A Civil War (45 page)

In its proposal the Action Party was to present an international argument: the Greek experience could easily have been avoided if the partisans had presented themselves to the Allies as a united bloc. France and Yugoslavia were in fact showing the advantages of fusion and incorporation into the regular army.
⁹⁶
As their documents repeat,
⁹⁷
the Communists' fundamental objective was the transformation of the partisans into a regular army and their incorporation with the one being reconstituted in the South, even if this meant paying the price of an operation of a watered-down political value. The Action Party, by contrast, saw unification as the creation of an anything but blind military arm of that new organ of government, transcending the parties, which was how the party, or at least part of it, was fond of viewing the CLNs – as instruments of ‘democratic revolution'.
⁹⁸
The two parties most deeply engaged in the armed struggle were those that tried to tackle the question of unification and its political significance,
whereas the Christian Democrats and Liberals presented no proposals. The Liberals and Christian Democrats, and General Cadorna with them, on the one hand seemed concerned at the prospect that unification might bring with it;
⁹⁹
on the other hand, they were ready to take advantage of the benefits that the initiative of others might bring them, sensing that the prize catch was flapping in their hands. The position of the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP) was isolated: it appeared unenthusiastic – even though it eventually fell into line – about placing under the command of reactionary generals an army, like the partisan army, whose purpose was to remain ‘the efficient force for the conquest and defence of democratic liberties'.
¹⁰⁰
The PSIUP raised another objection: it demanded that those concerned, namely the partisans, be consulted. Documents widely attest that the latter were somewhat suspicious about what was, as Leo Valiani has subsequently written, not a super- but inter-party unification being imposed from above.
¹⁰¹
Scepticism was widespread about the true results of an operation by now aimed more at measuring out forces among the parties with a view to the post-Liberation period than at creating an effective fighting instrument. In his report of 31 December 1944, Giorgio Agosti was already prophesying that, given the different formations' political leanings and their extremely powerful
esprit de corps
, it would be a ‘unity of appearances': that was the only way he himself was prepared to accept it.
¹⁰²
A young Garibaldino of the Piacenza zone, though favouring unification, was convinced that ‘many things will go back to being as they were'.
¹⁰³
The difficulty of finding enough party representatives, as well as officers, to fill all the posts in the jumbled unified commands was an accepted fact. Gorrieri made fun of General Marco Guidelli who, at the suggestion of the Communists, was put in charge of the Modena Command zone: up in the mountains this high-ranking officer's letters-cum-proclamations were ‘greeted with utter indifference'.
¹⁰⁴

Indeed, the impression one gets skimming through the Resistance documents of the last two or three months before the Liberation is that, while the documents of the preceding months hint at a richer reality, which they do not succeed in fully expressing, things now are the other way round. The later documents mainly testify to the setting in motion of an organisation aimed at spreading a vast and uniform network of commands, appointments, and so on, carefully and punctiliously measured out, in such a way as to pre-establish
faits accomplis
, if not in reality at least on paper. This could even lead to increased quarrelling between the formations: involved though they were in the process of unification, they dragged behind them old resentments, born at times of their experience in the single commands they had formerly fought under.
¹⁰⁵
The bands, therefore, almost closed ranks in order to prevent new and unexpected ones, which might modify power relations, from springing up at the last minute.
¹⁰⁶
Moreover, these relations in the unitary organisms agreed over the table did not always tally with the reality that had established itself on the field. This was a source of concern for the Garibaldi general command in a directive adopted by the Piedmont delegation, which urged ‘doing way with the great disproportion currently existing between the influence and prestige enjoyed among the partisans and the population by the Garibaldi formations … and the actual forces deployed … For all this, a special effort must be made by all to create new brigades.'
¹⁰⁷

The Commands' and the parties' mental reservations and the partisans' moral and emotional reservations do in fact punctuate the process of unification. An interesting indication of this is the persistence, in several Garibaldi documents, of the leave-taking formula
saluti garibaldini
(Garibadinian greetings). ‘We can use it with each other, can't we?' wrote Fabio, who was responsible for military affairs in the insurrectional triumvirate for Lombardy, to Ciro and Cino on 13 April; and on 15 April Ciro replied: ‘best Garibaldini wishes (despite everything)'. Again, on the same day, Ciro ‘in the name of Cino too', returned with ‘Italo' (Luigi Longo) ‘the most cordial Garibaldini wishes (seeing that you still use this adjective which is so dear to us … I'm taking advantage of the fact;
and on 20 April Italo in turn insisted: ‘
Saluti Garibaldini
, mark you, because this isn't an official letter and no one can cancel Garibaldi from life and history (I'm not exaggerating).'
¹⁰⁸
It was in this spirit that the Piedmont delegation (and it was certainly not the only one to do so) asked that ‘detailed news about the ex-Garibaldi formations' continue to be sent. This contact needed to be kept up to ‘keep the bond between you from weakening.'
¹⁰⁹
‘Rife discontent' was reported among the Garibaldini of the Pavese Oltrepò;
¹¹⁰
while until 25 January those of the 6
^th
Langhe Salis division had declared their names and emblems to be inalienable, and had warned: ‘Some men, even among the politically more mature, have expressly declared to us that, the day they have to abandon their Stella Tricolore, they would sooner go home.'
¹¹¹

