The Simple Annals of Fascismo: What Happened at Molinella
I
MOLINELLA is a commune of fifteen thousand inhabitants, twenty miles from Bologna. The population consists chiefly of agricultural laborers. Up to the time of the Fascist reaction, Molinella was regarded in Italy as one of the most impregnable strongholds of Socialism; the local Socialist organizations comprised a total of forty-seven hundred members. By thirty years of iron discipline the workers of Molinella had created a coöperative system which roused the admiration of all those who went to see it. A wide area of land was cultivated by an agricultural coöperative organization, to which were added a coöperative building society and a central coöperative store, with seven branches, which did all the wholesale and retail buying and selling for the needs of its members. The coöperative organization had a reserve of a million lire in the bank, in addition to its buildings, machinery, and stock.
Molinella was one of the last communes conquered by the Fascists. The offensive began in September 1922. The local landowners organized themselves in a Fascio, decreed a general boycott of all the workers belonging to Socialist associations, and canceled all outstanding contracts with them. Workers were brought in from the neighboring regions of Ferrara, Bologna, and Venetia, in order to reduce the local workers to destitution; the newcomers were paid more than the local rates of wages.
So far, nothing had been done which went beyond the rights of owners engaged in an economic struggle with the workers. But on September 12, 1922, the Fascists began pillaging and burning. And on the day after the ‘March on Rome,’ in October 1922, the premises of all the organizations, including the people’s library, were confiscated by the Fascists, who took over the buildings and installed their offices and their members in them. The leaders of the Socialist organizations had to fly in order to escape death. The landowners issued a notice announcing that they would give out no work except to workers belonging to the Fascist unions.
On November 8, although there was no law authorizing him to do so, the prefect of the province of Bologna instructed an agent to administer the commune and to liquidate the coöperatives. The agent sold the stock, tools, and cattle, confiscated the million lire reserve, and allowed the Fascists to take possession of the lorry belonging to the coöperatives. In this way the fruits of thirty years of labor and sacrifice were destroyed in a few weeks.
The person who directed the fight against the workers is the secretary of the Fascio, Augusto Regazzi. Before attaining glory as a Fascist leader, Regazzi had been condemned to a fortnight’s imprisonment for striking and wounding, and had been prosecuted, but acquitted for lack of evidence, for alleged fraud in connection with military supplies.
In his book, Un Anno di Dominazione Fascista, Giacomo Matteotti mentions, for the period from November 1922 to October 1923, seventy cases of violence at Molinella, some of which would be incredible were they not clearly proven.
On August 9, 1923, Regazzi led a punitive expedition against the family of a farmer named Pietro Marani. In court Pietro’s father described the affair as follows: —
That afternoon I was with my family— my wife and three sons and two daughtersin-law. We were working in the fields. About 4.30, I suddenly heard a motor car; it stopped at Manardi’s house and Fascists got out of it. Expecting one of the usual punitive expeditions, we all hurried indoors. Soon after, forty Fascists arrived; they must have been armed with guns or revolvers, for they fired several times. One of them told us to come out, because he meant to knock us down. We did not go out, but told them that they had no right to call us out as we were in our own house. They stopped talking and began trying to tear down a door and a window.
My sons were armed with their tools, but we were helpless in face of the violence of the aggressors. We fled to the upper story.
The Fascists then climbed on to the roof, beat it in, smashed the ceiling, and began throwing tiles into the room. We were frightened to death and hid under the beds. In the room in which the crime was committed my wife and I were under the big bed with our son Augusto; Pietro had hidden under a smaller bed.
While stones and plaster continued to rain through the roof, the entrance door gave way, leaving the assailants a free run of the house. In a few moments four men came into the room in which we were hidden. At first I only recognized Domenico Bussi, who overturned the little bed under which my Pietro was hiding. At that moment another Fascist, whom I recognized as Regazzi, fired the shot which killed my son almost instantly. The noise of a motor car, going off posthaste, indicated to us that the assailants were making off.
In court the dead man’s widow gave the following account: —
I heard the Fascists’ threats. In my fright I took my nineteen-months-old baby in my arms and sought refuge in the upper story in the room of my mother-in-law; both of us were terrified. When we heard them beginning to break up the roof, we took refuge under the beds, clasping the children against our breasts; they were in danger of being stifled by the dust of the plaster. I heard two shots, and then a cry from my mother-in-law: ‘They have killed Pietro.’ I forced myself to keep up my courage; I got on my bicycle and went for the doctor. But on the way one of the Fascists came up to me and threatened to hit me with his bludgeon, shouting that he would send me into the next world to keep company with my husband; so another woman had to go for the doctor.
