SALVATORE Vaiana, Thought and action of a sister union
Incipit
CONTENTS 1. The roots in the farming world
2. Founder and leader of the revolutionary syndicalist
Group 3. Conquering the world peasant
4. "The Germ", a newspaper for the Resistance
5. The union-revolutionary thought
6. A co-operative to drain the state
7. Contributor newspaper cutting edge
8. Anti-clericalism and declared Freemasonry Invisible
9. Dall'antimilitarismo the beam interventionist
10. From combat to anti-Fascist
"I said, anarchist or communist or anything like that, he was accused
to be disruptive consciences
saboteur of every discipline, poisoner of the masses, he
, Vito Mercadante,
whose life was all up document integrity and goodness
(released in Sicily, 1944).
It was not an anarchist, Vito Mercadante nor communist, but trade union activities of genuine faith in the revolutionary Florio of Palermo.
not "created" Prizzi in the peasant movement, nor could he fight against the "Don Virticchiu" backed by private guards, but it is in verse of love and pain is a microcosm of hardworking farmers who aspired to land and freedom.
was fundamental but its contribution to penetrazione delle idee del Sindacalismo nel mondo contadino inviando gli intellettuali sindacalisti in roccaforti del socialismo rurale come Prizzi e Corleone.
1. Le radici nel mondo contadino
Da Villafrati «ho visto partire in gran fretta il battaglione Bassini», scrisse Cesare Abba in Da Quarto al Volturno. Noterelle d’uno dei Mille. Per quale motivo, il 26 giugno 1860, il Consiglio di guerra garibaldino decise di inviare con urgenza un battaglione al comando del maggiore Bassini? Questa l’agghiacciante risposta: «A Prizzi, che deve essere un villaggio poco lontano, vi è gente che si è messa a far sangue e roba, come se non vi fosse più nessuno a comandare. [...] Chi laggiù Badi's hands are gross in its facts. " About two months later, there were Bronte "division of property, fire, revenge and orgies to obscure the sun, and come alive to Garibaldi." In a tough Proclamation of Nino Bixio, Bronte was accused "against humanity" and therefore was declared a "state of siege." Offenders were tried by the council of war, six were shot, others sent to prison. "In jail?" Stammered the astonished coal Freedom Verga's novella "O why? I have not touched even an inch of ground! If they had said there was freedom !...».
were guilty of having desecrated the peasants for the first time the sacred land of the masters. But, says a ragione il poeta, che pure esalta Bixio come «fasciu di nervi tuttu azzaru, / terribili comu è furia di mari, / vrazzu di mari ginirusu e amaru»: «La terra ‘un è di nuddu, ma è di tutti, / di tutti chiddi chi cu lu suduri / ni fannu maturari li gran frutti». E per questa evidente verità di «lu zzù Vitu», lo slogan dei contadini in lotta sarebbe stato “La terra a chi la lavora”, un obiettivo raggiunto con sangue e lacrime dopo innumerevoli battaglie.
«Dopo Bronte», racconta Abba, la stessa sorte toccò a Randazzo, Castiglione, Regalbuto, Centorbi ed altri sfortunati villaggi che «sentirono la stretta della mano possente» di Bixio, al quale «gridarono behind: Beast. " Fortunately, in Prizzi's events had a different course. Bassini accompanying the battalion came from the legendary 'Pantaleo riding "an old mare, safe in the saddle, as one who, under the tunic, dressed as a soldier." Like Abba, Mercadante also would have enhanced the charm and speaking skills in his poem Sissanta Lu. The Dominicans' lu Populu fistanti "who warned in his captivating oratory a vague hope of social change. The Garibaldi, received "as a principle," celebrated with "luminary, dinners, dances," and dismissed by the joyful cries of "beautiful women" prizzesi who exclaimed, "Blessed! Bedd! "Not made the mistake che avrebbero commesso a Bronte e andarono via «mortificati» per l’abbaglio che li aveva spinti in così alta vetta. Da allora quella vaga speranza di artigiani e contadini del remoto «villaggio» si sarebbe trasformata gradualmente in solida coscienza di classe.
Il primo segno concreto del processo di emancipazione sociale fu la costituzione, nel 1874, di una Società di mutuo soccorso fra gli operai prizzesi, costituita «per promuovere il miglioramento progressivo in tutte le classi, mercé l’educazione, l’istruzione, il lavoro, il risparmio e tutto quanto ispira il dovere verso la famiglia e la patria».
La svolta storica si ebbe due decenni dopo, nel 1893, con le lotte del Fascio dei Lavoratori. To support the establishment of Corleone was the one who would become a respected partner of Mercadante, Bernardino Verro. In it he formed an avant-garde country with a leader of extraordinary moral courage and intelligence, Nicola Alongi "vanguard of the genre," says the historian prof. Giuseppe Carlo Marino, "it would be unimaginable in real agricultural Prizzi [...] [...] granted without considering the influence of the peasant poet Vito Alongi from [...] railroad Mercadante. Mercadante
not able to attend the birth and the struggles of the peasant movement because, after having attended elementary school in Prizzi, he moved to Palermo, where he continued gli studi. Restò però profondamente legato ai contadini e all’amico e compagno Alongi, con il quale intrattenne per un ventennio relazioni politiche e sindacali.
Prizzi contadina il nostro sindacalista-poeta la immortalò in Focu di Muncibeddu, il suo capolavoro poetico che canta in versi di luminosa speranza le fatiche immani del dignitoso contadino emarginato nei latifondi desolati e assolati: «Suda, fatica e sonna lu viddanu ... / ... si va a sarma, quant’havi arricampari; / fa lu cuntu, s’aiuta cu li manu; / tantu havi a dari e tantu po’ ristari // paga li detti, si rumpi li tagghi, / e resta francu di catini e magghi. // [...] // E lu viddanu, poviru minnuni, / cunta li mazzi chi it's up to them Patruno, / those who think it's up to lu lu cchiù Patruno / think of the fate which is so stark, / / \u200b\u200band tuttu Sangu know Sudur and hardship, / and Iddu 'a nn'arresta almost there nents. But freedom from chains and hammers the farmer no longer has to conquer it by paying the debts to the owners, but fighting against them, resisting the temptations of corrupt politicians and mobsters and voting with the Socialist League, "Cumarca Latrun, jitivinni, / c all sapemu them, they wounds, / va jitivinni to circari to cu 'is Vinni; / iu votu cu alloy, on' Cumpagnia ...». Improvement of farmers in the League, of which President Nicholas Alongi "canusci tuttu duluri lu, / the amarizzi, them by great hardship and penises, / the whole truth, tuttu the Amur, "are the only hope of redemption from slavery.
2. Founder and leader of the revolutionary syndicalist group
In Palermo Mercadante maintained a lively trade union and political action, respectively, in the Chamber of Labour and social circles.
The Chamber of Labour was born in 1901 on the initiative of Rosario Garibaldi Bosco, historic leader of the Sicilian Fasci. It was for some years secretary Emanuele Raimondi, a reformer with an interlude "between the revolutionary syndicalists" (G. Miccichè).
The "Nene Raimondi good '- we read about the Socialist Nicola Barbato - became Secretary of the Stock Exchange of Employees, a union, reports Frank Grasso, "established" by Mercadante.
Since 1896 the city was an active reformist Socialist Club, directed by Alessandro Tasca and had as its official organ of the press "The Battle", one of whose editors are Nicola Alongi.
In December 1903 Giuseppe Garibaldi Bosco formed, in contrast to the current reform, the Socialist Federation of Palermo revolutionary inspiration.
addition to the current reform of Filippo Turati and the revolutionary Enrico Ferri, there existed a third, the revolutionary syndicalist Arturo Labriola, represented in Palermo by the "trade unionist Revolutionary Group," whose founder - told in his short film Vincent Purpura, a prestigious and historical memory component of this organization - was Mercadante.
And it was still him, "singular figure of poet, educator and patriarch," which, to his great charisma, he became "the undisputed leader."
