Last week we saw the youth movement that is sweeping Europe arrive in Italy. On Friday, October 16, there were student marches across the country, from the major cities—where squares were filled with several thousand young people—to smaller towns.

[Originally published in Italian at rivoluzione.red]

This turnout was significant, but importantly there was also a widespread trend of spfontaneous organization within schools. Picket lines were often set up on the spur of the moment, in a way not seen in Italy for a long time. In many cases, small marches set off from schools and made their way to join the official demonstrations.

The following day, Saturday, October 17, demonstrations against the high cost of living took place in a number of towns and cities. The call to action was very disorganized, circulating via WhatsApp and TikTok groups, with no clear indication of who was organizing the demonstrations.

The protestors raised slogans against the dilapidated state of schools, rising prices, the cost of petrol, and cuts to healthcare. There were calls to follow the example of France—it was no coincidence that this was the very same day as the mass mobilizations across France. In some cases, there was also an attempt by right-wing elements to exploit the situation for their own ends. Ultimately, the decisive factor was that, where they took place, these demonstrations were a continuation of the previous day’s protests.

In Milan, the march attracted 5,000 people, bringing together many young people in the city center. Young Albanians linked the march to struggles internationally and spurred it on by waving the Albanian flag. The handful of right-wing elements were expelled from the march, which gradually grew in size and became more radical in its slogans. Eventually, a group of young people—some of whom were very young—clashed with the police. These clashes continued late into the evening in the streets of the city center. These were not activists, but young people expressing their anger—often second-generation immigrants—clearly inspired by the movement in France.

Following the demonstrations, a wave of school occupations began on Monday, and there will be further mobilizations in the coming weeks. The first of these will be the general strike previously called by the USB trade union for October 30.

It seems unlikely that we will see a repeat of what happened on September 22, when workers went on strike in support of Palestine, capitalising on the USB’s call to action and organizing mass marches. Today, the working class is under immense pressure, but the flashpoints remain isolated for the time being. Nonetheless, it is certain that the strike will act as a catalyst for the organization of student demonstrations that will attract very large numbers of participants.

Although many of these students certainly took part in last year’s demonstrations in support of Palestine, this year the leading role played by the younger generation is the central focus. Young people have had enough and are taking action, gradually finding ways and means to do so.

This is the same process we are seeing in France, where protests against conditions in schools have turned into a mass uprising against the entire system, which is also drawing workers into the struggle. But the current wave of protests is much broader: Spain, Albania, Portugal, Britain, Ireland, Brazil, Argentina… There is not enough space here to list all the major movements erupting across the globe. Never before has the struggle over the future of society been so international.

The system we are fighting is brutal

Yet for the government, for the newspapers, and even for the Democratic Party, the only thing that matters is that shop windows were smashed in Milan on Saturday. For days now, we have been subjected to a sickening campaign that portrays minors—some as young as 12—as dangerous criminals.

The real violence is that of the capitalist system. / Image: public domain

Those who present themselves as intellectuals write long-winded articles on the need to understand a “generational malaise,” as mysterious as it is disturbing. But what on earth is so difficult to understand? In this country, the richest 5% own more wealth than the poorest 90%. Schools are a shambles and are falling apart, and the only thing the government does is launch racist campaigns against foreign students.

Was there violence last week in Italy? Yes, 20 people died at work, as they do every week; 1.5 million families went to bed in substandard housing; 5.8 million people woke up with health problems that they have given up seeking treatment for because waiting lists are too long and they cannot afford a private consultation. In Gaza, meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes killed a further seven Palestinians, including two children.

We apologize if we do not lose sleep over the shop windows of Foot Locker (whose turnover in 2025 was €354 million), Decathlon (whose turnover in 2025 was €16.8 billion), or the high-end fashion boutiques for the wealthy on Via Montenapoleone, where a handbag costs €500 or €1,000.

The real violence is that of the capitalist system, which condemns billions of people across the world to poverty, war, environmental destruction, and which robs young people of a future.

There have certainly been demonstrations in the past calling for a change in these policies. Last year, millions of people—including many of the young people who took to the streets on Friday and Saturday—demonstrated peacefully to demand an end to the genocide in Gaza. The response? They were ignored and then repressed. As a result, some people simply concluded that they need to find another way to make their voices heard.