On August 12, 1923, the Fascists went round the fields and farmhouses striking at everybody with their clubs — men and women, youths, and children, all members of four families. On the following day a peasant woman, Albertina Galliani, was taken to the Fascist headquarters; there she was threatened with death, while her sick husband was dragged from his bed in her presence and bound hand and foot to a chair.
The Fascio issued a proclamation, on August 12, granting to ‘the tradeunionists still belonging to the Socialist League a twelve hours’ truce to enable them to submit: after that the struggle will be resumed without mercy.’
On April 6, 1924, during the general elections, a worker named Angelo Gaiani, sixty years of age, who declared he would vote for the Socialists, was attacked as he came out of the polling booth and killed instantly with a bludgeon. Two days after this murder the Bologna magistrates issued a warrant for the arrest of the murderer, Oreste Ciuti. The police declared that Ciuti was ‘ undiscoverable,’ although he went about openly in the streets of Bologna and carried out his duties as a member of the Fascist Militia (Voce Repubblicana, October 14, 1924).
On August 14, 1924, Augusto Matarelli, formerly a butcher in the coöperative store, was flogged in bed, where he had lain since an earlier beating. A few hours later he was found hanging in his stable. Dr. Tonini, in charge of the post-mortem, having expressed a suspicion that this might be a cleverly camouflaged murder, was flogged in his turn and had to flee the country.
On September 12, 1924, a young man, Angelo Frazzoni, was mortally wounded by gunshot. No one ventured to go out into the dark to help him. His father tried to go out, but was followed by a Fascist and turned back. His mother cried out: ‘You traitors, you have killed my son and you want to kill my husband too!' The Fascist answered, ‘Shut the door,’ and remained on guard to prevent any neighbors from going for the doctor.
II
The authors of these crimes remained ‘persons unknown.’ But the murder of Pietro Marani, which had caused more sensation than the others, could not be attributed to persons unknown, since everyone had recognized Regazzi and since the family of the victim had denounced him. The magistrates were compelled, therefore, to order Regazzi’s arrest.
From September 15, 1923, to October 14, 1924, this order could not be carried out, the police officials declaring that Regazzi was ‘unknown’ and could not be found. Regazzi, meanwhile, was constantly in the principal streets of Bologna, went to the theatre at Molinella, attended ceremonies together with the other Fascist authorities, and made speeches which were reported in the newspapers. He was still ‘unknown’ and still ‘undiscoverable’ when he attended a banquet at which he was presented with a gold medal. Among those invited to the banquet were the prefect of police at Bologna and the Minister of Justice, who, instead of having the guest of honor arrested, contented themselves with declining the invitation. On September 25, 1924, at Molinella, two shots were fired at a passing motor car. Regazzi, the ‘unknown’ and ‘undiscoverable,’ went to the spot to investigate the matter, with the local commissioner of police. While still ‘ undiscoverable,’ Regazzi took part in a meeting of the County Council, presided over by the Minister of Justice, and jointly with the Minister affixed his signature to a proclamation.
During October 1924, when the assassination of Matteotti seemed to have profoundly shaken the Fascist dictatorship, the Opposition papers launched a campaign for the arrest of Regazzi and other Fascists against whom warrants were out. Then a veritable ‘Regazzi scandal’ began. The Minister of Justice tried to evade responsibility by throwing the whole blame for the failure to arrest him on the Home Office. The Fascists of Bologna held demonstrations in Regazzi’s honor and proclaimed their solidarity with him. The Fascist papers defended and praised him. The police went to his house to arrest him, but he had been warned; it was said that it was the commissioner of police who warned him, at the theatre, where he had gone to pass the evening as usual. At last, after official negotiations between the Government and the Fascist leaders of Bologna, Regazzi gave himself up.
