Sections of the AdP were set up in various towns throughout the country, either as new creations or often on the basis of pre- existing groups such as the Lega Proletaria [Proletarian League] (linked to the Partito Socialista Italiana [Italian Socialist Party] and the Partito Comunista d'Italia [Communist Party of Italy]), the paramilitary Arditi Rossi in Trieste, the Figli di Nessuno [Children of No-one] in Genova and Vercelli.
The government of Bonomi was worried about the rise in this phenomenon as a treaty was about to be drawn up between the socialists and the fascists (the so-called "Pacification Pact").
On 6th July at the Botanic Gardens in Rome there was an important anti-fascist demonstration which was attended by thousands of workers, and was even commented upon by Pravda and Lenin (who at the time was engaged in his own battle with Bordiga of the PDd'I). Within a few days of the demonstration, the paramilitary structure of the AdP turned into a widespread, far-reaching organization with roots spreading from Rome towards Genoa and Ancona, covering all the main towns in between - Civitavecchia, Tarquinia, Orbetello, Piombino, Livorno, Pisa, La Spezia, Monterotondo, Orte, Terni, Spoleto, Foligno, Gualdo Tadino, Jesi but also further afield in places like Parma, Piacenza, Brescia, Bergamo, Vercelli, Turin, Florence, Catania and Taranto and even in many smaller villages.
Considering only those sections whose existence is certain, the anti-fascist organization had at least 144 sections (summer 1921) with a total of about 20,000 members. The biggest group were the 12 Lazio sections with about 3,300 members, followed by Tuscany, 18 sections with a total of 3,000 members. Other regions were as follows:
- Umbria 16 sections 2,000 members
- Marche 12 1,000
- Lombardy 17 2,100
- Tre Venezie 15 2,200
- Emilia Romagna 18 1,400
- Liguria 4 battalions 1,100
- Piedmont 8 battalions 1,300
- Sicily 7 sections 600
- Campania 7 500
- Apulia 6 500
- Sardinia 2 150
- Abruzzo 1 200
- Calabria 1 200
The AdP had a very agile military structure, able to gather its forces rapidly in preparation for fascist punitive expeditions. They also tried to control the territory by marching through town streets, somewhat in the style of a neighbourhood militia. The organizational structure was more concerned with military matters than with political ones, organized as they were in battalions, divided into companies and squads. Each squad was composed of 10 members plus group leader. A company was formed of 4 squads and a company commander, a battalion of 3 companies under a battalion commander. each battalion maintained cycle squads in order to ensure links between the general command, the battalions and other areas, such as factory groups, railway workers, munitions workers etc. Training was held by means of excercises.
The AdP was not an overly centralized organization. Each Regional Committe Directorate was allowed large levels of autonomy. Clearly, the dominant political current of each group dictated its behaviour. In practice, each section autonomously decided what to do and how to do it. As a result of its political independence, the AdP membership was not normally organized on the basis of membership of any party or working class movement, although in some areas certain companies were divided on this basis.
Many of the symbols used by the AdP were images of war - the official symbol of the association was a skull surrounded by a laurel wreath with a dagger in its teeth and the motto "A Noi!" [To Us!]. The Directorates' stamp was a dagger surrounded by a laurel wreath and an oak wreath. The banner of the Civitavecchia group was an axe smashing the fascist symbol (the fasces).
The AdP did not have a true uniform, however they often wore black sweaters, dark-grey trousers and perhaps a red flower in their buttonholes.
The association's songs were also warlike. Their main anthem had the following chorus:
"Siam del popolo - le invitte schiere/ c'hanno sul bavero le fiamme nere/ Ci muove un impeto - che è sacro e forte/ Morte alla morte - Morte al dolor"
"We are of the people - the unconquered ranks/ they have on their collars the black flames/We are moved by a force - which is scred and strong/Death to death - death to pain"
The last verse proclaims:
"Difendiamo l'operaio/ dagli oltraggi e le disfatte/ che l'Ardito, oggi, combatte/ per l'altrui felicità!"
"We defend the worker/from outrage and ruin/The Ardito fights today/ for the happiness of others!"
