Biennio Rosso

A sociological study of violence in Italy (1919-1922) by text mining. Arrow width proportional to number of violent acts between social groups.(Click on large animated GIF image to see evolution)

The Biennio Rosso (English: "Red Biennium") was a two-year period, between 1919 and 1920, of intense social conflict in Italy, following the First World War.[1] The revolutionary period was followed by the violent reaction of the Fascist blackshirts militia and eventually by the March on Rome of Benito Mussolini in 1922.

The Biennio Rosso took place in a context of economic crisis at the end of the war, with high unemployment and political instability. It was characterized by mass strikes, worker manifestations as well as self-management experiments through land and factories occupations.[1] In Turin and Milan, workers councils were formed and many factory occupations took place under the leadership of anarcho-syndicalists. The agitations also extended to the agricultural areas of the Padan plain and were accompanied by peasant strikes, rural unrests and guerrilla conflicts between left-wing and right-wing militias.

According to libcom.org, the anarcho-syndicalist trade union Unione Sindacale Italiana "grew to 800,000 members and the influence of the Italian Anarchist Union (20,000 members plus Umanita Nova, its daily paper) grew accordingly ... Anarchists were the first to suggest occupying workplaces.[2]

A quantitative sociological study of the period by analyzing newspaper news in the period[3] (see figure) clearly demonstrates the evolution of violence acts between the social groups involved.

See also

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Brunella Dalla Casa, Composizione di classe, rivendicazioni e professionalità nelle lotte del "biennio rosso" a Bologna, in: AA. VV, Bologna 1920; le origini del fascismo, a cura di Luciano Casali, Cappelli, Bologna 1982, p. 179.
  2. "1918–1921: The Italian factory occupations - Biennio Rosso" on libcom.org
  3. Quantitative Narrative Analysis (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences). Roberto Franzosi, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 2010.

Bibliography

External links