We were part of a group of young "inexperienced, penniless, and inexperienced dreamers" Purpura recalled, "a trusted and true friends of gruppu 'idealists and fighters ready to" hunt dead dari them rascals / cu punches to make them priputenti 'is' great joy lu luttari first idea. " This writes the poet in revolutionary miraculu Lu. They were those young Vito Mercadante, Enrico Loncao, Vincent Purpura, Albeggiani Ferdinando, Gioacchino Drago, Peter Dragon, Bernardino Verro, Vincent Savoy, Manlio Lo Iacono, Archimedes Caserta, Carmelo Li Vigni, Mario Fleres, lawyer. Roxas and others 'scattered elements' in the rest of Sicily.
also form part - this should be made well in relief, and they will understand why later in the - "some" workers of the Parties to the Palermo shipyard Fiom and "many farmers in Corleone and Piana degli Albanesi.
in the "syndicalist revolutionary," writes historian Joseph Micciche, was formed, along with Frank Sanza and others, a young working-class printer, John Orcel, who "probably belonged or were close to the group that gathered around The Torch and the germ, had started a small youth club, very active in anti-militarist propaganda, perched on revolutionary positions. "
a significant commitment of some theoretical and cultural-intellectual revolutionary trade union, as evidenced by the extensive news production at the national, regional and local levels. The Torch Purpura directed the weekly, published from 1 May to 16 September 1905, and contributed to the Socialist Youth of Rome, the newspaper of the Socialist Youth Federation led by Alceste De Ambris and Paul Oran. On Naples and sull'Avanguardia Socialist Propaganda in Milan, directed by Arturo Labriola, Henry seems to write Loncao. In Palermo the journals were published The Germ trade unionists, the vanguard of association and the proletarian vanguard. Domestically, the Group made reference to the journal Social Becoming, edited by Enrico Leone and Paul Mantica. Mercadante
debut in politics by supporting an opposition to the inflexible "popular front", a coalition of socialists and radical reformers was born in Palermo in 1900 under the auspices of Florio. The origin of the opposition "of trade unionists in Sicily at the" popular front "" There was - note AM Citizens Cyprus - "the uncompromising maximalist anarcho-syndicalist, then blocking any single policy and compromise with the ruling class. " Wrote in this regard "The Battle" on the "revolutionary" and "intransigent" Henry Loncao "This puppet was loquacissimo [...] that we in the Socialist Club Palermo did not deserve the quality of socialists because sometimes we had committed the sacrilege of ally with the radical party - and the young man with the lantern scocciologo went searching all the episodes (and was there when they invented them) from which it emerged that we had erred in tactics and we had drifted away from Marxist Directive. Wretch! "
3. Conquering the world peasant
As the current leader of the union Mercadante was a tireless organizer of several city workers alloys which referred to the Chamber of Labour (later the Stock Exchange of Workers) and a landmark of the national peasant movement not only of Prizzi but also to other municipalities of the interior. This is not surprising, in fact, part of the objectives of the Revolutionary Syndicalism 'social bloc' worker-peasants. Gramsci writes in this regard in southern Some topics of the question, "Trade unionism is the expression of instinctive, elemental, primitive, but healthy, working against the blockade of the reaction of the bourgeoisie and for the block with the peasants and farmers with the first southerners. That's right: indeed, in a sense, syndicalism è un debole tentativo dei contadini meridionali, rappresentati dai loro intellettuali più avanzati, di dirigere il proletariato». Nella dimensione siciliana fra questi intellettuali primeggiavano Mercadante, Purpura e Loncao.
Attraverso i suoi intellettuali-militanti il sindacalismo palermitano entrò diverse volte in contatto con il movimento contadino e i suoi dirigenti nel tentativo appunto di dar vita al blocco operai-contadini. In tal senso Loncao - autore di originali saggi sul socialismo, le classi rurali e la borghesia in Sicilia, pubblicati nel 1900 su alcuni numeri de “La Battaglia” - «riconosceva che il destino del socialismo in Sicilia fosse legato alla “conquista” dei contadini, [...] che la lotta against the estate is not just about farmers, but urban democratic forces, from laborers to small and middle-class, "and" formulate a hypothesis for redemption in rural areas which would have been middle-class take on "advanced" city "(A . Corselli).
With these convictions, 24 April 1903 he attended the Congress of Corleone between the Leagues and the agricultural cooperatives in Sicily, during which he carried a report on agricultural loans and shared with farmers' leaders, including Nicola Alongi, the need to develop a solid organization of the rural proletariat.
in 1904 was a tragic event for a few weeks to bring town and country: the massacre of Castelluzzo September 13, caused by the police during a demonstration by workers. In protest, on the initiative of the Chamber of Labour of Milan and the revolutionary syndicalists was proclaimed the first general strike in the history of Italy. The union hoped that it opened its coveted social revolution. In Palermo, the event shook his left, reformist and trade union leader, who joined the strike. Arturo Labriola pressure from the strike went on for a few days but in the end for the trade unionists did not have the desired results. That massacre ignited the spirit of our revolutionary poet who wrote a poem for a perpetual memory, Castelluzzo precisely (with a dedication to Mario Rapisarda and Nicola Barbato) from which we report a sonnet whose title, "The Fight" is one of the key concepts of the union thought:
insult coward and liar
said the fierce these serene;
svelaron pure heart, strong and sincere,
caused by so damned;
weapons but not the power of thought
resisted, the force of those breasts ...
is dyed red in the healthy path,
the generous blood of the elect. It
the terrible struggle, tall, giant
gl'inermi appeared in the middle of the floor ...
but brutal force he saw them crushed.
compartment at that hour was to be the father
the last was already out injured,
quando sperava riabbracciar la madre.
A Palermo il tragico evento acuì la polemica all’interno del Partito socialista, ne è testimonianza la seguente analisi delle tipologie di sciopero, pubblicata dai riformisti su La Battaglia, volta a evidenziare le inconciliabili posizioni di riformisti e sindacalisti rivoluzionari: «Tutti i socialisti del mondo, senza distinzione di scuola [...] convengono nell’idea che lo sciopero generale sia uno strumento prezioso di lotta, che occorra difendere le libertà politiche del proletariato. [...] Lo sciopero generale classico, inteso rivoluzionariamente, è un atto di ribellione aperta da consumare in un dato giorno, in un dato momento, a scadenza fissa, per scalzare dal potere la borghesia e per instaurare il regime dell’eguaglianza sociale. Tra lo sciopero generale così inteso e lo sciopero politico c’è insomma la stessa differenza che intende tra i due concetti “rivoluzione economica” e “rivoluzione politica”. In Francia una frazione del P[artito] Socialista – forte il prestigio della tradizione – è fautrice dello sciopero generale inteso come atto di liberazione dal secolare dominio di classe. In Italia soltanto il gruppo estremo capitanato dal Labriola condivide tale idea – mentre l’enorme maggioranza degli stessi rivoluzionari, Ferri compreso, s’oppone a tale concetto assolutamente antiscientifico».
Ancora nel 1904, a Palermo the contradictions within the Socialist Party emerged during the political conflict-electoral reformers collided with the revolutionary syndicalists bitterly attacking Loncao Henry, "the" revolutionary "Loncao - you read about The Battle of November 13 - quell'emerito nuisance that has racked by years his bilietta harmless on the various avant-garde and Propaganda in the kingdom, has argued in recent elections with all its stunted intellectual and oratorical's candidacy [...] Garibaldi Bosco, "these lines were therefore relations between the two socialist currents, conflicting reports on the edge of cleavage (which in fact would have consumed nationwide in 1908, during the Congresso del Partito socialista).
Nel 1907, anno di svolta organizzativa per il Sindacalismo rivoluzionario, Mercadante inviò il giovane Purpura a Corleone, per sostenere le lotte dei contadini, il quale racconta quell’esperienza nei citati Cortometraggi.
«Frequentavo già da qualche anno la Camera del Lavoro, organizzando e dirigendo “leghe” e scioperi, quando, nel 1907, Vito Mercadante, il più autorevole e amato compagno del nostro “Gruppo Sindacalista Rivoluzionario”, mi propose di recarmi a Corleone ove quei contadini, educati alla scuola di Bernardino Verro, allora profugo in Tunisia, gli avevano richiesto un “compagno” che li guidasse nello sciopero da loro already announced and implemented against gabelloti and landowners.
On impulse, opposition suffered a refusal: I had no experience of peasant struggles, environmental or agricultural [...]. To my objection
Vito Mercadante opposed his father and sympathetic smile, followed by a clear understanding of the terms of the struggle waged by the strikers to get the best rates to laborers and leasing of a feud their thriving cooperative hitherto exclusive monopoly maffioso. I also explained what was to be held in place with absolute intransigence and what could be the subject of negotiations, and said sure, he can not get away from the office of the FF., No, in his thoughtful opinion, better than I could replace it and better respond to the confident expectation and his fellow Corleone.
After much discussion and so I had to end up giving the owners of the group, almost complete (we were not many), with Vito Mercadante in the head, accompanied me in the early hours of the morning, the station of S. Erasmus. "
4. "The Germ", a newspaper for the Resistance
The 1907 was a watershed year organization, as mentioned above, since November 3, during a conference of trade unionists in their relations with the revolutionary CGdL (General Confederation of Labour ), was born the "National Committee of Resistance," with the objective politico di «indebolire ed eliminare la classe e lo Stato borghese». Vi aderirono i ferrovieri che avevano dato vita a un grandioso movimento di lotta e che erano in rotta con i dirigenti della CGdL. Del movimento dei ferrovieri Mercadante fu un dirigente di prestigio nazionale e del Comitato Siciliano della Resistenza un autorevole membro.
Fu nel clima di costruzione del «Comitato Nazionale della Resistenza» che a Palermo il Gruppo Sindacalista Rivoluzionario fondò Il Germe, «giornale quindicinale di propaganda socialista».
Il giornale era diretto da Purpura, coadiuvato da alcuni giovani tra i quali Felice Caserta e Girolamo Sirretta. Nel 1909 ne era direttore responsabile Romeo Di Giovanni.
