Who chopped down that cherry tree? The Italian resistance in history and politics, 1945-1998

Journal of Modern Italian Studies

Volumn 4, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 37-54

  Miller, James Edward ^a,b,c  

^a U S DEPARTMENT OF STATE   (United States)

^b JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61149469454     PISSN: 1354571X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13545719908454992     Document Type: Review

References (96)

1. Probably the best critique of the failure of successive ruling classes to achieve consensus from the ruled is that cranky conservative classic, Giuseppe Maranini, Storia del potere in Italia, 1848-1967 (Florence, 1967).
2. From a different perspective, see also Noberto Bobbio, Ideological Profile of Twentieth-century Italy (Princeton, NJ, 1995).
3. Useful perspectives are also found in C. M. Lovett, The Democratic Movement in Italy (Harvard, Mass. , 1982)
4. A. William Salomone (ed. ) Italy from the Risorgimento to Fascism (New York, 1970)
5. and Fabio Cusin, Antistoria d'Italia (Milan, 1971).
6. This view is best represented in Charles Delzell's still irreplaceable survey, Mussolini's Enemies (Princeton, NJ, 1961).
7. In addition to Delzell, see Norman Kogan, Italy and the Allies (Harvard, Mass. , 1956)
8. and A Political History of Postwar Italy (New York, 1981)
9. John Harper, America and the Reconstruction of Italy (Cambridge, 1986)
10. W. Ellwood, Italy, 1943-1945 (Leicester, 1985).
11. The proceedings were published as G. Briglia, P. Del Giudice and M. Michelucci (eds) Eserciti, populazione, resistenza sulle alpi apuane (Massa, 1995).
12. The political tone of the conference was the subject of reporting in La Nazione (Massa edition), 9-12 April 1994.
13. One of the small ironies of this situation was that I have some claim to being the unwitting father of 'Combat film'. Two yean earlier, the USIA's (US Information Agency) Italian desk officer had called for advice about film resources for a group of Italian producers coming to Washington to work on World War II. I suggested the sources from which they culled their TV series. Neither of us was thinking of any political consequences. We were simply responding to a request. At the 1994 Massa Carrara conference, the honorary president Guido Quazza found the sinister hand of American imperialism in the 'Combat film' series, declaring it another US government intervention in Italy's internal affairs to support Berlusconi and Fini. Although I know that no one in Italy believes in chance happenings, I tried to disabuse Dr Quazza of these views. In the process I no doubt revealed myself to him, and others of a conspiratorial mind set, as an agent of Yankee imperialism. My formal presentation was reviewed and subjected to predictable 'strumentalizzazione' in La Nazione (Massa edition), 10 April 1994.
14. On the overall question of Marxist hegemonization of Italian culture, still a source of controversy, see Clara Lovett, 'Marxism and culture in Italy', Problems of Communism (November-December 1980).
15. Corriere has become a stronghold of neoliberal thought. Its major columnists include such stalwarts of this movement as Ernesto Galli Della Loggia, Angelo Panebianco, their illustrious predecessor Indro Montanelli, and that prince of pessimism, Sergio Romano. Giovanni Sartori, the US-based conservative constitutionalist, is another frequent contributor. The Prodi government, with its Catholic-Marxist composition, offered these heirs to Italy's secular tradition an inviting target. See also Ernesto Galli Della Loggia, Intervista sulla destra (Rome, 1994).
16. The Greek Communist Party (KKE) was able to hegemonize the resistance through its control of ELAS/ELAM, the national liberation movement and army. On the effects of the polarization created by the KKE's strategy, see John Iatrides, Revolt in Athens (Princeton, NJ, 1972)
17. and Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler's Greece (New Haven, Conn. , 1993).
18. The 1949 publication of letters written from prison by anti-Fascists who paid with their lives for their values had a strong impact because it melded together themes that have a deep resonance in Italy: the courage of common men and women, the barbarity of the death penalty, Italians as victims of both the Germans and their own rulers. The degree to which a widening of the idea of resistance has been achieved is demonstrated by a couple of recent publications: Giorgio Gainnini (ed. ) La resistenza non armata (Rome, 1995)
