Fasci Siciliani (Fascism)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasci_Siciliani
Excerpts:
1)
The Fasci movement was made up of a federation of scores of associations that developed among farm workers, tenant farmers, and small sharecroppers as well as artisans, intellectuals, and industrial workers.^[3] The immediate demands of the movement were fair land rents, higher wages, lower local taxes and distribution of misappropriated common land.^[4] Between 1889 and 1893 some 170 Fasci were established in Sicily. According to some sources the movement reached a membership of more than 300,000 by the end of 1893.^[3] The Fasci constituted autonomous organizations with their own insignia (red rosettes), uniforms and sometimes even musical bands, their own local halls for reunions and congresses.^[5]
While many of the leaders were of socialist or anarchist leanings, few of their supporters were true revolutionaries. Nevertheless, the peasants who assembled into the Fasci were eager for social justice and convinced that a new world was about to be born. A crucifix hung beside the red flag in many of their meeting-places, and portraits of the King beside those of the revolutionaries Garibaldi, Mazzini and Marx. Cheers for the King were often heard in their marches that almost resembled quasi-religious processions.^[4] Many of the Fasci were part of the Party of Italian Workers (Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani, the initial name of the Italian Socialist Party) that had been founded at the conference of Genoa on August 4, 1892.^[6][7]
The rural Fasci in particular were a curious phenomenon: both ancient and modern. They combined millenarian aspirations with urban intellectual leadership often in contact with workers’ organizations and ideas in the more industrialized Northern Italy.^[8] According to the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, the Fasci were millenarian insofar as the socialism preached by the movement was seen by the Sicilian peasantry as a new religion, the true religion of Christ – betrayed by the priests, who were on the side of the rich – that foretold the dawn of a new world, without poverty, hunger and cold, in accordance with God’s will. The Fasci, which included many women, were encouraged by the messianic belief that the start of a new reign of justice was looming and the movement spread like an epidemic.^[9

2)  The leader in Catania, De Felice, also maintained contact with leading anarchists like Amilcare Cipriani. On these and other important issues there was much friction between Catania and Palermo.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/202201/fascio-siciliano
Excerpt:
fascio siciliano, plural Fasci Siciliani,  any of the organizations of workers and peasants founded in Sicily in the early 1890s, reflecting the growing social awareness of the lower classes.
The fasci were primitive trade unions and mutual-benefit societies aimed at helping workers get better contracts and helping villagers protect their lands from enclosure. Conservative resistance to their demands led to an outbreak of violence. In early 1893, when the peasants of Caltavuturo occupied land that they claimed was theirs, a number were killed by local authorities. Disturbances continued throughout the year. Members of the fasci attacked and burned public buildings. The police and the upper classes responded with force in an attempt to suppress them.
In 1894 Prime Minister Francesco Crispi sent troops to Sicily to restore order. Martial law was declared, and many fasci leaders were arrested. In March 1896 those arrested during the disturbances were granted amnesty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennialism
Excerpt:
Millennialism (from millennium, Latin for "thousand years"), or chiliasm in Greek, is a belief held by some Christian denominations that there will be a Golden Age or Paradise on Earth in which "Christ will reign" for 1000 years prior to the final judgment and future eternal state (the "World to Come" of the New Heavens and New Earth). This belief is derived primarily from the Book of Revelation 20:1-6. Millennialism as such is a specific form of Millenarianism.
Among Christians who hold this belief, this is not the "end of the world", but rather the penultimate age, the age just prior to the end of the world when the present heavens and earth will flee away (Rev. 21:1). Some believe that between the millennium proper and the end of the world there will be a brief period in which a final battle with Satan will take place. After this follows the Last Judgment.
Millennialism is also a doctrine of medieval Zoroastrianism concerning successive thousand-year periods, each of which will end in a cataclysm of heresy and destruction, until the final destruction of evil and of the spirit of evil by a triumphant king of peace at the end of the final millennial age (supposed by some to be the year 2012). "Then Saoshyant makes the creatures again pure, and the resurrection and future existence occur" (Zand-i Vohuman Yasht 3:62).
Various other social and political movements, both religious and secular, have also been linked to millennialist metaphors by scholars.