Strike Wave

Italy 1919

Synopsis

Beginning in 1919, Italy was devastated by social, economic, and political problems. Real wages had fallen over 35 percent, shortages had developed in a wide variety of consumer goods, and prices had risen sharply. In spite of Italy having been on the winning side in World War I, it was nonetheless losing its struggle for postwar readjustment with respect to high inflation, out-of-control debt, and increasing unemployment. In the two years following the war, the Italian government was unable to turn around the nation's political and social problems with practical goals and effective policies. Workers in both industry and agriculture were actively seeking change, in some cases even resorting to violence.

The Italian Socialist Party (PSI), which eventually became the Italian Communist Party, was a labor party that reflected the class consciousness and rebelliousness of the Italian working class. Some of the party's militant leaders joined with Italy's first enduring trade union, the General Confederation of Labor (CGL) in 1919 to incite the already unruly workers and peasants to the edge of revolution. During 1919 three overriding issues confronted the already-volatile labor community: length of the workday; inflation and shortages; and wage increases. The inability of the government to address these issues adequately led to a series of massive strikes that spread throughout the country.

Timeline

• 1900: China's Boxer Rebellion, which began in the preceding year with attacks on foreigners and Christians, reaches its height. An international contingent of more than 2,000 men arrives to restore order, but only after several tens of thousands have died.
• 1907: U.S. markets experience a financial panic.
• 1912: Titanic sinks on its maiden voyage, from Southampton to New York, on 14 April. More than 1,500 people are killed.
• 1915: At the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans introduce a terrifying new weapon: poison gas.
• 1917: The intercepted "Zimmermann Telegram" reveals a plot by the German government to draw Mexico into an alliance against the United States in return for a German promise to return the southwestern U.S. territories taken in the Mexican War. Three months later, in response to German threats of unrestricted submarine warfare, the United States on 6 April declares war on Germany.
• 1919: Formation of the Third International (Comintern), whereby the Bolshevik government of Russia establishes its control over communist movements worldwide.
• 1919: Treaty of Versailles signed by the Allies and Germany but rejected by the U.S. Senate. This is due in part to rancor between President Woodrow Wilson and Republican Senate leaders, and in part to concerns over Wilson's plan to commit the United States to the newly established League of Nations and other international duties. Not until 1921 will Congress formally end U.S. participation in the war, but it will never agree to join the League.
• 1919: Ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibits the production, sale, distribution, purchase, and consumption of alcohol throughout the United States.
• 1919: In India, Mahatma Gandhi launches his campaign of nonviolent resistance to British rule.
• 1919: In Italy, a former socialist of the left named Benito Mussolini introduces the world to a new socialism of the right, embodied in an organization known as the "Union for Struggle," or Fasci di Combattimento. Composed primarily of young war veterans discontented with Italy's paltry share of the spoils from the recent world war (if not with their country's lackluster military performance in the conflict), the fascists are known for their black shirts and their penchant for violence.
• 1921: As the Allied Reparations Commission calls for payments of 132 billion gold marks, inflation in Germany begins to climb.
• 1925: European leaders attempt to secure the peace at the Locarno Conference, which guarantees the boundaries between France and Germany, and Belgium and Germany.
• 1929: On "Black Friday" in October, prices on the U.S. stock market, which had been climbing wildly for several years, suddenly collapse. Thus begins the first phase of a world economic crisis and depression that will last until the beginning of World War II.

Event and Its Context

Prewar State of Labor

Early in the twentieth century, Italy experienced a long-delayed industrial upsurge of the sort previously experienced by the United States, England, France, and Germany. Unfortunately, Italy's industrialization was slowed by a poorly developed social, economic, and political structure. During that period, labor unrest was also a continuing cause of economic malaise.

Prior to World War I, Italian labor unions had been ineffective in improving workers' wages and working conditions. This rather lethargic labor movement became more quiescent during the war: labor disputes were relatively peaceful and few in number. Indeed, the yearly average of Italian industrial workers who went on strike during World War I was 146,000, as compared to 385,000 workers who had struck in prewar 1913. The average for agricultural strikers was 17,000 during the war, down from 80,000 in 1913.

Postwar State of Labor

In 1918 Italy began its readjustment to the end of World War I. Even though Italy had sided with the victors (United States, Britain, France), it was seen as an insignificant ally, having sided with the opposition (Germany, Austria) up until the time of its entrance into the war in May 1915. Moreover, Italy's allies felt it had not played a decisive part in the war, and the country's postwar influence was considered minimal because its army had been nearly destroyed. This large loss of men and material wealth left Italy deeply debt-ridden and burdened with an escalating cost of living.

Tens of thousands of Italian wartime workers, along with returning veterans, found that they were unemployed due to reduced peacetime demand for goods. In addition, inflation sent prices dramatically upward. Workers reacted by blaming existing institutions and by initiating violent strikes. The Italian labor movement began to stir to action as workers demanded more say about their living and working conditions.

