[2] The Fasci gained the support of the poorest and most exploited classes of the island by channeling their frustration and discontent into a coherent programme based on the establishment of new rights.

Consisting of a jumble of traditionalist sentiment, religiosity, and socialist consciousness, the movement reached its apex in the summer of 1893, when new conditions were presented to the landowners and mine owners of Sicily concerning the renewal of sharecropping and rental contracts.

Upon the rejection of these conditions, there was an outburst of strikes that rapidly spread throughout the island, and was marked by violent social conflict, almost rising to the point of insurrection.

The proprietors and landowners asked the government to intervene, and Prime Minister Francesco Crispi declared a state of emergency in January 1894, dissolving the organizations, arresting its leaders and restoring order through the use of extreme force.

[3] The Fasci constituted autonomous organizations with their own insignia (red rosettes), uniforms and sometimes even musical bands, and their own local halls for reunions and congresses.

[10] The Fasci were the result of the revolt of the Sicilian peasants against the introduction of capitalist relationships into the rural economy aggravated by the world depression in agriculture of the 1880s.

As social tension rose, a handful of young and hitherto quite unknown socialist intellectuals – many of them recent graduates of Palermo University – seized their opportunity.

The movement grew under the first government of Prime minister Francesco Crispi (1887–1891) and coincided with unpopular tax increases and ratification of a series of laws curtailing personal freedom.

Other leaders included Rosario Garibaldi Bosco in Palermo, Nicola Barbato in Piana dei Greci, Bernardino Verro in Corleone, and Lorenzo Panepinto in Santo Stefano Quisquina.

While the ruling elite depicted the men of the Fasci as treasonous socialists, communists and anarchists seeking to overthrow the monarchy; in fact many were devout Catholics and monarchists.

The movement reached its greatest breadth in the manifestations against taxes, involving the lowest tiers of the city and the countryside, becoming difficult, if not impossible, to control by its leaders.

[4][15] From that moment on the dynamics of the movement started to change; no longer the workers and craftsmen in the urban centres, but rather the peasants became the driving force behind the organisation.

[17] The Congress decided that all Leagues were obliged to join the Italian Workers' Party (Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani), the predecessor of the PSI.

The minimum-age measure was meant to improve the situation for the carusi, minors that worked in conditions of near-slavery that sparked public outrage and inspired many complaints.

Despite the heavy pressure from the King, the army and conservative circles in Rome, however, Giolitti would neither treat strikes – which were not illegal – as a crime nor dissolve the Fasci nor authorise the use of firearms against popular demonstrations.

Peasant squatters seized land, violent crowds demonstrated for work and against local misgovernment, tax offices were burnt down and clashes with the police grew more frequent and bloody.

[21] In December 1893, the failure of the Giolitti government to restore public order gave rise to a general demand that Crispi should return to power.

Colajanni, the chief architect of Giolitti’s fall by exposing the scandal around Banca Romana, was first offered the Ministry of Agriculture, which he refused, then sent to Sicily on a mission of appeasement.

In the three weeks of uncertainty before the government was formed, the rapid spread of violence drove many local authorities to defy Giolitti’s ban on the use of firearms.

[25][26] Eleven people were killed on December 10, 1893, in Giardinello after a rally that asked for the abolition of taxes on food and disbandment of the local field guards (guardie campestri).

On the basis of dubious documents and reports, Crispi claimed that there was an organised conspiracy to separate Sicily from Italy; the leaders of the Fasci conspired with the clerics and were financed by French gold, and war and invasion were looming.

[24][38] On February 28, 1894, Crispi presented the "evidence" for a widespread conspiracy in parliament: the so-called "International Treaty of Bisacquino", signed by the French Government, the Czar of Russia, Giuseppe De Felice, the anarchists and the Vatican, with the goal to detach Sicily from the rest of the country and put it under a Franco-Russian protectorate.

In spite of an eloquent defence, which turned the Court into a political platform and thrilled every socialist in the country, they were condemned to heavy sentences of imprisonment.

[42] In March 1896, after Crispi had to resign due to the humiliating defeat of the Italian army at Battle of Adwa in Ethiopia during First Italo-Ethiopian War, the new government under Prime Minister Antonio Di Rudinì recognized the excessive brutality of the repression.

The industrial workmen’s compensation scheme from 1883 was made obligatory with the employer bearing all costs; and a voluntary fund for contributory disability and old age pensions was created.

They also took care of many organizational aspects and were particularly active in proselytizing for the movement, decorating the stage of the rallies, preparing ceremonies such as the inauguration opening of the flag of the Fasci, and welcoming the leaders who came to the towns with flowers.

[54][56] At the congress in Palermo in May 1893 where the union of all the Fasci in Sicily was decided, Maria Cammarata, of the Fascio of Piana, urged the audience to ensure the registration of women.

[54] Some historians emphasize that the leagues were engaged in class struggle against a coalition of landowners and mafiosi and ignore evidence of strategic alliances between the Fasci and the Mafia.

The Mafia was sometimes needed to enforce flying pickets with credible threats of violence and to make the strike costly to landowners by destroying their property.

[21] However, during the great strike of the Fasci in September 1893, the Fratuzzi mobilized to boycott it, providing the necessary manpower to work on the lands that the peasants refused to cultivate.