In the Cuneo GL divisions, preference was shown for stopping unification at the level of the zone and squad commands. On this score the
Notiziario
(Newsletter) of the 2
^nd
Alpine division appealed to the ‘libertarian' and ‘rebellious' spirit of the bands, and the solidarity born in them during twenty months of common struggle. In no mean terms, this paper denounced as ‘undemocratic' the ‘general approval' for a unification which smacked of the orders from above that used to come from Rome and now came from ‘the
impastatori
[pasta-makers] of the partisan movement'.
¹¹²
Even a GL pamphlet, while supporting unification as a necessary thing to aim for, dotted its ‘i's many times and warned against the danger that unification might favour last-minute ‘absentees' and ‘renouncers' exemplified by the colonels, among others.
¹¹³
There were those who were prepared to recognise the political opportuneness of unification as the premise for transformation into a regular army, and those who made no disguise of their scepticism as to the fact that it would induce the Allies to go back on their intentions to disarm and disband. Others preannounced a reluctant ‘obbedisco' (‘I obey'): ‘As for the cautious form with which our Garibaldini are familiar, we have to tell you that their political education and military understanding is such as to give them no difficulty in accepting possible evolution towards centrality.'
¹¹⁴
The core of the problem was summed up by a partisan chief as follows: ‘The partisans felt themselves to be combatants in an army of civilians.'
¹¹⁵

The Resistance press played a prominent role in the relationship between the parties and this ‘army of civilians'. It was not just ‘a combat unit … an army rather than an instrument to spread an idea'.
¹¹⁶
The aim of the press was to form new cadres and to perform a pedagogic function both for the partisans and for the mass of the population. Who should write, for what end, and for whom, was a frequent subject of discussion. Pietro Secchia took the Rome edition of
L'Unità
to task for having ‘become more a directional organ of the leaders than an organ for directing and organising the masses … more a bulletin and magazine than a combat newspaper'.
¹¹⁷
The objective of ‘activating the masses of the civilian population' is indicated as being essential in other Communist documents too.
¹¹⁸
Conversely, workers' criticisms appeared denouncing
L'Unità
for ‘addressing the population a lot, but the workers little and comrades hardly at all',
¹¹⁹
while in a partisan formation, the Belluno division, the main criterion was that the press should serve ‘as a means of educating and orientating party-members because, it was claimed, propaganda among the anonymous crowd should be conducted by individuals, with their example and their words. The best kind of propaganda against the enemy was in military actions.'
¹²⁰
The Turin leaders discussed the limits of editorial intervention. Some believed that corrections could only be made to syntax, while for others this was not enough: ‘Those who are writing are novices, they shouldn't be over-sensitive … you learn to write by writing.'
¹²¹
The objective was to have ‘simple and immediate pieces which mirror the daily activities of our units' and which were ‘the voice of the detachments', besides being ‘the guides for the commissars'.
¹²²

The Lombard edition of the (GL)
Partigiano Alpino
published, for partisan use, an appendix to Alfredo Panzini's
Dizionario moderno
, while the newspaper of Mauri's divisions,
Il Risorgimento
brought out, a ‘vocabolario del patriota' (‘patriot's dictionary').
¹²⁴
There are fairly frequent complaints about the poor distribution of the press, which seemed to make its production almost a waste of effort.
¹²⁵
True, each copy was generally read by several people; but there were also those who ‘as soon as they had read the paper destroyed it out of fear'.
¹²⁶
Congestion occurred, as in Genoa; attempts at capillary distribution were attempted, with a personal accompanying letter.
¹²⁷
Collective reading appeared to be a method aimed at strengthening the press's pedagogic functions. The party official responsible was advised to be the first to read and comment on ‘the article out loud; that way those who are interested in the subject draw near and listen and little by little the others in turn draw near; that's how propaganda works'.
¹²⁸
Less ingenuous than this is another invitation to read and comment, which starts with the statement that ‘the press is not read by the partisans. Like most of the Italian people they don't read newspapers: they're not in the habit of doing so. We need to overcome this resistance little by little, get them interested, ask their opinions about the articles, comment on them, etc. If
we
don't begin this job it will never be done.'
¹²⁹

The mural newspaper, which was widely used by the Garibaldi formations, was the most immediate channel for the apprentice to express himself. Incitements to do so smacked of Soviet didacticism: ‘It's an extremely effective instrument of criticism and self-criticism. It's very popular in the Soviet Union, as it was in Spain'.
¹³⁰
But there was also the sincere faith ‘that every Garibaldino has something to say, that he knows how to say it, that he is capable of writing it … even when the writer doesn't have a perfect grasp of spelling'. The person expressing this conviction also showed a great respect for the writer: one needed ‘to correct without ever changing the form', and possibly discuss the substance.
¹³¹
The mural newspapers needed to deal with concrete things, even the simplest things: from how the mess kitchen was working to the organisation of guard duties; to enable readers to question the quality of the commanders and commissars; to stimulate emulation of the partisans; to frame the great political problems – even if in some formulations suggested to them, the answer was, as in school essay questions, already implicit.
¹³²
Thus, the mural newspapers, and for that matter all the minor partisan press, often swung between public soulseeking, didactic purposes, and the instrument of direct democracy – between the expression of the way one was and the way one ought to be. It was difficult to find the meeting-point between the desire to impart and the desire to acquire knowledge. Referring to a cycle of lessons on the French Revolution, commissar Michele wrote: ‘I've been informed that there was a crowd of attenders at the first two lessons, but mass desertion for the third. The way the theme was treated and the theme itself more than ever justify this desertion. I've had this course suspended immediately.'
¹³³
The ‘combattente bibliotecario' (‘librarian combatant') is a figure envisaged in several organisational schemes;
¹³⁴
and after the temporary
conquest of the enemy garrisons, one commander wrote, ‘the partisan with a typewriter on his back was a typical sight'.
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