Giacomo Matteotti

Giacomo Matteotti (Italian: [ˈdʒaːkomo matteˈɔtti] ^ⓘ; 22 May 1885 – 10 June 1924) was an Italian socialist and anti-fascist politician who was the secretary of the Unitary Socialist Party (PSU) from 1922 to 1924. Born in the province of Rovigo in Fratta Polesine, he was a militant socialist from a young age, joining the youth wing of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) in 1898 and then the main party around 1900. In 1907, he graduated in law at the University of Bologna. A lawyer by degree and a journalist by trade, Matteotti was a follower of Filippo Turati, a co-founder of the PSI and a leader of the gradualist wing. Politically, his name is associated with democratic socialism and social democracy, and his thought is summarised as reformist socialist, radical reformist, and revolutionary reformist.

Giacomo Matteotti
Secretary of the Unitary Socialist Party
In office 8 October 1922 – 10 June 1924
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Collective secretariat
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office 1 December 1919 – 10 June 1924
Constituency	Ferrara (1919–1921) Padua (1921–1924) Rovigo (1924)
Personal details
Born	(1885-05-22)22 May 1885 Fratta Polesine, Italy
Died	10 June 1924(1924-06-10) (aged 39) Rome, Italy
Manner of death	Assassination
Political party	PSI (1900–1922) PSU (1922–1924)
Spouse	Velia Titta ​ (m. 1916)​
Children	Giancarlo (1918–2006) Gianmatteo (1921–2000) Isabella (1922–1994)
Alma mater	University of Bologna
Profession	Lawyer, journalist
Signature

Matteotti was elected mayor of Villamarzana in the Italian region of Veneto in 1912. In line with the law allowing the possibility of being elected in all the towns where taxes were paid, he also entered the municipal councils of several towns of Veneto, and was appointed deputy mayor of Fratta Polesine and councillor of Frassinelle Polesine. In 1914, Matteotti was re-elected to the provincial council. Matteotti's opposition to the Great War resulted him being interned in the Italian region of Sicily. In the 1919 Italian general election, Matteotti was elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies, where the PSI was the most voted party and became the largest political group.

While the 1921 Italian general election saw him re-elected for a second term as the PSI remained the most voted and largest party despite losses and fascist violence, Matteotti and the PSI were not part of the government. At the 1922 party congress in Rome, the gradualist wing led by Turati was expelled from the PSI, and Matteotti followed Turati in establishing the PSU. An anti-Leninist socialist, Matteotti grew critical of Bolshevism, whose violence and authoritarianism he saw as antithetical and useless in establishing socialism, and excluded them from the anti-fascist bloc. In turn, he was criticised by the Soviet and Italian Bolshevik parties, which continued by some exponents of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) into the 1970s; other PCI members rejected the criticism and celebrated Matteotti for his socialist anti-fascism. Matteotti led the PSU into the 1924 Italian general election and was re-elected a third time.

On 30 May 1924, Matteotti openly spoke in the Italian Parliament, alleging the National Fascist Party (PNF) and his supporters committed electoral fraud, and denounced the violence they used to gain votes. Eleven days later, he was kidnapped by a fascist squad led by Amerigo Dumini and killed by the secret political police of Benito Mussolini due to his denunciations of the illegalities committed by the nascent dictatorship of Mussolini. While some historians debated and questioned whether the murder came on Mussolini's orders, Matteotti's death and the subsequent speech where Mussolini assumed responsibility are generally considered the beginning of Mussolini's dictatorship and a turning point of Fascist Italy. By 1926, Fascistissime laws [it] were enacted by the Mussolini government, which turned Italy into a one-party state, and the deputies who had participated in the Aventine Secession to protest Matteotti's assassination were dismissed and excluded from the parliament. After the fall of Mussolini's regime and the end of World War II, Matteotti was officially commemorated and in the history of the Italian Republic is celebrated as a martyr, with numerous places named after him and established in his honour, including the centenary of his assassination.

Early life

Family

Matteotti with one of his sons

Matteotti was born on 22 May 1885, a Friday, into a wealthy family in Fratta Polesine, near Rovigo (around 15 to 23 kilometres south of Rovigo),^[1] which at that time had about 3,000 inhabitants.^[2] He was given Lauro as the middle name.^[3] His parents were Girolamo Stefano Matteotti (1839–1902) and Elisabetta Garzarolo (1851–1931), known as Isabella,^[4] who got married in Fratta Polesine on 7 February 1875. Matteotti had six siblings, four of whom (Ginevra, Dante, Aquino, and Giocasta) died at a young age; of the adults, Matteotti was the second-born between Matteo (1876–1909) and Silvio (1887–1910) and the only one to survive his brothers who died young of tuberculosis. They all became involved in politics in the ranks of the PSI following the example of their father who had been a municipal councillor of Fratta Polesine between 1896 and 1897. The Matteotti family was originally from Comasine in Val di Peio, in the Trentino region.^[5]

Already in 1837, his great-grandfather Stefano Matteotti was active in the buying and selling of copper and iron in Arquà Polesine, which at that time was part of the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia.^[6] His grandfather Matteo Matteotti and his wife Caterina Sartori, whom he had married in 1813, moved permanently to Fratta Polesine in 1845, carrying on his father's business.^[6] Matteotti's grandfather died in 1858 at the age 47 due to injuries resulting from a fight,^[7] and Matteotti's father continued and expanded the family business by opening two shops: the first in Fratta Polesine and the second in Costa di Rovigo. In the 1860s, Matteotti's father invested his capital in the purchase of land expropriated from parishes, thus also starting the interest-bearing lending business and reaching a wealthy economic position.^[8]

In 1912, while on holiday in Abetone, Matteotti met Velia Titta [it], a 22-year old poet who was deeply religious and the younger sister of Titta Ruffo, a famous baritone.^[9] They married in a civil ceremony in 1916.^[10] Together, they had three children: Giancarlo Matteotti [it] (1918–2006), Gianmatteo (1921–2000), and Isabella (1922–1994).^[10] Matteotti's middle child, also known as Matteo, became a PSI parliamentary deputy after World War II.^[11] He was later a member of the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI) and the Italian Democratic Socialists (SDI).^[12] With the PSDI, he served as Italy's Minister of Tourism from 1970 to 1972 and Minister of Foreign Trade from 1972 to 1974.^[12] After his assassination in 1924, Matteotti's wife was under house arrest until September 1933; her heart and her health was broken and she died the following year. Several people who helped her, such as Carlo Rosselli, were also imprisoned.^[13]

Education and early activism

After attending the public elementary school of Lendinara, Matteotti was enrolled in the Liceo Classico Celio [it] (named after Caelius Rhodiginus) in Rovigo.^[14] The Liceo Classico Celio was also attended by other notable figures, including among others Umberto Merlin, historians Benvenuto and Roberto Cessi, and writer Guido Voghera [it].^[15] Matteotti had very good grades,^[16] and graduated on 15 December 1903 at the age of 18.^[14] Not much interested in the family business, he enrolled in the faculty of law at the University of Bologna, graduating on 7 November 1907 with 110 cum laude, presenting a thesis on recidivism written in collaboration with professor Alessandro Stoppato.^[4] To write his thesis, Matteotti travelled to the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Germany, France, and England, learning French, English, and German.^[4] He then revised his thesis in 1910, publishing La recidiva. Saggio di revisione critica con dati statistici (Recidivism: A Critical Review with Statistical Data) with Fratelli Bocca Editori in Turin, and during the same year made a trip to Oxford to study the British penal system.^[9] Between 1909 and 1910, he lost first his brother Matteo and then Silvio to tuberculosis, remaining the only surviving son.^[9]

Following the example of his brother Matteo, Matteotti approached socialist ideas from a very young age, joining the youth group of the Italian Socialist Party in 1898 at 13,^[17] and writing in 1901 his first article for a local weekly of socialist inspiration called La Lotta.^[4] An atheist,^[18] he was from early age an activist in the socialist movement and the PSI, which he joined around 1900.^[19] In a 1904 article in La Lotta, the socialist newspaper of Rovigo, he was described as the local PSI's reference point in Fratta Polesine.^[19] Also in a 1904 letter, Matteotti declared himself a militant socialist "for some time", and that he was committed to promoting clubs, leagues, and cooperatives for the rural proletariat of Polesine.^[20] In January 1908, he was elected to the municipal council of Fratta Polesine, and then by virtue of the existing law also of Villamarzana and Boara Polesine [it] where he served as mayor, as well as Lendinara, Badia Polesine, and Bellino.^[20] Due to his opposition to Italian entry into World War I, he was interned in Sicily during the years of the Great War. As a result, he was excluded from the provincial council of Rovigo that he joined in 1910; however, he re-joined it after the 1920 Italian local elections,^[20] where the PSI as a whole achieved notable success, particularly in the Polesine region, where it won all comuni.^[21]

