THE RISE AND FALL OF MAXIMALISM 67
In January 1920 there was a strike of railwaymen and post
office employees, and between the end of February and the
end of May increasing numbers of agricultural workers in
the provinces of Ferrara, Mantua, Novara, Pavia, Padua,
Verona, Arezzo, and Parrnaj went on strike. The c white'
(catholic) organizations of Soresina (Cremona) were also
affected. All these strikes had a definitely economic aim,
to make wages meet the ever-rising cost of living. They
followed no preconcerted plan ; the railwaymen went out
on January 20, while the post office employees returned to
work on the sist ; the agricultural strikes of the north took
place unrelated to each other or to the seizure of land which
was going on in the south. It was a huge dissipation of
energy, a wave of movements which ended by holding up
productive work for weeks and months in some rural districts,
but whose political effect was nil. But this readiness and
persistence of the masses who struck was a sign of the times
and evidence of their restlessness and their hopes. The
least thing might lead to a cessation of work, though at times
strikes were linked with a more widespread discontent, as
in Garnia, during May, where the Austrians had been in
occupation during the war and too many problems had been
left unsolved. In some cases c political5 claims of the first
importance were made, as in the general strike at Turin
during April, the object of which was the recognition of
factory councils by the employers^ and which resulted in a
severe defeat for the workmen.
This strike arose out of an incident which shows what
the atmosphere was like in some industrial centres. The
government having just adopted e summer time', the
management of the Fiat motor-works had put on the
hands of the factory clock one hour. The workers5 com-
mittee put it back, so the directors appealed to them to
keep to winter hours if they liked, but to let the clock show
the same time as the others in the town. No agreement
could be made, the workers' delegates were dismissed and
the strike broke out. Summer time was a relic of the war,
an intrusion by the state into the workers' daily life which
they would not tolerate. At Turin the outbreak was spon-
taneous, but in other centres, such as Bologna and Cremona^