Dominant Labor and Political Organizations

The major Italian labor union in the early twentieth century was the General Confederation of Labor (CGL). Its two principal bodies were the national craft and industrial unions, known as category federations; and the local chambers of labor. The category federations attempted to improve the basic rights and welfare of workers. However, they remained largely ineffective, unorganized, and small in size. Their reach was limited to areas of the more industrialized North, and even then only in a few trades and industries. The chambers of labor had greater working-class appeal. They secured labor services, provided local employment centers, and coordinated the employment of seasonal workers. The chambers also initiated various kinds of workers' insurance and self-help projects and assumed leadership in the areas of contract demands and strikes. The chambers were able to coordinate activities over broad geographical areas, so their leaders often held positions of political importance. They dominated the labor movement with their revolutionary political actions.

In spite of their broad influence, the category federations and chambers of labor—along with the CGL—experienced problems both individually and collectively. Such problems included disagreement over political alignments (despite a public policy of political neutrality), poor performance in collecting membership dues (resulting in inadequate strike funds), and an inability to secure collective bargaining contracts.

The Italian Socialist Party (PSI) emerged as the dominant political force from 1918 to 1920. During this time the PSI, with leaders such as Antonio Gramsci, issued revolutionary manifestos and proclamations and delivered speeches that incited workers. It rejected the foundations of democratic society and promised the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat. However, the PSI only agitated and never developed a plan for organizing society.

Massive Strikes in 1919

Beginning in 1919 strikers and demonstrators swarmed throughout Italy. After hearing about communist-inspired revolts in Russia, Germany, and Hungary, and other social changes that were sweeping across Europe, the Italian people grew tired of waiting for prosperity. Peasants claimed uncultivated lands, and workers occupied plants in northern Italy. The Italian government tried to satisfy worker demands by creating a national system of employment offices, establishing compulsory unemployment insurance, and setting new standards for factory hygiene. At the same time, employers granted wage increases. Suddenly in 1919 real wages rose rapidly from their lowest point in 1918. These advances in buying power brought millions of workers into the chambers of labor and the category federations. CGL membership jumped from 249,000 in 1918 to 1,150,000 in 1919.

Three Major Problems

Three major problems developed in quick succession and helped to fuel the massive Italian strikes of 1919. These problems centered on the length of the workday; inflation and shortages; and wage increases.

At the beginning of 1919, the CGL began a campaign for the eight-hour workday, along with other tangible goals such as increased wages and obligatory social insurance. The CGL asserted that the reduced workday would allow businesses to employ more workers as soldiers returned home. Employers were fearful that such a measure would damage the country's welfare by lowering productivity. However, with overriding worker support, the CGL successfully convinced leading industrialists. These business leaders assumed responsibility for introducing the eight-hour workday in their plants. On 20 February 1919 the Federation of Metallurgical Workers (FIOM) and employees of the metallurgical industries signed the first eight-hour day agreement. Eventually, the eight-hour workday was accepted throughout Italy. Although employees greeted the shortened workday, it placed employers on the defensive when it came to further union demands.

Many demonstrations and riots occurred because of food shortages and the rising prices of consumer goods. Between June and early July 1919, violence had spread throughout the country. In the regions of Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, and Marche, revolution frequently appeared. Rioters looted warehouses, stores, and cooperatives and took over government offices. An angry mob occupied Florence; strikes closed down activities at Ancona, Bologna, and Palermo (in Sicily); and riots broke out in the industrial centers of Milan, Rome, and Naples. Government forces were uncertain about whether they could control the violence.

By early July the government announced a series of measures to ease the food shortage, turning over to municipal authorities the power to requisition and distribute food. With a lack of focus and leadership on the part of the demonstrators, this action returned most of the country to normalcy. However, during 20 and 21 July 1919, a strike closed down almost the entire economy as the socialist trade union protested the intervention of the Allied armies in Russia. Eventually, the strike turned more festive than revolutionary. Nevertheless, the food riots and July strikes made a deep impression on the Italian populace. The yearlong strikes made it appear that Italy was heading toward a Bolshevik-type revolution similar to those in Russia, Hungary, and Bavaria. However, the aimlessness and the apparent lack of determination of the strikers in the face of opposition indicated that most workers were not seriously committed to a revolution.

In the months immediately after the war, industrial companies were willing to grant concessions to labor organizations to avoid disruption of their efforts to convert quickly from military to civilian production. This prompted massive strikes as workers took advantage of the situation. As additional drives for wage increases began in the summer of 1919, unions began to encounter considerably more resistance from employers than they had only a few months earlier. The most dramatic dispute was in the metallurgical industry. Because the industry set wages and dominated the councils of the employers association, it also set the pattern for resistance to worker demands. The refusal of the metallurgical employers in the northern Lombardy, Liguria, and Emilia-Romagna regions to grant wage concessions prompted a strike in August. The strike lasted for two months and resulted in a settlement favorable to the workers.

