A Civil War

by Claudio Pavone

  56 ‘Responsabilità’, leading article of L’Italia Libera, Rome edition, 11 November 1943.

  57 See C. Pavone, ‘Le idee della Resistenza: antifascisti e fascisti davanti alla tradizione del Risorgimento’, in Passato e Presente 7 (January–February 1959), pp. 850– 918.

  58 See the opinion expressed soon after the war by a distinguished Risorgimentist: ‘The constituent parts of the world of the Risorgimento – and someone who has been reared to revere it cannot write this without anguish – have been decomposing and each element is going all alone to seek its historical origins’. W. Maturi, ‘Gli studi di storia moderna e contemporanea’, in C. Antoni and R. Mattioni, eds, Cinquant’anni di vita intellettuale italiana, vol. I, Naples: Edizioni scientifiche italiane, 1950, p. 247.

  59 See the leading article ‘Per la solidarietà fra i partiti’, northern edition, October 1944. Compare, in the January issue of the same year, the placing side by side of the names of Cavour, Settembini and Mazzini, of Garibaldi and Matteotti.

  60 See Piccialuti Caprioli, Radio Londra 1940–45, pp. 116, 199, 358, 601. ‘The Remaking of Italy’ was dedicated ‘to the glorious memory of Fortunato Picchi who died Palm Sunday 1941, a martyr of the new Risorgimento’.

  61 The text of Metaxas’s speech is published in the appendix to M. Cervi, Storia della guerra di Grecia, Milan: SugarCo, 1965, pp. 467–8.

  62 Speech from Radio Bari of 24 September 1943 (see Degli Espinosa, Il Regno del Sud, pp. 80–1).

  63 The appeal, dated 6–10 November 1943, is published by Francesco Flora as an appendix to his book Stampa dell’era fascista, Rome: Mondadori, 1945, pp. 115–45.

  64 Carocci, Il campo degli ufficiali, p. 46.

  65 G. Zaggia, Filo spinato, Venice: Rialto 1945, p. 64 (cited in Rochat, Memorialistica e storiografia sull’internamento, p. 37). For an analogous appeal to the ancient memories of the patria (or, in this case, patrie) see the title of a clandestine French newspaper, L Bannière, Bulletin des amis de la vieille France et sympathisants de la résistance, the first number of which was printed on 1 May 1942.

  66 Memorial tablet placed by the comune of Padua in 1885 on the wall of the University in front of Caffè Pedrocchi.

  67 Bandiera Rossa, 7 November 1943.

  68 Nenni’s words figure in the text – prepared, but not approved – of the message that the central CLN was to send to the Bari congress (Documenti inediti sulle posizioni del PCI e del PSIUP, p. 106). The perplexities of the PSIUP are expressed in a document, dated 1 May 1944, on the Salerno ‘turning-point’ and the ‘problems of the unity of action and anti-Fascist unity’ (Avanti!, Rome edition, 6 May 1944).

  69 See the declaration, ‘Il Partito repubblicano italiano ai partiti politici del congresso di Bari’, published in La Voce Repubblicana, 30 January 1944.

  70 See Giovana, Storia di una formazione partigiana, pp. 214–16, and Battaglia, Un uomo, p. 181. When he became a Communist, Battaglia was to collect several of his essays under the title Risorgimento e Resistenza, Rome: Riuniti, 1964 (the first essay is entitled ‘Primo e secondo Risorgimento’).

  71 ‘I am convinced’, concluded that preacher who didn’t mince his words, ‘that the leaders of the government are either imbeciles or are acting in bad faith’ (quoted in A. Riccardi, Roma ‘città sacra’?, Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1979, p. 191).

  72 These words were spoken by lawyer Gino Fratti, Modenese member of Catholic Action, referred to in Gorrieri, La Repubblica di Montefiorino, pp. 254–5. See, in the same spirit, the newspaper Unità e Libertà, published 28 September 1944 in free Domodossola.

  73 See the poster Agli italiani di libertà, with which the Guelph Action movement invited all Catholics to join Democrazia Cristiana (INSMLI, CLNAI, envelope 8, folder 9); the article ‘Il risorgimento morale degli Italiani’, signed by ‘Il Guelfo’, in Il Popolo, Rome edition, 28 November 1943; the poster put up in Florence, immediately after the liberation of the city, by the Tuscan regional committee of the DC (ISRT). Matilde di Canossa was the name of a detachment of Green Flames of the Reggio Emilia area (another one bore the title of don Albertario). See G. Franzini, Storia della Resistenza reggiana, Reggio Emilia: ANPI 1966, p. 515.

  74 See Il Risveglio of Bari, 26 December 1943, article entitled ‘Saluto ai valorosi’ (‘Greetings to the courageous’, those troops fighting alongside the Allies).

  75 ‘Genovesi! Le ossa dei vostri grandi, di Balilla, di Mameli, di Mazzini …’; ‘Donne genovesi!… Che non ci sia un nuovo Balilla che dica: che l’inse?…’ (Saggio bibliografico, nn. 2196, 3049).

  76 See the minutes of the meeting of the Command held in the second half of August and in September 1944 (in Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi, L’insurrezione di Torino, pp. 66, 75–6, 78, 95). See also the regional CLN’s notification to the CMRP (INSMLI, CLNAI, envelope 6, folder 3, s, folder 16) and the Diffida (Warning) published in the March–May 1944 issue of La Riscossa italiana. Organo piemontese del Fronte di liberazione nazionale. See also Secchia and Frassati, Storia della Resistenza, pp. 879–80.

  77 An example of propaganda postcards with this motif is kept at the ISRT.

  78 See the article entitled ‘Garibaldi e le brigate Garibaldi’, in Valanga repubblicana, Fascist newspaper of Modena, 15 December 1944 (quoted in Gorrieri, La Repubblica di Montefiorino, pp. 210–11).

  79 These words appear on a poster conserved at the ‘Museo del primo e del secondo Risorgimento’ in Bologna. On the theme of the defence of Rome in the name of the Republic of 1849, see the three posters published by Piscitelli, I bandi, pp. 183–4. Appeals to the Risorgimento are widely present in the posters, single issues and booklets conserved in Fondo RSI. Figuring in them are, among others, the Cairoli brothers (n. 447) and Princess Trivulzio Belgioioso (n. 70), but the prevailing figures are Garibaldi and Mazzini.

  80 Letter of 5 March 1944 by Mario Moretti, who fell in Rome on 6 June (LRSI, pp. 76–7). I have already mentioned this paratrooper’s ‘spiritual testament’.

  81 See, in Fondo RSI, nos. 12, 481, 740, 1093, 192, 389. For the Pontida battalion, see Dellavalle, Operai, pp. 146, 143. For Balilla, see the title Che l’inse? of a Genoa newspaper, the first number, of 6 February 1944, issued as a ‘settimanale giovanile’ (‘youth weekly’), explained that that appeal had been made only in the name of patriotism, not in that of anti-Germanism.

  82 See ‘Gergovie’, 93, August 1942, which draws attention to the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, as well as ‘our beautiful Indochina, watered with the most generous of French blood’); and Libérer e Fédérer, 1 September 1942, article entitled ‘La Manifestation de la Légion Gervovie est un insulte à la mémoire de Vercingétorix’.

  83 See Giovani, Rome, 1 March 1944.

  84 See ‘Lo specchio’ (‘The Mirror’), comment broadcast 28 November 1943 (in Piccialuti Caprioli, Radio Londra 1940–45, p. 219).

  85 Leading article entitled ‘Saldezza del fronte antifascista’, January–February 1944. The battle of Legnano is also evoked, in Verdinian fashion.

