The Politics of the Anti-Fascist in Italy
The Politics of the Anti-Fascist in Italy Strikes, Revolts Lead to Collapse Of Fascism and Fall of II Duce By VANNI B. MONTANA AT the beginning of the War, the main political organizations of...
...Dear Friends: 1 I am working on a film now...
...An understanding has recently been seeched between the Italian Socialist Party, aad the Action Party and their liberals...
...I know thic time must he hard...
...We will cee that it is done...
...It is a shock the first time yon are given the * command, "Fix bayonets...
...In July, strikes intensified all over Italy...
...Lutherans and many other sects— puny of whom left Germany years ago because of religious persecution...
...The Communist line all over the world became to support this "Milan Manifesto...
...A full-fledged Anti-War week was organised inside Italy from April 1 to April 7, INS...
...If there were such persecution, then we should be no batter than the Nazis and Fascists who persecute Jewish minorities or any other minorities...
...It was later revealed that the famous meeting for the "united front" had not been held at the Italian border, but in Toulouse...
...It is with a feeling,of return that I have picked * up the old habit Of reeding a morning newspaper...
...It takes, courage to say those words today...
...That this war will bring hatred is true...
...No one here says: "Starve the Germans...
...It has bten said that the Action Party, with which Count Sforza and Emilio Luasu ezn«*onneeted, is made up of liberals, socialist si and communists...
...Their conntry is s jangle of concrete and steel and petrel, of hanks and similar institutions...
...Nor does fine T^wribe the surge of joy which hits you for 5 »asen at all in the midst of an ordinary ¦Ts routine: I have come back and seen you sitting at BP desks, felt the gladness of your handshake...
...walked along those city streets which" meant so much to me, mingled with the crowds which are the bloodstream of New York...
...You remember once 1 told you that if war came, I would be the first to protest against any hysterical cruelty against the GermanAmerican minority...
...And we 'bought that they were being that much phony 4- adding to the silent hero tradition a jigger «l?'s-Weltschmerz...
...more heifers...
...Both An tonini and this writer backed the underground activity through regular short-wave broadcasts A wave of strikes almost paralysed the Italian war industry in May and Jane 1943...
...If I could explain it a service would be done to so many We have sons and brothers, lovers and huskteds, in the armed forces...
...IT was interesting to hear what you say of 4 the Japs...
...It was synchronized with special greetings from America by William Green, for the American Federatior of Labor...
...In the supreme moments of history terms like duty, truth, justice, and mercy— which in our torpid hours are tired words—become the measure of decision...
...For you know the good things of Germany...
...But the people I've spoken to have no sense of shame when they say, "Well, let the war last three years more, but don't make a deal with so and so...
...Scores of well-meaning or merely ?*Wu people have asked me, "Well, how does » feel like to be in the Army...
...The pacifist strain that once was in me still has enough life to stir in wonder at this...
...become a member of it...
...No people could have their homes bombed aad their women and children killed without building hatred...
...And then, I look down at my uniform...
...But if there is work here to be done, we must do it and Wait for that day...
...in Marseilles, repudiated this story and the same was done by the national leaders of "Giustizia e Liberta" in France and in the United States...
...Misib it is a strange feeling to be home on , farlough, to see the life that is no longer bum continuing without me, to find that though I htve changed, the sounds and smells and Statt oi New York are still the same...
...c) The Action Party, a new orgpojpatior...
...For to crawl on your belly ? W yards is not fine at all...
...As I walk along, I think: These people may work hard...
...The Socialist leaders decided not to emigrate from France, Among them were the leaders of the Italian Confederation of Labor, also socialists, this being the tradition of the Italian labor movement...
...Ja nd lead the civil disobedience campaigns, the ma - strikes and the peace demonstrations...
...It ia to bo hoped that the Americas Labor Movement aad the Vetted Nations la general wilt not fail hi taefr tarty towards the heroic Italian I noergrnemC ' * The beat way to help it b to facilitate Be commendations, to hack im a«*Mtan» through intelligent radio irn...
...I have been exposed lately to direct and simple people whose emotions have been direct and open, untouched by the ingrown ideological suspicions current here...
