Rinaldo Rigola (2 February 1868 – 10 January 1954) was an Italian socialist politician who served as the founding secretary general of the General Confederation of Labour in 1906.

Biography

Rigola was born in

Biella Biella (; pms, Biela; la, Bugella) is a city and ''comune'' in the northern Italian region of Piedmont, the capital of the province of the same name, with a population of 44,324 as of 31 December 2017. It is located about northeast of Turin an ...

2 February 1868. He was a metal worker. He became a member of the Italian Workers' Party in 1886. He left the party and joined 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 1892, ...

in 1893. In the party Rigola was part of its reformist faction. He served as the municipal councilor in Biella in 1895 and as the director of the newspaper ''Corriere Biellese'' in 1896. The same year he was forced to exile and settled in Switzerland where he stayed until 1900. Shortly after his return to Italy he was elected a deputy being the first Italian worker at the Parliament. He wrote about trade union topics in the newspaper '' Avanti'' and then directed a magazine entitled ''Vita workeria''. In 1903 Rigola lost his sight completely as a result of an accident during his youth. In 1906 he became founding secretary general of the General Confederation of Labour. Rigola resigned from the post in 1918. In 1922 he cofounded the Unitary Socialist Party. Rigola launched a magazine entitled ''Il Lavoro'' in Biella in 1924. He also headed a cultural organization, the National Association for the Questions of Labour, which was associated with the magazine. He retired from public life in 1940 and died in Milan on 10 January 1954.

Views and legacy

Rigola was a supporter of the

guild socialism Guild socialism is a political movement advocating workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related guilds "in an implied contractual relationship with the public". It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influent ...

developed by

G.D.H. Cole George Douglas Howard Cole (25 September 1889 – 14 January 1959) was an English political theorist, economist, and historian. As a believer in common ownership of the means of production, he theorised guild socialism (production organised ...

. He did not openly approve the

Fascist corporatism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and th ...

. In 2012 a biography of Rigola was published, ''Rinaldo Rigola. Una biografia politica'', by Paolo Mattera.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rigola, Rinaldo 19th-century Italian journalists 20th-century Italian journalists 1868 births 1954 deaths Italian Socialist Party politicians Exiled Italian politicians Italian magazine founders Italian political party founders Unitary Socialist Party (Italy, 1922) politicians Blind politicians People from Biella Deputies of Legislature XXI of the Kingdom of Italy Deputies of Legislature XXII of the Kingdom of Italy