Ombre rosse. La repressione del disfattismo e lo spettro bolscevico in Italia (1917-1919)

The outbreak of revolutionary motives in Tsarist Russia catalyzed popular dissent in Italy, causing violent protests in the countryside and in the factories where a female led movement was born. In order to ensure public security even after very unpopular decisions, the authorities deployed forces sometimes much bigger than the threat. The implementation of decree-law no. 1561 dated October 4th, 1917, establishing the defeatism’s crime, was a decisive example. It came to an apparent social peace where exceptional measures for the public order’s respect had drastically reduced assemblies and demanded rejection of individual or occasional initiatives. This research will provide valuable information about the synergies between revolutionary suspicion, popular discontent and governmental repression in the Great War’s Italy