“Two red years” in Italy.

So here we have the Italian lira, nominal - 2. The year of issue of this coin is 1916, Mint: Rome, Italy. Total circulation – 10.923.056.

Throughout the biennio rosso revolution appeared imminent. While spontaneous land occupations swept through the south, riots and lootings hit shopkeepers in the north and centre in the summer of 1919, and prices were cut by half throughout the country. Socialist deputies walked out of parliament in December 1919 to protest the presence of the king. They were attacked by nationalists, and widespread general strikes followed.

In April 1920 the Piedmontese General Strike blocked work throughout Piedmont. The Socialist Party and the trade unions met in Milan to decide, absurdly, whether or not to call a revolution. They voted against, and Piedmont was isolated. In June 1920, mutinies, riots, and strikes hit the Ancona region and threatened to become an insurrection. Massive rural-worker agitation swept the whole of the Po valley and threatened the harvest during the summer of 1920.

The biennio rosso concluded with sit-down strikes in which workers occupied most of the factories of the north in August and September 1920. For three weeks workers attempted to continue production, seeking to promote the idea that they could “replace the ruling class” in thousands of factories across Italy. Meanwhile, the government (led again by the wily Giolitti) and the industrialists waited for the occupations to fizzle out, which they eventually did. The factory occupations marked not the beginning but the end of the mass movements of the biennio rosso.