Italy
1958-1990: Operation Gladio, Italy
The history of the secret neo-fascist army in Italy set up ostensibly to resist Soviet invasion, but in reality to be used in the event of the working class growing too strong once again.
Following the end of World War II, the Italian workers’ movement was rapidly gaining strength. In some towns the fascists had been kicked out by Resistance forces (as before the war, these were usually led by socialists and anarchists), and embryonic workers’ councils were governing.
1969-?: The Strategy of Tension in Italy
Information about the Italian state's "Strategy of Tension" policy in which it carried out terrorist attacks against its own people in order to blame the left and anarchists.
1916-1927: The execution of Sacco and Vanzetti
The story of two Italian-born anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, framed for murder and then executed for their beliefs.
"Did
you see what I did to those anarchist bastards?"
- Presiding Judge Webster Thayer
1918-1922: The Arditi del Popolo
A history of the people's militias who fought Italy's fascists covering the birth, growth and decline of the world's first anti-fascist group, the Arditi del Popolo.
By the end of World War I, the working class in Italy were in a state of revolutionary ferment. Not yet ready for the conquest of power themselves, workers and peasants by 1918 had won a variety of concessions from the state: an improvement
1931: Michael Schirru and the attempted assassination of Mussolini
An account of the trial and death of American anarchist Michael Schirru, who travelled to Italy to attempt to assassinate the fascist dictator.
Despite the fact that his "crimes" were not legally punishable by death, Schirru was executed by firing squad.
1971: Via Tibaldi occupation
A short history of an occupation of empty housing in Italy by workers who had inadequate accomodation. Their direct action and solidarity forced the council to house hundreds of people.
The occupation at Via Tibaldi was a great step forward for the tenants’ and homeless movement in Italy. A whole neighbourhood was involved in it : factories, schools, housing projects took part in the organising of the struggle. There was a victory at Via Tibaldi because everyone there was fully aware
1971: The Quarto Oggiaro occupation
A short history of a militant mass occupation of empty housing in Milan, Italy, 1971 which pressured the government to give in and provide the participating families with housing.
Quarto Oggiaro is a working class quarter of Milan in northern Italy. Many Italians had been forced to leave the poverty of the south to try to find work in the industrialised north, and there found pay low. Housing was scarce, and where it did exist much was wretchedly sub-standard.
1971: The people's clinic, Rome
The history of the residents in one of Rome's outlying ghettos who had inadequate health care provision. Seizing a government building, they and sympathetic health workers set up their own medical centre and ran it collectively.
In Italy in 1960s and 70s San Basilio, one of Rome’s outlying ghetto areas, a movement was developing of people fighting against their lousy, inhuman living conditions. There were 40,000 people trapped in this slum district. In the previous few months about 100 families had been on rent strike. This started as a spontaneous protest, and was becoming more organised.
1926: The attempted assassination of Mussolini in Rome
An account of the unsuccessful assassination attempt of Benito Mussolini by anarchist Gino Lucetti who threw a bomb at his car in Rome on 11 September, 1926.
The plot was hatched in anti-fascist Italian exile circles in the south of France. And not just by anarchists but also members of the Giustizia e Libertá groups of the Action Party and others of differing persuasions - all convinced of the need to eliminate the fascist leader physically.