19. proceedings of a conference on wartime pacifism, and the Italian Ministry of Defense's recent study: Selene Barba, La resistenza dei militari italiani all'estero: Francia e Corsica (Rome, 1995).
20. Many of Parri's more significant writings on the Resistance, together with a collection of his other political commentaries, are in E. Collotti et al. , Ferruccio Parri. Scritti, 1915-1975 (Milan, 1976), a volume published under the auspices of the National Institute.
21. The fruits of the Milan conference on international resistance studies were published as La resistenza europea egli alleati (Milan, 1962).
22. Milan, 1962. The PCI-dominated Lombardy region published a follow-up volume on the thirtieth anniversary of the Resistance, with similar didactic objectives: 1945-1975: Italia (Milan, 1975).
23. Palmiro Togliatti, Momenti nella storia d'Italia (Rome, 1973), pp. 117-63, 189-275;
24. Ernesto Raggionieri, 'Il PCI nella resistenza', Studi Storici (1969) 1.
25. On Togliatti's ambivalence toward the Resistance, see Giorgio Bocca, Palmiro Togliatti (Bari, 1970), pp. 375-408.
26. A fascinating contemporary parallel was the way in which Togliatti and the PCI carefully crafted the image of the party's patron saint and victim of Fascism, Antonio Gramsci, to serve their political needs. See A. B. Davidson, 'The varying season of Gramscian studies', Political Studies 20 (1971)
27. and E. J. Hobsbawm, 'The great Gramsci', New York Review of Books, 4 April 1974.
28. Togliatti's disregard of historical veracity was the subject of the certainly not dispassionate Ignazio Silone, 'Letter from Rome: on the Italian Left', Encounter (March 1965).
29. The term was coined by Gramsci and is a most useful shorthand for writing Italian history. The Gramscian idea with its reference to the Risorgimento quickly and almost naturally passed to the writing of the history of the Resistance (the 'second Risorgimento') (Antonio Gramsci, Il Risorgimento (Rome, 1971)).
30. Milan, 1953; paperback edition, 1974.
31. Milan, 1956. Catalano stressed the weight of the Allies rather than Italian social conservatism as the key to the defeat of the long-range political objectives of the Resistance.
32. Milan, 1962. Enzo Collotti (ed. ) Archivio Pietro Secchia (Milan, 1979) provides a fascinating glimpse of PCI infighting.
33. Milan, 1962.
34. Milan, 1971.
35. On the historiographical issues, Nicola Gallerano, 'Sulla "sfortunata" storiografica del Regno del Sud'
36. John Davis (ed. ) Italy and America, 1943-1944 (Naples, 1997), pp. 41-54.
37. See also Nicola Gallerano (ed. ) L'altro dopoguerra. Roma e il Sud (Milan, 1985).
38. A recent and interesting entry into the literature on Rome under German occupation is Romano Ugolini (ed. ) Risorgimento e liberazione (Rome, 1994), the diaries of Umberto Ferrari.
39. Sandro Setta, Uomo qualunque (Bari, 1975).
40. David Ward, Antifascisms (Teaneck, NJ, 1996), esp. ch. 3.
41. Bari, 1951. Salvadori was both aware of and embittered by his isolation in the Italian political debate. He was particularly angered by the influence that he believed his left-wing brother-in-law, Emilio Lussu, another Resistance veteran, had in intellectual circles. In a 1974 meeting at a conference on Resistance history at Prali, he took me aside to warn me against the dangers of the ideas of men like Lussu, without ever mentioning the family connection.
42. Florence, 1974; original edition, 1955.
43. Milan, 1983.
44. Giulio Andreotti, Concerto a sei voci (Rome, 1945);
45. Giulio Andreotti, De Gasperi e il suo tempo (Milan, 1964);
46. Giulio Andreotti, Intervista sul De Gasperi (Bari, 1977);
47. Pietro Scoppola, La proposta politica di De Gasperi (Bologna, 1977).
48. Rome, 1987-9.
49. Bari, 1971.
50. Mino Monicelli, L'ultrasinistra in Italia (Bari, 1978), is a fine contemporary account of the movement.
51. On the intellectual roots of violence, Richard Drake, The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy (Bloomington, Ind. , 1989).
