Italian Radicals in Canada: A Note on Sources in Italy

Abstract

FOLLOWING THE FASCIST seizure of power in Italy in October 1922, thousands of Italians hostile to the new regime left their country of origin to escape political persecution and to wage their anti-Fascist campaigns from the relative safety of democracies in Western Europe and the Americas. Anarchists, socialists, and communists left Italy with the intention of continuing in foreign countries their struggle against the state, capitalism, and, of course, Mussolini fascism. In this struggle they were joined by their ideological comrades and co-nationals already settled in countries such as France, Spain, the USA and Argentina. Some of the anti-Fascist emigres chose Canada as their place of exile. Here they found an active group of Italian leftists already engaged in labour and political radicalism. Together they took up the fight against capitalist exploitation here and Mussolini's regime, helping to build multi-ethnic political organizations. Though the majority of expatriate radicals were men, a number of women were actively engaged in anti-fascist-activity, usually as a part of an entire family of radicals. Some women, however, were militant radicals in their own right, and thus deemed subversive and dangerous by police authorities in North America and in Europe.