On that very day the Fascist Deputy, Farinacci, Mussolini’s right hand, wrote to his paper, Cremona Nuova:—
It is an honor to be arrested for having fought the enemies of the nation and of Fascism. We hope that the Bench will rapidly perform its task, and we are certain that Regazzi will soon be restored to Fascism, to which he gave his faith and his enthusiasm and for which he has made sacrifices. If Regazzi is guilty (which has to be proved) his error cannot be judged as a breach of common law, nor he himself an ordinary offender. A higher criterion must be adopted, that which crowns with immortality the vindicators of the supreme rights of nations against the tyranny either of kings or of demagogues, even when their deeds violate the existing penal laws. The Fascists did not extend their offensive against Bolshevism in their personal interest. They acted with a national aim. It will never be possible to condemn Regazzi.
When the case opened at Bologna against Regazzi and the other Fascists who took part in the attack on Marani’s farm, there were to be seen on the walls in the neighborhood of the courts the words ‘Evviva Regazzi!’ (Long live Regazzi!) in big black characters.
Regazzi admitted that he had taken part in the expedition, but denied that he had fired the fatal shot. Another man had fired it, he declared, but he would not say who. The depositions of the dead man’s relatives, of the persons who had seen from a distance what went on, of the peasants whom the Regazzi ‘squad’ had attacked before it arrived at Marani’s farm, were precise, consistent with one another, and remarkably courageous. When the widow had finished her evidence, she turned to the jury and said: —
Gentlemen of the jury, you perhaps have wives and children yourselves; you will realize my sorrow. It may be that these persons will all be acquitted, but your consciences will not acquit them.
The Fascist counsel for the defense mocked at these words, calling them ‘bombastic rhetoric,’ and asked for an acquittal. The only sin of the defendants, he said, was that they had put an end to the tyranny of the Reds.
The jury did not admit the guilt of the defendants (March 6, 1925). They even denied that Regazzi had illegally borne arms, though he himself had admitted this.
The acquittal of all the defendants was received with loud applause and shouts of ‘Evviva Regazzi!’ The Fascists in the court hoisted Regazzi on their shoulders and carried him out in triumph, singing Fascist songs.
Regazzi was immediately appointed a member of the Provincial Fascist Directory. Farinacci, commenting on the verdict in his paper, maintained once more that in this particular case, as in all similar ones, the defendant must not be confused with an ordinary criminal; consequently the jury of Bologna ‘did very well in not confusing an episode of our revolution with ordinary crimes of common law.’
III
Under this system ol oppression the population of Molinella took up an attitude of passive resistance, which it maintained with wonderful solidarity as long as possible.
The laborers remained loyal to their unions and refused all work offered by the Fascist labor exchange. It meant destitution. In order to live, or at least to eat, the strikers collected edible snails in the hedges and valleys, or they went into the fields, already harvested, in order to glean a few ears of wheat or maize. Gleaning is the poor folks’ customary right. The peasant carefully collects even the most miserable fruits of the earth. But this gleaning was considered a revolt. By collecting a sack of rice or wheat one can live without having to eat the bread of the Fascist unions. The gleaning women were chased away, pursued, their ears boxed, their faces smeared with black. Five women who had been struck complained on September 26, 1924, to a noncommissioned officer of the police. They were threatened with arrest. A hundred women then gathered in front of the police station, declaring that they also had committed the same offense and should therefore be arrested as well.
One day in September 1924, the poor people arranged a secret meeting amid the reeds of a marsh. Two hundred and fifty day laborers working within reach were told of the projected meeting at the last moment. The women had been away since the morning, their gleaners’ sacks on their backs, and they had covered thirty kilometres on foot. The organizers had arrived on bicycles during the night, and had hidden in the reeds until 2 P.M.
The meeting discussed and passed a resolution in which the workers demanded the restoration of political liberty. They protested against the acts of violence which had been committed and once more affirmed their loyalty to their unions.
This meeting, and the fact that an interminable list of signatures had been published in honor of Matteotti’s memory, made the Fascists fear that the Socialist organizations were coming to life again. They appointed two agents with the purpose of crushing every sign of opposition. The agents forced the landowners to dismiss the last of their non-Fascist workers; they stopped all works which would allow non-Fascist workers to gain even the barest livelihood; they increased the measure of beatings and pillagings. Every reported outrage in the papers, every word of criticism, every protest, brought forth fresh episodes of violence.
During the night of October 31, 1925, a Fascist squad, after shouting songs until two o’clock in the morning under the windows of Erminio Minghetti, an ex-service man, set fire to his house.
