Arditi del Popolo

Part of a series on
Anti-fascism
Yugoslav Partisan fighter Stjepan Filipović shouting "Death to fascism, freedom to the people!" seconds before his execution.
show Interwar Ethiopia Black Lions Germany Antifaschistische Aktion Black Band Catholic resistance to Nazi Germany Confessing Church Iron Front Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold Roter Frontkämpferbund Three Arrows Italy Arditi del Popolo Concentrazione Antifascista Italiana TIGR Volante Rossa Spain (Spanish Civil War)  Antifascist Worker and Peasant Militias Confederal militias Friends of Durruti Group International Brigades Abraham Lincoln Brigade British Battalion Dabrowski Battalion ILP Contingent Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion Palafox Battalion Thälmann Battalion
show World War II Resistance during World War II Albania Albanian resistance National Liberation Movement Austria Austrian resistance Baltic states Latvian resistance movement Lithuanian resistance Soviet partisans Belgium Belgian Resistance Bulgaria Bulgarian resistance movement Burma Anti-Fascist Organisation Czechia Resistance in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia Jan Žižka partisan brigade Prague uprising Denmark Danish resistance movement France French Resistance Maquis Armée Juive Armée secrète Combat Franc-Tireur Francs-Tireurs et Partisans Libération-Nord Libération-sud Mouvements Unis de la Résistance National Council of the Resistance National Front Germany German resistance to Nazism 20 July plot Catholic resistance to Nazi Germany Oster conspiracy Pope Pius XII and the German Resistance White Rose Greece Cretan resistance Greek resistance Italy Italian resistance movement Jewish Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee Jewish partisans Jewish resistance during the Holocaust Jewish Labor Committee Luxembourg Luxembourg resistance Netherlands Dutch resistance Norway Norwegian resistance movement Poland Polish resistance movement in World War II (Polish Underground State) Anti-Fascist Bloc Armia Krajowa Armia Ludowa Bataliony Chłopskie Gwardia Ludowa Kampfgruppe Auschwitz Narodowe Siły Zbrojne Olimp Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa Zydowski Zwiazek Walki Slovakia Slovak National Uprising Spain Spanish Maquis Soviet Union Soviet partisans Soviet resistance movement Moldovan resistance movement Yugoslavia Yugoslav resistance movement Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Serbia Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia Croatian Partisans Liberation Front of the Slovenian People Slovene Partisans Yugoslav Partisans
show Postwar Post-World War II anti-fascism (Denazification) Germany Antifa Arsch huh, Zäng ussenander Portugal Armed Forces Movement Carnation Revolution Spain Spanish Maquis Sweden Antifascistisk Aktion Switzerland Aktion Kinder des Holocaust United States Antifa Anti-Racist Action Redneck Revolt Refuse Fascism United Kingdom 43 Group 62 Group Anti-Fascist Action Anti-Nazi League Unite Against Fascism
show Music and culture "A las Barricadas" "¡Ay Carmela!" "Bella ciao" "First they came ..." "Fischia il vento" "Grândola, Vila Morena" "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" Rock Against Racism "Rock gegen Rechts" Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice "This machine kills fascists" "(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang"
show Tactics and methods Black bloc Deplatforming Direct action Diversity of tactics Milkshaking Popular front Squadism United front
Politics portal
v t

Logo of the Arditi del Popolo, an axe cutting a fasces.

Flag of the Arditi del Popolo, section Civitavecchia.

The Arditi del Popolo (The People's Daring Ones) was an Italian militant anti-fascist group founded at the end of June 1921 to resist the rise of Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party and the violence of the Blackshirts (squadristi) paramilitaries.^[1] It grouped revolutionary trade-unionists, socialists, communists, anarchists, republicans, as well as some former military officers, and was co-founded by Mingrino, Argo Secondari, Gino Lucetti – who tried to assassinate Mussolini on 11 September 1926 – the deputy Guido Picelli and others. The Arditi del Popolo were an offshoot of the Arditi elite troops, who had previously occupied Fiume 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 Argo Secondari and were supported by Mario Carli. The formazioni di difesa proletaria (Proletarian Defense Formations) later merged with them. The Arditi gathered approximately 20,000 members in summer 1921.^[2]

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, PSI, nor by the Communist Party of Italy, PCd'I). The Arditi were criticized by the socialist newspaper Avanti! on July 7, 1921, following a demonstration in Rome the previous day.

On July 10, 1921, Lenin wrote in the Pravda an article praising the Arditi and criticizing the Bordigan tendency of the PCd'I which opposed militant anti-fascism.^[1] On August 3, 1921, the PSI signed a "pacification pact" (patto di pacificazione) with Mussolini and his Fasces of Combat on 3 August 1921,^[3] 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.^[4][5] 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 Antonio Gramsci,^[6] and many communist activists, who supported the Arditi.^[7] 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.^[7] 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.^[7]

Parma and dismantlement of the group[]

One of the Arditi's most important successes was in 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.^[8]

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 during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). The name was also re-used by Resistance during World War II. The communists Antonello Trombadori and Luigi Longo created an organization thus named on July 25, 1943.

List of notable members[]

• Argo Secondari, anarchist
• Gino Lucetti, anarchist
• Guido Picelli, deputy
• Alberto Acquacalda, assassinated on August 11, 1921, by Fascists
• Riccardo Lombardi (not officially a member but a participant)
• Giuseppe Di Vittorio, communist
• Tigrino Sabatini, communist
• Vincenzo Baldazzi
• Antonio Cieri

See also[]

• Italian Fascism
• Militant anti-fascism

References[]

Bibliography[]

• Tom Behan, The Resistible Rise of Benito Mussolini, Bookmarks, 2003, ISBN 978-1-898876-90-8 (account of the book in Socialist Worker 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.