A Civil War (141 page)

18
Letter to the commander of the Trieste Battalion, December 1943 (
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. I, p. 181).

19
Letter to Simon, commander of the 1
^st
and 2
^nd
zone Liguria divisions, 28 July 1944 (ibid., vol. II, p. 169).

20
See M. De Micheli,
7o GAP
, preface by Arturo Colombi, Rome: Edizioni di Cultura Sociale, 1954, pp. 145–7.

21
‘Terzo fronte: guerra di popolo', Tuscany edition of
Il Combattente
, undated but between February and March 1944, issue 5.

22
‘Esame della corrispondenza censurata al 30 giugno 1944' (ACS, SPD, CR, RSI, envelope 9, folder 3).

23
Ibid.

24
Letter in appendix of Francovich,
La Resistenza a Firenze
, pp. 296-7.

25
For example, on 7 September 1944 the CUMER, expecting a German retreat (which did not then happen) prepared to descend on Modena and Bologna; instead, however, on 18 September the CVL General Command warned that mountain formations ‘should absolutely not let themselves to be drawn into the cities' (see Gorrieri,
La Repubblica di Montefiorino
, pp. 459–60, which refers to ‘Direttive operative per la battaglia della pianura padana', published in
Atti CVL
, pp. 194–6).

26
See Gorrieri,
La Repubblica di Montefiorino
, pp. 579–81.

27
See Catalano,
Storia del CLNAI
, p. 227, which refers back to E. Sogno,
Guerra senza bandiera
.
Cronache della Franchi nella Resistenza
, Milan: Rizzoli, 1950.

28
See the exchange of letters between Giovana and Valiani, published in
Il Movimento di liberazione in Italia
89 (October–December 1967), pp. 125–9. Valiani told the version of events in the text above to Bianca Ceva, who related it to me in an 11 February 1968 meeting.

29
On the value of fire and flames as a political symbol, see Mosse,
L'uomo e le masse
, pp. 101–3. The
Saggio bibliografico
includes three papers whose title included the word
fiamma
(flame): one was specified as being a ‘green flame' (
La voce delle Fiamme Verdi
, of the Sciatori Adamello), another as a flame ‘of freedom' (the Garibaldians), and the third, without adjectives, as the ‘organ of the Comitato di coordinamento femminile', presumably from Genoa (records 3419, 3528 and 4533). We can add a further
fiamma
, without adjectives and with no indications of provenance except the generic label ‘CLN' (from Mantua).

30
Such was the reproach levelled against the Milan and provincial SAP by the document (no signature or date) ‘I militanti di partito nelle SAP' (IG,
BG
, 011016). In Turin, ‘SAP shock squads and manoeuvres brigades' were created, the former carrying out the same actions as did the GAP (Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi,
L'insurrezione di Torino
, p. 177); the latter were reminded that they must not ‘be some national guard from the last century, to be made fools of' (Turin SAP Divisional Command to all SAP brigades in the province, 10 November 1944,
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. II, p. 560).

31
‘Rapporto sul lavoro GAP' by the Turin SAP Divisional Command, 30 October 1944 (IG,
BG
, 06051).

32
Padoan (Vanni),
Abbiamo lottato insieme
, pp. 60–1.

33
Revelli,
La guerra dei poveri
, p. 236 (4 May 1944) and p. 329 (2 September 1944).

34
Bianco,
Guerra partigiana
, pp. 95, 131 (on the political and human significance of the choice between the city and the mountains, see p. 28).

35
Bernardo,
Il momento buono
, p. 63.

36
Bloch,
Strange Defeat
, p. 104.

37
Circular on the ‘functions of the political commissar', from the Command of the 28
^th
Mario Gordini GAP Brigade, 15 July 1944 (IG,
BG
, 02311–12).

38
Scotti,
La nascita delle formazioni
, p. 71.

39
Letter from the Milan GAP commander, Visone, to the detachment commanders and commissars, 17 July 1944 (
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. II, p. 140).