Fra i collaboratori troviamo il contadino Alongi, ormai un riconosciuto rappresentante di quella Sicilia del latifondo nella quale i sindacalisti continuavano a portare avanti l’«opera di propaganda e d’organizzazione», come si deduce dal seguente passo di un articolo del giornale: «Il movimento proletario in quei centri della provincia di Girgenti e di Palermo che fanno parte della Federazione Socialista del Lavoro è degna di rilievo. Le società federate sono quelle di Prizzi, Palazzo, Chiusa, Burgio, Villafranca, Lucca, Calamonaci e Ribera».
Attraverso Mercadante e Il Germe, Alongi costituiva un ponte fra il Sindacalismo palermitano e il socialismo rurale prizzese. Fu Il Germe che pubblicò Il credo del Lavoratore, una originale composizione di Alongi of apparent clerical flavor, which was republished in 1911 on the Vanguard unionist:
"I believe in God almighty job.
Creator of all the riches on earth
who does not work and I think this one lives on its food and our sweat.
He was conceived by the power, virtue and ignorance of the worker. He was born
injustice.
He suffered and still suffering under all governments
that more male workers are skinned and made to die from hunger. Here
has come to judge that those who do not work shall not eat. And I think the holy
organization of workers, resistance alloy, strike and boycott as the basis of class struggle,
communion dei beni, la buona vita in terra e così è la verità.»
Contro il clericalismo, e contro il militarismo, d’altra parte i sindacalisti rivoluzionari portavano avanti una lotta senza quartiere diffondendo materiali propagandistici: «Per ordinazione di opuscoli di propaganda elementare socialista, antimilitarista ed anticlericale – informava “Il Germe” - rivolgersi sempre alla nostra amministrazione».
Luogo di riunione del Gruppo Sindacalista era la Camera del Lavoro: «I compagni tutti – leggiamo sul giornale – restano avvisati, una volta per sempre, che le riunioni del gruppo hanno luogo ogni venerdì alle ore 20 precise, alla Camera del Lavoro». E la Camera del Lavoro era anche luogo di riunione del Circolo Giovanile Socialista, una realtà organizzativa così rara in Sicilia da preoccupare i nostri sindacalisti, come si evince dal seguente articolo del 1° febbraio 1909: «È dunque impossibile costituire in Sicilia dei Circoli Giovanili Socialisti? Io credo di no. Vero è che in Sicilia, a tutt’oggi, non esistono che due Circoli giovanili (l’uno a Palermo l’altro a Marsala). [...] È dunque necessario che i compagni nostri pensino a costituire delle organizzazioni giovanili specialmente là ove, come a Lucca, a Prizzi, a Palazzo Adriano, a Canicattì ecc. i giovani lavoratori sono in gran parte fra i migliori e più entusiasti compagni. Chiunque poi desideri, on respect, explanations or instructions, please contact the partner Purpura at the Germ. " The objective is to organize the youth of these centers is further evidence of strategic interest to the rural reality of trade unionism. In the House of Labor
Mercadante played a central role on reception of refugees from Messina earthquake of 28 December 1908 earthquake that destroyed a large part of the city, which he was particularly close. Here is a testimony on: "They were, at the Labour, hospitalized hundreds and hundreds of refugees who had, by the workers, the most loving care, [...] the abundance and good quality of food. " And while failing to ensure "the abundance and good quality, our Vito Mercadante could, on behalf of the Chamber of Labour, the Citizens' Committee to deliver more than L. 700. At that event disturbing our poet wrote the SMO and the earth.
In 1909, he played the National Congress of the Resistance, which the newspaper gave prominence of June 1, highlighting the great success: "The Congress of Resistance [...] anointed an agenda the concept that the germ has so often explained and defended. Here is the agenda: "The Congress declares that the following organizations the tactic of direct action, support the absolute incompatibility between the functions of class organization and any interference in the election campaign of this policy and administration, and the need for trade unions to maintain the strictest neutrality in the face of all political parties and groups, and not allow anyone to interfere in the internal management of these organizations themselves. "
At the same time Congress took place on the railroad. At the conclusion of the work, the Congress declared "their determination to exclude from their share for every rush of politicians recognizing the spirit of the general strike." The outcome of the congress was considered "another triumph of unionism." And what was
unionism wrote it in an effective synthesis "The Germ", "Trade unionism is not the worker-socialism, socialism that is understood not as the product of any one party, but as the natural outcome of the fight to the bitter end between the working class and the class of exploiters. Syndicalism Socialism is reduced to its pure sources of pride and fighting spirit, and can all be summed up in Marx's motto "The emancipation of workers must be the work of the employees". "
For a better understanding of the thinking of trade unionism, and then the thought of Mercadante, it is now necessary to point out some key issues better.
5. The union thought
-revolutionary syndicalism was a movement born and developed in France in the late nineteenth century, whose aim was to develop a union based on the bourses du travail and independent from political parties who, rejecting the political initiative parliamentary and reformist socialists and practicing alternative general strike (as a social revolution), aimed to conquer the working of economic power. It was recognized ideologist
engineer and philosopher Georges Sorel, a figure of European Socialists Considers that Gramsci, in his Prison Notebooks, "a sincere friend of the proletariat", though he criticizes "the curious antigiacobinismo 'which bull as "sectarian, narrow, unhistorical," and accuses him of "fetishism or trade union economism."
Sorel was well known to unionists from Palermo, who drew this brief profile, "Georges Sorel is a loner: His biography is very short and simple: des ponts et Chaussées engineer from 1870 to 1892, then voluntarily left employment in order to to sociological studies. [...] It is a very critical view and cultured, it is a philosophical spirit, which proceeds in a methodical and cautious [...] In France is the most competent of Marxism. "
note are the references to the philosophy of Sorel Henri-Louis Bergson and in particular the principle Elan Vital, the "vital force" inherent in human nature. In the version that makes the social Marxist revisionist, the elan vital of the masses is expressed in direct action, ie in the proletarian general strike, called "the myth in which he has all the integer socialism", whose future "is all in the autonomous development of trade unions. "
In Italy the political thought of the French philosopher was conveyed by Arturo Labriola, Enrico Leone and Paul Oran. His ideas were also known through the translation of his works published by Sandron, which was based in Palermo.
Traces of debate on Sorel find them on the occasion of the publication of his book Essays critical of Marxism, published in 1903. The book was reviewed in the newspaper The Battle of March 15, 1903 by a sister who was signed from Palermo Eugenia "A good book, to be recommended to all those socialists and socialists, but especially to social workers dealing with the seriousness of the theoretical basis of socialism '. In the reviewer's social-reformist newspaper said controversy with a negative opinion on the French philosopher: "Our dear collaborator merely an exhibition - very useful indeed in a country of people who read a little - the contents of the book by Sorel. [...] The address trace it to the international socialist party is a confusing address and not at all clear. "
There is no documentation indicating when and how Mercadante had landed in this current revision of Marxism which is the sister unions, so you can only make assumptions about.
Professor. Marino has suggested that the roots of Mercadante's sister and his "anarcho-libertarian ideals' may be in the line of thought-Garibaldi Pisacane-Proudhon. On the other hand, says the historian of thought socialist GDH Cole Sorel, "was his remarkable resemblance to Proudhon, Sorel, and in fact had great admiration for him and quoted him often."
is possible that he had approached the sister in the course of its initiative in that railroad workers' union that as was said, had sided with the National Committee of Resistance.
"In 1902, Mercadante was not a sister convinced", says the prof. Mercadante, serious scholar eponymous uncle, it would become gradually, and finally, through a careful reading "of the currents of European thought" made possible by his extensive education. In his library, among the "thousands of works in its possession, bought with sacrifice and patience, in the course of an entire existence," says Lorenzo Marino, were the writings of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Paul Lafargue, Jean Jaures, Antonio Labriola, Vilfredo Pareto, Benedetto Croce (of which he criticized, in Complain about a newspaper called dead, the points made in Historical Materialism and Marxist economics, a work published in Palermo in 1900). And there were mainly the writings of Sorel. Our intellectual, still tells Marino, "had come across in a fancy French scholar, best known in Italy than at home: Georges Sorel who had read the essays of criticism of Marxism (1903) and, in the original Italian edition," Social Teachings today's economy "." Among the texts of Sorel, marines it draws attention in a particular "on the shelves of Uncle Vito did a fine show" Reflexion sur la violence "Pages libres of the library in 1908 and translation, the following year, the same book, by A. Sarno, with an introduction by B. Cross. "
should now be groped a framework for certain aspects of the political thought of Mercadante. To do this, using some key concepts of revolutionary unionism (unions and the state in the first place, and then parliamentarism, social legislation, social struggle, the party), make a comparison between the political principles expressed in a piecemeal fashion by Mercadante in his writings (newspaper articles , manuscript, essay Railways for railway workers) and the principles expressed in its most elaborate form by Labriola in Reform and Social Revolution (1904) and in trade unionism and Reformation (1905), two basic texts of trade unionism Italian. In the first work
Labriola clear that the relationship between trade unionism and state: "In contrast there nationalization and trade unionism. Instead of all around and reduce the power of the state is the directive of trade unionism. [...] In this, the revolutionary character of trade union reformism: it is purely negative, as it seeks to avoid and prevent state intervention. [...] A class liberalism here unionism. " Mercadante expressed clearly his vision soreliana State and the union in its report "Resistance, cooperation, mutuality," here's the news summary, "Vito Mercadante, speaker, looks at the reason, activity, the purpose of the organization working in the organization opposed bourgeois. Organ par excellence of the first is the union of the Second State. The difference between the two organizations is only the dynamic fact. Shows how the union is intended to empty the state of all its content and become the center of a new society based on workers' (our italics.). In a manuscript enters more explicitly on the substantive vision of the state as an instrument of repression of the bourgeoisie (in his paper described as a product of oppression and agency policy "):" The bourgeoisie has created for itself a weapon of defense and repression, overlapping policy , the military, burocrazia, la scuola, le leggi (successioni, diritto, religione), il governo». È la teoria soreliana dello Stato formulata in L’avvenire socialista dei sindacati, in cui il passaggio all’autogoverno dei produttori è prospettato come passaggio di potere dallo Stato ai sindacati. Teoria ripresa in Italia da Labriola: «Lo Stato non si espugna come un castello: si vuota progressivamente, secondo la bella immagine del Sorel, del contenuto suo» (corsivo ns.). Questa teoria viene poi abbandonata per quella della distruzione violenta dello Stato esposta in Considerazioni sulla violenza: «La borghesia ha adoperato la forza, dal sorgere dei tempi moderni; laddove il proletariato reagisce ora, contro di essa e contro lo Stato, con la violenza».