Also during August, unions in other industries experienced greater resistance to wage demands, and strikes began in numerous industries and regions of Italy. Overall, the strikes were successful in obtaining significant wage concessions. During 1919, real wages nearly recovered to prewar levels.

Other 1919 Upheavals

A local strike at the Fiat automobile plant in Turin, which began in April 1919, eventually spread throughout the northern region of Piedmont and involved 500,000 workers. Streetcars, railways, public services, and many commercial establishments closed down, as did the entire manufacturing industry of the region. Similar massive protests continued at Forlì on 30 June 1919, later expanded to La Spezia, and then spread to Florence and the other major cities of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna. On 6 July 1919 mobs damaged or destroyed more than 200 shops in Rome, Naples, and Milan. People throughout Italy were protesting the high cost of living and the perceived ill-gotten gain of war profiteers. During this turmoil federal authorities often could not bring in troops because the soldiers supported the protesters. The government decided to let the turmoil play itself out, which it did in early July.

Workers grew increasingly distrustful of traditional unions because those unions could not unite effectively and because they collaborated with the political system. Union workers basically had three complaints:

• Lack of rank-and-file participation: The typical in-plant organization was the "internal commission" that the rank-and-file activists criticized as basically a union oligarchy, making decisions without the participation of the majority of workers.
• Divisions between union members and nonmembers: Though unions had existed in Italy for some time, union membership was always voluntary; with the result that the workers' collective power was diminished during disputes.
• Divisions by craft and ideology: Oftentimes, different unions represented workers with different types of jobs (such as blue-and white-collar), further weakening the power of labor.

A growing rift between workers and the leaders of the Italian labor movement led to the emergence of new grassroots organizations. This took two main forms. First was the movement for grievance committees (commissioni interne), which was independent of the established trade union hierarchy and was promoted by worker activists of the CGL unions. The second form was the emergence and growth of a dissident union, the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI or Unione Sindacale Italiana).

In July, FIOM rallied to gain acceptance of grievance committees within factories. During a meeting in November 1919, FIOM leaders reaffirmed their claim that unions must discuss directly with industry, or through grievance committees, all questions concerning wages and the distribution of work. Grievance committees were seen as an effective way to resolve labor issues and to place the ablest of workers in direct contact with the employer, so that they could be trained for eventual operation of the country's factories. Radicals saw grievance committees as a means to gain control of the factories and agitated for their spread throughout industry.

The movement for worker control grew throughout 1919, as measured, for example, by the rapid growth of the USI. New independent shop councils emerged during this period in Milan, which was Italy's biggest city and main commercial center, primarily as a result of USI efforts. The USI mobilized workers with direct action such as strikes, violence, and sabotage, acting on the belief that social transformation could be achieved through "active" strikes in which workers continued production under their own control. This type of organization was often called revolutionary trade unionism or revolutionary syndicalism and advocated control of government and industry by trade unions. Unfortunately, the heavily burdened Italian worker gained few benefits from these USI-inspired actions, but instead endured more repression from public authorities and employers.

Aftereffects of 1919

In 1920 and 1921 widespread labor strikes, riots over high food prices, peasant land occupations, and tax revolts swept Italy. Taking advantage of the chaos, Benito Mussolini, who had organized his Italian Combat Bands (Fasci Italiani di Combattimento) in 1919, offered eager industrialists and landlords the services of his armed squads of "Black Shirts" as strikebreakers. Acting sometimes with the complicity of the government, the fascist gangs also destroyed trade unions and socialist groups. Mussolini went on to become prime minister and dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943, and his ensuing rule crushed the revolutionary labor movement.

Key Players

Gramsci, Antonio (1891-1937): Gramsci studied at the University of Turin in Italy. He joined a local Turin Socialist Party chapter and contributed a regular column to its newspaper, Aventi! In 1917 Gramsci was elected secretary of the Turinese socialist chapter. He helped to found L'Ordine Nuovo, a weekly (and eventually a daily) review of socialist culture. Gramsci helped the Italian communists separate from the Italian socialists in 1921. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in the mid-1920s. While a member of the chamber, Gramsci denounced Benito Mussolini and his fascist supporters. The fascists arrested Gramsci in 1926 and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Although extremely ill while in prison, he wrote many books and other materials. Gramsci wrote Prison Notebooks, which established him as one of Italy's major Marxist philosophers.

See also: Red Week, Italy.

Bibliography

Books

Chabod, Federico. A History of Italian Fascism. New York:Howard Fertig, 1975.

Ebenstein, William. Fascist Italy. New York: American Book Company, 1939.

Goodstein, Phil H. The Theory of the General Strike from the French Revolution to Poland. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1984.

Haider, Carmen. Capital and Labor Under Fascism. New York: AMS Press, 1968.

Haimson, Leopold H., and Charles Tilly. Strikes, Wars, and Revolutions in an International Perspective: Strike Waves in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Knox, MacGregor. Common Destiny: Dictatorship, ForeignPolicy, and War in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.London: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Roberts, David D. The Syndicalist Tradition and Italian Fascism. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1979.

—William Arthur Atkins