The Renaissance has remained for us a time of cultural revival, while the Risorgimento has become associated with the revival of the Italian national identity.

Map of Italian unification. (wikimedia.org)

In the political backyard of Europe

In the era of the industrial revolution, the Italian states entered at about the same time as the Russian Empire - in the middle of the 19th century. And then only the most advanced areas participated in the transition to machine labor. In general, the countries of the Apennine Peninsula were economically and politically dependent on the great European powers, like Spain, France or Austria. Naturally, the Italians were not satisfied with this situation, just as they were not satisfied with the semi-feudal remnants that remained in almost all areas. In the states located on the territory of modern Italy, an acute socio-political crisis was brewing.

First War of Independence

Under this name, becoming one of the main episodes of the so-called "Spring of Nations", the revolution of 1848-1849 in Italy was fixed in history.

Battle of Novara. (wikimedia.org)

At this time, the revolutionary fire had already engulfed the territory of France, Germany and the Austrian Empire. In order for the revolution to spread to Italian lands, only a small spark was enough - it was the riots in Vienna. Sensing the weakness of their European oppressor, the Austrian Empire, the northern Italian states took decisive action. The scene of the main events was the territory of the Lombardo-Venetian region.

Captured at the end of the 18th century by the Austro-French troops, the Venetian Republic was proclaimed again at the beginning of the first War of Independence. Following her, Milan was covered with barricades, whose citizens forced the Austrian generals to flee from the city. Inspired by the idea of ​​creating a northern Italian kingdom, the uprising was supported by Charles Albert, King of Piedmont. So the Italian states for the first time united in the liberation struggle. However, political disagreements among the rulers did not allow the success of the revolution to develop.

Kingdom of Upper Italy

The next round of anti-Austrian speeches came already 10 years later, in 1859. First of all, it was associated with the desire of France to establish hegemony in the territory of northern Italy and create the Kingdom of Upper Italy, completely dependent on France.

Giuseppe Garibaldi. (wikimedia.org)

For this, Napoleon III concluded an alliance with the same Piedmont. On April 26, a hundred thousandth army of the kingdom of Piedmont and a two hundred thousandth French army opposed the Austrian troops in a united front. Already at this time, the future national hero of Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi, was rampaging on the battlefields. With his "Alpine Jaegers" Garibaldi successfully defeated the regular troops of the Austrians. The victories of the allies ensured the rise of the national movement in central Italy, the rulers and dukes fled in fear from their possessions, and power passed to the Piedmontese officials.

At the peak of the liberation struggle of the Italian people, the French emperor Napoleon III, realizing that under such conditions the creation of a puppet state was impossible, concluded a secret peace with Austria. Without warning, French troops retreated from the front. The Villafranca truce, which offended the entire Italian people, nevertheless forced them to curtail hostilities in a hurry and make concessions. Successes as a result of the war were insignificant.

Garibaldian thousand

In April 1860, that is, almost immediately after an unsuccessful attempt at unification, a new uprising broke out in Sicily, in the city of Palermo.

Departure of the "thousand" from Genoa. (wikimedia.org)

The uprising in the city failed, the army was able to calm him down. The unrest then spread to the village and promised to be just another small outbreak of discontent. It would probably have been so if Garibaldi had not come to the aid of the rebels with a small detachment of his associates. For his detachment, fighting with the government and bureaucracy, Garibaldi was able to get only a thousand old, practically unusable guns. "Thousand" Garibaldi - and these are artisans, workers, petty bourgeois and intellectuals from all over Italy - on two ships set off from Genoa to the south, to Sicily. Thus began the legendary Garibaldi epic.

Garibaldi in the square in Palermo. (wikimedia.org)

With a thousand fighters, Garibalda had to defeat the 25,000th army located on the island. Much depended on the first battle. The Garibaldians, dressed in red shirts, with faulty guns, in the first battle rushed into a bayonet attack, defeating the three thousandth corps of the Bourbon troops. Then Garibaldi, having made an incredible maneuver and taking local peasants into his detachment, broke into Palermo and took the city by storm. Supported by the people, Garibaldi was able to completely liberate Sicily.

But he was not the right person to stop there - Garibaldi landed in southern Italy and continued the liberation campaign. Soldiers who had heard about the fury of the Garibaldi expedition surrendered before the battle. The Bourbon regime was collapsing before our eyes, Garibaldi, 20 days after his invasion of southern Italy, entered the jubilant Naples. The commander set his sights on Rome, but the initiators of his own campaign opposed him. Naples and Sicily joined the Sardinian kingdom, and Garibaldi, refusing all awards, left for his small island. Thus, by the end of 1860, Italy was effectively unified.

Lesson #113 Topic: " ITALY Results of the Risorgimento»

Course Lesson: new history countries of Europe and America

Type of lesson: a lesson on the transfer and assimilation of new knowledge

Type of lesson: lecture

The bourgeois revolutions of the Risorgimento era in Italy led to the creation of a single historical development nation state and the establishment of a united Italy in a country of capitalist relations. The big bourgeoisie (land, merchant, banking and usury, to a lesser extent industrial) came to power in a bloc with the bourgeois landlords. From now on, the class struggle, unfolding on a national scale, acquired a new historical content: an ever greater place in it was occupied by the workers' and socialist movement. In the last quarter of the XIX century. these processes took place in a situation conditioned by the incompleteness of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. The created Italian bourgeois state inherited a heavy load of feudal survivals.

The united Italy was an agrarian country, 60% of whose population was employed in agriculture. In 1871, industrial output did not reach even a third of the value of agricultural products. Industry itself was, in the words of Engels, "still in diapers": most of the enterprises looked more like handicraft workshops. In agriculture, large-scale land ownership of various types prevailed, along with capitalist forms of land use, semi-feudal ones were used. The proportion of peasant property was small; in most cases, it was about dwarf plots, not exceeding 1 ha. The standard of living of the rural population, especially in the backward regions of southern Italy, was one of the lowest in Europe: meager incomes and earnings, massive unemployment, malnutrition, disease - such was the fate of the vast majority of rural workers. The level of culture was extremely low: the number of illiterates reached 78% of the population in Italy.

The vestiges of the past were also preserved in the political system of united Italy. The Italian state was a bourgeois monarchy, based on a very moderate constitution, which was based on the statute of the Kingdom of Sardinia proclaimed in 1848. The king appointed and dismissed ministers and senior officials, his prerogative was to direct foreign policy and command the armed forces, he was given the right to dissolve the elected chamber of deputies.

Legislative power was exercised by the king and two chambers - the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate consisted of persons appointed for life by the king - the offspring of the royal dynasty, aristocrats, high dignitaries, bishops. The Chamber of Deputies was elected for a term of 5 years on the basis of qualification suffrage, which was a privilege of an extremely narrow layer of propertied citizens. In 1871, out of a population of 27 million, only 530,000 people, i.e., less than two percent, had the right to vote. In the administrative structure of the country, an extraordinary centralization of power was carried out according to the French (Napoleonic) model: "the autonomy of local self-government was limited to a minimum and the widest powers were given to prefects appointed from the center.

The desire of the ruling bourgeois circles to compromise with the owners of latifundia, with the reactionary Roman aristocracy, closely connected with the highest church hierarchy, and with the episcopate, who continued to resist the new system, determined the contradictory nature of the policy of the Italian governments. In this policy, progressive tendencies were intertwined with conservative and purely reactionary tendencies.

The governments of the bourgeois-landlord bloc relied on politicians of the "historical right" - a moderately monarchist trend that continued the "Kavurov" traditions of the Risorgimento. These governments were faced with the need to solve the economic and political problems that now came to the fore. Encountering the dull hostility of the old reactionary forces, they were at the same time forced to reckon with the opposition of the economically developing new industrial and financial circles, with the growing discontent of the peasant and working masses and significant sections of the petty bourgeoisie.

The so-called "leftist" - a movement that was heterogeneous in its social composition, to which a part of the radical petty bourgeoisie adjoined - was the spokesman for the oppositional sentiments of the Italian bourgeoisie of the new formation.

The most acute economic problems requiring urgent solutions were financial and agrarian problems. United Italy inherited a huge public debt caused by the costs of the national liberation wars of 1859 and 1866. In 1870, the total amount of the public debt was 8,300 million lire, and it continued to grow rapidly, as the very considerable costs of building railways and performing public works on a large scale were added to the previous expenses. To cover the extremely large deficit, the governments of the "right" proclaimed a policy of "austerity" and emergency measures. They resorted to issuing loans, asking for help from the owners of capital both within the country and abroad, which increased the dependence of the state not only on the bosses of Italian banks, but also on foreign, in particular French, capital.

The sharp edge of the policy of "strict economy", which affected certain sections of the bourgeoisie, was directed against the broad masses of the people. IN Last year the reign of the "right" (1876), state taxes reached a colossal amount - 990 million lire. Of these, 65% were indirect taxes, including traditional taxes on salt and grinding, which fell mainly on the poor. Direct taxes, and in particular the land tax, were turned mainly against small and medium-sized owners. As Engels noted, the “right” introduced the most predatory tax system “that the bourgeois system has ever invented.”

The agrarian policy of the “right” turned out to be anti-people as well. Not daring to encroach on the activities of the "right", the ruling circles limited themselves to the confiscation and sale of land property of the church, state and communities, which amounted to about 1/6 of the entire land fund of the country. In the first decades after the unification, 750,000 hectares of church property were confiscated and sold (not counting 190,000 hectares of church land in Sicily, leased out for perpetual lease). In addition, 1.6 million hectares of state and communal lands were put on sale.

A huge part of the sold land fell into the hands of the bourgeoisie, and a significant part of the communal lands passed to it, the unauthorized seizure of which was now legalized.

In areas where capitalist forms of agriculture had developed long before the unification of the country—in Lombardy, Piedmont, and partly in Emilia—large-capitalist farms gradually began to take the leading place. In these areas, large-scale capitalist rent was very common, agricultural work was carried out by hired workers. Irrigation and drainage works were carried out, new equipment was introduced, chemical fertilizers were applied, and the specialization of agricultural production increased. As a result, in Lombardy, the gross agricultural output by the end of the 19th century. doubled.

The agrarian economy of Central Italy also underwent changes, where the use-lease of land dominated. Increasing the amount of capital invested in the economy, the landowner gradually turned into an agrarian entrepreneur-capitalist, while the sharecropper was actually reduced to the position of a hired worker.

In southern and insular Italy, where feudal remnants were most strongly felt, the penetration of capitalist relations also undermined the old way of life: the influence of a large intermediary - the tenant, who gradually turned into a capitalist, increased, usurious capital entangled the village.

However, new capitalist forms of exploitation were grafted onto the still tenacious system of semi-feudal relations. Everywhere in Italy, not only the proprietors-nobles, but also the landed bourgeoisie did not destroy the old forms of exploitation, but perpetuated backwardness and semi-serf bondage. Even in the north of Italy, along with the developed forms of capitalist exploitation, sharecropping continued to exist, and small peasant farming was conducted by primitive methods. Agricultural workers, especially workers with "allotments", received part of their wages in kind and were still personally subordinate to the big landowner. In Central Italy, usable leases were fixed various forms semi-serf dependence of the peasant on the landowner.

Capitalism developed in Italian agriculture along a path approaching "Prussian", i.e., along the path of gradually transforming semi-feudal relations into bourgeois ones, along the path of the slow, painful ruin of the peasant masses. V. I. Lenin also called this path “Italian”.

Ruin As a result of the agrarian policy of the "right" peasantry, the peasants not only did not receive land, but even lost the rights they had previously enjoyed on communal and state lands. The destruction of subsidiary trades, crushed by industrial competition, deprived the peasants of a very important income for them, undermining the already shaky foundation of their economy. Deforestation caused great damage to the rural economy, especially in the south of the country - from 1860 to 1890, more than 2 million hectares were destroyed. Landslides, landslides, floods have become frequent occurrences since that time.

The ruin of the peasants, which assumed considerable proportions after the unification of the country, was also accelerated by cruel tax oppression, bondage, and the destructive effect of agrarian crises on the peasant economy. From 1873 to 1881 alone, at least 61,830 small peasant landholdings were confiscated by the treasury for non-payment of taxes. The expropriation of peasant property in favor of usurers, the agrarian bourgeoisie and banks assumed even more significant proportions.

The miserable level of existence of the vast masses of the population extremely narrowed the capacity of the industry of the domestic market and, consequently, hampered the industrial development of Italy. In the first period after the unification of the country, industry developed slowly and unevenly, moreover, from the very beginning, relying on the help of the state and foreign capital. Railway construction, which became the most profitable area for the application and accumulation of capital, acquired large proportions. By 1875, the railway network was already 7675 km, and in 1880 - 8713 km against 1707 km in 1859. The construction of the merchant fleet, encouraged by the government, began: its tonnage increased from 10 thousand tons in 1862 to 1 million tons in 1877, when the Italian merchant fleet ranked third in the world. In 1870-1880. Two tunnels were built - Mont Seiissky and Saint Gotthard, connecting Italy with France and Switzerland and contributing to the development of Italian trade with the countries of Western and Central Europe. Mechanical engineering received a new impetus; this was facilitated by railway construction, government orders for shipbuilding and military materials.

In the textile industry, which, along with the food industry, was the most important industrial sector in Italy, the industrial revolution brought about comparatively the greatest changes. The silk industry developed most rapidly, in a number of branches of which the factory began to establish itself by the end of the 70s. In other branches of the textile industry, scattered manufactory continued to dominate.

On the whole, Italy still lagged far behind the advanced capitalist countries in terms of industrial development.