It was nearly 3 A.M. when Minghetti’s little daughter, nine years old, rushed into her parents’ room, crying, ‘Mother, the house is on fire!’ Minghetti jumped out of bed, ran to his little girl’s room, and saw the roof already in flames. He rushed to the stairs to try to get out, but the staircase was on fire. He ran back to his children, the little nine-year-old girl and a baby of six months, and to his wife and his old mother, whose leg was broken. All were suffocated by the smoke. It was impossible to escape by the stairs: the tumble-down old house was in flames. Minghetti jumped out of the window in his shirt, found a ladder, ran up it, and came down with his children on his back, then his wife, then his old mother. Neighbors came and gave shelter to the wife and children and the old woman, all shivering in the cold. The neighbors brought Minghetti clothes of some sort to put on. He sat there on a chair and watched the destruction of his home, his only possession, while women put compresses on his legs, which were terribly injured. (Voce Repubblicana, November 5, 1925)
In three days alone, in November 1924, 142 persons were imprisoned, many of them women (Corriere della Sera, November 28, 1924). The town was placed under the supervision of an imposing armed force.
After the attempt by the demented Miss Gibson on Mussolini’s life on April 7, 1926, there ensued days of still more acute oppression. Five workingmen were kidnapped by Regazzi and other leaders and dragged to the former headquarters of the Socialist coöperatives, now commandeered by the Fascio. They were first questioned by a captain of the carabineers and the police commissioner. These authorities then having left the room, a squad of Fascists rushed in and bludgeoned the captives. By the time the carabineers put in an appearance, one of the workmen, Bagni by name, was lying unconscious on the floor, bathed in blood. This was the seventh beating he had received. Among Socialists and tradeunion organizers in Molinella it has become quite a topic of conversation to recount how many beatings each has received and to discuss whose record is the longest. In the night of April 7, police and Fascists searched a number of houses and arrested sixty-three workingmen whom they dragged off handcuffed to prison at Bologna. On April 9, fifty-five of these men were released. Eight, among whom were Bagni and the others beaten the previous day, were detained until the twelfth, the aggravating circumstance against them being the blows they had received.
Yet after all this there were still in Molinella in April 1926, when the Trade-Unions Act came into operation, 539 men and 469 women who refused to become members of the Fascist unions. On April 10 the foremen of the marshreclamation works gave notice that on the twelfth all workers who had joined the non-Fascist organizations would be dismissed. On May 6 the house owners of Molinella were summoned to the Fascio and ordered to give notice to quit to all families whose members had not joined the Fascist unions: ‘You give the notice and the Fascio will look after its execution.’ On May 31 the commissioner of police at Molinella said to workers: ‘We cannot kill you, but we will make you die of hunger.’ On June 27 the president of the Fascist trade-union published the following ukase: —
FASCIST TRADE-UNION OF THE AGRICULTURALISTS OF THE COMMUNE OF MOLINELLA
MOLINELLA, June 27, 1926
DEAR FRIEND, —
In conformity with the existing TradeUnion Act, and with a view to ending an irregular and exceptional situation in onr commune, we repeat that no worker can be admitted to work unless provided with the ticket of the Fascist unions; anyone who presents himself as a member of free tradeunions or with any other qualification must be rejected.
This applies also to the gleaning of corn and other crops. It is not fair that anyone who is an opponent of the existing régime, and therefore unwilling to give his labor to agriculture, should withdraw a part, however small, of the produce from those who have in the sweat of their brows created it.
These measures are issued in full agreement with the Fascist Local Branch.
NERI ALFONSO, President
On July 1, 2, and 3, two hundred women were arrested for gleaning without the ticket of the Fascist union.
IV
In October 1926 the eviction of the tenants began. Here are the reports sent day by day by an anonymous correspondent living in Molinella. No Italian paper published them. They reached me in London two weeks after they had been written.
September 30, 1926
Here we are practically under martial law. Police and carabineers in mufti go the rounds making house-to-house searches and arresting people without regard to age and condition. At Selva di Molinella numerous arrests were made. At San Martino in Argine, Ettore Stagni (decorated for war services) and others have been arrested. Ten families will be evicted with their household goods in lorries belonging to the artillery and brought to Bologna, where they will be quartered in the old customs barracks in Piazza Malpighi, which have been cleared for the purpose. Other military lorries are lined up in the square in front of the Law Court in Bologna, ready to start on other evictions. The assistant chief of police of Bologna will superintend operations.
