Editing Calabria (section)

=== World War I and the rise of fascism ===
[[File:64a_Divisione_Fanteria_Catanzaro.png|thumb|Coat of arms of the 64th Infantry Division “Catanzaro”]]
The outbreak of [[World War I]] saw Calabria participate in Italy's war effort with the establishment of five brigades, the most famous of which was the {{ILL|Catanzaro Brigade|it}}, formed by two regiments (the 141st and 142nd) and composed almost exclusively of Calabrian soldiers, one of the military units most committed and exploited by the [[Royal Italian Army|Royal Army]] in the war against [[Austria-Hungary]]. Framed in the Third Army under the command of the [[Duke of Aosta]], the king's cousin, it participated in the [[Third Battle of the Isonzo]], where, on [[Monte San Michele]], between October 17 and 26, 1915, it lost almost half of its personnel (about 6,000 men).<ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=Mark |title=La guerra bianca. Vita e morte sul fronte italiano 1915-1919 |publisher=Il Saggiatore |year=2009 |language=it |trans-title=The White War. Life and death on the Italian front 1915-1919.}}</ref> In addition, during the [[Battle of Asiago|Strafexpedition]] of June 1916, the 141st Brigade Regiment lost 38 percent of its components, with 333 casualties.<ref>Army General Staff Historical Office, Historical Diary 141st Infantry Regiment, Exhibit B-1 Rec. 136D 1213f (1.12.1915-30.11.1916), Army General Staff Historical Office Archives</ref>
[[File:DC-1916-24-d-Mosciagh.jpg|left|thumb|Cover of ''[[La Domenica del Corriere]]'' dedicated to the Catanzaro Brigade]]
In addition to being one of the most committed Italian military units decorated for valor during the conflict, the Catanzaro Brigade was also the first to trigger the only episode of open rebellion on the Italian front, which occurred in June 1917: the cause was the order to return immediately to the trenches despite the fact that the Calabrian soldiers had just been sent to the rear for a rest period. Many soldiers from some companies of the 142nd Regiment began a revolt against the officers, killing three of them along with four carabinieri.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rossi |first=Marco |title=Gli ammutinati delle trincee |publisher=BFS edizioni |year=2014 |location=Pisa |language=it |trans-title=The mutineers of the trenches}}</ref> Having quelled the rebellion with the help of departments of cavalry, mobile artillery and carabinieri, the General Staff decided on the decimation of the Brigade, as a warning for possible uprisings: 28 soldiers were thus shot, while the survivors were sent back to the front line under armed escort.<ref name=":8" /> The Duke of Aosta, commanding general of the Brigade, sought the causes of the rebellion in the period of prolonged service on the [[Karst Plateau]] and the unequal treatment with other brigades, which enjoyed easier rest shifts; of a different opinion was the report of General Tettoni, commander of VII Army Corps, who blamed the origin of the uprising on socialist propaganda among the troops and newspaper reports of the recent defeat in [[Russia]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Melograni |first=Piero |title=Storia politica della Grande Guerra 1915-1918 |trans-title=Political history of the Great War 1915-1918 |journal=Mondadori |language=it |issue=5}}</ref>

After the conclusion of the conflict with the [[armistice of Villa Giusti]] on November 3, 1918, the demobilization of the ex-combatants, mostly of peasant extraction, to whom, during the war, had been promised the allocation of land derived from the fractionation of large estates, began. The lack of political will in the implementation of this promise, together with creeping nationalistic tensions in the country due to the [[Rijeka|Fiume]] and [[Dalmatia|Dalmatian]] question, generated in Italy a climate of resentment and social unrest, which turned into strikes, nationalistic anti-government demonstrations and occupations of uncultivated land by the peasants in revolt, often organized in leagues or federations of different political coloring. For these reasons, on Sept. 2, 1919, the Italian government, headed by Francesco Saverio Nitti, issued the {{ILL|Visocchi Decree|it}} (named after the Minister of Agriculture, {{ILL|Achille Visocchi|it}}), which gave prefects the power to temporarily assign uncultivated land for a period of four years to peasants formed in legally constituted leagues or agrarian bodies. A permit issued by a committee composed equally of peasant and landowner representatives, under prefectorial control, was required to obtain the land assignment, which also stipulated the duration of occupation and the rental price to be paid by the peasants to the landowner. However, seven months after the decree was passed, the land redistribution had very limited effects: it is estimated that only 27,000 hectares were allocated: many scholars have argued that the government measure was not intended to revive agricultural production, but rather to provide a pardon for the numerous occupations of uncultivated land by peasants.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cordova |first=Ferdinando |title=Il fascismo nel Mezzogiorno: le Calabrie |publisher=Soveria Mannelli |year=2003 |location=Rubbettino |language=it |trans-title=Fascism in the Mezzogiorno: the Calabrias}}</ref> The Visocchi Decree was widely criticized by both conservatives and socialists: [[Arrigo Serpieri]], later minister of agriculture in the [[Fascist Italy|Fascist]] period, judged the measure “one of the most infamous of the postwar period”,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Serpieri |first=Arrigo |title=La guerra e la classe rurale italiana |year=1930 |language=it |trans-title=War and the Italian rural class}}</ref> while socialist [[Filippo Turati]] deemed it too “timid”.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Degl'Innocenti |first=Maurizio |title=Filippo Turati e il socialismo europeo |publisher=Guida Editori |year=1985 |location=Naples |language=it |trans-title=Filippo Turati and European socialism}}</ref>

The 1920 parliamentary elections saw the affirmation of nationalist candidates, elected thanks to the decisive support of ex-combatants (Saraceni himself would be beaten in his Castrovillari constituency in favor of the candidate supported by veterans from the front), while the [[Italian Socialist Party]], while becoming the country's leading political force with as many as 156 deputies in Parliament, found itself internally divided between the maximalist current, advocating anti-bourgeois revolution, and the reformist current, in favor of dialogue with the government to push forward social reforms. This irreconcilable opposition led first to the expulsion of the reformists, such as Turati and Bissolati (who would go on to found the [[Unitary Socialist Party (Italy, 1922)|Unitary Socialist Party]]), then to the split that took place at the [[XVII Congress of the Italian Socialist Party|Livorno Congress]] in 1921, a fact that led to the birth of the [[Communist Party of Italy (Marxist–Leninist)|Communist Party of Italy]] (which later evolved into the [[Italian Communist Party]]). In the same year the [[National Fascist Party]] was officially founded by [[Benito Mussolini]], a former socialist expelled from the party for his interventionist positions on the eve of World War I, from an evolution of the earlier [[Fasci Italiani di Combattimento|Fasci di Combattimento]], founded in [[Milan]] in 1919 on the basis of an initially revolutionary and nationalist program. The aversion to socialism took concrete form in the assault by the fascist squads, the armed wing of the movement, on newspapers, cooperatives and party headquarters, whose exponents were truncheoned and forced to drink a strong purgative, castor oil. The squadrism was immediately financed by the large industrial groups and agrarians, fearful of a possible [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] revolution in Italy, in the wake of the so-called ''[[Biennio Rosso|biennio rosso]]'', and was often not countered by the police, who on more than one occasion sided with the fascists.<ref name=":65">{{Cite book |title=Storia della Calabria |publisher=Gangemi Editore |year=1988 |isbn=88-7448-703-7 |editor-last=Placanica |editor-first=Augusto |volume=II: La Calabria moderna e contemporanea. Età presente; approfondimenti |location=Rome-Reggio Calabria |language=it |trans-title=History of Calabria}}</ref>

In Calabria, too, the actions of fascist squads left their mark: on September 21, 1922, in [[Casignana]], a small town in [[Aspromonte]], [[carabinieri]] and fascists opened fire on laborers from the “Garibaldi” agricultural cooperative, who had organized an occupation of land owned by the prince of [[Roccella Ionica|Roccella]], killing the socialist alderman Pasquale Micchia and two peasants, Rosario Conturno and Girolamo Panetta, while the mayor Francesco Ceravolo was seriously wounded; this massacre ended the occupation.<ref name=":9">{{Cite book |last=Franzinelli |first=Mimmo |title=Squadristi. Protagonisti e tecniche della violenza fascista 1919-1922 |publisher=Mondadori |year=2003 |location=Milan |language=it |trans-title=Squadrists. Protagonists and techniques of fascist violence 1919-1922.}}</ref> Subsequently, on October 4, 1922, at the inauguration of the Casignana Fascio, which was also attended by [[Giuseppe Bottai]], shots were fired, while a rifle shot wounded a fascist who was part of his entourage in the arm. In retaliation, the squadrists ravaged the house of the president of the “Garibaldi” cooperative, while the Carabinieri arrested a dozen antifascists.<ref name=":9" /> These events freely inspired writer {{ILL|Mario La Cava|it}} for his novel, The Facts of Casignana.<ref>{{Cite book |last=La Cava |first=Mario |title=I fatti di Casignana |publisher=Einaudi |year=1974 |location=Turin |language=it |trans-title=The facts of Casignana}}</ref>