...I am happy in London...
...Italy wo« the first country ? this ear ssfcea* people proved to be able to break the home front again* t Faeriem...
...I - Eric Knight was a truly bi-national person...
...One of them wrote to him in London when the United States entered the war, deploring Germany's actions and saying: "It almost makes me ashamed of my German blood.1* Eric Knight's answer is printed below.] LONDON, January 14, 1942...
...Here in America, many newspapers were skeptical about the news of those strikes whieh had reached us through underground -channels But- in June 1943, Mussolini recognized the existence of those strikes in a formal speech, and their political character...
...who was bora in the Alsatian towa ef Colmar—that Barth«?» had foaght as a afaC eehcer ander Giaseppe Garibaldi, the great leader ef Italian liberation...
...We shall be happy the day we get back home...
...Enough of Fascism ? "Basts con- la gaerra Basta col f ascismo " The fascist police reacted by arresting thou sands of old Jlalians who 20 or 34 years before had Belonged to the Italian Socialist Party and the allied Confederation of Labor...
...It is the good uniform of a good Army...
...But with a bayonet you are actually pushing the steel...
...But newspaper reading is a sign of our civilization and I enjoy the feeling of community which reading the paper gives me...
...And I have ·"**> "It feels fine...
...You know that the militarists and Junkers have always been an evil influence, and that they are now standing solidly behind Hitler...
...They are starting to have a new significance for me...
...for instance, I saw in London statues of Gluck...
...The participation of the masses of the Italian workers in the anti-fascist fight became so large and important, that the leaders of the underground decided to reconstitute the old Italian Confederation of Labor...
...It is, perbsps, ? sanctuary or an escape...
...Or don't draft fathers...
...on the farmers, to hide their produce...
...But at night they go home to their own beds, their own chairs, their own walls...
...I am proud of the uniform and happy that I am wearing it 'today...
...You know, of all times, this is the time to have a good producing herd, for we shall need milk, milk, milk and more milk here and everywhere else in the world...
...That means everyone—and food is the raw material we ibfti first need...
...We don't want that We here—apd you in America—mast be determined, and we are determined, I feel, to fight this war with every strength we have, and then be as generous and . far-sighted in the peace as we have been determined in the war.' Well, I didn't mean to get writing a speech...
...When Prance was defeated, the Italian Socialist leaders moved from Paais to South France...
...Of course, here we are so near Germany, and everyone here ia determined that Naziism must die...
...With the Nazi invasion of North Italy, tha Underground work is destined to aeaaire an even greater importance...
...He had a farm in pleasant Valley, Pennsylvania—in the heart of the Pennsylvania Dutch country, rich farm land settled by men and women of German descent— Mennonites, Amiah, Schwenkfeloers, Hixites...
...So set all the milk you can from the good old bird...
...Notes from a Furlough Diary {Tk$*e notatioits are merely a record of random obeervatione made by *a former contributor to The New Leader, a private in the Amy of the United States, while on a recent furlough ht New York...
...A mealiest*, distributed for the occasion, carried the following slogans: Enoagh ef war...
...It seemed to us when ·» read those books that Dos Passos and Hem¦fsny were merely creating a literary convens* in order to avoid a little work...
...I still remember the smug smiles which succeeded the frowns when, about to enter the armed forces, I wrote in The New Leader: "1 prefer to turn: to such outmoded words and concepts, founded on the spiritual needs of people, as honor, dignity, hope, love, courage, common reason, brotherhood, decency, the holiness of man...
...Fresh milk, powdered milk, canned milk—we can't have too much.' It is the one baric health food that we build all nutrition on...
...Some went to Portugal...
...I have never heard any soldier speak that way...
...Suddenly, death by steel becomes a very pertinent fact Yoa can understand why brave soldiers have turned and run in the face of a bayonet charge...
...And together with strikes, peace demonstratio ? · were held everywhere...
...The great scientists of England, the research men and specialists in all lines and the educators and medical authorities ???» anwuthag even now to discuss that world, to form programs of how it shall he achieved, hew «? must go about it, what we meet do as soon as peace is here...