A proposito dell’antistatalismo del Sindacalismo rivoluzionario - «definito argutamente come una “anarchia organizzata”» (B. Russel) - Labriola chiarisce assai bene che esso «è cosa ben diversa» da quello degli anarchici: «il primo tende a trasferire l’autorità dello Stato nel sindacato di mestiere; il secondo a disperderla affatto. Il primo è nella sua indole organizzatore e disciplinatore; il secondo è contrario ad ogni regola prestabilita di autorità, anche consensuale». Noi, precisa Labriola «distribuiamo l’autorità dello Stato nei Sindacati; gli anarchici la disperdono nell’individuo» e «scorgiamo nello sviluppo same labor union, laws of growth of this new corporate body, the objective necessity which is an organ of the Union authoritarian, which is gradually replacing the rule. " From conception
antistatism Mercadante comes a strongly negative parliamentarism, "The State, as it is, in the succession of ineffectual governments faction, with or without program requires fatally, in all manifestations of social life with which it has dealings his law of conservation misoneistica, now it's all in the military and bureaucratic expansion, and the parliamentary system high and low, is not the largest agency in which the affairs of the capitalists, landlords, large industry, are agreed with these two great business ... collective. "
In the context of the opinions expressed on the rule and the parliamentary system, he "criticized the much-vaunted social legislation as absolutely useless, or harmful" (a criticism already made by Labriola: "We are wary of all that social legislation, the reform promises daily at expectant populace. It is well known that the legislature can not exercise a significant influence on the process of work "). In the above manuscript exposes more accurately his thoughts: "The social legislation ['s] bank that the capitalist system opposed to the march of the proletariat. [...] The law does not improve conditions of the worker. [...] The law preserves the proletariat ... we therefore exclude from the possibility of proletarian consciousness transformation law, the immediate purpose of using it as an exercise (letter to Sorel) ... and leaving it to the needs of the case, the explosion of such struggles [social], leaving the initiative in social reform entirely the bourgeoisie, which is more interested in doing that it is not the proletariat, and because it does not breach the social conception that is proper. "
rejected the parliamentary road to change, he opts for a radical "social struggle" to bourgeois power which, as we know, is in direct action of workers, ie in the proletarian general strike, which must inevitably assume an illegal (a position close to Sorel's remarks on violence): "The cause ethical and social dynamics of the new struggle is in the new concept for universal exercise of social power. [...] What is power? The possibility of having one's own use and consumption of all the forces of a society. The character of the struggle must therefore necessarily be all outside the law and against the law, because then we would run for legislative seats? To lose its value to the proletarian consciousness extra law? "(Our italics).
On the latter aspect of the negativity of participation" to legislative seats "Mercadante takes extreme positions within the same unions as evidenced by a comparison with the positions of Labriola, who, criticizing the anti-parliamentarian of the anarchists, declaring that" the organic conception of trade unionism and progressive repugnant to admit that organizations renounce workers to conduct their battle even on that land, which, by now, you negotiate all the supreme interests of bourgeois society, the parliamentary field. " For him "there is neither one can see the reasons why the working class should refrain from participating in elected assemblies." From
rejection of the elections, the parliamentary system and the laws it follows Mercadante severe criticism of the Socialist Party (from which we can understand the sense of criticism - reported by Richard Ravegnana - that the Communist Girolamo Li Cause, a supporter of the party's historical role as a guide workers toward socialism, is to "figure features anarchist leaders of the labor movement, the Vito Mercadante, of Guarro, of Raimondi, who had at one time, did divert the labor movement deeply Palermo). He considers "the work of the Socialist Party, now ruinous, very useful when it was used in yeast to the formation of workers' associations, giving workers the consciousness of their place in society."
The criticism of the Socialist Party e all’«elezionismo» apre l’opuscolo di Mercadante Le ferrovie ai ferrovieri: «Il partito socialista prepara a sé, invecchiando, un onorato riposo a Corte, ed il neo partito sindacalista naviga tra il terrore o l’errore elezionista e la sola azione proletaria.»
6. Una cooperativa per vuotare lo Stato
Uno dei temi più dibattuti nell’Italia giolittiana era la cattiva gestione delle ferrovie, annosa questione di difficile soluzione che influì sia sulla nascita del Sindacalismo rivoluzionario sia sulle scelte politiche e sindacali di Vito Mercadante. Per inquadrare il problema bisogna risalire alla legge del 1865 che affidò la costruzione e l’esercizio delle strade ferrate a società private perlopiù francesi. Queste sentirono così forte gli effetti della crisi del periodo 1888-94 che a fine secolo non furono in grado di dare una risposta adeguata alle necessità della ripresa economica. Si aggiunga a ciò le frequenti lotte per i miglioramenti retributivi condotte dal personale ferroviario, organizzato nella sua punta più avanzata nel Riscatto ferroviario, sindacato vicino alle posizioni rivoluzionarie di Labriola. Sulla gestione delle ferrovie l’orientamento delle forze di sinistra era tutt’altro che unitario: i radicali e i socialisti riformisti erano favorevoli alla statalizzazione, i socialisti labriolani erano al contrario favorevoli alla privatizzazione, mentre i repubblicani erano orientati a un’autogestione su base cooperativistica. Mercadante, che alle lotte dei ferrovie dedicava un impegno notevole, avrebbe sostenuto – come vedremo - posizioni più vicine a quelle dei repubblicani che a quelle labriolane.
Le trattative con le compagnie per lungo tempo non arrivarono a nessuna conclusione, fino a quando nel 1905 fu approvato in Parlamento il progetto di esercizio statale delle ferrovie. «I sapienti proposero, sostennero ed imposero – scrisse Mercadante con non troppo velata amarezza – l’esercizio di Stato, con l’aiuto della organizzazione dei ferrovieri, i quali pur non accettando in maggioranza tal forma di amministrazione, la subivano col beneficio di inventario, e più la favorivano, sacrificando at that time the program is its economic, social beliefs, because the majority then saw in that step a step towards their ideas. " Under the new law networks Sicula, Adriatic and Mediterranean passed since 1 July 1905, the management of the state. Mercadante So remember, five years later, the struggles waged by the railroad to achieve and consolidate the objective of nationalization, "Without mentioning the struggles that until 1902 had the support staff to get organic and regulations, which even had the right since 1885 ; remember how much they were persecuted in the rail buy-back those old railroad company against which many of those screaming who are silent today, we remember the heroic struggle, heroism more beautiful, one without reward and without merit, supported by this class of workers in the interest of the whole nation, from 1905 to 1906, when, and the facts are quite well known, could only energy and honesty to assert the autonomy of the railway station against the hidden arts of private companies. " To manage an autonomous state was created whose management was entrusted to Richard Smith, former head of the Sicilian network. But even this administration gave good results we have created managerial inefficiency and discontent among the railway workers. This prompted
Mercadante to become a promoter of a challenging initiative value both in terms of national struggle on that claim is the development of an alternative solution to the management of existing railways. Hence the rail to rail, published in Milan in 1911. Mercadante says there that the Railways should be entrusted by the State to "railroad created a cooperative" for "carrying out the same." The immediate motivation of this step is expressed as follows: "The State - unless they confess to be the interest of a few and that is what we support - really collective interests, can not and must administer the railways to support with these reasons our thesis is the fact the disastrous experiment of five years of operation state. " We have also added the usefulness of the operation: "A cooperative station would give the advantage of immediate cessation of political mean everything in today's rush policy contributes to damage the railway budget, namely: small personal favors, recruitment service, removal of protection. " (Our italics).
