ABSTRACT
The decisive test was to begin at the end of that summer of 1920. On August 13 the negotiations that had been dragging on in Milan between the Italian Federation of Metal Workers and the analogous employers' association were suddenly broken off. A resolute detachment of soldiers moved forward, firing at the balcony and the crowd. Some persons were able to huddled together under the balcony; the rest tried to flee. Grenades were thrown from windows. In the council's meeting room there were shouts, and then suddenly shots. Cultural associations, libraries, newspapers—whatever had any connection, however remote, with peasant or worker organizations was threatened, and invariably labeled Communist. Castor oil was forced down the victims by the quart. The Popular Party increased its representation from one hundred to one hundred seven seats; the "national blocs" won two hundred seventy-five of the five hundred thirty-five seats in the Chamber.