40
Letter from Sandrelli, responsible for military work in Piedmont, 3 November 1943 (ibid., vol. I, pp. 116–17).

41
See his ‘Appello agli italiani', in Togliatti,
Opere
, vol. IV, 2, pp. 479–83.

42
Letter from ‘comrades' to the ‘comrade responsible for Val di Susa', Valerio (
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. II, p. 216). Just before, the comrades had written, ‘The partisan did well to take the opportunity and kill the two Germans. If he had had to await the authorisation of the Command, the two Germans would have escaped.' Giulio Nicoletta was the commander of the autonomous De Vitis formation.

43
Mautino,
Guerra di popolo
, p. 55. For mountain partisans, however, liberation from the mindset of being hunted could come through defending a single location (see Giovana,
Storia di una formazione partigiana
, pp. 136–7).

44
Testimony of Irene Candera (Ines), in Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi,
L'insurrezione di Torino
, pp. 48–9.

45
Cicchetti,
Il campo giusto
, esp. p. 169.

46
Pesce,
Senza tregua
, pp. 8, 35, 36, 72, 99, 146, 147, 45, 35.

47
Ibid., pp. 166–7, 213.

48
Calamandrei,
La vita indivisibile
, pp. 156, 177, 171–3, 189–90, 144–5, 125, 132. Giorgio Labò was responsible for the Rome GAP's weaponry and bomb-making; he was captured by the Germans and shot on 7 March 1944 (
Enciclopedia dell'antifascismo e della Resistenza
, vol. III, Milan 1976).

49
Report to the CUMER from the Command of the 28
^th
Mario Gordini GAP brigade (Ravenna), 29 August 1944 (Casali,
Il movimento di liberazione a Ravenna
, vol. II, p. 277); Pesce,
Senza tregua
, p. 90. In the former of the two documents, we read ‘Our Gappista does not live amid a heroic, military environment like the mountain partisan, but rather is immersed among the masses, and feels their moods and influence.'

50
Botti (C. Dionisotti),
Giovanni Gentile
. Dionisotti's view was fully shared by the Action Party in the North (according to the testimony of Vittorio Foa).

51
E. Enriques Agnoletti, ‘Ancora sul caso Gentile', in
L'Indice dei libri del mese
II: 10 (December 1985), p. 17. On the Florence Action Party's disapproval with regard to the attack, see Francovich,
La Resistenza a Firenze
, pp. 187–90, 295–6.

52
A comment made to his son-in-law, Raimondo Craveri (Craveri,
La campagna d'Italia
, p. 56).

53
From this point of view, the most detailed account is that of Luciano Canfora,
La sentenza
, cited above. It is a long and precise study of the ‘instigators' who passed the ‘sentence' against the philosopher; but his use of categories of little historiographical merit, the judicial terms ‘sentence' and ‘instigators', means the result of all this diligent scholarly effort is itself similar to an ‘order of enquiry' (a hypothesis) in an evidence-based trial. Canfora replied to the observations I made on this point in ‘Il mandante non fa storia',
L'Indice dei libri del mese
, III: 7 (July 1986) with a polemical vim not matched by the force of his argumentation, first in the Naples
Il Mattino
, then in ‘Il punto non è questo',
Quaderni di storia
XII: 24 (July–December 1986), pp. 99–101.

54
‘Storia di una vita: Giovanni Gentile', in
La nostra lotta
II: 9 (May 1944), pp. 14–16 (the words cited in the text are from p. 16). A briefer version of this article had already appeared in the 10 May 1944 northern edition of
L'Unità
, under the title ‘Giovanni Gentile raggiunto dalla giustizia popolare'. On its attribution to Banfi, see Canfora,
La sentenza
, pp. 251–2, n. 14.

55
See, on this problematic, Todorov's considerations on Spinoza's
Tractatus theologico-politicus
(‘La tolleranza e l'intollerabile', pp. 94ff).

56
An account of the identification between the cudgel and the sermon is at the heart of the piece ‘Commemorazione di Giovanni Gentile', published in the 25 May 1944 issue of
Bandiera Rossa
, the Milan newspaper animated by Lelio Basso.

57
The plaudits for Hitler were expressed during the commemoration of Vico in front of the Accademia d'Italia on 19 March 1944; the attack against the partisans appeared in the article ‘Ricostruire',
Corriere della Sera
, 28 December 1943 (see Canfora,
La sentenza
, pp. 172, 309–11).

