Italian General Strike against the US's war

Ferdinando Salleo,
the Italian Ambassador,
The Chancery of the Embassy of Italy,
3000 Whitehaven Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C., 20008
Phone: 202.612.4400
Fax: 202.518.2154

Today, February 15, 2002, as you know, the Unione Sindicale Italiana [USI] and other unions throughout Italy have initiated a General Strike. It is a General Strike against the war hysteria of President Bush, and against the "financial law of war" in Italy! It is a General Strike against privatizations and the globalization of Capital! It is a General Strike to defend the right to strike and the freedom of unions!

Today, as you know, the Unione Sindicale Italiana together with other labor unions have organized a mass-demonstration in Rome.

We, the undersigned, labor-activists in the U.S., write to you to indicate our support for the General Strike in Italy today. We support its aims and objectives! We do not ask what party the people may or may not vote for or what church they attend, but we ask people of clear minds and sincere hearts to act in courage for solidarity!

The Unione Sindicale Italiana [USI] was founded in November of 1912 at a Congress in Modena. Groups of railwaymen, metalworkers, agricultural laborers, and building-workers combined to form the organization. At this time, the leading-theoretician for the organization was Arturo Labriola, who was influenced by the ideas of the early CGT in France. By 1919, the USI had 300,000 members throughout Italy. In 1920, in the great revolt of that year, the USI metalworkers occupied the factories in Milano and Torino.

They demanded workers' control of industry. They advocated self-management, and the occupation of all workplaces. However, they could not sustain their action.

The USI was violently suppressed when the dictator Benito Mussolini came to power. Many of its leading-activists were killed during the years 1922-1943. The USI fought a terrible battle with the Fascists at Piombino, Italy. In the mid-1970s, one of the authors of this statement lived for a period of time in Viterbo, Italy. On one occasion, his friends took him on a visit to Carrara where he saw a public monument erected to the memory of USI members who had resisted the Nazis and the Mussolini fascists!

Today, the government of Italy suggests that all labor-activists in Italy are dangerous extremists! However, we have some difficulty believing that the city of Carrara would have erected a monument to the memory of dangerous extremists! Nevertheless, today, the President of Italy, prodded by Mr. Bush and Mr. Powell, has suggested that FEAR AND SUSPICION are the only appropriate responses to labor-activists!

After the end of World War Two, Armando Borghi and other labor-activists revived the USI, but it was only a

remnant, a shadow, of its former self. Borghi remained the general secretary of the organization until his death in 1968. Borghi was a close friend of Arturo Toscanini, the great symphonic conductor. Many people - including musicians - in America continue to think that Toscanini was the greatest symphonic conductor of the 20th Century. We have seen a "Memoir" of Arturo Toscanini written by Armando Borghi, his friend. Toscanini, who was a great opponent of Mussolini and Hitler, was active in USI circles.

Armando Borghi wrote another book: MUSSOLINI RED AND BLACK, a critique of the dictator. This book by Armando Borgi, in English translation, is readily available in libraries across the U.S. We have some difficulty believing that Arturo Toscanini and Armando Borgi were dangerous extremists.

We have great difficulty believing that they were men who deserved FEAR AND SUSPICION!

Only with the 1970s was it possible for the USI to re-build a national network and organization. Since 1990, its presence and activity amongst the self-organized workers have been apparent to everyone in Italy. Today, the USI is in continuous expansion in the public and private sectors. Faithful to its own tradition, the USI supports the struggle for workers' rights and workers' freedom through self-management! Today, that struggle - the struggle for workers' rights and freedom - involves all the countries of the world. For this reason, the USI believes in an international mobilization against the Masters of the global economy. That struggle is necessary and is not escapable. The USI advocates unitary efforts against militarism, racism, and nationalism. The dismantling of global neo-liberalism is a fundamental aim of the Unione Sindicale Italiana!

