A popular socialist movement, which arose in Sicily from the Italian word “fascio” in the years between 1889 and 1894.
The movement was made up of a federation of socialist associations that developed among farm workers, tenant farmers, and industrial workers. The Fasci gained the support of the poorest and most exploited classes of the island by channeling their frustration and discontent into a coherent program based on the establishment of new rights. Consisting of a jumble of traditionalist sentiment, religiosity, and socialist consciousness, the movement reached its apex in the summer of 1893, when new conditions were presented to the landowners and mine owners of Sicily concerning the renewal of sharecropping and rental contracts.
