Headed by Riccardo Zanella, on 24 April 1921 the autonomists won the parliamentary elections of the newborn Free State of Fiume, but their government was overthrown in March of the following year by the nationalist and pro-fascist group, reunited in the National Block.
The political heirs of Zanella - at the time exiled in France - regrouped in the Autonomous Movement under the guidance of some of the oldest Autonomist Party members, among them one of the most authoritative was Mario Blasich.
At the beginning of 1944 a part of the zanelliani faction, above all the younger ones, merged into the Italian Autonomous Fiume Movement (FAI), founded by don Luigi Polano.
should mention: Ramiro Antonini, Icilio Bacci, Salvatore Belasic (or Bellasich), Carlo Colussi, Riccardo Gigante, Ruggero Gotthardi, Arturo Maineri, Ettore Rippa, Gino Sirola, Antonio Vio and Arnaldo Viola.
Tito's troops entered Fiume on May 3, 1945, without any major insurrectionary movement developing in the city, not last thanks to the promises of cultural and political respect the Titoists made to the local population.
Soon the Yugoslav propaganda machine was put on work and it started treating the autonomists harshly, accusing them of betrayal, opportunism and even fascism, in order to weaken their position in the city.
The exodus of Fiuman people in this 9 year period brought 58,000 of the 66,000 inhabitants to leave the city as a consequence of the growing discrimination, targeted violence and terrorist acts by local authorities.
These crimes, although extensively documented and widely confirmed by historians both in Croatia and Italy, still fail to be officially recognised by Rijeka's authorities nowadays and are a source of continuous internal tensions between the population and the city's political elite.