A Civil War (40 page)

In a later chapter we shall see how the exercise of justice constituted one of the channels leading to a more or less definite institutional order. Likewise in the field of discipline and its visible signs. For example, the first partisans did not wear uniforms, refusing to regard themselves as the possible shreds of those of the Royal Army. Hatred of the uniform was a part not only of what I have called the repudiation of the Royal Army, but of a more radical feeling of repulsion for militarism.
⁵⁴
Gian Carlo Pajetta recounts that he had always imagined
a ‘popular army' in workers' overalls.
⁵⁵
Then, little by little, dress with at least some common features begins to become a distinctive sign of group identities. An imaginative and whimsical liking for individual variants persists, revealing a deep repugnance for ‘the uniform'.
⁵⁶
Even the armed corps of the RSI often wore somewhat motley uniforms; but in their case the model was that of the ‘non-regulation uniform', an extravagance conceded to the confused desire, which they in turn had, to appear irregulars. It is no accident that the most distinctive corps on this score – the
paracadutisti
, the Decima Mas, the Muti – flaunted, even in the name of elegance, these deviations from complete uniformity.

In its ‘internal regulations' issued after unification – as late as 18 April 1945 – the general Command of the CVL would content itself with prescribing that, without prejudice to the use of the partisan badge and/or armband, ‘if possible one should aim at having uniformity in the equipment. The essential items of the uniform are: windbreaker and long skier's trousers'.
⁵⁷
A Garibaldi chief noted: ‘It's strange to observe how the uniform would raise us in the esteem as much of the civilian population as of the enemy';
⁵⁸
in fact it was not that strange, but it is interesting that a Garibaldino should have considered it so.

Uniforms meant that recognisable ranks were adopted. On this score the general Command of the CVL issued meticulous instructions, taking care among other things to point out, after initially taking a different line, that ‘there are no ranks in the CVL, but only command assignments';
⁵⁹
and this had for example been the practice of the Lunense division
⁶⁰
and the Italia Libera band of the Val Maira.
⁶¹
Cino and Ciro, though aiming at a firm military organisation of their formations, had urged: ‘Symbols of rank will have to be simple and not too conspicuous.'
⁶²
The Biella zone Command was to complain that ‘the badges
of duties indicated seem to us to be real badges of rank'.
⁶³
In short, if one really couldn't do without them, let there be ranks, but with discretion. A discretion which, at a distance of years, Pajetta no longer felt the need to respect when he wrote: ‘We established the forms and the colour of the ranks, even if the Garibaldini continued to sing: “There's no lieutenant nor captain”, echoing the infancy of the Red Army.'
⁶⁴

In almost all the expressions issued to outline the most suitable discipline for the partisans, there is the dialectic between the necessity that it be firm and incontrovertible and the need felt equally strongly that it be based on self-conviction. Even the infelicitous formula used in a Garibaldi document – ‘prompt, unconditional, absolute obedience' – is ennobled by the motivation sustaining it – ‘because my chiefs have been freely accepted by me' – and by the duty given to each combatant to check that his chief did not degenerate.
⁶⁵
It is a document which, much as it recommends ‘getting the men used to discipline towards hierarchies', feels the need to specify: ‘We certainly don't want bourgeois barrack-room discipline, but nor do we want anarchy.'
⁶⁶
The advice that Antonio Prearo, the commander of the GL column of the Val Pellice, gave to his partisans included that of ‘being disciplined not in the sense and style of the old
naja
but disciplined in spirit … Remember that our discipline is the discipline of the volunteer: it may turn a blind eye to trifles but is inflexible in the things that are essential for us.'
⁶⁷
General joint discussions, ‘where the bond of close dependence on and disciplined obedience to hierarchical bonds disappears for a few moments' are recommended by a Garibaldi political commissar.
⁶⁸

The insistence on reserving discipline only for the great occasions was extremely widespread: ‘However, while discipline leaves a lot to be desired in moments of truce and calm, when there is alarm or the need to come out for actions, the response is unanimous and at such times discipline is felt.'
⁶⁹
A highly mannered reconciliation between discipline as
habitus
and discipline as
mere military necessity is proposed in a letter by Cino and Ciro: ‘Iron discipline in combat or on duty, free-and-easy behaviour off duty, contempt for the sterility of formal discipline.'
⁷⁰

Indicative here is a certain diehard distrust of the partisan police:
⁷¹
these police, for whom the need was felt at a certain point, might not appear ‘that distant from the all-too-well-remembered royal carabinieri'.
⁷²
But championing ‘Garibaldi humanism' against ‘the traditional Teutonic automaton'
⁷³
produced a variety of attitudes that cannot be defined that easily in terms of discipline, whatever adjective might accompany it.

