Fasci Siciliani - Initial Success

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 June 29, 1892. The Leagues rapidly radiated over all Sicily. In the spring of 1893 the leaders of the movement decided to carry their propaganda to the peasants and miners of the countryside. Between March and October the number of fasci grew from 35 to 162.

On May 21-22, 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 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 Party of Italian Workers.

In 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, are considered by historians to be the first trade union collective contract in capitalist Italy.

In September the state authorities intervened and some of the landowners were persuaded to capitulate. Elsewhere the strike continued until November 1893. Railwaymen of Catania and Palermo, the sulphur-miners and many other workers followed their example winning higher wages or better working conditions.

The successful struggle convinced the Sicilian ruling elite that the "upheaval" had to be stopped. They were seized by panic and some even demanded the closing of all schools to halt the spread of subversive doctrines. Prefects and frightened local councils bombarded Rome with requests for the immediate suppression of the Fasci. Despite the heavy pressure from the King, the army and conservative circles in Rome, however, Giolitti would neither treat strikes – which were not illegal – as a crime nor dissolve the Fasci nor authorise the use of firearms against popular demonstrations. His policy was “to allow these economic struggles to resolve themselves through amelioration of the condition of the workers” and not to interfere in the process.