Capitale e lavoro in Italia fra primo dopoguerra e ascesa del fascismo

In Italy the transition from a war economy to a peacetime economy began before the end of the first world war. To the parties involved – the state, the industrialists and the workers – it was clear that the war had created a dramatic rupture in the organisation of production. The post-war period ushered in a phase of great turmoil, especially in trade union relations between industrialists and workers. The issues at the centre of the discord were the supply of raw materials, unemployment, the cost of living, and higher wages. As the hostility grew, the industrialists, who in the meantime had re-established their association (Confindustria) in order to defend their interests more effectively, decided to finance the National Fascist Party (PNF). This support, with the rise to power of Benito Mussolini, enabled order to be established in the factories by means of coercion and punishment of worker demands. Italy’s process of industrial reconversion therefore went no further than the industrialists’ recourse to a “strong state”, a prospect that was far from isolated in Europe.