A Civil War (87 page)
Authors: Claudio Pavone
13
âGuerra civile per la libertà ',
La LibertÃ
, 27 October 1943.
14
Introduzione alla vita politica (per gli italiani cresciuti sotto il fascismo)
, Edizioni del Comando delle formazioni partigiane Giustizia e Libertà , p. 2; A. Omodero,
La confederazione europea
, a pamphlet published in Naples in late 1943 (later reproduced in A. Omodero,
Libertà e storia
, pp. 66â7); Dionisotti (C. Botti),
Giovanni Gentile
, p. 90.
15
L'Italia Libera
, Lombard edition, 22 May 1944.
16
Gli Italiani e la solidarietà europea, L'Italia Libera
, Rome edition, 25 September 1943.
17
Salvemini had the scruple to note that a European federalism proclaimed by Italians could seem like a cop-out designed to âescape punishment'. See his letter to Ernesto Rossi of 29 November 1944 (Salvemini,
Lettere dall'America
, pp. 44â5).
18
Testimony of Manlio Rossi-Doria, taken from Valiani,
Gli azionisti
, p. 67.
19
The article âAmmistrazione o Rivoluzione' in
Avanti!
, Rome edition, 16 March 1944, speaks of a âgreat European revolution'.
20
See Bernardo,
Il momento buono
, p. 126.
21
See the motion's text, âThe CLNAI, while confirming its full solidarity with the United Nations in the struggle for democracy, and the conscious discipline of the formations of the volunteers for freedom, makes the most enthusiastic salute to the Greek patriots fighting against the domestic forces of reaction in order to establish the rule of freedom in their country' (
Atti CLNAI
, pp. 222â3, 227â8).
22
See âEstratto da un rapporto da Milano', 15 December 1944, in Secchia,
Il PCI e la guerra di liberazione
, pp. 708â9.
23
See the âRapporto informativo n. 2' from the Group Command of the Lower Po SAP to the responsible official of the Lombard delegation, Fabio, 27 October 1944 (
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. II, p. 497).
24
Il Partigiano
, 23 January 1944.
25
âIl saluto del popolo italiano a Parigi liberata',
L'UnitÃ
, Northern edition, 1 September 1944. For an overall view of the âexpected but missing' (Foa,
La crisi
, p. 18) contacts and accords with neighbouring Resistance forces, the paper that Ferruccio Parri and Franco Venturi gave at the II Congresso internazionale di storia della Resistenza held in Milan in March 1961 remains of enduring importance. See âLa Resistenza italiana e gli Alleati', in INSMLI,
La Resistenza europea e gli Alleati
, pp. 237â80.
26
L'Italia Libera
, Northern edition, 22 July 1944.
27
âAi Partigiani', editorial of
Lungo il Tanaro
, April 1945.
28
âOtto anni fa ed oggi',
L'UnitÃ
, Northern edition, 7 August 1944.
29
See the article âEl Frente Popular',
Democrazia Internazionale
, No. 3, n.d.
Il Saggio bibliografico
4219 attributes this publication to the Bordigist Partito Comunista Internazionalista, but this is unconvincing.
30
The text of the song appears in IZDG, envelope 272a, folder II/B.
31
See the report from the responsible official for military work in Piedmont, Sandrelli, to the PCI leadership, 26 December 1943 (
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. I, pp. 183â8).
32
See the report from the responsible PCI official and vice-commissar, Italo, to the Command of the 3
rd
Lombardy Division Aliotta (in Oltrepò), 10 November 1944 (IG,
BG
, 01600).
33
âLa Spagna e l'Europa',
L'Italia Libera
, Lombard edition, 10 April 1944. See also (in its Northern edition, 6 February 1945) âProblemi della democrazia europea. Per la rinascita della Spagna'.
34
âChe vuole?',
Avanti!
, Rome edition, 30 December 1943, on an amnesty given by Franco, and âInquietudine spagnola', 12 January 1944, which, however, began from the correct understanding that neutrality had strengthened Franco. In autumn 1944, Spanish exiles, above all Communists, attempted in vain to establish a guerrilla base in the Val d'Aran in the Pyrenees, riding the wave of the liberation of France (see E. Pons Prades,
Guerrillas españolas 1936â1960
, Barcelona: Planeta, 1977).
