Franco Ferrari is an editor for Transform! Italia and author of Indagine su Picelli. Fatti, documenti, testimonianze.
In August 1922, Benito Mussolini’s Fascists crushed a general strike by force. But on the barricades of Parma, the working class imposed a stunning military defeat on the Blackshirts — a victory that inspired enduring resistance against the Fascist government.
Leading polls for September’s general election, Giorgia Meloni has again distanced her party from the Mussolini era. Yet its politics remain based on ethnonationalism, anti-communism, and the rejection of Enlightenment values.