Through a Sicilian mountain valley 400 workers and peasants were making their way to a May Day celebration. They carried red flags and sang Communist songs. At a crossroad shots rang out. According to the most coherent accounts, they were fired from machine guns by men on horseback. Ten peasants (including one woman) were killed, more than 30 injured. Next day, in the Italian Constituent Assembly, the battle was resumed.
Interior Minister Mario Scelba (Christian Democrat) reported to his fellow assemblymen that, so far as the police could determine, the Sicilian shooting was nonpolitical. The valley in which it occurred was notoriously infested by bandits. Sicilian Communist Deputy Girolamo Licausi disagreed. He charged that the Maffia (Sicily's ancient, bloody secret society) had perpetrated the attack, in cahoots with monarchists and the rightist Uomo Qualunque Party.
Qualunquist Leader Giannini rose to protest. Communist deputies shouted: "Assassin!" Communist Carlo Farini advanced with clenched fists upon the rightist deputies. He was followed by a strong Communist detachment. Then Pietro Nenni, a follower of the party line, led a sizable Socialist task force into the fray. Inkwells hurtled. Chairs were swung. Fists landed with a satisfying thud on legislative noses. Nearly 200 deputies took part in the brawl. Centrists tried frantically to untangle the Right and the Left.
Only minor casualties resulted. But Monarchist Roberto Bencivenga, who had been struck on the back of the neck with a club, posted a notice on the Assembly's bulletin board: "I challenge the unknown hero who struck me from behind to meet me face to face."
The Communist-controlled General Confederation of Italian Labor called a general strike in protest against the Sicilian "massacre." In most cities, the strike lasted only a few hours. Nevertheless, it was a grim reminder that the Communists, through their control of Italy's trade unions, have the country's economic life by the throat. Before 50,000 workers at Rome's Basilica of Constantine, Communist Labor Leader Nazzareno Buschi cried: "The workers do not want civil war, but our enemies, and above all, the Government, must be warned. . . ."