Relations with the workers' movement and organized parties
Reconstruction of the insignia used by the Arditi del Popolo
Composed of Italian anarchists, socialists, and communists, the Arditi del Popolo were not supported by leftist parties (neither by the Italian Socialist Party, PSI, nor by the Communist Party of Italy, PCd'I). The Arditi were criticized by the socialist newspaper Avanti! on 7 July 1921, following a demonstration in Rome the previous day.[1]
On 10 July 1921, Pravda announced the demonstration and Vladimir Lenin 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.[Note 1][5][6] On 3 August 1921 the PSI signed a "pacification pact" (patto di pacificazione) with Mussolini and his Fasces of Combat on 3 August 1921,[7] 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.[8] 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 philosopherAntonio Gramsci,[9] and many communist activists, who supported the Arditi.[10] In October 1921, the Comintern criticized the "sectarian policy" of the PCd'I, who threatened those of its members who supported the Arditi with disciplinary measures.[10] However, after the alignment of Gramsci and of L'Ordine Nuovo to the PCd'I's direction, the anarchist Umanità Nova newspaper remained the sole mouthpiece of the workers' movement which supported the Arditi del Popolo.[10]
Parma and dismantlement of the group
One of the Arditi's most important successes was in Parma during the events known as the Barricades of Parma in August 1922, when 350 arditi, directed by the World War I veterans Antonio Cieri and Guido Picelli, successfully defended the city against a 20,000-man fascist offensive headed by Roberto Farinacci, who would join the Grand Council of Fascism in 1935, and Italo Balbo, one of the four main planners of the March on Rome. The Arditi benefitted from massive popular support in this task.[11]
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.
^"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)