...It is the work I love and want to do, because it is about things that mean so much in the world'— proper feeding of everyone, open world trade after the war, ? great new spread of distribution of food that means markets for the American fanner and much food for all the lands here that will need it Probably we shall be faced by a near-famine in Europe after the war, and that is when America can really save the world through it* great stores of food...
...We are taking seriously the words of the Atlantic Charter that state that ALL countries mu:t hare access to raw materials...
...e At that time, the Catholics did not,yet have a political party of their own, aad the "Ciust...
...That is a world I wish to live in—a world of understanding and justice and kindness—that is a world we must build after the war...
...t According to direct information from Ahe Underground, at the moment of the fall of Fascism, there were in Italy only tits follow ?g parties: - -: ? a) The Socialist Party, which, together With its policy of "united front" maneuvers...
...Following the failure of the'Popular Front policy "and the Stalin-Hitler pact, Pietro Nenni resigned as secretary of the Italian Socialist Party, and lost leadership which went back into the hands of such men as Giuseppe Modigliani and Giuseppe Faravelli...
...Wartime London does not destroy those busts of great men because they are Germans...
...Phillip Murray, for the Conamsss of Industrial Organizations...
...It is only Nazism that destroys books and thought and art that it dare not leave free to the peoples within its country...
...As for the "Christina Democratic Party," nobody had ever knows anything about it The political party of tab Italian liberal Catholic was the Popular Party led by Don Sturzo...
...But where I had felt a kinship with all this, an emotional response, my reactions now are purely intellectual...
...They said that a new meeting had been held, this time in Milan, among the representatives of the "Socialist Party," the Communist Party, "Giustizia e Liberta*," with the intervention of a so-called "Christian Democratic Party...
...To be fair, there is more than this involved...
...1 The chief credit for the dowafaB of Fascism aad Mussolini belongs to the Italian people and their hemic anti-fascist vanguard of the underground...
...This was the beginning of the great revival of political and labor activity which was des'tined to influence greatly Italian events...
...Soldiers wives belong to our club and speak our language...
...Todsy...
...The clothes, you see, really can .make the'man...
...These people ware Eric Knight's friends and neighbors...
...Realizing that their protests were of no avail, the heads of the Italian Socialist Party decided to transfer the leadership of the entire Italian Socialist and Labor Movement to the Swiss branch which had broader possibilities of work...
...It is rather a proud city to be in now...
...It was attended by representatives of the Communist Party, by two individual socialists who had lost their position of leadership in the Socialist Party and therefore could not represent the party, and by she head of a local group of "Giustizia e Liberta'" who had no right to speak on behalf of the entire organization...
...We can't have too much milk, too many ergs...
...I think that it is a commentary on the people here—that I never yet heard of any movement to take down or despoil the monuments to artists of German origin...
...ea all Italians ? ·1?* down war production aad ta sabesaga war and Fascism in every way...
...Count Sforza .repaired first to England and fatter to the United States...
...The Communists then released another story...
...We want to return home as soon as possible, to patch up what remains of our former civilian existence, to start building again the living future...
...The name can be said of some prominent Italian republicans...
...They were inarticulate before *» overwhelming pip which exists between the "kfier and the civilian—even between the Whse and the civilian...
...They felt it their duty in wartime to stay as near as possible to the Italian scene...
...But this time England is determined on a just peace—a peace that will allow the truly great men of Germany to build a nation freed from the Junker militaristic control, a nation that ia worthy of Germany and its scientists and artists and musicians of the past It is a tribute to democracy that man can get up in London even as German bombers strike at England, ani say those things...
...with underground anti-fascism...
...It is being reeonatructec after the fall of Mussolini...
...por you people inj the United Slsjjjjwlio * have German background and blood...
...made up of intellectuals, and by former mem bers of the Republican Party and (he "Giustixia e Liberta" movement...
...Imagination can carry you the rest of the Way...
...It was the first admission that Fascism was cracking...
...A year to the day from the date of [ kU death he was in London working on the World of Plenty, which the British Minfjtry of Information produced and which is now being released in this country...
...tt ·*» Art & Truth Over the drone of Allied bombers ravaging Italy came the wail ef Fascist propsgaadlsts...
