The ''Arditi del Popolo'' (''The People's Daring Ones'') was an Italian
militant anti-fascist
The English language, English word ''militant'' is both an adjective and a noun, and it is generally used to mean vigorously Active lifestyle, active, combative and/or aggression, aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in "militant re ...
group founded at the end of June 1921 to resist the rise of
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in ...
's
National Fascist Party
The National Fascist Party ( it, Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian Fascism and as a reorganization of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. The ...
and the violence of the
Blackshirts
The Voluntary Militia for National Security ( it, Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, MVSN), commonly called the Blackshirts ( it, Camicie Nere, CCNN, singular: ) or (singular: ), was originally the paramilitary wing of the Nation ...
(''squadristi'') paramilitaries.
[Gli Arditi del Popolo (Birth)]
It grouped
revolutionary trade-unionist
Anarcho-syndicalism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence i ...
s,
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
s,
communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
s,
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessar ...
s,
republicans,
anti-capitalists
Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as so ...
, as well as some former military officers, and was co-founded by Giuseppe Mingrino,
Argo Secondari
Argo Secondari (12 September 1895 – 17 March 1942) was an Italian anarchist and militant anti-fascist and one of the founders of the anti-fascist group Arditi del Popolo.
Biography
Early life
Secondari was born to a large middle-class fami ...
and
Gino Lucetti – who tried to assassinate Mussolini on 11 September 1926 – the deputy
Guido Picelli Guido Picelli (9 October 1889 – 5 January 1937) was an Italian Communist politician and anti-fascist militant. He was a founding member of the ''Arditi del Popolo'' and a participant in the Spanish Civil War where he died in battle.
Biography
...
and others. The ''Arditi del Popolo'' were an offshoot of the ''
Arditi
Arditi (from the Italian verb ''ardire'', lit. "to dare", and translates as "The Daring nes) was the name adopted by a Royal Italian Army elite special force of World War I. They and the opposing German '' Stormtroopers'' were the first moder ...
'' elite troops, who had previously occupied
Fiume
Rijeka ( , , ; also known as Fiume hu, Fiume, it, Fiume ; local Chakavian: ''Reka''; german: Sankt Veit am Flaum; sl, Reka) is the principal seaport and the third-largest city in Croatia (after Zagreb and Split). It is located in Prim ...
in 1919 behind the poet
Gabriele d'Annunzio, who proclaimed the
Italian Regency of Carnaro. Those who split to form the ''Arditi del Popolo'' were close to the
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessar ...
Argo Secondari
Argo Secondari (12 September 1895 – 17 March 1942) was an Italian anarchist and militant anti-fascist and one of the founders of the anti-fascist group Arditi del Popolo.
Biography
Early life
Secondari was born to a large middle-class fami ...
and were supported by
Mario Carli
is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the title character of the ''Mario'' franchise and the mascot of Japanese video game company Nintendo. Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his creat ...
. The ''
formazioni di difesa proletaria'' (Proletarian Defense Formations) later merged with them. The ''Arditi del Popolo'' gathered approximately 20,000 members in summer 1921.
[Gli Arditi del Popolo: I numeri dell'organizzazione]
Relations with the workers' movement and organized parties
Composed of socialists, anarchists and communists, the ''Arditi del Popolo'' were not supported by leftist parties (neither by the
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parties of the country.
Founded in Genoa in 189 ...
, PSI, nor by the
Communist Party of Italy
The Italian Communist Party ( it, Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist political party in Italy.
The PCI was founded as ''Communist Party of Italy'' on 21 January 1921 in Livorno by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). ...
, PCd'I). The ''Arditi'' were criticized by the socialist newspaper ''
Avanti!
''Avanti!'' is a 1972 American/Italian international co-production comedy film produced and directed by Billy Wilder, and starring Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills. The screenplay by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond is based on Samuel A. Taylor's play, ...
'' on 7 July 1921, following a demonstration in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus ( legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
the previous day.