  86 I have in mind the 4,647 periodical titles that appeared in the Saggio bibliografico, mentioned earlier.

  87 I have in mind the 1,106 titles registered in the Catalogue des périodiques clandestins.

  88 See La Pensée française. Organe des intellectuels du Front National du Nord et du Pas-de-Calais, July–August 1944, leading article entitled ‘Intellectuels! Au combat, avec toutes vos armes’, and L’Avant-Garde. Organe central des jeunesses communistes, 15 July 1944.

  89 Leading article, ‘Les Paysans de la France et le 14 juillet’, in Le Paysan Patriote. Organe des Comitès paysans du Midi et du Sud-Ouest, 14 July 1943, where Laval is the tyrant born of the modern 18th Brumaire.

  90 Bloch, La strana disfatta p. 138.

  91 P. Nenni, Che cosa vuole il Partito socialista, Rome: Casa Editrice Avanti!, 1944, p. 11. See Avanti!, Rome edition, 30 December 1943 (leading article ‘Né opportunismo né oltrantismo’), and L’Unità, northern edition, 31 October 1943 (article entitled ‘Giusta guerra di popol
o’).

  92 Luigi Longo noted that in Veneto 32 formations out of 112 associated themselves with the Risorgimento (Un popolo alla macchia, pp. 466–9). The list of cases that follows is based essentially on the index of organisms (registered as amounting to 1,059, widely diverse in terms both of consistency and of persistence), which furnishes the Guida agli archivi della Resistenza, edited by the archive-library committee of the Istituto Nazionale per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione in Italia, Rome: Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, 1983. Also used are the analogous indexes of the three volumes of Brigate Garibaldi, and of the Formazioni GL.

  93 See the ‘Rapporto del mese di gennaio 1944’ (IG, BG, 05076). And see Dellavalle, Operai, p. 115.

  94 In this case, as in those that follow, the figures are only indicative, based on the indexes recorded above, which are obviously incomplete with respect to reality, but also at times provide a distorting image, as for example when they register formations generated by each other as distinct.

  95 Declaration, made after the Liberation, by the regional federation of the PLI (INSMLI, envelope 90, folder 15).

  96 Testimony by avvocato Umberto Zaccone (in various authors, Aspetti religiosi della Resistenza, Atti del Convegno nazionale, Turin, 18–19 April 1970, Turin 1972, pp. 155–62). One needs to bear in mind the probable desire of the witness, who was a Catholic, to differentiate himself from the Communist Garibaldini.

  97 On the noms de guerre adopted by the partisans, see F. Castelli, ‘Miti e simboli dell’immaginario partigiano: i nomi di battaglia’, in ISR Asti, Contadini e partigiani, Atti del Convegno storico, Nizza Monferrato, 14–16 dicembre 1984, Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 1986, pp. 285–309. On the loss of identity due to the adoption of a false name, see the testimony of Pietro Secchia, who used a great number of false names in his life, in G. Pesce, Quando cessarono gli spari, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1977, p. 203. Nelia Benissone has observed that concealing one’s name for reasons of safety at times resulted in one’s well and truly forgetting it. Bruzzone and Farina, eds, La Resistenza taciuta, p. 47. It would certainly be interesting to compare Italians’ noms de guerre and their real names. See E. De Felice, Nomi e cultura. Riflessi della cultura italiana dell’Ottocento e del Novecento nei nomi personali, Pomezia-Venezia: Sarin-Marsilio, 1987. According to the author, about a quarter of the 1,200 forms examined ‘have an ideological stamp’. But while the Resistance, the First World War and Fascism occur very frequently, ‘no explicit and direct onomastic reflex exists for the Second World War, the War of Liberation and the Resistance’ (p. 29).

  98 Battaglia, Un uomo, p. 58 (see also pp. 153, 230–1); Meneghello, I piccoli maestri, p. 280.

  99 A Garibaldino band included both Dante and Ceka (Chiodi, Banditi, p. 110: 18 gennaio 1945).

  100 It is evident that, still less than for the names of the formations, in this field it is impossible to make a rigorous quantification. What is said on this score, both here and elsewhere, in the present text is based on my personal research and on fuller indexes of the names present in texts devoted to the Resistance.

