The Italian government could not militarily suppress the 1920 factory occupations.

Evidence

Th e conciliatory sentiments of the establishment that followed reveal the power gained by the workers. First, the head of the government, Giovanni Giolitti, categorically refused to intervene due to the inordinate martial eff ort that the task would entail. Giolitti told parliament, “How could I stop the occupation? It is a question of 600 factories in the metallurgical industries. To prevent the occupation, I would have had to put a garrison in each of them, a hundred men in the small, several thousand in the large. To occupy the factories I would have had to use all the forces at my disposal! And who would exercise surveillance over the 500,000 workers outside the factory? Who would guard the security of the country?” (Acts of Parliament, session of September 26, 1920, ACS, Legislaturua 22, 1st session, 1711– 12). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 559

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the coercion-vs-consent theme in the Diamond bourse and Colonial Archive reading — state cannot always project force, so must find other channels. — connects to: The state could not suppress the 1920 factory occupations by force — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 187; Postwar Italy suffered economic collapse that its makeshift governments could not address — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 85

Broader Connections

• The state could not suppress the 1920 factory occupations by force #corroborates (1.00) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 187
• Postwar Italy suffered economic collapse that its makeshift governments could not address #complicates (0.72) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 85