The Fasci Siciliani (Italian: [ˈfaʃʃi sitʃiˈljaːni]), short for Fasci Siciliani dei Lavoratori ('Sicilian Workers Leagues'), were a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration that arose in Sicily in the years between 1889 and 1894. The Fasci gained the support of the poorest and most exploited classes of the island by channeling their frustration and discontent into a coherent programme based on the establishment of new rights. Consisting of a jumble of traditionalist sentiment, religiosity, and socialist consciousness, the movement reached its apex in the summer of 1893, when new conditions were presented to the landowners and mine owners of Sicily concerning the renewal of sharecropping and rental contracts.
Upon the rejection of these conditions, there was an outburst of strikes that rapidly spread throughout the island, and was marked by violent social conflict, almost rising to the point of insurrection. The leaders of the movement were not able to keep the situation from getting out of control. The proprietors and landowners asked the government to intervene, and Prime Minister Francesco Crispi declared a state of emergency in January 1894, dissolving the organizations, arresting their leaders and restoring order through the use of extreme force. Some reforms followed, including workmen's compensation and pension schemes. The suppression of the strikes also led to an increase in emigration.
Characteristics
The Fasci movement was made up of a federation of scores of associations that developed among farm workers, tenant farmers, and small sharecroppers as well as artisans, intellectuals, and industrial workers. The immediate demands of the movement were fair land rents with new sharecropping contracts that would deliver more grain to the peasant, higher wages, an end to common contractual abuses and usury, and lower local taxes and distribution of misappropriated common land. Between 1889 and 1893 some 170 Fasci were established in Sicily. According to some sources the movement reached a membership of more than 300,000 by the end of 1893. The Fasci constituted autonomous organizations with their own insignia (red rosettes), uniforms and sometimes even musical bands, and their own local halls for reunions and congresses. They were called Fasci (fascio literally means "faggot", as in a bundle of sticks, but also "league") because everyone can break a single stick, but no one can break a bundle of sticks.
Fasci were established in 82 Sicilian towns, and in 74 of them, they organized some form of protest. The socio-economic conditions of each town often shaped the structure and role of the Fascio. In areas with large populations of wage earners – such as wheat-producing towns dominated by large estates or those with sulfur mines – the Fasci often functioned as trade unions. Among wheat-growing peasants, they sometimes acted as syndicates advocating for the expropriation of large estates. In a few towns, wage earners and their Fasci also formed agricultural and industrial cooperatives. Protests varied: in 24 towns, they centered on high taxes; in 17 towns, the Fasci led strikes or land occupations; and in 12 towns, peasants and workers organized both tax protests and work stoppages.
While many of the leaders were of socialist or anarchist leanings, few of their supporters were revolutionaries. The peasants who joined the Fasci were driven by a deep desire for social justice and believed they stood on the brink of a new era. In many of their meeting places, a crucifix hung beside the red flag, while portraits of the King shared space with those of revolutionaries like Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Marx. Their marches often took on the tone of quasi-religious processions, with chants and cheers for the King frequently echoing through the crowd. Many of the Fasci were part of the Italian Workers' Party (Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani, the initial name of the Italian Socialist Party) that had been founded at a conference in Genoa on August 14, 1892.
While the ruling elite depicted the men of the Fasci as treasonous socialists, communists and anarchists seeking to overthrow the monarchy; in fact many ordinary members were devout Catholics and monarchists. The movement sometimes had a messianic nature, characterised by statements such as "Jesus was a true socialist and wanted just what the Fasci were demanding". One of the leaders, Nicola Barbato, was known as "the workers' apostle". The rural Fasci in particular were a curious phenomenon with both ancient and modern aspects. They combined millenarian aspirations with urban intellectual leadership often in contact with workers' organizations and ideas in the more industrialized Northern Italy. According to the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, the Fasci were millenarian insofar as the socialism preached by the movement was seen by the Sicilian peasantry as a new religion, the true religion of Christ – betrayed by the priests, who were on the side of the rich – that foretold the dawn of a new world, without poverty, hunger and cold, in accordance with God's will. The Fasci, which included many women, were encouraged by the messianic belief that the start of a new reign of justice was looming and the movement spread like an epidemic.
Background
The Italian economy had been sliding into a deep recession since the end of the 1880s. In July 1887, the government introduced new protective tariffs on both agricultural and industrial products, triggering a trade war with France and depriving Sicily of its major export market. This conflict severely damaged Italian commerce and hit agricultural exports particularly hard – especially those from Southern Italy. Between 1888 and 1892, an agrarian crisis unfolded, marked by a sharp decline in wheat prices. Sicily's main economic outputs – wine, fruit, and sulfur – were also dealt a significant blow. In addition, the sulfur industry, which employed 100,000 people, suffered from American competition and a new synthetic process for the manufacture of sulfuric acid.
In response to the crisis, the dominant landowning class shifted much of the economic burden onto the peasantry by imposing higher rents and discriminatory local taxes, pushing many into even more extreme poverty and starvation. As social tensions escalated, a small group of young, previously unknown socialist intellectuals – many recently graduated from the University of Palermo – began to organize. Their movement gained momentum during the first term of Prime Minister Francesco Crispi (1887–1891), a period characterized by unpopular tax hikes and the ratification of laws restricting personal freedoms. The toll on peasants was especially severe. According to Hobsbawm, the Fasci were the result of the revolt of the Sicilian peasants against the introduction of capitalist relationships into the rural economy aggravated by the world depression in agriculture of the 1880s.