The penetration of fascism into Calabrian society was similar to that which took place in the rest of the country: in the city areas, the promoters of the fasces were the merchants and industrialists, who procured the support of the forces of law and order for the squadracce; in the rural areas, on the other hand, the backbone of fascism was represented by the large landowners and village notables, who decided to join the new party in order to weaken the “red” organizations and to maintain their socioeconomic position.<ref name=":66">{{Cite book |title=Storia della Calabria |publisher=Gangemi Editore |year=1988 |isbn=88-7448-703-7 |editor-last=Placanica |editor-first=Augusto |volume=II: La Calabria moderna e contemporanea. Età presente; approfondimenti |location=Rome-Reggio Calabria |language=it |trans-title=History of Calabria}}</ref>
[[File:Naples_Fascist_rally_on_24_October_1922_(2).jpg|left|thumb|306x306px|[[Italo Balbo]], [[Benito Mussolini]], [[Cesare Maria De Vecchi|Cesare Maria de Vecchi]] and [[Michele Bianchi]] review the 40,000 fascists deployed at the Naples sports field.]]
After fascism came to power with the [[March on Rome]] on Oct. 28, 1922, the establishment of a centralized dictatorial regime began in the southern region as well, strengthened after the assassination of socialist deputy [[Giacomo Matteotti]] in 1924 and concretized with the “''Leggi fascistissime''” of 1925-1926, which outlawed political parties except for the fascist party, censored the press, and banned trade union organizations and strikes. In addition, administratively, the electivity of municipal mayors was abolished, replaced by [[podestà]], appointed directly by the prefect, with absolute powers in the political and economic management of the municipality.<ref name=":66" />

During this period, the most representative Calabrian political personality was [[Michele Bianchi]], a native of [[Belmonte Calabro]], who was a close associate of Mussolini and quadrumviral of the 1922 March on Rome, in addition to holding the posts of deputy, undersecretary at the Ministry of the Interior and, finally, minister of Public Works. In this capacity, which he held until his death in 1930, he had a number of infrastructures built in Calabria, such as the [[Camigliatello Silano]] ski resort (initially called Camigliatello Bianchi), as well as promoting public works in Cosenza during the period when {{ILL|Tommaso Arnoni|it}} was mayor (1925-1934).<ref name=":66" />

In December 1924 when a false rumor spread in [[Reggio Calabria]] that [[Benito Mussolini]] had resigned as Prime Minister because of the Matteotti affair, joyous celebrations took place in the city that lasted all night.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mack Smith |first1=Denis |title=Italy and Its Monarchy |date=1989 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=0300051328 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/italyitsmonarchy0000mack/page/260 260-261] |url=https://archive.org/details/italyitsmonarchy0000mack}}</ref> In the morning, the people of Reggio Calabria learned that Mussolini was still prime minister, but several Fascist officials were dismissed for not suppressing the celebrations. The landed aristocracy and gentry of Calabria, through generally not ideologically committed to Fascism, saw the Fascist regime as a force for order and social stability, and supported the dictatorship.<ref name="Dunnage 1999 38">{{cite book |last=Dunnage |first=Jonathan |editor-last1=Dunnagee |editor-first1=Jonathan |title=After the War: Violence, Justice, Continuity and Renewal in Italian Society |publisher=Troubador Publishing |location=Leicester |date=1999 |pages=38 |chapter=Politics and Policing in the Southern Italian Community |isbn=1899293566}}</ref> Likewise, the prefects and the policemen of Calabria were conservatives who saw themselves as serving King Victor Emmanuel III first and Mussolini second, but supported Fascism as preferable to Socialism and Communism and persecuted anti-Fascists.<ref name="Dunnage 1999 38" /> Traditional elites in Calabria joined the Fascist Party to pursue their own interests, and local branches of Fascist Party were characterized by much jostling for power and influence between elite families.<ref>{{cite book |last=Dunnage |first=Jonathan |editor-last1=Dunnagee |editor-first1=Jonathan |title=After the War: Violence, Justice, Continuity and Renewal in Italian Society |publisher=Troubador Publishing |location=Leicester |date=1999 |pages=369–37 |chapter=Politics and Policing in the Southern Italian Community |isbn=1899293566}}</ref> 

In spite of this, conditions in Calabria under the Fascist regime had not improved, as evidenced by the surveys conducted by [[Meridionalism|meridionalists]] (and [[Anti-fascism|antifascists]]) [[Umberto Zanotti Bianco]] and {{ILL|Manlio Rossi Doria|it}} in 1928 and reported in the work ''{{ILL|Tra la perduta gente|it}}'', where they analyze the social and economic conditions of [[Africo]], a small village in Aspromonte: nestled on houses ruined by the previous 1908 earthquake and geographically isolated, it was plagued by disease, high infant mortality and indiscriminate taxation, lacking a doctor and school (classes were held in the teacher's bedroom), while the inhabitants ate bread made from lentils and chickpeas.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zanotti Bianco |first=Umberto |title=Tra la perduta gente |publisher=Soveria Mannelli |year=2009 |location=Rubbettino |language=it |trans-title=Among the lost people}}</ref>

Despite the government's desire to maintain the “rural” character of the country, with the introduction of restrictions and disincentives to peasants and laborers to move to the city, urban areas also experienced development, as demonstrated by the ''{{ILL|Grande Reggio|it}}'' project, that is, the idea of urban expansion and amalgamation strongly desired by the first Reggio podestà, {{ILL|Giuseppe Genoese Zerbi|it}}, who succeeded in obtaining the merger to the city on the Strait of as many as fourteen neighboring municipalities and suburbs, such as [[Catona]], Gallico, {{ILL|Ortì|it}}, [[Podargoni|Podàrgoni]], {{ILL|Mosorrofa|it}}, Gallina, [[Pellaro]], {{ILL|Cannitello|it}}, [[Villa San Giovanni]], [[Campo Calabro]], and [[Fiumara]]; the last four, by government decree of January 26, 1933, broke away to form the municipality of Villa San Giovanni (Campo Calabro and Fiumara became autonomous again after the war). The urban population thus exceeded 100,000. The reasons for this conurbation were many: there was a desire to speed up the post-earthquake reconstruction that the war had blocked, to make trade and communication by sea easier because of the city's expansion along the coast, and to entice emigration from small mountain towns into a single large urban center. Moreover, between the 1920s and 1930s Reggio Calabria was modernized with the construction of new neighborhoods: in fact, social housing districts sprang up and several public facilities such as the new [[Reggio di Calabria Centrale railway station]], the [[Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia|National Museum of Magna Graecia]] and the {{ILL|Francesco Cilea Municipal Theater|it|5=Teatro Comunale Francesco Cilea}} were built. Other cities also benefited from the building policy of the Fascist regime: in fact, through the work of Minister of Public Works [[Luigi Razza]], the town of Monteleone di Calabria (renamed by royal decree Vibo Valentia, a name it still retains today), his place of origin, had a new municipal palace, inaugurated in 1935; after his death in the same year from a plane crash, his town paid tribute to him with a bronze statue, the work of sculptor Francesco Longo, inaugurated by the Duce himself in 1939. Vibo Valentia also named its military airport, stadium, a square and a street in the historic center after Luigi Razza.<ref name=":67">{{Cite book |title=Storia della Calabria |publisher=Gangemi Editore |year=1988 |isbn=88-7448-703-7 |editor-last=Placanica |editor-first=Augusto |volume=II: La Calabria moderna e contemporanea. Età presente; approfondimenti |location=Rome-Reggio Calabria |language=it |trans-title=History of Calabria}}</ref>

