page_title: Reggio revolt
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Reggio revolt / Background
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: prodotto durante i Fatti di Reggio del 1970
context_page_description: The Reggio revolt occurred in Reggio Calabria, Italy, from July 1970 to February 1971. The cause of the protests was a government decision to make Catanzaro, not Reggio, regional capital of Calabria. The nomination of a regional capital was the result of a decentralization programme of the Italian government, under which 15 governmental regions were created and given their own administrative councils and a measure of local autonomy.
context_section_description: Protest in Reggio Calabria exploded in July 1970 when the much smaller town of Catanzaro (with a population of 82,000 against 160,000 in Reggio) was chosen as the regional capital of Calabria. The people of Reggio blamed their rivals' success to "the Red Barons" in Rome, a group of influential centre-left Calabrian politicians from Cosenza and Catanzaro, including Deputy Prime Minister Giacomo Mancini.
  On July 14, a general strike was called and five days of street fighting left one dead and several policemen injured. A force of 5,000 armed police and Carabinieri agents was moved into the area. The national government ordered state-owned RAI TV not to report on the insurrection. Nevertheless, the revolt steadily picked up steam and sympathy.
  Drawn out road and railway blockades damaged the entire country. Strikes, barricades and wrecked railway tracks forced trains from the north of Italy to halt two hours short of Reggio. Italy's main north-south highway, the Autostrada del Sole (Highway of the Sun), was closed off. When the port of Reggio was blocked, hundreds of lorries and railroad freight cars were forced to remain on the other side of the Straits of Messina.
caption: Manifest produced during the events
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