Antonini Asks Ouster of King, Urges U.S. Favor Democratic Groups
Antonini Asks Ouster of King, Urges U.S. Favor Democratic Groups labor Underground Seeks To Take Over Fascist Unions By LUIGI ANTONINI •jtUSSOLINI has met the ignominious end which he...
...The woods were sparse in that area so that, despite the: snow and the night...
...m . 1__ _ pass irttUI uut uittoiui iaj 1WWCI Mi WHfUWl, li v«I forces which created and supported Mussolini's regime are not eradicated from Italy...
...Pietro, Pietro...
...The tears prevented*jjy seeing Pietro fall a second time...
...and "Black Shirts...
...Bet tier* is still a little grappa...
...I recognised Piefro and instinctively I started to open my mouth...
...I CAME to in my own bed...
...All of these may be prophecies of disaster: it is net * at all sure that Grandi ia the coming choice, aad mat some way cannot yet be found...
...Fdr the sake of American and world democracy, we should be vitally interested in favoring those Italian political and economic forces which cab destroy the roots of fascism in Italy and repulse and nullify all communist efforts at a new dictatorial experiment...
...Meanwhile I thought: We were saved by the h...
...He staggered and was making signs with his hands...
...A few words els rifled everf", thing aad, saesads later, my companions' figures appeared in' the woods...
...whereas these rugged American plain dealers, from whom Europe waa expecting a refreshing whiff of frontier talk, ait on the edge of the chair, fumble nervously at the teacup and are afraid to open their mouths...
...I quickly reached a rock fromn which the steep incline to the .torrent could be seennn all its nakedness...
...j^..m-—» - ' - An overwhelming sense .of irony seised ne/l turned on the woman snd I slapped her hard and long, paying ( no heed to her supplications...
...IRAS along the mountain ridge toward the slope that leads down to the torrent...
...Even then, it eluded me despite my heavy weariness...
...It is dawn and in an hoar the mail will leave for the plains where I mast hide for ail the time I have l e f t . . . It is tiring to get np from the chair, but I shall go to the windows covered witfi a patina of ice and, with my nail, Sake off the flowerlike ice crystals, sift IOutside, the white mountains...
...The Italian people are bound to realise...
...With a knapsack weighing over a hundred pounds, he could put almost an] patrol off the track...
...Instead of relating the career of this betrayer of the Italian labor movement, for it ia already a matter of popular knowledge how this pioneer of communistic extremism went for money and power into the camp of the exploiters, I prefer to remember: 1—In all the resolutions I introduced or supported et the American Federation of Labor Conventions, and in all my antifascist activities, which date from March 1919 when the first fascio was formed in Milan, I stressed that fascism would spread in other countries, and would plunge the peoples of the world into'a new and* greater war, . . ' 2.—Together with all Italian anti-fascists I have tirelessly' indicated that the Italian people would refuse to fight for Mussolini's regime and that the sawdust Ceasar and his accomplices would be trapped and destroyed in the same hell—the war—in' which they bad tried, to engulf humanity...
...Quaglia ap ahead led the way and, in order not to lose touch, he repeated every so often a cry like that of a wild cat At the end of the woods before the trail over tbs crest of the mountain, we stopped to put on our white ski-jackets and to catch our breath...
...While Arthur Krock...
...Since we were'behind with the work to be 'Bone, wi carried out a big transportation job, five of us, one moonless night, when the sky was overcast...
...I tost consciousness again for an hour or so and late that night they told me the rest of the detenu: the two bodies had been buried hastily...
...I beat no...
...I kept myself from firing...
...Look at them...
...I hear noises from th* roam shove me The innkeeper of the place I am boarding must be getting up...
...that to us...
...I fell backwards...
...Instead of calling oa the people of Italy aa friends and allies, instead of offering recognition to any oppositional committee that can show authority over the mimes, we are patiently waiting for Badoglio to jail the opposition, them far the Vatican to dear the lines aaa cot mm m tours wita we next area, wao seesm -H to be Grandi...
...Italy - The Hour of Indection By GEORGE -DC SANTILLANA TPHE comic and otherworldly timidity of American * conservatives has brought them to a strange pass...
...After the tragedy of Pietro, I thought of nothing but wart In the evenings I had given up my usual readaig because, between the lines, searing...
...Jjsmil I listened behind a tree, quickly took off my leaner] gloves to rub snow on my bands and revive the ew**& tion...
...timing of one of the couple in the patrol who waf...
...I decided to change my position for one behind a fir tree a bit further up the slope ia order to gain greater viability...
...I am sure she will never talk: certair people are more bound by fear than a thousand assurances or words of honor...
...Only Scarpa said that a few days before he had beard i shot from a gun that certainly did not belong to on* of the regular police force or the border guard...
...But that would not improve the standing of the dynasty inside the country and he knows it He is simply engineering his abdiction so as to save the House of Savoy...
...I managed to pick out an indistinct figure standing some ten motors away...
...And he win try to get as many ce* eh* moderate opposition as he can to tie up with the administration in a saare-the-blame movement ami Ha Allied invasion forces will spread a blanket of susam ovex what remains...
...a performance, incidentally, which he knows would be greatly appreciated by the Germans too, who are hoping to have moat of their southern herder thus sealed against attack...
...It would be a historical mistake to say that die...
...My ayes burned from straining to see...
...all the greet movement of omlaioa that swept out Mussolini moans nothing that we do net consider it part of the war, that we are still mechanically insisting on somebody else—not the Italians delivering the country to aa...
...Perhaps she thought it all went on as in the films or the ^novels, and for awhile things had gone on a little mat wayY...
...Grana Peak is clearing through the clouds...
...Rosso could try to take my hnapoeev along with his own...
...If the home front had not weakened and crumbled, Mussolini would have been in a position to continue in power...
...If big governments make feob of themselves, they-won't, and even the Sperry bombsight will fail to impress them...
...but along the sharp drop...
...He flip-flopped once before in 1916, and he personally stands and falls with his German commitment He might of course, conceivably, stipulate a neutralization and then deliver the country to the Allies...
...I HAVE asad ap almost all Mm paper ia my notebook, •* I never wrote so much at oae time...
...I was surrounded by the comrades...
...It is the same old story that i ai tied us through North Africa in record confusion, cringing desperately to the gold braid of Vichy officials who abhorred and despised us, begging them to magic up Quest even more decorated and multiple-starred general to keep everybody in check, and being shrewdly advised by these powerful ones to go easy on locar"pi oiiieina...
...The United Nations cannot save them, eveh if they want to...
...But that is just What the present king cannot do...
...And in the end we shall have paid a higher ton in American blood...
...iPietro . .. your wife, your children]—an41 turned, to run back andmtook once more at" tne face- of my friend, but Pietro would not be there...
...In the silence little by little, I distinguished from the rustle of the branch** against th* soft met another rustle, then a few tracks in the snow...
...The only consequence of such an attempt would be that the Italian people would fool deserted fn their fLgJU for (political and economic freedom, and they would .'• oscpine easy prey of a well planned, ureU financed and well directed comV«*mat propaganda...
...jt . Th* Catholic pro-labor forces which in the past formed the Popular Party of Don Luigi Sturzo, and which are bound to be reorganized with a program of democracy and social reform...
...I crept along on all fours, took the safety, catch off my rifle, finally raised it to my shoulder...
...The removal of the material from the usual little inn was to) be accomplished by Quaglia and Rosoo, who were '*s strongest...
...She had wanted ' to/db something "'exciting," ^masrttfc* ainy the first shock of reality had unmasked her...
...Quaglia was a superb skier...
...heae forces...
...but instead of uttering a last cry of warning, I softly pulled the trigger...
...I felt a vein pulse., slowly, against the gun butt and I followed the two' flghres as they rani so small, across my line of vision...
...t Mussolini's end is an historical fact of paramount importance...
...He could not see me, but he knew where the shot had come from, and he was mskmg a gesture of greeting...
...But the plain fact si that we have already gone peat the open door te temek at the closed one, that now chaos will spread as Italy bleeds and burns, aad that the great popular movement, which might have grown to be a tide of liberation if we had recognised it is being in part suppressed, 4a part turned into blind fury and extremist subversion, ; Any talk of erections in that case would be a mere farce...
