A Civil War (162 page)

56
G. Sorel,
Reflections on Violence
, p. 10.

57
Letter by the university student Carlo Pizzorno, shot by the Fascists in Turin on 22 September 1944 (
LRI
, p. 186).

58
The diary passage closes by recounting the visit made to Annalisa Rizzini (Anna Foa), the daughter born to Lisetta Giua and Vittorio Foa (
Diario partigiano
, p. 257, 25 December 1944).

1
Meneghello,
Bau-sète
, pp. 28, 14.

2
On the use of this image see Hirschman,
Shifting Involvements
p. 104. Note Falaschi's comparison between the conclusions of the memoirs of Martini Mauri, Lazagna and Revelli in
La Resistenza armata
, pp. 32ff.

3
Letter by Ulisse (the lawyer Plinio Corti) to ‘Dear Tom', 22 December 1944 (INSMLI,
CVL
, envelope 93, folder 5, subfolder a).

4
‘Rubrica Gapista', in
Audacia
, Modena, 28 March 1945.

5
Pesce,
Senza tregua
, p. 135.

6
France d'abord
, 1 June 1944 (quoted in Michel,
Shadow War
, p. 319);
Libérer et Fédérer
, 14 July 1942.

7
‘La popolazione deve essere con noi' (‘The population must be with us'), a document drawn up by Eros, general commissar of the Unified Command of the Garibaldi and Fiamme Verdi brigades in Reggio Emilia, 26 January 1945 (
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. III, p. 291). See the rich portrait of Eros in Battaglia,
Un uomo
, pp. 98–9.

8
‘Ai Partigiani', editorial of
Lungo il Tanaro
, April 1945.

9
Circular of 3 May 1945, quoted in Giovana,
Storia di una formazione partigiana
, p. 378, which adds that ‘reread today, this passage seems to have been crowbarred into the document as a pre-emptive attempt at appeasing the men'. See the passage from the fourth issue of
Giustizia e Libertà
, June 1944, cited in ibid., p. 102.

10
Testimony of a partisan in Venezia Giulia (
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. III, p. 723). ‘Attenzione alla Guardia Bianca!' (‘Beware the White Guard') was a recurring motto, from as early as the clandestine
Democrazia Internazionale
, Rome, 3, undated.

11
‘Verbale del collettivo dei comandanti e commissari tenutosi in Codevigo alle ore 21 dell'8 maggio 1945', on the demobilisation of the Gordini Brigade (ISRR, catalogue 2, CXXVI, e, 25).

12
Testimony of Bruno Zenoni, in Portelli,
Biografia di una città
, p. 288.

13
‘Relazione sulle formazioni e azioni dei guastatori', signed ‘Gino', Vicenza zone, undated (September 1944?) (IG,
BG
, 09322).

14
Letter from the Milan centre to the Rome centre, 10 December 1943 (IG,
Archivio PCI
).

15
For Parri, see
Intervista sulla guerra partigiana
, the above-cited interview given to L. La Malfa Calogero and M. V. de Filippis; for Foa, see ‘Commento al programma del partito d'azione'(commenting on the Action Party's ‘sixteen points') in Carocci,
La Resistenza italiana
, p. 186.

16
Quazza,
Resistenza e storia d'Italia
, p. 339.

17
Quazza (ibid., p. 342), making reference to the works of Kogan and Delzell, speaks of an arms consignment that was only 60 percent complete. The large quantity of weapons abducted from the Allies by the end of September – ‘215,000 rifles, 12,000 sub-machine-guns, 5,000 machine-guns, 760 anti-tank weapons, 217 cannon, twelve armoured cars, but only 5,000 pistols' – has been taken as a measure of the strength the Resistance achieved (Ginsborg,
A History of Contemporary Italy
, p. 70, drawing on the figures supplied in C. R. S. Harris,
Allied Military Administration of Italy 1943–45
, H.M. Stationery Office, London 1957, p. 358). L. Meneghello described the matter of his own sten-gun as indicative of the post-war climate (
Bau-sète
, pp. 49–50). According to some of the testimonies collected by Portelli in
Biografia di una città
, the prudent silence of the early years was replaced with an arrogant claim of right. Mario Filipponi spoke, for example, of the ‘tonnes' of arms that had been hidden, speaking of a federation secretary who says, ‘It will not be today, but within a year, five years, we will have to take up arms' (p. 299). The most energetic points of the reaction to the attempt on Togliatti's life – Genoa, Piombino – were also seen in this light.

