Edmondo Rossoni

Edmondo Rossoni (1884-1965) was the first leader of the Italian Fascist labor confederation (1922). A convert from revolutionary syndicalism, just as many of Fascism's early disciples, Rossoni remained a militant labor leader until Mussolini ordered the breakup of his union organization in 1928.Rossoni is unique among all of Fascism's early leaders in one very important respect. His embrace of extreme nationalism came as a direct result of his travels in the Americas. After five and one half years in the United States of America he was so appalled by the hatred directed against Italian immigrant workers that he soon abandoned his previous belief in international proletarian solidarity. This hatred, Rossoni believed, was held not only by the capitalist class of America but by their fellow proletarians, both American and foreign born. He thus became an extreme nationalist, which makes his eventual acceptance of Fascism more easily understood.