The policy of free trade, which was zealously pursued by the governments of the “Right”, met the interests of the bourgeois landowners who exported agricultural products, as well as wide circles of the commercial bourgeoisie. Italy conducted a brisk trade not only with the European, but also with the American continent. A significant part of imports were raw materials and equipment, finished products and semi-finished products. By 1876, Italy's foreign trade turnover had tripled.

Cheap foreign products - French and English, which flooded Italy during this period, accelerated the destruction of domestic production and undermined the position of manufactory, especially in the south of the country, thereby objectively clearing the ground for the industrial development of Italy. However, the immediate results of this process were deplorable for Italian industry: it suffered a lot from the widespread penetration of foreign goods into the country. The competition of Lyon silk was especially hard. The policy of free trade became a brake on the development of the industrial bourgeoisie, which aspired to master the domestic market.

The economic and social shifts that have taken place during the years of the "right" rule have created a new internal political situation in the country. Opposition to the government intensified both on the right and on the left. The Church could not forgive the ruling circles of the bourgeoisie either the overthrow of the secular power of the pope, or the secularization of church lands, or the abolition of 40,853 religious societies. In order to reach a compromise with the Catholic Church, the “right” pushed the law on “guarantees” (1871) through the chamber. which recognized the extraterritoriality of the Vatican, the right of the pope to maintain an armed guard and establish diplomatic relations with foreign countries. The Italian state was obliged to pay the pope an annual subsidy of 3225 thousand lire, and the Catholic religion was proclaimed "the only religion of the state." However, the pope was not satisfied with these concessions. Relying on the clerical circles of France, Austria, Germany, he continued to weave diplomatic intrigues against the Italian state, and inside the country he tried to undermine the prestige of the new government, restoring the Catholic masses against it, especially the peasantry of the South. This was also served by the principle of “not allowed” put forward by the pope, which forbade believing Italians to participate in parliamentary elections.

However, the main reason for the progressive weakening of the power of the "right" was the broad opposition movement of various social strata, in different ways and in varying degrees affected by the policies of the ruling bloc.

Financial businessmen and the industrial bourgeoisie of the North, seized by the construction boom, were interested in changing the economic course, in abandoning the "strict economy" that constrained them and from "freedom of trade"; at the same time they were unwilling to put up with the political supremacy of the bourgeois landowners and agrarian capitalists any longer. In the opposition were also influential circles of the bourgeoisie of the South, dissatisfied with the results of the unification of the country. The interests of various class forces were increasingly expressed by the “left”, which opposed the tax oppression and bureaucratic centralism of the new government, against the caste electoral system, against the policy of compromises and concessions to internal and external enemies of the Risorgimento period.

Widespread discontent grew among the people. since 1871, peasant unrest swept Italy, where the class struggle took dramatic forms, as well as the Lazio region and some localities Northern Italy. In subsequent years, the struggle for land weakened somewhat, but a movement against taxes, and above all against the hated mill tax, developed with renewed vigor. In 1876, tax unrest became one of the most important problems in the domestic political life of the country.

The development of capitalist relations introduced significant changes in the composition of the working class into the movement. The masses of the landless peasantry poured into it. Gradually, an industrial proletariat was created, although its share was still small in comparison with the workers of the scattered manufacture, the majority of whom were women and children, and the numerous categories of the artisan proletariat. All this motley working mass was subjected to cruel exploitation. The presence of a huge reserve army, created by the ruined village, allowed entrepreneurs to bring wages to a starvation minimum, and the working day - up to 11-12 hours in the metallurgical and engineering industries, up to 13 and even 16 hours - in the textile industry. The workers responded to the unbearable oppression of the factory owners by intensifying the spontaneous strike movement. If in 1871 26 strikes were registered, in 1872 - 64, then in 1873 - up to 103.

In the economically more developed regions, the 1970s were marked by the first strikes of agricultural workers. Soon the first associations of the rural proletariat appeared. Yesterday's peasants, who had joined the proletarian ranks, brought into the struggle the spirit of rebellious protest. In this situation, the final collapse of the influence of Mazzinism in the labor movement took place, accelerated by the influence of the Paris Commune. For some time, the Italian labor movement fell under the influence of the anarchist preaching of Bakunin, who spoke under the flag of the First International. Most of the organizations in the central and southern regions of the country, which declared themselves sections of the International, were in captivity of the Bakuninist ideology.

Not knowing the vital needs of the working-class movement, neglecting the organization of strikes and disregarding the real situation, the Bakuninists in Italy concentrated all their efforts on preparing insurrectionary armed uprisings. Twice - in 1874 in the Bologna region and in 1877 in the province of Benevento - they tried to raise uprisings, but in both cases they were defeated. The failure of these actions, which entailed intensified government repressions against sections of the International, revealed the inability of the Bakuninists to lead the revolutionary struggle of the Italian proletariat. The decline in the influence of Bakuninism in Italy was also facilitated by the fact that by the end of the 70s the center of the Italian labor movement began to move to the north, where the share of industrial workers was more significant. Within the labor movement itself, groups began to emerge that were ideologically at odds with anarchism. The most significant among them was the Plebe group, which formed in Lombardy around a newspaper of the same name, in which Marx and Engels collaborated, who had a direct influence on its direction.

Marx and Engels (who was Corresponding Secretary of the General Council of the International for Italy) led already from 1871-1872. decisive struggle against the Bakuninists. They established contact with a number of Italian sections of the International and individual leaders of the labor movement, appeared in the Italian revolutionary press, revealing to the Italian socialists the theoretical inconsistency of Bakuninism and practically contributing to the ideological growth of the Italian labor movement. In 1876, the so-called Upper Italian Federation of the International was created in the north, which soon (1877) openly broke with the Bakuninists.

On the crest of the country's dissatisfaction with the parliamentary system, the influence of the bourgeois opposition, headed by the "Left," was rapidly growing. Putting forward democratic and anti-clerical demands popular among the people, the "left" developed criticism of the government, advocating a radical tax reform, for lowering the electoral qualification, for expanding the administrative rights of the provinces, sharply criticizing the conciliation of the "right" to the intervention of the church in the affairs of the state. She did not skimp on demagogic promises, just to rise to power. The success of this demagogy was largely due to the fact that the petty-bourgeois democrats and republicans, having failed to lead the movement of the masses, allowed the “left” to retain the political initiative in their hands and appear as a herald of popular demands.

The parliamentary elections of 1874 significantly strengthened its positions, and the "left" went on a decisive offensive. She rejected in the House a government bill to transfer the management of the railways to the hands of the state under the pretext of protecting the freedom of entrepreneurial initiative. Then, in March 1876, the opposition introduced a resolution in the House protesting against the levying of a tax on grinding. The government raised the issue of confidence and was defeated by only 181 votes to 242. Two days later, it resigned. It was replaced by a "leftist" cabinet headed by Depretis.

As a result of this parliamentary duel, which in Italian literature is called the "parliamentary revolution", the "right" finally left the political scene, giving way to a more flexible political grouping of the ruling class.

Class politics The first governments of the “left” were forced to carry out some of the measures promised by the opposition in their time. They took a more decisive anti-clerical course, issuing laws on a secular school, on the recognition of civil marriage, etc. In 1879, a mandatory initial education, which remained rather a formal declaration; a year later, the grinding tax was abolished, but taxes on sugar and wine were increased.

Finally, in 1882, under the pressure of a broad campaign of the League of Democrats (founded with the participation of Garibaldi), an electoral reform was carried out, increasing the number of voters to 2 million, which was barely 7% of the adult civilian population. The coming to power of the "left" thus led to some expansion of the social base of the bourgeois regime.

By the end of the 19th century, a process of "transformism" unfolded - expanding the ruling bloc by including it through collusion and even direct bribery of opposition leaders and groups. The distinction between "left" and "right" was gradually erased. A political system characteristic of Italy began to take shape, in which an important role in public life was played by various successive unstable parliamentary blocs, sometimes expressing group or local interests. On the other hand, republican and democratic elements departed from the corrected "left". The Radical Party, formed in the 1970s, now, along with the Republicans participating in the political struggle, formed the opposition in the new Chamber of Deputies.

The regrouping of forces in the ruling camp was not long in affecting the economic life of the country. In place of "austerity" came the policy of extensive public investment and lucrative orders, generous subsidies and incentives, which took advantage of industrial and banking bosses. In the interests of these groups, a turn from "free trade" to protectionism gradually began to take place, which was fully established in 1887. A period of unprecedented building fever and banking scams opened. In this situation of artificial prosperity, the predatory aspirations of the Italian big bourgeoisie took shape, which were shared by the monarchy and the military.

The Berlin Congress of 1878 showed the weakness of Italy, her diplomatic isolation. The Italian protests against the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary made no impression on the Great Powers, much less the demands of Italy for "appropriate compensation" were ignored. Italo-French relations, complicated by the intrigues of the Vatican, deteriorated more and more. Relations with Austria-Hungary were also tense due to the strengthening of the “irredentism” movement in Italy, which demanded the return to the Italian state of South Tyrol, Trento and other lands inhabited by Italians that were part of Austria-Hungary.

The capture of Tunisia by France (1881) hastened the transition of the Italian ruling circles to an active foreign policy. Italy could not embark on this path without enlisting the support of some strong power: she began to persistently seek an alliance with Germany and joined the Triple Alliance in 1882, despite the contradictions that separated her from Austria.

Encouraged by the Allies, as well as England (who sought to create a counterbalance to French influence in Africa), Italy rearmed the army, increasing its strength to 430 thousand people, and undertook its first military adventure. Having settled on the Red Sea in Assab (1882), the Italian troops captured Beylul Bay, and then Massawa (1885), but their attempt to move deep into the Abyssinian territory ended in the complete defeat of the Italian troops at Dogali (1887).

In 1887, in a difficult situation, a prominent political and statesman, Minister of the Interior in Depretis' cabinet, Francesco Crispi. In the past, a republican and participant in the Garibaldian campaign of the "Thousands", after 1860 Crispi became an ardent champion of the monarchical system. The nomination of Crispi, known for his "iron determination", to the post of prime minister was not accidental. It reflected the striving of the ruling classes to create a "firm hand" government, ready to take extreme measures to suppress the popular struggle and clear the way for the implementation of economic and foreign policy plans. Crispi did not deceive these hopes: the first attempts to establish an openly violent terrorist regime in the country are associated with his name. The government headed by him was in power until 1891, when the accumulated discontent in the country forced Crispi to resign. However, already in 1893, in view of the sharp aggravation of the class struggle, Crispi was again called to power. Influential circles stood behind him: the bosses of the developing heavy industry and banks, the latifundists of the south, as well as the royal court and the army.

In response to pressure from these circles, the Crispi government annulled the trade agreements based on the free trade principle with France and introduced harsh protectionist tariffs in 1887. France retaliated severely, and a customs war broke out between the two countries.

The protectionist policy ensured a monopoly position in the domestic market for the bosses of domestic industry, as well as for large landowners, in whose interests import duties on bread were sharply increased. The process of industrialization of the country went more rapidly; in 1881-1887 the average annual increase in industrial production reached 4.6%. By the end of the XIX century. the factory system took hold in major industries. Thus, in cotton production, which, along with metallurgy, benefited more than other industries from the policy of protectionism, there were already about 2 million mechanical spindles and 70 thousand mechanical looms, while in the villages only 14 thousand manual looms remained. The growth of metallurgy was especially significant: the Terni plants subsidized by the state already in 1889 produced 158 thousand tons of steel (against 23 thousand tons in 1886). In 1899 with the participation of Belgian capital, a joint-stock company was created on the island of Elba to develop local deposits of iron ore, which contributed to the development of the Italian iron industry. The electrical industry also took a step forward: in 1883 the first thermal power plant, and in 1898 - the first hydroelectric power station. In the 1990s, large industrial-chemical complexes "Monteca-tini", "Pirelli" and others arose, coexisting with a mass of small and tiny enterprises.

As a result of the process of separation of industrial production from agriculture, new independent branches of the food industry and winemaking, as well as agricultural engineering and the production of building materials, were formed. New industries were created mainly in the form of joint-stock companies. In 1890 there were already 574 joint-stock companies with a capital of 1935 million lire. The role of banks in the country's economy, in particular in the development of industry, increased after the formation of the Commercial Bank (1894) and the Italian Credit Bank (1895), in the organization of which German capital participated. Even earlier, in 1880, the Bank of Rome was formed, directly dependent on the Vatican. Thus, as a result of the beginning process of merging banking capital with industrial capital, one of the decisive prerequisites was created for the transition of the capitalist economy to the stage of imperialism. This process developed, however, unevenly. The narrowness of the internal market, caused by the persistence of feudal vestiges in the countryside, created enormous obstacles to the development of mass industrial production. In addition, a tough protectionist policy, while promoting the rise of some industries, caused significant damage to other industries interested in exporting their products or importing cheap raw materials and equipment.

The situation worsened as a result of the customs war with France. Especially great damage was suffered by agriculture, which suffered since 1881 from a protracted all-European agrarian crisis, and now has lost the capacious French market, that is, the ability to export wine, livestock, rice and fruits. The Italian economy was seized by a long crisis, from which it began to emerge only at the very end of the century.

