On the 1st of septmber in 1920, the first of many worker occupations and seizures of factories in Italy began, a movement that more than half a million workers participated in.

During the month of September 1920, a widespread occupation of Italian factories by their workers took place. Although originating in the auto factories, steel mills, and machine tool plants of the metal sector, the occupation/revolt spread to cotton mills and hosiery firms, lignite mines, tire factories, breweries and distilleries, and steamships and warehouses in port towns. At its height, more than 600,000 workers were involved.

The worker rebellion was the culmination of years of labor strife - weeks before the occupations, the Italian Federation of Metallurgical Workers (FIOM), the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), and the General Confederation of Labor (CGL) called for “obstructionism” (essentially, a work slowdown) to be applied in all the engineering factories and shipyards starting on August 21st.

By the 24th, production at the Romeo factory in Milan had come to a complete standstill. A week later, production at the FIAT-Centro plant was reduced by 60%. On the morning of the 30th, the 2000 workers of the Romeo plant found the gates locked and the factory surrounded by troops. The FIOM responded by calling on its members to occupy the 300 engineering factories in Milan. Historian Lynn Williams describes what happened next:

“Between the 1st and 4th of September metal workers occupied factories throughout the Italian peninsula…the occupations rolled forward not only in the industrial heartland around Milan, Turin and Genoa but in Rome, Florence, Naples and Palermo, in a forest of red and black flags and a fanfare of workers bands…Within three days 400,000 workers were in occupation. As the movement spread to other sectors, the total rose to over half a million.”

Although some radical elements within the workers’ movement (Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Syndicalist Union) called for revolution, referring to the occupations as “an expropriating general strike” and demanding total socialization of the economy, more moderate forces (the CGL) prevailed, using the pressure of the rebellion to cut a deal with employers, granting better conditions to the workers on the condition of returning to work.

The Italian Factory Occupations of 1920

Italy September 1920: The Occupation of the Factories: The Lost Revolution

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