At his first political experience on 26 January 1908, at the age of 22, Matteotti was elected with 86 preferences as municipal councillor in Fratta Polesine.^[4] In August 1910 during his stay in Oxford, he was elected provincial councillor in Rovigo.^[4] Following the war in Libya, the gradualist current to which Matteotti belonged to, during the 13th Congress of the PSI in 1912, passed for the first time into a minority behind the maximalists (supporters of the maximum programme), when on the proposal of Mussolini, then director of Avanti!, the right wing of Leonida Bissolati and Ivanoe Bonomi was expelled and founded the Italian Reformist Socialist Party (PSRI). As a follower of Turati, Matteotti remained faithful to the party.^[9] On 3 October 1912, Matteotti was elected mayor of the small town of Villamarzana; in line with the law that allowed the possibility of being elected in all the towns where taxes were paid, he also entered the municipal councils of Villanova del Ghebbo, San Bellino, Castelguglielmo, Lendinara, Badia Polesine, Fiesso Umbertiano, Pincara, and Boara Polesine. Furthermore, he took the positions of deputy mayor of Fratta Polesine and assessor of Frassinelle Polesine.^[9] On 7 July 1914, Matteotti was re-elected to the provincial council. During those years, the opposing local Catholic press accused him of having built his fortune by lending money at interest.^[22]

World War I and exile in Sicily

On 26 July 1914, on the eve of the outbreak of the Great War, Mussolini published Abbasso la guerra! ("Down with the War!"), an editorial in the PSI daily newspaper Avanti!^[23] The following day, the same position was also taken up by Matteotti and the PSI parliamentary group, which still had a reformist majority. Matteotti saw the armed conflict as a clash among the national bourgeoisie that entailed the sacrifice of the proletariat.^[24] His neutralist position was reiterated several times also in the debates that took place in the provincial council of Rovigo, earning him accusation of being anti-Italian and also raising the criticism of the reformist socialist Nicola Badaloni [it].^[25] On 10 October 1914, Matteotti published an article in La Lotta in which he proposed for the first time the use of a proletarian insurrection to prevent Italy from entering the war,^[24] applauding the dissent to the war of Karl Liebknecht, the only one among the parliamentary group of the Social Democratic Party of Germany,^[26] and criticising Mussolini's position in favour of Italy entering the war alongside the Allies and the reasons for the government's neutrality.^[27] In February 1915, his idea of ​​resorting to insurrection led him into a polemic with Turati, and from the columns of Critica Sociale he reiterated the impossibility of a foreign invasion and the use of any means to avoid the catastrophe of war.^[28]

Despite being the only surviving son of a widowed mother, Matteotti was called up for military service on 6 August 1916 and assigned to the 97th Company of the 4th Fortress Artillery Regiment, with the justification that as Rovigo was "in a state of war", it was "absolutely dangerous" that this "stubborn, violent agitator, capable of harming national interests at any moment" should continue to remain in such a delicate area. His anti-militarist positions and his activism against the war cost him his removal from Polesine for three years and his confinement in a mountainous area near Messina, in Campo Inglese, where he remained until March 1919.^[29]

Political career

Election to the Chamber of Deputies and The Fascisti Exposed

Matteotti with fellow supporters during the 1920s

Matteotti was elected deputy of the Chamber of Deputies three times, first in 1919 and then in 1921 and 1924.^[30] As a follower of Turati, Matteotti became the leader of the reformist PSU in the Chamber of Deputies after a split from the PSI. Matteotti openly spoke out against Italian fascism and Mussolini, and for a time was the de facto leader of the opposition to the PNF and the first opponent of Mussolini.^[31] In 1921, he denounced fascist violence in a pamphlet titled Inchiesta socialista sulle gesta dei fascisti in Italia (Socialist Enquiry on the Deeds of the Fascists in Italy).^[32] A year before being killed, a warning against him had appeared in the pages of Il Popolo d'Italia, the newspaper founded by Mussolini himself, where it read: "As for Matteotti, a vulgar mystificator, a notorious coward and a despicable panderer, he had better watch out. Indeed, if he happened to find himself, one day or another, with his head broken (really broken) he would certainly have no right to complain after such written and signed meanness."^[33]

In 1924, his book Un anno di dominazione fascista (The Fascisti Exposed: A Year of Fascist Domination) was published and he made two impassioned and lengthy speeches in the Chamber of Deputies denouncing fascism and declaring that the 1924 general election was invalid due to the documented intimidation and militia violence. In the general election, the PNF only won thanks to the Acerbo Law, which put in place an electoral system that guaranteed to the party that achieved at least 25% a two-thirds majority.^[34] As a result, the PNF's National List obtained well over 60% of the seats.^[35] In his speech to Parliament on 30 May 1924, Matteotti denounced fraud, Squadrismo, and Blackshirts violence.^[36] He strongly contested the violence by saying: "In Naples in one conference that the head of the constitutional opposition was to hold, he was prevented due to the mobilisation of the armed corps, which intervened in the city."^[36] He also said: "You who today hold power and strength in your hands, you who boast of your might, should be better able than anyone else to ensure that everyone obeys the law. You declare every day that you want to reestablish the authority of the state and the law. Do it, if you still have time; otherwise, you truly are ruining the very essence, the moral reason, of the nation."^[37] After the speech, Matteotti famously told his colleagues: "I made my speech, now prepare the one for my funeral."^[38]

After his book was published in the early months of 1924, Matteotti was already working on a new edition of The Fascisti Exposed,^[39] which was to be updated in information and numbers, including its publication abroad,^[40] when he was assassinated.^[41] While many scholars expressed their belief that Matteotti's speech to Parliament was the cause of his murder, some historians disagreed. In his essay Breve storia del fascismo, Renzo De Felice, a prominent biographer of Mussolini and historical revisionist, argued that Matteotti publicly condemned the alliance of the socialist trade unions and the fascist counterpart. Moreover, he may have found evidence of bribes from Sinclair Oil in favour of Mussolini in order to get permission for Sinclair's exploitation of petroleum reservoirs under Italian control and was deemed dangerous by Mussolini for his links to the British Labour Party.^[42]

Italian Socialist Party and Unitary Socialist Party

Enrico Gonzales [it], Filippo Turati, and Claudio Treves, all of which joined Matteotti's party, the PSU, in 1922

Matteotti was elected to the Italian Parliament for the first time in 1919 in the Ferrara constituency, and was then re-elected in 1921 and in 1924.^[30] It was during those years that he earned the nickname Tempesta ("Storm") by his fellow party members for his combative and uncompromising character.^[43] In a few years, in addition to preparing numerous bills and reports, he intervened 106 times in the Chamber of Deputies, with speeches on often technical, administrative, and financial topics.^[44] He tried to live up to the role of parliamentarian in the field that most interested him, namely the financial sector and public administration, for which he brought the legal preparation acquired at the University of Bologna, which made him an appreciated jurist, as well as the experience acquired in the pre-war years as mayor and local administrator in the province of Rovigo. His spending rigour, the credibility of public finances, and his support for the fair distribution of the tax burden and the need to introduce more clarity in legislation made him a notable national and international figure"^[45] Due to his meticulous character and habit of studying, as recalled by Oddino Morgari, he spent hours in the Library of the Chamber of Deputies "browsing through books, reports, statistics, from which he drew the data he needed to fight, with words and with the pen, taking care to always remain grounded in things".^[46]

Matteotti's national political career began in a context of growing social tension, culminating in the factory occupations of September 1920 and the split within the Italian left brought about by the 2nd World Congress of the Communist International (Comintern). The congress summarised the conditions for joining the Comintern in 21 points (the Twenty-one Conditions), the 7th of which called for "a complete break with reformism and centrist politics" and the expulsion of "known opportunists", among whom the Italians Turati and Giuseppe Emanuele Modigliani [it] were specifically mentioned. The 17th point required each party to change its name to the Communist Party, followed by the name of its respective country. The PSI was then divided into three currents: reformists, maximalists, and communists. The reformist group of Matteotti and Turati met in Reggio Emilia on 11–12 October 1920, without clearly outlining its gradualist line.^[47] At the Rome Congress in October 1922, the entire reformist and gradualist current linked to Turati was expelled from the PSI; the defectors founded the new PSU, of which Matteotti became secretary.^[48]

