The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1950-10-05
Murder, Beatings
Reds Weapons,
Italians Report

u
EDITORS NOTE: 1t is hard
for American trade unionists,
unless they have visited Eu-
rope and seen for themselves,
to believe the stories about
Communists resorting even to
murder in an attempt to
throttle the free trade unions.
Herewith is the testimony of
two Italian labor leaders who
speak from first-hand know
ledge,
Rome, Italy (LPA) = Fascism
was born in the Pc valley town OF
Modena 80 years ago. Last Janu-
airy, Red labor leaders there fom-
ented demonstration. The parade
turned into a riot, shots were ex-
changed with the police, and six
demonstrators were killed.
The Communists pulled a nation
wide strike two days later, launch
ed a campaign for the widows and
orphans of the slain, and collected
$4,000. Six months later a local
official Of the Italian General Con-
federation of Labor (CGIL) was
arrested for misappropriating the
funds. 1t was found that less than
$4,000 had gone to the families.
The rest had gone to the CGIL, the
Communist Party, and phantom ex-
penses.
That is only one indictment in a
White Paper collected by Enrico
Parri and Luigi Morelli, members
of the Italian Confederation of
Trade Unions (CISL), the free
labor movement, about Communist
methods in fighting democratic
trade unionists. From the farm
lands, the factories, the villages,
the Communists picked the most
effective and militant of the free
trade union members to MAIN or
TO murder.
There was Giuseppe Fanin, dead
at "a. Born and raised on a farm,
he graduated from the University
of Bologna with the ambition to
return to the peasants and orga-
nize them. He joined the free trade
union movement. When he talked
of democratic processes, the peas
ants listened. Two years ago, on
the evening Of November a, while
cycling home, he was attacked by
four men and died in few hours.
The four, Communist functionaries,
confessed three weeks later.
This happened in the Bologna
Emilia region-the "red belt". A
''blood-soaked area, Parri and
Morelli call it. 1t has quite a re-
cord
Six farm workers, beaten by a
100-man mob and forced to leave
their jobs. A laborer and his wife,
an expectant mother, stoned and
beaten. Two men, forced to quit
their farm work by a crowd of 100
demonstrators. Ten farm hands,
driven from the fields. A man, as
saulted by six men. Two women,
severely beaten when 35 harvest
ers were attacked by a gang of
1000. Four men, abducted en- route
to work. Thirty farm workers,
forced off the fields by mob of
500 marching behind a red flag. A
man working on a reclamation pro-
ject, stoned by mob and hospital
lied for II days.
Scenes from the "red belt"
Things that happened between
September 1948 and January 1860.
The names and date are all there
in Parri and Morelli's accounts.
And the reason, the cause Of the
violence-membeTship in the free
trade unions.
1t doesn't stop there. In the
same area during the same period,
a farmer was beaten by nine men
for employing free trade unionists.
The secretary of a trade union was
beaten and nearly lynched. A farm
er's wood, cut by members of the
free labor movement, was seized
and destroyed. The CISL offices in
Mesola were completely destroyed.
These things were done, say Parri
and Morelli, because the victims
had a "strong belief in the eman-
cipation of the workers."
The reign of terror, described by
the two unionists as a "severe
handicap in the organization of the
free trade unions," has made the
workers reluctant to expose them
selves and their families to the sort
of violences of which the Commun-
lists are so capable" But expose
themselves they do.
Membership in democratic
union is an invitation to violence.
The saga of the Bologna-Emilia
region-the seat of violence-is re-
peated in area after area through
TIL act ga make-work project for
unscrupulous lawyers"
Morse condemned the failure OF
Congress to enact an exeess-profits
tax, called for a rollback of prices
and for "holding the line generally
on wages. "If there is no price
rollback," he said, "some wage in