Fascio (plural: fasci) is an Italian word which in the 1890s came to refer to radical political groups. It later evolved into the term fascism.

During the nineteenth century, the bundle of rods, known from ancient Rome called fasces came to symbolize strength through unity: the point being that, whilst each independent rod was fragile, as a bundle they were strong. By extension, the word fascio came in modern Italian political usage to mean group, union, band or league. It was first used in this sense in the 1870's by groups of revolutionary socialists in Sicily, to describe themselves. The most famous of these groups was the Fascio Siciliano during 1895-96. (4) Thereafter, the word retained revolutionary connotations. It was these connotations which made it attractive, for example, to the young men of the left who demanded Italian intervention in the First World War. The fasci they formed were scattered over Italy, and it was to one of these spontaneously created groups, devoid of party affiliations, that Mussolini belonged. (1) On August 18 1914, Alceste de Ambris speaking from the rostrum of the Milanese Syndical Union (USM) began a ferocious attack against neutrality and urged interventionism against German reaction and the necessity of aiding France and Britain in WWI. He equated the war with the French Revolution. This caused a deep split within the Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI). The majority opted for neutrality. The Parma Labor Chamber, the USM, and other revolutionary syndicalists left the USI and on October 1, 1914, founded the Fasci d'Azione rivoluzionaria internazionalista. On October 5, Angelo Oliviero Olivetti published their manifesto in the first issue of a new series of Pagine libere. Mussolini shortly thereafter joined this group and took leadership. (See note 2)

On December 11, 1914, Mussolini started a political group, Fasci d'azione rivoluzionaria which was a fusion of two other movements, the above group, Fasci d'azione rivoluzionaria internazionalista and a previous group he started called the Fasci autonomi d'azione rivoluzionaria. (See note 3)

This was the Milan fascio, of which he was the leader. January 24, 1915 was the turning point in the history of the fasci as their leaders met in Milan and formed a national organization, after naming themselves Fasci d'Azione revoluzionaria (bands for revolutionary action). (1)

In 1919, after the war had ended, Mussolini reconstituted the Milan fascio, using the new name fasci di combattimento. Other fasci of the same name were created, with the common goal of opposing all those—including the monarch and government—whose pacific interests were deemed to be depriving Italy of the fruits of victory in the war. Apart from the new name and the new objective, the Milan fascio 'represented much the same lot who had formed the fascio in 1915'. (H. W. Schneider, Making the Fascist State, NY, 1928, pg 56.) (See note 1)

In November 1921, the National Fascist party came into existence.

Other Italian Fasci

• Fascists of the Veneto led by Dino Grandi and Pietro Marsich .

Reference

1. By permission of author, Fascism, Noël O'Sullivan, J. M. Dent & Sons, London, 1983. pg 207.
2. The Birth of Fascist Ideology, From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution, Zeev Sternhell with Mario Sznajder and Maia Asheri, trans. by David Maisel, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. l994. pp 140, 214
3. The Birth of Fascist Ideology, Zeev Sternhell, pg 303.
4. A History of Fascism 1914-1945, Stanley G. Payne, University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. pg 81