As with the rest of Italy, Calabria's period of maximum support for fascism occurred with the [[Second Italo-Ethiopian War]] of 1935-1936, in which many Calabrians participated, thus providing momentary relief to the prevailing misery in the region with remittances from volunteers to their families. Many members of the Calabrian high clergy also supported the colonial war in [[Africa]], marking the pinnacle of collaboration between Church and State in the aftermath of the [[Lateran Treaty|Lateran Pacts]] of 1929: for example, the [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Reggio Calabria-Bova|Archbishop of Reggio Calabria]], [[Carmelo Pujia (bishop)|Carmelo Pujia]], already an interventionist on the eve of World War, had a prayer composed praising the glory of the homeland and the Italian flag.<ref name=":67" />

Under the Fascist regime, several concentration camps were built in Calabria and used to imprison foreigners whose presence in Italy was considered undesirable, such as Chinese immigrants and foreign [[Jews]] (though not [[Italian Jews]]) together with members of the [[Romani people|Romani]] minority, whose nomadic lifestyle was viewed as anti-social.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Capogreco |first1=Carlo Spartaco |title=Mussolini's Camps: Civilian Internment in Fascist Italy (1940–1943) |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-1138333086 |pages=77–78}}</ref> The camps which operated from 1938 to 1943 were not death camps, and the majority of those imprisoned survived, but conditions were harsh for the imprisoned.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Capogreco |first1=Carlo Spartaco |title=Mussolini's Camps: Civilian Internment in Fascist Italy (1940–1943) |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-1138333086 |pages=77–79}}</ref>

On June 10, 1940, with Italy's declaration of war on France and the [[United Kingdom]], Calabria also found itself involved in the events of World War II: the civilian population suffered from the first period of the war from starvation and undernourishment, due to the lack of labor, low wages and the increase in basic necessities, which were already scarce and rationed, while other foodstuffs, such as meat and sugar, could only be found on the black market, at triple the price. This was also taken advantage of by the large landowners, who, taking advantage of the wartime period, ambushed part of the crops, which were destined for storage, later reselling them on the black market. Allied aerial bombardments also sapped the morale of civilians, sometimes even claiming some excellent victims: on January 31, 1943, the archbishop of Reggio Calabria, {{ILL|Enrico Montalbetti|it}}, was one of 11 people killed during an strafing run by a Allied fighter-bomber while Montalbetti was on a pastoral visit to Melito di Porto Salvo.<ref name=":68">{{Cite book |title=Storia della Calabria |publisher=Gangemi Editore |year=1988 |isbn=88-7448-703-7 |editor-last=Placanica |editor-first=Augusto |volume=II: La Calabria moderna e contemporanea. Età presente; approfondimenti |location=Rome-Reggio Calabria |language=it |trans-title=History of Calabria}}</ref>

On 3 September 1943, British and Canadian troops of the [[Eighth Army (United Kingdom)|Eighth Army]] landed in Calabria in [[Operation Baytown]], marking the first time that the Allies landed on the mainland of Italy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Weinberg |first1=Gerhard |title=A World in Arms |date=2005 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-521-61826-7 |pages=599–600}}</ref> However, the landings in Calabria were a feint and the main Allied blow came on 8 September 1943 with the landing of the American 5th Army at [[Salerno]] in Campania that was intended to cut off Axis forces in the ''Mezzogiorno''.<ref name="A World in Arms">{{cite book |last1=Weinberg |first1=Gerhard |title=A World in Arms |date=2005 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-521-61826-7 |pages=600}}</ref> The Germans anticipated that the Allies would land at Salerno, and as a consequence, there was relatively little fighting in Calabria.<ref name="A World in Arms" /> The Italian troops in Calabria mostly surrendered to the advancing British [[5th Infantry Division (United Kingdom)|5th Infantry Division]] and [[1st Canadian Division]] while there were relatively few German forces in the region to oppose their advance.<ref name="A World in Arms" /> The main obstacle to the advancing Anglo-Canadian troops turned out to be the trail of destruction left by German combat engineers who systematically blew up bridges and destroyed roads and railroads as the Wehrmacht retreated north.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Murray |first1=Williamson |last2=Millet |first2=Alan |title=War to be Won |date=2000 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=0-674-00163-X |page=[https://archive.org/details/wartobewonfighti00murr_1/page/378 378] |url=https://archive.org/details/wartobewonfighti00murr_1}}</ref> On the same day the Americans landed at Salerno, General [[Dwight Eisenhower]] announced on the radio the [[Armistice of Cassibile]] that had been signed on 3 September, and with the announcement of the armistice all Italian resistance ceased.<ref name="A World in Arms" /> The Germans committed most of their forces in the ''Mezzogiorno'' to the Battle of Salerno with the aim of driving the Allies back into the sea and pulled their remaining forces out of Calabria to send them to Salerno.<ref name="A World in Arms" /> Under the Allied occupation, some Fascists in Calabria waged a terrorist struggle on behalf of the Salo republic, though significantly many of the Fascists tended to be from well-off families concerned about the possibility of social reforms that might weaken their power and only a minority such as Prince Valerio Pignatelli were ideological Fascists.<ref name="Dunnage 1999 39">{{cite book |last=Dunnage |first=Jonathan |editor-last1=Dunnagee |editor-first1=Jonathan |title=After the War: Violence, Justice, Continuity and Renewal in Italian Society |publisher=Troubador Publishing |location=Leicester |date=1999 |pages=39 |chapter=Politics and Policing in the Southern Italian Community |isbn=1899293566}}</ref> In June 1944, celebrations in Reggio Calabria over the news of the liberation of Rome were disturbed by local Fascists.<ref name="Dunnage 1999 39" /> 

Calabria liberated by the Allied troops was marked by a high economic depression,<ref name=":10">{{Cite book |last=Sergi |first=Pantaleone |url=http://digital.casalini.it/9788867286485 |title=1943: Mediterraneo e Mezzogiorno d'Italia |publisher=I libri di Viella |year=2015 |isbn=9788867286485 |editor-last=Soverina |editor-first=Francesco |language=it |trans-title=1943: Mediterranean and Southern Italy |chapter=La Calabria liberata. Tra ripresa democratica e dinamiche conservatrici |trans-chapter=Liberated Calabria. Between democratic recovery and conservative dynamics |chapter-url=https://www.icsaicstoria.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Sergi_Calabria_liberata-2.pdf}}</ref> caused by an extremely backward agricultural sector, an industry in its “infantile state,” sparsely spread and crippled by the long and catastrophic conflict (the power plants in Sila were safe even if “the mass of electricity is partly transported elsewhere” as in the Fascist period), civil infrastructures, such as roads and aqueducts in themselves shoddy and insufficient, which had always connoted the backward degree of development and now appeared even more reduced and precarious due to the war outcomes.<ref name=":10" /> And finally, to seal the disaster, a territory completely disjointed by the violence anyway suffered, far from the front and yet battered first by Allied bombs and then by the destruction of the retreating Germans.<ref name=":10" /> The Allies themselves, faced with the gravity of the situation and general disorientation, were perplexed about the possibility of recovery. In a report to General [[Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis|Harold Alexander]], the head of Civil Affairs of the [[Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories|Allied military government]], the English Major General [[Francis Rodd, 2nd Baron Rennell|Francis Rennell Rodd]], even fearing a resurgence of brigandage, manifested how difficult it was to “govern a discouraged and apathetic population,” with an “incompetent bureaucracy”.<ref name=":10" /> This misery spurred masses of the dispossessed into action, exacerbating social tensions and leading, with revolutionary effect, to the ultimate crisis of late-feudalism formed by reactionary classes clinging to parasitic rents that kept the land imprisoned and blocked its development.<ref name=":10" />

The Allied military government worked to restart political and administrative life without, however, changing the scaffolding of the Fascist state.<ref name=":10" /> The crowds in front of town halls perhaps demanded only a “bureaucratic rip-off” of the bread card, a food support.<ref name=":10" /> The demonstrations, however, showed increasingly sharp and marked political thrusts. Increasingly they were led by communist and socialist agitators and expressed anti-fascist motives.<ref name=":10" /> Many times these demonstrations degraded into full-fledged riots, becoming violent and resulting in the deaths of several people. The first uprising in Calabria occurred on the morning of September 9 in [[Limbadi]], which quickly turned the newly liberated town into a battlefield, but without causing any deaths. Like a wave, many of the towns liberated by Allied forces revolted against their mayors and municipal secretaries.<ref name=":10" /> The best known is the November 4 insurrection in Cosenza, initially motivated by hunger and the housing crisis, which quickly turned into a political struggle to remove the Fascist mayor {{ILL|Enrico Hendrich|it}}, who was ousted by popular vote.<ref name=":10" />