  101 Anna Cinanni was given this name by her brother Paolo, a Calabrese, in homage to Giovanni La Cecilia, ‘because, if I’m not mistaken, there was a revolutionary of our Risorgimento who bore this name’ (Bruzzone and Farina, La Resistenza taciuta, p. 100).

  102 The other names are hard to classify: ‘Elenco dei compagni che intendono iscriversi al PCI’ (‘List of comrades who intend to enrol in the PCI’) (IRSFVG, Fondo Rapuzzi, envelope I, folder IV Gruppo Intendenza 1944). A Balilla appears also in the Modena division, which, after the reconstitution of the Command whereby the Communists became the minority in favour of the Christian Democrats (12 December 1944), had as its Chief of Staff a ‘Barba Elettrica’ (‘Electric Beard’), which had been the nickname of the Fascist general Annibale Bergonzoli, commander in the Spanish Civil War of the Littorio Division. See order of the day no. I of the new Command, 19 December 1944, and Command’s report to the CUMER and the commander of the British mission, Wilcockson, 24 January 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, pp. 113–14, 281).

  103 It has been rightly recalled that ‘anti-Fascism had to be created through the self-criticism of democratic interventionism’ (A. Lyttleton, ‘Storia di un’antologia fra vecchie e nuove storiografie’, in Il Mulino XXXIII [1984], p. 200). And the comment on the anthology Il fascismo, edited by Costanzo Casucci, which firmly vindicates the fundamental value of democratic interventionism.

  104 INSMLI, CLNAI, envelope 8, folder 12 (undated).

  105 See the typescript ‘Per il 61° anniversario del martirio di Guglielmo Oberdan: 20 dicembre 1882–20 dicembre 1943’ (registered in Saggio bibliografico, n. 2213; see also n. 2214).

  106 IVSR, Archivio, section I, envelope 49, CLN, Stampa non periodica.

  107 Article entitled ‘Un profilo del re decaduto’, 4 June 1944.

  108 ACS, Carte Casati, folder H.

  109 Editorial of Azione democratica, 31 January 1944.

  110 ‘Radiomessaggio per il 4 novembre 1943’, in Avanti!, Bari, October 1943.

  111 Avanti!, Milan edition, 8 November 1943.

  112 Avanti!, Rome edition, 12 January 1944, ‘Messaggio di capodanno ai giovani’.

  113 Late 1943 poster, entitled Il terrore nazista non piega l’Italia. Come i tedeschi possono aiutare i patrioti (IG, Archivio PCI).

  114 ‘G.’ to ‘Caro C.’, 6 February 1944 (in ibid.).

  115 For the use of this expression see Quazza, Resistenza e storia d’Italia, Chapter III, ‘Il Fronte resistenziale’.

  116 The episode is recounted in G. Manni’s unpublished diary, cited earlier, Ch. 1: 3, note 101.

  117 Anonymous report relating to the Valsassina (IG, BG, 0941).

  1 Directive on British propaganda for Italy, 20 September 1940 (see Piccialuti, Radio Londra 1940–45, Appendix I, I, p. cxiii). The directives of 20 April 1940, when the British government still hoped to keep Mussolini from declaring war, insisted on two points: to foment anti-German sentiments by recalling that ‘European civilisation and traditions are based on the Roman Empire and the Christian Church’; to reassure the Fascists: ‘We have the greatest admiration for the achievements in Italy of Fascism’ (ibid., p. xxx).

  2 See, for example, the replies sent by Badoglio to Churchill and Roosevelt’s message of 11 September 1943, and the proclamations of 15 September 1943 and 11 February 1944 (See Badoglio, L’Italia nella seconda guerra mondiale, p. 126; Degli Espinosa, Il Regno del Sud, pp. 53–8, 273).