18
Testimony of Valente Tognarini, in R. Pincelli, K. Sonetti and S. Taccola, ‘Coscienza e soggettività dentro una città fabbrica: Piombino 1944–1956', in C. Bermani and F. Coggiola, eds,
Memoria operaia e nuova composizione di classe
, Milan: Istituto Ernesto de Martino, 1986, p. 240.

19
See ‘Relazione politica del Comando della Sezione Tremezzina al Comando della 52o brigata Clerici', 13 May 1945 (IG,
BG
, 01115).

20
On those who went back to the mountains, see E. Piscitelli,
Da Parri a De Gasperi
, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1975, pp. 168–75.

21
On the Allies' perspectives with regard to enrolling people into the Italian armed forces ‘within the agreed limits', see ‘Piano per I patrioti del N.O. dell'Italia', drawn up by the Local Government Subcommission of the Civil Affairs Section of the Allied Commission HQ, 7 April (INSMLI,
CVL
, envelope 94, folder 7).

22
See Lazagna,
Ponte rotto
, p. 156.

23
Testimony of Liborio Dottore, in Bravo and Jalla,
La vita offesa
, p. 364. In the
Lager
, this deportee had thought of ‘Italy with a capital I'.

24
Testimony of Claudio Locci, in Portelli,
Biografia di una città
, p. 304.

25
Bernardo,
Il momento buono
, p. 108.

26
Cicchetti,
Il campo giusto
, p. 264.

27
See G. Grassi, ‘Les Archives de la Résistance italienne: sources documentaires et histoire', in
La mémoire de la seconde guerre mondiale
, pp. 5–21; Pavone,
Appunti sul problema dei reduci
; A. Bistarelli, ‘Sconfitti due volte. Le associazioni dei reduci di Salò', in Legnani and Vendramini,
Guerra, guerra di liberazione, guerra civile
, pp. 391–400.

28
‘Verbale del collettivo dei comandanti e commissari tenutosi in Codevigo alle ore 21 dell'8 maggio 1945', (ISRR, catalogue 2, CXXVI, e, 25)

29
Lazagna,
Ponte rotto
, p. 291.

30
Bernardo,
Il momento buono
, p. 275.

31
Artom,
Diari
, p. 124 (16 December 1943).

32
The lawyer Franco Bartoli Avveduti, active with the Garibaldi Brigades in the Barge area. See ibid., p. 92 (28 November 1943).

33
See his report ‘to the PSIUP secretariat for central/northern Italy', June 1944, cited Salvati,
Il Psiup Alta Italia
, p. 65.

34
Bianco,
Guerra partigiana
, p. 65. Bianco was evidently referring to the ‘Trenchocracy' of which Mussolini had spoken in ‘Trincerocrazia',
Il Popolo d'Italia
, back on 15 December 1917, in which he had argued that the veterans of the trenches would be the aristocracy of tomorrow (see R. De Felice,
Mussolini il rivoluzionario
, Turin: Einaudi, 1965, p. 403).

35
Mila,
Bilancio della guerra partigiana
, p. 418.

36
Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d'Italia (Communist in tendency), Federazione Italiana Associazioni Partigiane (secular third force), Federazione Volontari della Libertà (Catholic).

37
Calvino,
Tante storie che abbiamo dimenticato
.

38
It has been written, with reference to the whole European Resistance experience, that ‘the Resistance marked domestic, national life more than international relations, more the resistants themselves than the politics of their countries' (Michel, ‘Gli Alleati e la Resistenza in Europa', p. 94). Note also an English historian's remarks concerning Italy: ‘It was the Resistance, more than Fascism, that decisively weakened some of the constitutive elements of Italy's
ancien régime
'. T. Mason, ‘Moderno, modernità, modernizzazione: un montaggio', in
Movimento operaio e socialista
, new series X: 1–2 (January–August 1987), p. 55.

39
Augustinus (Paolo Faraggiana), ‘Seppellisco i ricordi', in
La Verità
II (24 June 1946), p. 13.

40
‘Questi partigiani' (unsigned),
La Verità
II (24 June 1946), p. 13.

41
Mazzantini,
A cercar la bella morte
, pp. 298–9.

42
P. Drieu La Rochelle,
Secret Journal and other Writings
, New York: Howard Fertig, New York, 1973, p. 72.

43
Abrams, ‘Rites de passage', p. 179. As regards left-wing circles, Basso and La Malfa were born in 1903, Lombardi in 1901, Longo in 1900, Morandi in 1902, Pajetta in 1911, Rossi-Doria in 1905, Secchia in 1903, and Sereni in 1907. The main leaders were not much older: Nenni was born in 1891, Parri in 1890 and Togliatti in 1893. These chiefs' relative youth was probably one of the causes of the slow turnover of political and trade union leaderships.

44
Pietro Marcenaro in Marcenaro and Foa,
Riprendere tempo
, p. 85.

45
C. Levi,
L'Orologio
, Turin: Einaudi, 1950, p. 167. This is the description of the press conference Parri held at the Viminale after the resignation of his government.

46
Hughes,
United States and Italy
, p. 139.

47
I keenly remember this, but have not been able to locate the text of the broadcast in the BBC's Written Archives.

48
On the Auschwitz–Hiroshima link, see the series of reflections, collected under the title ‘La fine del mondo come gesto tecnico della mano dell'uomo', in E. de Martino,
La fine del mondo
, Turin: Einaudi, 1977, p. 236 (see also pp. 475–6, 630, 638).

1918: First World War ends; implementation of the Treaty of London (1915) denied by Wilson; myth of the ‘mutilated victory' born.

1919 (23 March): Mussolini convenes the
Fasci di combattimento
in Piazza San Sepolcro in Milan.

1919–1922: Fascist violence in cities and countryside.

1921 (January): Formation of the PCI (Communist Party of Italy) in Livorno.

1922 (October): Mussolini threatens to ‘March on Rome'.

1922 (28 October): King Victor Emmanuel III invites Mussolini to form a government.

1923: Fascist
squadristi
transformed into MVSN (Voluntary Militia for National Security).

1924 (May–June): Reform socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti denounces Fascist electoral fraud and violence; his assassination precipitates the ‘Matteotti crisis' and the Aventine Secession.

1925 (3 January): In a speech before the Chamber of Deputies, Mussolini takes full responsibility for the Matteotti affair and challenges his opponents to remove him from office; King Victor Emmanuel III refuses to ask for his resignation; ‘Matteotti crisis' is overcome; beginnings of full dictatorship.
Fuorusciti
begin life in exile.

1926: Promulgation of Exceptional Laws (outlawing freedom of the press, association, political parties) effectively ends liberal parliamentary system in Italy and destroys the legal anti-Fascist opposition. Regime inaugurates the Special Tribunal for the Defence of the State and OVRA (secret police).

1929 (August): Justice and Liberty founded in Paris by Carlo Rosselli; establishes cells in northern and central Italy.

1935–36: Ethiopian War.

1936–39: Italian Fascist and anti-Fascist intervention in the Spanish Civil War.

1937 (27 April): Antonio Gramsci dies after years of jail; (9 June) Rosselli brothers assassinated in France.

1939 (September): Nazi Germany invades Poland; Second World War begins; Mussolini delays joining his Axis partner.

1940 (10 June): With the fall of France imminent on the anniversary of Matteotti assassination, Mussolini declares war on France and Britain.

1940–43: Military debacles in Greece, Albania, North Africa, Russia.

1943–45: Civil war in Italy.

1943 (9–10 July): Allied troops land in Sicily.

1943 (25 July): Fascist Grand Council votes ‘no confidence' in Mussolini, who is removed from office by the king; Marshal Pietro Badoglio is named prime minister and announces via radio that ‘the war continues'.

1943 (8 September): Marshal Badoglio announces via radio that General Castellano, representing Italy in Cassibile, Sicily, has signed an armistice with the Allies who will thereafter accept the country as a ‘co-belligerent'; the next day the CLN is formed. German divisions pour into Italy via the Brenner Pass. Hitler, outraged by Italy's ‘betrayal', demands the country be treated as occupied territory.
   Anglo-American troops approach Salerno and Taranto. German Field Marshall Rommel is charged with occupying Italy and disarming the Italian Army in the north. Field Marshall Kesselring is responsible for the central and southern part of Italy; he quickly controls the area around Rome and is charged with halting the Allied advance at Salerno.

1943 (12 September): Benito Mussolini, arrested by Badoglio government and imprisoned first on the island of Ventotene, is freed without resistance from a makeshift prison on the Gran Sasso in Abruzzo by German paratroopers. In Germany, he is charged by Hitler with creating the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI), in effect a puppet regime, located near Salò, hence the name Salò Republic.

1943 (19 September): First military encounters between partisans and Germans. The village of Boves in the province of Cuneo is burned to the ground by the Germans. The mayor and parish priest, along with dozens of others, are burned alive. A week later there is a massacre of Jews at Meina on Lake Maggiore. The two events signal the beginning of Nazi terror on Italian soil.

1943 (27 September): Outbreak of the so-called ‘Four Days of Naples' (the first civilian uprising against Nazi occupation in Europe.) Allies establish a beachhead at Salerno while Kesselring retreats slightly to Montecassino. At the private residence of Mussolini in Rocca delle Caminate in the province of Forlì, the first meeting of the new fascist government. Rodolfo Graziani is named minister of defence.

1943 (9 November): A draft notice appears in all newspapers for four years of conscripts. Approximately a minority of 50,000 answers the call, most are sent to Germany for labour (with men captured after 8 September) or enrolled in four divisions under German command.

1943 (20 November): Workers' demonstrations in Turin; Fiat factory workers on strike. Germans name General Zimmerman to stamp out the demonstrations.

1944 (8 January): Verona Trial: Count Galeazzo Ciano (Mussolini's son-in-law and former foreign minister) is charged with treason for having voted against the Duce in July 1943. He and others are sentenced to death.

1944 (24 March): Fosse Ardeatine massacre.

1944 (2 April): Trial in Turin against General Giuseppe Perotti and his colleagues in the partisan Piedmontese Military Command captured by the Fascists. Condemned to death, they are shot at Martinetto. Period of greatest repression against the anti-Fascist Resistance. Nazi-Fascist terror against wide swaths of population in northern and central Italy.
   Palmiro Togliatti, recently returned from the Soviet Union, in an interview in
L'Unità
, the organ of the PCI, issues the so-called ‘svolta di Salerno', a call for national unity and the expulsion of the Germans and the defeat of the Fascists before any political revolution or institutional reform.

1944 (23 April): Partisans kill philosopher Giovanni Gentile (former minister of education in the Fascist regime) in Florence.

1944 (4 June): Allies enter Rome. While there is general jubilation and the Allies are greeted warmly, there is no popular insurrection against the Germans. The Holy See urges restraint and counsels against a popular uprising.

1944 (8 June): Political crisis forces Badoglio to resign; he is replaced by the moderate socialist Ivanoe Bonomi.

1944 (16 July): Battle for Florence begins; city is liberated on 10 August. The retreating Germans destroy all bridges over the Arno River, except the Ponte Vecchio.

1944 (15 August): The Allies land in southern France, forcing the Germans to defend the north-west part of the country. Partisans fight Germans fiercely for control of the Alpine passes. In retreat from Tuscany, German Wehrmacht and SS engage in scorched-earth policy; in Marzabotto they execute 1,830 civilians.

1944 (8 September): Partisans liberate Domodossola and form one of the first short-lived independent republics.

1944 (13 November): General Alexander of the Allies issues a radio message to the partisans declaring the summer offensive over and ordering them to return home for the winter of 1944–45. Luigi Longo of the PCI, speaking on behalf of the Corp Volontari della Libertà, responds that the partisans will remain at their posts in the mountains and will continue to fight.

1944 (6 December): Mussolini returns to Milan for his last public speech, while a German offensive in France briefly raises Fascist hopes. But the Allies regroup and advance, and a final battle for Milan begins.

1945 (21 February): Mussolini dismisses Guido Buffarini Guidi, a diehard fanatical Fascist, as minister of the interior in the RSI: a cynical attempt to mitigate the worst aspects of Fascism in order to attract moderate and conservative political elements.

1945 (22 March): RSI announces the immediate socialisation of all industry and companies. Fiat workers respond by forming the factory councils. Germans begin first desperate negotiations for surrender with Allies.

1945 (18 April): Mussolini leaves Gargnano and establishes final outpost in Milan.

1945 (21 April): The German line is broken; city of Bologna liberated.

1945 (25 April): CVL issues orders for general uprising; partisan formations enter Italy's largest cities. In Milan, Mussolini has a last meeting with representatives of the CLN, who demand unconditional surrender. Mussolini departs Milan that evening towards Swiss border.

1945 (28 April): Mussolini and mistress Clara Petacci are arrested near Lake Como and are executed along with RSI functionaries. The corpses are taken to a petrol station in Piazzale Loreto in Milan, where they are displayed to the crowds. CLNAI assumes provisional power.

1945 (19 June): Ferruccio Parri of the Action Party named prime minister.

1945 (24 November): Parri government falls.

1946 (2 June): First political elections: in the referendum between monarchy and republic the latter wins, and a Constituent Assembly is elected to draft a new Constitution.

1948 (1 January): The new Constitution takes effect.