52. Another useful perspective is Giorgio Galli, Storia del partito armato (Milan, 1986). In recent years, the 'memoirs' or recollections of the terrorists have become a sort of garden industry for Italian publishen. While useful for understanding the mind-set of the terrorists and the reasons for their failure, they are less satisfying on the intellectual history of the movement.
53. On the 1976-9 period of cooperation with the DC, see Giuseppe Fiore, Vita di Enrico Berlinguer (Bari, 1989).
54. See also the commentary in Galli, Storia del partito armato.
55. A collection of Berlinguer's statements outlining the 'historic compromise' strategy is E. Berlinguer, La questione comunista (Rome, 1975).
56. Two studies that nicely contrast the impact of the Berlinguer policy are Joan B. Urban, Moscow and the Italian Communist Party (Ithaca, NY, 1986)
57. and Mario Margiocco, Stati Uniti e PCI (Bari, 1981).
58. On the local level, see Stephen Hellman, Italian Communism in Transition: the Rise and Fall of the Historic Compromise in Turin, 1975-1980 (New York, 1988).
59. D. W. Ellwood, L'alleato nemico (Milan, 1977), includes bibliographical citations to the author's earlier studies.
60. Milan, 1976.
61. Giovanni De Luna, Storia del Partito d'Azione (Milan, 1982).
62. Milan, 1975. To this list, a number of other books could be added, including Collotti, Archivio Pietro Secchia. Its appearance in 1979 created considerable and generally unfavorable discussion of the postwar PCI.
63. On the decline of the PCI, see Salvatore Sechi, 'L'autunno del PCI', Il Mulino 37 (January 1989).
64. The PCI's redefinition of itself as 'Eurocommunist' captured the favorable attention of many West European and US intellectuals. See, for example, Wolfgang Leonhardt, Eurocommunism (New York, 1978);
65. Urban, Moscow and the Italian Communist Party, and the exchange on the meaning of the movement in G. R. Urban (ed. ) Eurocommunism (New York, 1978).
66. It thoroughly frightened the US Right: Austin Raney and Giovanni Sartori (eds) Eurocommunism (Washington, 1978);
67. and Michael Ledeen, Italy in Crisis (Washington, 1977).
68. Initially, these new research approaches fit the traditional Marxist emphasis on a broad-based resistance. However, they clashed with the desires of the majority of the Resistance fighters to keep the spotlight securely focused on their actions. David Ellwood tells the story of an early 1980s conference he organized in Pesaro. The effort to look at the social consequences of the Resistance was heatedly resisted by the 'old boys' of the Resistance who felt that only military history, specifically their actions, was worthy of attention. They were particularly upset by the raising of feminist perspectives. The 1994 conference at Massa was notable for its emphasis on military affairs.
69. Intervista sul PCI, ed. E. Hobsbawm (Bari, 1976), pp. 18-27.
70. Turin, 1975.
71. Paolo Spriano, I comunisti europei e Stalin (Turin, 1983), esp. ch. 18.
72. On the long-term causes of collapse of the old ruling class, see Pietro Scoppola, La repubblica dei partiti (Bologna, 1991);
73. Silvio Lanaro, Storia dell' Italia repubblicana (Venice, 1992);
74. Aurelio Lepre, Storia della prima repubblica (Bologna, 1993).
75. In late 1991 the press was filled with articles about the so-called Triangle of Death in 'red' north-central Italy. RAI-1, the then DC-dominated state TV channel, gave extensive coverage to each new discovery. The uncovering of these war crimes stories and the onset of parliamentary elections can only have been coincidental.
76. Turin, 1991. Pavone's political sympathies were of the Left, making the book even more important in both historiographical and political terms.
77. Rome, 1996. The book's subtitle, La crisi dell'idea di nazione tra Resistenza, antifascismo e repubblica, summarizes the author's Crocean viewpoint that the so-called First Republic (1946-?) was and is a parenthesis in Italy's history.
78. Robert Katz, Death in Rome (New York, 1967), is still a useful introduction to the massacres. The issue reexploded in the last two years as one magistrate reopened the whole case and sought indictments for three of the leaders of the via Rasella attempt. Rosario Bentevegna, one of the leaders of the operation, who has always been sensitive to the criticisms of the action from the Center and Right, responded in Operazione via Rasella: Verità e menzogne (Rome, 1996).