In September 1921 the organization's paper "L'Ardito del popolo" published a more explicitly anti-fascist version of the anthem, which began:
"Rintuzziamo la violenza/ del fascismo mercenario./ Tutti in armi! sul calvario/ dell'umana redenzion./ Questa eterna giovinezza/ si rinnova nella fede/ per un popolo che chiede/ uguaglianza e libertà."
"We curb the violence/of the mercenary fascists./ Everyone armed on the calvary/of human redemption./ This eternal youth/is renewed in the faith/ for the people who demand equality and freedom."
The organizers of the association were, depending in part on the political tradition of the area in question, militants in the subversive or proletarian political parties or movements - anarchists, communists, maximalist socialists (particularly Third Internationalists), republicans and also revolutionary syndicalists. Apart from the desire to quell blackshirt violence through military methods, these different currents of the workers' movement were united by a common understanding of fascism as a class reactionary force. The coagulating factor was therefore social, not political. On the social level, the prevalently proletarian nature of the movement was evident throughout the association. There were many railway workers, general workers and factory workers, farm workers and shipyard workers together with maritime and port workers, building workers, post office workers and public transport workers. There were also members from the middle classes like office workers, students, artisans and some professional types.
Even as the association was being founded, its first successes arrived - the defence of Viterbo against the Perugian blackshirt attack - and at Sarzana where about 20 fascists were killed. Mussolini's squads were thrown off guard and the fascist movement very nearly split with differences arising between the urban fascists who were more political and open to treaty and the rural fascists who were more against compromise. But as a result of government action, the AdP rarely received the support of the leaders of workers' organizations and in the space of a few months were forced to reduce their forces and survive virtually clandestinely in a few areas like Parma, Ancona, Bari, Civitavecchia and Livorno where they had some limited success in the final fascist offensive during the "legalitarian" general strike of August 1922. However, even by the previous autumn the action of the government and the magistracy had born fruit - the AdP was reduced to about 50 sections with just over 6,000 members.
However the reason for this lies not only with the government's anti-paramilitary provisions (which were to affect only the proletarian defence groups, of course), the arrests, the reports to the authorities and the Magistracy's attitude, but particularly with the political leaders and parties who failed to support, and in fact actively obstructed support for the AdP, for various reasons.
The PSI (minus its 3rd Internationalist Fraction) was the principal workers' party. Apart from embracing the formula of passive resistance, it illuded itself by signing the so-called "Pacification Pact" with the fascists, a sort of peace accord, in which they declared their opposition to the work of the AdP.
The Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Italy (PCd'I, precursor to the PCI) decided that the AdP was based on a partial and therefore backward objective (i.e. defence of the proletariate) and was therefore not sufficiently revolutionary. The defence of the proletariate could only take place within party-controlled structures. However, a great number of communists (and even, initially, certain leaders like Gramsci) did not accept this and remained within the AdP. It was only after threats from the "centre" that the majority of PCd'I members obeyed and left the AdP to join the Communist Action Squads, a choice which was severely criticised by the Communist International which began a critical campaign against the PCd'I in October 1921 (and which was to lead eventually to a split with the PCd'I ranks between the "Bordiga wing" and the Moscow-approved "Gramsci wing").
Other leftist groups too soon decided against cooperation with the AdP, with the exception of the Republican Party's Lazio, Veneto and Youth Federation sections and certain revolutionary syndicalist groups of the Parma and Bari areas. These other parties preferred to organise self-defence along party lines and frequently distancing themselves equally from the "reactionary" forces of fascists, nationalists and liberal-conservaties and the "anti-national" forces of anarchists, communists and socialists.
The only proletarian component which openly supported the AdP was the libertarian area, already in itself a multicoloured collection of ideas. In any event, throughout 1921 and 1922, both the Unione Sindacale Italiana (Italian Syndicalist Union) and the Unione Anarchica Italiana (Italian Anarchist Union) were favourable towards the paramilitary structure of workers' self-defence. The anarchist daily Umanità Nova in fact was the last proletarian paper to give voice to the cause of the AdP following the adherence of Gramsci's L'Ordine Nuovo to the party line.
[Translation by Nestor McNab]
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