...This new "united front" was called the "national front", Its aerogram and purposes are the same as the Qsaapan "National Front...
...Probably this minis fantastic: an escape into a machine tesred for death and destruction...
...Luigi Antowrni, for the Italian-American Labor Council...
...But enough of the old way of life remains for them so that they can be comfortable, psychologically, and battles are no more than lines On a map...
...These people have become used to wartime living...
...While the U. S. sir pirates ia Europe destroy works ef art and culture, there are no such targets tn their country...
...The Army has become, in a short a time, awe than a routine and a formula...
...Despite the protests of the leaders of the Socialist Party and of "Giustizia e Liberta'," the story of the "united front" of the "Italian Border" made the tour of the world several times for about a year...
...What the Axis propagandists did not reveal—that the Statue of Liberty is not an American creation, bat a seal ? tared gift from France—that it was mads by Frederic Aagaste Bartholdi...
...At present Were is a revival of "Giustizia e Liberta...
...They are attached to some sort of permanence and privacy...
...The expression of this "united front" was a document, known as the "Milan Manifesto...
...I can just see you rubbing your hands and grinning about it...
...The leaders of the Italian Socialist Party...
...He knew, understood and loved both Britain and the United States...
...Their art treasures are the longest and moat agly bridge in the world, the highest aad maet agly building in the world, and the largest and most ugly statue in the world...
...In Walter Lippmann'e phrase, they are full of "gossip journalism, pipe-line journalism, intrigue journalism...
...I was moved this morning, again by Lippmanri, who writes...
...But of course that was ? answer at all...
...THIS was the situation when the Russian Embassy in London released a story aceocding to which a "united front" had been established between the Italian Socialist Party, the Communist Party and "Giustizia e Liberia'" following a meeting of their representatives at the Italian border...
...We can do one of two things when this war is over overcome oar natural world hatreds and start thinking of this world as a unit of human beings and have true peace...
...However, they soon found that Vichy France would not allow them any political activity...
...V -* la March IPO, the Italian Socialist* Party announced the beginning ef a new phase ef the civil Bmnmeahanas campaign...
...It will be the basis of peace...
...It has its inconveniences, its tragedies when casualty lists appear...
...We want the war finished and quickly...
...You know, you can't beat the law of averages, and Old Man Percentage was long overdue to bless yonr farm with a few...
...The leaders of the Italian Socialist and Labor Movement found themselves practically paralyzed in Marseilles and Toulouse...
...The Italian Socialist Party repudiated thu alleged "united front" and the same thing was done in the United States by the leaders of "Giustizia e Liberta...
...There is a good article in this subject for someone who has the time and the energy to write it I am continually amazed at the complacency of * most civilians in regard to the war...
...It is hard foe you to see people citing all Germany as a foe...
...DY this time the story of the "united front" of the "Italian border" had been thoroughly discredited...
...It could hardly be called reprisal for these misdeeds in Europe if, for instance, the enormous Statue ef Liberty were destroyed as retaliation for the destruction of The Creation' by Donatella...
...Before you know it you are being branded a mystic and a reactionary...
...It is s little frightening to think of being a civilian Sgsin...
...The trotii is that according to the constitution of tbe Action Party, ?? one belonging to any other political party...
...m It is the expression of the aew Comasppist line all over Europe...
...It was good luck about the twin heifers after as many bull calves...
...And this is only a very small part of it I have learned a lot of things, some commonplace, other poetic, but if you ask me what they are I will stutter a weak answer, an answer that makes you suspect my sincerity...
...In addition, there were a number oi small sects...
...pt...
...In training, you actually feel it bursting through the burlap and cane dummy...
...Well done, the bayonet drill has all the precision and grace of a modern ballet Its movements are calculated to give you the utmost power in thrusting,' slashing, parrying, striking with the butt—all these while the body remains in perfect balance and in fluid motion...
...Or we can make a bad peace full of hatred and put ourselves down on the books for another war in another twentyfive years...
...When you fire a rifle or a machine gun, you are merely acting as the intelligence for a mechanical contrivance to end life...
...they may work much harder than I do...
...Most of the "Giustixia e Liberia" leaden took refuge bat in Africa and then ia the United States...
