Giacomo Matteotti

Giacomo Matteotti (; 22 May 1885 – 10 June 1924) was an Italian socialist and anti-fascist politician who was the secretary of the Unitary Socialist Party (PSU) from 1922 to 1924. Born in the province of Rovigo in Fratta Polesine, he was a militant socialist from a young age, joining the youth wing of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) in 1898 and then the main party around 1900. In 1907, he graduated in law at the University of Bologna. A lawyer by degree and a journalist by trade, Matteotti was a follower of Filippo Turati, a co-founder of the PSI and leader of the gradualist wing. Politically, his name is associated with democratic socialism and social democracy, and his thought is summarised as reformist socialist, radical reformist, and revolutionary reformist.

Matteotti was elected mayor of Villamarzana in the Italian region of Veneto in 1912. In line with the law allowing the possibility of being elected in all the towns where taxes were paid, he also entered the municipal councils of several towns of Veneto, and was appointed deputy mayor of Fratta Polesine and councillor of Frassinelle Polesine. In 1914, Matteotti was re-elected to the provincial council. Matteotti's opposition to the Great War resulted him being interned in the Italian region of Sicily. In the 1919 Italian general election, Matteotti was elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies, where the PSI was the most voted party and became the largest political group.

While the 1921 Italian general election saw him re-elected for a second term as the PSI remained the most voted and largest party despite losses and fascist violence, Matteotti and the PSI were not part of the government. At the 1922 party congress in Rome, the gradualist wing led by Turati was expelled from the PSI, and Matteotti followed Turati in establishing the PSU. An anti-Leninist socialist, Matteotti grew critical of Bolshevism, whose violence and authoritarianism he saw as antithetical and useless in establishing socialism, and excluded them from the anti-fascist bloc. In turn, he was criticised by the Soviet and Italian Bolshevik parties, which continued by some exponents of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) into the 1970s; other PCI members rejected the criticism and celebrated Matteotti for his socialist anti-fascism. Matteotti led the PSU into the 1924 Italian general election and was re-elected a third time.

On 30 May 1924, Matteotti openly spoke in the Italian Parliament, alleging the National Fascist Party (PNF) and his supporters committed electoral fraud, and denounced the violence they used to gain votes. Eleven days later, he was kidnapped by a fascist squad led by Amerigo Dumini and killed by the secret political police of Benito Mussolini due to his denunciations of the illegalities committed by the nascent dictatorship of Mussolini. While some historians debated and questioned whether the murder came on Mussolini's orders, Matteotti's death and the subsequent speech where Mussolini assumed responsibility are generally considered the beginning of Mussolini's dictatorship and a turning point of Fascist Italy. By 1926, were enacted by the Mussolini government, which turned Italy into a one-party state, and the deputies who had participated in the Aventine Secession to protest Matteotti's assassination were dismissed and excluded from the parliament. After the fall of Mussolini's regime and the end of World War II, Matteotti was officially commemorated and in the history of the Italian Republic is celebrated as a martyr, with numerous places named after him and established in his honour, including the centenary of his assassination. Provided by Wikipedia