Alceste De Ambris (15 September 1874 – 9 December 1934) was an Italian journalist, socialist activist and syndicalist, considered one of the greatest representatives of revolutionary syndicalism in Italy.

[1] In 1893, at the age of 19, he enrolled in the law course at the University of Parma and stood out for his participation in the political life of the province, helping to organize the workers movement in the region.

[2] During this period, he joined the workers and other students of Parma in protests against the Italian colonial wars in Africa and in 1896 he was targeted by the authorities and accused of defamation in the press.

[3] In 1897, he was called up for compulsory military service in La Spezia, where he tried to desert to join a group of Italian Republicans who went to fight for Greece in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897.

De Ambris believed that Greece had established "a community of the free and equal, animated by fraternity and solidarity and capable of sacrifice", representing what he wanted to build in Italy.

[5] In 1898, he was involved in writing the newspaper La Terra, whose articles denounced the conditions of the peasants of Massa-Carrara, who had almost all their time taken up by work, to which they devoted 10 hours in winter and 15 in summer, on land that was not always fertile.

[6] De Ambris was once again called up for military service to suppress the protests, but he didn't show up and, to escape arrest, he expatriated clandestinely to France, where he met other Italians fleeing repression.

Alceste initially intended to go to Montevideo, but spent some time in Rio de Janeiro living with his brothers Alfredo and Angelo, who had already been in Brazil since 1894, and was convinced by them to remain in the country.

[16] The victory of the strikers at the Penteado textile factory, who were demanding the reinstatement of the old tariff, a reduction in fines and measures to put an end to mistreatment, was seen as a great triumph by the newspaper.

[19] In September 1901, he stepped down as editor of the newspaper, arguing that he wanted to devote more time to propaganda and start work on the Socialist Almanac for 1902, which was published a few months later with texts, portraits and caricatures.

His brother Alfredo, who was a lawyer, defended Alceste during the expulsion process, seeking to have the case reviewed by the Supreme Court in Rio de Janeiro so that the sentence could be overturned.

[28] At the end of that year, De Ambris was in Rome and began collaborating with Enrico Leone's Divenire Sociale, La Gioventù Socialista, the organ of the National Socialist Youth Federation, and Il Sindacato Operaio, writing articles that made clear his stance in favor of revolutionary syndicalism, affirming that the trade union was the instrument that would bring about the transformation of society and enable the proletariat to manage power, determining through struggle the transition from the state to the economic organization of the class, and defending the autonomy of syndicates from political parties.

[32] De Ambris spent a brief period in Bagnone with his father and some of his brothers in 1906, where he gave lectures and collaborated with the newspaper La Terra, which was re-founded that year.

[28] When he took over as general secretary of the organization, the workers movement in the province of Parma was going through a period of crisis, after successive defeats and because of the split between the moderate and radical socialists and between the city and country leagues.

[32] Seeking to respond to the workers desire to democratize the unions, De Ambris, as secretary of the Parma Chamber of Labour, tried to create instruments that would guarantee members the possibility of effectively influencing the choices that involved them.

[35] Under the leadership of Alceste De Ambris, the Parma Chamber of Labor declared a general strike on May 1, 1908, in response to the owners who were trying to disregard the gains made the previous year, such as the enforcement of contracts, wage increases, better working conditions and the recognition of the right of association.

[35] In the first days of the strike, the Socialist Party, the General Confederation of Labor (CGL) and the National Federation of Agricultural Workers (Federterra) took positions in support of the strikers, but avoided intervening in the conflict.

[38] The paralyzed workers, for their part, refused to negotiate with the owners through representatives of the CGL and Federterra, adopting methods of direct action to obtain the improvements and rights they were demanding.

The prosecuted syndicalists and workers were welcomed with parties in Parma, where people carried portraits of Alceste De Ambris, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Jesus Christ.

From there, he went to France, where he took part with Edmondo Rossoni, Pulvio Zocchi and Ottavio Dinale in the 10th Congress of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), held in October 1908.

[45] De Ambris remained at the helm of La Tribuna Italiana for ten months, receiving criticism from Italian industrialists based in São Paulo and anarchist militants, who denounced his complicity with the "bourgeois press".

When Rotellini decided to control De Ambris's direction of the newspaper, he left the paper and, in 1910, founded La Scure, whose first issue came out in April.

[48] During his time in Rio, he joined a group of bohemian writers that included Olavo Bilac, and even wrote a novel, which was published in chapters in São Paulo's Avanti!.

[49] In October 1913, he was elected to the legislature of Parliament of the Kingdom of Italy, with popular plebiscitary vote in the Electoral College of Parma - Reggio Emilia - Modena for the Partito Socialista Italiano for a term that would last until September 1919.

As a partisan of national syndicalism, he believed the war to represent an opportunity equal to the impact of the French Revolution, and took his supporters (USM and Parma Labor Chamber) out of the Unione Sindacale Italiana to found the Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria Internazionalista.

[60] The Russian Revolution of 1917 seemed to confirm his thesis, and he said that, like Russia, Italy could rid itself of "foreigners, tyrants, the temporal power of the popes" and "carry out all the most daring political and social liberations".

[63] De Ambris's text for the constitution of the so-called Italian Regency of Carnaro guaranteed freedoms of thought, the press, assembly, association, civil equality between the sexes, the secular character of the state, universal secret, direct and proportional voting, the possibility of revoking the offices of those invested with public functions, free schools, social security and considered property to be a social function, not an individual right or privilege.

Antonio Gramsci, who distrusted D'Annunzio, considered that his movement had appreciable popular elements, and Lenin advised an alliance of the Soviet Union with Carnaro's Italian Regency.

[73] He soon became involved in the anti-fascist activities carried out by other Italian exiles, taking part in the Lega Italiana dei Diritti dell'Uomo (LIDU), together with Luigi Campolonghi, his long-time companion.

[76] On December 9, 1934, De Ambris invited a group of friends to his home to discuss a work plan for the LIDU, bringing together anarchists, socialists and Italian republicans in exile.