Yesterday (September 29) the women were received by the vice mayor of Molinella, who said to them: ‘You shall not be left out in the rain, but they will take you away because you cannot remain any longer at Molinella unless you enter the Fascist unions.’ The same thing was repeated to them by the police commissioner of Molinella: ‘ You can go where you like, or else you will be taken to Bologna. There, if you wish, you can join the unions. You can also remain outside them if you can find work there. But you must not even think of staying on here at Molinella. ’ I need not tell you the answers of the women. They insisted on remaining in their own parish and declared that, if taken away in the evening, they would return in the morning. To-day the women sent a deputation to Bologna, accompanied by a barrister, which was received by the secretary of the chief of police, who could do nothing but shrug his shoulders. He acknowledged that these doings were worthy of a madhouse, but ‘ they ’ wished these things to be done and one is obliged to act in this way.
The barracks are meant to house forty families, a number which will be reached by degrees. Then operations are to be suspended to see what effect is produced on the recalcitrants by this first internment of families from Molinella in Bologna.
October 1
Yesterday at about 8 P.M. the houses of ten families to be evicted were surrounded so that no one could leave. The men had already taken to the fields, so that only women, children, and old men remained in their homes.
This morning the evictions began.
At 7.80 this morning (October 1) some porters and the carabineers insisted on the women being present wdiile the furniture was being loaded up and taking note of what was being loaded. All pressure and threats proved useless.
When the women tried to leave the houses, they were seized by the carabineers and brought before the local police. The old people and children were taken in by the neighbors. At 11, the women were still at the police station. There was a going and coming of women taking them food. The courtyard of the police station was surrounded by some twenty carabineers.
In the meantime porters continued to load up the lorries and had not finished by midday.
The district is like enemy territory in w ar time. A cordon of carabineers surrounds its boundaries; there is no road, path, or outlet which is not barred.
It is not the authorities who command here, but Regazzi, who, in a fast car, flies backward and forward between Bologna and Molinella and the surrounding villages. At this moment, 5 P.M., newrs comes in that, as the women refused to be removed on the lorries with their furniture, they have been taken to Bologna on lorries under the escort of carabineers.
We do not yet know wThether they have been taken to S. Giovanni in Monte (prisons of Bologna) or to the barracks where the evicted families are to be interned.
The number of men arrested has reached 34, among whom is Gaetano Bagni. It is absolutely forbidden for their families t.o send them food.
October 2
Yesterday the lorries loaded with furniture and those carrying the women and some of the children and old people reached Bologna, the remainder of the latter being still at Molinella. They were all taken to the barracks in Piazza Malpighi. At 8 P.M. there were still two lorries of furniture waiting to be unpacked in the square.
Only part of the furniture has been unloaded — beds, tables, chairs, and so forth. Chickens, pigs, firewood, and wine wTere left on the spot at the mercy of anyone.
When the lorries had left, the secretary of the Fascio gave orders to families belonging to the Fascist unions to take possession of the houses. Many of these refused to do so, and had for answer that if they continued to refuse they would suffer the same fate as the others.
The barracks in Bologna to which the women were taken are surrounded by carabineers and police — no one is allowed to enter, except relations already living in Bologna. To-day no one has given them any food, and they are not allowed to go out. Toward eleven o’clock one of them, under escort, was allowed to go out and buy something for all the others with the few pence they had in their pockets.
And to-morrow? Bear in mind that among them is the old Mainardi, aged seventy, who is ill, and who at home could only feed on bread and broth; he has charge of three small children, two of whom are of school age. A police officer is searching Bologna for relatives to take them in and look after them and persuade them to make their home permanently in Bologna. A sister of one of the interned women was not allowed to take her child in with her.
Their lawyer is taking steps to know whether they are under arrest, in which case they are entitled to prisoners’ rations, but if they have only been taken there as free citizens they have a right to circulate freely. So far he has had no satisfaction.
October 8
The evictions and arrests still continue. On the evening of October 3, the following were arrested: Domenico Burnelli, seventy-six years old; Carlo Bianchi, seventy-four years old; Algeri Poggi, a disabled ex-soldier; Alberto Buriani; Ungarelli, aged fifteen; Zanghi, aged fifteen; and two women, Ines Gamberini and Angiolina Burnelli.
On October 4 the military lorries removed the furniture of seven more families, including that of a widow and of two men over seventy.
