The daily worker., 1934-06-06

fascist regime is the yarn about the
draining of the Pontine marshes,
and the two or three dwellings be-
ing put up in these formerly un-
inhabited places.
We have just received news
smuggled out of Italy which tells
a different story. In the province
of Abruzzi recently a bloody con-
flict took place between the whole
population at Pratola Peligna, a
small community in the vicinity of
Aquila, and the fascist guards. The
workers gathered at the home Of
the Podesta and other officials of
the fascist regime to protest against
taxation and against starvation.
They shouted their hatred and in
dignation. The black shirt butchers
fired, killing at least one and
wounding four others.
THE peasants and workers who
have fallen at Pratola Peligna,"
says the correspondent of the Daily
Worker, "in the first lines of the
anti-fascist struggle, testify to the
deep hatred and the stubborn fight
ing spirit which animate the Italian
masses in revolt against the regime
of the black shirts"
IN the sulphurs mine district OF
l Sicily, where the conditions are
hardly different from the time
when slaves worked mines in the
days of the Roman Empire, unen.-
ployment has become SO general,
that the Fascist government has
picked this spot out for special re-
preston.
At Caltanisetta hundreds of hun
cry workers from the sulphur mines
gathered in an unemployment dem
onstration shouting: 1--WE want
bread and work!' The fascist PC
lice attacked them, arresting Is. 4
This enraged the miners who
gathered still larger forces. They
angrily stormed the jail and forced
the release of their arrested COM
rades. Though a death-like calm
now pervades the town, fascist
militia and carabinieri Sharp
shooters) parade the mining dis
trict, fearing the outbreak of new
demonstrations and rebellious acts.
ONLY the barest news of the ris-
" ing struggles against faslism in
Italy get past Mussolinis censorship
vacuum. However, the miserable
economic facts behind the Dragging,
boasting and bluffing of the Fas-
cist, regime cannot altogether be
hid. Even the petty bourgeois in
vestigators in capitalist countries
are beginning to see them and
write about them. We have had
occasion before the quote Mr..
Hugh Quigleys article, "Fascism
Fails Italy, Current History, June,
1880, but we again borrow some
figures from this excellent review
of the economic bog into whieh
Mussolini has led Italy.
The economy of fascism in Italy,
he points out, is built on the
quicksands of initiation which re-
stricts the whole economic life. The
total of all bankruptcies has risen
from 1896 in 1921, when Mussolini
came to power, to 21,308 in 1893.
There has been a steady decline
dustrial workers. At the beginning
in wages of agricultural and in
OF 1928 the average hourly wage
paid in industry was little over
two lire an hour Ca lire is little
more than 8 cents. At the end
OF 1882 wages had dropped to about
Its lire. Agricultural wages which
were much lower dropped even
faster. Under fascism," concludes
Mr.. Quigley, labor is worse paid
than in almost any European coun-
try" There undoubtedly now will
develop fascist competition be-
tween the bosses of Italy and Ger
many to see which can pay the
lowest wages and make the workers
eat the least. He shows unempioy-
ment is growing. The volume of
foreign trade has shrunk from its
high point of 44,500, 100000 lire in
1928 to 13,5O0,00O,O0 in 1888, a de- Il
cline to less than one-third of 1925.
On top of all this debt continues 4
to mount. The whole situation =
reaches en- impassc. There is "a
reduction in the productive efforts
of the country, reduction in the
national income, reduction in
wages, reduction in the standard
OF living, rapid increase in bank
ruptcies, a rapid increase in taxa
ton and in the long-term national
debt
No wonder Mussolini beats his
huge chest and shrieks for varl