Fascist and anti-Fascist violence in Italy (1919–1926)

Background

The violence began on 15 April 1919 when nationalist and interventionist groups attacked the offices of the Italian Socialist Party's newspaper Avanti! (the Fascist movement was not founded until 23 March 1919). In 1921, Royal Italian Army officers began assisting fascists in their violence against communists and socialists. In response, anti-fascists of various leftist allegiances formed the Arditi del Popolo (People's Militia) in 1921, led by Guido Picelli, which included anarchists, communists, socialists, futurists, republicans, and syndicalists.

The Escalation of Street Violence (1919–1922)

The post-World War I period in Italy saw a dramatic intensification of political violence as the far-right fascist movement, led by Benito Mussolini, clashed with the growing political left. The confrontation began in earnest on 15 April 1919, when fascist militants attacked the offices of Avanti!, the newspaper of the Italian Socialist Party. What started as sporadic clashes on the streets between the two factions grew into a broader campaign of violence.

By 1921, the situation had deteriorated further when officers of the Royal Italian Army began lending their support to fascist attacks against communists and socialists. The fascist movement's expansion prompted a crisis in 1922: facing the threat of a general strike organized by anarchists, communists, and socialists, Mussolini's followers launched the March on Rome against the second Facta government. Prime Minister Luigi Facta was forced to resign, and King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini as prime minister.

Just two months into his premiership, fascist violence claimed the lives of members of the local labour movement in Turin in an event that became known as the 1922 Turin massacre.

The Arditi del Popolo and the Anti-Fascist Coalition

Faced with the rapid expansion of fascist violence, anti-fascist forces across the political spectrum united in 1921 to form the Arditi del Popolo, or People's Militia. This coalition brought together groups that might otherwise have had little in common: Errico Malatesta's anarchists, the Communist Party of Italy under Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci, socialists, futurists, republicans, and syndicalists. Guido Picelli served as a deputy within this diverse alliance.

The militia represented a genuine attempt to organize a coordinated defense against fascist aggression, drawing on the energy and membership of the international left's various strands. At the same time, the Communist Party's members engaged directly in civil violence against fascists, while Malatesta emerged as a major leader of the anarchist movement during these turbulent years. The existence of the Arditi del Popolo underscored how seriously the political left took the fascist threat, even as the movement's internal diversity—spanning from syndicalists to futurists—reflected the broad coalition of those who opposed Mussolini's rise.

The Matteotti Crisis and the End of Opposition

The year 1924 marked a turning point in the cycle of violence. Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti was assassinated by the fascist militant Amerigo Dumini, an act that triggered a severe political crisis. In retaliation for Matteotti's killing, the anti-fascist Giovanni Corvi shot and killed Armando Casalini, a deputy of the National Fascist Party, on a tramway. The crisis did not, however, prevent the fascist takeover of the Italian government.

In 1926, multiple assassination attempts were made against Mussolini himself, the final one occurring on 31 October. On 9 November 1926, the fascist government invoked emergency powers, leading to the arrest of numerous anti-fascists, including the communist intellectual Antonio Gramsci. Following these repressive measures, serious organized opposition to Fascist Italy effectively collapsed. The sequence of events—from a single assassination to a full governmental purge—illustrates how the fascist regime converted political crisis into an opportunity to eliminate its remaining rivals and consolidate absolute control over the state.

The 'Fascist Revolution' Historiographical Debate

Whether the period of 1919 to 1926 constituted a genuine revolution remains a matter of intense scholarly dispute. Fascist intellectuals themselves, and later the historian Renzo De Felice, labelled the era the 'rivoluzione fascista,' yet this term never achieved wide acceptance in Italian historiography. Gaetano Arfé challenged the framing in 1975, arguing that fascism was not a direct revolution and noting the absence of any historian who genuinely speaks of a 'fascist revolution.'

Other scholars, including Emilio Gentile, Zeev Sternhell, and George L. Mosse, contended it was a 'totalitarian' revolution from the right, one that sought to reshape the relationship between individual and collectivity while preserving private property and the market economy. Enzo Traverso pushed back, warning that the language of 'revolution' risks being blinded by fascist aesthetics, and noting that no fascist movement seized power without the backing of traditional elites.

Philippe Burrin described it as 'a revolution without revolutionaries,' while Isaiah Berlin's work on counterrevolutionary thought suggested that conservatism itself prefigured certain fascist features.