...The woman started bade on her tracks, running now desperately toward the woods end, after a moment, Pietro got up and he too retraced his steps up the incline...
...11/E were half expecting Badoglio and the King to act " as conservatives are wont to db, switch the administration as a Whole to the Allied camp and put tne army and its resources at our disposal...
...When she stopped sniweling, I wu,_calmer, and "Do you have a passport with an exit permit...
...Quaglia took the message and left Before morning, they all left me aad I fell asleep...
...They were to be stationed at various points along the mountain through which the border ran Meanwhile, our organization had succeeded it planting one of us as a "Fascist informer" in the town of R. . . . " The snow was already heavy below the three thousand meter line, and one day it snowed up and down the entire valley...
...We had already agreed on the trail over the crest, the one I had already taken with the old man one moonlit night when there was no snow...
...And now listen even more carefully: "Yon will tell the people who ordered you to 'work' among us that Pietro and I were detailed by out organization to a spot along the Jugoslav border anc that you could get nothing more out of Pietro because of his sudden departure...
...an excursion...
...She was ernvvefing and begged my mercy in a broken voice...
...The trees of the game preserve wen laden with snow and many trails wore completely unrecognizable...
...Ma first important move Was an anti-war week conducted inside Italy from April lat to April 7th 1941...
...Sometimes leg muscles were so toaaad aa to make it impossible to move and then we had » atop for breath, our hands plunged deep in the saoav At the outskirts of the woods we made a halt aad I fell asleep all at once-lying on the snow for a feW seconds...
...There is nothing like knowing your Way about as a real conservative does...
...Meanwhile, we shall have done our beat to turn our natural friends hap enemies...
...King forced Mussolini out...
...Now that ia just what Badoglio cannot do...
...to fire too soon...
...Jmtt as the' villain of the novel is supposed to do...
...aay what you like, call him great and clever, or small and moronic, it doesn't matter...
...reach the next Italian town...
...There was a great silence over all and the early autumn wind made the old tree trunks moan...
...Or at wast they will try to...
...After about two weeks we heard, by the usual messenger, that the material had been distributed without any difficulties, but that the OVRA had decided tc favor us with a few more%gents disguised as tourist...
...We decided to weir our white jackets, because the cook of the officers' mesa of the customs guard had heard them talking about the arrive^ of new elements especially trained to nse machine guns and strong portable searchlights...
...He would be just the man to be appreciated by the Vichy International...
...Quaglia had scarcely uttered his cry eoeton* when a bullet whistled a few yards over our hseee, The shot came from behind us, so we had been sam aad followed by the border patrol...
...I eased my comrade's body down in one of the hutches snd covered it with my cloak...
...I went back to the house with the papers, and ran across the woman: her ease and flairs were gone from her openly cringing- face...
...I warned once more that in case of surprise we should scatter sash in a different direction and, if possible, no one should abandon his load...
...The night of oar most important operation came: we had to carry not printed matter but heavy metal eases...
...Oar authorities had forsworn another Darian and had sternly demanded unconditional ami easier fromf Mhniiilliii hlia self...
...Jet us not>fail in out duty by giving the democratic forces of Italy a chance to make the land of Mazzini, Garibaldi and Matteotti as free a3 our beloved America...
...We have no come-back for that...
...recollections strll rest to greet me...
...v The carabineers will accompany yon very kindly as • far as the border...
...It organized the fight against Mussolini's war in March 1941...
...He had followed our advice to drop out oi sight and give the police a .chance to forget him...
...I wen I with Raga and Rosso, while Quaglia and Scarpa let the way...
...s I TOLD our three smuggler companions that Pietrt * had left They never asked for explanations...
...I checked the skis, poles and our white outfits...
...I had not reached the trunk when a ballet whistled through the branches...
...The Tall of Mussolini and Fascism foreshadows the fall of Hitler and Nazism...
...allied occupied Italian territory, and that free labor publications i be at once authorized there, - ', lThJa request should be promptly granted...
...r: Should the United Nations try a neo-Darlanist experiment in Italy, the military war may be won a few days in advance, but the political war will be lost for democracy to the advantage of some kind of new totalitarianism...
...I sensed that the last comer has dropped down on one knee in a firing position...