35
See, for example, the propaganda flyer âVolontari in terra di Spagna' (Fondo RSI, No. 966).
36
On this argument and its development, see G. Carocci,
La politica estera dell'Italia fascista (1925â1928)
, Bari: Laterza, 1969, pp. 197â9. Interlandi directed his polemic against a corrupt Paris and the degenerate Weimar regime, whereas Coppola instead envisaged a great and strong European bourgeoisie.
37
See M. A. Ledeen,
Universal Fascism: The Theory and Practice of the Fascist International 1928â1936
, New York: Howard Fertig, 1972.
38
On these efforts, see Deakin,
Brutal Friendship
.
39
Quoted in the laureate thesis of M. Di Giovanni.
40
See Etnasi,
La Resistenza in Europa
, vol. I, p. 182.
41
See E. Collotti,
La seconda guerra mondiale
, Turin: Loescher, 1973, p. 128.
42
ISRT, Raccolta volantini.
43
âUltimo monito ai sabotatori', 16 September 1944, cited in Flamigni and Marzocchi,
Resistenza in Romagna
, p. 239
44
See F. Maugeri,
Mussolini mi ha detto
, Rome: Tip. Agricoltori, 1944, p. 23.
45
See Bocca,
La Repubblica di Mussolini
, p. 217.
46
See Deakin,
Brutal Friendship
, p. 668
47
ISRT, Raccolta volantini.
48
Fondo RSI, Nos. 330, 385, 547, 669, 672, 991.
49
Letter from Arrigo Gasparini Casari, from Modena, class of 1922, 11 January 1944 (
LRSI
, p. 30).
50
The eighteen-year-old Roman Franco Aschieri (
LRSI
, p. 102).
51
Francesco Davolio Marani, a medical officer from Fabbrico (Reggio Emilia), 25 May 1944 (
LRSI
, p. 50).
52
On SS esotericism, see A. Del Boca and M. Giovana,
I âfigli del sole'. Mezzo secolo di nazifascismo nel mondo
, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1965; F. Jesi,
Cultura di destra
, Milan: Garzanti, 1979. On the neo-Fascists' inheritance from the RSI, in contrast with other European collaborationist movements, see E. Collotti, â
La Repubblica Sociale Italiana'
,
Ulisse
, XXX, Vol. XIII (October 1976), folder LXXXII, esp. pp. 101â2. On the twilight of French SS who fled in 1944, retreating to Sigmaringen Castle, see H. Rousso,
Un château en Allemagne
, Paris: Ramsay, 1980. See also M. Revelli, âPanorama editoriale e temi culturali nella destra militante', in âNuova destra e cultura reazionaria negli anni ottanto',
Notiziario dell'Istituto storico della Resistenza in Cuneo e provincia
23 (June 1983), pp. 49â74.
53
âPer la solidarietà tra i Partiti',
Risorgimento Liberale
, Northern edition, October 1944.
54
See Andreis's report, âSulla riunione tenuta a Cortemilia col rappresentante della missione inglese', 6 February 1945. On 1 February, the Garibaldian commander Nanni expressed similar ideas following a 27 January meeting. In a postscript for his comrades, Andreis added: âFor our part, while doing everything to strengthen unity, we vigorously struck down any anti-democratic or anti-Italian initiatives by reactionaries if necessary' (
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. III, pp. 332â5 and n. 8).
55
Attività clandestina dell'Associazione professori e assistenti universitari (APAU) e del Comitato di liberazione nazionale di professori e assistenti universitari (CLNPAU) in Milano negli anni 1944â1945
, published by the Comitato Direttivo Provvisorio dell'Associazione Professori e Assistenti Universitari, Milan, July 1945, pp. 17â18. The âOutline' was datelined 23 May 1944, Milan.
56
Il partito socialista e la crisi ministeriale (novembre 1944)
, Rome: Società Editrice Avanti!, Biblioteca âI documenti del partito', 2, p. 30.
57
ISRT,
Archivio Medici Tornaquinci
, envelope 5, 2, 3.
The Class War
1. C
LASS, NATION, ANTI-FASCISM
In April 1916, James Connolly, on the eve of the desperate attempted insurrection against the English that would lead him to the gallows, wrote:
We are out for Ireland for the Irish. But who are the Irish? Not the rack-renting, slum-owning landlord, not the sweating, profit-grinding capitalist; not the sleek and oily lawyer; not the prostitute pressman â the hired liars of the enemy. Not these are the Irish upon whom the future depends. Not these, but the Irish working class, the only secure foundation upon which a free nation can be reared.