Matteotti was present at the first day of the Livorno Congress in January 1921, a congress that ended with the communist split and the birth of the Communist Party of Italy (PCd'I). Matteotti, who had already commented on the prospect of a split in a previous article (La Lotta, 18 December 1920) hoping that the divisions within the ruling groups would at least spare the unions, left Livorno early to go to Ferrara, where the PSI leadership group had been arrested following the massacre at the Estense Castle; in a situation of strong tension, he temporarily assumed the role of secretary of the city's Chamber of Labour.^[49] This produced awareness of the involutive dangers that were gathering over Italian society and institutions, a renewed commitment to his anti-fascist struggle, and frequent denunciations of the violence that was being carried out. In the Chamber of Labour on 31 January 1921, Matteotti issued motion that was put to the vote four days later and rejected; he warned that the bourgeois ruling class had the duty to put an end to "this little counter-revolution of yours, which is preparing the way for civil war".^[50]

Fascist violence

Matteotti in the early 1920s when he published his first writings about fascist violence

In 1921, Matteotti published Socialist Enquiry on the Deeds of the Fascists in Italy, in which he denounced for the first time the violence of the fascist action squads during the electoral campaign of the 1921 general election, where he was himself a victim of a fascist attack.^[51] At the following congress in Milan in October 1921, the PSI split between the concentrationist component of Turati and Baldesi and the one in favour of joining the Comintern. Matteotti, although hoping for an end to the divisions, sided with the concentrationist fraction, not so much because of his proximity to reformism but rather because of his rejection of the Bolshevik revolutionary model.^[47]

In 1924, the translation of his book The Fascists Exposed was published in London, where Matteotti had gone in strictly confidential form in April 1924, with the title The Fascists Exposed: A Year of Fascist Domination, in which he reported the acts of fascist violence against their opponents.^[52] In the introduction to the book, Matteotti responded to the fascist statements, in particular those that affirmed the use of fascist violence useful for the purpose of bringing the country back to a situation of legality and "normality" with the restoration of the authority of the state after the Biennio Rosso, affirming the continuation of fascist milita expeditions against opponents even after a year of fascist government. Furthermore, he maintained that the improvement in the economic and financial conditions of the country, which was slowly recovering from the devastation of the Great War, was not due to fascist action but to popular energy; according to Matteotti, only speculators and capitalists benefitted from it, while the middle and proletarian classes received a proportionally low share in exchange for the sacrifices.^[53]

30 May 1924 speech to the Italian Parliament

In the general election held on 6 April 1924, Matteotti was re-elected and the PSU obtained 6 percent of the vote, resulting in the second opposition party behind the 9 percent of the Italian People's Party (PPI). The electoral campaign took place in a serious climate of intimidation and repeated violence by the action squads of PNF, and the results were therefore largely favourable to the fascist government list, with the election of all its 356 candidates. During the electoral campaign in Cefalù, Matteotti himself suffered a fascist attack.^[54] When it came time to validate the Election Committee's decisions, several minority parliamentarians in the Chamber of Deputies raised protests over the voting procedures in some constituencies (Abruzzo, Campania, Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily).^[55] Matteotti, along with members of Parliament Enrico Presutti [it] and Arturo Labriola, then submitted a request to have the documents referred to the Election Committee. On 30 May 1924, Matteotti addressed the Chamber of Deputies to contest the election results, denouncing the violence, illegalities, and abuses committed by fascists in their bid to win the election.^[56] During his speech, he was frequently interrupted by shouted threats from the PNF deputies.^[57]

Guerre et Fascisme, 1924

Contestiamo in questo luogo e in tronco la validità delle elezioni della maggioranza. ... L'elezione secondo noi è essenzialmente non valida, e aggiungiamo che non è valida in tutte le circoscrizioni. ... Per vostra stessa conferma [dei parlamentari fascisti] dunque nessun elettore italiano si è trovato libero di decidere con la sua volontà... ... Vi è una milizia armata, composta di cittadini di un solo Partito, la quale ha il compito dichiarato di sostenere un determinato Governo con la forza, anche se ad esso il consenso mancasse.^[58]

— Italian original of Matteotti's speech to Parliament on 30 May 1924

We contest here and forthrightly the validity of the majority elections. ... In our opinion, the election is essentially invalid, and we add that it is not valid in all constituencies. ... As you [the fascist parliamentarians] yourself confirm, therefore, no Italian voter has found himself free to decide with his own will... ... There is an armed militia, composed of citizens of a single Party, which has the declared task of supporting a given Government by force, even if it lacks consensus.

— English translation of Matteotti's speech to Parliament on 30 May 1924

Having finished his speech, Matteotti addressed Giovanni Cosattini [it] who was sitting next to him,^[59] famously telling his fellow party members "I have made my speech. Now you prepare the funeral speech for me" (Io, il mio discorso l'ho fatto. Ora voi preparate il discorso funebre per me).^[60] According to others, the exact phrase (always addressed to Cosattini) was "And now prepare to give me a eulogy" (Ed ora preparatevi a farmi l'elogio funebre) or "And now, you can prepare my funeral" (Ed ora, potete preparare il mio funerale).^[61] Matteotti's proposal to invalidate the election of at least one group of deputies illegitimately elected because of violence and fraud was rejected by the Chamber of Deputies with 285 votes against, 57 in favour, and 42 abstentions.^[62] On 1 June, Il Popolo d'Italia published an article on the front page, in which Matteotti was explicitly indicated as the main opponent. The article was not signed but was written by Mussolini;^[63] a copy of the manuscript was kept by his secretary Arturo Fasciolo who in 1926 was sanctioned for the "documents of a confidential nature taken from the Head of Government".^[64] It read that "Mussolini found the majority's conduct too long-suffering because the Hon. Matteotti gave a monstrously provocative speech that would have deserved something more tangible than the epithet of 'gang' launched by the Hon. Giunta."^[65] During a discussion in the Chamber of Deputies on 4 June, Matteotti had an argument with Mussolini, reminding him of the approval given in 1919 by Il Popolo d'Italia to the decree of amnesty for deserters.^[66]

Assassination

Kidnapping and murder

Location of Matteotti's kidnapping

On 1 June 1924, the police chief Emilio De Bono ordered Otto Thierschädl, the spotter of the assassination squad who is unanimously considered by investigators and historians to be a timeless liar who lived by his wits,^[67] to be released from prison with a telegram signed "for the Minister of the Interior"; at that time, the Minister of the Interior ad interim was Mussolini.^[68] On 10 June, around 4 pm, Matteotti was bundled into a black Lancia, more specifically the Lancia Lambda limousine model,^[69] by five men while he was walking to Parliament to work. They were Dumini, Albino Volpi [it], Giuseppe Viola, Amleto Poveromo [it], and Augusto Malacria, all acting as members of Mussolini's secret political police.^[70] Matteotti had left his house and was heading towards the Chamber of Deputies to prepare his speech on the authorisation of the provisional exercise of the state budget.^[71]

When Matteotti reached the Lungotevere, he came across the black Lancia parked with some people on board; waiting for him was the fascist squad of Dumini, who kidnapped Matteotti, loaded him into the car, and then stabbed him during the beating that took place in the car.^[71] Inside the car, Matteotti was stabbed several times with a carpenter's file as he struggled to escape. His corpse was found after an extensive search near Riano, around 23 kilometres north of Rome, on 16 August 1924.^[72] He was 39, and the the discovery of Matteotti's body was accidental as it was sniffed by the dog of a Carabinieri sergeant on leave near the countryside of Riano.^[73] As two months had passed since his disappearance, the body was already decomposing, so a dental examination was necessary to identify him.^[73]

The car used by the fascist squad to kidnap and murder Matteotti

Matteotti was the latest victim of fascism, following the 1921 murders of Spartaco Lavagnini (a communist trade unionist) and Giuseppe di Vagno [it] (a PSI deputy from Apulia), and the 1923 murder of priest Giovanni Minzoni.^[74] Although Matteotti was not the first nor the last victim of fascism, his murder was particularly notable due to occurring not long after his speech to Parliament and in broad daylight,^[75] and was a watershed in Fascist Italy due to the Mussolini government issuing the Fascistissime laws in 1926 that fully established an authoritarian dictatorship.^[76] By 1938, Mussolini had exiled, jailed, or killed the various major opposition leaders, including Christian democrats like Luigi Sturzo (exiled) and future Italian prime minister Alcide De Gasperi (jailed), liberals like Piero Gobetti and Giovanni Amendola (killed by a fascist squad), and communists like Amadeo Bordiga (exiled) and Antonio Gramsci (died in prison).^[77]

The morning of 11 June, Matteotti's wife, worried by his prolonged absence, decided to warn his closest party members including Turati and Modigliani, who on the evening of 11 June reported Matteotti's disappearance to the police commissioner Cesare Bertini, who had already been informed of the incident by De Bono.^[78] On the morning of 12 June the news became public knowledge.^[79] In the afternoon, Mussolini made a statement to the Chamber of Deputies, generating protests from the parliamentary opposition.^[80] Also on 12 June, the first arrests began, and continued in the following days. On 27 June, the opposition commemorated Matteotti's death, officially starting the Aventine Secession, and throughout Italy many workers abstained from work for about ten minutes.^[81] Matteotti's body was found only on 16 August in the countryside of the municipality of Riano, around 20 kilometres from the centre of Rome; Matteotti's tomb is located in front of the main entrance to the Fratta Polesine cemetery in the family chapel.^[82] On 17 August, the Corriere della Sera wrote: "What is most important to note is the devastation wrought on the body by forcing it to occupy a grave so short compared to its length. The late MP was, in fact, five feet tall, while the grave was less than five feet long. Those who buried him undoubtedly must have broken his legs or pressed his head into his rib cage."^[83] On 21 August, the body arrived in Fratta Polesine where the funeral took place.^[82] The murder was subjected to three criminal proceedings between 1924–1926 and 1944–1950.^[84]

International reactions

The news of the kidnapping and assassination of Matteotti quickly spread around the world. In France, both the government and the National Assembly held Mussolini responsible for the murder, prompting Mussolini to send a telegram to all embassies announcing that the police had already arrested almost all the suspects. This did not stop the international press, including among others from Austria, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Spain, and Sweden, from strongly criticising Mussolini and cause a diplomatic crisis in Italy from which Mussolini was not prepared. In turn, Mussolini made generalised attacks on "those who want to humiliate Italy", threatening severe retaliation in the pages of Il Popolo d'Italia.^[74] The Soviet Union had a rather lukewarm reaction to Mussolini. According to the Italian ambassador to Moscow, "the press has limited itself to reproducing brief telegrams from Rome without any comment ... there has been no demonstration so far from the Russian government or public opinion."^[74] In the United States, Matteotti's kidnapping did not affect its favourable views of Mussolini, and responsibility for the crime was largely attributed to out-of-control fascists, while it assumed Mussolini's good faith and recognised him for his willingness to capture the assassins. Similarly, politically moderates and conservatives assumed Mussolini's good faith, having supported him for keeping the left-wing parties and movements out of government.^[74]

Matteotti Crisis and Aventine Secession

Main articles: Aventine Secession (20th century) and Matteotti Crisis

The assassination of Matteotti sparked widespread criticism of fascism and of Mussolini,^[85] including from the Italian liberals who had supported the PNF.^[86] For example, prominent liberal and future Italian President Luigi Einaudi switched to the parliamentary opposition over Matteotti's murder.^[86] On 6 August 1924, he wrote an article on the front page of the Corriere della Sera, Italy's newspaper of record, denouncing the guilty silence of financiers and industrialists in the face of fascism's continued and violent repression of opponents.^[86] In the days following Matteotti's disappearance, it became clear Matteotti had been assassinated on the order of people at the top of the regime, prompting the outrage of the opposition. Within a fortnight of the murder, Mauro Del Giudice, the judge appointed to investigate the crime, had ordered the arrest of high-profile members of Mussolini's inner circle and questions were asked about Mussolini's personal involvement. In May 2022, the then Italian Senator Gianni Marilotti [it] said that in those weeks "fascism fielded an articulated series of misdirections, obstructions of justice, and red herrings to declare the moral question closed."^[87]

After a few weeks of confusion, Mussolini gained a favourable vote from the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy. All opposition parties then united to agree to abandon parliamentary proceedings until the government had clarified what had happened to Matteotti in what became known as the Aventine Secession. This was an attempt to give strength to the "moral question" that would point to public disapproval of fascism but also to put pressure on King Victor Emmanuel III to dismiss Mussolini; however, the King refused to act since the Mussolini government was supported by a large majority of the Chamber of Deputies and almost all the Senate of the Kingdom. Moreover, he feared that compelling Mussolini to resign could be considered a coup that could eventual lead to a civil war between the Royal Italian Army and the Blackshirts.^[88]

During the summer, the trial against Matteotti's alleged murderers and the discovery of the corpse of Matteotti once again spread rage against Mussolini as newspapers launched fierce attacks against him and the fascist movement. On 13 September, Armando Casalini [it], a deputy and PNF member, was killed on a tramway in retaliation for Matteotti's murder by the anti-fascist Giovanni Corvi [it]. During the autumn of 1924, the extremist wing of the PNF threatened Mussolini with a coup and dealt with him on the night of San Silvestro (New Year's Eve) in 1924. Mussolini devised a counter-manoeuvre, and on 3 January 1925 he gave a famous speech attacking anti-fascists and confirming that he and only he was the leader of Italian fascism. He challenged the anti-fascists to prosecute him and claimed proudly that fascism was the "superb passion of the best youth of Italy" and grimly that "all the violence" was his responsibility because he had created the climate of violence. Admitting that the murderers were fascists of "high station",^[89] as Adolf Hitler later did after the Night of the Long Knives, Mussolini rhetorically claimed fault, stating: "If Fascism has been a criminal association, if all the violence has been the result of a determined historical, political, moral delinquency, the responsibility for this is on me, because I have created it with my propaganda from the time of our intervention in the War up to this moment ... I assume, I alone, the political, moral, historical responsibility for everything that has happened. If sentences, more or less maimed, are enough to hang a man, out with the noose!"^[90] Mussolini concluded with the warning that Italy needed stability and that fascism would assure stability to Italy in any manner necessary.^[89]

Trials and Mussolini's alleged involvement in the murder

The day Matteotti was kidnapped and murdered, he was due to discuss the Sinclair affair [it] in the Chamber of Deputies.^[91]

Five men (Dumini, the operational leader of the fascist secret police; Viola, Volpi, Malacria, and Poveromo) were arrested a few days after the kidnapping. Another suspect, Filippo Panzeri, fled from arrest. Only three men (Dumini, Volpi, and Poveromo) were convicted in 1926 and shortly after released under an amnesty approved the previous summer by the Mussolini government. Before the trial against the murderers, the High Court of the Senate started a trial against general Emilio De Bono, commander of the fascist paramilitary Blackshirts; however, he was discharged. Even after this trial, the investigation records were kept strictly secret, to the point that during the flight from the advancing Allied troops in 1944 the fascist leaders stole its documents and took them to Northern Italy, where they were recovered at the end of the World War II.^[84] After the war, the trial against Francesco Giunta, Cesare Rossi, Dumini, Viola, Poveromo, Malacria, Filippelli, and Panzeri was re-opened in 1947. Dumini, Viola, and Poveromo were sentenced to life imprisonment. Due to trial extinction for the death of Mussolini (a defendant), none of these three trials presented evidence of Mussolini's involvement.^[92]

The involvement of Mussolini in the assassination is much debated and historians suggested different theories over the years. In 1940, John Gunther wrote, "Most critics nowadays do not think that the Duce directly ordered the assassination ... but his moral responsibility is indisputable", perhaps with underlings believing they were carrying out Mussolini's desire by performing the kidnapping and murder on their own.^[89] While many historians argued that Mussolini was involved, De Felice was convinced that Mussolini was innocent. De Felice argued that Mussolini was a political victim of a plot and that he was damaged by the crisis that followed the murder as many fascists left the party and his government was about to collapse. Aiding him were Aurelio Lepre [it] and Emilio Gentile, who also believed in Mussolini's innocence. De Felice did not have a chance to study many documents pertaining to the inquest over the murder as they were not easily available at the time of his research.^[93]

Other historians, including Justin Pollard and Denis Mack Smith, thought the assassination was probably not ordered by Mussolini. Mauro Canali, a full professor of Contemporary History at the University of Camerino, suggested in 1997 that Mussolini probably ordered the murder as Matteotti uncovered and wanted to make public incriminating documents proving that Mussolini and his associates sold Sinclair Oil Corporation exclusive rights to all Italian oil reserves.^[94] During a two-hour interview in his Sardinian palace in Porto Rotondo in August 2003 to Boris Johnson and Nicholas Burgess Farrell that was published by The Spectator and La Voce di Rimini, the then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in his second term, who later claimed the interview had been manipulated while Farrell stood by it, was quoted as saying that "Mussolini never killed anyone" and thus ignored Matteotti's assassination and related fascist violence.^[95]

