CHAPTER 32
THE KIDNAPPING OF BRUNO LABATE – 1973
PREFACE: 1972-3 was a period of intense concern in
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February 12th: At Mirafiori no strike action is planned for today.
Only the FIAT 132 line stops work for one hour in the Meccaniche,
against increased workloads. The Works Committee meets in the morning, to plan
the strike programme for the week, and confirm the value of sectional strikes.
After the shift changeover at lunchtime there is a lot
of talk about the
“This is Bruno Labate,
regional secretary of the Fascist CISNAL pseudo-union which the employers
support in our factories in order to divide the working class, to organise
scabbing, to set up provocations, and to infiltrate every kind of spy into the
factories.
We have kidnapped him for a few hours to ask him a few
relevant questions concerning:
-- the responsibility of
himself and a number of FIAT managers in the labour racket of southerners hired
into FIAT via CISNAL;
-- his responsibility for the
organisation of provocations carried out by fascists in collaboration with the
carabinieri and the police, as happened recently at No.17 Gate;
-- the organisation of scabbing, in which Agnelli's foremen and
Almirante’s fascists divide up the job between
themselves;
-- the responsibility of himself and of CISNAL in the
organisation of networks of spies within the factory, which has led to the
sacking of a large number of militants;
-- his meetings with the Minister of Labour, given that CISNAL
is being involved in labour negotiations, albeit behind closed doors.
We also kidnapped him in order to show the falseness
and absurdity of his statement, made in a right-wing newspaper, that there are
12,000 fascists at FIAT [...] and to let him see that
We have set him free, with his head shaved and without
his trousers, in order to demonstrate the repulsiveness of the fascists, and
the necessity to hit them hard, with every means available, wherever they crop
up, until we free our city of them.
WAR AGAINST THE FASCISM OF
ALMIRANTE AND ANDREOTTI!
ARMED
STRUGGLE FOR COMMUNISM!”
Hundreds of workers crowd in a circle around the fascist.
He asks for help, and one worker replies: “Help you? They should have killed
you”. For over half an hour the explanatory leaflets are passed from hand to hand, and there is lively discussion about what has happened
and what it meant.
In the next few days the Red Brigades circulates, among
vanguard revolutionaries and inside the factory, a pamphlet called “War Against the Fascists in
February 13th: As the second shift is coming out a group of fascists turns up at No. 1 Gate. The group includes Ordine Nuovo members, with S. Francia at their head. They appear to be asking solidarity
from the workers, and they distribute a leaflet. But in fact they are carrying
clubs and chains and are prepared for a fight. Caught by surprise, two of the
first workers to emerge are attacked. The police are present, under the command
of Dr Poli, as are the carabinieri, under Captain de Masi and Major Lungo: they try to
arrest the two injured workers! However, as soon as the mass of workers begins
to emerge, the fascists are forced to beat a retreat.
This episode focused a lot of attention on the question
of fascists in the factory, and there were proposals for workers’ vigilante
squads – which were put into effect immediately the following day.
February 14th: The fascists return to the factory gates. This time
they try their luck at the Meccaniche, at No. 16 and
No. 18 Gates. But unfortunately for them, the workers come out of the factory
in a march, and with something in their hands . . . and the blackshirts
have no choice but to run off as fast as possible, down to No.7 Gate, where
they get rid of their leaflets (these are immediately burned by workers coming
out of the factory) and then run off down Corso Unione
Sovietica.
This was to be their last adventure at the gates of
Mirafiori. From now on they would not be coming to ask workers for ‘solidarity’
for their shave-headed leader!”
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[Note: In the article that followed, in Controinformazione, there was the transcript of Labate’s interrogation. He named very many fascists who had
been installed in the factories, in the pay of FIAT management. These
revelations followed similar, very well-documented allegations by Lotta
Continua that FIAT also had a considerable number of
[Translated from Controinformazion, No. 0, 1973]
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Translated
by Ed Emery
Extracted from: THE BOOK OF FIAT: Insurrection,
insubordination, occupation and revolutionary politics at the FIAT motor
company – 1907-1982
Published:
Red Notes / May Day Rooms
First
published in 2020