Thus Antonio Scurati, in the monologue that Rai did not want to broadcast on 25 April, remembered Giacomo Matteotti, one hundred years after his death:
“Giacomo Matteotti was murdered by fascist hitmen on 10 June 1924. Five of them waited for him outside his house, all squadristi from Milan, professionals of violence hired by Benito Mussolini’s closest collaborators. The Honorable Matteotti, the secretary of the Socialist Unitarian Party, the last person in Parliament who still openly opposed the fascist dictatorship, was kidnapped in the center of Rome, in broad daylight, in broad daylight. He fought to the end, as he had fought all his life. They stabbed him to death, then disfigured his body. They folded him on himself so he could stick him into a hole dug badly with a blacksmith’s file.
Mussolini was immediately informed. In addition to her crime, he was guilty of the infamy of swearing to the widow that she would do everything possible to bring her husband back to her. While he was sworn in, the Duce of fascism kept the victim’s bloody documents in his desk drawer.”
Since then Matteotti has been a symbol of anti-fascism and the love of freedom throughout the world.
In Vienna, in the Margareten district, the social democratic municipal administration led by mayor Karl Seitz in 1927 named after him – Matteottihof – a large popular residential complex, which still exists, with 452 apartments. The dedication was revoked during the Dolfuss dictatorship, to please Mussolini, and reinstated in 1945.
After the Liberation, in our country Matteotti emerged as one of the clearest protagonists of twentieth-century Italian history, transformed into a symbol of which the streets, squares and public places of our cities bear witness. After the Risorgimento figures, Matteotti’s is the most used name in national toponymy.
But why was Matteotti killed? After the march on Rome on 28 October 1922, fascism had worked to liquidate the structures of the liberal state and to build the dictatorship. In January 1923 the voluntary militia for national security was formed, in which the fascist squadristi of 1919-1922 had found paid employment. The Grand Council of Fascism had been transformed into an organ of the State. In April 1923 the People’s Party had been expelled from the government. In July a majoritarian electoral law was drawn up, designed to ensure a large majority for the fascist “list”.
The elections of April 1924 were held in a climate of intimidation and violence, with the return of squadrism. The squad members, in front of and inside the polling stations, checked the voters and the ballots already cast. Many anti-fascists were forced to hand over their electoral certificates to the fascists, who voted in their place. Despite everything, even if the liste had a majority thanks to the new law, in northern Italy and in the working-class cities it obtained a lower, or only slightly higher, number of votes than the opposition lists. In Liguria, for example, he had 52.4% of the votes. In a now “fascist” situation, with the anti-fascist parties reduced to clandestinity and divided among themselves, the working class and the popular strata still resisted.
On May 30, 2024, Giacomo Matteotti, deputy and national secretary of the Unity Socialist Party, denounced the illegality in which the elections had taken place in a passionate and courageous speech, continually interrupted by fascist deputies. It was a twenty-twenty-five minute speech, which lasted over an hour due to interruptions and threats.
Matteotti reportedly told party colleagues who congratulated him that they should now prepare to hold his funeral commemoration. And the former Prime Minister Antonio Salandra reported this phrase from Mussolini, who had followed the speech of the socialist deputy from the government benches: “When will I be freed from this puzzle… of Matteotti?”.
After the assassination it seemed for a moment that Mussolini was in difficulty. On 27 June the La Spezia workers of Ansaldo Muggiano and Vickers Terni also went on strike. At Muggiano the young nail warmers and riveters also protested against the brutal working conditions. It was the last strike of the La Spezia working class during the 1920s. The strikers were all fired and then partially rehired on the basis of discrimination. The opposition moved once again divided. Matteotti’s speech was aimed not only against Mussolini but also against the collaborators within his party. Matteotti was in fact substantially alone even within the PSU, whose cowardice, inability, betrayals and underlying desire to join the government with the fascists did not fail to denounce. On the other hand, having known fascism well since its origins in the Po Valley countryside, he never stopped shouting against the danger represented by the regime that was being born, inciting his party into opposition.
On 3 January 1925 Mussolini appeared in the Chamber taking full responsibility for the Matteotti crime and challenged the deputies to distrust him. The Chamber did not accept the gauntlet: it was the definitive death sentence of the liberal state. The “very fascist” laws were passed and the dictatorship was established.
The centenary is an opportunity to reflect on the violent and anti-democratic nature of fascism and the perennial relevance of anti-fascist values.
Scurati’s monologue of April 25 continued as follows:
“In this false spring of ours, however, we are not only commemorating Matteotti’s political murder; the Nazi-fascist massacres perpetrated by the German SS, with the complicity and collaboration of the Italian fascists, in 1944 are also commemorated.
Fosse Ardeatine, Sant’Anna di Stazzema, Marzabotto. These are just some of the places where Mussolini’s demonic allies massacred thousands of defenseless Italian civilians in cold blood. Among them hundreds of children and even infants. Many were even burned alive, some beheaded.
These two concomitant mournful anniversaries – spring of ’24, spring of ’44 – proclaim that fascism has been throughout its entire historical existence – not only at the end or occasionally – an irredeemable phenomenon of systematic political violence, murder and massacre”.
The centenary is also an opportunity to make Matteotti better known as a great personality in Italian politics, always committed to the dignity of workers and to class unity between workers and peasants; and always committed to peace, to the point of proposing the general strike and insurrectionary forms of struggle to prevent the country from entering the Great War. Matteotti was a great and far-sighted reformist politician, a shining exponent of reformism. A noble word from the past. Which today has lost all meaning, because for some time now everyone has called themselves “reformists”. But Matteotti’s lesson remains alive: work and peace are the fundamental values of the anti-fascist Constitution, the values of the future. Another anniversary is also being celebrated these days: the eightieth anniversary of the Anpi, the partisans’ association, open to the younger generations since 2006. In recent days, two members of the La Spezia ANPI who marked its history have passed away: Vega Gori, the partisan relay “Ivana”, and Manlio Castellini, “historic” secretary of the Unitary Committee of the Resistance. We also remember them, just as we remember Giacomo Matteotti, with the words of their lives: “Peace, work, Constitution: it is always the time to be anti-fascists”.
Post Scriptum:
Giacomo Matteotti, on the initiative of the institutions and associations, will be remembered on Monday 10 June at 5 pm in Sarzana in the council chamber; Tuesday 11 June at 5.30 pm in La Spezia in Sala Dante; Tuesday 11 June at 9pm in the Council Chamber.
