Fascism 1922 - by Dario Fo - translated by Ed Emery

FASCISM 1922

by Dario Fo

translated by Ed Emery

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For all queries regarding performance rights, please contact

Agenzia Tolnay : info [@] tolnayagency.it

For all queries regarding the text, please contact the translator at:

ed.emery [@]thefreeuniversity.net

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[The Performance Text]

ACTRESS: It was 1922. I was still a girl, a young thing, twelve or thirteen... That was the year you first started in the factory... and I could already see the fascists in operation... Because during a strike, they came to take away people in the union, including a man called Frigiani, my cousin... and they beat him senseless, and the police were there, and they never said a word... they just looked away, as if nothing was happening... Then they killed one of the Party members from the Oleggio branch; smashed him round the face and damaged his eyesight, so that he ended up going blind, and then he suffered a stroke, and shortly afterwards he died.

As a result, the men in the Party, which included the menfolk of my family, went to the Chamber of Labour, to protest that they’d had enough. They spoke with someone who turned out to be Matteotti, and they said: “This has gone far enough! We must organise ourselves, to do something about it!”

And Ramella was there, at the Chamber of Labour, the member of parliament, who had been good in his time, and who was still capable of firing off the occasional salvo, but, as my father used to say, he was all words and no action, because Ramella was a reformist at heart.

So when the men and the women of our Party branch, in other words more or less everyone in the village, went to complain about what was happening with the fascists, he answered us in the same way as when he made his speeches from the balcony of the Chamber of Labour... He used to come out on the balcony, and he would always say: “Keep calm, and don’t get over-excited... Calm and peaceful... You’ll see, they’ll go away...”

And one of our number, who was a railway worker, shouted back:

“Don’t be so stupid... What do you mean, ‘they’ll go away’? Huh! Where to? We’re the ones who will have to go away, with leaders like you... Get off with you – you’re a traitor... That’s what you are!”

And someone shouted: “What do you know about anything – you’re just a stoker.” And Ramella said: “Let him say his bit... because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about!”

The Party members went to the Federation office to protest: “What are we supposed to do? Should we take sticks and beat them, too?” And he said: “No, no, just because they’re evil, that’s no reason why you should be the same. Instead of blood being spilled just once, it’ll be spilled twice. Leave them alone... Keep calm.”

But he knew that this business about “keeping calm” wasn’t on. We had to find a way to defend ourselves, because they were even coming to get us in our houses...! And what were we supposed to do...? Just stay there and take a kicking? Just keep quiet about it? This was the way it always was: forcing our people to drink castor oil, beating them with sticks and clubs... and every now and then a bullet in your guts! We should have organised ourselves from the start! If we’d been organised from the start, they’d never have been able to get away with treating us like that... No, they would never have been able to crush us the way they did. But all he ever said was: “Keep calm, keep calm... Don’t get over-excited.”

Oh to hell with him! When the fascists arrived at the Chamber of Labour with their guns, we had no guns ourselves. We only had sticks and stones... And no guns, because Ramella didn’t want it.

“If those fascists find out that we’ve got guns,” he said, “that will give them even more reason to attack us. I am against bloodshed!”

“Well said!” my father told him. “So the only ones who end up shedding their blood will be us!” And then somebody else spoke up: “If you’re against bloodshed, how are you ever going to make a revolution? How are you ever going to get the proletariat into power? By reforms...? Because in that case, you’ll be waiting till the cows come home!”

At that time, in our branch almost everybody was communists, after the Livorno split. Everybody was saying that if we didn’t have guns in our hands, then we were done for...

One day... I must have been twelve or thirteen, as I said... I was there, in the club, washing glasses in the main hall, all on my own... And about ten of these fascists suddenly arrived at the door... They came in, and stopped in front of this picture of an old man... One of them looked up, and he said: “Ha! There he is – the workers’ friend!” And he takes a club, goes over to the picture, stands up on a chair, and smashes it into a thousand pieces. At that point... I was only young... I ran out, because I was scared... and I went to get my father, who was president of the club at the time... “Dad, they’ve smashed the picture of Karl Marx...”

When they heard that, all the people came out of where they’d been playing cards. There were both communists and socialists together in the club at that time, even though there had already been the split in the Socialist Party... And they were all furiously angry... So they all went to the hall... But by that time the fascists had already gone!