79. See also his earlier Achtung Banditen (Milan, 1994; 1st edn 1984). Another of these acts of terror that was questioned both then and now was the 1944 killing of the 69-year-old philosopher Giovanni Gentile by the PCI hit squad. Florence was saved from a massacre similar to the one that took place in Rome only by the intervention of Gentile's family.
80. On the development and ideology of the neofascist Right, see Michele Brambilla, Interrogatorio alle destre (Milan, 1995)
81. and Marco Tarchi, Cinquant'anni di nostalgia (Milan, 1995). Interestingly, both books appeared in a series sponsored by Corriere della Sera.
82. Some of Fini's 1994 comments, made just before and after the anniversary of the liberation of Rome and the Normandy invasion, revealed how deeply he was tied to the neofascist version of the past. He defended Mussolini as the 'greatest statesman of the twentieth century', suggested that the regime was an essentially acceptable form of governance until the adoption of anti-Semitic racial laws in 1938, and cast doubt on the value of liberation by the Anglo-Americans. Having learned from the public reaction to these statements, Fini did a complete volte-face on Mussolini as an historical figure. See, for example, the interview with Fini in Fabrizio Ravaglioli, Italia, mia (Rome, 1995).
83. Turin, 1974.
84. The battle between De Felice and the Left was (and remains despite his death) a no-holds-barred bar-room brawl. From 1974 onward De Felice was subjected to a stream of personal attack that was excessive even by Italy's highly permissive standards. The bitterness remains evident among his students and allies as well as among his critics. The republication of his controversial Intervista sul Fascismo (Bari, 1975) in 1997 gave Corriere della Sera, 11 November, 1997, the opportunity to review the contending parties.
85. Elena Aga Rossi, one of De Felice's collaborators, together with her Russian-born husband, Victor Zaslavsky, have scoured Soviet archives with considerable success (Togliatti e Stalin, Bologna, 1997).
86. In the background to this effort was the 1992 publication of a Togliatti letter from Moscow by the historian Franco Andreucci. For some unknown reason, Andreucci appears to have doctored a very damning expression of Togliatti's indifference to the fate of Italian POWs. For a summary of the document and early stages of the controversy, see Washington Post, 8 February 1992.
87. As part of its pressure on the PDS to renounce its past, Corriere found the opportunity to republish the document, this time without falsifications, irresistible. See both the translation and commentary in Corriere della Sera, 14 January 1998.
88. Alla guida del CLNAI (Bologna, 1995).
89. Renzo De Felice, Rosso e Nero (Rome, 1996), pp. 45-6, 55-6, 73, 80, 89, 100, 106-7, 123-5.
90. The critics include Nicola Tranfaglia, Un passato scomodo (Rome, 1996).
91. See also Gian Enrico Rusconi, Resistenza e postfascismo (Bologna, 1995).
92. On the transformation, David Kertzer, Politics and Symbols (Yale, 1996)
93. and Leonard Weinberg, The Transformation of Italian Communism (London, 1995).
94. G. Valdevit (ed. ) Fiobe (Venice, 1997). Resistance veteran Enzo Tassanari, who reviewed an earlier draft of this manuscript, makes the point that events taking place after 2 May 1945, the date of the final German surrender, should lie outside the debate on a Resistance that ended with the capitulation. While there is some justice in this position, partisan bands remained armed and organized for some period after the war and attacks like that at Schio were carried out by individuals who, whatever the complex of their motivations, certainly believed that they were acting as anti-Fascists.
95. The degree to which this issue is a burden to the PDS was revealed by the controversy surrounding the screening of the 1997 film Porzus, an essentially factual recounting of the slaughter of a band of non-Communist partisans by a PCI guerrilla unit. Predictably, Corriere della Sera gave major coverage to the film and the debate over it. Equally predictably, the political sensitivity of the issues involved led to curtailed showings of the film in some areas (information supplied by Douglas Forsyth). An example of the critique of the PCI from the Left is M. Flores and N. Gallerano, Sul PCI (Bologna, 1992).
96. See also Maurizio Caprera, Lavoro riservato (Milan, 1997).