The fall of fascism and the entry of Allied troops into Calabria also allowed the rebirth of a critical and conscious public opinion in the region, thanks in part to the coming out of hiding of the anti-fascist parties, such as the [[Italian Socialist Party]], the Italian Communist Party and the [[Christian Democracy (Italy)|Christian Democracy]], a Catholic-inspired political organization founded in 1942 in semi-clandestinity and heir to [[Luigi Sturzo|Don Luigi Sturzo]]'s [[Italian People's Party (1919)|Italian People's Party]], each with its own newspapers and political headquarters.<ref name=":69">{{Cite book |title=Storia della Calabria |publisher=Gangemi Editore |year=1988 |isbn=88-7448-703-7 |editor-last=Placanica |editor-first=Augusto |volume=II: La Calabria moderna e contemporanea. Età presente; approfondimenti |location=Rome-Reggio Calabria |language=it |trans-title=History of Calabria}}</ref><ref name=":102">{{Cite book |last=Sergi |first=Pantaleone |url=http://digital.casalini.it/9788867286485 |title=1943: Mediterraneo e Mezzogiorno d'Italia |publisher=I libri di Viella |year=2015 |isbn=9788867286485 |editor-last=Soverina |editor-first=Francesco |language=it |trans-title=1943: Mediterranean and Southern Italy |chapter=La Calabria liberata. Tra ripresa democratica e dinamiche conservatrici |trans-chapter=Liberated Calabria. Between democratic recovery and conservative dynamics |chapter-url=https://www.icsaicstoria.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Sergi_Calabria_liberata-2.pdf}}</ref>

All this had an impact on the socioeconomic conditions in the areas of Italy liberated by the Allied troops: the peasant masses, which made up about 60 percent of the Italian population, began, while still fighting the [[Nazism|Nazi]]-Fascists in the center-north of the peninsula, to stage a series of violent uprisings in protest against their miserable living conditions and to demand the division of large land holdings, often giving way to large-scale occupations of uncultivated land, as had already happened after World War I. The peasant class reclaiming its rights was countered by the elite of agrarians and large landowners, who, at first staunch supporters of fascism, sought with the Allied advance to realign themselves according to the political dictates of the moment in order to maintain their economic and social privileges.<ref name=":69" /><ref name=":102" />

To cope with this social situation, in July 1944, a month after the liberation of Rome and the handover between Victor Emmanuel III of Savoy and his son [[Umberto II of Italy|Umberto II of Savoy]], who obtained the Lieutenancy of the Kingdom, Calabrian Communist [[Fausto Gullo]], formerly minister of Agriculture in the [[second Badoglio government]] and holder of the same department also in subsequent executives ([[second Bonomi government]], [[third Bonomi government]] and [[Parri government]]), proposed a series of decrees (named after him) to improve the condition of the peasant class. Among the noteworthy decrees were: the reform of sharecropping, which was changed from annual to biennial; the granting of uncultivated land to individual peasants who had joined in agricultural cooperatives; compensation to farmers who took their produce to storage, which had previously been diverted to the black exchange; and the prohibition of the figure of the caporale, i.e., the day laborer recruiter. With these decrees, defined by historian [[Paul Ginsborg]] as “the only attempt made by leftist government officials to advance on the path of reform”,<ref name=":11">{{Cite book |last=Ginsborg |first=Paul |title=Storia d'Italia dal dopoguerra ad oggi |publisher=Einaudi |year=2006 |location=Turin |language=it |trans-title=History of Italy from the postwar period to the present}}</ref> Gullo, who became the “Minister of the Peasants”,<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Rossi-Doria |first=Anna |title=Il ministro e i contadini: decreti Gullo e lotte nel Mezzogiorno, 1944-1949 |publisher=Bulzoni |year=1983 |location=Rome |language=it |trans-title=The minister and the peasants: Gullo decrees and struggles in the Mezzogiorno, 1944-1949}}</ref> achieved two important results: the southern peasants' awareness of the state's non-stranger status to their problems and the realization by the laborers of their own strength if they acted united in cooperatives, in which all worked for the common goal. Thanks in part to cooperation with the trade unions, especially [[Giuseppe Di Vittorio]]'s [[Italian General Confederation of Labour]], Gullo's reform efforts were revived with two other decrees, concerning the taxable labor rate and placement lists: with the former, the trade unions were empowered to dictate the number of laborers who were to work a landowner's farmland, while with the latter, trade unionists could manage the placement of the men needed for laboring on the basis of seniority. With these measures they were at least able to avoid the war between the poor and make the union feel on the side of the peasants.<ref name=":11" /><ref name=":12" />

The provisions envisaged by the Gullo decrees were opposed by the agrarians, either by using the organized underworld or by enlisting the support of the more conservative currents of the [[Christian democracy|Christian Democrats]], who were frightened by the revolutionary repercussions of the government measures. Indeed, local Christian Democrats, often notables involved with the past regime, succeeded in getting the decrees amended with provisions that effectively made them unenforceable: in fact, agricultural cooperatives received uncultivated land from a special provincial commission, composed of the president of the [[Appellate court|Court of Appeals]], a representative of the agrarians and one of the peasants, which often and willingly issued resolutions very favorable to the landowners; at other times, some decrees were declared illegal, such as the one on compensation to peasants, thanks in part to the submissiveness of the national Communist leadership, which did not want to radicalize the social clash so as not to invalidate the government alliance with the Christian Democrats.<ref name=":13">{{Cite book |last=Spriano |first=Paolo |title=Storia del Partito Comunista Italiano |publisher=Einaudi |year=1975 |volume=V |location=Turin |language=it |trans-title=History of the Italian Communist Party}}</ref>

The Communists thought of supporting revolutionary attempts that had their own origins in these social and economic demands, following instead the strategy of Secretary [[Palmiro Togliatti]], who preferred a slow transaction toward democracy together with Christian Democrat leader [[Alcide De Gasperi]] to revolution. This was the case of the [[Red Republic of Caulonia]], proclaimed on March 6, 1945, by Pasquale Cavallaro, mayor of [[Caulonia]], a town where the clash between agrarians and laborers had been increasingly bitter since January 1944, when he had been appointed to the post by the prefect of Reggio Calabria, despite his communist faith, in place of Pasquale Saverio Asciutti, who was strongly colluding with fascism. In order to maintain public order, Mayor Cavallaro had empowered members of the local partisan section, commanded by his son Ercole Cavallaro, to go around armed with police and search duties. Not infrequently these searches ended in violence against the most prominent members of fascism and the agrarian class. During one such operation against two landowners, Ercole, with two comrades, was arrested by the Carabinieri on charges of theft. The mayor immediately did his utmost to obtain his son's release, causing the outbreak of the revolt: on March 5, 1945, Cavallaro's loyalists freed Ercole, closed the access roads to Caulonia, occupied the post office, the telegraph office and the Carabinieri barracks, while the following day, they hoisted the red flag with hammer and sickle on the bell tower, proclaiming the Republic. The Communist Party was immediately made aware of the event by telegram.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Serri |first=Mirella |title=I profeti disarmati. 1945-1948, la guerra fra le due sinistre |publisher=Corbaccio |year=2008 |location=Milan |language=it |trans-title=The unarmed prophets. 1945-1948, the war between the two lefts}}</ref> Each had differentiated tasks: the partisan section took care of the armed defense of the territory, the women assisted the men with provisions, and the communist members had to keep in touch with the party federation. The revolutionaries also established a “People's Tribunal,” which was based in the town square and had the power to try “enemies of the people,” while an internment camp was also set up where many local agrarians and notables were locked up. The revolutionary experience worried both the conservatives and the communist leaders themselves, who pressed Cavallaro to calm tempers and end the flaring revolution: the mayor then became spokesman for the rebels and convinced almost all of them to return home and lay down their arms, although the most diehard refused to surrender and went into hiding. Finally, on March 9, 1945, after only three days, everything came to an end: the prefect of Reggio Calabria sent departments of carabinieri and police to Caulonia, who arrested 365 men, who were referred to the Locri court for constitution of an armed gang, murder, violence to private individuals and usurpation of public office, while on April 15, 1945 Cavallaro resigned as mayor.<ref name=":13" />

