Violence between fascists and antifascists wracked Italian communities during the 1920s, and beyond, in the United States. Here, blackshirts are beaten back from Detroit’s legendary ‘House of the Masses’ workers’ hall.

‘Blackshirts Kicked Out of Workers’ Hall–Fierce Fight in Detroit But Reds Win’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 2 No. 73. June 12, 1924.

(Special to The Daily Worker) DETROIT, June 11.Catching the Fascisti without their castor oil Sunday night, the red Italian workers of Detroit cleaned them out of the House of the Masses where the cohorts of Mussolini were attempting to hold an anti-labor meeting.

The Fascist forces, led by Commendatore Zopito Valentini, Mussolini’s chief personal representative in the United States, fought with chairs and table legs but the working class got the best of the argument and in a short time, the blackshirts were picking their back sides off the pavement and limping away.

Valentini’s attempt to capture the rebel’s “chamber of labor” was cleverly staged. Several plausible Italians booked the hall from the clerk on the story that they wanted to give a lecture on Italian art and culture.

But the facts got out. Sunday afternoon a mass meeting of indignant Italian workers was held in the House of the Masses. It was a United Front meeting, with Communists, Syndicalists and others. Enea Sormenti of Il Lavoratore, Romolo Bobba and Giovanni Pippan spoke.

“Down with the Fascisti!” “Down with Mussolini!” “Down with the murderers of the Italian workers.” These were the sentiments shouted by the audience.

That evening several hundred workers met again in the same place. They met in the same hall where several hundred people were assembled for the castor oil propagandist.

Blackshirts Beaten.

The blackshirts boiled with fury at the flannel shirts’ visit. Valentini’s shock troops charged. The mix-up was fierce. But it was the workers’ own hall, and they got back their own. The American Fascisti who are helping to spend the 25,000,000 lire which the Italian government is investing in foreign propaganda this year, could not boast in their dispatches that they used a workers’ auditorium for Fascist purposes.

Sent by Mussolini.

Valentini recently came from Italy to take charge of the organization of the Fascisti movement in this country. Under cover of patriotic nationalistic zeal he was organizing opposition to Communists in such unions as the United Mine Workers and the needle trades unions in which many Italian workers are found. Active aid was furnished by the department of justice.

According to the Gazetta Ufficiale of the Italian government, 15,000,000 lire was spent for foreign propaganda last year. This year 25,000,000 is to be spent thus by Mussolini agents.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1924/v02a-n073-jun-12-1924-DW-LOC.pdf