Legalitarian Strike
Italy 1922
Synopsis
In the face of repeated fascist attacks and violence against trade unionists and left-wing militants (the so-called phenomenon of fascist squadrismo), the Italian Alliance for Labor, a coalition of the major Italian trade unions, decided to call for a general strike on 1 August 1922. In a climate of political instability in which the consensus was fragmented into a myriad of different parties, both the government headed by Ivanoe Bonomi and the one formed by Luigi Facta after the 1921 general election had proved passive and unable to stop the fascists. The organizers' intentions were to use the strike to restore legality (thus the title, "legalitarian strike") against the atmosphere of threat and intimidation that the fascists had been spreading before and after the general election. In fact, the strike was a failure and opened the way to power for Benito Mussolini, who, after the fascist "March on Rome," became prime minister in October later in the same year.
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