History (66 page)

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1946

JANUARY-MARCH

Revolutionary movements begin among the peoples of the colonies. Clashes with tl1e British police in Calcutta and in Cairo, with a high num ber of victims among the demonstrators.

In Europe, to the consequences of the bombings and the mass fl (millions of homeless and refugees ) are added the expulsions and forced transferrals of whole populations ( thirty million Europeans, mostly Ger mans) as a result of the post-war boundaries agreed on at Potsdam.

In Italy, the radical steps demanded by the disastrous situation ( war ruins, infl unemployment, etc. ) are opposed by the dominant reaction ary powers, who for their own repressive ends still foment disorder in the country, and especially in the South. The revolt of the peasants and farm laborers against the desperate living conditions is followed by bloody clashes with the police. Numerous victims among the protesters in Sicily.

In the USSR, a new regime of terror under Stalin (named, after the victory, Generalissimo and Hero of the Soviet Union ), who, in the country drained and ravaged by war, has personally assumed all political and military power, through changes in the Constitution. The Leader, at his own caprice, can decide the life and death of all citizens. The list of the executed reaches incalculable fi The slightest oversight by workers ( forced to killing labor and virtually locked to their machines) is punished by deportation. The concentration camps in Siberia are now crowded with, among others, civilians and ex-soldiers released from Lagers and forced labor in Germany, consequently accused of treason for having surrendered, alive, to the Nazis. The Iron Curtain hides this reality of the Russian scene from the world, and even the little that leaks out is rejected, as reactionary propaganda, by the countless people "condemned to hope" who populate Europe, the colonies, and the rest of the world, and who continue to look to the Soviet Union as the ideal fatherland of socialism.

In China, battles between the Red Army and the Kuomintang con tinue.

J UNE-SEPTEMBER

In I taly, the first universal-suff elections for the Constituent Assem bly and the choice between republic or monarchy. The republic wins. The Savoy family goes into exile. The Constituent Assembly convenes.

In Sicily, more victims in a clash between police and peasants.

In Palestine, impossible coexistence of Arabs and immigrant Jews.

Terrorism and counter-terrorism.

Civil war in Greece-British sphere of infl ence-where the partisans have taken up arms against the monarchist reaction supported by the British. Prompt and violent repression from the established powers. The Soviet

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Union-conforming to the Potsdam agreements-maintains diplomatic silence on the matter.

At Berkeley, California ( USA ), the 340 Mev synchrocyclotron is in staiied.

OCTOBER-DECEMBER

In Rome, during a clash between police and workers, two workers are kiiied and many wounded.

In Nuremberg, with twelve death sentences, the trial of the Nazi lead ers ends. Through the various stages of the trial, a kind of public autopsy has taken place of the body politic of the Reich, that is to say, of an indus trial-bureaucratic machine of perversion and degradation promoted to essen tial function of the State ("a page of glory in our History" ).

In North Vietnam, the French fl shells Haiphong ( six thousand dead) and occupies the Ministry of Finance at Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh caiis the Vietnamese people to a war of liberation against the French . . .

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1

Early in January of '46, the Marroccos received news that a relative of theirs from Vallecorsa (a village not far from Sant'Agata ) had also come back from Russia, just in that period; and their hope of seeing Giovannino again, already stirr by Clemente's return,

became higher than ever. Every morn wi the day's light, hope rose in the Marrocco home ("maybe today . . .") and then, towards evening, it wilted, to spring up again the next day.

The Vallecorsa relative, whose health had also been ruined in the Russian campaign, was suff from TB and was hospitalized now in Rome at the Forlanini Sanatorium, where the Marrocco women visited him frequently. But though he answered their tireless questions with good will, he actually knew less than Clemente about Giovannino. And in fact, he and Giovannino had lost sight of each other even before the fi rout, when the withdrawal had barely begun. Giovannino at that time was well, etc., etc. But from then on, all orders had become confused, there were no means of defense or survival, it wasn't a war any longer, or a retreat, but a massacre. Of the Italians surrounded in the
pocket,
it was a lucky thing if ten in a hundred came out alive. He, for his part, at the be had sought refuge with a family of Russian peasants (poor, starving people, just like us up at Vallecorsa ) who had taken him in and fed him as best they could in their
izba,
in a village which was later burned down.

Filomena and Annita made him repeat these stories God knows how many times, plumbing every detail. Any story brought back by the veterans, even if negative or pessimistic, off them new excuses to hope and to expect Giovannino. The father, on the contrary, didn't share their expecta tions; in fact, he seemed to consider the women deluded.