At the bottom of the idea of \u200b\u200bcooperative management of the railways is perhaps a deeper motivation. There is the idea of \u200b\u200b'self-government for the production work of the working class "(Labriola) applicable to a particular reality of private industry but a service of the State. In short, if Labriola argues that "the revolutionary act of taking possession of the means of production for each industry by the union of the workers of the industry determines the transition from capitalism to socialism," Mercadante, by analogy, the idea seems to foreshadow that the revolutionary act of managing cooperative work for the railroad will help to empty the state's functions and determine the "transition from capitalism to socialism." Not supported on the other hand Mercadante (following Sorel and Labriola) that the union had the historic task of "emptying the state of all its contents" to "become the center of a new society based on workers'? The railroad to railroaders
is an essay inspired by the theories of trade unionism Sorel Sorel even published when she had already moved away from revolutionary syndicalism and approached (in 1910) to proto-fascist Action française monarchist movement. It is perhaps for this reason that Sorel in his letter to the author declines the invitation the following polite words to the preface of the essay: "I can not, much to the chagrin send the preface that you have the kindness to ask, in fact, is just one month, the "social development" published my pamphlet (Confessions) in which I wrote that this announcement will be the last I will give the unions. " The preface was written by Vilfredo Pareto and the letter was published in the paper under the title "The word 'practice of Sorel.
In the preface to the economist and sociologist, who was also director general of the Italian Railways, and a scholar and expert on high-profile shows not only favorable to the proposal, with which the railway workers' have demonstrated seriousness of purpose, strong will and perfect knowledge of the needs of the company, "but also provides useful tips on financing the cooperative," the issue of shares and bonds. " In the letter
ideologue French, turning to the "dear friend," Mercadante, declares its commitment to the project management of the railways Cooperative considering it as "workable for Italy." He agreed then with Mercadante risk of 'rush Parliamentary and the need to "defend themselves from state control." In order to avoid falling into the circuit of political corruption, and recommends that the State Cooperative draw up a contract that divides "exactly the powers of the state from that of cooperation": "The State shall establish the rates and would receive the goods received by the operators (under the supervision of its financial inspectors), the cooperative takes over for a certain fee. " One aspect to pay attention, suggests Sorel, è la redazione del contratto: «La grave difficoltà sarebbe di redigere il contratto in tal maniera che non permettesse la ricomparsa degli abusi che provocano oggi l’intervento dei deputati. Le società capitaliste che intraprendono l’esercizio delle ferrovie accettano spesso dei contratti che sarebbero rovinosi per esse, se non vi fossero delle clausole vaghe che permettono loro di crearsi dei profitti illeciti, grazie ai favori dei politicanti. Occorrerebbe che la cooperativa non fosse obbligata a sollecitare favori».
Sorel, infine, resta «sorpreso» nell’apprendere che due grandi economisti italiani, Maffeo Pantaleoni e Luigi Einaudi «sono ostili al progetto». La motivazione addotta da Einaudi is that 'the system of cooperative production has almost always bad results. " This response to the two economists Mercadante: "It is true, but how many non-capitalist enterprises fail? And almost always is not forever, which confirms the potential of cooperatives which give good results, and this must necessarily be the case of cooperative railway bureaucracy free from political, has no other purpose than the perfect technical and administrative performance of the company, as we have enough evidence, and because it is a cooperative that does not undergo a real competition, and because control of the parties and the government would direct and newspapers, and finally because and here lies the fundamental difference, and not insignificant, the illustrious Mr. Prof. Pantaleoni, including private companies and a cooperative station, it would not be one of the usual co-operatives in which the shareholders are content to know how much the insured per cent to capital invested, but of direct interest, men, upon which the good performance company to which they tied all their lives and their offspring. " Mercadante
concludes his essay with optimism saying that the 'new idea' of the cooperative railway workers will certainly be hampered by conflicting interests, but in the end "must penetrate because it is generated by life itself, and action is action; There are no sophistry can make it fall into nothing. " And the action is the revolutionary syndicalists, writes in the incipit of the essay, "proletarian action." The action (generated from life, the elan vital Bergsonian-sister!) Opens and closes in circular fashion, and not surprisingly, the rate of Mercadante making it a text not only of mere trade union proposal.
7. Contributor newspaper cutting edge
The demand for advanced management of railways by Mercadante was accompanied by harsh industrial action, whose chronicle was published in the newspaper of the revolutionary syndicalists in Sicily, the vanguard union, which began publication December 11, 1910. The article "The railroad crossed swords and act" is one of many journalistic accounts of the initiative of railway trade unionism, "several months" - it reads - 'the railroad, dignity and proudly claim to be shaken admirable discipline, harmony and wisdom. [...] Or equally improved our conditions or entrusted the management of railways ',' strong railroad "are" the vanguard of the great proletarian army "and" perhaps precisely for that were boycotted by the bourgeois press. "
Among the employees of the bi-revolutionary trade unions had an important role both as Mercadante Railway union leadership and as a member of the Regional Committee of the Resistance, of which the newspaper was the expression. A number of his articles published therein: in addition to the railroad, on prestigious personalities such as Napoleon and Colajanni Mario Rapisarda and on different policy issues.
Among the local correspondents of the newspaper there is also a former companion Mercadante, Nicholas Alongi, who, while fighting constantly "under the banner of the pure and immaculate Italian Socialist Party," was still open to confrontation with the trade unionists of the "Committee of resistance. " Uncompromising approach to the socialist revolutionary syndicalist Alongi to Mercadante was particularly radical critique of socialism reformist.
In April and May of 1911 The Vanguard union gave extensive information on the Sicilian Regional Congress Committee of the Resistance to be held in Caltanissetta, in the period May 14-15-16. Among its proponents was Mercadante. Congress participated in several peasant leaders in the province, including Barbato, Verro and Alongi. Interesting to get an idea of \u200b\u200bfraternal relations with the hardline socialists but independent of Syndicalism, the letter of accession to come: "Dear friends, I support wholeheartedly the idea launched by Corradetti for the convening of a conference in Sicily, where it is really learned to organize working-class associations, cooperatives, leghe, circoli che vedono e pensano che la lotta di classe, con tutte le sue conseguenze di propulsione e di elevazione. Sarò con voi. Saluti e auguri. Bernardino Verro». Nella sua lettera di adesione Barbato puntualizza ancor di più la sua diversità rispetto ai Sindacalisti: «Cara Avanguardia, Sindacalista non sono; ma da socialista alla vecchia maniera, fossilizzato, aderisco al congresso di Caltanissetta. [...] Non le teorie del Sindacalismo, ma i sindacati con anima proletaria sono necessari per mettere un freno alle degenerazioni del socialismo e del partito socialista».
Ad aprire la giornata congressuale nel ricordo di Lorenzo Panepinto, ucciso la sera del 16 maggio, fu il Nostro: «Vito Mercadante porta il saluto dei lavoratori di Palermo, saluto che vuole essere non convenzionale rettorica, ma invito all’azione. Lorenzo Panepinto ha, anche con la sua morte, dato un insegnamento altissimo al proletariato». Impegnato a relazionare su una impegnativa tematica, egli sarebbe ritornato sulla morte del maestro e dirigente proletario con un toccante articolo sull’imponente manifestazione proletaria tenuta nel paese di Panepinto: «La piccola Santostefano di Quisquina, - scrisse - desolata pur tra le sue ridenti campagne, perché muta nell’immenso dolore, fu per un giorno il cuore della Sicilia proletaria». Durante la manifestazione parlarono diversi oratori: Mercadante fu colpito dalla «terribile e poetica requisitoria di Nicola Alongi». A few months after a "vile attack" on Bernardino Verro would have predicted the tragic fate: November 3, 1915, in fact, the Socialist mayor would have fallen under the blows of the "old maffia Corleone [...] gabelloti" that he knew well as said Loncao. Mercadante
the Congress focuses on a theme dear to him, cooperation, which are below the newspaper account:
Mercadante: "How much cooperation is undeniable that it is often able to create sinecures for the big boys, but it is also undeniable that, through it, workers can greatly improve their conditions. The danger of co-operatives are in fact essentially that become closed to any spirit of class struggle and animated by a narrow utilitarianism, they end up doing the works of bourgeois and even if aided by public entities, domestication.
cooperation for co-operation has nothing subversive and in fact it may be desired even by priests, by royalists, by conservatives. But since the cooperation is presented, especially in the form of a lease as a true collective need for organizations of our countries, we can not nor should we reject them, but accept them as collateral to the resistance organizations, as a means to strengthen the alloys and keep socii narrow and related to them. On the other hand, the cooperation can benefit the development workers than in the technical and administrative capacity necessary for the advent of a society in which it is entrusted to the producers themselves the management of production tools.
