in Reggio Emilia, on July 7, 1960, during a manifestation promoted by the Chamber of Labor and left-wing parties against the Tambroni government riots broke out and the police opened fire. 182 shots were fired from a machine gun, 14 from a musket and 39 from a pistol, and a PS guard claimed to have lost 7 pistol shots. Sixteen were the wounded officers, or those taken to hospital because they were considered in danger of life, but many others preferred to be treated clandestinely, in order not to be identified.
They stayed on the ground five dead among protesters: Ovidio Franchi, Afro Tondelli, Marino Serri, Emilio Reverberi and Lauro Farioli. Franchi and Farioli were two boys in their early twenties, the others were adults who had participated in the Resistance.
On that day there was the culmination of a few weeks of protests, strikes, clashes with the Police and the Carabinieri (there was even a charge of the horse department at Porta S. Paolo in Rome) which culminated, the day after the massacre, in general strike proclaimed by the CGIL which blocked the whole country. In that tragic period of our history, many episodes deserve a particular "it happened today"; but the uprisings of Reggio Emilia imposed themselves on the collective memory (also thanks to a song dedicated to them by Fausto Amodei; the massacre was also evoked in a film from the saga of Don Camillo and Peppone).
The popular mobilization was triggered by the MSI decision (the neo-fascist party) to convene from 2 to 4 July the National Congress of the party in Genoa (partisan city, decorated with the gold medal of the Resistance). But in the background it was the formation of the government headed by Fernando Tambroni, a single color Christian Democrat with the decisive external support of the MSI. To deal with the protests, the Prime Minister gave the right to open fire in "emergency situations" and at the end of those dramatic weeks they numbered 11 dead and hundreds injured, among which four died in Palermo on 8 July during the general strike.
That day the Sicilian city became the scene of a war against unarmed civilians: Rosa La Barbera, a 53-year-old lady, died while closing the window of her house. In via Spinuzza, the police shot Andrea Cangitano, a nineteen-year-old construction worker and union and communist party leader, as he tried to appease the demonstrators. He was a known person, witnesses said that he was killed on purpose to punish him. Giuseppe Malleo was a little boy, he was 15 years old, he died in via Celso; Francesco Vella was 45 years old. These dramatic consequences forced the Tambroni government to resign on 19 July.
And the prospect of a centre-left government opened up, which came about – organically – only in 1964, after the opening of a long-distance dialogue between the historical parties of centrism and the DC with Pietro Nenni's PSI. A dialogue that began precisely in that tragic month of July when the PSI abstained in the vote on the single color government chaired by Fanfani and formed after the fall of Tambroni. The latter, before becoming prime minister, had held various government positions, the most important of which was the Ministry of the Interior from 1955 to 1959. A controversial figure (it was said that he even had an extra-marital affair with Sylva Koscina , one of the beauties of cinema at the time) had received the assignment from the President of the Republic Giovanni Gronchi, to whom he was linked on a political level.
After that in the Chamber (where he had presented himself with a single color DC) he had won the trust of very few votes thanks to the support of the MSI (for this reason three ministers and an undersecretary had resigned) he saw himself in the obligation to resign his mandate. Gronchi, after a failed attempt by Amintore Fanfani, rejected Tambroni's resignation and sent him to submit to the Senate's vote of confidence (again, obtained by measure with the support of the neo-fascist group). Fernando Tambroni did not lose heart, he immediately adopted populist measures (including the reduction in the price of petrol). But he was overwhelmed by the serious bloodshed to which he tried to respond with an iron fist. Abandoned by the DC, which did not even want to stand for election again, he died in 1963.
It is fair to recall that before the shootings in July (there was also one dead in Catania), there had been protests and demonstrations in Genoa, with a strike on 30 June, during which there were violent clashes with the forces of order in Piazza De Ferrari and in the nearby streets. Leading the protest was Sandro Pertini, the socialist deputy who would later become Head of State, perhaps the most loved by Italians.
Personal testimony: in those days I was engaged in the final examination of the classical high school. That exam was the most difficult of life, not only for the number of written assignments, but also for the orals to which the program carried out in the three years of high school led. I remember that one afternoon I was studying on the terrace in my Bologna and I heard trumpet blasts. It was the signal for the Celere to charge at a demonstration that was taking place a stone's throw from my house. On July 8, the day of the general strike, the exams were held regularly. I reached the Institute (it was not far from where I lived) crossing a deserted city and entered through the ajar door as if I were attending a private meeting. Days later, when the debate in the Chamber was broadcast live on television, I was fascinated by Pietro Nenni's oratory. He began his speech by reading the names of the fallen of Reggio Emilia one by one, he entrusted them to history through the inscription in the minutes of the Hall, with the hope that such episodes should never occur again in the future.
