2l6 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
at the first opportunity. This was provided a few days later
by the serious events in Ravenna. If it is true that the strike
was proclaimed on July 31 under pressure from the anarch-
istic elements in the National Syndicate of Railwaymen—
wrho had founded the Labour Alliance—and that some of
them went so far as to threaten with a revolver Azimonti,
representing the General Confederation of Labour on the
secret committee, this was only possible because all the
workers were looking forward to a decision in favour of
a general strike. The reformist elements could hardly
oppose it since they had themselves just been flirting with
the idea of using a general strike as a bargaining weapon
in the negotiations for solving the (ministerial) crisis. When
the calling of the strike had become inevitable, the majority
of the secret committee took care to launch it as a perfectly
lawful demonstration, for the defence of legality: c a
" legalitarian " strike \ Turati calls it. The appeal was
addressed to c lovers of freedom ', in the name ofc the defence
of political and syndical liberties' and c the conquests of
democracy', and called only for the re-establishment of
the rule of law. But in spite of its cautious language and
intentions, the strike swept away nearly all that remained
of the c political and syndical liberties * it was supposed to
be saving.
Here the drama of the collapse of the Italian working-class
and socialist movement reaches its climax. The threat or
at any rate the proclamation of this strike ought, according
to some, to have brought a left government into power3 or,
according to others, to have revenged the working class in
the class struggle. Actually it disappointed both expectations
and brought failure to both projects.
The strike was certainly * legalitarian' since its only aim
was the re-establishment of civil liberties and the rule of
law. But the character of a movement is not confined to its
own objects ; the reactions it provokes also form part of it,
and end up by transforming it, willy-nilly, at the crucial
moment. The reformist leaders had hoped in September
1920 to use the occupation of the factories as a means for
compelling the Socialist Party and the workers to form a
government. Their methods had had the opposite effect