14 - Shopkeepers and Socialists 1905–1922

Summary

This book has presented an analysis of the esercenti movement in the twenty years between 1886 and 1905 within the context of shopkeeping in the city. The reasons for starting in 1886 are selfevident; it was in this year that Rusca founded L'Esercente, providing both the impetus for a shopkeeper movement, and a record of its activities for future historians. Finishing in 1905 neatly concludes a twenty-year period which coincides with one complete turn of the business cycle of depression and growth. Also, 1905 marked the end of a key moment in the politics of the movement with the effective closure of the strategy of a left alliance following the experience of the shopkeeper during the period of partiti popolari administration between 1900 and 1904. The purpose of this chapter, in which much context is left out for the sake of brevity, is to show how the politics of the movement in its subsequent years developed along lines that evolved in the first twenty.

By 1905 three key strands in the political development of the small-trader movement could be observed. There was no longer a sufficient basis for alliances involving the Socialists, with their consumer-orientated interventionist strategies, and shopkeepers who sought a minimum of interference in their own trades. Aside from this restriction, however, the esercenti were prepared to seek deals with parties across the rest of the spectrum in order to achieve their aims.