Fascist repression crushed Italian communist party organisation in early 1923
Evidence
The fascist seizure of power in October 1922 was predictably enough followed by a vast wave of repression. In late 1922 and above all early 1923, it crushed most of the oppositional party organisations and press. Terracini wrote in February 1923: “The fascist government has unleashed the long announced anti-communist round-up. In a week the police has arrested more than 5,000 comrades, including all our area secretaries, all communist trade-union organisers, all our local councillors. Moreover, it has succeeded in seizing all our party funds, and thus in delivering what is perhaps a mortal blow to our press … a real man-hunt by the police hand-in-glove with the fascist squads … Our party is not submitting, or yielding; a quarter of our members under arrest, our organisation shattered, our press silenced, our branches dissolved, deprived of our leader comrade Bordiga who is under personal danger of death or torture, the Italian Communist Party has already reassumed its function and its activity.” And indeed, although the party’s illegal organisation proved to have serious weaknesses in this first test of its effectiveness, nevertheless some important successes were registered; notably the printing and distribution of a clandestine edition of Ordine Nuovo (now a party daily), and the holding of a number of public meetings in spite of the atmosphere of terror. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 133
Related
- The Italian Communist Party endured semi-legality with constant suppression in 1923. (similarity 0.81)
- Italy’s Catholic party supported fascism before being suppressed and dissolved by 1926. (similarity 0.80)
- Fascism’s 1926 consolidation rested on a repression more thorough than earlier reaction. (similarity 0.79)