Flop

The C.G.I.L., Italy's Communist-dominated Confederation of Labor, tried to stage a one-day general strike. Purported reason: to protest the deaths of two peasants who had tried to seize idle land and been killed in battles with police. The strike was an even more dismal flop than the walkout staged by Communists in France last fortnight (TIME, Dec. 5). The Italian strike stopped the steel and auto factories of the north; it was partly effective in the ports, and in urban transport systems. Nevertheless, millions of workers ignored the strike order. Instead of being paralyzed, Italy felt only a few twinges in sore muscles.

The most telling index of Red defeat was the fact that even the staffs of the Communist Unita and the left-wing Socialist Avanti went to work to put out their papers, after it became apparent that other papers in Italy would publish on schedule. The Reds had boasted that during the strike no papers at all would hit the streets.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.