The economy of southern Italy suffered the heaviest victims. Manufactories, handicrafts and domestic production of the southern regions perished from the competition of the strong industry of Northern Italy, as a result, the South and the islands became the object of predatory exploitation by large landowners, industrialists and banks. The state further increased this oppression by placing the brunt of taxes on the population of the South and at the same time depriving these areas of support from the state budget. Of the 457 million lire spent by the state in 1862-1896. for reclamation work, the share of the South accounted for only 3 million lire. Thus, the economic and cultural backwardness of the South, the boundless need of its population, was consolidated. In southern Italy, a chronic agrarian overpopulation formed, which gave rise to mass emigration. The number of emigrants, which was 96 thousand in 1872, rose in 1892-1901. up to 307 thousand on average per year. In this emigration flow by the end of the XIX century. the ruined pro-lethalized peasants and artisans of the Italian South began to prevail, going to France, Tunisia, across the ocean in search of work. Level difference economic development, which had long existed between Southern and Northern Italy, turned into a sharp, more and more deepening opposition, undermining the unity of the country. The so-called southern question arose, the question of the enslavement of the south of Italy by the bourgeoisie of the North, of reducing the south of the country to the status of a semi-colony. WITH late XIX V. this issue became a source of sharp class and political contradictions in the national life of Italy.

The turn to autocratic methods of governing the country, which marked the coming to power of Crispi already at the beginning of 1890, led to a sharp aggravation of not only the economic situation, but also the political situation in Italy. Crispi's policy ran into opposition even within the camp of the ruling classes. The Catholic Church, supported by part of the aristocracy, still stubborn in its opposition, frustrated Crispi's attempts at "reconciliation". In response, Crispi again took a decisive anti-clerical position: the church tithe was abolished by law and the charitable societies that were under the jurisdiction of the church (with a capital of 3 billion lire) were transferred to the state. In 1889, a monument to Giordano Bruno was unveiled in Rome, in connection with which a large anti-clerical demonstration was held. Protesting against this policy, Pope Leo XIII repeatedly threatened to leave Rome, the Vatican continued to oppose the Italian state in the foreign policy arena.

This did not prevent the Catholic Church from competing with Crispi in the fight against the enemy that the Italian bourgeoisie now considered the most dangerous. "Socialism is the enemy," was Crispi's motto. In unison with this, in 1891 the Pope of Rome addressed the faithful with a new encyclical, "Kegigd pouagish", in which he took "sacred private property" under his protection and declared war on socialist ideas. This encyclical, as well as the vigorous activity of the clerics, were calculated to divert the working people from the revolutionary organizations: the latter were opposed by "Catholic workers' societies", promising "assistance to the proletarians".

In the decade that has elapsed since the formation of the Upper Italian Federation, the labor movement has taken a new significant step forward in overcoming the influence of anarchism and creating political party the proletariat. In 1882-1885. in Milan, the Italian Workers' Party was formed, based on a network of trade union associations and proclaiming the economic struggle of the working class against capital as the basis of its activity. Expressing a spontaneous protest against the dominance of bourgeois elements in the Italian labor movement, the workers' party (the party of "calloused hands") admitted only hired workers into its ranks; it showed sectarian narrowness, a lack of understanding of the role of the intelligentsia in bringing socialist consciousness into the spontaneous working-class movement.

The search for new forms of workers' organizations led to the emergence of trade union-type associations - the "Leagues of the Children of Labor", which in 1884 formed a national federation, which a year later merged with the Labor Party. In 1891, the first chambers of labor were formed - organizations that brought together all members of trade unions this city, villages, and provinces. In the early 1880s, along with the Workers' Party, the Italian Revolutionary Socialist Party arose, headed by Andrea Costa, a prominent figure in the labor movement, who broke with anarchism in 1879. Unlike the Workers' Party, it defended the political nature of the struggle of the proletariat.

An important factor in the struggle for a revolutionary party was the spread of the ideas of Marxism in the country: in 1880-1890. the first translations of some of the major works of Marx and Engels were published. At the turn of the 80s, the theoretical activity of Antonio Labriola, a prominent scientist, theorist and popularizer of Marxism in Italy, unfolded.

A positive role in the organizational unification of various socialist forces and the creation of a national party of the Italian proletariat was played by a group of socialists who rallied around the Critica Sociale magazine, which began to be published in 1891. The leaders of this group were Filippo Turati and the Russian revolutionary Anna Kulisheva. In 1892, at a congress in Genoa, which was attended by representatives of all trends of the labor movement and where anarchism was defeated, the Party of Italian Workers was formed, in 1895 renamed the Italian Socialist Party. The Socialist Party began its activities during the years of a sharp increase in the class struggle, exacerbated by the consequences of the economic crisis.

The first violent clashes broke out in Sicily. At the head popular struggle there were revolutionary associations of the trade union type - ideologically and organizationally connected with the socialist party. They quickly spread their influence among the workers of the main cities of the island, and then among the peasant masses, artisans, and the urban petty bourgeoisie. The fascist program put forward specific demands of the masses: higher wages for workers and farm laborers, revision of agrarian contracts, improvement of working conditions, mitigation of the cruel tax burden. At the same time, in the propaganda activities of the Fascists, special emphasis was placed on the slogans of the socialization of the land and the means of production in general. These slogans, torn from the concrete historical conditions of the struggle, were then worn in essence declarative. The Fascie movement marked a significant step forward in the unification and organization of the Sicilian masses. For the first time, it openly recognized the class struggle as the basis of the political activity of the masses and sought to transform their spontaneous protest into an organized movement illuminated by socialist consciousness.

In 1891-1894. in Sicily, the struggle for land flared up with renewed vigor, for the division of communal lands and the revision of agrarian treaties, against tax oppression and inhuman exploitation of labor, especially in the sulfur mines. The wave of strikes rose high, and at the same time the movement in defense of the fascists against the terrorist arbitrariness of the authorities gained wide scope; the struggle took on a political character. In the last months of 1893 and the beginning of 1894, Sicily was engulfed in the flames of peasant uprisings, at the head of the rebels in many places were the fascists. Peasants seized municipal buildings, burned tax documents, besieged barracks, disarmed soldiers.

The news of the struggle of the Sicilians found a warm response from the working people of Central Italy: an uprising broke out in Massa Carrara (Luigiana), in which the workers of the marble mines took an active part.

The Crispi government, which returned to power in the midst of revolutionary events, responded to the actions of the masses with violent repression. Massive arrests, the defeat of the Sicilian fascists, and the dissolution of workers' organizations followed the bloody massacre of the participants in the battles - the dead numbered in dozens. The cases of the leaders of the Sicilian uprising were transferred to a military tribunal. Following the example of Bismarck, Crispi introduced emergency laws(the so-called laws against "anarchists"), which effectively abolished the freedom of association and forced the socialist party to go underground. Repressions: also affected republican and Catholic organizations.

A wave of protest rose in the country. The opposition forces of the "extreme left" (Republicans and Radicals) rallied with the socialists and formed the Freedom Defense League. The prestige of the socialist party, which courageously continued the struggle against reaction, increased significantly. In the elections of 1895, the Socialists won 13 seats against 5 in the previous elections; The workers of northern Italy elected the leaders of the Sicilian uprising, convicted by a military tribunal, to the chamber. The policy of "firm hand" suffered a serious defeat.

The aggressive adventurous foreign policy of the ruler of KRISPI did not bring success either. During the reign of Crispi, Italian foreign policy focused exclusively on the Triple Alliance, which led to an extreme aggravation of relations with France. Nationalist, aggressive tendencies intensified in every possible way. In government circles, plans began to hatch for the conquest in Africa of a vast "colonial empire", the center of which was to be Abyssinia.

At first, the proponents of these aggressive plans had a semblance of success. In 1887-1890. The African possessions of Italy were expanded and Somalia and Eritrea became its colonies. At the same time, an attempt was made to impose an Italian protectorate on Abyssinia under the treaty concluded in Ucchi-ali in 1889. In 1895, the Crispi government unleashed a new aggression against Abyssinia, which, however, ended in disaster for Italy. The crushing defeat of the Italian troops at Adua in 1896 made a huge impression in the country. In many Italian cities, violent demonstrations spontaneously arose under the slogans "Down with Crispi!", "Get out of Africa." Strong fermentation was also observed in parliamentary circles. Resolutions were sent to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate demanding Crispi's departure. On March 15, 1896, the government headed by him was forced to resign. Crispi's defeat was final.

The Rudini government that came to power after him tried to defuse the tense situation in the country. It stopped the war in Africa and began to seek rapprochement with France. The conclusion in 1898 of the Italo-French trade agreement put an end to the customs war between the two countries.

The government granted amnesty to those convicted of participating in the uprisings in Sicily and Lunigjapa.

The Socialist Party, which emerged from the underground, began publishing its first national organ, the newspaper Avanti! (1896). In the parliamentary elections of 1897, the socialist party won a new victory: the number of socialist deputies increased from 13 to 20.

However, the Rudini government also showed its inability to prevent a new aggravation of the situation. The economic situation in the country, which worsened in 1897, doomed the masses to new severe suffering. Entrepreneurs cut wages and responded with lockouts to protest strikes. In the cities there was not enough food, by the spring of 1898 the price of bread had doubled. In Sicily and on the continent - in the cities of Bari and Foggia and in the regions of the Marche and Umbria - unrest broke out. Abandoning liberal methods of government, the government returned to political repression and terror. On the eve of May 1, the atmosphere heated up to the limit. Despite the prohibition of the authorities, mass demonstrations unfolded throughout Italy, accompanied in a number of places by bloody clashes. In Naples, Florence, Livorno, the troops fired on the people.

The struggle in Milan took on a special scope: in response to the shooting of a workers' demonstration by the police, the city was covered with barricades. The unequal struggle of the Milanese workers lasted five days. The massacre with the rebels was merciless, 80 people were killed, many hundreds were injured. A wave of brutal repression fell upon the labor movement, the socialist party and democratic newspapers were again banned, and prominent socialist leaders were arrested.

But the Rudini government itself could not withstand the upheavals associated with the turbulent May events. It resigned, giving way to a military dictatorship led by General Pello.

Pell's government hastened to introduce emergency bills to Parliament, which provided for the restriction of freedom of the press, the prohibition of meetings and the dissolution of organizations "hostile" to the existing regime in the country.

The government's campaign against meager bourgeois-democratic freedoms raised a broad wave of protest in parliament and throughout the country. An opposition bloc of class forces was formed, embracing both the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie and some strata of the industrial bourgeoisie. Socialists, Republicans, and Democrats united against the Pellous government: the left-liberal faction, headed by S. Giolitti. The opposition resorted to parliamentary obstruction, which took on a wide scale. In 20 days, the Chamber of Deputies managed to discuss only the first article of one of the bills. Unable to deal with the obstruction of parliament, Pellou eventually announced that the bills would go into effect without parliamentary approval. In essence, this meant an attempted coup d'état. The situation in the country has become extremely aggravated.

The Pello government dissolved parliament and called new elections, but in these elections (1900) the majority of voters voted for the opposition parties; 33 socialist deputies were elected to the Chamber of Deputies instead of 20 in the previous elections. The results of the elections marked not only the defeat of the Pellous government, but also the defeat of the openly terrorist course of the ruling classes.

The Pell government fell. The same fate befell a few weeks later the government of the liberal Saracco, who tried to "calm down" the country by half measures. These attempts were thwarted by the assassination of King Umberto I by the Bresci anarchist. The ruling classes could not govern the country with the old methods. Italy entered the new century in the conditions of the most acute class political struggle.

Socio-economic and political development of the Italian states in the middle of the XIX century. In the early 1850s, Italy was a series of independent states: the Papal States, Tuscany, Sardinia (Piedmont), Lombardy, Venice, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Kingdom of Naples), Modena, Parma and Lucca. The northeastern Italian territories (Lombardy and Venice) were still under the rule of the Austrian Empire. In Rome, there were French occupying troops, in Romagna, which was part of the Papal States, Austrian troops. Only the south of Italy remained relatively free. The bourgeois revolution of 1848-1849 in Italy did not solve the main task of uniting the Italian lands into a single national state. As a result of the defeat of the revolution, Italy remained fragmented into a number of individual states, weakly related to each other. The task of liberation from foreign oppression also remained unresolved. The constitutional and parliamentary orders established in the Italian states during the revolution of 1848-1849 were destroyed everywhere.

The main centers of reaction in Italy were the Kingdom of Naples (the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies), where brutal police brutality reigned, and the Roman state, in which such a relic of the medieval past as the secular power of the Pope was restored. In Lombardy and Venice, the occupying Austrian troops brutally cracked down on the participants in the national revolutionary movement of 1848-1849. Hundreds and thousands of Italian patriots languished in the terrible fortress of Spielberg and in other Austrian and Italian prisons.

After the suppression of the revolution of 1848-1849, the absolutist order was restored, with the constitutional gains of 1848 in Naples, Tuscany, and the Papal State, it was over. Thousands of people were subjected to brutal repression, intimidation and despotic police brutality became the main methods of government absolute monarchies, the army and the police - their main support. Especially raged in Naples, King Ferdinand II, nicknamed the “king-bomb” for the cruel reprisals against the participants in the revolution of 1848-1849 in Sicily. Churchmen again reigned in papal possessions, the influence of the Jesuits increased.

Austria, the bulwark of all the reactionary forces on the Apennine Peninsula, brought Lombardy and Venice under a harsh military regime. Austrian troops occupied Tuscany until 1855 and remained indefinitely in Romagna, one of the papal provinces. The Pope also insisted that the French troops not leave Rome. Glorified in 1847-1848 as the "spiritual leader" of the national movement, Pope Pius IX has now turned into its bitterest, implacable opponent. Because of the fear of revolution, the absolutist regimes refused to carry out any reforms. Their reactionary economic policy was one of the reasons for the economic stagnation or slow development of the economy of most Italian states in the 1850s.