On October 5 eight more suffered the same treatment.
On October 7 notification was given of four further evictions.
As most of the evicted families had already left their homes, the police officials had to break in the doors to remove the furniture.
In the barracks at Bologna there is no change, except that a daily food allowance is made of four lire for grown-ups and two for children. Old Mainardi, they say, went out of his mind last night.
October 11
Among the evicted is Natalina Piazzi, aged seventy-three, who lost her son in the war and had lived in her house for over forty years. The Bianchi husband and wife are both over seventy, and had lived fortyeight years in the house from which they were evicted: their three sons served in the war. Domenico Burnelli, aged seventy-six, whose three sons fought in the war, has lived for nearly sixty years in the house from which he has been evicted. He was not allowed to take shelter with his own son, and when the son claimed the right of taking charge of his parents both father and son were arrested. The old Frazzoni and his wife have been evicted three times in four years and their son was killed by the Fascists in 1924.
The material damage is not inconsiderable, considering the poverty of the people. Their furniture was loaded carelessly on the military lorries; part got broken in the loading, part during transit, some remains on the spot with no one to look after it.
Relations and friends of evicted families, even though inscribed in Fascist unions, are not allowed to take charge of furniture and other goods left in the houses.
Some families are without means and live from hand to mouth; others are helped by their neighbors. Help is urgently needed for the worst cases.
The government authorities have given orders that no permits to go out be given, as they fear that the people would all go back to Molinella. They offer them work in Apulia, Sardinia, Tuscany, or the Marches. The object is to split up the solid block of opposition. However, the people are not to be cajoled or cowed into submission. They keep repeating: ‘We have done nothing wrong; we have a right to remain in our native town, and directly we are set at liberty we shall return there because it is the place of our birth, and we are attached to it. Why offer us work in Sardinia and Apulia when there is plenty of work going in Molinella? Is it our fault that the landowners have boycotted our labor? Why has the Government not stopped forcing us to live the life of vagabonds?’
In all fairness I must add that the attitude of the population has been and is kindly to our members. All disapprove the turning on to the streets of so many old and respectable families. Many landlords hoped that the Government would step in in time.
There are landlords who go and offer their evicted tenants help and money, but they beg it to be kept secret from the Fascists; otherwise, not only would they be bludgeoned, but their businesses would also be ruined. The workers refuse such help.
It is common knowledge that the Fascists, fearing the landlords would not have the writs executed, get the proprietors to give up their papers and act in their name. The expenses of eviction, they say, are not borne by the landlord, but by the Fascio of Molinella.
November 19
The evictions continue. In the last week and the first days of this week notices of eviction have been served upon eighty-one families. In the village of Marmorta on Monday (November 15) thirteen evictions were carried out, eleven being tenants of houses belonging to the commune. In Molinella seven families were evicted on Tuesday and three on Wednesday. As regards the other threatened evictions we are still quite in uncertainty. Those evicted are always taken to the barracks at Bologna.
V
Things drag on still, in the same monotonous way, as oppressive as a nightmare. By these means the working people of Molinella are being ‘reconciled with their country’ — in the terminology of the ‘new era.’
At the Conference of the International Labor Office at Geneva on October 15, 1926, the question of Molinella was raised. From the rambling reply of Signor De Michelis, the representative of the Fascist Government, I extract the following sentences: ‘A certain number of members of the old Red unions have joined the Fascist unions and it is possible that they have not quite forgotten their old methods. . . . The Fascist unions set up a labor exchange, which gave work in the first place, of course, to members of Fascist unions, but as far as possible they offered work also to non-Fascist workers [he does not mention that it was on condition that they became Fascists].
. . . Works to regulate the course of a small river near Molinella had been started; the non-Fascists, who had refused the work offered by the Fascist labor exchange, found jobs in these works; they were, however, dismissed, as this state of things disturbed the normal course of agricultural work.
. . . The Red union, which contained only three or four (!) remaining members, was dissolved, because it carried on a political campaign which endangered public peace. . . . The evictions were carried out under a new law which allows landlords to sign new agreements with their tenants; some landlords of Molinella took advantage of the new law to give notice to their tenants in regular form. . . . Molinella is an islet of rebellion; the authorities acted in a legal and normal way; there has been no infringement of trade-union liberties; the non-Fascist union was dissolved by the legal methods in order to safeguard the public peace.’