During the Nineteenth Century Gonzaga was at the heart of a widespread agrarian strike known as "Le Boje", inspired by the Mantuan radical and former red-shirt Francesco Siliprandi, one of Italy's first labor organizers and the founder of Mantua's first trade union, the Associazione Generale dei Lavoratori. In 1882 police reports suggested a committee formed in Gonzaga by locals inspired by new Socialist ideas and affiliated to Silliprandi's organization and called "Pane e Lavoro" (Bread and Work) organized a gathering of 1,000 striking wage laborers to clamor, first in the frazione of Moglia di Gonzaga, and then in the main town square for universal suffrage higher pay and a redistribution of the products of labor.[6] Weeks of unrest in the small town followed, and the apparent appearance of fliers exhorting "Hurray for the Paris Commune, Hurray for the social Revolution, down those who do not toil, and death to the tyrants of the people!" and the sight of large groups of striking farmers singing protest marches and carrying sickles and shovels further evoked the specter of revolution.[7] Troops eventually arrived and arrested 18 strikers, including 4 members of the local committee and Alcibiade Moneta, editor of the new socialist periodical "La Favilla" and a candidate at the political elections of the 28th of October (all arrestees were sentenced to jail-time).