The government is afraid

The government’s response was repression. Two days after the clashes, it passed a decree introducing a new criminal offence: “violent participation in a demonstration.” This carries the penalty of between two and five years’ imprisonment and a fine of €20,000 euros—one year’s average pay for a salaried worker. The government has also allowed preventive detention both during and even outside of demonstrations, and has said that minors can be criminally liable without any age-related mitigating circumstances.

Furthermore, it sent an additional 500 soldiers to patrol the streets of Milan. Initially, it also wanted to grant police powers to the army, deploying soldiers to chase and arrest young people. We would love to see a tenth of this zeal applied to tackling social problems. These measures show that the government is in the pocket of a ruling class that does not wish to give up any of its opulence, and is willing to deploy the police against young people demanding a better life.

This is a useful lesson on how this society works, but these measures will be futile. They will certainly cause harm and suffering to many young people, but history teaches us that social problems cannot be contained by the police. In France, Macron tried this (he has now even imposed a curfew in certain areas of Paris) and the protests escalated even further. The government is talking tough because it is afraid—it senses that if young people take to the streets, it cannot stop them.

Moreover, the campaign to demonise the movement has had little effect. The right organised a rally in central Milan on Monday, October 20, complete with a banner reading “Remigrate all of them,” but turnout was laughably low—just a few dozen people—and the rally was even heckled by several passersby.

The government is right to feel under pressure, seeing the possibility of an outbreak of a massive struggle. / Image: European Union, Wikimedia Commons

The government is right to feel under pressure, seeing the possibility of an outbreak of a massive struggle.

The problem, if anything, is that those who could take on the task of organizing the movement—by bringing workers into the fray—are doing exactly the opposite. The CGIL, this country’s main trade union, issued a scandalous appeal on Wednesday, October 21, for “social cohesion”. We ask ourselves: cohesion between whom? Between those who drop the bombs and those who die from them? Between the boss who exploits and the worker who is exploited? Between those who evict and those who are driven from their homes?

The result was a show of solidarity with the Democratic Party and Milan’s center-left mayor, Sala. His sole concern is that the city center remains attractive to the speculators who he has appealed to ever since he organized the 2015 Milan Expo, before becoming mayor. After all, the mayor’s only criticism of the government was that it had not sent enough police to Milan.

So much for social cohesion! What we need is to fight against this social cohesion with a mass struggle—the only form of struggle capable of making an impact on the consciousness of thousands of young people who are angry and seeking a way out through individual actions.

What path should the movement take?

The Partito Comunista Rivoluzionario (PCR) was present in town squares across Italy on Friday and Saturday, and its activists both inside and outside schools—including in workplaces—will continue to support the movement.

At this stage, there are a number of key tasks that we propose. The first, which is already underway, is to broaden the struggle, increase the number of schools taking part, and ensure the widest possible participation within schools. The mass character of the movement is its greatest strength.

The demonstrations on October 30 must serve this purpose, and we must organize assemblies to promote them, as well as picket lines in the mornings outside schools.

In the schools that mobilize, as many political debates as possible should be encouraged. Over the coming weeks, we will organise assemblies on the student movement in France, the housing struggle in Spain, the experience of the May ’68 movement in France, how to fight the right wing, women’s liberation, and what a revolution means today.

Secondly, through democratic discussion, we must give these struggles an organized form. The basis of these discussions must be: what is the most effective method for the struggle? In this sense, it is essential that the righteous anger seen in the streets is not squandered on unimportant or secondary objectives, or on individual actions. It must be organized and focused.

We must not divide the fronts, therefore, but unite them. We must call on the labor movement to join the struggle by going on strike. Not in a symbolic manner, as trade union leaderships all too often conceive strikes, but following the model of the general strike on October 3; and not stopping there. We must understand how we can truly challenge the ruling class and win.

The climate crisis, racism, dilapidated schools, a collapsing health service, underpaid work, and poverty are merely different facets of the crisis of the system. To resolve any one of these problems, we must wrest the levers of the economy and power from the ruling class and place them in the hands of young people and workers, so that they may be used to meet collective needs. Today, fighting for a future means fighting for communism.

This realization is becoming increasingly widespread, in the streets of Italy just as in those of France. We have seen this firsthand in recent days. There has been a leap in consciousness even compared with last year’s demonstrations.

But abstract and scattered awareness is not enough. There is an urgent need to build a revolutionary party based on clear ideas, political education, militant action, and democratic and effective methods. We call on all those who share this sense of urgency to join us in this endeavor.