Against this background, the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) acted as a contrast, the main center of liberalism. It was the only Italian kingdom in which a constitutional arrangement survived. King Victor Emmanuel II, fearing new revolutionary upheavals, preferred to maintain cooperation with the liberals. The Savoy dynasty reigning in Piedmont, striving to expand its possessions, in need of the support of the local bourgeoisie and the bourgeois nobility, pursued an anti-Austrian policy. Piedmont had a relatively strong army, the constitution introduced in 1848 was preserved, liberal cabinets were in power. Attempts by local reactionaries, as well as by Austria, to have them abolished failed. In the only kingdom of Sardinia in all of Italy (Piedmont), a moderately liberal constitution was in effect, limiting the power of the king to a parliament consisting of two chambers, dominated by large aristocratic landowners and the largest capitalists. New textile factories were springing up in Piedmont, railways, banks were opened, agriculture acquired a capitalist character.

In the 1850s, the constitutional-parliamentary order was gradually strengthened, in large measure thanks to the activities of the head of the moderate liberals of Piedmont, Count Camillo Benzo Cavour (1810-1861). Count Camillo Cavour was Minister of Agriculture from 1850-1851 and Prime Minister of Piedmont from 1851-1861. Outwardly, he was not a charismatic person, he did not have the ancient beauty of Giuseppe Mazzini or the charming smile of Giuseppe Garibaldi. This short, plump man, with an amiable smile on his whiskered face, who irritated his interlocutors with the habit of rubbing his hands, was one of the most important political figures in Italy in the middle of the 19th century. A bourgeois landowner who introduced the latest inventions of agricultural technology on his lands, was engaged in industrial activities and skillfully played on the stock exchange, Camillo Cavour headed the Piedmontese government for a whole decade (from 1851 to 1861). A brilliant politician and master of parliamentary compromises, he managed, relying on the liberal majority in parliament, to neutralize the pressure on the king of the reactionary forces. He, more than other politicians of contemporary Italy, understood the importance of a strong economy for the state. With his characteristic energy, Cavour modernized Piedmont, just as he modernized his own estate. Cavour made his capital in the production and sale of artificial fertilizers. The Cavour estate was considered a model of a diversified commodity economy that supplied wool, rice, and fine-fleeced sheep to the market. Cavour entered into profitable trade agreements with neighboring states, reformed legislation, laid irrigation canals, built railways, stations, sea ports. O mouths. Favorable conditions were created for the development of the merchant fleet, agriculture, and the textile industry; foreign trade, finance, and the credit system of Piedmont expanded. Cavour acted as a tireless propagandist of the principle of free trade (free trade), which, in the conditions of a fragmented Italy, meant the struggle for the destruction of customs barriers between the Italian states. Cavour advocated the need to introduce unified system measures, weights and banknotes throughout Italy. As a shareholder, Cavour was one of the first to promote private investment in railway construction. These measures contributed to the capitalist development of agriculture, which still remained the basis of the Piedmontese economy, and intensified the restructuring of industry. A supporter of the liberal-bourgeois system, Camillo Cavour considered the accelerated growth of the capitalist economy, stimulated by the policy of free trade, the active development of means of transport and the banking system, to be a necessary condition for its approval.

In the first half of the 1850s, plans to create a unified Italian state seemed to Count Camillo Cavour still an unrealizable utopia, he even called calls for the unification of the country “stupidity”. He considered the real goal of the expulsion of the Austrian barbarians from Lombardy and Venice, the inclusion of Lombardy, Venice, Parma, Modena in the Kingdom of Sardinia - the most powerful state of Italy in economic and military terms. Coming from an old aristocratic family, Camillo Cavour advocated a parliamentary constitution like the English one and argued that its adoption could prevent a popular revolution. In 1848 he published an article directed against socialist and communist ideas. Cavour denied the path of the revolutionary popular struggle for the independence of Italy. His plans did not go beyond the creation of the Kingdom of Northern Italy under the auspices of the Savoy dynasty, the rallying of the Italian people around the throne of King Victor Emmanuel II. Cavour was pushed to this by the Piedmontese industrialists and bourgeois, who dreamed of new markets for raw materials and the sale of their products. In 1855, England and France pushed Piedmont to participate in the Crimean (Eastern) War against Russia. The participation of Piedmont in it was reduced to sending fifteen thousandth (according to other sources - eighteen thousandth) military corps of Italian troops to the Crimea. Cavour hoped to get closer to England and France - he considered the "great European powers" as potential allies of Italy. There were no serious disagreements between Italy and Russia then. After the end of the war, Cavour took part in the signing of the Paris Peace. He succeeded in getting the "Italian Question" included in the agenda of the congress. Speaking at the Paris Peace Congress in 1856 with a fiery speech, Cavour spoke passionately about the suffering of Italy, fragmented and occupied by foreign troops, groaning under the yoke of Austria. The discussion of the “Italian question” turned out to be fruitless, but made a great impression on public opinion in Italy. It also drew the attention of the European powers to Piedmont as the spokesman for all-Italian interests.

So, Italy faced the main task: to eliminate the foreign presence and put an end to the fragmentation of the country into small appanage principalities, kingdoms and duchies. Instead, they should have created a single centralized Italian state, but not through the revolutionary struggle of the masses, but through diplomatic agreements. The period or era of the unification of Italy is called the Risorgimento. Piedmont became the spokesman for all-Italian interests.

In the 1850s and 1860s, after the end of the crisis of 1847-1848, Italy experienced a marked shift in the direction of capitalization of its economy. The economic recovery was most fully manifested in Lombardy and Piedmont. The northern territories of Italy, where the industrial revolution had already taken place, were considered the most economically developed. New factories sprang up in Lombardy and Piedmont, and the production of silk and cotton fabrics grew. Textile (especially cotton) production was the main industry, the basis of the economy of Lombardy and Piedmont.

The economic revival also affected metallurgy and engineering, in which the number of workers employed in production over the twenty years of 1840-1860 increased six to seven times and reached ten thousand workers. Railroad construction grew. In 1859, the length of the railways in Piedmont by 1859 increased to nine hundred kilometers (in 1848 it was only eight kilometers (!), An increase of more than a hundred times). The turnover of domestic and foreign trade expanded. Thus, by the 1850s, Piedmont began to develop much faster than most Italian states. But progress in the development of the economy did not affect the southern regions of Italy, which lagged far behind the advanced north and center of the country. The south of Italy has always been distinguished by a slow type of development. Naples was considered especially backward, a significant part of which were lumpen proletarians, people without fixed occupations, who survived by odd jobs (in Italy they were called “lazzaroni”, i.e. “tramps”).

The weak purchasing power of the masses of the people (especially the peasantry), along with the political fragmentation of the country and some feudal remnants, retarded the capitalist development of Italy. In most of the country (especially in the south), the industrial revolution has not yet been fully completed. Small handicraft workshops, widespread even in the countryside, where labor was much cheaper than in cities, quantitatively prevailed over large centralized manufactories or factories.

The position of the working people was very difficult. In an effort to catch up with the bourgeoisie in the advanced countries of Europe, the Italian capitalists brutally exploited factory workers and non-guild artisans employed at home, to whom they provided raw materials and paid wages. The working day lasted 14–16 (fourteen–sixteen) hours, and sometimes more. Wages were extremely low. The workers ate from hand to mouth, huddled in damp basements, in cramped closets, in attics. Epidemics claimed thousands of human lives, and infant mortality was especially high. Rural laborers, agricultural workers and the rural rich were exploited even more cruelly. In winter, rural laborers found themselves on the verge of starvation. The conditions were not the best for the small peasant tenants, entangled in duties and debts in favor of the state, landowners and clergy. The terms of the lease were enslaving: polovnichestvo prevailed (for half the harvest). Life was especially hard for the peasants in Sicily. On the richest island, generously gifted by nature, buried in orchards and vineyards, all the land belonged to a handful of landed oligarchs. The owners of sulfur mines in Sicily raged: thousands of people worked there in nightmarish conditions. It was Sicily that during almost the entire 19th century was one of the centers of the revolutionary movement in Italy.

The struggle of two directions in the national liberation movement in Italy. There were two directions in the Italian national liberation movement: revolutionary-democratic and moderate-liberal. The advanced workers, artisans, peasants, progressive circles of the intelligentsia, the democratic strata of the petty and middle bourgeoisie stood for the unification of the Italian lands "from below" - by revolutionary means. The democratic wing of the national liberation movement in Italy sought the destruction of the monarchical system and all feudal remnants, the complete liberation of the country from foreign oppression, and the transformation of Italian territories into a single bourgeois-democratic republic. The main political leaders, ideological leaders of the national revolutionary direction remained: the founder of the Young Italy movement, the republican Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872) and the well-known representative of the national revolutionary movement Giuseppe Garibaldi. The moderate-liberal direction was headed by the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia, Count Camillo Cavour (1810-1861). His supporters - the liberal bourgeoisie and the liberal nobility of Italy - stood for the unification of the country "from above", without a revolution, by conspiracy between the bourgeoisie and the nobility behind the backs of the people.

The defeat of the 1848 revolution forced the democrats to analyze the reasons for its defeat. Some Democrats have come to the conclusion that the Republicans' lack of a program of deep social transformation and the provision of land to the peasants was the main reason for the non-participation of broad sections of the people in the revolution. One of the military leaders of the Roman Republic in 1849, the utopian socialist Carlo Pisacane (1818-1857), saw the solution of the agrarian issue in Italy in the elimination of large land ownership, the socialization of all land and its transfer to the peasantry. The radical democrats C. Pisacane, D. Montanelli, D. Ferrari argued that the national movement should be combined with social reorganization that would meet the interests of the masses and therefore be able to attract the people to the liberation struggle. From such positions, they sharply criticized Giuseppe Mazzini and sought to push him out of the control of the republican camp. But most moderate democrats rejected the idea of ​​a peasant revolution out of fear for the fate of the landed property that belonged to the mass of the rural and urban bourgeoisie. Giuseppe Mazzini was sharply criticized in a letter to Weidemeier dated September 11, 1851 by Karl Marx, who wrote: “Mazzini ignores the material needs of the Italian rural population, from which all the juices are squeezed out. ... The first step towards the independence of Italy consists in the complete emancipation of the peasants and in the transformation rent to free bourgeois property…”. Weak side The Mazzinists also had the fact that they combined the national liberation movement with Catholicism. The slogan "God and the people!" put forward by Mazzini was both erroneous and harmful to the revolutionary movement. The frozen dogmas of Mazzini's concept suited the revolutionary democrats less and less.

Mazzini himself did not heed these criticisms. He was still convinced that the Italian Revolution should only allow national problem and that the people are ready to rise to the struggle at any moment. Mazzini energetically created a revolutionary underground network, organized conspiracies, prepared uprisings. In the course of this activity, the Mazzinists managed to rely on the first workers' organizations and societies in northern Italy - in Lombardy and Liguria. However, an attempt to raise an uprising in Milan in February 1853 ended in complete failure, despite the exceptional courage shown by artisans and workers in the fight against the Austrian occupying forces. This failure of the Mazzinist efforts caused a deep crisis in the Republican camp.

The revolutionary underground organizations began to split, many democrats broke ideologically and organizationally with Giuseppe Mazzini, accusing him of needless sacrifices. Then in 1855, Giuseppe Mazzini proclaimed the creation of the “Party of Action”, designed to unite all supporters of the continuation of the revolutionary struggle for the national liberation of Italy. This could not stop the split among the Democrats, some of them went for rapprochement with the Piedmontese moderate liberals. Piedmont became a refuge for tens of thousands of liberals, revolutionaries, patriots who fled here from all Italian states and principalities after the suppression of the 1848 revolution. They supported the idea of ​​turning the Sardinian kingdom (Piedmont) into a support for the national liberation movement.

The leader of the Venetian revolution of 1848-1849, D. Manin, became the spokesman for this approach - to turn Piedmont into a support for the unification movement. In 1855-1856, he called on the democrats to make a "sacrifice": to renounce the revolutionary-republican program, break with Mazzini and fully support the monarchical Piedmont as the only force capable of leading Italy to independence and unification. Manin also proposed the creation of a “national party” in which both democrats who rejected republicanism and liberal monarchists would rally for the sake of uniting the country. The leader of the moderate liberals, Camillo Cavour, also favorably reacted to this project of D. Manin. With his consent, in Piedmont in 1857, the “Italian National Society” began to operate, the slogan of which was the unification of Italy, led by the Savoy dynasty. The leaders of the "Italian National Society" proposed to join Giuseppe Garibaldi, meaning to use the personality of the popular, charismatic folk hero for their political purposes. The name of Garibaldi, who lost faith in the tactics of Mazzinist conspiracies and uprisings, attracted many democrats, yesterday's Mazzinists and Republicans into the ranks of society. Garibaldi took over as vice-chairman of the society, but retained his republican convictions, as he said, was "a republican in his heart." Garibaldi always believed that in the name of the unification of Italy, he was ready to sacrifice the establishment of a republican system in it. The unification of the country under the auspices of the Piedmontese (Savoy) monarchy seemed to many republicans a guarantee of a “material improvement” in the situation of the people of Italy and the implementation of major social reforms.

Formally, the "Italian National Society" was an independent political organization. In fact, it was used by moderate liberals led by K. Cavour - through the branches of the "Society", scattered outside of Piedmont, throughout the country, the liberals strengthened their influence among the masses. After the revolution of 1848-1849, their influence among the masses fell seriously. The plan of the liberals to establish an alliance with the monarchs and involve them in the national movement - has suffered a complete collapse. The liberal-minded bourgeoisie and nobles in these states began to orient themselves more and more towards the Savoy dynasty and leaned towards the leading role of the Piedmontese liberals. Thus, the creation of the "Italian National Society" put the Piedmontese liberals in leadership of the entire moderate-liberal movement throughout Italy. The unification of Italy on a monarchical basis, under the rule of the Savoy dynasty, went beyond the Sardinian kingdom and acquired an all-Italian character.

The most resolute democrats did not want to put up with the transfer of leadership of the national movement into the hands of the liberal monarchists. For the sake of the revolution, the radicals were ready to make any sacrifice. In 1857, Carlo Pisacane (1818-1857), acting in contact with Mazzini, landed near Naples with a group of like-minded people with the aim of raising a popular uprising. The courageous, heroic attempt of Pisacane to raise the population of southern Italy to fight ended in the death of Pisacane himself and many of his comrades. The tragic outcome of this attempt to "export the revolution from outside" deepened the split in the democratic camp. Many revolutionaries who hesitated in their choice began to adjoin the "Italian National Society". The political positions of the liberals - Cavourists were strengthening, the initiative remained in their hands. By the end of the 1850s, Piedmont had become the leading force in the national liberation movement. To most liberals and republicans, private ownership of land was sacred and inviolable.

Foreign policy Savoy Monarchy set itself the goal of reconciling dynastic interests with the cause of national liberation and the unification of Italy. Camillo Cavour always sought to enlist the support of the "great powers" in the fight against the Austrian Empire. Cavour understood that the forces of the Sardinian kingdom alone would not be enough for the political unification of the country. With the Paris Congress of 1856, which put an end to the Crimean (Eastern) War, Italy began to move closer to the Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III in France. Napoleon III, feeling how the imperial throne was swaying under him, found it useful for himself to play the role of "defender of Italian independence and unity." France has always sought to oust Austria from Italy and to establish French supremacy in it. In January 1858, in Paris, Napoleon III was assassinated by the Italian patriot, revolutionary Felice Orsini, an active participant in the defense of the Roman Republic in 1849. Orsini hoped that the elimination of Napoleon III - one of the stranglers of the Italian revolution - would clear the way for the liberation struggle, sweep away the decrepit, dilapidated papal regime in Italy. After the execution of Orsini, Napoleon III decided to play the role of "patron of the Italian national movement" in order to neutralize the Italian revolutionaries and at the same time establish French hegemony in Italy.

At the initiative of Napoleon III, in the summer of 1858, in the French resort of Plombieres, a secret meeting of the French emperor with the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia Camillo Cavour took place, during which the Franco-Piedmontese military-political alliance was formalized, and in January 1859 a secret treaty was signed between both countries . Napoleon III undertook to enter the war against Austria and promised that in the event of victory, Lombardy and Venice would be annexed to the Kingdom of Sardinia. In turn, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia, Camillo Cavour, agreed to the annexation of Nice and Savoy to France (the majority of the population of these two provinces spoke French; Savoy and Nice were part of France in 1792-1814).

At the very beginning of 1859, France concluded a secret agreement on Russian support in the war with Austria. The Russian emperor Alexander II promised Napoleon III not to interfere with the unification of Italy and tried to tie down the forces of the Austrians by moving several corps to the Russian-Austrian border Russian troops. The secret treaty with Napoleon III provided for the liberation of Lombardy and Venice from the Austrians, the annexation of these areas to Piedmont and the creation in this way of the Kingdom of Upper (Northern) Italy. Piedmont pledged to put up a hundred thousand soldiers, and France - two hundred thousand. Having received the French-speaking Nice and Savoy, Napoleon III also hoped to create in the center of Italy, on the basis of Tuscany, a kingdom headed by his cousin Prince Napoleon Bonaparte (“State of Middle Italy”), and to put his protege, Prince Mur, on the Neapolitan throne. A ta son of King Joachim Muir A that. The Pope was given the role of nominal head of the future federation of four Italian states. Their sovereigns would have to lose their thrones. Thus, according to the plans and calculations of Napoleon III, Italy would still remain fragmented and hand and foot would be connected with France, with the Bourbon monarchy. Austrian influence in Italy would be replaced by French. Cavour was well aware of the secret intentions of Napoleon III, but he had no other choice, and real events could interfere with the implementation of ambitious Napoleonic plans, cross them out.

After the collusion of France with Sardinia and the accession of Russia to their alliance, the war with Austria became inevitable. On April 23, 1859, Austria, having learned about the conspiracy, after the ultimatum, was the first to speak out against France and Sardinia. The Austrians demanded the complete disarmament of Piedmont. Military operations unfolded on the territory of Lombardy. At the Battle of Magenta (June 4, 1859), the French and Piedmontese troops inflicted a serious defeat on the Austrians. On June 8, 1859, Milan was liberated, and the Piedmontese King Victor Emmanuel II and French Emperor Napoleon III solemnly entered Milan. In the battles of Solferino (June 24, 1859) and San Martino (end of June), the Austrian troops suffered a second heavy defeat. Lombardy was completely liberated from Austrian troops. The possibility of moving the Franco-Italian troops to the neighboring Venetian region was opened. The war caused the rise of the national liberation struggle throughout Italy, the inhabitants of Lombardy, Sardinia, Venice, Parma, Modena and Romagna joined the war against Austria. The war with Austria turned out to be the external impetus that helped to pour out popular discontent. Anti-Austrian uprisings took place in Tuscany and Emilia. Provisional governments were created here, expressing their readiness for voluntary accession to Piedmont. In Tuscany, Modena, Parma, Romagna (Papal States), popular meetings and demonstrations turned into revolutions. Volunteer detachments began to form in many places. Twenty thousand volunteers came to Piedmont to join the war. One of the corps of Alpine riflemen operating in the mountainous regions of the Alps was commanded by Giuseppe Garibaldi. Garibaldi was offered a general position in the Piedmontese army, where he led the three thousand volunteer corps. Garibaldi's corps included many participants in the heroic defense of Rome and Venice in 1849. Garibaldi's corps recaptured city after city from the enemy.

The war aroused unusual enthusiasm among the common people and the rise of the national movement in Central Italy. Supporters of the "Italian National Society" led a large patriotic demonstration in Florence, the army supported the people. The Duke of Tuscany had to urgently leave Tuscany. It created a provisional government dominated by moderate liberals. In the first half of June 1859, in a similar situation of popular unrest, the rulers of Parma and Modena left their possessions, and governors appointed from Piedmont stood at the head of the administration of these states. At the same time, in Romagna, after the departure of the Austrian troops, the people began to overthrow the papal authorities, and their place was taken by the representatives of the Piedmontese king Victor Emmanuel II. Mortally frightened by the magnitude of the popular movement, the dukes and the papal legate fled from Italy under the protection of the Austrian Habsburgs.

The rise of the popular movement in the center of Italy threatened the plans of Napoleon III to put a protege of the Bourbons on the throne of Tuscany. The defeat of the Austrians pushed Prussia to support Austria. The military, militaristic circles of Prussia and Bavaria insisted on the entry of their principalities into the war on the side of Austria. On the borders of the Bourbon Empire, a strong, centralized Italian state could appear. The prospect of the formation of a new great Mediterranean power, which would eventually become a rival of France, frightened Napoleon III and the entire French bourgeoisie. Bonapartist France was afraid of the excessive strengthening of Piedmont. Finally, the flames of the popular liberation struggle could spread from Italy to France, which was also burdened by the Bonapartist dictatorship of Napoleon III. On July 8, 1859, Napoleon III, secretly from Camillo Cavour, met in the small town of Villafranca with the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. At this meeting, it was decided that Austria would cede Lombardy to Napoleon III; Napoleon III promised to transfer Lombardy to Piedmont; in Tuscany and Modena, the old duke rulers who fled to the Habsburgs will return. The power of the pope was to be restored in all his former possessions, and Venice remained in the hands of Austria. These conditions were fixed in the preliminary peace treaty between France and Austria. Thus, behind the backs of Cavour and all of Italy, Napoleon III dealt a mortal blow to the cause of the unification of Italy. Having received Savoy and Nice from Piedmont, Napoleon III ended the third war of independence. Only one Lombardy freed itself from Austrian rule and became part of the Sardinian kingdom.

The Truce of Villafranca on July 11, 1859 (the so-called “Villafranca Preliminary, i.e., preliminary, sch agreement”) caused an outburst of indignation throughout Italy. Camillo Cavour has resigned as Prime Minister of Sardinia. A groan of disappointment and indignation swept through Italy. The Piedmontese government made a formal protest to Napoleon III, but still did not dare to continue the war with Austria without a former ally, relying only on the masses. It, like the Bourbons, was also mortally afraid of a people's war and a people's revolution. In November 1859, the French and Piedmontese governments concluded a peace treaty with the Austrian government, according to which Lombardy was included in Piedmont, and Venice remained with Austria.

In the summer and autumn of 1859, Camillo Cavour's policy reached a dead end. The patriotic forces of Italy thought differently and were determined to keep deposed Italian dukes out of their former thrones. The generals who arrived from Piedmont took command of the troops in Tuscany, Parma, Modena and Romagna. It became clear that it would not be possible to impose the old order on the Italians or put a protege of the Bourbons on the throne without armed intervention from outside. Untie new war on the peninsula, neither France nor Austria ventured. In January 1860, Camillo Cavour returned to power in Sardinia (Piedmont) and announced popular plebiscites (referendums) regarding further fate liberated territories. The vast majority of Italians were in favor of merging Tuscany, Parma, Modena and Romagna with the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont). In March 1860, Tuscany, Modena, Parma and part of the Romagna, after a plebiscite held by the provisional governments together with the Piedmontese emissaries, were officially annexed to Piedmont. In accordance with an earlier agreement between Victor Emmanuel II and Napoleon III, Savoy and Nice passed to France from 1860.

Revolution of 1860 in southern Italy. Campaign of the Garibaldian "Thousand". The war between Sardinia and Austria was a turning point in the history of Italy. The popular masses of Italy entered into action. The patriotic forces succeeded in removing the Austrian garrisons from Tuscany, Parma and Modena. Romagna revolted - part of the territory Papal States, anti-Bourbon speeches unfolded in the Kingdom of Naples and especially in Sicily. At the end of 1859, an uprising broke out in Sicily against the Neapolitan monarchy and the Bourbon dynasty that reigned there. This island has long been turned into the "powder magazine" of Italy. Here, feudal remnants and the oppression of bourgeois exploitation were still intertwined, which made the people's need unbearable. In Sicily, the influence of secret Mazzinist organizations was great, the uprising broke out not without their participation. With the aim of liberating Rome, Giuseppe Mazzini and the Mazzini democrats called on the Italians to revolutionary action in the papal possessions and in the Kingdom of Naples. Returning from exile, Mazzini and his entourage turned to Garibaldi with a request to organize a military expedition and provide armed assistance to the rebellious Sicilians. Garibaldi hesitated for a long time, but nevertheless decided to organize a campaign. Democratic Mazzinist organizations launched preparations for a military expedition to Sicily to assist the rebels. Monetary donations were collected (Million Guns Voluntary Fund), volunteers were recruited and trained. In May 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi came to the aid of the rebellious inhabitants of Sicily with a detachment of volunteers - the famous "thousand Red Shirts" (in fact, there were one thousand two hundred volunteers). The composition of the Garibaldi detachment was heterogeneous: among the "Red Shirts" were students, sailors, workers, fishermen, merchants, carpenters, tailors, small intelligentsia, doctors, hairdressers. Among the Garibaldians there were many foreigners: French, British, Hungarians, Poles, Swiss. Many of the Garibaldians had extensive experience of conspiratorial struggle in secret Mazzinist societies, fought on the bastions of the Roman and Venetian Republics in 1848-1849. The famous Russian geographer and public figure L.I. Mechnikov, brother of the famous Russian biologist Ivan Mechnikov, took an active part in the liberation campaign of the Garibaldians in Sicily. L.I. Mechnikov was appointed adjutant of Garibaldi and was seriously wounded in one of the battles.

The Piedmontese government knew about Garibaldi's plans and did not approve of them. The preparations for the Sicilian expedition shocked Victor Emmanuel and Camillo Cavour. Even the monarchist slogans of loyalty, devotion to King Victor Emmanuel II and the Savoy dynasty, as well as the prospect of new territorial acquisitions, did not suit the Piedmontese elite. She was seriously afraid of the revolutionary activity of the masses. The campaign of the Garibaldians was actively opposed by Camillo Cavour and moderate liberals. They did not want to spoil relations with Napoleon III, whose troops were stationed in Rome, guarding the secular power of the Pope. Cavour was taken by surprise by the initiative of the Mazzinist democrats and interfered in every possible way with the organization of the campaign. Cavour was afraid to openly oppose Garibaldi - after all, such a position would restore public opinion against him. In addition, the popularity of Garibaldi among the people far exceeded the popularity of the official elite. Therefore, Cavour surreptitiously created various obstacles for the Garibaldians, preventing the expedition from sending to Sicily. The authorities refused to give the Garibaldian volunteers modern weapons purchased with patriotic donations. It was possible to get only a thousand old, almost unusable, guns.

The Garibaldi expedition (slightly more than a thousand volunteers) on two ships sailed in secrecy from Genoa on the morning of May 6, 1860 under the slogan: “Long live a united Italy and the King of Italy Vict O R-Emmanuel!” This was the slogan of the Mazzinist "Italian National Society". At the last moment, Cavour ordered his fleet to stop the expedition in any way. The Garibaldians, aware of Cavour's plans, sailed off in a different way than they had been supposed. The King of Piedmont, Victor Emmanuel II, told the Russian ambassador in Piedmont: “We renounce this expedition. ... Whether Garibaldi will be captured or shot, no one will say anything ... I myself would have shot him in 1849 if he had not run away from me ...”

