Fasci Siciliani

The Fasci Siciliani (Italian: [ˈfaʃʃi sitʃiˈljaːni]), short for Fasci Siciliani dei Lavoratori ('Sicilian Workers Leagues'), were a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration that arose in Sicily in the years between 1889 and 1894. The Fasci gained the support of the poorest and most exploited classes of the island by channeling their frustration and discontent into a coherent programme based on the establishment of new rights. Consisting of a jumble of traditionalist sentiment, religiosity, and socialist consciousness, the movement reached its apex in the summer of 1893, when new conditions were presented to the landowners and mine owners of Sicily concerning the renewal of sharecropping and rental contracts.

Upon the rejection of these conditions, there was an outburst of strikes that rapidly spread throughout the island, and was marked by violent social conflict, almost rising to the point of insurrection. The leaders of the movement were not able to keep the situation from getting out of control. The proprietors and landowners asked the government to intervene, and Prime Minister Francesco Crispi declared a state of emergency in January 1894, dissolving the organizations, arresting their leaders and restoring order through the use of extreme force. Some reforms followed, including workmen's compensation and pension schemes. The suppression of the strikes also led to an increase in emigration.

The Fasci movement was made up of a federation of scores of associations that developed among farm workers, tenant farmers, and small sharecroppers as well as artisans, intellectuals, and industrial workers. The immediate demands of the movement were fair land rents with new sharecropping contracts that would deliver more grain to the peasant, higher wages, an end to common contractual abuses and usury, and lower local taxes and distribution of misappropriated common land. Between 1889 and 1893 some 170 Fasci were established in Sicily. According to some sources the movement reached a membership of more than 300,000 by the end of 1893. The Fasci constituted autonomous organizations with their own insignia (red rosettes), uniforms and sometimes even musical bands, and their own local halls for reunions and congresses. They were called Fasci (fascio literally means "faggot", as in a bundle of sticks, but also "league") because everyone can break a single stick, but no one can break a bundle of sticks.

Fasci were established in 82 Sicilian towns, and in 74 of them, they organized some form of protest. The socio-economic conditions of each town often shaped the structure and role of the Fascio. In areas with large populations of wage earners – such as wheat-producing towns dominated by large estates or those with sulfur mines – the fasci often functioned as trade unions. Among wheat-growing peasants, they sometimes acted as syndicates advocating for the expropriation of large estates. In a few towns, wage earners and their Fasci also formed agricultural and industrial cooperatives. Protests varied: in 24 towns, they centered on high taxes; in 17 towns, the Fasci led strikes or land occupations; and in 12 towns, peasants and workers organized both tax protests and work stoppages.

While many of the leaders were of socialist or anarchist leanings, few of their supporters were revolutionaries. The peasants who joined the Fasci were driven by a deep desire for social justice and believed they stood on the brink of a new era. In many of their meeting places, a crucifix hung beside the red flag, while portraits of the King shared space with those of revolutionaries like Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Marx. Their marches often took on the tone of quasi-religious processions, with chants and cheers for the King frequently echoing through the crowd. Many of the Fasci were part of the Italian Workers' Party (Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani, the initial name of the Italian Socialist Party) that had been founded at a conference in Genoa on August 14, 1892.

While the ruling elite depicted the men of the Fasci as treasonous socialists, communists and anarchists seeking to overthrow the monarchy; in fact many ordinary members were devout Catholics and monarchists. The movement sometimes had a messianic nature, characterised by statements such as "Jesus was a true socialist and wanted just what the Fasci were demanding". One of the leaders, Nicola Barbato, was known as "the workers' apostle". The rural Fasci in particular were a curious phenomenon with both ancient and modern aspects. They combined millenarian aspirations with urban intellectual leadership often in contact with workers' organizations and ideas in the more industrialized Northern Italy. According to the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, the Fasci were millenarian insofar as the socialism preached by the movement was seen by the Sicilian peasantry as a new religion, the true religion of Christ – betrayed by the priests, who were on the side of the rich – that foretold the dawn of a new world, without poverty, hunger and cold, in accordance with God’s will. The Fasci, which included many women, were encouraged by the messianic belief that the start of a new reign of justice was looming and the movement spread like an epidemic.

The Italian economy had been sliding into a deep recession since the end of the 1880s. In July 1887, the government introduced new protective tariffs on both agricultural and industrial products, triggering a trade war with France and depriving Sicily of its major export market. This conflict severely damaged Italian commerce and hit agricultural exports particularly hard – especially those from Southern Italy. Between 1888 and 1892, an agrarian crisis unfolded, marked by a sharp decline in wheat prices. Sicily's main economic outputs – wine, fruit, and sulfur – were also dealt a significant blow. In addition, the sulfur industry in which a 100,000 people were employed, suffered from American competition and a new synthetic process for the manufacture of sulphuric acid.

In response to the crisis, the dominant landowning class shifted much of the economic burden onto the peasantry by imposing higher rents and discriminatory local taxes, pushing many into even more extreme poverty and starvation. As social tensions escalated, a small group of young, previously unknown socialist intellectuals – many recently graduated from the University of Palermo – began to organize. Their movement gained momentum during the first term of Prime Minister Francesco Crispi (1887–1891), a period characterized by unpopular tax hikes and the ratification of laws restricting personal freedoms. The toll on peasants was especially severe. According to Hobsbawm, the Fasci were the result of the revolt of the Sicilian peasants against the introduction of capitalist relationships into the rural economy aggravated by the world depression in agriculture of the 1880s.