The history of CGIL anti-fascism (1960-1970)

The CGIL's political commitment reached its peak in the summer of 1960, when it single-handedly proclaimed a general strike against the Tambroni government, backed by the MSI neo-fascists,

responsible for harsh repression and serious massacres during some popular demonstrations in Genoa, Rome, Reggio Emilia and Sicily.

"What was under discussion in Genoa? - Luciano Romagnoli will write -And, after that, in Licata, Rome and Reggio Emilia? What was under discussion in the country? It was the very foundation of the democratic state: antifascism, resistance and the Republican Constitution."

"Fascism for Italian workers today," Vittorio Foa will say, "is not only the remote and nostalgic echo of the 'squadracce' and the eagles and the barbaric trappings of the Mussolini era, but is, in the changed conditions, arbitrariness in place of justice

subordinate discipline in place of equal rights and duties (...), corruption and disempowerment, lack of perspective, the contrast between gigantic profits and stagnant wages."

The CGIL resists. And it wins. And that bothers the fascists who return to attack its headquarters on January 8, 1964.

"They wanted to hit the headquarters of a major workers' organization," Fernando Santi will tell the Chamber of Deputies the following January 28.

"I lived through the painful experience of postwar 1919-20; I know what fascism meant to Italy and what it did in order to prevail with violence and blood, and we recognize fascism a mile away because its calling card."

"But it is not only necessary to repress; it is also necessary to prevent and to put these movements once and for all in a condition where they do not harm the cause of the workers we represent, nor the cause of democracy and public order to which we are all attached."

1969 is the year of the union's final establishment as a political entity.

At the VII Congress in Livorno, the CGIL chose incompatibility between union and party positions, strengthening its political autonomy.

The climax was reached with the "hot autumn" of the metalworkers, when the category succeeded in renewing the contract, achieving great gains in democracy, wages, hours, rights and power in the workplace.

Much of these achievements would find their way into Law 300/1970, the Workers' Bill of Rights.

The neo-fascists do not like this and at 4:37 p.m. on Friday, December 12, 1969, a device explodes in the central hall of the National Bank of Agriculture in Milan: it is the Piazza Fontana massacre.

After the massacre, on the occasion of the victims' funerals, CGIL, CISL and UIL in Milan decided to call a general strike. A decision that profoundly affects that day, with the labor forces lined up to defend democracy and against subversion.

It is unfortunately only the first of many, far too many massacres. Slaughters united by a single, terrible color: black.

On May 28, 1974 in Brescia, a bomb exploded in Piazza della Loggia during a union unity demonstration.

È una strage fascista; i morti sono otto, di cui cinque attivisti della Cgil.

The authorship of the massacre is claimed by 'Ordine Nero' and 'Anno zero-Ordine Nuovo'. 

Far-right organizations are responding to this wave of protest on the one hand with a series of bomb attacks, and on the other hand by trying to accredit themselves to the cry of 'hangman's row' as representing the interests of the struggling population. 

In response to these attacks, the Cgil, Cisl and Uil metalworkers' unions (along with the construction unions and the Federbraccianti CGIL) decided to organize a large rally of solidarity alongside the workers in Calabria.

The rally held for October 22, 1972 is strongly supported by Bruno Trentin, Pierre Carniti and Giorgio Benvenuto. Along with them are in town Luciano Lama and Rinaldo Scheda, at the head of the CGIL construction workers is Claudio Truffi, at the head of the Federbraccianti Feliciano Rossitto.

Neo-fascists will attempt to prevent the arrival of the protesters with a series of attacks on the night of October 21-22.

"The train that took emigrants away - Pierre Carniti will say - they wouldn't allow it to come back (...) And today, as fifty years ago, this reaction confirms that fascism with the truncheon and the TNT is serving the employers and agrarians against the workers."