As to consumer cooperatives and to the Charity, it should serve as the immediate satisfaction of those interests which are not least because of enrollment of workers in their resistance organizations. The mutual aid can therefore serve as a means of propaganda, when the reaction is resistance. "
answered him, advancing criticisms, Nicola Alongi in a timely intervention, as summarized by journalist
'[Alongi] allows Cooperation may, if created as a goal in itself, to escalate the movement, but defends the collective leaseholds, not for themselves but as means of propaganda. Cites the example of the cooperative Prizzi by him, which now has 18 years of life and that did not escalate the movement, rather it helps because it was always a side to the league. By
only leagues, the associate cities, past periods of unrest, strikes, etc.. would not have anything related to the organization that held them, while half of the cooperative, they are bound, especially when to be members of the cooperative, it must also be members of the league. The League, he says, smiling with his wit e bonaria, dev’essere come la mamma della cooperativa; deve invigilarla, nutrirla, tenerla sempre sottomessa a sé».
Il tema specifico assegnatogli non era però la cooperazione, bensì un altro assai più impegnativo, fatto che dimostra l’alta considerazione in cui era tenuto Lu Viddanu nell’ambiente sindacal-rivoluzionario di Mercadante: «Il Comitato promotore del Congresso», scrisse in una lettera inviata il 25 aprile da Prizzi, «ha voluto affidare a me ed al compagno carissimo F. Albeggiani, la relazione sul comma Sindacati e movimento confessionale, perché trattasse quest’ultimo il lato teorico del tema ed io il lato pratico. Accetto, come un dovere, l’incarico affidatomi, provided it takes into account that I am not an intellectual, and that my ideas are only the result of the experience of eighteen years of struggle to pro 'of the proletariat and socialism. "
On July 15, 1911 The Vanguard union published its latest issue. On August 6, came out the first issue of the proletarian vanguard, where we read that the new fortnightly 'will not be a continuation garde union. "
"'the proletarian vanguard," Siciliano organ of the Committee of Resistance, is the only newspaper of the proletarian Sicily. [...]
We cooperate best pens and organizers of the strongest Italy, da Labriola a P. Orano, da A. De Ambris a T. Masotti.
Danno poi al giornale il loro valido ausilio i compagni di Sicilia più provati da Nicola Barbato a Vito Mercadante, da Gino Corradetti a Domenico Viotto. Direttore: Avv. Vincenzo Purpura. Redattori: Albeggiani prof. Ferdinando – Drago Gioacchino, Lojacono Manlio – Sanza Francesco – Savoja Vincenzo. Collaboratori fissi: Guido Angelotti da Roma e Giulio Fabio Redi da Firenze».
La redazione e l’amministrazione del giornale avevano sede presso la Borsa dei Lavoratori di Palermo. Quest’associazione nacque in contrasto con la Camera del Lavoro di Palermo, alla quale il nuovo giornale non mancava di lanciare simili sferzanti satire: «La Camera dei... 500 - 8, and more e. .. may seem like the Chamber of Deputies. It is about something much more modest, though not as clean: the Chamber of Labour (?) In Palermo. " Mercadante
participated in numerous initiatives and battles of the Stock Exchange of Workers. Testimony of this participation is the meeting of August 31, held in the "Exhibition of banners crowded representatives from member leagues in the bag" and headed by Francis Sanza, President of the Executive Committee to discuss the "Guidelines for municipal workers' organizations." This is the guide intervention Mercadante: "It seems that we have all agreed on this concept: the subsidy represents a danger to the independence of the proletariat and the development of his conscience, but to reject it after it was voted by the City Council, would be to make the game of our opponents. Should not therefore refuse to grant, but meanwhile we must put ourselves in position to be able to reject tomorrow. To achieve this you need to begin to familiarize our workers with some sacrifice of money. "
In the same issue of the newspaper we read an article yet on the" subsidy "that demonstrates the strong commitment and recognized and the risk that our union was constantly meeting, almost a premonition of what would actually happen, "Vito Mercadante is been degraded and all railroad Palermo were suspended for one day after the last agitation for Aid cholera. The complaint of Joseph White has therefore achieved its effect. Congratulations. We would however wish that Vito Mercadante had been dismissed. This might have been a blessing for him because he would not have to waste more than his talent at the service of an administration foolish to use it instead in his most worthy of him. But hopefully good. The removal will take place as soon as possible. There will be opportunities for further unrest and ... other complaints. "
Among the latest articles published in the paper before the final closing, September 20, 1912, there were those party on May Day in Sicily: "I have come to CSdR [Resistance Committee Siciliano] '- informed the newspaper of April 28 - requests from all over the island to have speakers on the occasion of May 1st. [...] Imponentissima of these gatherings is to FILAC especially when organizations will agree Prizzi, Palazzo Adriano, Castronovo, S. Stephen, Bivona and several others. [...] Sent by CSdR talk: [...] to FILAC: Vincenzo Vincenzo Purpura and Savoy. "
was a tradition that Filaga each year, meet the workers, peasants and workers of the sulfur from the countries of the district: Prizzi, Palazzo Adriano, Chiusa, Castronovo, Lerch, Santo Stefano, Bivona. «Ci trovammo tutti insieme» – scrive “La Battaglia” del 10 maggio 1903 - «nella borgata Filaga, la nostra fanfara e la musica di S. Stefano facevano sentire le loro melodie intonando l’Inno dei Lavoratori. [...] Parlarono Morca, l’avv. Bernardino Panepinto, l’operaio Brandelli ed il professore Lorenzo Panepinto. Si mandarono dei saluti ai carissimi compagni Nicolò Alongi e Bernardino Verro. [...] La nostra bandiera venne portata dalle care compagne Nicolina Castelli e Maria D’Angelo; fu una bella giornata di propaganda e tutto terminò fra l’entusiasmo generale».
Mercadante immortalò quelle feste nei versi di Primu di Maju, nei quali si possono cogliere alcuni elementi in esse ricorrenti: «Perchì, nicuzza mia, di cu’ ti scanti? / ‘Nca semu tutti li lavuratura; / la fanfarra chi sona pri davanti: / “’Nterra li latri! Ebbiva cu’ lavura!” // Talè, talè ca vennu di Lercara, / di lu Palazzu, Castronovu e Chiusa, / li zappatura cu li surfarara; / pirchì, nicuzza mia, cussì scantusa? // Talè comu s’abbrazzanu li nichi! / Talè chi facci di boni pinseri, ca si scurdaru tutti li fatichi ... / talè ca chianci lu carrubineri! / Tintu ddu cori chi si po’ scurdari, / Filaca, sti jurnatari tutti amuri, / chi grapinu lu cori a lu spirari, / e chi fannu carmari lu duluri! / / [...] / / Lu chianu Chinu; them banner 'ntunnu, / above the scale mastru Gugghiermu; / parra lu presidents and chiddu' nfunnu, unu who Vinni purpose of Palermo. " In that first
May 1912 bad weather forced the organizers to hold the event in Prizzi, where it flows, provided by the many, only alloys Palazzo Adriano and Castronovo and some friends at Palermo.
«[...] From the balconies of the League of farmers, while down the street Nereggia a crowd of workers from the male faces are a deep, Nicola Alongi opened the meeting by welcoming the companions of Palermo, then turns thoughts to the fallen soldiers Interest on the sands of Libya who do not know, for a country who did not. Closes with an incentive to the organization and the class struggle. [...] As soon as the companions of the meeting of Prizzi Palermo, invited the representative spoke from Palazzo Adriano go there in a carriage. They were also at the Palazzo anarchists ed'Angiò Schicchi. [...] After talking Alongi Purpura which begins by saying that he is now more than ever convinced of the futility of most so-called intellectuals among the workers themselves arise when men like Scramuzza Alongi and capable of their propaganda with the simple souls eager to educate their partners more and better than any other. [...] Paul Schicchi, the famous anarchist comrade, fascinates from the first words the audience the following with increasing attention in his hymn, hot poetry, full of ideas, vibrant faith [...]».
The party, as well as being permeated by an ancient spirit of anti-militarist, he also had unpleasant expressions on anti-clericalism. In an article in the June 2 titled "Catholic Scimmiottagini" Alongi wrote: "The Catholic League, which is based on the trampoline of the Cassa Rurale, full of bile for our enthusiastic demonstration of 1 May, wanted on the 12th of that month, commemorating , no less, that I do not know an encyclical in which Pope, and even when the speakers were able to give an explanation. " Catholics led initiative of the archpriest Peter Alongi said campaign and members of the League of Improvement with "a grand rally anti-clerical, very successful," which was held in Prizzi May 26.
on the two historical battles, anti-clerical and anti-military, the revolutionary syndicalists we will discuss further in the next two chapters.
8. Anti-clericalism and declared Freemasonry Invisible
declared and known is the anticlericalism of the revolutionary syndicalism, and most controversial is the relationship between it and the masonry.
documented and the membership of the Freemasons of some national leaders of Syndicalism as Arturo Labriola, Paul and Oran Alceste De Ambris. Mason was Vincent Purpura, although he directed the newspaper, the proletarian vanguard, anti-Masonic read the following article:
"Just yesterday shocked the bourgeois press reported the account of a meeting held in Paris by trade unionists against the Freemasons with their order of day signature of Pataudi, the well-known agitator. Of course, there the evil insinuations of partnership with the priests, the high Wonderland "for this by splitting the beam anticlerical democratic struggle against the terrible clerical hydra" and other similar bells. Now, I say, apart from any consideration of the greater or lesser degree of anti-clericalism of trade unions (in brackets do not believe that the distinction struggle between bourgeois and anti-clerical combat) as to admit the colossal good faith of all these who have learned now that trade unionism and masonry are two contradictory terms?! Or maybe it was not enough for these ears sordissime all the noise that this issue raised in Italy for a few deluded by the late Italian Socialist Party?! Oh Father international, "Mercadante
regard, we know of his anti-clericalism (" Against the diabolical work of the priests, "he writes in his manuscript). And of his atheism: "The religious feeling" - writes Professor. Father Paul Collura - 'does not exist in Mercadante poet' poems "The Miss" and "Lu viaggiu Tagliavia to "are" poems of love 'and not' religious lyrics ',' Mercadante ... purified at the sunset of his life, accepting each incomposta passion and practicing with Franciscan simplicity and conscious faith, the faith of their fathers, rejected and denied in boiling youth. "
not proved by documents, but it seems certain, as follows Lorenzo says Marino, the proximity of our Masonic "Another time there was talk of Freemasonry and the host [Mercadante] they exhibited the positive aspects whilst indulging in some pleasure (and agrees part of the program and is especially attracted to the origins and the Risorgimento), once again the youth uprising was unanimous e Zio Vito rimase isolato, ma senza rancori. Accennò a sostegno della propria tesi al dissidio già manifestatosi fra il fascismo e Domizio Torrigiani, gran maestro e, in seguito, confinato».
Verso la massoneria Mercadante nutriva qualcosa di più della sola condivisione del programma (che comunque non sarebbe un aspetto da trascurare). Forse era iniziato alla Libera Muratoria. E un segno di ciò potrebbero essere le sue frequentazioni: a Palermo con i fratelli Vincenzo Purpura e Manlio Lojacono; a Prizzi, forse sotto la volta stellata della loggia Giordano Bruno, con il libero pensatore Alongi. Questi diede a una delle sue figlie il nome di Libero pensiero, in evidente riferimento all’Associazione Internazionale del Libero Pensiero, which there was a section in Palermo. As the farmer Alongi had approached the clerical culture of free thinking and Masonic still remains unknown: the hypothesis of prof. Marino is that he has exercised on an 'influence' cultural Mercadante. "Both - writes the professor - a lived relationship with the ideal message of socialism in terms of a secularist fundamentalism that made them a common, very intense, anti-clericalism. Probably they also linked the common thread of a Masonic initiation. " He adds: "It means, among other things, pointed out - as an important circumstantial data to trace the probable cultural influences exerted Alongi also on the environment - the presence of a Masonic lodge in Prizzi named after Giordano Bruno. " (The presence of Giordano Bruno and the keen anticlericalism prizzese it can also be found in various articles published in "The Battle" by fellow prizzesi of Alongi). Ample testimony to the almost worship of Alongi Giordano Bruno is found in the following passages from articles he published on the union and the proletarian vanguard Vanguard:
"On 17 February [1911] we commemorate Giordano Bruno, with a walk with banners and fanfarra and a public meeting where he will also discuss other martyrs of free thought. "
«Il comizio tenuto dalla nostra lega dei contadini per la commemorazione di Giordano Bruno riuscì imponentissima. Nicola Alongi, il simpatico presidente della lega, parlò con un buon senso, una logica, un colore straordinario, convincendo entusiasmando. I preti, che erano stati invitati a contraddittorio, si guardano bene dall’intervenire. Essi sono buoni soltanto a lanciare volgari ingiurie ed asinerie dal pulpito, quando sanno che nessuno può contraddirli; ma quando si tratta di discutere fuggono con la coda fra le gambe. Sempre così reverendi.»
«[Il] papato, spogliato della sua maschera, fu e sarà sempre il mortale nemico della libertà italiana, senza pensare che la storia del papato è storia nera and full of atrocities, which were brought to light the flames of the burning of Giordano Bruno in eternal shame of the Roman church and its followers. "
9. Dall'antimilitarismo the beam interventionist
Among "the whole range of union activities," said Mercadante Congress to Caltanissetta, "worthy of note [is] the anti-militarist propaganda." In 1911 it was fueled by the colonial enterprise in Libya initiated by the "Great Proletarian," on which the Committee of Resistance Siciliano officially took the following position, published in the 'Vanguard of Auditors 1911:' The Committee of Sicilian resistance on the company Tripolina . Mentre protesta contro questa avventura guerresca che costerà la vita a migliaia di figli del popolo, portando nuova miseria alla classe lavoratrice, Osserva che per l’opera addormentatrice fatta da tempo dai falsi pastori del popolo non è possibile arrestare le brame espansionistiche dei guerrafondai del nazionalismo, ed invita le organizzazioni aderenti ad approfittare del presente periodo per intensificare la propaganda antimilitarista».
Sullo scottante tema intervenne anche Mercadante esprimendo posizioni in linea con il deliberato del Comitato esecutivo del Sindacato Ferrovieri Italiani, secondo cui «i ferrovieri non debbano allo stato dei fatti partecipare ad un movimento [di protesta anticolonialista] inefficace allo intento senza scopo and end, reserve forces to a share which is worth to ensure the best destinations in the proletariat in general. " On this resolved pronounced Vincent Purpura with statements that seem to foreshadow those of the Great War interventionist: "I am not a sister, but I think that right now many good comrades and good, instead of filling folders to folders with the old phraseology pacifist sentiment, would do well ... Sorel to reread. " Mercadante also expressed an antiwar position unconvincing, as can be seen from reading the following passage, especially concerned about the fate of the Class Struggle in Piombino and the rest of Italy, "Tripoli if it is not paradise Earth, from four harvests per year (?) pei our emigrants (which we do not disappear with the agendas or with the murders, because proliferate like rabbits) will certainly not be a place of deportation [...]. I think it is preferable that the guns of the Royal Italian army to go to the parades on the African coast with the justification for an expansion of civilization, albeit bourgeois, rather than a rapid-fire machine gun drills Replace battery for order among the crowds of our strikers. [...] Let the Italian generals, new Napoleoni, come to their talent and barefoot in the Arab mosques e. .. Piombino to think. " They went
while gaining time to build of a national union. Trade unionists called for revolutionaries 6-7-8 day in September 1912, in Cerignola, a "South Congress" to get on well, understand each other, to rally around a single body. " Among the speakers was a prestigious conference Mercadante, that relation on the 'attitude of the organizations in the relations of universal suffrage. "
Two and a half months later, the National Congress in Modena Action shall act to create a new body, the USI (Italian Union of Auditors), which joined Mercadante. The Uses born on three fundamental principles: "the non-denominational," "the apolitical party 'and' autonomy union. " The Congress accepted an important agenda for the dreaded danger war that called "the proletariat to the duty to object at any cost and by all means to the fratricidal slaughter which you would like to send a tribute to interests that regard [ed] only the class enemy "and called" the trade unions affiliated to promote public events. " A year later, in the days 4-5-6-7 December 1913, held in Milan uses its second Congress. The resolution submitted by the anarchist Armando Borghi sull'antimilitarismo dwelt among other things, summarized as follows: "The member organizations are imbued with a strict anti-militarist and anti-patriotic spirit, and that even in this area you must exercise vigorously anti-state mission of the proletariat "(U. Fedeli).
When the First World War broke out, despite the principled anti-militarist congress declared in Modena and Milan, use it split in two: on the one hand, the majority led by Borghi, that 'the war would stretch all the advantages already employed, but the owners, the monarchy, "the other, the minority led by the brothers and Amilcare Alceste De Ambris, Tullio Masotti, Philip Corridoni and Edmondo Rossoni. Mercadante sided with animating them in Palermo Beam interventions promoted by revolutionary syndicalists, the Bourse and the Workers' Circle socialriformista. Beam also joined after the House of Labor, which made its voice heard "against imperialist barbarism which caused the conflagration," and the majority of young people in social circles. On the peace remained the PSI and iron workers: Barbato, Loncao, Alongi and Fiom strongly denounced the barbarity of war on the columns of the new socialist newspaper The rescue, which began its publication on 1 May 1915.
10. From combat to anti-Fascist
After the war, use it resumed its activities with renewed enthusiasm, "is formed [ed] Sections and unions everywhere, its militants take [ed] part - And many times they [were] animators - all the great upheavals of the time. " Among those groups was the Palermo Union workers led by Mercadante, who, as we shall see, was the facilitator of a large (and last) agitation of the railroad.
In Palermo the old union-revolutionary group flaked due to different policy choices gained by its members: Vincent Purpura was among the supporters of the Fascist combat, while Loncao had landed to the current ceilings Giacinto Menotti Serrati and to which Nicola Alongi, John and Nicola Barbato Orcel (Loncao, Alongi and Barbato we find them in the list of candidates for the Italian Socialist Party elections of 1919). Orcel was driving the workers of the Fiom, which - says the prof. Marino - were "a small, compact vanguard of the working" maximalist "serratiani" or more properly "a vanguard of communist before its time" that was in relationship "with the often highly polemical purposes' Mercadante.