On 10 July 1921, ''
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...
'' announced the demonstration and
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
wrote an article the next month praising the ''Arditi del Popolo'' as a unified action of the 'entire proletariat' against fascism and criticizing the
Bordigan tendency of the PCd'I.
["In Rome, a rally was held to organize the fight against fascism, which was attended by 50,000 workers, representatives of all parties: communists, socialists and even republicans. 5,000 ex-combatants in military uniform went there and not a single fascist dared to be seen in the streets." – V. I. Lenin ('Discorsi alla riunione dei membri delle delegazioni tedesca, polacca, cecoslovacca, ungherese e italiana', vol. XLII, 1968, pp. 306-307)] On 3 August 1921 the PSI signed a "
pacification pact" (''patto di pacificazione'') with Mussolini and his
Fasces of Combat on 3 August 1921, while the
General Confederation of Labour (CGT) and the PSI refused to officially recognize the anti-fascist militia. Furthermore, the PCd'I ordered its members to quit the organization because of the presence of non-communists in its ranks. The PCd'I organized by themselves some militant groups (the ''Squadre comuniste d'azione''), but their actions were relatively minor and the party kept a non-violent, legalist strategy.
The Bordigan tendency was opposed by the
Marxist philosopher
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , , ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher, journalist, linguist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a fo ...
, and many communist activists, who supported the ''Arditi''.
[Gli Arditi del Popolo: la storia]
In October 1921, the
Comintern
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...
criticized the "sectarian policy" of the PCd'I, who threatened those of its members who supported the ''Arditi'' with disciplinary measures.
[ However, after the alignment of Gramsci and of '' L'Ordine Nuovo'' to the PCd'I's direction, the anarchist '']Umanità Nova
''Umanità Nova'' is an Italian anarchist newspaper founded in 1920.
It was published daily until 1922 when it was shut down by the fascist regime. In some places, its circulation exceeded that of the socialist paper ''Avanti!'' Upon the fall ...
'' newspaper remained the sole mouthpiece of the workers' movement which supported the ''Arditi del Popolo''.[
]
Parma and dismantlement of the group
One of the ''Arditi''s most important successes was in Parma
Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second m ...
during the events known as the Barricades of Parma in August 1922, when 350 ''arditi'', directed by the World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
veterans Antonio Cieri and Guido Picelli, successfully defended the city against a 20,000-man fascist offensive headed by Roberto Farinacci
Roberto Farinacci (; 16 October 1892 – 28 April 1945) was a leading Italian Fascist politician and important member of the National Fascist Party before and during World War II as well as one of its ardent antisemitic proponents. English histo ...
, who would join the Grand Council of Fascism
The Grand Council of Fascism (, also translated "Fascist Grand Council") was the main body of Mussolini's Fascist government in Italy, that held and applied great power to control the institutions of government. It was created as a body of th ...
in 1935, and Italo Balbo
Italo Balbo (6 June 1896 – 28 June 1940) was an Italian fascist politician and Blackshirts' leader who served as Italy's Marshal of the Air Force, Governor-General of Libya and Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa. Due to his young a ...
, one of the four main planners of the March on Rome
The March on Rome ( it, Marcia su Roma) was an organized mass demonstration and a coup d'état in October 1922 which resulted in Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party (PNF) ascending to power in the Kingdom of Italy. In late October 192 ...
. The ''Arditi'' benefitted from massive popular support in this task.
But with the complicity of state security forces, the fascists assassinated and detained most of the leaders of the anti-fascist movement, which was completely dismantled by 1924.
Legacy
Many ''Arditi del Popolo'' later joined the International Brigades
The International Brigades ( es, Brigadas Internacionales) were military units set up by the Communist International to assist the Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. The organization existed ...
during the Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...
(1936–39). The name was also re-used by Resistance during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. The communists Antonello Trombadori
Antonello Trombadori (April 24, 1917, Rome – January 19, 1993, Rome) was an Italian politician, art critic and journalist.
