Italian anarcho-syndicalist leaders moved from radicalism into fascism via nationalism.

Evidence

By “theoretical syndicalism”, Gramsci means what is in English known simply as “syndicalism”—the Italian word “sindacalismo ” means both “syndicalism” and “trade-unionism”. There was a strong syndicalist tradition in the Italian working-class, notably among the anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists. Anarchist workers played a leading part in many of the great industrial struggles of the war and immediate post-war years, especially in Turin, where Gramsci during the Ordine Nuovo period repeatedly attacked the sectarianism of many socialists towards them. On the other hand, the anarcho-syndicalist leaders, typified by Arturo Labriola, were politically ambiguous to say the least. Labriola was an inter ventionist in 1915, and although he was later an anti-fascist, many of the other anarcho-syndicalist leaders rallied via nationalism to fascism, in a process which Gramsci related to the “transformism” of the bourgeois politicians following the Risorgimento. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2157

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s transformism concept and later work on how bourgeois/working-class radical movements get absorbed into nationalist reaction — relevant to how nationalist movements co-opt revolutionary energies, a dynamic Islamophobia reading will echo. — connects to: Left-originated syndicalism became a powerful organizing tool of the fascist right — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 262