A Civil War (21 page)
Authors: Claudio Pavone
57
âPerché non giuriamo', in
L'Uomo
, 3, quoted in Bianchi,
I cattolici
, pp. 223â4.
58
âAppello ai presentatisi', in
L'Italiano
, 15 March 1944. Another article in the same number, however, presents the RSI enrollments as âLa tratta dei minorenni'.
59
A. C. Jemolo,
Anni di prova
, Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1969, p. 194.
60
P. G. Proudhon,
De la capacité politique des classes ouvrières
, Paris: Dentu, 1865, p. 250.
61
Bianco,
Guerra partigiana
, pp. 20â1. Of Vian, the animator of the Boves bands, it has been written that faith to the oath, religiously motivated, was âthe main reason for his resistance'. V. E. Giuntella,
Ignazio Vian, il difensore di Boves
, edited by his family, Rome 1954, p. 6.
62
Action Party pamphlet âChe cos'è il CLN' (
Quaderni dell'Italia libera
3), p. 6, observed that the words of Badoglio's 8 September proclamation â âItalian troops will respond to attacks wherever they may come from' â reduced everything to âa question of military honour'.
63
The words are R. Cassin's, quoted in H. Michel,
Les courants de pens
ée de la Résistance, Paris: PUF, 1962, p. 49. On de Gaulle's and France Libre's self-legitimisation, see again Michel, âGli Alleati ela Resistenza in Europa', in INSMLI,
La Resistenza europea e gli Alleati
, Milan: Lerici, 1962, p. 27.
64
Valmy
, typescipt newspaper of the âSection parisienne du 15ème arrondissement del la Jeunesse Républicaine', May 1941. Accusations against Vichy of betrayal and dishonour are extremely widespread in the French underground press.
65
La Voce del Popolo
, 12â19 February 1944.
66
Article entitled âOnore', March 1944 (northern edition).
67
Giovana,
Storia di una formazione partigiana
, p. 63.
68
Bianco,
Guerra partigiana
, pp. 56â7. The test of the oath pronounced by Bianco himself is published in G. De Luna,
Formazioni GL
, Instituto nazionale per la storia del movimento di liberazione in Italia, Federazione italiana delle associazoni partigiane, Milan: Franco Angeli, 1985, p. 83, where an editor's note warns that âthe numerous conservative formularies of the oath are identical'.
69
Revelli,
La guerra dei poveri
, p. 478.
70
With this line of argument, for example, the âProposta di riorganizzazione', no author, undated, relating to the province of Parma, demanded the oath for every patriot (IG,
BG, Emilia-Romagna
, G.IV3.2)
71
IG,
BG
, 07315.
72
Ibid., 09447.
73
The text of the oath constitutes point 14 of a âRegolamento' (âRegulation') in sixteen paragraphs, conserved in INSMLI,
CVL
, envelope 90, folder 12.
74
Memory of the author's.
75
Battaglia,
Un uomo
, p. 242.
76
The article was published in December 1943 in
La nostra lotta
I: 3, pp. 16â19.
77
These words are Merleau-Ponty's, quoted in F. Fortini,
Dieci inverbi 1947â1957
, Bari: De Donato, 1973, p. 247.
78
The disturbing oathâfraternityâterror route is described in Sartre,
Critica
, vol. II, pp. 90â103 (âtraitors, in fact, are by definition a minority' â p. 100). Enzensberger,
Sulla teoria del tradimento
, p. 25, continues the passage on the taboo with these words: âThe history of revolutionary conspiracies shows us traces of this infection everywhere'.
79
L. Bolis,
Il mio granello di sabbia
, Turin: Einaudi, 1946.
80
Testimony by Bruno Vasari, functionary of the EIAR, Action Party. Bravo and Jalla,
La vita offesa
, p. 114.
81
Undated letter to his mother by Vinicio Gotti, soon to be sub-lieutenant of the republican National Guard (
LRSI
, p. 200).
82
Letter to his mother by Umberto Scaramelli, inhabitant of Fiume, participant in the March on Rome, detachment commander of the Black Brigades, who was to be shot by the partisans on 12 February 1945, written 28 October 1944 (
LRSI
, p. 168).
83
See, for example, Pansa,
L'esercito di Sal
ò, particularly pp. 142 and 144.
84
Letter by Roberto Nanni, 21 January 1945 (
LRSI
, p. 183).