According to the plan of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the military campaign of the Garibaldian “Thousand Red Shirts” was to bring victory to the uprising in Sicily, from there the detachment was to cross to Southern Italy and free it from the power of the Bourbons. After the landing of the Garibaldians in Sicily on May 11, 1860, thousands of local Sicilian residents, peasants and workers began to join them. The legendary Garibaldian epic began. The twenty-five thousandth royal army, led by the most experienced generals, cavalry and police units, and artillery was stationed on the island. Much in such cases depended on the outcome of the first battle. It took place near the town of Calatafimi four days after the landing in Sicily. Garibaldi skillfully used the tactics of mobile combat and guerrilla warfare. The Garibaldians, dressed in red shirts (like their leader), threw back the Bourbon troops in a fierce bayonet attack. The troops of the Neapolitan king Francis (Francesco) II were defeated, and soon all of Sicily was liberated. General Garibaldi was proud of the battle of Calatafimi until the end of his days. By this time, Garibaldi's revolutionary army numbered twenty-five thousand fighters. After such victories, both the Piedmontese monarch Victor Emmanuel and his cunning Prime Minister Cavour turned a blind eye to the recruitment of volunteers and the collection of money to help the Garibaldian “Thousand Red Shirts”.

Having won an important victory at Calatafimi, the Garibaldians made a skillful, covert maneuver through the mountains and approached Palermo. They were joined by an armed detachment of local peasants of three thousand people; together they broke into Palermo. A popular uprising was already raging there. The Bourbon command requested a truce and left Palermo. Following Palermo, uprisings engulfed many cities in Sicily. Garibaldi's campaign coincided with a broad popular movement that had unfolded in Sicily. The peasants rose to fight in the rear of the royal troops, facilitating the advance of Garibaldi's detachments. Garibaldi felt like a revolutionary dictator of Italy with unlimited powers, establishing a regime of revolutionary dictatorship everywhere. In the liberated regions, measures were taken to win over the masses of the people, including peasants, under the banners of Garibaldi: taxes on grinding grain and on imported foodstuffs were abolished. All those who joined the liberation struggle were promised a plot of communal or royal land. Detachments of armed sharecroppers and farm laborers seized and divided the landlords' lands. However, these measures were not enough to provide Garibaldi with strong support from the peasant masses.

In the summer of 1860, the Italian landlords began to prevent the division of communal lands, then the wave of peasant uprisings rose even higher. The peasants began to seize not only communal, but also private, "own" lands of the landowners. From that moment on, fearing a new transfer of landed property to landlords, the revolutionary-democratic, but at the same time, bourgeois, government of Garibaldi began to suppress peasant uprisings. The Garibaldian authorities began to ask for help from the former official authorities. The new revolutionary-bourgeois government resolutely stood up for the inviolability, inviolability and sanctity of the right of private ownership of land. The most severe punitive measures were applied to its violators, up to executions. The landowners themselves created their own national guard and with its help suppressed the centers of peasant resistance. Peasant enthusiasm, caused by the arrival of the Garibaldians, quickly disappeared, the peasants left the Garibaldian detachments. The influx of volunteer peasants from the north to the Garibaldian detachments ceased, the alliance between the revolutionary democrats and the peasant masses showed the first crack.

Having entrusted the management of the island to his assistants, Garibaldi was mainly engaged in military affairs. After the battle of Milazzo on July 20, 1860, the Bourbons were expelled from Eastern Sicily, and Garibaldi began to prepare for a landing on the continent. In its ranks, in addition to the "thousand Red Shirts", there were twenty thousand volunteers who arrived from the cities of Northern Italy, and about three thousand Sicilian peasants who joined him - a total of about twenty-four thousand people. The Sardinian authorities at that time took an ambivalent position. On the one hand, Cavour now counted on the hands of Garibaldi to overthrow the Bourbons and subjugate the kingdom of Naples to the power of the Savoy dynasty. On the other hand, Cavour's plans did not include the proclamation of a republic. In an official letter to Garibaldi, Camillo Cavour instructed him, in an orderly tone, not to move with troops from the island to the continent, but to informal letter offered him not to stop halfway. An open alliance with the Bourbons would have immediately swept away the Cavour cabinet. King Victor Emmanuel II sent his adjutant to Garibaldi with a personal message not to cross to the continent.

Having liberated all of Sicily and disobeying their king, on August 17 (according to other sources - August 19), 1860, Garibaldi's troops landed in the south of the Apennine Peninsula, in Calabria. Popular uprisings were already blazing there, the soldiers of the Neapolitan king Francis II (Francesco II) threw down their weapons in thousands and surrendered. The government troops were demoralized, the monarchy showed complete impotence in the face of the actions of the lower classes. The weakness and rottenness of the Bourbon regime facilitated the capture of Naples by the Garibaldians. The soldiers themselves surrendered with the words: “Long live Garibaldi!” King Francis II, with the remnants of his troops loyal to him, fled from Naples to the nearby sea fortress of Gaeta. On the twentieth day of the landing in Calabria, September 7, 1860, Garibaldi's army victoriously, without a fight, entered the jubilant Naples. Later, Garibaldi wrote about the entry of his troops into Naples: “On September 7, 1860, the proletarian entered Naples with his friends in red shirts ... The people's liberators occupied the still warm royal nest. Luxurious royal carpets were trampled under the boots of the proletarians…”. And, although Giuseppe Garibaldi was never a proletarian, his victory over the Bourbons was a truly popular victory.

Soon the fortress of Gaeta also fell, the Neapolitan king Francis II (Francesco II) was forced to flee to Rome. The final defeat of the Bourbon troops was inflicted at Volturno in October 1860. The fate of the Bourbon dynasty and the entire Kingdom of Naples was decided. Garibaldi became the de facto dictator of the entire south of Italy. So, the popular revolution in the southern regions of Italy swept away the reactionary-monarchist regime of the Bourbons, a huge contribution to this victory was made by the southern Italian peasantry. Hoping for support from the Garibaldian authorities, the peasants miscalculated. The decree on the transfer of state lands to the peasants was not carried out, self-occupations by the peasants of the landlords' lands were cruelly suppressed, uprisings in the villages were ruthlessly suppressed by punishers.

The confrontation between liberal monarchists and democrats resulted in a sharp conflict between Cavour and Garibaldi. After the liberation of Sicily, Cavour scattered A was in courtesy to Garibaldi, saying that "Garibaldi rendered Italy the greatest services that only a man can render to his homeland." But, having learned that Garibaldi was in no hurry with the immediate annexation of Sicily to Piedmont, Cavour began to accuse him of "connecting with the people of the revolution, sowing disorder and anarchy in his path." Cavour decided to prevent the march of the Garibaldian "thousand" into Central Italy and began to act ahead of the democrats. He convinced Napoleon III of the need for quick, immediate action to prevent a popular, democratic revolution in Piedmont. Having obtained the consent of the French emperor and in order to prevent the invasion of the Garibaldi "thousand" into the Papal Region, three days after Garibaldi's entry into Naples, the Piedmontese troops, on the command of Cavour, themselves invaded the Papal Region, liberated the provinces of the Marche and Umbria, along the way suppressed the anti-papal movement there. Thus, the possibility of military action by Garibaldi against the Papal States was excluded. In a letter to the Piedmontese ambassador in Paris, Camillo Cavour wrote: “I will make every effort to prevent the Italian movement from becoming revolutionary ... I am ready to do anything for this. If Garibaldi takes possession of the entire Kingdom of Naples, ... we will no longer be able to oppose him. From the Papal States, Piedmontese troops from the north invaded the Kingdom of Naples to interfere with Garibaldi's troops.

Now the revolutionary commander intended to march on Rome and then liberate Venice. His revolutionary army already numbered fifty thousand fighters from the northern and central provinces of the country. Among them were many staunch Republicans. The leading leaders of the Democrats, including Giuseppe Mazzini, gathered in Naples. The Italian democrats - Giuseppe Mazzini and his supporters - advised Garibaldi to retain dictatorial powers and use them to liberate the Papal States, and then Venice, by military means.

Garibaldi was in no hurry to convene a Constituent Assembly in order to seize control of all Italian lands and annex them to Piedmont. But the liberals, surrounded by Camillo Cavour, thwarted his plans and did not allow O more democratization of the emerging Italian state. The growth of revolutionary and republican sentiments in the country would threaten the existence of the Piedmontese monarchy and the Savoy dynasty of Victor Emmanuel II. And after the fall of the Piedmontese monarchy, the question of the elimination of the secular power of the Pope would inevitably arise. Such an undesirable turn of events would inevitably entail the intervention of foreign troops in Italian affairs. Napoleon III was the first to intervene in Italy.

By the autumn of 1860, the situation in the Italian countryside worsened again. The encroachment of landless peasants on the former communal lands frightened the local bourgeoisie of Calabria (they themselves expected to acquire these lands). The southern Italian authorities responded to the growth of the peasant movement with repressions. In response, crowds of peasants committed reprisals against the liberals and national guard. The half-hearted policy of the government on the agrarian question threw the peasantry back into the feudal camp, the camp of the counter-revolution. The sympathy of the peasants for the Garibaldians was replaced by indifference, and then hostility. The revolution deepened, grew, and under these conditions, the wealthy elite of southern Italy began to demand the speedy merger of Naples with Piedmont. The Savoy monarchy of Victor Emmanuel II acted as a reliable guarantor of the inviolability of private property against the backdrop of a flaring peasant movement. There was also unrest in the cities of Italy, where the young Italian proletariat rose up to fight. King Victor Emmanuel II was literally bombarded with petitions to “restore peace and order.” In response to the petitions, the king turned to the Italians with his petition: “Peoples of Southern Italy! My troops are coming to you to restore order!”

Maintaining power even in the south for Garibaldi was not an easy task. He could never enter into an open conflict with the Piedmontese monarchy and become the leader of a peasant revolution, and he would never go for it. Frightened by the horrors of the “fratricidal war” with Piedmont, Garibaldi agreed to the demands of Victor Emmanuel II to organize a plebiscite on the immediate annexation of Naples to Piedmont and called on the southerners to support the accession. The poor southern Italian peasantry, vaguely aware of what awaited them after the accession, voted in favor of the plebiscite because "don Peppino said so" (as the commoners called Garibaldi). The bourgeois, the liberals and the landed gentry also voted in favor of joining, hoping that the revolution would end there. It was not possible to unite Italy in a revolutionary-democratic way, "from below". The social base of the democratic movement has narrowed. A plebiscite (popular vote) held in Naples on October 21, 1860, overwhelmingly voted in favor of joining Southern Italy to the Sardinian Monarchy (Piedmont). In November, the provinces of Umbria and the Marche became part of it. Thus, by the end of 1860, Italy was actually united (except for Rome with the region of Lazio and Venice).

Relying on an alliance with the liberals with the Savoy dynasty, the “cavurists” gained the upper hand in the fight against the democrats. Garibaldi's request to give him supreme control of southern Italy for a year was rejected by King Victor Emmanuel II. The dictatorship of Garibaldi was abolished, the decrees he had issued were canceled, and his revolutionary army was disbanded. Refusing all honors and awards, in November 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi left for the small, tiny rocky island of Caprera, near Sicily, which he owned (he bought it back in the 1850s). The Russian democratic writer Alexander Herzen wrote about Garibaldi's departure from Naples: “He defeated the army with a handful of people, liberated the whole country and was released from it, as they release a coachman when he drove to the postal station.” Now, on a “legal basis”, the Piedmontese authorities could take up the “restoration of order”: they canceled all the revolutionary decrees of Garibaldi, disbanded the peasant detachments, sent punishers to the “rebellious” villages.

So, by the beginning of 1861, all of Italy, with the exception of Venice and Rome, was united under the rule of the Sardinian king Vikt O Ra-Emmanuel II. King of Sardinia Victus O r-Emmanuel II solemnly entered Naples, accompanied by Garibaldi. In February 1861 in the capital of Piedmont - the city of Tours And not - the sessions of the first all-Italian parliament were opened. The first all-Italian parliament declared Sardinia, together with all the lands attached to it, the Kingdom of Italy with a population of twenty-two million people. March 14 King Victus O r-Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of Italy. Florence became the capital of the united Italian kingdom. Camillo Cavour died suddenly in April 1861. Garibaldi repeatedly tried to organize new campaigns of volunteers in order to achieve the liberation and annexation of Venice and Rome to the Italian state.

Thus, one of the main tasks of the Risorgimento was solved - the unification of Italy, but without the Papal States and Venice. Comparing the unification of Italy and Germany, it must be emphasized that in Germany the decisive role in the unification was played by wars under the leadership of Prussia. In Italy, a complex interweaving, rivalry with each other of various political forces arose. The revolutionary democratic forces, the republicans, the liberal circles of the nobility and the bourgeoisie - the "party of moderates", the Sardinian dynasty, which advocated the preservation of the monarchy - the struggle of these currents led to the incompleteness of the Risorgimento, both in terms of social tasks, and in terms of postponing the solution of the issue of accession Papal States and Venice.

