The Fasci Siciliani dei Lavoratori ("Sicilian Workers' Leagues") was a socialist workers' movement which emerged on Sicily during the last years of the 19th century in response to a worldwide agrarian crisis. A steep decrease in wheat prices and the decline of the prices of wine, fruit, and sulphur led to the Sicilian landowning class channeling most of the economic burden on to the peasantry by raising rents and increasing taxation, resulting in young socialist intellectuals from the University of Palermo, led by Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida, founding the Fasci on 1 May 1891 in Catania (Nicola Petrina's original Messina branch, founded in 1889, was quickly suppressed through his arrest). Other chapters were founded by Rosario Garibaldi Bosco in Palermo, Nicola Barbato in Piana dei Greci, Bernardino Verro in Corleone, and Lorenzo Panepinto in Santo Stefano Quisquina. These Fasci were influenced both by Napoleone Colajanni's brand of socialism and by Amilcare Cipriani's brand of anarchism; the Palermitan branch leaned towards socialism and the Catanese towards anarchism, resulting in friction between the factions. From 1889 to 1893, 170 Fasci were established in Sicily, enlisting 300,000 members. While most of the Fasci's leaders were radicals, few of their followers were revolutionaries, and many of them were traditionalists; a large number of their followers hung a crucifix beside their red flag at their meetingplaces, and carried portraits of the King alongside those of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Karl Marx. Many of the Fasci became members of the new Italian Socialist Party upon its foundation in Genoa in 1892. In 1893, the Fasci presented their calls for the renewal of sharecropping and rental contracts to the landowners and mine owners of Sicily. When these conditions were rejected, an outburst of strikes spread across the island, nearly reaching the point of insurrection. The leagues engaged in a class struggle against a coalition of landowners and mafiosi, but Mafia bosses Vito Cascioferro and Nunzio Giaimo aligned themselves with the Fasci, as did some of the local gentry. Eventually, the landowners compelled Prime Minister Francesco Crispi to intervene, and he proclaimed a state of emergency and used extreme force to suppress the Fasci. The liberal government was forced to make concessions such as workmen's compensation and pension schemes to appease the Fasci, but the violent suppression of the movement resulted in an increase in emigration.