As "secretary of" the University of Palermo, Mercadante followed the progress of the work of the third national congress, which took place in Parma on days 20 to 23 December 1919. Among the most important topics for discussion was the one on the Russian Revolution, as explained in a statement: "Congress considers the design Sovietistica [...] della ricostruzione sociale antitetica dello Stato e dichiara che ogni sovrapposizione alla autonomia e libera funzione dei Soviet di tutta la classe produttrice, va considerata dal proletariato come un attentato allo sviluppo della rivoluzione ed alla attuazione dell’eguaglianza nella libertà.»
Anche Sorel rimase affascinato dalla rivoluzione d’Ottobre tanto da aggiungere un elogio a Lenin in appendice a Considerazioni sulla violenza. Ma bisogna ricordare anche che egli era considerato da Mussolini uno degli ispiratori della ideologia fascista. Insomma, il suo era un pensiero che portava acqua, per dirla con Cole, sia al mulino di destra sia al mulino di sinistra. Mercadante non seguì l’ideologo francese nelle sue simpatie bolsceviche, nor fascist. Here's how to remember the sister of Lorenzo Marino Mercadante: "Uncle Vito was tolerant, so not Manichean and dissented from the ambiguous praise of Sorel against the USSR and Lenin to the dark undulations that first led it to approach and to Maurras 'Action francaise and then to the Cross and Mussolini. These are the most significant differences which followed the accession to the courts, one might say, the hinges of the sister expressed in the two works "The future of the socialist trade unions" and "Reflections on Violence". " Mercadante
plunged, with a life force worthy of a genuine revolutionary trade unionist, in the political climate frenzied postwar Palermo, characterized by activism movimentistico of peasants, workers, soldiers, railwaymen.
In 1919, in Sicily, that highly experienced social worker-peasant bloc which, we repeat, for about a decade Mercadante and his group had tried to implement, but to no avail, if not to have helped shape the idea unit of peasant class as a senior worker as a manager and Alongi Orcel. To implement it, even for a short time, they were just Alongi and Orcel. Alongi wrote to that effect on "Rescue socialist" of 23 February 1919: "As long as city workers do not make common cause with workers field to the straight path of socialism, politicians craft will always be the defenders of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat, which is served with stool unconsciously. " Alliance - as has been mentioned - was advocated by Gramsci in some themes of the question Southern
"The fundamental concept of the Turin Communists was not the" magic formula "of the division of large estates, but of the political alliance between workers Northern and southern peasants to overthrow the bourgeoisie from the power of the state. [...] The proletariat can become the dominant ruling class and to the extent that it succeeds in creating a system of class alliances which allows it to mobilize against capitalism and the bourgeois state, the majority of the working population, which means, in Italy, in the real class relations that exist in Italy, to the extent that it succeeds in obtaining the consent of the broad peasant masses. "
starts from a common origin socialist, pacifist, anti-clerical and Masonic perhaps, but landed in different political positions, Mercadante and Alongi paid a high price for their social commitment and consistency to their ideal one, as we shall see, reducing in pride misery, the other victim of a crime, consumed 29 February 1920, the writer Vincenzo Consolo has described as "shameful." On October 14, 1920 was also murdered Orcel. With two murders the land mafia put an end to the dangerous project of revolutionary social bloc workers-peasants.
While in 1919 he brought forward this experience, Mercadante joined the movement veterans which referred to the National Opera Fighters. And when in the company of River annunziana of the Constitutional Charter was adopted, the product of "a fusion of ideas, trade unionists and intransigent nationalism" (Cole), he "defended the Charter of Qarnaro inspired by Alceste De Ambris, comrades and initiatives "(Marines). Also participates in the initiatives for the foundation of the Fascist fighting in Palermo, where he tried to give an orientation to the left. At its meeting Establishment of an April 20, 1920, intervened on behalf of the Governing Council of the Union workers to examine the "possibility of joint action with the beam of combat," but only two points in the program exposed by Vittorio Ambrosini 'the election of the Constituent Assembly, to do with voting and proportional representation list for the reform of the Constitution, Parliament and especially the Senate ", the" expropriation of large estates for distribution to farmers and above all the fighters' (GC Marino). The focus of
Mercadante, however, was given to trade union demands and concrete steps for its railroad. On 20 January 1920, he led a new round of battles dei ferrovieri palermitani. Questi, riuniti nei locali della Borsa dei Lavoratori, aderirono alla piattaforma rivendicativa dell’Associazione nazionale dei ferrovieri, i cui obiettivi erano la rivendicazione delle otto ore lavorative e l’autogestione. Essi ebbero la solidarietà degli operai della Fiom di Orcel, il cui giornale, “La Dittatura proletaria”, scrisse che «la invincibile fermezza degli scioperanti sconcerta[va] le classi dominanti».
Nel contempo per iniziativa di Mercadante si costituiva, con sede a Palermo, «una Società anonima cooperativa a capitale illimitato fra impiegati di ufficio delle Ferrovie di stato residenti in Palermo con denominazione “Panormus”». «Scopo della Society "- says the art. 2 ° of the Constitution - "is the construction and purchase of housing or economic under the law to be assigned or ceded ownership or rent to the shareholders." The "Panormus" hundreds of apartments built in Art Nouveau style in different areas of Palermo. These were the last steps of Mercadante.
Fascism meanwhile clarified its subversive nature and dictatorial Mercadante and did not hesitate to take the distance, while many ex-union fellow revolutionaries followed Mussolini, including Edmondo Rossoni, his comrades in the heyday of unionism in Sicily. It was impossible to bribe the professor says. Mercadante: "Vito Mercadante, as trade unionist, was a master of Rosson, Minister of Agriculture. Mussolini tried to recover these trade unionists to give a tint to its democratic movement that was reactionary in substance. Vito Mercadante not bite ... did not appoint Secretary [of Transportation]. Rather introduced the Rosson, who had come specially to visit in Palermo, in her living room decorated with red carnations and crowded railroad already laid off, those who had made the last strike against fascism in Palermo. After that the minister Rossone got the message and left. After a month Mercadante was dismissed by the railways. "
He was fired in 1923, with a patently self-serving reasons: "Underperformance." Twenty years later, May 16, 1944, when fascism was now buried in Sicily, a fellow wrote about "liberated Sicily" article, "The silent poetry," which begins: "It was not the only one, but it was certainly the first one left here among us, his office of State official, when the Fascist regime began the campaign of persecution that was to last then - unlikely phenomenon - until its fall. " Tell
Franco Grasso, one of the organizers of the anti-fascist network Sicilian Mercadante that was "reduced the need for protest and the modest trade of shoemaker; a condition that this' accepted with pride and joy: beating on the soles and while reciting his verses. " Reciting verses and read books, those who gave the railroad its June 12, 1923, for this reason: "In Vito Mercadante this faint tribute to the intellect because you speak the language of Art and Science accustomed to the kind-hearted ' affection of his colleagues. "
Since then it became "the" special surveillance "more controlled by the policy team of Palermo." This does not prevent him from transforming his studio into a meeting place of friends, intellectuals and anti-forced, after the raids of 1926 and 1929, the jus murmurandi. It was not without risk to attend it, because, with him "it was dangerous even exchange a greeting." For this he became a myth for the new generation anti-fascist Palermo. Tell
still Grasso: "We find ourselves sometimes in Piazza Bologna, in the lobby scented Fifiddu Reina, an anarchist who was selling flowers and recite poems Mercadante. It was the second meeting here, very fast, with our poet, perhaps aware of the ideas that we have. He recognized me and smiled. He had the gift of a red carnation and only said, sounding quite significant: "Well, well, boys!"
disease compromised while more and more physical of the old fighter and kept him from active participation in the anti-Fascist underground organization that you were trying to build in and around Palermo in Sicily. Grasso met him for the last time in the winter of 1933 to ask for an article to be published on the paper-Fascist Italian anti-fascist united front, "" I know you - dear master, "said the visibly moved - continue and persevere with courage and hope, but also with caution. I can not be old friends and neighbors, we would get in the way and increase the risks that weigh on you already. " He took the medicine and went away. " That paper, published this winter in Santa Croce Camerina, contained an appeal to anti-fascists to stop the imperialist policy of Mussolini, a prelude to a new world war. Mercadante
died two years later, November 28, 1936. Remember that Grasso "had wanted to carry the funeral carriage of the poor, and that none of his friends to follow him." That obviously did not want his funeral could endanger the freedom of his fellow el'incolumità.
Incorruptible and faithful to the ideals until the end of the trade unionist and poet prizzese Vito Mercadante, "Lu ZZU Vitu, nun is Vinni / ca is a tuttu pezzu and culuri, Russu.
Salvatore Vaiana
Pubblicato in AA. VV., Sicilia, l'isola da amare anche attraverso il recupero della memoria storica delle nostre radici , edizione a cura del Lions International, 2009. 
