DEMONSTRATIONS IN BIG CITIES

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25548, 16 July 1948, Page 7

DEMONSTRATIONS IN BIG CITIES

Strikes which swiftly followed the attack on Mr Togliatti threw Rome, Milan, and Turin into confusion. At least four demonstrators were killed and 30 were injured in clashes with the police in Rome, Naples, Modena, and Bologna. A report from Leghorn yesterday said that the city of Piombino was completely in Communist hands. Workers yesterday seized the biggest factories in the industrial centre of Turin. Communist action squads appeared quickly in Rome’s streets and went to every shop and office and advised employers to close. Buses in Rome stopped in the middle of their journeys

and the drivers abandoned them. Printers walked out of’ newspaper offices and shops closed. Shots were fired in the air when Leftist workers converged on the Piazza Colonna from all parts of Rome. The police fired and then charged, swinging their rifle butts and truncheons, as more Leftist reinforcements arrived in trucks. Between 2000 and 3000 police Anally cleared the piazza. In the Via Nazionale, one of Rome’s main thoroughfares, riot police charged and dispersed several hundred workv men. i 1 Crowds dispersed in Rome> and other big cities after sunset, when transport ceased in many