Agostino Lanzillo

Agostino Lanzillo
Member of the Italian Parliament for Lombardy
In office 24 May 1924 – 21 January 1929
Personal details
Born	31 October 1886 Reggio Calabria, Italy
Died	3 March 1952 (aged 65) Milan
Political party	National Fascist Party
Alma mater	University of Rome

Agostino Lanzillo (1886–1952) was an Italian revolutionary syndicalist leader who later became a member of Benito Mussolini's fascist movement.

Early life

Agostino Lanzillo was born in Reggio Calabria on 31 October 1886 to Salvatore and Giuseppina (Cosile) Lanzillo. Agostino attended primary school and secondary school in his hometown. He acquired a Law degree from the University of Rome and wrote his thesis on the socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.^[1]

Political career

Revolutionary syndicalist period

Lanzillo was drawn to revolutionary syndicalism and became a follower of George Sorel. Lanzillo wrote:

The importance of Sorel in socialist historiography is in my opinion close to that of Marx and Engels

— Agostino Lanzillo, Giorgio Sorel nella storiografia, Il divenire sociale^[2]

Lanzillo corresponded personally with Sorel,^[3] and published in 1910 the first biography of Sorel.^[4] Lanzillo also contributed to the syndicalist journals Avanguardia Socialista and Il divenire sociale.

National syndicalist period

In 1909, George Sorel started collaborating with the French nationalist-monarchist movement Action Française, creating national syndicalism. While many in the Italian Left attacked Sorel and reproached him for his close links with Action Française, Italian revolutionary syndicalists supported Sorel. Lanzillo, for example, defended his master in a series of articles published in Il divenire sociale. Later, Lanzillo wrote to the national syndicalist journal La lupa. From 1912, Lanzillo published under Benito Mussolini editorship, contributing to Avanti!, Utopia and Il Popolo d'Italia.^[5]

Fascist period

Lanzillo was among the founders of the fascist movement,^[6] and was a member of National Fascist Party.

Lanzillo was a member of Italian Chamber of Deputies (a house of Italian Parliament), in the 27th parliamentary session (24 May 1924 – 21 January 1929).^[7]

Lanzillo was also a member of the one-party National Council of Corporations in 1931.

Academic career

In 1921 Lanzillo was a lecturer in political economy at University of Rome. In 1922 he became a Professor of Political Economy at the Royal University of Milan and in 1923 he became a professor at the University of Cagliari.^[8] Later, Lanzillo was appointed rector of Royal Advanced Institute of Economics and Commerce in Venice.

Writings of Lanzillo

• La disfatta del socialismo: Critica della guerra e del socialismo. Florence: Libreria della Voce, 1919.
• Le Mouvement ouvrier en Italie. Paris: Revière, n. d. [1910].

References

1. Levy, C. (1995). "Lanzillo, Agostino". In A. Thomas Lane. Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders. volume 1. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-29899-8.
2. Lanzillo, Agostino (1 August 1910). "Giorgio Sorel nella storiografia" [George Sorel in historiography]. Il divenire sociale (in Italian): 220.
   Quoted in Sternhell, Zeev; Sznajder, Mario; Asheri, Maia (1994). The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 152. ISBN 0-691-03289-0.
3. Riley, Dylan (2010). The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe: Italy, Spain, and Romania, 1870-1945. Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 50. ISBN 9780801894275.
4. Sternhell, Zeev; Sznajder, Mario; Asheri, Maia (1994). The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 31. ISBN 0-691-03289-0. The first biography of Sorel, by Agostino Lanzillo, appeared in Italy in 1910.
5. Levy, C. (1995). "Lanzillo, Agostino". In A. Thomas Lane. Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders. volume 1. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-29899-8.
6. Sternhell, Zeev; Sznajder, Mario; Asheri, Maia (1994). The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 142. ISBN 0-691-03289-0. The Fascist movement was founded by Mussolini in Milan at a meeting in the Piazza San Sepolcro on 23 March 1919. Among the founding members were several eminent revolutionary syndicalist leaders such as Agostino Lanzillo.
7. "Agostino Lanzillo". Camera dei deputati Portale Storico (in Italian). Retrieved 4 May 2012.
8. Levy, C. (1995). "Lanzillo, Agostino". In A. Thomas Lane. Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders. volume 1. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-29899-8.