Page:William Z. Foster - The Revolutionary Crisis of 1918-1921 (1921).djvu/40

 intense, they did not get them. Workers' control of industry has not been established in Italy up to this day. Nor is it likely to be without a great, direct struggle by the workers. The ruling class has made a football of the proposition. Their political and industrial agents have blocked its realization so thoroughly that it has now degenerated into merely a political demand of the labor movement. The great revolutionary movement was thrown away by the weak-kneed labor leaders on the strength of the promise of a crooked capitalist politician, Giolitti.

Almost instantly all Italy knew that the workers had been overwhelmingly defeated; that for the sake of an increase in wages, soon afterwards wiped out by the advancing cost of living, and for a vague promise of the workers' control, they had given up the best opportunity ever presented to the working class to abolish the wages system. As for the workers, they fell prey to a profound pessimism and demoralization. Raised to supreme heights by their superb effort, they dropped into the depths of discouragement when they saw it ruined. Their marvelous revolutionary spirit and enthusiasm vanished like a bubble that had been pricked. And by the same token the capitalists were cheered and heartened beyond measure. They rightly felt that they had won a tremendous defensive victory, and they also perceived that the defeated workers were broken in spirit and almost helpless. Hence, when they had recovered somewhat from their first fright at being dangled so unceremoniously over the revolutionary precipice, the latter launched a great offensive against the whole workers' line. This attack was one of the bitterest and most unscrupulous ever waged against labor. The capitalists were determined to take lasting revenge upon their rebellious slaves and to make forever impossible the recurrence of such a revolutionary danger as the one just passed.

One of the chief instruments used by the employers in this historic onslaught was the Fascisti organization. The