L’Avanti! (Chicago). Vol. 3 No. 16-17. May 1, 1920.

An Italian-Language Socialist Federation formed 1902, with G.M. Serrati the principal organizer and initially affiliated with the Socialist Labor Party. It withdrew in 1903, became an independent organization and began publishing lI Proletario with Carlo Tresca as editor in Philadelphia and as a daily paper. In 1906 it became a weekly publication and moved to Chicago . In 1906, the ISF claimed over 40 branches and 1200 members in good-standing and remained independent of both the SLP and SP. After suffering a split in which some members would joined the Socialist Party, others the SLP, the bulk joined the Industrial Workers of the World. Tresca quit as editor to publish his own paper and lI Proletario became the Italian-language paper of the I.W.W. While the S.P. had many Italian branches, a formal Italian Federation of the Socialist Party was not constituted in December 1910 at a Congress in West Hoboken, New Jersey.

The following year the Italian Federation had 28 branches with less than 660 members. The vast majority of Italian speaking radicals and Socialists were active outside the structure of the S.P., which was considered somewhat hostile to immigrants, and Italian immigrants in particular. The Translator-Secretary was Joseph Corti with offices in in Chicago. The early Federation had three papers; La Parola Del Socialisti, the official published in Chicago with a circulation of 3,000; La Fiaccola published in Buffalo, NY, with a circulation of 1,500; and La Flamma, published in Camden, NJ, with a circulation of 2,000. L’Avanti! would become the Federation’s official paper in the fall of 1918. Most of the Italian Federation, unlike many of the other language federations, remained loyal to the S.P. following the 1919 split, though the New York City Italian branch joined the Communist Labor Party. The Socialist Party continued to have an Italian Federation affiliated with it throughout the decade the 1920s, holding about 3% of the party’s membership. L’Avanti! was edited by G. Valenti and Giuseppe Bertelli with the name returning to La Parola del Popolo in 1922.

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