1,721,043 research outputs found
From “state protection” to “private defence”. Strikebreaking, civilian armed mobilisation and the rise of Italian fascism
Full text linkStrikebreaking – in terms of both work replacement and auxiliary police functions – was a veritable obsession for significant sectors of the Italian middle classes in the aftermath of the Great War and fuelled forms of armed political mobilisation. Within a broader framework the chapter focuses on the two paradigmatic cases of Bologna and Milan in the immediate post-war years (1919–20). The approaches of the contribution are threefold. First it shows how the founding of strikebreaking groups reflected the crucial role played by work replacement and anti-strike activities in shaping outlooks and mentalities in broad sectors of Italian society. Second it illustrates the contradictory and hesitant approaches of state institutions and shows how they contributed to turn civic mobilisation into vigilantism. Third the chapter claims that post-war forms of bourgeois mobilisation can be fully appreciated only by situating them within a longer tradition of armed civilian cooperation between the state authorities and discrete social sectors, especially in the case of major strikes involving public services. This long-term interpretative perspective offers new insights into the origins of the crisis in the Italian liberal state and ultimately can help to explain the consensus enjoyed by the armed fascist reaction
Belle Epoque in Arms? Armed Associations and Processes of Democratization in Pre-1914 Europe
No full textDuring the belle epoque, many thousands of male European citizens joined military youth groups and paramilitary units, volunteer and private police forces, company defense groups, student battalions, civic militias, and shooting clubs throughout the continent. This article investigates the features, aims, and impact of armed associations in Europe in the approximately thirty years preceding the outbreak of the First World War. The legal context within which armed associations could prosper, their involvement in strikes and in the fight against crime, and the development of patriotic armed groups are the main lines of inquiry pursued in the article. Examination of armed associationism in pre-1914 Europe, a long understudied topic, has the potential to stimulate fresh thinking on crucial aspects of modern statehood, the balance between private rights and public prerogatives, crucial forms of nationalism and patriotism, and deep-seated fears and hopes, and possibly also to shed new light on the Great War and its aftermath. The article argues that armed associationism was a specific social phenomenon with a particularly European dimension and was a response to the profound reconfigurations in social and political balances that were taking place throughout the continent
The Institutionalisation of Squadrismo: Disciplining Paramilitary Violence in the Italian Fascist Dictatorship
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The Shadows of Social Fear: Emotions, Mentalities and Practices of the Propertied Classes in Italy, Spain and France (1900–1914)
Full text linkDespite the conventional images of the Belle Époque, the first fifteen years of the twentieth century were undermined by awareness that the foundations of civilized life were precarious. The article analyzes the fears and anxieties, and hopes and aspirations, of propertied classes in Italy, France, and Spain in the fifteen years preceding the Great War. The aims of the article are twofold. First it analyzes perceptions of fear during major strikes and daily life, relating them to those cultural factors (like religion and a preoccupation with private property) that contributed to shape and influence anxieties and uncertainness. Emotional experiences are examined in relation both to the political cultures that gave them significance and to the practices to which they gave rise and from which they also originated. Second, the article analyzes the “materiality” of emotions and the emotional characters, which are rooted in actions. Indeed, emotions act as a means of framing and reaching judgments on social events and may fuel organizational initiatives and even collective violent practices. Studying the interplay between emotions, political cultures, and practices in contexts of high-level political and social unrests, the article offers new insights into a broader comprehension of a crucial (though sometimes underestimated) period in European history
In defence of freedom? the practices of armed movements in pre-1914 Europe: Italy, Spain and France
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