1970
July 15, Reggio Calabria
Bruno Labate, 46 years old, railway worker

He is the first victim of the Reggio Calabria revolt. In July 1970 the entire city mobilized against the decision to establish the regional capital in Catanzaro, taking offices and jobs away from Reggio. But if this is the fuse that ignites the revolt, there is a gangrenous situation of unease behind it: the boom that was changing the face of the north of the country had not made a dent in the south of that system made up of mafia, malpractice and inaction. Calabria was still paying a heavy price in terms of re-employment, crime and emigration.
On 15 July 1970 the city was blocked by a series of street demonstrations: at midday the first clashes between police and citizens. At 11.30pm on 15 July, a group of carabinieri found the lifeless body of Bruno Labate, 46 years old, a railway brakeman and member of the CGIL (he died during transport to hospital) in via Logoteta, a side street off the main street. The circumstances of his death will never be clarified. The autopsy will reveal death due to compression of the chest with impediment of the breathing bellows.
This is the first victim of the events in Reggio. The death excites the demonstrators, who attend Labate’s funeral en masse. In the following days the urban guerrilla war became increasingly bloody, with the attempted assault on the police station, the fire at the Reggio Lido railway station, and the interruption of the roads. The unrest also spread to various centers in the province of Reggio; particularly serious is the blockade of Villa San Giovanni, the only connection with Sicily.
On 16 July 1970, the day after the death of Bruno Labate, CGIL, CISL and UIL literally recognized that “ancient problems lie at the basis of these spontaneous popular demonstrations”. Essentially, the trade union confederations were caught off guard by the explosion of popular protest during a spontaneous general strike. As the Revolt continued, at a national level, they took a position of condemnation, leaving CISNAL alone to participate in the strikes and street demonstrations. Even the MSI initially condemned the revolt and openly supported it only a few months later.
The revolt in Reggio Calabria is the first mass and lasting movement in which the PCI finds itself without having its own slogans capable of orienting the entire movement of a part of it. Indeed, after an initial moment of hesitation in supporting the demonstrators it is – as anticipated – the MSI that has the hegemony of the protests.
The final toll of the “Reggio Events” will be five dead (the railway worker Bruno Labate, the driver Angelo Campanella, the agents Vincenzo Curigliano and Antonio Bellotti, the bartender Angelo Jaconis), around 2,000 injured, a thousand arrests and complaints, damages amounting to billions of lire. In addition to a trail of events of dubious origin, such as the derailment of the Palermo-Turin Il Sole train near Gioia Tauro on 22 July 1970.