The socialist and anti-fascist journalist Carlo Silvestri [it] was a strong contemporary critic and accuser of Mussolini.^[96] Silvestri later joined the Italian Social Republic (RSI), a puppet state of Nazi Germany, helped anti-fascist exiles and victims through the Silvestri Red Cross, and acted as a mediator between the RSI and the Italian resistance movement. He affirmed that Mussolini had shown him the papers for the Matteotti case (these papers were captured by partisans with the other documents of Mussolini, and the folders with Matteotti's files were sent from Milan to Rome but never arrived),^[97] and eventually he changed his mind.^[98] While stating in response to critics that he was not defending Mussolini and that this did not cancel his criticism of fascism, he believed in Mussolini's innocence, which earned him criticism from other anti-fascists in the post-war period.^[99] Silvestri suggested that Matteotti was killed as a result of a capitalist plot, describing Matteotti's murder as decidedly anti-working class and anti-socialist,^[100] in order to damage Mussolini's attempt to form government with the participation of the PSI and the PPI and cover some scandals in which the Crown (with the American oil company Sinclair Oil) was involved,^[101] about which Matteotti had been writing and wanted to uncover in a speech;^[102] Arnaldo Mussolini, Mussolini's younger brother, was implicated in the affair.^[103] In an interview with Marcello Staglieno in 1985, Matteotti's son Gianmatteo expressed support for this theory.^[104] Judge Giovanni Spagnuolo, in relation to the business clue linked to the Sinclair Oil agreement, added in his 1946 indictment, refuting it in detail, that this "hypothesis clashes with the most elementary logic".^[105] Similarly, historian Mirko Grasso argued against this hypothesis, stating in 2024 that "there's no point in seeking further motives or leads that aren't supported by the documents. In the age of conspiracy theories, the oil trail, for example, is all the rage ... It's a compelling lead, but there's no documentation. We'll never find a note in which Mussolini says, 'Get rid of him.' We should rather ask ourselves why Matteotti met his end."^[103]

Political thought

Intransigent reformism

Girolamo Valente, an American anti-fascist editor of the progressive Italian weekly La Parola in New York City conferring with his secretary, with a portrait of Matteotti on the wall

An adherent to the reformist current of Turati, Matteotti in his activity as a municipal administrator during the pre-war period developed a pedagogical and moral conception of socialism.^[106] Although he aspired to revolution like the maximalists, Matteotti advocated a form of socialism from below. He believed that the socialist revolution should develop from below through the education of the people to a solidaristic and non-individualistic conception of personal relationships,^[106] affirming that "overthrowing the bourgeoisie is the least of it. The most is building and preparing socialism within ourselves."^[107] In order to elevate the weakest strata of society, Matteotti considered making use of three fundamental instruments: the school, the municipality, and the trade unions.^[108]

For Matteotti, the school had as its fundamental aim that of educating, instructing, and civilising the masses, and not to be considered only as a method of selection of the ruling class.^[108] Matteotti therefore considered it fundamental that everyone could have access to nursery schools and primary schools, which were often insufficient in rural areas both in terms of the number of classrooms and teachers.^[109] During his parliamentary career, he denounced the high rate of illiteracy in rural areas, and stood in defence of primary school teachers by requesting more equal remuneration.^[110] Regarding Italian universities, Matteotti thought that they were not sufficiently specialised, complaining about the large quantity of general institutes and the low quality of teaching.^[111] He also proposed to organise educational trips for the workers of the leagues, observing that "socialism does not mean wine and taverns; but above all it is an aspiration for the intellectual and moral elevation of the working class".^[112]

Matteotti was an advocate of municipalism. He saw the municipality as the means to be able, starting from the base, to reverse the balance of power between the working class and the bourgeois class,^[113] being at the same time the place where civic sense could be developed.^[114] During his activity as an administrator, he was always scrupulous in the care of the budgets, establishing from time to time the economic feasibility of the social interventions to be carried out.^[115] According to Matteotti, the socialist administration of the municipality differed significantly from the bourgeois one, stating that "this organ of public power in the hands of the conservatives very often turns into a perfect instrument of domination, we must aspire to it in order to transform it into a provident function of patrimony in the interest of the proletariat."^[116]

For Matteotti, the trade union leagues and the party were the instrument for disciplining the working masses and providing them with a class consciousness, so that they could then carry out the revolution by clashing with the employers' and ecclesiastical classes.^[117] During the Biennio Rosso, Matteotti assumed an ambivalent position towards the trade union leagues, exalting their revolutionary demands during rallies but acting as a reformist in Parliament.^[118] He held similar views on the Russian Revolution, justifying the use of violence and going as far as contesting private property.^[119] On the other hand, particularly since the 1919 Bologna Congress, he feared the risk that a revolution from above would lead to a new autocratic regime, opposing it with the idea of ​​a revolution patiently prepared from below. He soon became disillusioned with the methods of the Bolshevik Revolution and its outcome, and in particular Soviet violence appeared to him useless for the purpose of building socialism.^[120]

During the meeting of the reformist current to discuss the conditions for joining the Comintern, held in Reggio Emilia in October 1920, Matteotti tried to guarantee the autonomy of the PSI and at the same time its membership in the Comintern. In his speech, he argued that the establishment of socialism required a long time and that recourse to violence could be justified "only within the minimum of necessity that the conservative militarist reaction imposed", foreseeing "a transitory political dictatorship of the proletariat" that should "never be understood as a dictatorship of the few over the proletariat". Matteotti's speech was considered a confused one that made his "revolutionary reformism" appear less elaborate than that of Turati, representing a middle way between revolution and reform that dissatisfied the supporters of both.^[121]

Democratic socialism and social democracy

Starting in 1921, with the rise of fascism in Italy, Matteotti began to condemn the use of violence as a revolutionary instrument, and only allowed it in self-defence against fascist violence.^[122] Faced with fascist illegality, Matteotti placed himself in defence of democratic institutions, identifying the parliament as the place in which to bring forward the demands of the workers' movement.^[123] In direct opposition to fascism, Matteotti worked more and more actively to create an anti-fascist bloc that included both maximalists and Christian democrats (through the current of Popolarismo),^[124] and as a result he was violently attacked and persecuted by fascists.^[125] In a 1923 speech to the Chamber of Deputies, Matteotti expressed his hope for the formation of a United States of Europe, which was understood as a union of peoples and workers. He said: "We urge the formation of the United States of Europe; not by postponing it ideally until after socialism, but by hastening it practically because it represents a foretaste of socialism, a stepping stone to socialism, a recognition and brotherhood among the diverse workers of all nations, eliminating many apparently national, but essentially capitalist, deviations and conflicts."^[126]

In April 1923, Matteotti illustrated his political positions in a pamphlet distributed among the PSU leaders,^[127] effectively laying the ideological foundations of post-war Italian democratic socialism and social democracy.^[128] Matteotti expressed the repudiation of violence as a form of struggle as a fundamental condition for belonging to the party, identifying the democratic method and political freedom as the main instrument of action.^[129] He thus identified the class struggle as the defence of work through political action for the good of the community and the fair division of profits in order to progressively eliminate class hatred.^[129] From the perspective of socialist internationalism, Matteotti promoted diplomatic activities aimed at avoiding conflicts by supporting the League of Nations and the formation of the United States of Europe, while at the same time recognising the existence of the nation.^[129] Taking a stand against the overthrow of the state, he promoted instead the gradual increase of the influence of the working class within the state, whose institutions must act impartially and not be at the service of the ruling class.^[130] Matteotti also proposed the overcoming of capitalism with a collective economy, understanding the increase in production as a collective heritage.^[130] At the end of the pamphlet, Matteotti reaffirmed his vision of socialism, which towards the worker "intends and works to raise him and lead him to economic and intellectual improvements, to ever higher social freedom and spiritual freedom. That is, it wants to form and realise in him the man who lives, as a brother and not as a wolf, with men, in a better humanity, through solidarity and justice."^[128]

Matteotti and Bolshevik communism

Matteotti's refusal of political violence expressed in this final phase led him to split with the newly formed PCd'I. In 1922, shortly before the Rome Congress that sanctioned the expulsion of the reformists and the birth of the PSU, Matteotti's comment on the risk of new splits in La Lotta identified political violence as the characterising element of Bolshevik communism, stating: "If there are those who believe only in violence, let them leave and go to the Communists. If there are those who feel close to the bourgeois parties, which today have all denied their democracy, let them move to the Bonomi group."^[131] As secretary of the PSU, convinced that fascist illegality had to be defeated with legality, Matteotti excluded the PCd'I from his plans for an anti-fascist alliance, which also included the maximalists of the PSI and the PPI led by Sturzo. Divided from the Communists by socialist humanism and respect for individual freedoms and constitutional guarantees, he rejected the Communist proposal to form a "united front of proletarian opposition to fascism" ahead 1924 general election. In reply to the letter sent to him by Palmiro Togliatti on 23 January, he rejected the three conditions set by the Communists: accepting the Communist tactical approach, which was antithetical to the PSU "as demonstrated by the constant, often offensive, polemics against us"; participating in the elections under any conditions, abandoning the idea of ​​electoral abstention (deemed by Matteotti to be the most effective form of protest against the regime); and exclude an opposition to fascism aimed at the "pure and simple restoration of statutory liberties" and open to the participation of non-worker parties.^[132]

In the same letter, Matteotti observed: "To place such preconditions before an agreement – ​​which in our opinion should aim, first and foremost, at the conquest of elementary political liberties and at leading the proletariat out of the current tragic situation – means not only making the agreement absolutely impossible, but also making any discussion futile. If this was your aim, you have undoubtedly achieved it. But you will not be permitted the usual convenient manoeuvre to unload on us the responsibility, which is yours, of having divided and weakened the Italian proletariat in the moments of greatest oppression and danger."^[133] According to historian Gianpaolo Romanato [it], Matteotti's plans for agreements with other political forces "always excluded the Communists" and Matteotti "who, not coincidentally, never went to Moscow despite his passion for travel (and joked about the 'pilgrims of Moscow,' as socialists inspired by Leninism then called themselves), always expressed a total, almost contemptuous, rejection of the Communists, of the Bolshevik Party."^[134]

The response of Matteotti did not surprise Togliatti, who had already written on January 18 to the secretariat of the Comintern that Communist propaganda was based "on the criticism of bourgeois democracy" and on the assumption that "fascism has opened up a period of permanent revolution for the proletariat and the proletarian party which forgets this point and continues to nourish among the workers the illusion of a possibility of changing the present situation by maintaining itself on the terrain of a liberal and constitutional opposition will, in the final analysis, give points of support to the enemies of the Italian working and peasant class."^[135] In a letter to Turati written shortly before the 1924 general election, Matteotti highlighted the need to re-establish socialist unity with the maximalists of the PSI, which was also now "clearly at odds with Moscow", and expressed his strong criticism of Soviet communism by stating that "it is not allowed to keep the Italian working class divided. The enemy at present is only one: fascism. The involuntary accomplice of fascism is communism. The violence and dictatorship preached by one becomes the pretext and justification for the violence and dictatorship in action of the other. Italian workers, taught by the harsh experiences of the post-war period, must unite in harmony, against the fascism that oppresses and against the insidious communist discord."^[136] Matteotti's assessment of the interdependent relationship between fascism and Bolshevik communism is similar to that expressed a few months earlier by Amendola, who stated: "In the end, the Communists are our own epigones of the Russian experiment ... and—fanatics of their own views to the ultimate consequences—while legitimising Lenin's dictatorship with their support, they also legitimise the fascist dictatorship in Italy, even while fighting it."^[137]

Legacy

Memory

Drawing by Giuseppe Scalarini [it] for Avanti! about the assassination of Matteotti

A key figure of the Italian left,^[138] Matteotti was an exponent of Italian reformist socialism,^[139] distinguished by his pragmatic yet radical commitment to the fight for workers' rights, democracy, and social justice.^[140] His approach was based on concrete political and trade union action, the defence of the parliament and democracy, and a vision of socialism as a process aimed at improving the material and intellectual conditions of humanity through reforms.^[141] Deeply connected to the rural world of his hometown of Polesine,^[142] he was also critical of some of the PSI's positions, such as the PSI's wing in support of Italian entry in the Great War or when the reformists were expelled by the maximalist faction and he followed Turati to establish the PSU.^[143] Nicknamed Tempesta ("Storm") by his fellow socialists for his intransigent and combative character,^[144] Matteotti was known for his strong independent thinking, which led him to clash with other PSI members including Mussolini, as demonstrated by his opposition to the Italo-Turkish War and the Great War.^[145] He was also opposed to colonialism.^[146]

While a staunch supporter of reformism, Matteotti embraced a radical vision where reforms were not an end in themselves but a means to achieve the revolutionary goal of socialist society, which he envisioned as the gradual increase in the influence of the working class within the state. Unlike fascism and nationalism, Matteotti championed the importance of democratic institutions and the overcoming of capitalism with a collective economy, as well as the role of local institutions in his battle for democracy.^[147] He once said that "local administration is the forge of democracy".^[148] His battles were not limited to theory, and he took concrete steps in the fight for farmers' rights in the Polesine area and in the defence of legality and democratic principles in the parliament. Matteotti was a keen observer of the violent and liberticidal nature of fascism, and denounced its lies and violence, making warnings of the threat of fascist totalitarianism.^[19] His assassination marked a crucial moment in the transition to the fascist regime. It transformed him into a martyr of socialism, anti-fascism, and democracy,^[149] whose example of integrity, ethical consistency, and political commitment, as well as courage and sacrifice,^[150] inspirated many people who from all over Italy gathered in Fratta Polesine to participate in a June 1945 march organised to commemorate his death.^[151]

Since the fall of the fascist regime in Italy and the establishment of the Italian Republic, numerous busts, gardens, gravestones, monuments, murals, plaques, squares, streets, and stones were established in his honour,^[152] including the Monument to Giacomo Matteotti along the Lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia in Rome, where his kidnapping and murder took place; in July 2025, the monument was vandalised, resulting in condemnation across the political spectrum.^[153] Matteotti and his murder were the subject of several films and TV series.^[154] In Florestano Vancini's film The Assassination of Matteotti (1973), Matteotti was played by Franco Nero.^[154] In the historical drama TV mini-series Mussolini: Son of the Century (2024–2025) directed by Joe Wright and based on the 2018 novel M: Son of the Century by Antonio Scurati that won the 2019 Strega Prize,^[155] Matteotti was played by Gaetano Bruno.^[156] In May 2024, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in the 100 year anniversary of his death, without mentioning Mussolini, that Matteotti was "a free man killed by fascist squads for his ideas".^[157] In the early 21st century, the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi and the death of Alexei Navalny were compared to that of Matteotti.^[158]

Martyr and myth

Matteotti's funeral on 21 August 1924

The brutality with which the Matteotti murder was carried out meant that from the beginning anti-fascist public opinion identified Matteotti as one of its martyrs. A strong contribution to the mythologisation of Matteotti was made by the excerpt of the confession attributed to Volpi, one of the material executors of the assassination, published in the newspaper of the PCd'I on 15 June 1924.^[159] In his confession, Volpi was quoted as saying that "Matteotti's demeanor was absolutely defiant as we stabbed him; I would say heroic. He continued to shout in our faces until the very end: 'Murderers, barbarians, cowards!' He never had a moment of weakness to plead for mercy. And as we continued our action, he repeated: 'Kill me, but you will never kill the idea that is in me.'"^[160] Volpi further said: "Until the very end, as long as he still had a thread of voice, he shouted: 'My idea will not die! My children will boast of their father! The workers will bless my corpse!' He died shouting: 'Long live socialism!'"^[160]

Although Anna Kuliscioff observed that the words reported by l'Unità did not correspond to the linguistic style generally used by Matteotti,^[159] the declaration was quickly relaunched by other national newspapers.^[161] On 1 July, less than a month after the assassination, La Rivoluzione Liberale of Gobetti, who was himself killed by a fascist squad in 1926, dedicated an entire issue to Matteotti's memory, highlighting his uncompromising anti-fascism.^[162] The Mussolini government opposed from the beginning the climate of commemoration that had been created by having the Blackshirts guarding the place where the crime had been committed in order to avoid any type of commemoration.^[163] Fascist politician and former PNF secretary Roberto Farinacci stated in 1927 "I had only one duty: to ensure that 10 June 1925 was the opposite of 10 June 1924. In fact, today we have succeeded in demonstrating that the nation is obsessed with the Aventine Party and considers all the Aventine supporters to be charlatans. Today we can say loud and clear that if Italy does not witness the evil speculation of that dead man—speculation that served to sell newspapers and insult our country abroad—it is thanks to Fascism."^[164]

On 28 June 1924, Idea Nuova reported the letter of future Italian President Sandro Pertini; in the wake of emotion and indignation for the assassination, Pertini had requested to join the PSU.^[165] The Matteotti myth soon crossed national borders, so much so that in 1926 the Labour and Socialist International dedicated a fund to Matteotti's memory to help the workers' movement in dictatorial states, which remained active until the outbreak of the World War II.^[166] The Matteotti-Hof was inaugurated in 1927 as part of the public housing program of the city of Vienna. In Vienna, a social housing complex renamed Matteottihof was built between 1926 and 1927, while the Monument to Giacomo Matteotti was erected in the people's house in Brussels in 1927. Among other initiatives, the suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst founded in London on 1 May 1930 the Women's International Matteotti Committee.^[166]

During the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, the Matteotti Battalion operated within the Justice and Freedom movement among the international brigades;^[167] the other was the Garibaldi Battalion.^[168] The Matteotti Battalion was formed in January 1937 within the Durruti Column.^[169] Among the many Italian figures who fought during the civil war were liberal socialists like Rosselli, republicans like Randolfo Pacciardi, and communists like Guido Picelli.^[168] During the Italian resistance movement to Nazi–fascism, the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP), the result of a merge in August 1943 of the PSI with the Movement of Proletarian Unity [it] (MUP) led by Lelio Basso and others, formed the Matteotti Brigades.^[170] Founded after the winter of 1943, the Matteotti Brigades were of socialist inspiration and part of the broader National Liberation Committee (CLN), initially coordinated by the Emilia-Romagna regional CLN and then by the Emilia Romagna Unified Military Command (CUMER).^[171] Among the other Italian partisan brigades in honour of Matteotti were the Matteotti Montagna Brigade and the Matteotti-Picelli Battalion.^[172] 138 days after the death of Mussolini on 28 April 1945, the Corriere della Sera debunked a rumour circulating in liberated Italy, first broken by the Chicago Sun, that one of Matteotti's sons had fired the bullet that killed Mussolini.^[173] In 1955, Matteotti was defined as a martyr in an official act of the Italian Republic, which gave Isabella Matteotti a pension as a "daughter of the Martyr".^[174] As president of the Chamber of Deputies from 1968 to 1976, Pertini published Matteotti's parliamentary speeches in 1970, and the first biography of Matteotti by Antonio Glauco Casanova [it] came out in 1974, while the publication of the complete works, edited by historian Stefano Caretti, began in 1983.^[175] In subsequent decades, Matteotti's works were further re-published and analysed.^[176]

Communist views and reactions

Bruno Buozzi [it] paying homage to Matteotti on behalf of the General Confederation of Labour at the site of his kidnapping

In a 28 August 1924 article in Lo Stato Operaio, Gramsci criticised the figure of Matteotti, accusing him of being capable of mobilising the masses but not to carry out the revolution for the constitution of a socialist state.^[177] Gramsci defined Matteotti as a "pilgrim of nothingness", a term that he borrowed from Karl Radek's speech on 20 June 1923 in Moscow before the Third Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. Radek had applied this definition to the German nationalist Albert Leo Schlageter, who was convicted by a French military tribunal and shot for resisting the occupation of the Ruhr. In regard to Matteotti, Gramsci meant with this expression "the unfortunate fighter, but tenacious to the point of self-sacrifice, of an idea which cannot lead its believers and militants to anything other than a useless vicious circle of struggles, agitations, sacrifices without results and without a way out".^[178]

According to the historian of socialism Gaetano Arfé, in Gramsci's article and criticism there was an attempt at historicisation by virtue of which Gramsci proposed the Communist Party as the organisation that "gathers in the course of its struggle all that is most advanced in the national tradition ... . The commemorations written by Gramsci, Matteotti, and Serrati bear the mark of this tendency: reformism and maximalism are criticised and harshly, but also historicised, and what remains alive in them finds in communism its own new historical place."^[179] The thesis of social fascism, which was advanced by Joseph Stalin in the late 1920s, seemed to revive this internal dispute within the left but was criticised by Umberto Terracini, who instead recognised Matteotti's sacrifice and the propulsive value of his intransigence towards any type of collaboration with fascism.^[180]

In the wake of Gramsci's interpretation and into the 1970s, leading figures of the PCI accused Matteotti of having a defeatist attitude in the face of fascist violence, citing some passages of the speech he gave to the Chamber of Deputies on 10 March 1921, where he said: "The order of the Chamber of Labour is not to make any provocation. The order is: stay in your homes: do not respond to provocations. Even silence, even cowardice are sometimes heroic ... We have continued for months and months to say in our meetings that we must not accept provocations, that even cowardice is a duty, an act of heroism."^[181] In a 18 June 1921 article in L'Ordine Nuovo, Gramsci seemed to allude to this when he accused the socialists of having adopted a defeatist attitude in the face of fascist violence, arguing that "the peasants were told not to resist, to be cowards, to passively accept every oppression and every abuse".^[182] Matteotti's speech of 10 March concluded with a warning to the government that the continuation of fascist violence precluded further recommendations to socialist militants not to react. He stated: "But we have continued to preach for too many months, gentlemen of the Government, in vain; we do not feel like it, and we can no longer tell our people that discipline can spell their death; we can no longer order them to be killed one by one, to have their throats cut, for the sake of our discipline. We no longer feel like advising this, and in our assemblies we are now being told words we can no longer tolerate. You in the Government stand by, inert or complicit. We no longer deplore, we no longer ask for anything. Now you are informed of the situation; the Chamber is warned. This is what I wanted to tell you."^[181]

Pietro Secchia, an exponent of the most left wing of the PCI, in listing the sectors of Italian society that had supported Squadrismo, wrote that "one cannot forget that the leaders of the Socialist Party (Matteotti included) were decidedly against the armed struggle and preached resignation, non-resistance, the 'courage to be cowardly.'"^[183] Giorgio Amendola, who belonged to the PCI current closest to reformist socialism (Migliorismo), stated: "Matteotti went so far as to proclaim the heroism of silence and 'cowardice'. Three years later he had to pay, with the sacrifice of his life, for the 'cowardly' advice given to the workers when it was still possible to organise resistance and counterattack."^[184] Historian Massimo Luigi Salvadori [it] thought the rebuke addressed by the Communist exponents to Matteotti was "truly outrageous" and said that they had misunderstood the true meaning of his appeal, "that is to say the invitation addressed to socialist militants and workers to hold back the temptation to respond to provocations that would have activated a spiral of ever new violence".^[185]

Commemorations

People in Fratta Polesine commemorating Matteotti

The memory of Matteotti is honoured by plaques and monuments scattered across the national territory;^[152] with bridges, schools, squares, and streets,^[152] Matteotti is the 20th-century politician most cited in Italian toponymy, with around 3,000 titles.^[186] In Fratta Polesine, there is the Giacomo Matteotti House-Museum, which was recognised in 2017 as a national monument by Italian President Sergio Mattarella.^[187] The building belongs to the Accademia dei Concordi by testamentary bequest of Matteotti's children, and was ceded for use to the municipality of Fratta Polesine. The house-museum is open to the public and offers a broad and detailed reconstruction of the life of Matteotti and his family. Under the control of a scientific committee, it publishes a series of studies titled Quaderni di Casa Matteotti. At the site of the kidnapping, near Lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia in Rome, the Monument to Giacomo Matteotti by Iorio Vivarelli was erected in 1974, and the nearby bridge was renamed Ponte Giacomo Matteotti (formerly Ponte del Littorio). A monument to Matteotti was also erected in Riano at the site where the body was found.^[188]

The anniversary of Matteotti's assassination was routinely commemorated,^[189] including its 95th anniversary,^[190] and several decrees were issued in preparation of the centenary.^[191] At the suggestion of the Giacomo Matteotti Foundation, the Ministry of Culture established the National Committee for the Celebrations of the Centenary of the Death of Giacomo Matteotti (Ministerial Decree 20 April 2022, no. 172) and promoted the National Edition of the Matteotti Trials (Ministerial Decree 8 April 2022, no. 140).^[192] A Provincial Committee for the Celebrations of the Centenary of the Death of Giacomo Matteotti was established in the province of Rovigo in 2023. Also in 2023, the Italian Parliament definitively approved the law establishing the celebrations for the centenary of the death of Matteotti; among the research activities on the life, thought, and work of Matteotti, "educational and training initiatives will also be supported, in synergy with libraries, museums, and cultural institutions, through the direct involvement of scholastic institutions".^[193]

In 2024, the centenary of Matteotti's death was held in the Chamber of Deputies, with the presence of President Mattarella, all the highest officials of the state, and 300 students from all over Italy.^[194] In his honour was also published L'oppositore. Matteotti contro il fascismo (The Opponent: Matteotti Against Fascism) by Grasso,^[195] Aventino. Storia di un'opposizione al regime (The Aventine: The Story of an Opposition to the Regime) by University of Milan professors Claudia Baldoli and Luigi Petrella, and Contro ogni violenza (Against All Violence), a volume edited by Davide Angelo Grippa, an associate professor of History, discussing the ideas and beliefs of Matteotti, including the speech he gave to the Chamber of Deputies on 31 January 1921 where he analysed political violence.^[196] Antonio Funiciello, a former chief of staff in the Draghi government, also wrote L'infinita tempesta di Matteotti (The Endless Storm of Matteotti), arguing against the common view that Matteotti was alone and isolated.^[139] In the words of Caretti, "Few politicians have been able to inspire entire generations and arouse such profound and lasting echoes, even abroad, as Matteotti, but few have been at the same time glorified and less known."^[197]