The British historian Jonathan Dunnage wrote that there was an "institutional continuity" between the civil servants of the Liberal, Fascist and post-Fascist eras in Calabria as each change of regime saw the bureaucrats of the region adjust to whatever regime was in power in Rome and there was no purge of civil servants either after 1922 or 1943.<ref name="Dunnage 1999 37">{{cite book |last=Dunnage |first=Jonathan |editor-last1=Dunnagee |editor-first1=Jonathan |title=After the War: Violence, Justice, Continuity and Renewal in Italian Society |publisher=Troubador Publishing |location=Leicester |date=1999 |pages=37 |chapter=Politics and Policing in the Southern Italian Community |isbn=1899293566}}</ref> The "institutional continuity" of the bureaucracy of Calabria were committed to preserving the social structure.<ref name="Dunnage 1999 37" /> On 2 June 1946 referendum Calabria, like the rest of the ''Mezzogiorno'', voted solidly to retain the monarchy. The clientistic political system in Calabria under which elite families handed out patronage to their supporters and used violence against their opponents, which was the prevailing norm in the Liberal and Fascist eras continued after 1945.<ref>{{cite book |last=Dunnage |first=Jonathan |editor-last1=Dunnagee |editor-first1=Jonathan |title=After the War: Violence, Justice, Continuity and Renewal in Italian Society |publisher=Troubador Publishing |location=Leicester |date=1999 |pages=41 |chapter=Politics and Policing in the Southern Italian Community |isbn=1899293566}}</ref> During the Second World War, the already low living standards of Calabria declined further and the region was notorious as one of the most violent and lawless areas of Italy.<ref>{{cite book |last=Dunnage |first=Jonathan |editor-last1=Dunnagee |editor-first1=Jonathan |title=After the War: Violence, Justice, Continuity and Renewal in Italian Society |publisher=Troubador Publishing |location=Leicester |date=1999 |pages=41=42 |chapter=Politics and Policing in the Southern Italian Community |isbn=1899293566}}</ref> 

Attempts by the peasants of Calabria to take over the land owned by the elite were usually resisted by the authorities. On 28 October 1949 in Melissa the police opened fire on peasants who had seized the land of a local baron, killing three men who were shot in the back as they attempted to flee.<ref>{{cite book |last=Dunnage |first=Jonathan |editor-last1=Dunnagee |editor-first1=Jonathan |title=After the War: Violence, Justice, Continuity and Renewal in Italian Society |publisher=Troubador Publishing |location=Leicester |date=1999 |pages=43 |chapter=Politics and Policing in the Southern Italian Community |isbn=1899293566}}</ref> Between 1949 and 1966 another wave of migration took place with the peak year of migration being 1957 with some 38, 090 Calabrians leaving that year.<ref name="Palgrave Macmillan" />    

After the birth of the Italian Republic, the southern monarchist [[Enrico De Nicola]] became the provisional head of state, while De Gasperi regained the task of forming the government, becoming, with the entry into office on July 12, 1946 of the [[second De Gasperi government]], the first [[Prime Minister of Italy|Prime Minister of the Italian Republic]]. In the governmental structure, which still rested on the agreement between the major anti-fascist parties, the left-wing parties were strongly downsized in favor of the Christian Democrats, in view of the opposition between the two blocs (Western and Communist) typical of the [[Cold War]]. The Communists and Socialists went from 8 to 6 ministries, whose holders were chosen from among the Christian Democrats: as a result [[Mario Scelba]], a Sicilian Christian Democrat, became Minister of the Interior, the Communist [[Emilio Sereni]] was Minister of Public Works, while Gullo, who had presided over the Agriculture ministry since 1943, was appointed Minister of Justice; in his place was the Christian Democrat [[Antonio Segni]], a [[Sardinia|Sardinian]] landowner and future President of the Italian Republic, an exponent of the more conservative faction of the Christian Democracy.<ref name=":103">{{Cite book |last=Sergi |first=Pantaleone |url=http://digital.casalini.it/9788867286485 |title=1943: Mediterraneo e Mezzogiorno d'Italia |publisher=I libri di Viella |year=2015 |isbn=9788867286485 |editor-last=Soverina |editor-first=Francesco |language=it |trans-title=1943: Mediterranean and Southern Italy |chapter=La Calabria liberata. Tra ripresa democratica e dinamiche conservatrici |trans-chapter=Liberated Calabria. Between democratic recovery and conservative dynamics |chapter-url=https://www.icsaicstoria.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Sergi_Calabria_liberata-2.pdf}}</ref><ref name=":112">{{Cite book |last=Ginsborg |first=Paul |title=Storia d'Italia dal dopoguerra ad oggi |publisher=Einaudi |year=2006 |location=Turin |language=it |trans-title=History of Italy from the postwar period to the present}}</ref>

Segni's appointment as Minister of Agriculture seemed to halt the agrarian reform drive that Gullo had imparted, especially in the South: the new minister, coming to meet the demands of the agrarian class, between September 1946 and December 1947 issued two decrees that allowed landowners to reclaim those lands that had not been improved or cultivated by peasants. While this secured the support of the southern elites for the Christian Democrat party on the one hand, enabling it to win the April 18, 1948 general elections, it only increased the tension between the two parties and restarted the occupation of uncultivated land by the laborers. The {{ILL|Massacre of Melissa|it|5=Strage di Melissa}}, which took place in Calabria in the fall of 1949, fits into this context: on October 24 of that year, some 14,000 Calabrian peasants from the provinces of Catanzaro and Cosenza descended from their villages, accompanied also by women, children and work animals, to head for the large latifundia, occupy them and begin planting work.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cinanni |first=P |title=Lotte per la terra nel Mezzogiorno, 1943-1953 |year=1977 |location=Milan |language=it |trans-title=Land struggles in the Mezzogiorno, 1943-1953}}</ref> A group of Calabrian Christian Democracy parliamentarians from the agrarian class went to Rome, protesting and asking Interior Minister Mario Scelba to use force against the demonstrators. Scelba then sent units of the [[Mobile Unit (Italy)|Mobile Units]], mechanized riot police, to Calabria, which stopped at [[Melissa, Calabria|Melissa]], in the province of Crotone, where there was a large number of protesters, camped out on the Fragalà estate, owned by local landowner Baron {{ILL|Luigi Berlingeri|it}}. The fund, in fact, according to the subversion of feudality and the [[Napoleonic Code|Napoleonic laws]] of 1811 was supposed to be assigned to the municipality, but the Berlingeri family had usurped it in its entirety over the years: now the peasants claimed at least half of it as municipal property, but the baron, as a sign of accommodation, was willing to cede only a third, resulting in a clear refusal. So it was that, on Oct. 29, 1949, police, after intimidating the crowd of peasants to clear out, fired at eye level, resulting in 15 wounded and 3 dead: 15-year-old Giovanni Zito, 29-year-old Francesco Nigro, and 23-year-old Angelina Mauro, who died later in the hospital.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bevilacqua |first=Piero |title=Le campagne del Mezzogiorno tra fascismo e dopoguerra: il caso della Calabria |publisher=Einaudi |year=1980 |location=Turin |language=it |trans-title=The countryside of southern Italy between fascism and the postwar period: the case of Calabria}}</ref>

