THE STRIKES OF MARCH 1944

Between March 1 and 8, 1944, the clandestine agitation committees of the industrial triangle (Genoa, Milan and Turin) organized the second general strike of all factories in the territory of the CSR, following the one of March 23, 1943. The agitation represented one of the most significant manifestations of the Italian Resistance, involving a total of about 350,000 workers and paralyzing industrial production, including that destined for Nazi Germany.

In Turin, the initial epicenter, the strike involved some 70,000 workers, supported by merchants and partisan formations. In Lombardy, thousands more workers joined the protest, including those from large companies such as Alfa Romeo, Breda, Ercole Marelli, Innocenti, and Falck. In Liguria, too, the mobilization was extensive. In La Spezia, the epicenter of the struggle, workers from the large Oto Melara, Ansaldo Muggiano, and Termomeccanica factories had already gone on strike in January 1944, setting an important precedent. In Savona, some 5,000 workers from the major factories-Scarpa and Magnano, Ilva, Servettaz, Piaggio and Brown Boveri-actively participated in the unrest.

In Genoa, the protests had a tragic aftermath: on June 16, 1944, 1,488 Genoese workers were rounded up at the entrances of factories (Ansaldo, Ilva, SIAC) and deported, in a brutal Nazi-Fascist crackdown.

In response to the strikes of March 1944, the Nazi-Fascist authorities enacted harsh repression: individual and collective arrests, death threats, deportations to concentration camps and the militarization of factories were the price paid by the workers. In Turin alone, more than 100 Fiat workers were deported, many of whom did not return.

The strikes, though with limited material results, were an unmistakable signal of opposition to the regime. Not only did they have ostensibly economic demands-such as price freezes, increased food rations and an end to deportations-but they concealed a deeply political and anti-fascist matrix. Collective action, intertwining the class struggle with the partisan struggle, helped strengthen the Italian Resistance front and put the Nazi-Fascist regime in crisis, making visible the internal opposition to the system.