We, the undersigned, insist that social and political movements, and even governments, are not static in history. Because of the back-and-forth of history, political and social movements change. They change even when they think they stay the same. Therefore, it is always necessary to re-examine movements in history, to see how they may have changed. We think the PEOPLE of the labor movement, the rank-and-file, should always retain the ability to examine and critique any social or political movement, whatever it may be. We do not think that we should worship any political golden calves, whether CGIL or CISL, whether the "new" communist parties or the "new" fascist parties, or anything else. We think it is not structures that bring us to liberation, but the encounter with human character!

The Unione Sindicale Italiana [USI] has changed since the days of Borghi and Toscanini. They are men and women, with creativity as well as failings, virtues as well as griefs! But they act for justice in an unjust world.

Carlo Tresca, an Italian Syndicalist, opposing the despots of the left as well as the right, migrated from Italy to America in the early years of the 20th Century. [He was one of the leading-activists in the General Strike of 1916 in Northeastern Minnesota.] Carlo Tresca was assassinated in the streets of New York a few weeks before the end of World War Two. The man who murdered him was in the pay of BOTH Stalin AND the Italian fascists. Tresca was quite influential within the Italian-American community. Both the Communists and the Fascists in Italy, who had made arrangements between them for the post-war era, were afraid that Carlo Tresca would expose and demolish their power-sharing. One of the authors of this statement, at that time, wrote eloquently of his great sorrow at the death of Tresca!

Is it possible that the years of Benito Mussolini have left a horrid legacy in Italy today? Is it possible that that legacy is a collective forgetfulness about the creativity of everyone who emphatically opposed Mussolini in his time? The death at Genoa last June, and the presence of Mussolini fascists amongst the Genoa police, give clear indication that the old struggles have not disappeared, but have been re-folded and blended into the insufferable "globalization" of the economy today.

We, the undersigned, were involved in solidarity actions for the ten-month long MEI/GSI strike in Duluth, Minnesota during 1999/2000. The USI acted in support of these efforts. Luciano Nicolini, the general secretary of the USI, met Jeff Hilgert at the Bologna Airport and accompanied him on the train to Novara. We did not ask for this gesture. It was simply arranged for us. Nevertheless, we appreciated a friendly and selfless gesture when we saw it. Jeff traveled to Italy to urge the GSI/MEI workers at Mezzomerico to strike in sympathy with their "compagni" in Duluth. Luciano went out of his way to be helpful. He was honest and open-hearted at Bologna, participating with the members of CISL and Jeff in a discussion about Italian labor-law. On the train-ride to Novara, he was useful to Jeff, describing the political and labor landscape in Italy. At Novara, he did not push himself on anyone. He acted in solidarity, and he expressed solidarity to the CISL men. Luciano did not force himself into the events at Mezzomerico; he did not bully or coerce manipulate anybody!

Mr. Ferdinando Salleo, we, the undersigned, labor-activists in the U.S., write to you to indicate our support for the General Strike in Italy today. We support its aims and objectives! We ask people of clear minds and sincere hearts to act in courage for solidarity this day! We have no respect for people who do not take risks! Just think and move creatively, and then attempt the impossible!

Juan Arroyo
[Los Angeles, California]

Séamas Cain
[323 Fourth Street, Cloquet, Minnesota]
Phone: 218.879.8628

Laverne Capan
[Duluth, Minnesota]

Tom Carr
[Oakland, California]

Kevin Davis
[Carlton, Minnesota]

Dylan Ellefson
[Los Angeles, California]

Peter L. Freeman
[West Liberty, West Virginia]

Tom Gilliam
[Duluth, Minnesota]

Patrick Halpin
[Warrensburg, Missouri]
iwa.missouri@visto.com

Jeff Hilgert
[Hinckley, Minnesota]
jhilgert@hotmail.com

Grace Hoff
[Lincoln, Nebraska]

Virginia Hyvarinen
[Cambridge, Massachusetts]

Kathleen Johnson
[Stillwater, Minnesota]

Nick Levashov
[Devil's Lake, North Dakota]

Catherine McDonald
[Duluth, Minnesota]

Rick Milanov
[Boston, Massachusetts]

Robert Montseny
[Washington, D.C.

Patrick O'Neill
[Houlton, Maine]

Tyrone Permenter
[Washington, D.C.]

Wade Rawluk
[Bronx, New York] 

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