La Russia in fiamme [Russia in Flames]. New York: Casa Editrice "I Giovani", 1919.

The subject of La Russia in fiamme is one Vacirca knew well from his interviews (while a senator in Italy) with Lenin and Trotsky: the Russian Revolution, from its inception in 1917.

The first few pages feature quotations in French (Romain Rolland) and English (Longfellow), as well as from Maxim Gorky, who is quoted in Italian, calling for the complete overthrow of the Bolshevik regime whose censorship of Gorky’s newspaper strained their relations.

Vacirca (b. Ragusa, 1886 - d. Roma 1956) was surely one of the most colorful characters among the Italian American left and a prominent socialist agitator (see discussion of his American activities, in the magazines La Strada (q.v.) and, in 1927, Il Solco (q.v.), for example). Condemned for subversive publishing, he emigrated to Brazil in 1908, where he directed the daily L'Avanti! Arrested and expelled from Brazil, he emigrated to Argentina. Imprisoned there, he was released by the intervention of a socialist deputy, and fled through Italy to Austria. Expelled from Austria, he went to the U.S. Like Gaetano Salvemini (q.v.) and others, he was also deprived of his citizenship by Mussolini. All along the way, he published several social novels. In 1919, after publication of this work, he returned to Italy, where he was quickly arrested.

In America, among other writing and editing roles between 1913 and 1919, he led Il Nuovo Mondo. The editorship of La Parola (its name changed in 1920, with Vacirca still involved, to La Parola del Popolo) was handed over to Vacirca (and Alberico Molinari, q.v.) in 1920. 

Between 1921 and 1924, he was pursued relentlessly by the fascists, and as noted, he was deprived of Italian citizenship. Matteotti sent him on a mission to London in 1924. Condemned to five years imprisonment by a judge in Siracusa, Vacirca returned to the U.S., where the fascists did not cease to pursue him.

He was also blessed with a talented wife, Clara, who published a number of her novels and stories in a variety of journals, including (surprisingly enough, given its right-wing politics) Il Carroccio, which is well represented in the Collection, and where at least one story of Clara's may be found.