“If they’ve come once, it means they’ll come again, for sure.”

So everyone started collecting up rocks and stones, and bottles, and sticks, and prepared them in the clubhouse.

But they didn’t come back straight away. Almost a month went by...

It was a fine day in June... And there they came again, with their bicycles. There must have been thirty or forty of them... And in front there was a red open-topped car, full of fascists, flying the black flag... and they were all armed, some of them with two guns apiece...

I was in the clubhouse at the time, and the place was full of our comrades... All of a sudden a woman – it was Olla’s mother – ran in, and she was shouting in a strange, thin sort of voice... “They’re coming! The fascists are coming... And they’ve got guns...”

Everybody ran out into the street. “Stick together, everyone. We’ll show them!”

And we had the sticks and the stones, and the bottles... Full bottles, they were, so that they weighed more... Full of water, of course, not wine!

Outside we set up a barricade... “Look out, here they come!” My brother and the other young men went out and started throwing things at the fascists as they came.

One of those young men was a young communist from Sant’ Agabio, and we saw him walk straight towards the fascists’ car, with a big stick in his hand... And the fascists in the car fired at him, full in the face. Twice. We heard a loud thud, and we saw blood coming out of the back of his head... And he didn’t fall to the ground immediately... He was just standing there, as if in a trance... until one of the fascists went and pushed him over.

“Bastards! Murderers!!” our people shouted... And the fascists went among the houses, and started shooting at people standing in the doorways... Then, at a certain point, we saw Merlot come running out of one of the farm buildings, together with Caldani and his son. They were carrying pitchforks and mattocks... And they came running out so fast that the fascists hardly had time to see them before they started smashing into the car with their forks and mattocks...

And two other shots went off... And we saw both of them go down, both Caldani and Merlot... They’d been wounded in the neck and chest...

Then the other members of the club came running. I remember it. As I say, I was twelve or thirteen, at the time... but I was in the thick of it, too. Running with my father, who was shouting at me: “You stay out of this! Go home, at once!” And I shouted back: “No, no!” ...And I saw our comrades go weighing into the fascists, who were on their bicycles... And they were beating them on the backs with their sticks, which had them pedalling for dear life... And I saw one of them crash into a pillar, with his arms outstretched like a big fly on a window pane...! And all of us, even the women... God, you should have seen the women... With big forks, and shovels, and hoes... Because none of us had guns, none of us...! All we had was our worktools!

At this point the fascists dumped their bicycles, and the red motor car too, and they ran off... And we chased after them... so that they had to keep running until they reached Sant’Agabio... And no sooner had they arrived in the village than they found other comrades, lying in wait for them... And they gave them another seeing to!

So we ended up with a pile of around thirty bicycles... And there, lying on the ground, our wounded... There must have been thirty of us wounded... and six dead. Two of the dead were fathers of six or seven children... Another three, who had stomach wounds, died later on. Out of the fascists, three died right there, on the spot, and one in hospital...

In the evening, the carabinieri arrived, and they arrested nearly all of us... The whole village... Not me, because I wasn’t even thirteen yet... for “riotous behaviour, and multiple homicide”.

“What are you talking about? They attacked us first,” people were shouting. They started the killing first... And they had guns! We were just trying to defend ourselves.”

“That’s enough. The law is the law.”

They only arrested the communists. Not a single fascist went inside.

But when it came to the time for the trial, they didn’t dare carry it through... There never was a trial, because it was too dangerous for them... They were determined not to let the word get out, because otherwise people everywhere would have found out how a small village of peasants, without guns, but just with their anger and courage, had united to chase out the fascists... And they couldn’t allow that... they couldn’t allow it because it would have been a dangerous example for the rest of the country... So they decided to keep quiet... and not do a thing!

[This piece is taken from a collection of eye-witness accounts gathered by Cesare Bermani, which deal with the resistance to the Fascists in the area round Novara during the period 1922-23.]

[Excerpted from: No More Fascists!, Milan, November 1973]

[Ends]

[Last updated: 6.viii.2012]

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All rights reserved. This text shall not by way of trade or otherwise be copied, reproduced or recorded in a retrieval system. Nor shall it be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the owners' specific written consent.

Please be aware that this translation can only be performed with explicit permission in writing from the agency representing Dario Fo and Franca Rame, the Danesi-Tolnay agency in Rome.

Last updated: 6.viii.2012

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