...are: ; ' -The Italian General Confederation of Labor, whose underground croups are coming into the open and are destined to increase to tremendous size...
...Th* trunk of the tree I had chose* Was young, and I, standing, rested tha barrel of my gun at a hilar catkin of the lower branches...
...Fine, ail right, then listen carefully tomhat you must do...
...Should...
...together on the method of carrying out the expedition over the most difficult mountain terrain...
...If I am all right he will %, who can be very very wrong...
...Another rustle, bat that time I noted a dark . figure on my right, stopping even nearer...
...There you will go^Pflar^Wce of the carabineers and you'll ask for the Marshall...
...A Tale of the Italian Underground By STEFANO TERRA TV...
...Bat we don't care...
...All of this gives as a chie to our predicament in Italy, and a partial preview of the future...
...whole group stopped here...
...and passive fascists...
...Come, all is forgiven, let us be brothers...
...I could recognise my followers at eight or ton paces...
...I called, and I could feel hot tears running from my eyes over the gun °till resting against my shoulder...
...I slung him over my shoulders and carried him back through the cool woods...
...I reguisted the eight for a distance of some five hundred meters and then I aimed...
...for his wheat bargabtiag power with a tamiu j which has suddenly become, vocal lies hi m*'capacity to avoid Allied occupation and take Italy oat ef the war by neutralizing her...
...IT was deep- night In the"woods The dry snow ehmg * to our eyebrows and our clothing...
...Mussolini fell on account of two great factors: 1.—The smashing victories of the United Nations on the war fronts of Africa and Italy...
...V • / j *r...
...We practiced the short run from the foui rocks along the drop to the valley...
...But,the end of fascism would be only an illusion, and Italy would ' —--------,, .— l .—¦ 1...
...you meet any other police you'll tell the same story...
...Pietro fell...
...And atom once the country ia cleared, an opposition which autev ~ aged to survive twenty years of fascism and to strike .* one of the moat important blows of the war is net apt to lose its hand...
...This helped, for I got up feeling lighter, m* started on...
...j Several times I literally saw red...
...But here comes an entirely unexpected action of the Italian people which causes Mussolini to collapse...
...To get back in an hour Fll take you outside the limits of the preserve...
...the stones and trees could be seen clearly...
...Only now am I aware that it has grown vary cold her...
...But once a country illbecome a battlefield, a population has to shift far itself...
...I had to get them both, one alone would have done no good because the surviver would have given the alarm...
...I will point out the road you must take to...
...God and the big battalions are with us again...
...Meanwhile, Quaglia had come up from the plaint where he had been working for a few months in i factory...
...The entire mountain is alive in the morning light: the dark folds of the valleys, the crests and ridges and the moveless snows, lower down, the fir woods, then the thick rush of the chestnut trees...
...It does make a difference, however, in other quarters...
...it follows the local leaders it chooses...
...This would be easier now tW^m the descending terrain...
...But meanwhile, our conservatives will have a fine opportunity for saying that it waa all a bunch of,, Reds, anyway, aad that they knew it all along...
...We insist that whoever it may concern should surrender unconditionally...
...The freedom and peace-loving Italian people have done their duty...
...It win be fascinating to am it carried out by Dino Grandi...
...We threw ourselves down on all fours...
...I saw vaguely a mart came toward me and lean over me, a match flare and I fainted...
...PP'^ . *. '" • Np Dorian Policy " > Or ffce People Will Tarn Extremisf « . : .¦•'HE fafl of Mussolini and his regime has created a political I situation whose handling will affect not only Italy, but the whole world...
...I by some mischance I could not get' XS you, there would always be someone of us who could, even if you went thousands of miles from hero...
...The men who helped Mussolini grab and keep in power: King, princes, fascist generals, anti-labor big industrialists and landowners, are doomed like their protege...
...The Parti to d'Azione, which is composed of democrats and liberals, and Which members of the former Italian Republican Party and of the underground "Justice and Liberty" movement have lately joined...
...No one was missing and they explained i that Rjues had arrived in time to get the Black Shirt who Was about to stab me...
...I had aa idea...
...I rubbed first one hand and tire* the other with snow so that they would keep warm aad flexible for the ssaammt ef combat, m At any cost I had to stop the patrol for, since they had no load but' their arms, they coutd quickly have caught up with the companions...