In popular culture

Matteotti is referenced in popular culture through awards, cinema, songs, sport, stamps, television, and theatre. The Giacomo Matteotti Prize was established in 2005 by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers; it is "awarded to works that illustrate the ideals of brotherhood between peoples, of freedom, and social justice that inspired the life of Giacomo Matteotti".^[198] The award is divided into three sections: "essays", "literary and theatrical works", and "degree theses".^[198] In 1945, the Matteotti Trophy was established alongside a men's road cycling race, which reached its 77th edition in 2025.^[199] In 1955, a commemorative Italian stamp (70th anniversary of his birth) of ₤25 in red was issued.^[200] In 2012, a commemorative stamp was issued by San Marino with a value of €2.64.^[201]

Many songs honoured Matteotti.^[202] "Povero Matteotti" is a protest song, performed to the tune of "Povero Cavallotti" (circa 1898).^[203] "L'assassinio di Giacomo Matteotti" is a counter-information song, performed to the tune of "La Leggenda del Piave" (circa 1918), including all the names of the people involved in the kidnapping and murder of Matteotti.^[204] The 33 rpm anthology Cantacronache 4 (1971) by the group Cantacronache included "Canta di Matteotti", with an anonymous author to the tune of "Il Maschio di Volterra" (circa 1900).^[205] Alessio Lega [it] also honoured Matteotti throughs songs,^[206] referencing the verse "You kill the man, but not the idea" (Voi uccidete l'uomo, ma non l'idea) of a famous popular song, which made Matteotti an anti-fascist hero and martyr.^[207] To commemorate the centenary of Matteotti's death, Lega held a concert and spectacle in his honour titled "But Not the Idea. Matteotti's Life: Twenty Years of Resistance, a Hundred Years of Anti-Fascism" (Ma non l'idea: la vita di Matteotti. Vent'anni di resistenza, cento di antifascismo).^[208]

Franco Nero as Matteotti in The Assassination of Matteotti (1973)

Several documentaries and movies about Matteotti's life and his murder were made.^[209] In 1956, a 11-minute documentary about the Matteotti murder was directed by Nelo Risi.^[210] This was followed by the 1973 film and 2023 television series, the former directed by Florestano Vancini and starring Nero (as Matteotti) and Vittorio De Sica (as Del Giudice).^[211] In the latter, Bruno said about his play of Matteotti that he was too alone to be saved.^[156] In theatre, Maricla Boggio [it] wrote Matteotti, l'ultimo discorso (Matteotti: The Last Speech), which was performed in the Council Chamber of the Campidoglio in Rome on 26 November 2004, and the theatrical text was published by the theatrical magazine Ridotto;^[212] it won Boggio the 2005 Matteotti Prize.^[213]

In 2021, Carmen Sepede and Emanuele Gamba wrote and directed Il mio nome è Tempesta. Il delitto Matteotti (My Name Is Storm: The Matteotti Murder),^[214] which won the 2022 Matteotti Prize from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.^[215] For the same work, Sepede won the 2024 Flaiano International Prize.^[216] In 2024, Giuseppe Vitale wrote and directed Un uomo solo, solo un uomo (A Man Alone: Just a Man), which debuted at the Teatro Ghione in Rome on 10 June, the centenary of Matteotti's murder. It was sponsored by the Lazio region and the municipality of Rome, and was based on the book Solo (2021) by Riccardo Nencini.^[217] Also in 2024, there was a dramatic art spectacle of Matteotti's 31 January 1921 and 30 May 1924 parliamentary speeches directed and performed by Gianpiero Borgia [it] and Elena Cotugno.^[73]

Works

Essays

• La recidiva. Saggio di revisione critica con dati statistici (in Italian). Milan: Fratelli Bocca. 1910. SBN PAL0279701.
• Un anno di dominazione fascista (PDF) (in Italian). Rome: Tipografia italiana. 1923. SBN LO10494866.
  • The Fascisti Exposed: A Year of Fascist Domination. Translated by Dickes, E. W. London: Independent Labour Party Publication Department. 1924. OCLC 5305081.
  • Une année de domination fasciste (in French). Brussels: Maison nationale d'edition. 1924.
  • The Fascisti Exposed: A Year of Fascist Domination. Translated by Dickes, E. W. New York: Howard Fertig. 1969 [1924]. OCLC 47749.
  • Un anno di dominazione fascista (in Italian). With an essay by Umberto Gentiloni [it], introduction by Walter Veltroni. Milan: Rizzoli. 2019 [1923].{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) SBN RAV2092490.
  • Caretti, Simone, ed. (2020). Un anno e mezzo di dominazione fascista (in Italian). Pisa University Press. ISBN 978-88-333-9267-7.
• Fascismus in Italien. Grundlagen – Aufstieg – Niedergang (in German). Translated by Kaminski, Hanns-Erich. Berlin: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft. 1925.
• Il fascismo della prima ora. Pagine estratte dal "Popolo d'Italia" (in Italian). Roe: Tipografica italiana. 1924. SBN LO10491316.

Collections

• Reliquie (in Italian). Milan: Corbaccio. 1924. SBN RAV0187442.
• Contro il fascismo (in Italian). Milan; Rome: Avanti!. 1954. SBN MOD0311608.
  • Contro il fascismo (in Italian). With preface by Sergio Luzzatto [it]. Milano: Garzanti. 2019 [1954].{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) SBN RAV2091584.
• Discorsi parlamentari (in Italian). With preface by Sandro Pertini. Rome: Stabilimenti tipografici Carlo Colombo. 1970. In three volumes.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) CS1 maint: postscript (link) SBN PUV0135055.
• Scritti e discorsi (in Italian). Milan: Aldo Garzanti. 1974. SBN LIA0023787
• Scritti e discorsi (in Italian). Venezia: Marsilio. 1981. SBN RAV0122210.
• Caretti, Stefano, ed. (1983). Scritti sul fascismo (in Italian). Pisa: Nistri-Lischi. SBN CSA0066314.
• Giacomo Matteotti 1885-1985. Riformismo e antifascismo. Scritti e discorsi, testimonianze, contributi (in Italian). Rome: Ediesse. 1985. SBN UBO1625131.
• Caretti, Stefano, ed. (1986). Lettere a Velia (in Italian). Pisa: Nistri-Lischi. SBN CFI0036817
• Caretti, Stefano, ed. (1990). Sulla scuola (in Italian). Pisa: Nistri-Lischi. SBN CFI0195895.
• Caretti, Stefano, ed. (1992). Sul riformismo (in Italian). Pisa: Nistri-Lischi. SBN LO10099312.
• Caretti, Stefano, ed. (2003). Scritti giuridici (in Italian). Pisa: Nistri-Lischi. In two volumes.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link) SBN RML0129964.
• Caretti, Stefano, ed. (2006). La questione tributaria (in Italian). Manduria: P. Lacaita. SBN CFI0658959
• Caretti, Stefano, ed. (2009). Scritti economici e finanziari (in Italian). Pisa: PLUS. In two volumes.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link) SBN CFI0736425.
• Caretti, Stefano, ed. (2011). L'avvento del fascismo (in Italian). With premise by Aurelio Roncaglia [it]. Pisa: PLUS. SBN CFI0772105.
• Caretti, Stefano, ed. (2012). Epistolario, 1904-1924 (in Italian). Pisa: Pisa University Press. ISBN 978-88-849-2850-4. SBN CFI0791869.
• Caretti, Stefano, ed. (2013). Socialismo e guerra (in Italian). With premise by Ennio Di Nolfo [it]. Pisa: Pisa University Press. SBN CFI0814411.
• Caretti, Stefano, ed. (2014). Scritti e discorsi vari (in Italian). With premise by Gianpasquale Santomassimo [it]. Pisa: Pisa University Press. SBN RAV2006276.
• La lotta semplice (in Italian). Rome: Edizioni di Comunità. 2019. SBN PAR1262151.
• Grasso, Mirko, ed. (2020). Il fascismo tra demagogia e consenso. Scritti 1922-1924 (in Italian). Rome: Donzelli. SBN UMC1011897.
• Polito, Pietro, ed. (2022). Questo è il fascismo (in Italian). Rome: e/o. SBN LO11859856.
• Grippa, Davide, ed. (2024). Contro ogni forma di violenza (in Italian). Turin: Einaudi. ISBN 978-88-584-4565-5. OCLC 1435778219.

See also

• Centrist Marxism
• Sewer socialism
• Socialism in Italy