1
The identification, here, of the nation's enemy with the class enemy is peremptory but not new. One of the most radical of the seventeenth-century English âLevellers', Gerrard Winstanley, had identified the rich with the Norman invaders.
2
To this way of seeing things employers and capitalists are, as such, enemies and foreigners. From the Fascist point of view, by contrast, capitalists are enemies only if they are foreigners (or Jews), in continuity with the nationalistic tradition that exalted national labour and declared that it wished to defend it against foreign exploitation.
3
Illustrating his socialisation plans to ambassador Rudolf von Rahn, Mussolini presented them as a punitive measure against the industrialists who were pro-British and guilty of the 8 September act of treachery. Hitler concurred, in the name of inflicting a just punishment on entrepreneurs who sabotaged war production.
4
Socialisation thus became a form of political punishment.
During the Resistance, and not only in Italy, the coincidence between the two enemies â enemies of the
patria
and class enemies â was called into question by the inevitably interclass policy of national unity pursued by the major parties of the left. It is possible, though, to detect, above all in the Communist leaders, an effort not to allow all class opposition to drown in the waters of national unity. The proletariat thus found itself with an extra burden of national responsibility, which was taken to coincide with âits economic interests that cannot be defended, nor its demands obtained if the Nation perishes'. This position was a sort of updated exegesis of the Marxist motto: âThe proletariat have no country'. This motto, it was explained, âdoes not mean that the proletariat should not feel the need to conquer the country for themselves', a country that they do not have, another text emphasises, because the bourgeoisie steal it from them.
5
At the same time, oscillating in various ways according to time and place, distinctions between capitalists were reintroduced, culminating in that between collaborationists and good patriots. The âstruggle for national independence' therefore joined hands again with the class struggle against the homegrown
alta borghesia
regarded as the slave and ally of foreign imperialism.
6
An upended version of the same problem can be found in some Action Party documents: recognition of the elements of social confrontation present in the struggle, and at the same time the affirmation that this is not the whole story. Riccardo Bauer wrote: âIt is the battle not between two economic classes â even if such a polarisation coincides â but rather between two conceptions of life, between two political religions, namely: the conception of life as creative liberty and that of life as subordination and hierarchic order.'
7
In reality two class motivations are identifiable in the behaviour of many
resistenti
, above all if they were of working-class or even peasant origin; and these motivations often coexist with patriotic and anti-Fascist ones in the strict political sense. For workers who were to a greater or less extent politicised, the ideal enemy, the clearest and most representative enemy-figure would have been that of a
padrone
who was also a Fascist and a brazen servant of the Germans,
and as such no longer a real Italian (according to the process of annihilation of the national identity of turncoats already emphasised when speaking of the civil war). The condemned men who were shot crying âviva il comunismo, viva l'Italia, viva la libertà ' or âviva l'Italia, viva Stalin, viva il comunismo!'
8
synthesised in this final message of theirs the multiple reasons for their choice. A leaflet addressed to the Bolognese rice-workers, and therefore expressive of an attitude mediated by exhortative and programmatic ends, starts with an attack on âour
padroni
[who] have repeatedly demonstrated that they have no desire to grant us any of our vital demands'; and, in a typical crescendo of concentric circles, concludes with âviva la nostra libertà ! Morte ai tedeschi e ai traditori fascisti!' (âLong live our freedom! Death to the traitorous German fascists!').
9
Blunter is this slogan proposed for the workers of Massa Lombarda: âFuori i tedeschi e 10 lire come minima di paga oraria!' (âOut with the Germans and 10 lire an hour as the minimum wage!')
10
âPour la défait de Hitler. Pour l'augmentation de nos salaires' (âFor the defeat of Hitler. For higher wages') was the appeal that appeared in a clearly Communist-inspired French newspaper.
11
In a âLetter to the peasants from a city worker' the contextual occurrence of the three objectives of the struggle is voiced in accents â we are in Romagna, remember â that echo an old Mazzinian social vision, which in its time was also committed to convincing people of the complete congruity between the interests of the working classes and the interests of the
patria
:
