[2] Being persecuted after the establishment of the fascist government, Lenzi moved to Grosseto in 1926 where he started to work as glazier and kept promoting communist ideology in that city.

During World War II he joined the Resistance movement and established the Grosseto National Liberation Committee (CLN) in 1943 together with various local representatives of the other clandestine parties.

[1] On 20 April 1949, following the discovery of weapons inside the town hall, Prefect Gaetano Orrù temporarily suspended the administration, appointing Giacinto Guida as the prefectural commissioner and entrusting the investigations to the judiciary.

[1] The resulting political tensions made the remainder of his term uncertain and characterized by numerous defections: as many as eighteen councilors resigned without being replaced.

The writer Luciano Bianciardi remembered Lenzi in a 1952 article: "I met Lio Lenzi, a communist, a noble craftsman from Livorno who was then making a living in his little glassblowing shop, and he later became the first democratic mayor of my city, incurring the serious ire of the 'gentlemen' who did everything possible to ruin him and succeeded: today he no longer even has his glassblowing shop".