...High policy is not...
...Painfully I wrote a note to oar nearest center: we must tell oar comrade who is at R . . playing the Fascist informer to warn his Border Police that a patrol of the special police had crossed the border to desert and had been interned in aa as yet unideetrfied zone...
...I quickly removed the gnu from the tree fork and wheeled en the man to my right I fired at him...
...Later, it initiated its famous civil disobedience campaign, At the beginning of last fall, it inaugurated a new phase of civil dis' obedience, calling for strikes, mutinies and peace demonstrations...
...In that case we might all have been •wept down the mountain side...
...above treason...
...We have helped with financial contributions and radio broadcasts...
...As I turned to aim the gun at the enemy before me, another shot rang out aad 1 felt something like a heavy blew against my chest...
...Ton MUST do, what I tell you because if you talk, I will killyou with these two hands...
...The weight of the sacks strapped Over our shoulders seemed to crush tie brags out of me...
...I drew asm ' Quaglia to tell him to go ahead with the others byj»fr route agreed on...
...the material had keen consigned according to agreement But it was absolotely eawamdnJ to prove** giving a general alarm throughout the valley because of the disappearance of the two special police officers...
...Oar soldiers have done their duty...
...It was almost night, the pine woods were quite dark by now...
...I kept very calm...
...fascist of the first homr," member of the Grand Council, ambassador and niln»«i . of the fascist regime...
...Favor Democratic Groups labor Underground Seeks To Take Over Fascist Unions By LUIGI ANTONINI •jtUSSOLINI has met the ignominious end which he deserved * * * and which we of the labor movement, with mathematical precision, have always forecast for him and his shameful regime...
...One more shot It had come from not farther than thirty meters away...
...The idea that she could save her own skin gave hei enough energy to pick up and go on, and she behaved so far as I could learn afterwards, according to mj instructions...
...The evening before, we had met and agree...
...Pietro, my friend, why did it happen 1 Why...
...We would wait for them in an empty barn, where the material would then be distributed for as all to carry oar share back over the border...
...i The underground opposition, of which we have been informed regularly and directly, is led by the most acute minds of Italian labor...
...The leadership of underground Italian labor has requested our y. Department of State that representatives of this movement, Which wis a great factor in the crumbling of the home front under Mussolini's tj-embling feet, be allowed to take-over fascist unions in the...
...Perhaps they caught oar outlines as we crossed the ridge, silhouetted sgaSti the sky, I thought...
...The Italian Socialist Party, which stands for freedom and is tha keeper of Matteotti's heritage of democracy and labor civilization...
...The ballet had gone through the tree trunk and entered my chest...
...Aad that ia jest what that somebody ia trying to explain that he cannot do...
...Under these circumstances, all I could do to make sleep come was to drink...
...Mark Sullivan and their friends are voicing their fears that the "moronic little king" broadcast may hamper our negotiations and prolong the war, here we have Lord Vsnsittart a dyed-in-thewool Tory and the grey eminence of the Foreign Office, calling the little king names compared to which Grafton's epithets are harmless banter, and asking for a. thorough clean-up of the whole Italian palace clique...
...Thus the fall of Mussolini will have a true and lasting meaning...
...t J| * * * ' *«S M7E had announced a discrimination between eejfee...
...All of it mine, 0 mountain, my mountain...
...We agreed on the direction etc* should take to the event of flight The entire mountain crest was crossed withoat he* dent although tha going had been very difficult: the snow waa not completely frozen and we ran the tifk of starting^ snow slides by the weight of our heavy bodies...
...2.—The strikes, the mutinies and the great peace demonstrations which the democratic labor underground have been able to plan, organize and lead, inside Italv...
...Yoa will explain to him that 'you are really a foreigner who got lost in the mountains during...
...T- T I found him with his face ground into that mountain earth he had always loved...
...1 I flexed my hand aad slowly applied my finger te the trigger...
...If he asks you why'you look fxigfitened and your, clothes are torn, tell him you got vertigo from the altitude, your head,turned, and yon fell a few dozen yards...
...They had certainly noticed my last move, I thought Perhaps they think the...
Vol. 26 • August 1943 • No. 32