...Ton see, here in England I find people an as anxious to build a good, safe, healthy, sase world, as the people in America...
...To Build a World" A Last Letter from Eric Knight [Brie Knight, the Yorkshire author of Thia Above All, The Flymg TarUhireman, etc was Ailed in an airplane crash January 14, 1943...
...The reward is not very great in terms of what I get out <Jf the papers themselves...
...Weber, Handel and even the great Nazi favorite musician, Wsgner...
...The aim of the campaign was to strengthen the underground organization and to have the Italian people voice openly what they were saying privately against war and against Fascism...
...Or open a second front even if it means initial failure...
...It called en the Italian workers to strike, to ferai their shop groups aad to transform the meeting ef the fascist labor aniens Into anti-fascist demonstration...
...Thinking of them and of myself, I know I do better in standing by my old sentiments than in joining the throng of "realists" turning cartwheels in the square of history...
...But yet we know that there must be a truly healthy and sound German nation in the world after the war...
...I am homesick for the valley and the farm...
...But the proof of this particular pudding is that any soldier will tell you how impossible it is to talk to civilians...
...They could **** talk about the war or the Army to the .*«u back home...
...Everybody complains, everywhere.- Certainly soldiers do...
...Both Hemingway and Dos Passps were rei°!ting with absolute fidelity...
...Under these conditions they can be very "idealistic" about whom we deal with in Italy or France...
...we can be frank and at ease "With them...
...In the fall of 1942, just a few days before the Allied landing in North Africa, the underground Italian Socialist Party launched its already famous "Civil Disobedience Campaign" against Fascism and the fascist war...
...But wearing it, I am no longer the same person...
...in the service of .the Army of the United gutes...
...I'm glad I'm here...
...rtj • · ." · AFTER the fall of Fascism, the name pensile ·*· who had put in circulation the story of the "united front" at "the Italian beaaanpsand later the story of the "united front"-ones ? ? the "Milan Manifesto," rushed to Uli the war id that a "united front" had been formed hsdaaly by five political parties...
...they can select their own friends...
...For some time I ¦*»* known this, but it has been brought home ff*e with pressing clarity, these days of my rnjough...
...These words have been met by snickers in a time of glib complexity...
...The announcement was reserved for May Day 1943...
...Handling them, you are struck by the pleasure yon feel at their mechanical integration, by the boding sense that this cam will move in that camway to broadcast immediate death...
...And it has no connection with the complaints about rationing and so on...
...There is no silly hatred of all Germans here—but an undying hatred of Hitler apd Naziism...
...The clothes they wear are of their own choosing...
...b) The Communist Party, which persists in its policy of "united front_ maneuvers, and which has some important groups aad leader* in Turin, Milan and Trieste...
...tIn many ways I have come to share this simplicity...
...assure it the financial ? lilitsast W saw labor aad antl-fascsst ergnnlaeClssnf eWooB...
...zia e Liberta' " movement had practically ceased t" ovjgt a« such, because its members, had gone either to the "Action Party" or to the- Com*- utiiMi...
...It is an indictment of Naziism that it would be impossible for any of the leading thinkers of Germany to get up and talk about helping build a better England after tins war...
...The world can consume all the food America can produce—and for the sake oi tbe American farmer and the European contamer we must see that those two ends are tied together...
...Remember the returning soldiers in the Dos rsisoe sad Hemingway novels...
...We want to win the peace, too, but the idea of quixotic gestures do not appeal to us...
...It will be food taht will build the beginning of peace...
...This same juxtaposition of beauty and terror you will find in the, wonderfully tooled parts of machine guns and light artillery pieces...
...The Politics of the Anti-Fascist in Italy Strikes, Revolts Lead to Collapse Of Fascism and Fall of II Duce By VANNI B. MONTANA AT the beginning of the War, the main political organizations of Italian anti-fascism were: the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and the "Giustizia e Libert*/ There were also some other groups, like the Italian Republicans, and some important individuals, like Ignazio SUone, Luigi Sturzo and Count Sforza, friendly and...
...If I could explain it...
Vol. 26 • September 1943 • No. 38