85
Many letters collected in
LRSI
are written in this spirit.
86
Undated letter to his father by Attilio Gianoli, of the X Mas (
LRSI
, p. 140).
87
Letter to his mother by Filippo Uecher, 31 December 1943 (
LRSI
, p. 49).
88
Letter by Paolino Leone, born in 1928 in Mogadishu, 18 May 1944 (
LRSI
, p. 114).
89
See E. Amicucci,
I seicento giorni di Mussolini
, Rome: Faro, 1949, p. 317.
90
E. Lodolini,
La illegittimit
Ã
del governo Badoglio
, Milan: Gastaldi, 1953. Mortati,
Istituzioni di diritto pubblico
, vol. I, p. 87, agrees with Lodolini's thesis.
91
See
Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Storia)
, ed. Centro editoriale nazionale, quoted in R. Perrone Capano,
La Resistenza in Roma
, Naples: Macchiaroli, 1963, vol. I, p. 165.
92
Memorial letter of 18 October 1943.
93
Note written immediately after 8 September 1943 by Attilio Bonvicini, lieutenant of the Decima Mas (
LRSI
, p. 34).
94
Letter by Roberto Salvi, of a mobile battalion, to his father âold soldier of the Carso and the Piave' (
LRSI
, p. 155).
95
Francesco Attimonelli's reply to some of his fellow soldiers, undated (
LRSI
, p. 104).
96
Testimony by Canzio Eupizi, in Portelli,
Biografia di una citt
à , p. 263.
97
Memoir by Vincenzo Fenudi, carabinieri marshal, non-collaborationist, on the time he spent in the disinfestation bath of Vorlagen (my thanks to his son Mariano for allowing me to read it).
98
Invocation to the war dead are frequent in
LRSI
.
99
Enzo Braschi, airforce lieutenant, to his mother, 21 September 1943 (
LRSI
, p. 39).
100
Francesco Nepoti, born in 1926, of the âVolontari della Morte' battalion, to the voluntary recruitment and enlistment centre of Bologna, 4 March 1944 (
LRSI
, p. 39).
101
This expression comes from a letter sent to me on 26 September 1986 by Franco Manni about his father's experience. (I shall make use of his father's unpublished memoirs below. My thanks to his son for having allowed me to read them.) The second expression is attributed by Mazzantini,
A cercar la bella morte
, p. 221, to a sergeant who had fought in Africa, Spain and Russia.
102
See the note quoted in Bonvicini,
LSRI
, 34. On 10 October 1944, in a letter to a friend, Bonvicini was to express himself in a way that sounded almost like Alfieri: âI believe and I suffer, I feel â I want and I must' (
LRSI
, p. 35).
103
Unsigned article, âTraditori arrestati e deferiti ai Tribunali Speciali', in
La Stampa
, 20 October 1944, quoted in G. Gabrielli, âLa stampa di Salò e il problema dell'epurazione', in P. P. Poggio, ed.,
La repubblica sociale italiana 1943â45
, Conference Proceedings, Brescia, 4â5 October 1985,
Annali della Fondazione Micheletti
2 (1986), Brescia, p. 170.
104
Letter to his wife by Emanuele De Lorenzo, born in 1909, December 1943 (
LRSI
, p. 139). The fact that it came from Germany accentuates, rather than diminishes, the significance of this testimony, which is eager to speak in terms of the âpast regime'. De Lorenzo was to die fighting against the partisans in Val di Taro with the Monterosa. His contempt for âuniforms of every shape and kind' sounds pathetic, given that he was to find a much vaster assortment in the RSI.
105
Letter to a friend, November 1943, by Attilio Gianoli, of the X Mas (
LRSI
, p. 40).
106
Dionisio Biondi's declaration, quoted in Perrone Capano,
La Resistenza in Roma
, p. 166.
107
Quoted in A. Gibelli and M. Ilardi, âLotte operaie: Genova', in
Operai e contadini
, p. 137.
108
âEsame della corrispondenza censurata al 30 giugno 1944' (ACS,
SPD, CR, RSI
, envelope 9, folder 3).
109
G. B. A., âFucilazioni alle Cascine', in Bilenchi,
Cronache degli anni neri
, p. 70.
110
Ibid., pp. 70â1. Before the firing squad, the five men who were shot had sung âThe Internationale'.
111
âSpiritual testimony' of Giampiero Civati, killed 5 December 1944 (LRSI, p. 180).
112
Letter by Elio Busi, born 1902, of 25 October 1944 (
LRSI
, p. 216). A âMulti' is a member of the Fascist paramilitary Black Brigade.
113
Letter to his mother by the seventeen-year-old Dante Natta, 10 January 1945 (
LRSI
, p. 182).
The Legacy of the Fascist War
1. W
ISHING FOR AND FEARING DEFEAT
The âparty of the foreigner' has never been viewed kindly, especially when a country is at war. One of anti-Fascism's hardest tasks was to shake off this defamatory judgment, whereby anyone is to be regarded as a traitor if he sees the realisation of his principles as depending on the defeat of his country. It has been justly observed that âfrom an ethical point of view, paradoxically, “treason” is less tolerable in a democratic society, which admits diversified political positions, than in a totalitarian state, where it is often the only possible form of opposition'.
1
This was the pass into which Fascism drove many Italians when, on 10 June 1940, it declared war on France and Great Britain. This was the pass which as early as November 1941 induced a group of young Italians to write: âWe are reduced to attempting by whatever means to flee what at one time we actually regarded as our duties â¦Â to despair of Italy and the Italians, to think in terms of help from outside as the only kind which can liberate us from tyranny'.
2
The situation that had come about was similar to that sketched in 1858 by Fustel de Coulanges in his remarks on Polybius's defection to the Romans: âThat an honest citizen, devoted to his country, should rejoice at the success of the public enemy, that this preference is not treason, but almost a form of patriotism is a fact worthy of attention.'
3
Worthy of attention, certainly, are utterances made on different occasions, like that of the student Emanuele Artom: âIt is in Italy's interest to be defeated'; or another one, overheard in an
osteria
: âWe'd do better to lose the war, that way we'll be able to liberate ourselves from Fascism'; or again that of an intellectual, Pietro Chiodi: âHe who is not free has no
patria
, he who has no
patria
has no military duties'.
4
Some time earlier, an intelligent policeman, Arturo Bocchini, or it might have been Carmine Senise, had put his finger
on the problem: âOne can confidently state that in Italy the only ones who have good reason for desiring the war are the anti-Fascists, because only with the war will they be able to rid themselves of the hated regime.'
5
It was in fact since 1789, according to Bloch, that âRulers, in a war, place their regime at risk as much as they do the country as a whole':
6
Fascism â a common lot of many nationalist movements â had ended up severing and wearing out even the most tenacious fibres of nationalism â¦Â and proposing to the nation the conservation or failure to conserve Fascism as what was truly and decisively at stake in the struggle (whence â¦Â the invincible repugnance for a victory thus conditioned and, given the prevailing revolutionary immaturity, the withdrawal into a sluggish, resigned waiting on events with marked sympathy for the so-called enemy forces and an aversion for the so-called allies, which grew, the more likely and then certain their inferiority appeared).
7
Of this situation, which saw so many Italians living the first phase of the Second World War in an atmosphere ranging from hope in a defeat to the anxiety which that prospect provoked, by way of various forms of resignation â in the absence to this day of a complete historiographic reconstruction of this situation, two components above all will be traced: the anti-Fascists and the combatants. One of the premises of the encounter in the Resistance between veteran anti-Fascism and some of the new generation who had grown up under Fascism was the positions the respective parties took towards the war.
The positions taken by the various anti-Fascist currents towards Europe's headlong descent into war are well enough known. Likewise for the first phase of the war, which was the most tormented from an ideological point of view, until the attack on the USSR appeared to simplify things. The agony of Italian anti-Fascism needs to be seen in the context of the difficult re-conversion of the European left from pacifism, felt almost as a point of honour after the 1914 catastrophe, to the wholehearted espousal of the war against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Keep the peace or fight against fascism? was the problem that the European left posed itself with increasing apprehension in the second half of the 1930s; and the French trade unionist who put the problem in the above terms answered his question with contradictory baldness: âWe want peace even if this consolidates the different Fascisms. And we know that war would reinforce all
Fascisms, ours included.'
8
âFrom pacifism to fascism, what deception!', what âtragic sophistry!', was, conversely, how a Resistance newspaper responded.
9
The British Labour Party was for a long time held back by fear that a rearmament policy would reinforce the Tories.
10
But an American intellectual was keen to point out, after the war in Spain, that neutrality in the sense of non-belligerence did not mean âtreating the aggressor and his victim alike'.
11