On top of the widespread economic hardship, Sicily also suffered from a deeply dysfunctional system of local government. Often, the mayor was also the region's largest landowner, giving him near-total control over employment – both public and private. He and his allies determined who paid local taxes and how much, and they also commanded the local police forces. Meanwhile, many Sicilian "villages" were in fact large, overcrowded agro-towns, home to 10,000 or even 40,000 peasants. This had made violent peasant uprisings – known as jacqueries – not only endemic in the countryside but also difficult to suppress. Burdened by oppressive municipal taxes and local excise duties, many villagers saw burning down the town hall – and with it, the tax records – as the most obvious form of protest.
Foundation and rapid growth
The first official Fascio was founded on May 1 (Labour Day), 1891, in Catania by Giuseppe de Felice Giuffrida. The Palermo Fascio was founded on 29 June 1892 by Rosario Garibaldi Bosco. From then on, the number of Sicilian Fasci grew significantly, rising to 24 by the end of 1892 and reaching 177 by the close of 1893. In effect, a Fascio was established in nearly every town across the island. In those few towns without a local section, residents still expressed their support by staging demonstrations of solidarity. Other prominent leaders included Nicola Barbato in Piana dei Greci, Bernardino Verro in Corleone, and Lorenzo Panepinto in Santo Stefano Quisquina.
In August 1892, Garibaldi Bosco, one of the keenest socialist among the Fasci leaders, attended the Socialist Party congress in Genoa and, upon returning, dutifully in line of the directives of the party, expelled anarchists, Mazzinians, and other non-socialist members from the Palermo Fascio. In contrast, De Felice rejected such directives from the mainland, insisting on keeping the membership of his Catania Fascio open to all factions of the radical left. He shared with Napoleone Colajanni, the father of Sicilian socialism, a vision of a unified democratic front. De Felice also continued to engage with prominent anarchists, including Amilcare Cipriani, who had participated in the defence of the Paris Commune in 1871. On these and other important issues there was much friction between Catania and Palermo. However, the leagues were not only led by socialists and anarchists; some were run by local gentry and mafiosi.
Crispi was replaced as prime minister by Antonio Di Rudinì in February 1891, who was succeeded by Giovanni Giolitti in May 1892. On January 20, 1893, when peasants of Caltavuturo occupied communal land that they claimed was theirs, local authorities killed 13 and wounded 21 in the Caltavuturo massacre. Disturbances continued throughout the year. The Fasci started out as urban movements, animated by artisans, which evolved into a more popular and combative mass movement with the adherence of sulfur miners, and in a later stage with the involvement of peasants and sharecroppers. In the autumn of 1893, labour conflicts in the cities and the mines came together with the protests and claims of the farmers. The movement reached its greatest breadth in the manifestations against taxes, involving the lowest tiers of the city and the countryside, becoming difficult, if not impossible, to control by its leaders. "In certain regions," wrote the journalist Adolfo Rossi who, at the time, travelled the island for La Tribuna, a newspaper in Rome, "a kind of contagion had spread; the mobs were possessed by the belief that a new reign of justice was imminent."
Initial success
From its initial origins in Eastern Sicily, especially in Catania, the movement got its real impetus with the establishment of the Fascio of Palermo on 29 June 1892. The Leagues rapidly radiated over all Sicily. The local Fascio in Corleone, which would evolve into one of the first and best-organized groups, was founded on 8 September 1892 by Bernardino Verro. Another major Fascio, the one in Piana dei Greci, on 21 March 1893 under the leadership of Nicola Barbato. In the spring of 1893, the movement's leaders resolved to extend their propaganda to the rural peasants and miners in the Sicilian hinterland. Between March and October, the number of fasci surged from 35 to 162, with membership exceeding 200,000.
From that moment on the dynamics of the movement started to change; no longer the workers and craftsmen in the urban centres, but rather the peasants became the driving force behind the organisation. The centre of gravity moved from the city to the countryside. On 21–22 May 1893, a congress was held in Palermo attended by 500 delegates from nearly 90 leagues and socialist circles. A Central Committee was elected, composed of nine members: Giacomo Montalto for the province of Trapani, Nicola Petrina for the province of Messina, Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida for the province of Catania, Luigi Leone for the province of Siracusa, Antonio Licata for the province of Agrigento, Agostino Lo Piano Pomar for the province of Caltanissetta, Rosario Garibaldi Bosco, Nicola Barbato and Bernardino Verro for the province of Palermo. The Congress decided that all Leagues were obliged to join the Italian Workers' Party (Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani), the predecessor of the PSI.
On 31 July 1893 a peasant conference at Corleone drafted model agrarian contracts for labourers, sharecroppers and tenants and presented them to the landowners. When those refused to negotiate, a strike against landowners and against state taxes broke out over a large part of western Sicily. The so-called Patti di Corleone (Corleone Covenants), are considered by historians to be the first trade union collective contract in capitalist Italy. In September, state authorities stepped in, and some landowners were persuaded to concede. In other areas, however, the strike persisted until November. The peasants' success proved contagious. That autumn, railway workers in Catania and Palermo, sulfur miners in the provinces of Caltanissetta, Enna and Agrigento, and numerous smaller labour groups followed suit, securing higher wages or improved working conditions.