58
Bollettino Popolo e Libertà
2 (July 1943).

59
‘La tragica fine di Giovanni Gentile', Rome edition, 20 May 1944.

1
See the preamble to the stipulations on justice, issued 28 September 1944 (Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi,
L'insurrezione di Torino
, p. 98).

2
Letter to the regional and provincial Party committees, undated but probably early 1945 (INSMLI,
CLNAI
, envelope 8, folder 12).

3
Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi,
L'insurrezione di Torino
, minutes of the 24
^th
session (December 1944–January 1945), p. 114.

4
ISRT,
Archivio Medici Tornaquinci
, envelope 4, IV, 1, no. 13 (29 March 1945).

5
See the note made by Sogno on 1 March 1945 in the San Vittore prison, which got through to the PLI delegation for upper Italy and, with its endorsement, the minister of war, Casati, in Rome (ACS,
Carte Casati
, folder H); and the letter from the General Command of the Garibaldi Brigades to the Command of the Valsesia, Ossola, Cusio, and Verbano divisions-group, 3 March 1945 (INSMLI, old cataloguing, envelope 148, folder 2).

6
See
Atti CLNAI
, pp. 316–21, 323–8.

7
Minutes of the session of the second half of September 1944 (Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi,
L'insurrezione di Torino
, p. 82). The establishment of citizens' and people's guards, primarily composed of partisans, was proposed in many documents relating to various different localities. The article ‘I partigiani forza di ordine pubblico', published in the 20 October 1944
L'Italia Libera
, expressed the Action Party's demand to this effect.

8
Session of late October/early November 1944 (Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi,
L'insurrezione di Torino
, pp. 107–8).

9
Transcript, ibid., pp. 339–51.

10
See the letter from the PCI leadership for occupied Italy to the insurrectionary triumvirate for Liguria, and sent to all triumvirates for their information, 22 April 1945, (
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. III, pp. 662–5).

11
Bernardo,
Il momento buono
, p. 165. Note this account of the moment of liberation of two extermination camp survivors: ‘That day they began to get their just desserts; I say just desserts, others would say vendettas, and perhaps in some cases it was also a vendetta'; ‘The Americans let us do it … they saw us, and they let us torture them a bit, and then they took them away' (testimonies of Benito Puiatti and Eraldo Franza, in Bravo and Jalla,
La vita offesa
, pp. 306–7).

12
INSMLI,
CLNAI
, envelope 8, folder 2, subfolder 2.

13
Iacopini's testimony, related in the degree thesis of Chiara Federici, cited above. The La Spezia
questura
counted seventeen summary executions of a political character in May, nineteen in June and five in July.

14
Quoted in ibid.

15
Revelli,
La guerra dei poveri
, p. 427 (27 April). On 28 April he repeated: ‘The important thing, I tell myself, is that each man shoots as well as he can' (p. 430).

16
Chiodi,
Banditi
, p. 144 (28 April).

17
Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi, (
L'insurrezione di Torino
, pp. 107–8).

18
‘Relazione personale sulla situazione generale politico-militare della zona della divisione Garibaldi Nanetti', written by commander Francesco Pesce (Milo) in Rome, 31 May 1945 (
Le Brigate Garibaldi
, vol. III, p. 719).

19
Chiodi,
Banditi
, pp. 149–50 (30 April).

20
Ibid., p. 152. Solaro was hanged from a tree on 30 April.

21
Revelli,
La guerra dei poveri
, pp. 431–2 (28 April).

22
Testimony of Biagio Benzi, in Bravo and Jalla,
La vita offesa
, p. 345.

23
Testimony of Raimondo Vazon, in ibid.

24
Testimony of Dachau survivor Elidio Miola, in ibid., p. 338.

25
Bruzzone and Farina,
La Resistenza taciuta
, pp. 28–30. Rolando and the two partisans were later sentenced to nine months' imprisonment.

26
Testimony of Elsa Oliva (ibid., p. 141).

27
Letter to the CLN
questore
of La Spezia, May 1945, from the commander of the 4
^th
operations zone, who invoked ‘the moral imperative to defend law and freedom, which was principally conquered by us ourselves' (quoted in Chiara Federici, degree thesis).

28
Calamandrei,
La vita indivisibile
, p. 232.