What proved to be a particularly sticky issue was the ‘soldo' (soldier's pay) paid to the partisans, the object of widespread distrust, despite acknowledgments of its opportuneness as a channel for financing the bands.
⁷⁴
Neither salaries for the officers nor pay for the men, insisted Dante Livio Bianco with regard to the Cuneo GL.
⁷⁵
On 9 November 1943 the Communist representative of the Turin CLN declared:

But a year later a Garibaldi chief, Achille, who had reported that his men refused to accept differentiated pay according to rank, first of all received compliments on his style as an ‘old partisan, the jealous guardian of the fraternal egalitarianism of the bands', and immediately after a lesson against

The issue involved is well summed up by the GAP commander Elio Cicchetti:

In other documents there is a rejection of any economic differentiation whatsoever between commanders and simple partisans. ‘Giving different pay to officers, NCOs and soldiers', Pajetta wrote, ‘would be doing things more army style; the way we want it, egalitarianism means doing things more partisan style, which suits us fine.' The Green Flames, who in fact wanted ‘to do things army style', established a monthly allowance of 1,000 lire for the commander and vice-commander, and 500 lire ‘per la truppa'.
⁷⁹
Inadmissible, on the other hand, in the view of the Biella zone Command, were ‘the awarding of command allowances and the differences in family allowances'.
⁸⁰
The allowance granted to dependents was already regarded as a different and acceptable practice.
⁸¹
The same could probably be said of the one-off gratuities, like that decreed by the Action Party, for Christmas 1944, of 1,000 lire for each GL partisan.
⁸²
The weekly
awards decided on in November 1944 by the government junta of the free zone of Alto Montferrato provided for differences only between unmarried men, married men, and married men with children.
⁸³
But a cash reward for a successful action could give rise to the comment: ‘come si trattasse di mercenari' (‘as if we were mercenaries').
⁸⁴
In the same spirit, the ‘financial recompenses for acts of sabotage' were considered by Roberto Battaglia a sign of the intemperance of the highly courageous Diavolo Nero (Black Devil), before he and his band were called to order by the Communist Party.
⁸⁵

Indeed, what was to be avoided at all costs was the figure of the mercenary: the partisan had to remain a volunteer out of pure ethical and political choice. Understandable therefore was the disdain with which a Garibaldi document reacted against manoeuvres, attributed to Major Gufo (‘Owl' – Tito Cavalleri), to get the Garibaldini detachments of the Valle d'Intelvi under his command by offering them higher pay: ‘cornering soldiers by means of money (120 lire a day coming from the dollar exchange, rather than the Garibaldine 5 lire) is no longer practised in any civilised army in the world'.
⁸⁶
A document characteristic of partisan (and sub-Alpino) moralism complains: ‘The Turin CLN money began to pour in, contributing to making the environment less healthy.'
⁸⁷
And this is negatively confirmed by the fact that, among even the most scrupulous orders issued gradually by the CVL general headquarters, there are none relating to the ‘soldo' – uncertainty and shame, probably, rather than an oversight.

The process of militarisation interwove with the local character of the bands. To those drives towards centralisation, inherent in this process as in that of politicisation, local recruitment acted as a counterweight. Particularly close bonds of solidarity grew between the men, even when it did not previously exist, underpinned by the use of dialect, and a greater propensity to fight in defence of what was, obviously one's own land. The small local
patria
was felt to be threatened in a more immediate way than the large
patria
, Italy, and the motivations necessary to inspire men to take up arms could not always be transferred onto the plane of the great ideals of political and human redemption.
Roberto Battaglia speaks of ‘regional interests that had weakened the guerrilla movement' in Umbria; but for the Apuan and Garfagnana zone, he recognises the importance both of regional recruitment, which meant that almost every family had a young man among the partisans, and the wide and complementary presence of those whom he calls ‘partigiani contadini' (‘peasant partisans'), who did not abandon their work in the fields.
⁸⁸

‘Le quattro giornate di Napoli' (The four days of Naples'), remembered in the whole story of the Resistance as the glorious and spontaneous episode of auroral promise, have a truly exemplary significance from the point of view of the struggle
pro aris et focis
(for the altars and the hearths). A stone placed in the park of Capodimonte reads: ‘Died fighting for the defence of the hearth. 29 September 1943'.
⁸⁹
It was the first time in history that the ‘lazzari' found themselves on the right side. They therefore deserved to be recalled in the appeal that Benedetto Croce prepared, in the name of the ‘National Liberation Front', for the call-up of volunteers of the ‘Gruppi combattenti Italia': ‘Men, women, children of Naples have demonstrated, despite the few weapons they have managed to procure for themselves, that heart and that pugnacious spirit and that spontaneous heroism which in the past shone in famous defences of our city against foreigners.'
⁹⁰
Palmiro Togliatti, too, speaking to the Neapolitan partisan leaders, would first recall the Jacobins of 1799, but then add that in the ‘people's struggle against an invading army … whatever explanation one might wish to give to it, one is however compelled to recognise the dawn of an instinctive manifestation of national force and patriotic spirit'.
⁹¹
Nor was this just a Neapolitan phenomenon.
Pai nestris fogolârs
(For our Hearths) is, for example, the title of a periodical of the Friulian Osoppo brigade.
⁹²
The Resistance does, indeed, have this dichotomy running subtly through it: on the one hand, the solidity guaranteed by moral and material rootedness
in loco
; on the other hand, the risk, which could stem from it, of there being a shrinking of the ideal and political horizon. The leading national Resistance movements gave the first characteristic its due, but were at the same time concerned about the second. In a report ‘on the feats of arms from 13 to 17 March 1944' in the Monregalese valleys, Major Mauri wrote: