The Occupation of the Factories: Italy, 1920

by Paolo Spriano

From “In the ‘Socialist Almanac’ for 1921 there are some rare photographs of what the diligent compiler called ‘the most striking episode in the struggle being fought in Italy between capital and labor’: the occupation of the factories by the metalworkers in September 1920. These photographs recreate a legendary atmosphere; their images, bright or somber, register in the memory as the very symbol of the ‘biennio rosso’, the ‘red two years’ of the blazing aftermath of the First World War. It was power which was at stake in this conflict ‘between capital and labour’ and for most people, whether they feared it or hoped for it, revolution loomed as the natural and imminent outcome of the great social upheaval precipitated by the war, the Russian October, the profound crisis in which all the nations and peoples of Europe were struggling. In one photograph, before a closed gate emblazoned with the hammer and sickle, a red guard stands sentry, with helmet and fixed bayonet. In another, a red flag flies from the prow of a ship on the stocks, easily visible on its side the name under which the workers launched ‘Lenin’. What happened in Italy in September 1920 was in truth an exceptional event, and these images give us at least an immediate perception of it. To direct oneself to the atmosphere, the problems, the daily chronicle of the occupation means also to liberate one’s judgment from the clichés, the generalizations, the myths and the apocalyptic visions which have encrusted it. It was no accident when Gramsci, writing in one of his prison notebooks on the clamacteric moment of the biennio rosso, spoke of the ‘great fear’. The emotions it evoked throughout the country were and not only at that moment, for, after decades, the occupation of the factories is still an obligatory point of reference in the social and political life of Italy.”--Paolo Spriano, April 1964

Genres: History, Italy

212 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1975

Reviews

[Ian Chinich · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an interesting read by a Marxist-Leninist of the factory occupations which swept Italy in 1920 and a critique of a social movement's inability to seize the revolutionary moment. While mostly focusing on the Italian Socialist Party and the various strains inside, it includes the various factions in the state and industrialists for an overhead view of why things played out the way they did.

The thesis seems to be that the occupation movement failed because a lack of disciplined leadership in the PSI, the likely fact that it was a dialectical steam valve of the workers movement which would have been slaughtered in the streets (rather than in the defensive positions of the factories), and the idea that they could have gone for broke if they had national action (and were sold out by reformist leadership), but Turin and some of the anarchist strongholds were more advanced than the workers in the rest of the country.

I am actually a novice when it comes to Bordiga, Gramsci and others ...so that was very interesting. That being said it seemed to slight the anarchists who had hundreds of thousands of participants and set the tone in Turin and other places for more confrontational action.

If anything, this book awakened in me a need to read more of this period from different viewpoints and with more of a focus on Gramsci, Luigi Fabbri, Malatesta, and Bordiga.

Lastly, Im starting to think that the Anarchist experience in the bienno rosso played a huge role in shaping the ideology of the FAU in Uruguay afterwards (because luigi Fabbri ended up there after Mussolini came to power)

[Carlo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read texts on Russia, Germany, Italy during 1917-1921 interested in the workers' councils movements. Learned much from Siriani, Moore, Spriano. Also read Bookchin's text on the Spanish anarchists to compare with the earlier workers autonomy movements. In comparison, Bookchin seemed too partisan for the CNT and FAI. Much preferred the approach of serious historians like Moore and Spriano who ask the question 'Was this a revolutionary situation'? Then give some serious answers. Maybe Bookchin's was the wrong book for Catalonia/Spain. Also, if there's any Marxist or Anarchist who hasn't read Mayer's great book, well forget about understanding the world. You're interested in morals or ideology!