COUNTER-REVOLUTION
had employed gangs of toughs, mazzieri,1 to knock reason
into recalcitrant labourers and force them to support
the landowners' candidate on election day. These gangs
had chiefly consisted of c wanted ' men, whose new job,
thanks to collusion between the authorities and the land-
owners, great manipulators of elections and majorities,
guaranteed them immunity from the law. Membership of
a gang was a safeguard as effective as the protection of a
medieval sanctuary. The workers became so strong after
the war that this method became impossible unless applied
on a much larger scale with a better organization and more
arms. The Apvdian. fasci came into being to carry out this
policy ; the old lags were enlisted in the fascist squads,
officered by students and demobilized officers, mostly sons
of landowners or members of the petite bourgeoisie of the
south, very poor, but greedy for fame and advancement.
Their method was to attack the townships, for in Apulia
the peasants lived in towns and went out every day to work
on the big estates, often several miles away, and came back
at night. The landowner's agent used to come to the market-
place every morning to hire labour ; formerly he had fixed
the daily wage, but now this was done, at least in part, by
the Chamber of Labour. The destruction of the Chamber
would be a death-blow to the resistance of the peasants.
Consequently, when on February 22 thirty fascists made a
surprise attack on the Chamber of Labour at Minervino
Murge and set it on fire, and others collected the next day at
Bari to attack the workers' headquarters, the reaction was
immediate and violent. The provincial congress of the
Federation of Agricultural Labourers was that day sitting at
Bari, and a general strike was proclaimed. The labourers
felt themselves threatened once more with the abject poverty
and slavery from which they had only just emerged. In
their large villages, where everyone knew everyone else, it
was obvious that fascist, mazziere and landowner made
common cause. Instinctively they vented their rage on the
fascist-owned farms (masserie)y and scoured the country in
armed groups setting fire to them. Gangs of mounted
mazzieri pursued them and a desperate battle followed
1 From mazza.) a cudgel.