 
intensity ? it spread across the country from north to south, in cities and countryside, 
and was offensive rather than defensive in nature. Many workers and peasants believed that 
revolution was possible and pushed to realise it.

Betrayal and Collapse

However, the reformists restated their view that socialism wouldn?t be achieved by the 
masses? revolutionary impulses and rejected the need for a revolutionary rupture. They 
believed that the working class was not ready for socialism, that its ?impulsiveness? was 
harmful and that socialists should ?educate and civilise? the proletariat in order to 
prepare it for a gradual transition to socialism.

On seeing the situation develop into a potentially revolutionary uprising that they could 
not contain the CGL called off the strike after two days ? over workers? heads and without 
consulting the PSI or other working class formations. In doing so they gagged the most 
conscious and rebellious working class militants and the revolutionary movement collapsed. 
Although ten thousand troops were needed to regain control of Ancona and in Marcas and 
Romagna anarchists, revolutionary socialists and Republicans maintained their posts in the 
streets, side-by-side, for a few days more.

Alternative Ending

However, not everyone shared this view and some socialists did believe that the masses 
were ready for and capable of revolution and that this was how socialism would come about.

Errico Malatesta, an anarchist leader of the uprising, pleaded with workers not to obey 
the CGL?s order to end the strike; believing instead that the monarchy was collapsing and 
that revolution was indeed possible. For revolutionaries like Malatesta socialism would be 
achieved not through class compromise and elections, but through a working class 
revolution from below. Through the self-activity and self-organisation of the masses. For 
them socialists should encourage and stimulate this working class self-organisation and 
self-activity in preparation for the revolution, which would be cultivated by constant use 
of the strike weapon, culminating in a revolutionary general strike.

For these revolutionaries, the lesson of the Red Week is that the working class can be 
revolutionary and that it is strongest on its own terrain; outside and against the state. 
Rather than being harnesses to and held back by electoral parties it should organise 
independently as a class, across ideological lines, to overthrow the state and capitalism 
and replace them with directly democratic organs of working class self-governance.

After the Red Week uprising had been suppressed Malatesta declared, ?Now... We will 
continue more than ever full of enthusiasm, acts of will, of hope, of faith. We will 
continue preparing the liberating revolution, which will secure justice, freedom and 
well-being for all.?

Related Link: http://www.ilrig.org/