Born in Rome into a family of artists (his father Francesco Trombadori was a painter) Trombadori lived a happy life i ...
and Luigi Longo
Luigi Longo (15 March 1900 – 16 October 1980), also known as Gallo, was an Italian communist politician and secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1964 to 1972. He was also the first foreigner to be awarded an Order of Lenin.
Early ...
created an organization thus named on 25 July 1943.
The song ''Siam del Popolo gli Arditi'' has been written in honor of the group.
List of notable members
* Argo Secondari
Argo Secondari (12 September 1895 – 17 March 1942) was an Italian anarchist and militant anti-fascist and one of the founders of the anti-fascist group Arditi del Popolo.
Biography
Early life
Secondari was born to a large middle-class fami ...
, anarchist
* Gino Lucetti, anarchist
* Guido Picelli Guido Picelli (9 October 1889 – 5 January 1937) was an Italian Communist politician and anti-fascist militant. He was a founding member of the ''Arditi del Popolo'' and a participant in the Spanish Civil War where he died in battle.
Biography
...
, communist deputy
* Alberto Acquacalda, anarchist (assassinated by Fascists on 11 August 1921)
*Riccardo Lombardi
Riccardo Lombardi (16 August 1901 – 18 September 1984) was an Italian politician.
Early life
Lombardi was born in Regalbuto, in the province of Enna (now in the province of Catania), in 1901. He studied at the Pennisi College of Acireale, a ...
, socialist (not officially a member but a participant)
* Giuseppe Di Vittorio, communist
*Tigrino Sabatini Tigrino Sabatini, (8 March 1900 – 3 May 1944) was a communist and a leader of the Italian Resistance, executed for his activities as a zone-commander of the Movimento Comunista d'Italia, also known as ''Bandiera Rossa.''
Born in the province of ...
, communist
*Renzo Novatore
Abele Rizieri Ferrari (May 12, 1890 – November 29, 1922), better known by the pen name Renzo Novatore, was an Italian individualist anarchist, illegalist and anti-fascist poet, philosopher and militant, now mostly known for his posthumously p ...
, anarchist
* Vincenzo Baldazzi, socialist
* Antonio Cieri, anarchist
See also
* Italian Fascism
*Militant anti-fascism
Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...
References
Bibliography
* Tom Behan, ''The Resistible Rise of Benito Mussolini'', Bookmarks, 2003,
account
of the book in ''Socialist Worker
''Socialist Worker'' is the name of several far-left newspapers currently or formerly associated with the International Socialist Tendency (IST). It is a weekly newspaper published by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the United Kingdom since ...
'' review)
*Iain McKay ''The Irresistible Correctness of anarchism''
a review
of Behan's book from an anarchist perspective)
Italian language
* Gentili, Valerio, ''Roma combattente'', Roma, Castelvecchi, 2010
* Gentili, Valerio, ''La legione romana degli Arditi del Popolo'', Roma, Purple Press, 2009
* Balsamini, Luigi, ''Gli Arditi del Popolo. Dalla guerra alla difesa del popolo contro le violenze fasciste'', Casalvelino Scalo, Galzerano, 2002.
* Francescangeli, Eros, ''Arditi del Popolo. Argo Secondari e la prima organizzazione antifascista (1917-1922)'', Roma, Odradek, 2000.
* Rossi, Marco, ''Arditi, non gendarmi! Dall'arditismo di guerra agli arditi del popolo 1917-1922'', Pisa, BFS, 1997.
* Fuschini, Ivan, ''Gli Arditi del Popolo'', prefazione di Arrigo Boldrini, Ravenna, Longo, 1994.
* Cordova, Ferdinando, ''Arditi e legionari dannunziani'', Padova, Marsilio, 1969.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arditi Del Popolo
1921 establishments in Italy
1924 disestablishments in Italy
Anti-fascist organisations in Italy
Modern history of Italy
Militias in Europe
Paramilitary organisations based in Italy