Italian agricultural workers won practical workplace self-governance through mass strikes in 1920

Evidence

In Italy, the urge for popular selfgovernance spread like wildfi re in the factories and in the countryside across the country. While industrial workers in northern Italy continued their call for control of the means of production, agricultural workers paralyzed production in a vast area of Piedmont and Lombardy (including Novara, Pavia, Vercelli, Voghera, Casale Monferrato, Mortara, Biella, and Alessandria) for a total of fi ft y days during 1920, holding constant citywide assemblies (see L’Avanti, April 2, 1920). Th ese strikes erupted in March 1920 and involved more than 300,000 people. Th eir demands were at once economic (adoption of a global annual minimum wage, effi cacious organization against unemployment) and, most importantly, political. Agricultural workers secured control of labor within the production process and offi cial recognition of their employment bureaus (Uffi ci di collocamento di classe). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 379

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: the agrarian, not just factory, roots of Italy’s ‘two red years’—against the usual industrial-centric telling.
• XREF: connects to: The 1920 Italian factory occupations emerged spontaneously beyond union or employer intent — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 551; Italian Red Biennium workers built self-governed production institutions across land and factories — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 186; Postwar strikes were political demands for workers’ self-government, not mere wage disputes (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Italian Red Biennium workers built self-governed production institutions across land and factories #corroborates (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 186
• Postwar strikes were political demands for workers’ self-government, not mere wage disputes #corroborates (0.80)
• Italian workers seized factory production across sixty cities in 1920 #exemplifies (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 10
• Postwar British and Italian strikes demanded workers’ control of production. #expands (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 457
• The 1920 Italian factory occupations emerged spontaneously beyond union or employer intent #qualifies (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 551
• Workers’ self-governance sought to abolish the wage relationship and production for profit #expands (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 186