One of thousands of worker militants faced with deportation in the early thirties was Italian anti-fascist fighter Guido Serio, threatened with death in Mussolini’s Italy.

‘The Attack on the Foreign Born: Guido Serio’ by Gilbert Day from Labor Defender. Vol. 6 No. 2. February, 1931.

THE story of Guido Serio, anti-fascist leader who is being haunted by the Department of Labor for deportation to Italy and a certain execution there, is the story of hundreds of foreign born workers in the United States to-day. The attack on foreign born militants and their deportation is openly part of the program of the ruling class. And not only militant workers who happen to have been born on foreign shores will be deported, according to the program outlined by the new Secretary of Labor when he took office last month, but all foreign born workers who have committed some minor “crime” because of economic circumstances, will be sent out of the U.S. Every five weeks a special deportation train leaves the Pacific coast and picks up at appointed spots throughout the continent batches of deportees gathered by the immigration officials, and proceeds to New York where they are shipped off to the countries of their birth. This deportation train has become to the foreign born the symbol of misery and death itself. Within the train, barred like a prison cell, there are hundreds of workers, sick and healthy, sane and insane, babies whose age is counted in days and old men and women who can hardly walk. This is the U.S. government’s special deportation train, a gift placed at the service of foreign born workers.

But Uncle Sam’s special delight is to deport any worker who has datrd to show resistance to the ruling class of America. And Guido Serio is one of them. When the workers and peasants in Russia took over the land and factories and became masters of that country, Serio was a national organizer for the Seaman’s Union in Italy, and when in 1920 Italy attempted to ship arms to Kolchak, Serio was one of the leaders in his union who prevented the three ships, Rosdato, Persia and Nippon from being loaded with rifles and ammunition to murder the victorious Russian workers. From that day on Serio assumed the leadership of the militant group in his union.

As the crisis developed in Italy the union was split in two factions, the Communists and the fascists. Serio proceeded to Venice on an organization tour for his union and Giuriari now chairman of the Chamber of Deputies and secretary of the Fascist Party and at that time secretary of the Venice Fascists ordered Serio out of the city or be killed. Serio ref used to leave but proceeded with his organization work.

In October, 1922, the fascists marched on Rome and the black shirt terror of the Italian ruling class commenced. The fascists came to Serio’s home, shot at him, gave him a number of times the castor oil treatment and the political police squad arrested him almost daily.

In January, 1924, the fascists took control of the union, Serio refused to recognize the leadership of the black shirts. One evening early in 1924 Serio was attacked by a group of fascists, shot twice in the leg, stabbed in the face and arm and left for dead on the street. A group of militant union workers found him and placed him on the ship Duilio for America. Late that night the fascists came and attempted to remove him, but a large group of workers protected this ship and he sailed before the government could take action. Within a few hours the fascists burned down Serio’s house and almost killed his wife.

In the U.S. Serio became very active in the militant labor movement and in anti-fascist work. Black shirt spies working in conjunction with U.S. dicks had been fallowing and watching him for year when finally came his arrest in Erie, Pa., and the attempt to deport him to Italy and his death. This is the story of Serio, the story of hundreds of workers in Oregon, in California, in New York and in many other sections of the country. The bosses’ drive against the foreign born is on!

Labor Defender was published monthly from 1926 until 1937 by the International Labor Defense (ILD), a Workers Party of America, and later Communist Party-led, non-partisan defense organization founded by James Cannon and William Haywood while in Moscow, 1925 to support prisoners of the class war, victims of racism and imperialism, and the struggle against fascism. It included, poetry, letters from prisoners, and was heavily illustrated with photos, images, and cartoons. Labor Defender was the central organ of the Scottsboro and Sacco and Vanzetti defense campaigns. Editors included T. J. O’ Flaherty, Max Shactman, Karl Reeve, J. Louis Engdahl, William L. Patterson, Sasha Small, and Sender Garlin.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1931/v06n02-feb-1931-LD.pdf