This massacre, combined with that of [[Portella della Ginestra massacre|Portella della Ginestra]], in Sicily, which took place on May 1, 1947, provoked a series of strikes and peasant demonstrations throughout Italy, repressed by the police. The continuing state of unrest, however, induced De Gasperi to pass the first agrarian reform measures, which, however, did not result in an overall reform, but in individual laws valid for specific territories: therefore, on May 12, 1950, the Sila Law was passed, which initially concerned the territory located in the eastern Sila, and provided for the expropriation of latifundia exceeding 300 hectares, lacking improvements or reclamation. These two clauses provided a legal loophole for the agrarians who did not want to lose their estates, as they could subdivide the latifundia among relatives or plant temporary improvements on them. In addition to this, the geographical area to be expropriated was predominantly mountainous and forested, and therefore unsuitable for cultivation. A real agrarian law valid for the whole country, partly financed by funds from the [[Marshall Plan]], was passed on October 21, 1950, with most of the conservative Christian Democracy current abstaining or voting against, supported also by conservative members of Harry Truman's administration.<ref name=":15">{{Cite book |last=Bernardi |first=Emanuele |title=La riforma agraria in Italia e gli Stati Uniti |publisher=Il Mulino |year=2006 |location=Bologna |language=it |trans-title=Land reform in Italy and the United States}}</ref> The reform, which according to some scholars was the most important of the entire post-[[World War II]] period, proposed, through forced expropriation, the redistribution of land to farmworkers, thus making them de facto small businessmen no longer subject to the large landowner.<ref name=":16">{{Cite book |last=Barberis |first=Corrado |title=Teoria e storia della riforma agraria |publisher=Vallecchi |year=1957 |location=Florence |language=it |trans-title=Theory and history of land reform}}</ref> While this was a beneficial result, it also greatly reduced the size of farms, thus removing any possibility of transforming them into advanced entrepreneurial vehicles. However, this negative element was mitigated and in some cases eliminated by forms of cooperation: in fact, agricultural cooperatives arose which, by scheduling production and centralizing the sale of products, gave agriculture the entrepreneurial character that had been lost with the division of land. Thus there was a better yield of crops, which from extensive became intensive and thus a better exploitation of the land used. Agricultural labor, which until then had been unprofitable though very heavy, began to bear fruit. However, as a result of the development of industry, agriculture ended up becoming a marginal sector of the economy, but as a result of the development of modern cultivation techniques, it saw the income produced per hectare cultivated and thus the profitability of labor multiply.<ref name=":15" /><ref name=":16" />

In addition to this, the [[fourth De Gasperi government]] had established by Law No. 646 of August 10, 1950, the [[Cassa per il Mezzogiorno]], a public body created for the purpose of financing the infrastructural and industrial development of southern Italy in order to bridge the economic gap with the rest of the country, originally over a 10-year period (until 1960), although the Cassa was refinanced with public funds until its total liquidation by law in 1992. One of the planning instruments used for the finalization of interventions was the A.S.I. plan, or a plan for the creation of Industrial Development Areas: it provided for the establishment of consortia, carried out under Law No. 634 of July 29, 1957 (called “Provvedimenti per il Mezzogiorno”), in the type of sectoral plan, promoted by entities such as municipalities, provinces and chambers of commerce for the initiation of industrial development and the construction of basic infrastructure in the areas involved in the action of the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno.<ref name=":103" /><ref name=":112" /><ref name=":16" />

The outcome of the Cassa was by no means questionable in terms of the use of public capital, considering the backwardness of southern Italy in 1950 compared to the rest of the country in terms of infrastructure resources and per capita income: in Calabria, for example, important works were the doubling of 212 km of the [[Battipaglia]]-Reggio Calabria railway line (completed in 1965). However, subsequently the politicization of the agency's apparatuses led to a degradation and low quality of public spending, including widespread phenomena of illegality (such as financing entrepreneurs through contracts in order to develop enterprises in the Mezzogiorno, which later turned out to be “ghost” companies). Therefore, often huge procurements and other state initiatives ended up creating huge infrastructures that would not find practical application, either because they were alien to the economic realities of the South, or because they remained unfinished: therefore, this type of infrastructure was referred to as a cathedral in the desert.<ref name=":103" /><ref name=":112" /><ref name=":16" />

The 1950s and 1960s were known as the period of the “economic miracle”: a short but intense period of time characterized by industrial development, economic growth, and an increase in consumption.<ref name=":17">{{Cite book |last=Crainz |first=Guido |title=Storia del miracolo italiano. Culture, identità, trasformazioni fra anni Cinquanta e Sessanta |publisher=Donzelli |year=1996 |location=Rome |language=it |trans-title=History of the Italian Miracle. Cultures, identities, transformations between the 1950s and 1960s}}</ref> It was during that period that Italian industry, thanks to the modernization of its industrial apparatus, achieved through the purchase and use of American technological skills and equipment financed by the Marshall Plan, achieved a remarkable rate of growth in production, so much so that in one decade it increased by up to 10 percent, leading to the economic and social transformation of Italy, which was transforming from a predominantly agricultural country into an industrial one. Those who benefited most were the large industrial complexes in northern Italy, which obtained most of the U.S. funding, while small and medium-sized enterprises, although they could not count on programmed interventions, also managed to emerge, thanks to their flexibility and ability to adapt to the market. In addition, the construction of roads and highways made the movement of people and goods faster, favored the production and employment of vehicles the various employment sectors, and profoundly affected the lifestyle of the population.<ref name=":113">{{Cite book |last=Ginsborg |first=Paul |title=Storia d'Italia dal dopoguerra ad oggi |publisher=Einaudi |year=2006 |location=Turin |language=it |trans-title=History of Italy from the postwar period to the present}}</ref><ref name=":17" />

Growth and prosperity, however, did not spread evenly across the country, and did not affect all social strata and all productive sectors of the economy. We need only think of the crisis in the agricultural sector, which led to the substantial failure of the 1950 land reform in many parts of the South, due to the exponential growth of the role of industry in the Italian economy; in fact, between 1951 and 1991, workers employed in agriculture fell from 8,261,000 to 1,629,000, and in particular, those employed in the sector under 30 years of age plummeted from 3,299,000 in 1951 to 341,000 in 1991.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barberis |first=Corrado |title=Le campagne italiane dall'Ottocento ad oggi |publisher=Laterza |year=1999 |location=Rome-Bari |language=it |trans-title=The Italian countryside from the 19th century to the present}}</ref> However, this was also due to the process of mechanization of agriculture, which between 1954 and 1964 produced a contraction of the agricultural labor force in rural areas (from 8 million to 5 million).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gallo |first=Stefano |title=Senza attraversare le frontiere |publisher=Laterza |year=2012 |location=Rome-Bari |language=it |trans-title=Without crossing borders}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Vecchio |first=Bruno |title=Storia dell'agricoltura italiana in età contemporanea |publisher=Marsilio |year=1992 |editor-last=Bevilacqua |editor-first=Piero |volume=I |location=Venice |language=it |trans-title=History of Italian agriculture in contemporary times |chapter=Geografia degli abbandoni rurali |trans-chapter=Geography of rural abandonment}}</ref>

Such was the situation in Calabria, where there had also been an increase in population in a land that offered no employment outlets or opportunities for survival, a factor that fostered a strong emigration of labor from the region after the forced blockade during the years of the fascist regime. The causes of the increased flow of migration were many and stemmed from numerous shortcomings: the unstable hydrogeology of the land, the lack of infrastructure works, the inclemency of the climate and, above all, the very high unemployment and underemployment prevailing in the Calabrian labor scene. The Parliamentary Commission for the Study of Misery certified this state of affairs: in fact, the inquiry showed that 179,500 Calabrians (37.7 percent of the region's total population) lived in a state of misery. It was the highest percentage in the entire country, compared to 1.5 percent in the North, 5.9 percent in the Center and the Mezzogiorno itself, where the percentage of misery was around 28.3 percent.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Attuazione della legge speciale per la Calabria nel periodo 1955-1967 |editor-last=Cassa per il Mezzogiorno |language=it |trans-title=Implementation of the special law for Calabria in the period 1955-1967}}</ref>

In the decade between 1951 and 1961 as many as 400,000 Calabrians emigrated to seek their fortune elsewhere, especially to America (such as Canada or the United States) or to the industrial cities of [[Northern Italy]], especially those concentrated in the [[Industrial triangle of Northeast Italy|industrial triangle]], which saw their population increase considerably, especially [[Turin]] (+42.6 percent) and Milan (+24.1 percent).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barberis |first=Corrado |title=Le migrazioni rurali in Italia |publisher=Feltrinelli |year=1961 |location=Milan |language=it |trans-title=Rural migration in Italy}}</ref> In addition to this outward trend, Calabrian emigration also had an interregional one, that is, of people moving from inland areas, often mountainous and hilly, to settle in coastal centers, which were better connected and closer to the main arteries of communication, where there were more job opportunities in construction, urban services and commercial activities. This resulted in the complete abandonment of inland rural areas, with hydrogeological effects that are still felt today, while the ancient mountain and hillside villages lost autonomy and identity, falling into an irreversible crisis. One example is the ancient medieval village of [[Badolato]] Superiore, near [[Soverato]], which has become, according to anthropologist Vito Teti, the “metaphor of the abandonment, ruin, flight, and hope of all of Calabria, of the entire Mezzogiorno”.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Teti |first=Vito |title=Il senso dei luoghi |publisher=Donzelli |year=2004 |location=Rome |language=it |trans-title=The sense of places}}</ref>

Under the First Republic, starting in the 1960s, investment plans were launched under which Italian state sponsored industrialisation and attempted to improve the infrastructure of Calabria by building modern roads, railroads, ports, etc.<ref name="'Ndrangheta: The Glocal Dimensions">{{cite book |last1=Sergi |first1=Anna |last2=Lavorgna |first2=Anita |title='Ndrangheta: The Glocal Dimensions of the Most Powerful Italian Mafia |date=2016 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=London |isbn=978-3319325859 |pages=16}}</ref> The plan was a notable failure with the infrastructure projects going wildly over-budget and taking far longer to complete then scheduled; for an example, construction started on the A3 highway in 1964 intended to link Reggio Calabria to Salerno, which was as of 2016 still unfinished.<ref name="'Ndrangheta: The Glocal Dimensions" /> The failure to complete the A3 highway after 52 years of effort is regarded as a scandal in Italy, and many parts of Calabria were described as an "industrial graveyard" full of the closed down steel mills and chemical plants that all went bankrupt.<ref name="'Ndrangheta: The Glocal Dimensions" /> 

The Calabrian political landscape of that period was marked by the debate on the establishment of the regional entity and the choice of the capital, due not only to terms of prestige, but also to concrete job opportunities in the public and clerical sectors in a part of the peninsula where labor shortages and emigration were on the rise.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ferraris |first=P |date=1971 |title=I cento giorni di Reggio: i presupposti della rivolta e la sua dinamica |trans-title=The hundred days of Reggio: the preconditions of the revolt and its dynamics |journal=Giovane Critica |pages=2-42}}</ref> Local Calabrian contrasts and rivalries were also reflected at the national level, when, in 1963, in the [[first Moro government]], ministers and undersecretaries from Reggio Calabria and Catanzaro were excluded from the executive: the only Calabrians with institutional appointments were the Socialist [[Giacomo Mancini]] (who became Minister of Health) and the Christian Democrat [[Riccardo Minasi|Riccardo Misasi]] (holder of the Ministry of Grace and Justice), both originally from Cosenza. In addition, economically there were also numerous frictions between Cosenza, Catanzaro and Reggio Calabria, among other demographically diverse areas. On March 21, 1968, the Reggio Calabria City Council, which was considering the law establishing the region, voted on an agenda declaring that the city on the Strait should be the regional capital. Thus, to preserve city interests, the “Agitation Committee for the Defense of Reggio's Interests,” headed by Christian Democrat lawyer {{ILL|Francesco Gangemi|it}}, was born. However, the law establishing the Regions, which came into effect in 1970, confirmed the 1949 decision by which the parliamentary investigation committee appointed by the House Institutional Affairs Committee, with the delivery of the report called “Donatini-Molinaroli,” determined that, based on historical and geopolitical parameters, Catanzaro was the capital of the Calabria Region.<ref>{{Cite book |last=De Virgilio |first=Alessandro |title=Le quattro giornate di Catanzaro. 25-28 gennaio 1950: la città in rivolta per il capoluogo |publisher=Rubbettino |year=2014 |isbn=978-8849840520 |language=it |trans-title=The Four Days of Catanzaro. January 25-28, 1950: the city in revolt for the capital city}}</ref>

This situation, which reverberated in the local and regional elections, in which the minor secular leftist parties (social democrats and republicans) elected their first representatives, mainly in the provinces of Reggio and Cosenza, induced the city's mayor, Christian Democrat {{ILL|Pietro Battaglia|it}}, to give, on July 5, 1970, a heartfelt speech in Piazza Duomo in front of 7,000 people, to claim the city's just right to be the regional capital. On July 12, the prodrome of the uprising began in the city, with the creation of the first roadblocks and numerous public demonstrations, while, on the same day, in Villa San Giovanni, Senate President [[Amintore Fanfani]], who had come to the city to collect an award, was harshly challenged by the crowd. In retaliation to Fanfani's indifference, the regional deputies from Reggio Calabria (5 Christian Democrats and 1 Socialist), deserted the regional council meeting scheduled for July 13, as opposed to the Communist representatives, who went instead.<ref name=":610">{{Cite book |title=Storia della Calabria |publisher=Gangemi Editore |year=1988 |isbn=88-7448-703-7 |editor-last=Placanica |editor-first=Augusto |volume=II: La Calabria moderna e contemporanea. Età presente; approfondimenti |location=Rome-Reggio Calabria |language=it |trans-title=History of Calabria}}</ref><ref name=":114">{{Cite book |last=Ginsborg |first=Paul |title=Storia d'Italia dal dopoguerra ad oggi |publisher=Einaudi |year=2006 |location=Turin |language=it |trans-title=History of Italy from the postwar period to the present}}</ref>

Finally, on July 14, 1970, the actual uprising, which went down in history as the [[Reggio revolt]], broke out, supported by all of the city's social classes (bourgeoisie, clergy, students, political parties, civic committees). On that day there were clashes between the demonstrators and the forces of law and order, which left one person dead, railroad worker Bruno Labate: this prompted the Archbishop of Reggio, Vincenzo Ferro, in September to join the showdown.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Baldoni |first=Adalberto |title=Storia della destra, Dal postfascismo al Popolo della libertà |publisher=Edizioni Vallecchi |year=2009 |location=Florence |language=it |trans-title=History of the Right, From Post-Fascism to the People of Freedom}}</ref> The uprising was also supported by newspapers of liberal-conservative tendency (such as the [[Gazzetta del Sud]] and [[Il Tempo]]), and by various intellectuals, who asserted the city's political and social claims. Gradually the leadership of the protests passed from Mayor Battaglia, who did not want to go too far, to the far-right movements, particularly the [[Italian Social Movement|Movimento Sociale Italiano]], seen as the least compromised with the republican regime; soon the Missini imposed their authority on the uprising, including through various slogans (famous was the ''boia chi molla'' of D'Annunzian memory). [[Francesco Franco|Ciccio Franco]], a CISNAL trade unionist and Reggio Calabria-based Missini exponent, emerged as the undisputed leader of the situation. At this point barricades were erected, the railway station was occupied and all convoys and ferries leaving for Sicily were blocked. In the first months of the uprising, moreover, there were 19 days of general strike, 12 bomb attacks, 32 roadblocks, 14 occupations of the station, 2 of the post office, 1 of the television station, and 4 assaults on the prefecture, with a death toll of 5 (in addition to Labate, Angelo Campanella, a driver for the city's municipal bus company, also perished in the clashes, Vincenzo Curigliano, a policeman struck by a heart attack during an assault on the Questura; Antonio Bellotti, a 19-year-old officer hit by a stone while leaving Reggio by train with his department; and Carmelo Jaconis, a bartender killed by a gunshot), 426 arrested and 200 wounded during the police charges (whose members were insulted and vilified even by hospital doctors).<ref name=":18">{{Cite book |last=D'Agostino |first=Fabrizio |title=Reggio Calabria. I moti del luglio 1970 - febbraio 1971 |publisher=Feltrinelli |year=1972 |location=Milan |language=it |trans-title=Reggio Calabria. The uprisings of July 1970 - February 1971}}</ref> Even, in some parts of the city, “autonomous republics” were proclaimed, such as the “Republic of Sbarre” and the “Grand Duchy of St. Catherine,” a clear symptom of the prevailing anti-statism among the protesters. The Italian government, presided over by [[Emilio Colombo]] after the resignation of [[Mariano Rumor]], after appealing to the people of Reggio Emilia urging them to appease, threatening, in the event of a continuation of the violence, the use of force, decided, for the first time in the history of the Italian Republic, to repress the street demonstrations and urban guerrilla warfare by having the army and carabinieri intervene. Even far-left parties, such as the Communists and the [[Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity|PSIUP]], condemned the Reggio uprising, branding it as parochial and non-proletarian, often clashing with their own city voter base. Eventually, on February 23, 1971, after 10 months of rioting and agitation, the revolt ceased: the people of Reggio had to come to a political compromise with the government, which occurred, however, not in Parliament but in the regional council, where they had little political clout. The Prime Minister, meeting with the president of the Calabria Region, Christian Democrat {{ILL|Antonio Guarasci|it}}, and various regional politicians from various parties, worked out a compromise agreement, known as the {{ILL|Colombo Package|it|5=Pachetto Colombo}}, which sought to bring all parties together: Catanzaro would be the regional capital, while Reggio would host the seat of the regional council; Cosenza, on the other hand, would be the site of Calabria's first university hub (today's [[University of Calabria]]), while Gioia Tauro would be the fifth national steel hub and a massive chemical factory would be established in Saline Joniche. The agreement was accepted by the city's population, but the Gioia Tauro steel plant was never built, due to the international steel market crisis, while the Saline Joniche chemical plant, although built, ceased production almost immediately due to the Ministry of Health's provision that had declared the chemical feed supplements it produced to be [[Carcinogen|carcinogenic]].<ref name=":611">{{Cite book |title=Storia della Calabria |publisher=Gangemi Editore |year=1988 |isbn=88-7448-703-7 |editor-last=Placanica |editor-first=Augusto |volume=II: La Calabria moderna e contemporanea. Età presente; approfondimenti |location=Rome-Reggio Calabria |language=it |trans-title=History of Calabria}}</ref><ref name=":115">{{Cite book |last=Ginsborg |first=Paul |title=Storia d'Italia dal dopoguerra ad oggi |publisher=Einaudi |year=2006 |location=Turin |language=it |trans-title=History of Italy from the postwar period to the present}}</ref><ref name=":18" />

The consequences of the Reggio uprising were reflected in electoral performance, when in the 1972 general elections the needle of the scales shifted in favor of the extreme right, which won 27 percent of the vote and became the leading party in the city, outperforming other political formations and electing Ciccio Franco to the Senate. In October of the same year, a two-day demonstration was organized in Reggio by some 40,000 northern metalworkers who were members of the CGIL, in solidarity with the inhabitants' reasons for revolt: the reactions of the latter were diverse, as some welcomed the gesture, while others ignored or opposed it, a sign of the distance between the southern and northern socioeconomic realities.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Guerrazzi |first=Vincenzo |title=Nord e Sud uniti nella lotta |publisher=Frilli |year=2003 |isbn=978-8887923728 |location=Padua |language=it |trans-title=North and South united in struggle}}</ref>

The Reggio revolt remain to this day one of the most controversial pages in the history of Calabria and even Italy, partly because of the lack or absence of related documentation, which is often destroyed or secreted. In order to understand this historical episode, one must refer to historiography, which denies or approves of certain views: it was not a parochial uprising, but complex political and social motivations converged behind it; it was not a fascist uprising, although the Italian Social Movement was at the head of it, as the leftists (especially the communists) said, since it was an interclass, inter-party and intergenerational movement, while it was instead an anti-state uprising (see the case of the “autonomous republics”), spontaneous and without direction behind it, despite Mayor Battaglia's call to strike. In addition to this, recent studies have found that there were also strong infiltrations of the 'ndrangheta, colluding with the extremist subversive right (see the case of the Baracca anarchists), in the uprising;<ref>{{Cite book |last=Caprara |first=MArio |title=Neri, la storia mai raccontata della destra radicale, eversiva e terrorista |last2=Semprini |first2=Gianluca |publisher=Edizioni tascabili Newton |year=2011 |location=Rome |language=it |trans-title=Neri, the never-told story of the radical, subversive, terrorist right wing}}</ref> therefore, there are those who believe that deviated sectors of the state and secret services were also involved in the uprising, so much so that the Reggio revolt can be ascribed to a part of the strategy of tension that gripped the country in those years.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cuzzola |first=Fabio |title=Cinque anarchici del Sud |publisher=Città del Sole Edizioni |year=2001 |location=Reggio Calabria |language=it |trans-title=Five anarchists from the South}}</ref>

In the 1980s, the social and economic situation in Calabria was anything but prosperous: as Piero Gagliardo, a professor at the University of Calabria, wrote, the region had no development plan of its own, was apparently abandoned to the various party clienteles, but was effectively run by power groups linked to organized crime and deviant [[freemasonry]]. As a result, in Calabria, which is made to play the role of the poorest and most depressed region in Italy, social and economic initiatives, even very significant ones, are undertaken with exasperating slowness, and often based on a human and territorial fabric that is not always suitable for receiving them. In fact, in the region, many works, including those of significant public expenditure, had been initiated, but more for the benefit of the entrepreneurial hundred in the center than for the real needs of the periphery. In addition to this socioeconomic analysis, Gagliardo notes the persistence of widespread electoral clientelism, which the electoral political class, instead of eliminating, wanted to nurture for its own personal gain.<ref name=":19">{{Cite book |last=Gagliardo |first=Piero |title=In Calabria alle origini di una storia e di una fede |publisher=Laruffa |year=1987 |isbn=978-8872210437 |editor-last=Bodone |editor-first=P |location=Reggio Calabria |language=it |trans-title=In Calabria at the origins of a history and a faith |chapter=Cenni sulla situazione sociale ed economica della Calabria |trans-chapter=Notes on the social and economic situation in Calabria |editor-last2=Denisi |editor-first2=A}}</ref>

Alongside this political, cultural and economic landscape, there was the gradual infiltration into the Calabrian social and economic fabric of the [['Ndrangheta]], a criminal organization akin to the [[Mafia]] and [[Camorra]], which began to make headlines thanks to the season of kidnappings of important hostages in order to demand a ransom to finance their criminal activities (such as the one of [[John Paul Getty III]], grandson of an U.S. oilman, kidnapped in 1973 and released along the [[Autostrada A2 (Italy)|Autostrada A2]] after the payment of a ransom of one billion seven hundred million [[Lira|lire]]). In the 1980s, the Calabrian [['Ndrina|'ndrine]] turned instead to international [[Narcotic|narcotics]] trafficking, forging contacts with [[South America|South American]] drug cartels and enacting numerous internal feuds among the various Mafia clans for control of territory and drug areas. As in Sicily, the 'ndrangheta in Calabria infiltrated into the local political fabric, not infrequently placing its own affiliates in key posts in municipal administrations in order to pilot and profit on public contracts. The case of the Gioia Tauro harbor, completed in 1985, which was conceived as a trading port for the never-planned steel center envisaged by the Colombo Package, and later used as a transit hub for containers transported by transoceanic ships plying the [[Mediterranean Sea]], is well known: from the outset, the port facility was under the control of the [[Piromalli 'ndrina|Piromalli]] and {{ILL|Molè|it|'Ndrina Molè}} clans, who used it to bring drugs and counterfeit goods into Italy. In the 1990s, in order to quell the criminal phenomenon, which was flanking the Mafia in its massacre phase against men of the state (an act that materialized in the 1991 murder of Judge [[Antonino Scopelliti]], who was working on the Palermo [[Maxi Trial]]), {{ILL|Operation Riace|it|Operazione Riace}} was implemented, where the army was employed, with a total of 1350 military personnel, while numerous maxiprocesses were subsequently carried out: “Wall Street,” ‘Count Down,’ ‘Hoca Tuca,’ ‘North-South,’ ‘Belgium,’ and ‘Fine,’ which involved many 'ndrine and the end of the [[Siderno Group]], an underworld consortium between Canada and Calabria that ran international drug trafficking.<ref name=":19" />

Yet, in the last years of the 20th century there have been some changes, partly due to volunteerism and to an awareness of a large part of the Calabrian people, increasingly participating in public affairs. One example is the election on November 28, 1993, of [[Italo Falcomatà]] as mayor of Reggio Calabria, who was reconfirmed for three terms until his untimely death on December 11, 2001. Falcomatà, at the head of a center-left junta, was the protagonist of the so-called “Springtime of Reggio,” or a period in which the first citizen spurred his fellow citizens to re-enamor themselves with the city, after years of torpor in public participation and social apathy. During his tenure, he succeeded in unlocking funds from the “Reggio Decree” that had been awaited for years for the redevelopment and development of the city on the Strait, while he tenaciously fought against illegal construction and downsized the open market, which, with its street stalls run by organized crime expanded without limits and permits and congested traffic.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gaspari |first=Oscar |title=Storie di sindaci per la storia d'Italia |last2=Forlenza |first2=Rosario |last3=Cruciani |first3=Sante |publisher=Donzelli |year=2009 |isbn=978-8860364258 |language=it |trans-title=Stories of mayors for the history of Italy}}</ref>