However, the unification of Italy was not fully completed, it was not completed. Several million Italians still remained under the rule of Austria in the Venetian region and under the authority of the Pope, guarded by French troops. The unification of Italy was accompanied by unification in legislation, judicial, monetary, customs systems, systems of weights and measures, taxation. In Italy, the rapid construction of railways began (over the decade from 1861 to 1871, their length increased from two and a half thousand - 2.500 kilometers to six thousand two hundred - 6.200 kilometers). The main regions of Italy were interconnected by railroads, which accelerated the formation of a single national market. True, his appearance did not improve the living conditions of the people. The tax burden has grown, and indirect taxes on food have been introduced. As early as the 1840s, the labor movement was born in Italy (mainly in the Kingdom of Sardinia). By the 1860s, self-help societies began to appear in many regions of Italy, which were influenced by moderate liberals and were engaged in improving the material situation of workers. By the early 1870s there were over 1400 such mutual aid societies, compared to 234 in 1860. The labor movement gradually acquired an all-Italian character. In the first half of the 1860s, the influence of Mazzini's supporters prevailed in the workers' organizations. They involved the workers in the struggle for universal suffrage.

The situation in Italy in the 1860s was extremely tense. The young kingdom of Italy faced many difficult problems. One of them was the uprising of the Neapolitan peasantry. Not having received the promised land, the rural masses of southern Italy rose up against the new power, which was now in the hands of the new bourgeois masters. On January 1, 1861, the new authorities adopted a decree on the division of former communal lands (which the peasant classes had long dreamed of), but soon abandoned its implementation. The remnants of the overthrown Bourbon dynasty set the peasants against the new authorities, played on the naive faith of the peasants in the Bourbons as intercessors and defenders of the rural people. Repeated attempts were made to restore the deposed Bourbons to the throne instead of the ruling Savoy dynasty. The reaction hoped to rouse the Italian countryside to revolt and restore the Bourbons. The reaction was supported by former soldiers and officers of the dispersed Bourbon troops, dissatisfied with the dominance of the new "liberals" in the countryside. Later, official historians considered this movement “gangster”, “mafia”, simply explaining everything by the inclination of the southerners to solve all problems by force, their “innate” love for robbery and terror. It was from the middle of the 19th century that the role of the mafia began to increase in Sicily - criminal, criminal formations operating under the guise of local authorities and administrations, in connection with local oligarchs. The mafia planted an atmosphere of arbitrariness, violence, political assassinations and racketeering (extortion). In fact, in reality, this social movement had social roots and expressed the social protest of the village lower classes against poverty and oppression. There was no “commitment” of the southerners to the overthrown Bourbon dynasty. The fight against mafia banditry dragged on for many decades.

Since the summer of 1861, the situation in southern Italy was reminiscent of a civil war: pogroms of municipalities, destruction of court and debt documents, reprisals against liberals, land seizures, imposition of rich indemnities. Government troops engaged in battles with the rebel detachments of the southerners, carried out executions and repressions. One hundred and twenty thousand (120 thousand) government army was concentrated in the south of Italy. Only by 1865 the peasant movement in the south was suppressed. Over the years, more than five thousand Italians were killed and wounded.

The process of forming a unified Italian state was also difficult and difficult in other regions of Italy, although there was no such sharpness as in the south. The introduction of new, bourgeois legal norms, the tax system, church law took 1860-1870s. The unification of Italy was accompanied by unification in legislation, judicial, monetary, customs systems, systems of weights and measures, taxation. In Italy, the rapid construction of railways began (over the decade from 1861 to 1871, their length increased from two and a half thousand - 2.500 kilometers to six thousand two hundred - 6.200 kilometers). The main regions of Italy were interconnected by railroads, which accelerated the formation of a single national market. Stormy banking activity was accompanied by unprecedented speculation, shady deals, which laid the foundation for large oligarchic fortunes and powerful financial and industrial clans. True, these changes did not improve the living conditions of the people. The tax burden has grown, and indirect taxes on food have been introduced. As early as the 1840s, the labor movement was born in Italy (mainly in the Kingdom of Sardinia). By the 1860s, self-help societies began to appear in many regions of Italy, which were influenced by moderate liberals and were engaged in improving the material situation of workers. By the early 1870s there were over 1400 such mutual aid societies, compared to 234 in 1860. The labor movement gradually acquired an all-Italian character. In the first half of the 1860s, the influence of Mazzini's supporters prevailed in the workers' organizations. They involved the workers in the struggle for universal suffrage.

The most reactionary force in Italy was still the papacy. It hoped, relying on the southerners, to destroy the young Italian kingdom. All the unfinished reactionaries fled to Rome, the Neapolitan Bourbons, the remnants of their troops, clerics from neighboring European states. From the territory of the Papal States, the reaction made forays into the regions of peasant revolts and uprisings. Pope Pius IX refused to recognize the young Italian kingdom, rejected proposals for a truce and did not want to hear about the transfer of the capital of Italy from Florence to Rome. In response to this hostile attitude, the new Italian authorities confiscated and put on sale the property of more than forty thousand church organizations, land area of ​​about seven hundred and fifty thousand hectares of land (750,000 hectares). All this movable and immovable property of the Catholic Church quickly passed into the hands of the new bourgeois masters. The political and economic influence of the papacy drastically weakened in the country, however, the pope still retained political power in Rome, being protected by French troops. Italy still remained dependent on the French Bourbons and the soldiers of Napoleon III. Thus, the solution of the “Roman question” was vital for the fate of young Italy, it depended further development countries.

The second stage of Italian unification. In the summer of 1862, Giuseppe Garibaldi again arrived in Sicily and began to call for a campaign against Rome in order to free him from the power of the pope and reunite with the rest of Italy. Having recruited a detachment of two thousand volunteers, he crossed to Calabria. Napoleon III, who always supported his French Catholics, declared that he would not allow the removal of the Pope from Rome. The Italian government first waited, and then moved government troops against Garibaldi. It feared the establishment of a republic in Italy. In the battle of Mount Aspromonte, the Italian royal troops blocked the way for the Garibaldians to Rome and met his volunteer detachment with rifle fire. Garibaldi was seriously wounded, taken into custody, and many of his fighters were arrested. The hero of the Risorgimento was sent into exile for life on his island of Caprera, which remained the residence of the general until his death in 1882. Thus, the revolutionary initiative "from below" for the final unification of the country was suppressed.

The shameful treatment by the government of the Italian king Victor Emmanuel II of the celebrated folk hero of Italy caused an uproar among the progressive circles of the public, both in Italy and abroad. The famous Russian surgeon Nikolai Pirogov arrived in Italy and performed an operation on the wounded Garibaldi. The popularity of the folk hero was very high. When in 1864 Garibaldi arrived in London to ask for money loans for Italy, the population of the English capital gave the outstanding revolutionary an enthusiastic reception. But the English government of Lord Palmerston flatly refused to help the Italian patriots. It did not want the unification of Italy on a democratic basis and did not support the revolutionary wing of the liberation movement in Italy. A strong democratic Italy could significantly change the balance of power in the Mediterranean region and weaken Austria's foreign policy positions in it. British diplomacy has always regarded Austria as a counterbalance to Russia's influence in the Balkans and the Middle East.

Russian revolutionary democrats-immigrants gave Garibaldi a fraternal welcome. The banquet hosted in his honor by Alexander Herzen was attended by the leader of the Democrats, Giuseppe Mazzini, the writer Nikolai Ogarev, and several Italian revolutionaries. In response, Garibaldi made a speech in which he welcomed the struggle of the Polish and Russian revolutionaries and proclaimed a toast “to young Russia, which suffers and fights and will win; for the new people of Russia, who, having overcome tsarist Russia, will be called upon to play a great role in the fate of Europe.” Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Dobrolyubov devoted their articles to the Garibaldi movement. “The marvelous energy expressed by Garibaldi's volunteers was an expression of the people's forces of Italy…”, N.G. Chernyshevsky wrote. Garibaldi was criticized for separating the Mazzinists from the broad masses of the people, for wavering and making mistakes. N. Dobrolyubov exposed the self-serving policy of the Savoy dynasty, anti-democratic actions and ambitious intrigues of Camillo Cavour.

K. Marx and F. Engels in a number of articles about the events of 1859-1861 in Italy noted that Garibaldi “proved himself not only as a brave leader and a clever strategist, but also as a scientifically trained general”, an outstanding commander. K. Marx and F. Engels exposed the aggressive plans of the Second Empire of Napoleon III, which sought to make Italy a vassal of France, showed the intrigues of the ruling circles of the Sardinian monarchy, the conspiracy of Camillo Cavour with the French emperor Napoleon III, directed against the revolutionary movement of the masses. The republican-democratic ideas of Mazzini and Garibaldi undermined the position and influence of the papacy and inspired European writers, poets and composers to create patriotic works.

Having suppressed the revolutionary initiative as a means of finally uniting the country, the liberal government was looking for an opportunity to carry it out through military-diplomatic maneuvers. The Italian government did not abandon attempts to recapture Venice from the Austrian Empire, and at the same time the lands of Trieste and Trient. The Italian army was heavily armed. Soon Italy had an opportunity to attack Austria. In 1866, in order to liberate Venice, the Italian government accepted the proposal of Otto von Bismarck to enter into a military alliance with Prussia against Austria. General Garibaldi was again asked to lead the volunteer corps. The people's commander remained true to himself: he fought hard battles in the mountains of Tyrol, forcing the Austrians to retreat. Due to the mediocrity of the Italian command, the regular Italian army lost the battle on land at Custozza, and the fleet failed in the Adriatic Sea in the battle near the island of Lissa. But the Prussian army victoriously defeated the Austrians in the battle of Sadovaya on July 3, 1866. In this battle, the victory of the Prussians was brought by a more perfect organization and higher technical equipment of the Prussian army, where, shortly before the battle, a new, needle gun was introduced. Under the terms of the peace treaty with Prussia, Austria transferred the Venetian region to Italy. As a result, Italy was forced to humiliatingly receive Venice from the hands of Prussia as a result of the Austro-Prussian war, since it was an ally of Prussia. Despite the diplomatic humiliation suffered by Italy, the accession to the kingdom of Venice and the Venetian region in 1866 took place quite calmly, without conflicts and revolutionary upheavals.

Outside the Italian state, only Rome and the papal possessions adjoining it remained. Pope Pius IX stubbornly opposed the incorporation of Rome into the united Kingdom of Italy. In the autumn of 1867, General Garibaldi, with several thousand volunteers, tried to invade the papal possessions and liberate Rome from the dictates of the pope. Pope Pius IX moved against the Garibaldian patriots, well-armed with new rapid-fire rifles, well-trained French and Swiss mercenaries. On November 3, 1867, at the battle of Mentana, papal mercenaries defeated Garibaldi's poorly armed fighters. The general himself was arrested by the Italian government and sent to his island of Caprera. It took another three years before Rome became the capital of a united Italy. In 1870, the Franco-Prussian (Franco-German) war took place, which led to the collapse of the regime of the Second Empire of Napoleon III in France. Defeated by Prussia, Napoleon III was forced to withdraw the French legion from Rome. In early September 1870, Italian troops and a volunteer battalion of Garibaldi's former ally Bixio, after a short battle, entered the territory of the Papal States and on September 20, 1870 solemnly entered Rome. Pope Pius IX was deprived of secular power, retaining the Vatican Palace as the papal residence. The Pope declared himself a "perpetual prisoner" of the Italian state. The capital of the Italian kingdom by the summer of 1871 was moved from Florence to Rome. Soon the Italian state gained wide diplomatic recognition, became an important European entity international relations second half of the 19th century.

Historical results and significance of the unification of Italy. So significant event- the liberation of Rome - ended a broad national liberation movement - the Risorgimento. It was finished with the national oppression and secular power of the Pope, the Catholic Church. Both the papacy and Catholicism for many centuries had a detrimental effect on the historical destinies of Italy. The papacy has always consolidated the political fragmentation and economic backwardness of Italy. Having solved the main, fateful problem of the historical development of young Italy - the problem of the unification of the country - it was possible to proceed with economic transformations, reforms in the field of culture, and contribute to the formation of a single Italian nation. Thousands of ordinary Italians made their invaluable contribution to the liberation of the country from foreign dependence; by their self-sacrifice they laid down the revolutionary and patriotic traditions of the Italian people.

The struggle for the unification of Italy dragged on for eight decades (!) due to the weakness of the national movement, outside of which the Italian peasants remained. The predominance among the Italian bourgeoisie of landowners and peasant agrarians, drawn into the exploitation of the rural laboring masses, made even a short-term alliance between the peasantry and the bourgeoisie impossible. This land conflict played a negative role in the final

"Spring of Nations", which in 1848-1849. swept through Europe, contributed to the national upsurge and the revival of European peoples. Active participants in social and national movements gradually began to put forward political demands regarding the revival of states. This contributed to the formation of national ideologies, on the basis of which the concepts of building united states in Europe were built. A striking example of such processes was Italy, in which during the second half of the 19th century. A struggle began to restore the unity of the country. These processes have received the name Risorgimento in the scientific literature.

Italian Renaissance

The term was supposed to emphasize the connection between two eras - the 15th and 19th centuries. Risorgimento at first meant a rebirth in culture, literature and architecture, but gradually the meaning and content this concept has changed. Writer with Fr. Sardinia V. Alfieri suggested designating the term as a complex of socio-political and national processes, the essence of which was to restore Italy as a single and independent state. In his works, Alfieri called for making the country territorially integral, uniting different Italian cities and regions within common borders, under one flag and under the rule of one dynasty.

