1918-1922: 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 of wages, the eight-hour day, and a recognition of collective
contracts.

By 1919, however, a new radicalism had descended upon the labour movement. In that year alone, there were 1,663 strikes across the peninsula, while in August the newly formed shop stewards’ movement in Turin (the forerunner to the workers’ councils) underlined the growth of a new vibrant militancy that drew its strength from the autonomous capacity of workers to organise themselves along libertarian lines and which had “the potential objective of preparing men, organisations and ideas, in a continuous pre-revolutionary control operation, so that they are ready to replace employer authority in the enterprise and impose a new discipline on social life”.*

In the countryside, the peasantry opened up a second front against the state by occupying the land that had
been promised them before the war. The Visochi decree of September 1919 merely validated the co-operatives that had already been set up while the ‘red leagues’ assisted the formation of strong unions of day labourers.

However, 1919 also marked the initial signs of capital defending itself against the growing onslaught. A meeting of industrialists and landowners at Genoa in April sealed the first stages of the ‘holy alliance’ against the rise of labour power. From this meeting were drawn up plans for the
formation, in the following year, of both the General Federation of Industry and the General Federation of Agriculture, which together worked out a precise strategy for the dismantling of the labour unions and the nascent councils.

Alone, however, the industrialists and landowners could not undertake the struggle against the labour movement. The workers themselves had to be cowed into submission, had to have their spirit of revolt broken on the very streets they walked and the fields they sowed. For this, capital turned to the armed thuggery of fascism, and its biggest thug of all: Benito Mussolini.

Formation of the fascist squads


Immediately following the end of the war, there was a veritable flowering of anti-labour leagues: Mussolini’s ‘Combat Fasci’, the Anti-Bolshevik League, ‘Fasci’
for Social Education, Umus, Italy Redeemed, etc. At the same time, members of the war volunteer corps, on being demobilised, organised themselves into an elite force of 20,000 shock troops and were immediately put to use by the anti-labour movement.

This movement mostly comprised the middle or lower middle class. Ex-officers and NCOs, white collar workers,
students and the self-employed all allied themselves to the fascist cause in the towns, while in the countryside the sons of tenant farmers, small landowners and estate managers were willing recruits in the war against the perceived Red Menace. The police and the army both actively encouraged the fascists, urging ex-officers
to join and train the squads, lending them vehicles and weapons, even allowing criminals to enrol in them with the promise of benefits and immunity. Arms permits, refused to workers and peasants, were freely handed over to the fascist squadrons, while munitions from the state arsenals gave the Blackshirts an immense military advantage over their enemies. Ultimately, by November 1921, the various hit squads were welded together into a military organisation known as the ‘Principi’, with a hierarchy of sections, cohorts, legions and a special uniform.

The Arditi del Popolo


To compensate for the shortcomings of the Socialist Party (PSI – Partito Socialista Italiana) and the main trade union, the CGL, militants of various tendencies, anarcho-syndicalists, left socialists, communists and republicans formed, in June 1921, a people’s militia, the ‘Arditi del Popolo’ (AdP), to take the fight to the fascists.

While politically diverse, the AdP was a predominantly working class organisation. Workers were enlisted from factories, farms, railways, shipyards, building sites, ports and public transport. Some sections of the middle class also got involved, including students, office workers and other professional types.

Structurally, the AdP was run along military lines with battalions, companies and squads. Squads were made up of 10 members and a group leader. Four squads made up a company with a company commander and three companies made up a battalion with its own battalion commander. Cycle squads were used to maintain links between the general command and the workforce at large.

In spite of its structure, the AdP remained elastic enough to form a rapid reaction force in response to fascist
threats. AdP behaviour was dictated by whatever political group held sway in a particular locale, although most sections were allowed virtual autonomy over their actions.

These sections were quickly set up in all parts of the country, either as new creations, or as part of already existing groups like the Communist Party of Italy (PCdI – Partito Comunista d’Italia), the paramilitary ‘Arditi Rossi’ in Trieste, the Children of No-One (Figli di Nessuno) in Genova and Vercelli, or the Proletarian League (Lega Proletaria – linked to the PSI). Overall, at least 144 sections had been set up by the end of summer 1921, with a total of about 20,000 members. The largest sections were the Lazio sections with about 3,300 members, followed by Tuscany, 18 sections, with a total of 3,000 members.

The AdP very quickly built up its own cultural identity with individual sections proudly flaunting their own
logos and images of war. While the AdP as a whole was easily recognisable by a skull surrounded by laurel wreath with a dagger in its teeth, and the motto ‘A Noi’ (To us), the Directorate’s
logo was a dagger surrounded by an oak and laurel wreath. The ‘ivetavecchia’ meanwhile didn’t leave much to the imagination when choosing their banner – an axe smashing
the fasces symbol! Although they didn’t have, nor want, their own uniform, the average AdP member preferred to dress in black sweaters, dark-grey trousers, with a red flower in their buttonholes. Their songs were direct and confrontational as they themselves were:

“We curb the violence

of the mercenary fascists

Everyone armed on the cavalry

of human redemption

This eternal youth

is renewed in the faith

for the people who demand equality and freedom.”