In 1921 Fascist and anti-Fascist violence in Italy grew with Italian army officers beginning to assist the Fascists with their violence against communists and socialists.[1] With the Fascist movement growing, anti-fascists of various political allegiances combined into the Arditi del Popolo (People's Militia).[2]
February 28 – A fascist squad devastates the Camera del lavoro in Triest. Shortly afterwards the Milanese branch of the socialist newspaper Avanti! is burned down.
July 4 – A new conservative government is formed by Ivanoe Bonomi.
July 6 – An anti-fascist militia, the Arditi del Popolo, is founded on the initiative of anarchist and republican groups, and rapidly spreads in Liguria, Emilia, Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio. The Arditi are not supported by the socialist parties (neither by the Italian Socialist Party, PSI, nor by the Communist Party of Italy, PCI).
July 21 – In Sarzana Fascist squads occupy the station and are preparing to enter the city to impose the release of a dozen arrested fascists, but are attacked by the Carabinieri and the population resulting in eighteen dead and about thirty injured.[6]
August 2 – Pact of Pacification between Benito Mussolini and his Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, and the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and the General Confederation of Labor (CGL).[5] The agreement was short-lived since many of the fascist squadristi leaders denounced the pacification pact with the socialists, along with Mussolini's leadership, arguing that the Duce “had not created the movement” and that they could “get along without him.”[5][7]
August 18 – In Il Popolo d'Italia Mussolini announces his resignation from the executive board of the Fascists because of the resistance to the pacification pact.
August 26 – The Fascist National Council rejects Mussolini's resignation from the executive board. With regard to the pacification pact, the council does not impose a precise line and leaves the issue to be resolved autonomously by individual squads.
November 9 – The National Fascist Party (Italian: Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) is founded during the Third Fascist Congress in Rome on November 7–10, 1921.[8]