Ideological basis

The concept of the Risorgimento was formed under the influence of various factors. Chief among them are:

• The national idea, which was based on the idealism of Malzini, the rationalism of Cattaneo, the realism of Durando, the religious views of Gioberti;
• The development of Italian nationalism under the influence of the "Spring of Nations";
• Substantiation of the idea that a nation should have a territory of its residence and be spiritually united;
• Philosophers of the first half of the 19th century, lecturing in public places, propagated the idea that Italian fragmentation was harmful, that it was a temporary phenomenon, which should be replaced by a united, national Italy;
• The spread of socialist and republican ideas in society;
• Anti-Austrian sentiments aimed at restoring the Savoy dynasty penetrated into Italian society.

At the same time, the ideologists said that it was necessary to create an Italian who would live in a united Italy.

Italy on the eve of the Risorgimento

The country was divided into several duchies and kingdoms, the main among which were the duchies of Parma, Modena, Tuscany, the kingdoms of Sardinia, Naples, which was completely subordinate to Austria, Lombardo-Venetia, which recognized the protectorate of Austria. There was a separate papal province.

Similar fragmentation was observed in other areas of life:

• In terms of economic development, Italy lagged far behind the neighboring countries of Europe, since the remnants of feudalism were strong. Against their background, the industrial revolution began, which was hampered by the political crisis;
• The socio-social structure of society, associated with the decline of the feudal system, was in deep crisis. This prevented the formation of a market for free labor force, the solution of agricultural and peasant issues;
• The absence of reforms, which were extremely necessary for a fragmented Italy.

First period of the Renaissance

In January 1848, a popular uprising broke out in Palermo, as a result of which the Provisional Government established power over the province. In the spring of that year, all of Italy rebelled, including the kingdom of Lombardy and Venice, which was under the control of Austria. Attempts to stifle the unrest did not produce any results. Austrian troops were driven out of Venice, Milan, Sardinia.

The Risorgimento of 1848 contributed to the proclamation of the republic in Venice, and the transition of the Sardinian king to the side of the rebels. Karl Albert led the national liberation movement against Austria. Under the leadership of the king, the army of Sardinia invaded Lombardy. The actions of the rebels were supported by Tuscany and the Papal States. Referendums were held in the kingdoms and principalities, as a result of which Lombardy and Venice decided to unite with Sardinia. At this point, problems began in the Allied camp:

• The Sicilian king withdrew his troops to stifle the rebellion within the kingdom;
• Austria forced the Pope to withdraw his army;
• Following them, Tuscany left the union;
• Sardinia is on the brink civil war, only the army of King Charles Albert remained at the front.

The Austrian government sent an army against Sardinia. Counter-offensives were carried out, which were successful. But the victory of the Habsburgs was hampered by the resistance of the local population, supported by the inhabitants of Modena and Parma. The decisive battle took place in August 1848 at Kustotz, Karl Albert capitulated, and then went to sign a truce. Sardinia managed to keep only Venice under its own rule.

The peace treaty did not stop the struggle of the Italians against the Austrian Habsburgs. Unrest began in Rome and Florence, which led to the establishment of a republican government. By the end of 1848, there were three republics in Italy:

• Florence;
• Venice and Sardinia.

The king of the last of the republics made in March 1849 another attempt to oppose Austria, but his army was again defeated by the Austrian. Charles Albert was forced to abdicate in favor of his son and leave Italy. His son Victor Emmanuel II made peace with the Habsburgs. At the end of August, Venice also went to sign an agreement with Austria.

The results of the first stage of the Risorgimento were:

• Political persecution against the Habsburgs;
• Brutal massacre of most of the rebels;
• Liquidation of supporters of the constitutional regime. Absolutism was restored again;
• The gendarmes persecuted all who advocated the revival of Italy;
• Only Sardinia succeeded in having a legitimate ruler recognized by the Habsburgs.

Austria managed to maintain control over the recalcitrant Apennines with the help of the army, police, and gendarmerie. Supporters in Italy also helped manage the Habsburgs. In particular, the Sicilian king Ferdinand II, the Pope, the church. Austrian garrisons were placed in the recalcitrant Lombardy, Venice, Tuscany and the Papal States.

Strengthening of Sardinia

King Victor Emmanuel II managed to keep the constitution, although Austria repeatedly tried to eliminate the weight of constitutional rights. Prime Minister Camilo Benso di Cavour helped the king to rule the country, who immediately after the revolution began to carry out reforms and transformations in the country:

• Free trade began to be stimulated;
• New banks were created and old ones maintained;
• Railways and transport routes were built;
• Canals were being built;
• The Sardinian central bank was strengthened, which made it possible to improve the credit system;
• The development of industry and agriculture has intensified. The textile industry spun off;
• The market for free workers has risen.

In the political system, the prime minister contributed to the creation new strength by uniting the forces of the left and moderate liberals. Cavour sought to unify Italy, but this goal was vague and therefore not realized. At the same time, the Prime Minister sought to completely expel the Austrians from Sardinia and all of Italy. But this required the powerful support of the allies. Cavour found them in Britain and France, which forced Sardinia to ship in the mid-1850s. army to the Crimea to fight against Russia. Especially Sardinians in Crimean War did not show themselves, but the authority of the kingdom in the international arena has grown several times.

Italy in the late 1840s - 1850s

• In Rome, the provisional government tried to find the reasons for the failure of the revolution of 1848-1849;
• Social legislation was developed, which was supposed to solve the problems of the peasants and eliminate large land ownership. But these attempts did not bring tangible results, since the revolutionaries insisted that it was necessary to solve, first of all, the national problem;
• Republicans in 1853 made an attempt to start a revolution in Milan, but they suffered another setback. This caused a split in the Republican camp;
• Similar processes were observed among the democrats, who increasingly looked towards Sardinia and the liberal party of Cavour. Revolutionary-minded Italians began to move to Sardinia, which was beneficial for the prime minister and the king;
• In 1855-1856. the pro-Sardinian position intensified in the ranks of the Republicans. The leader of Cavour's supporters, D. Manin, argued that it was necessary to support Sardinia as a single force in the struggle for a united Italy;
• Under the influence of Manin, Cavour created the Italian National Society in Sardinia, which fought for the unification of disparate Italian territories and the restoration of the rights of the House of Savoy;
• The position of the peasantry was represented by J. Garibaldi, who took the post of vice-chairman in the new organization;
• At first, branches of the Italian National Society sprang up illegally throughout Italy. Representatives of the intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie joined the ranks of the organization, they supported the Savoy dynasty. Such events contributed to the fact that the influence of the organization went far beyond the borders of Sardinia, acquiring a national character.

The influence of the Italian National Society was opposed by the democrats, who wanted to play the first role in the revolution. Their last attempt at a revolution in 1857 near Naples ended in defeat. As a result, Sardinia, led by Cavour and Victor Emmanuel II, became the leading force in the struggle for the revival of Italy.

Second leg of the Risorgimento

Italy's ally in the fight against Austria was France, which at that time was ruled by Napoleon III Bonaparte. He signed with Cavour at a secret meeting an agreement on the creation of a military-political union. The document, ratified in 1859, provided:

• Complete expulsion of the Austrians from Venice and Lombardy;
• Annexation of these territories to Sardinia to create the Kingdom of Northern Italy;
• France should have received Nice and Savoy, as they had a large French-speaking population.

But this was a semblance of cooperation, since Napoleon III wanted to make Italy a puppet in his hands, an ally of France in Europe. The French ruler did not need a single Italian state. In the north, he wanted to strengthen Sardinia as much as possible, to subjugate Tuscany and Naples under the rule of his dynasty. All these lands were to be united under the rule of the Pope. Cavour and the king of Sardinia suspected Napoleon's similar plans, trying to temporarily ignore his appetites. They needed France to achieve neutrality from Prussia and the Russian Empire.

War broke out again between Sardinia and Austria in 1859. The hostilities were successful for the Allies, who received additional support from the cities under the rule of the Habsburgs. The weakness of the Austrian army took advantage of Prussia, which began to prepare for an offensive against the Habsburgs. Realizing that the situation was becoming dangerous, Bonaparte led France out of the war.

A truce was signed, according to which Lombardy went to Sardinia, and Venice and other regions of Italy remained Austrian. In the central part of Italy, it was possible to form a government loyal to Sardinia. Under his influence, a series of referendums was organized, as a result of which almost all regions of Italy came under the rule of the Sardinian king, but Savoy and Nice went to France. The Habsburgs did not like this situation, but they could not decide on an open intervention - there were no resources and allies.

The company of G. Garibaldi in Sicily, which became part of the Sardinian kingdom, was also successful. Garibaldi proclaimed himself dictator of Sicily, which provoked a backlash from Prime Minister Cavour. G. Garibaldi began to plan a campaign against Rome, but his plans were thwarted, Cavour deployed his troops on the border with Naples, which made it possible to stop the offensive of the peasant army of Garibaldi. The government in Sardinia carried out a series of successful military actions aimed at joining the southern regions of the country to the kingdom. Therefore, the power of Garibaldi in Sicily was eliminated, but this caused the outbreak of a civil war, which was stopped only in 1865.

The third stage of consolidation

The papacy, which did not recognize the new government, opposed the united Italian state. Pope Pius the Ninth tried in every possible way to incite controversy within the country.

The situation was worsened by the fact that Garibaldi began to collect troops throughout the country to march on Rome. When in 1862 he arrived in Sicily to raise an army, Bonaparte III turned to the government of Sardinia demanding that Garibaldi be recalled. At the battle of Aspromonte, the folk hero was arrested and his movement was suppressed.

In 1866, Cavour accepted Bismarck's offer of help, which allowed Venice to be liberated. To do this, Sardinia entered into an alliance with Prussia against Austria. One of the corps, formed from volunteers, Cavour entrusted to lead Garibaldi. He managed to liberate Venice and organize an attack on Rome, but lost in a battle near Mentana to the French army.

In 1870, the Franco-Prussian War broke out, causing Napoleon III to withdraw his army from Rome and the Papal States. They were captured by the Italians, Pope Pius the Ninth recognized himself as a "captive" of Italy.

In July 1871, Victor Emmanuel II made his solemn entry into Rome, which was proclaimed the capital of the Italian state. This event ended the struggle of the population and the government of the country for unification.

Results and consequences

• The establishment of the power of the Savoy dynasty, which subjugated all Italian territories;

General characteristics of the Risorgimento

In the 30-40s of the $19th century, the Risorgimento movement unfolded in Italy.

Definition 1

Risorgimento is the movement of the people of Italy for the unification of the country and liberation from foreign domination. The same term is historical period in the development of Italy, which began in the early 30s. The end of the Risorgimento is considered to be the annexation of Rome to the Kingdom of Italy in 1870.

Risorgimento was the result of the development of liberal and national liberation ideas, the activities of the enlighteners and the spread of republican ideology. The movement combined the ambitious demands of the Savoy dynasty and the anti-Austrian liberation mood. The idea of ​​national unification had a great place in the development of the Risorgimento. The ideological justification was the development of Romagnosi, who combined the national idea and legitimacy. He explained the fragmentation of Italy as a temporary phenomenon, since each nation has a geographical and spiritual unity given to it by nature.

The combination of the national idea and anti-feudal and anti-clerical movements led to the separation of two main directions in the Risorgimento:

1. democratic, which found expression in Mazzinism. It expressed the interests of the petty and middle bourgeoisie. The Democrats saw a united Italy as a democratic republic;
2. moderate-liberal, developing in neo-Guelphism. It expressed the interests of the big bourgeoisie, the nobility, which embarked on the path of capitalist development of the economy. They sought to unite Italy around the Pope or the monarch from the House of Savoy.

Democratic direction in the Risorgimento

Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872) is considered the founder of the democratic direction in the Risorgimento. Mazzini got his ideas from the Carbonari movement. The revolutionary uprisings of 1831 swept the states of Central Italy:

• Papal States,
• Duchies of Parma and Modena.

A feature of Mazzini's views is his deep faith in God as the educator of mankind and the recognition of the principles of equality and brotherhood. He rejected federalism and fought for the creation of a unitary type of state in Italy, like the French monarchy. Mazzini saw the mission of the country in the creation of an Italian nation of free and equal citizens. In order to make a revolution and move along the path of progress, two obstacles must be removed:

• Austrian domination;
• spiritual pressure of the pope.

It takes a "spark" to ignite the cleansing fire of revolution. Mazzini tried to strike a "spark" in Piedmont and Naples (1831), in Savoy (1834), but to no avail. Mazzinism is losing ground to moderate liberals.

Liberal direction in the Risorgimento

Neo-Guelphism (liberal Catholicism) played an important role in the formation of the moderate-liberal direction. It is based on the assertion that the former greatness of the Italian nation was provided by the leadership of Rome as the center of the Christian world in Europe. The liberals sought to revive the "Third Rome" without revolutionary upheavals and with the preservation of the achievements of civilization.

Remark 1

The main position in liberal Catholicism was occupied by the theologian Vincenzo Gioberti (life 1801-1852). The rallying of neo-Guelphism was facilitated by his book On the Spiritual and Civil Superiority of the Italians. It was Gioberti who substantiated the term Risorgimento and introduced it into the political lexicon. The main position of the book: only the restoration of the power of Rome will make it possible to revive Italy.

The primacy of the Church in the unification of the Italians is indisputable. To revive the power of Italy, according to Gioberti, it is only necessary to reconcile the church with the achievements of civilization. The recognition by the Catholic Church of the ideas of progress and freedom will give her strength to fulfill her mission throughout the world. She will be able to lead the liberal movement and the liberation struggle of the Italian people. Supporters Gioberti advocated federalism, which is possible under the spiritual leadership of the Pope. Neo-Guelphism saw the prerequisites for the flourishing of Italy in creating conditions for the sustainable development of the economy and the formation of a customs union.