Proletario

PROLETARIO. Founded in 1896 in Pittsburgh by a group of Italian immigrants belonging to the Socialist Labor Party of Pennsylvania, Il Proletario became during much of its twenty-five-year existence the most important periodical of the Italian American Left. The paper might have died in its infancy had it not been for the important personal involvement of some leading Italian socialist émigrés such as Dino Rondani and Giacinto Menotti Serrati. When in 1902 the latter founded the Federazione Socialista Italiana del Nord America (FSI), Il Proletario became its official organ, and up until the FSI dissolved itself into the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1921, the newspaper’s existence became intimately tied to the organizational and ideological vicissitudes of the FSI.

Seldom enjoying a stable financial backing, and having often to rely on ad hoc fundraising campaigns, Il Proletario managed to survive one financial crisis after another, thus fulfilling its essential role as a source of information for Italian American activists and as a forum for political debate. The newspaper’s existence was also marked by a shifting political orientation largely due to the constant change of editors and to the different political conjunctures both in the United States and in Italy. Thus, for instance, under Carlo Tresca’s editorship Il Proletario became a vehicle for the promotion of industrial unionism and of IWW objectives, whereas under Edmondo Rossoni’s brief editorship, in 1915, the paper favored Italy’s intervention in the war, a position strongly advocated by the revolutionary syndicalist movement in Italy.

The political repression following US intervention in World War I forced Il Proletario to suspend publication. The paper sought to circumvent the government’s ban by reappearing under different names until it was allowed to resume publication in early 1920. When in 1921 the FSI was absorbed by the IWW, Il Proletario’s existence came to an end, as the paper was transformed into an official IWW organ under the name the Italian Weekly of the Industrial Workers of the World.

Cartosio, Bruno, “Italian Workers and Their Press in the United States, 1900–1920,” and Elisabetta Vezzosi, “Class, Ethnicity, and Acculturation in Il Proletario: The WWI Years.” In The Press of Labor Migrants in Europe and North America, 1880s to 1930s, edited by Christiane Harzig and Dirk Hoerder. Bremen: University of Bremen, 1985.

Pernicone, Nunzio. Carlo Tresca: Portrait of a Rebel. Oakland: AK Press, 2010.