  3 L’Italia Libera, Rome edition, 17 October 1943, and La Riscossa italiana, 20 October, gave prominence to the words pronounced by MPs Greenwood and Thomas to the House of Commons in the debate held on 21 and 22 September. See Churchill, The Second World War: Closing the Ring, Chapter 3, and Degli Espinosa, Il Regno del Sud, pp. 63–79). L’Italia Libera expressed its hope in an accord between the two peoples in ‘questa guerra di liberazione europea’ (articles entitled ‘Da popolo a popolo’ and ‘Iniziativa degli italiani’). On 7 May 1944 L’Italia Libera, Lombardy edition, republished an article that had appeared in the New Statesman and Nation that was critical of Churchill’s attitude and line regarding Italy. Il Risorgimento Liberale reminded the British prime minister that, if he had been deceived about Mussolini, why did he not realise that the Italians too could be deceived? (Nel 1928 … northern edition, November–December 1944).

  4 Communication to Roosevelt, 5 August 1943, in Churchill, The Second World War, vol. V, book I, p. 90.

  5 Interview given by Colville to R. Cianfanelli, Corriere della Sera, 8 June 1980: ‘Per vedere le rovine d’Italia non dovremo arrivare a Pompei’ (cited in Casucci, Il fascismo, p. 14, note).

  6 See Toscano, Dal 25 luglio all’8 settembre, pp. 14–17.

  7 The leaflet is conserved in the ‘Museo del primo e del second Risorgimento’, in Bologna.

  8 The text of the broadcasts, entitled La strada difficile e aspra, is published in Parla Candidus. Discorsi dal 13 aprile 1941
al 3 dicembre 1944, Milan: Mondadori, 1945, pp. 180–1, and in Piccialuti Caprioli, Radio Londra 1940–45, pp. 209–11. The directive for propaganda towards Italy is in a memorandum relating to the period from 31 January to 31 May 1944 (see ibid., vol. I, p. cxxiii).

  9 See, for example, a letter of … to ‘Carissimo’ (Damiani?), in Switzerland, of 8 December 1943, asking him to ask Radio London for ‘more Italian’ (‘più italiana’) propaganda, and to give more appreciation to anti-Fascism (INSMLI, Carte Damiani, envelope I, folder I); the stance taken by the CLNAI on 16 June 1944, recalled by Catalano, Storia del CLNAI, pp. 206–7; the protest by the organ of the Mazzini Society, ‘Nazioni Uniti’, against the fact that the American press was giving far more coverage to the French and Yugoslav Resistance than to its Italian counterpart (article entitled ‘L’organizzazione dei partigiani’, 1 July 1944, quoted in L. Valentini’s laureate thesis).

  10 The text of the broadcasts is published in Parla Candidus, pp. 261–3, and in Piccialuti Caprioli, Radio Londra 1940–45, pp. 235–7.

  11 Northern edition, article entitled ‘L’ offensiva alleata e il popolo italiano’.

  12 Parri’s words are in Maurizio (F. Parri), ‘Il Movimento di liberazione e gli Alleati’, in Il Movimento di liberazione in Italia, 1949, I, p. 8; republished in Parri, Scritti 1915–1975, pp. 512–28. According to Salvemini, Churchill, for the Italians, admitted only ‘sabotatori e vuotacessi’ (‘saboteurs and john-cleaners’). Postcard to the author, 1955.

  13 McCaffery’s letter is published in Secchia and Frassati, La Resistenza e gli Alleati, pp. 99–100.

  14 ‘I’ll never forget shouting ‘Viva Nizza italiana!’ Revelli said to himself when he heard a Frenchman mockingly say, ‘Italian partisans, why do you no longer shout viva il duce?’, and noted: ‘Here in the Nice area the French haven’t forgotten June 1940’ (Revelli, La guerra dei poveri, pp. 328 and 357, 30 August and 25 October 1944). A girl who was hostile to the Garibaldini because they were friends of the Slavs was reminded by a political commissar that, for everything that had been done against that people ‘in the name of the Italian people, we had to pay the consequences, even if they were unjust’ (Vanni [G. Padoan], Abbiamo lottato insieme, p. 197).