47 See, among the many possible examples, Libertà. Organo del movimento democratico cristiano, 15 April 1944 (quoted in Bianchi, I cattolici, p. 264); ‘Attenzione’ in Il Popolo, Northern edition, 20 August 1944; the ‘Strictly personal report’ from Ossola to the DC central military committee (held in the De Gasperi archive and quoted in Bianchi, I cattolici, p. 247); and Terracini’s 30 September 1944 complaints to the CLNAI, protesting the squadrism of the kidnappings carried out by the Val Toce division commanded by Di Dio (see Catalano, Storia del CLNAI, pp. 276–7). One example of this type of argument appears in the leaflet ‘Lavoratore, tu devi ragionari’, held in the Archivio Osoppo in Udine.
48 Il Popolo, Northern edition, 25 November 1944.
49 See ‘Esame della corrispondenza censurata al 30 giugno 1944’ (ACS, SPD, CR, RSI, envelope 9, folder 3). The words cited appear in a letter from Milan.
50 Manuscript of G.M.’s memoirs,
51 As Alfredo wrote to the PCI leadership in December 1943 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. I, p. 163). See also his (unsigned) ‘Rapporto sugli scioperi di Torino’ from late November 1943, which appears in the same volume.
52 See Flamigni and Marzocchi, Resistenza in Romagna, pp. 148–9.
53 See the order of the day passed at Scurzolengo (Asti) on 22 July 1944 (IG, BG, 05481). On the Fascist efforts to set workers and peasants against one another, see Legnani, Aspetti, p. 21; Ganapini, Lotte operaie: Milano, pp. 152, 177–8; and G. Bertolo, ‘Introduzione a Le campagne e il movimento di resistenza’, in Operai e contadini, p. 267.
54 ‘Gli scioperi torinesi e il loro significato’, La Riscossa italiana, December 1943.
55 Report from the commissar of the Perugia federation, Comparozzi, ‘Sulla situazione politica nella nostra provincia’, 27 January 1944 (IG, Archivio PCI).
56 See ‘Relazione sulla situazione politica e militare della nostra provincia’, Terni, 1 February 1944 (IG, Archivio PCI).
57 See the letter from the ‘federal political secretariat’ of the Forli PCI to ‘the committees in the countryside, to all our responsible officials’, undated but concerning the 25–29 March 1944 strike (cited in Flamigni and Marzocchi, Resistenza in Romagna, pp. 290–1).
58 See ‘Relazione del lavoro militare di Cremona provincia e Mantova’, 3 November 1944, signed ‘Mario’ (IG, BG, 011248) and ‘Relazione su Mantova’, undated but late 1943, in Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. I, p. 195.
59 Report of 10 November 1943, quoted in Ragionieri, Il partito comunista, p. 342.
60 See Cicchetti, Il campo giusto, p. 46.
61 Anonymous note of 17 November 1943 (IG, Archivio PCI).
62 See ‘Rapporto del caposettore’, undated. Another report, from 27 September 1944, signed ‘Tommaso’, comments that ‘the greater part of the workers – including our own comrades – are tied to the countryside and thus do not feel a compelling need for wage increases and thus taking action over such demands’.
63 See ‘Rapporto sul lavoro di Partito in Bergamo’, unsigned, 29 December 1943 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol I, p. 192).
64 As Portelli puts it in Biografia di una città, p. 68.
65 ‘We Communists … must absolutely oppose these manoeuvres’ – see the record of a ‘Riunione dei rappresentanti di Partito’ (‘Meeting of Party representatives’), in a Padua workshop, 18 March 1945 (IG, Archivio PCI; reproduced in part in Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, pp. 490–4).
66 The expression, and the subsequent consideration on it, appear in Ballone, Una sezione, un paese, p. 441.
67 Testimony of Renato Castaldi, in Contini, Memoria e storia, p. 119.
68 See on this Bertolo, ‘Introduzione a Le campagne e il movimento di resistenza’, pp. 271, 300–03; Ardigò, ed., Società civile e insorgenza partigiana, p. 21; Portelli, Biografia di una città, p. 266.
69 Portelli, ‘Assolutamente niente’, pp. 135–44.
70 Among the Resistance’s proceedings in this sense, we can include the Valle Maira CLN’s ban on exporting essential goods (15 July) as well as that made by the popular junta of Castiglione Falletto (7 September 1944) (IG, BG, 04534 and 05502); the ‘wine blockade’ imposed on the Valsesia-Ossola-Cusio-Verbano region by the political commissar of the Creola Battalion of the 1st Garibaldi Division (see the letter from the Command of the Silvio Loss Brigade, 24 November 1944, IG, BG, 07083); and the instruction that ‘Nothing can leave the area in which it is produced’, justified with the argument that city-dwellers would be better disposed to rise up if they were going hungry (‘Direttiva di massima e particolari sul servizio di intendenza e sul rifornimento alle formazioni di montagna’, from the political commissar of the 3rd operations zone of the Friulian plain, Ario – Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol II, pp. 640–44). In terms of the aftermath of Liberation, we can note the firm position taken by the Arezzo CLN, backed by the prefect (a discharged Bersaglieri colonel, nominated by the AMG) against exports of food-goods from the province, on 23 October and 7 November 1944; a contemporary debate on sending two butchers beyond the borders of the province to procure meat (ISRT, envelope 7, folder 1, Verbali del CLN di Arezzo); the 22 May 1945 order by the Command of the Pisacane Brigade forbidding people exporting timber out of Belluno province (Bernardo, Il momento buono, document 24). On the issue as a whole, and in particular on its local manifestations in the final months of the RSI, as the central government declined, see Legnani, Aspetti, p. 46.
71 ‘Sulla via dell’insurrezione si rafforza l’unità fra il popolo delle cino e il popolo delle campagne’ in the (duplicated) July 1944 ‘abridged edition published by the Mantua Communist Federation’. See the (printed) Northern edition of 10 July.
72 See, for example, Banfi’s ‘Rapporto al Centro del Partito’, from Emilia, of 16 December 1943 (IG, Archivio PCI, cited in Ragionieri, Il partito comunista, p. 343; Ragionieri writes, on p. 373, that matters later improved, which is certainly true, at least in the case of Emilia); Dario’s report on the Marches, n.d. but late spring 1944 (?) (IG, Archivio PCI); ‘Rapporto del membro del triumvirato insurrezionale del Veneto, Oreste, sulla Federazione di Venezia’, 7 March 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol III, p. 452), and a document sent by the Veneto insurrectionary triumvirate on 10 March ‘A tutti I comitati federali’ (IG, Archivio PCI); and the 14 April 1945 and the 4 March meetings in the eastern sector of Milan (IG, Archivio PCI). See also the self-critical article ‘Lotte parzialii e insurrezione nazionali’, which appeared in the 23 March 1944 Northern edition of L’Unità (cited in Bertolo, ‘Introduzione a Le campagne e il movimento di resistenza’ pp. 271–2).
73 See Bertolo, ‘Introduzione a Le campagne e il movimento di resistenza’, esp. p. 259, and Ventura, La società rurale veneta, esp. pp. 66–7.
74 Poma and Perona, La Resistenza nel Biellese, p. 186.
75 Legnani brought attention to this in Aspetti and Politica e amministrazione nelle repubbliche partigiane.
76 Bertolo, ‘Introduzione a Le campagne e il movimento di resistenza’, p. 261; and the document quoted in Legnani, Aspetti, p. 41.
77 On all this, see M. Rossi-Doria, Prospettive della agricoltura italiana (Rome: Partito d’azione, 1945, published as No. 1 of the ‘Quaderni agrari’). On this point, see ‘La questione agraria: dall’efficientismo tecnocratico al meridionalismo rivoluzionario’, Chapter 7 of De Luna, Storia del Partito d’Azione, pp. 238–68.
78 See, for example Terra e lavoro. Organo del comitato provinciale dei contadini (Romagna), 1 November 1944 (quoted in Casali, Il movimento di liberazione a Ravenna, p. 62). According to La Lotta, organ of the Bologna PCI federation, in its 11 March 1945 editorial ‘Seminare’, the landowners hoped that the Allies would arrive soon, and even that a new squadrism would arise to defend them against the ‘accursed’ revived Federterra agricultural labourers’ union.
79 See, on this, G. Crainz, ‘I braccianti padani’, in G. Chianese, G. Crainz, M. Da Vela and G. Gribaudi, Italia 1945–1950. Conflitti e trasformazioni sociali, Milan: Franco Angeli, 1985, pp. 173–326; Il ‘48. Le lotte dei lavoratori cremonesi d
ella terra negli anni 1946–1953, Cremona: Lega di cultura di Piadena, 1976.
1 ‘Il responsabile del triumvirato insurrezionale del Piemonte, Alfredo, alla Direzione del PCI per l’Italia occupata’ (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 69).
2 Testimonies of Nelia Benissone Costa and Teresa Cirio (Bruzzone and Farina, eds, La Resistenza taciuta, pp. 55, 89). For a factual verification of this, see Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi, L’insurrezione di Torino, pp. 248, 261. Teresa Cirio lamented that ‘in the [version of events told in] schools the solely military aspect has come through too strongly’ (p. 86).
3 ‘Direttive per la lotta armata’, February 1944, by the Military Command for Upper Italy (Atti CVL, p. 560). Parri’s hand in composing these directives is clear from the text.
4 Il Combattente (Tuscany), February–March 1944.
5 Letter from Milo, Commander of the Nanetti Division, to the Zone Command Commissar De Luca (Giuseppe Landi), 20 March 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 513). On this episode, see Bernardo, Il momento buono, pp. 154–5.
6 ‘Relazione del Comando della 3a divisione Piemonte alla Delegazione per il Piemonte’, send to the Piedmont Delegation and the Military Commands, 15 September 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, p. 340).
7 L. Lanzardo, ‘Fonti orali e storia della classe operaia: indagini sulla coscienza di classe alla Fiat’, Rivista di storia contemporanea, X, 1981, pp. 255–81.
8 In a conversation between Secchia and the present author.
9 See the 23 March 1944 cited in Ragionieri, Il partito comunista, p. 355.
10 ‘Up to February [prior to the support given to the March 1944 strikes] the war that we were waging was almost a parallel one’, Giulio Nicoletta recently recalled. He was Commander of the autonomous S. Devitis Division (see ANED, Gli scioperi del marzo 1944, p. 56).
11 According to Inverni (V. Foa) I partiti, p. 22. For critical remarks on the disjuncture between strikes and military activity, also see the report by Sandrelli – the official responsible for military work in Piedmont – to the PCI leadership, 26 December 1943 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. I, pp. 183–8) and the article ‘Dallo sciopero generale all’insurrezione nazionale’ in Il Combattente (Tuscany) 17 April 1944. See also Operai.
12 Portelli, Biografia di una città, pp. 261–2. According to Portelli, Bartolini ‘gave life to a metaphor’.
13 Proclamation of the Czech National Council, 4–5 May 1945, cited in Etnasi, La Resistenza in Europa, vol. I, p. 139.
14 Report by Secondo Saracco on the Valle Sessera, 19 March 1945 (quoted in Dellavalle, Operai, p. 232).
15 Northern edition, 25 November 1943: article ‘Tutto per il fronte’ in the section ‘Vita di Partito’. A similar concern appeared in the same section of the Rome edition, 20 December 1943, under the title ‘Azione partigiana’.
16 Undated, unsigned report (late 1943?) (IG, Archivio PCI).
17 See ‘Rapporto trimestrale agosto-ottobre’ (August-October 1943) (IG, Archivio PCI).
18 See, for example, ‘Nota informativa sull’agitazione degli operai torinesi’, signed Alfio, 27 November 1943, which explains: ‘The ranks of the leadership have been impoverished, with the best comrades sent away from Turin and the rest given military tasks’ (IG, Archivio PCI).
19 Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. I, p. 110
20 On the implementation of this directive, see Lazagna, Ponte rotto, p. 22. See the letter from Alfredo to Sandrelli, the official responsible for military work in Piedmont, 10 November 1943. The following day, Sandrelli wrote to the political commissars that the bands ‘had to be continuously reinforced with those among our ranks with adequate preparation’ (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. I, pp. 125–9).
21 See the circular ‘A tutti gli attivisti del Partito’, which reached Turin on 4 November 1943 (IG, Archivio PCI).
22 See Ganapini, Lotte operaie: Milano, p. 170, and the documents cited therein.
23 Ganapini, Lotte operaie: Milano, pp. 183–5.
24 See Dellavalle, Lotte operaie: Torino, p. 250.
25 See Ganapini, Lotte operaie: Milano, pp. 187–8; Dellavalle, Lotte operaie: Torino, p. 250; De Luna, Lotte operaie e Resistenza, p. 528.
26 See the letter from ‘Cri.’, official responsible for the insurrectionary triumvirate for Emilia-Romagna, to the General Command, 14 July 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, p. 125). For Milan, see the unsigned May 1944 report simply entitled ‘Relazione’ (IG, BG, 011011).
27 Gibelli, Genova operaia, pp. 211–12, 229–37. See Resistenza e ricostruzione in Liguria, pp. 112–37 (from 3 October to 3 November 1944).
28 This being the title covering the whole front page of L’Unità, Northern edition, 9 April 1945.
29 ‘Informazioni da Milano’, 15 December 1944 (IG, Archivio PCI).
30 ‘Informazioni da Milano’, 14 April 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 620).
31 ‘Informazioni da Milano’, 22 April 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 668).
32 ‘Informazioni da Milano’, 22 April 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 669).
33 ‘Informazioni da Milano’, 22 April 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 674). See also Informazioni da Milano’, 14 April 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 620).
34 See Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi, L’insurrezione di Torino, p. 192.
35 According to a biography of GAP cadre in Emilia-Romagna, dated 28 December 1944, we find that Pietro was a mechanic who had joined the PCI in 1928 and spent three years in prison; Luigi was a bricklayer who emigrated to Paris in 1927, joined the PCI in 1929, was wounded at Guadalajara, went to the USSR, was arrested in France and Belgium and then held at Ventotene; Jacopo was a former medical officer who had joined the PNF in 1932 (though not assuming any rank) and then the PCI in 1941 (IG, BG, Emilia-Romagna, G.IV.2.10).
36 ‘Relazione’ (IG, BG, 011011).
37 See, for example, an anonymous report on Valsesia-Valdossola, 4 March 1944 (IG, BG, 08631).
38 See ‘Circolare n. 19’, 19 July 1944, from the Command of the 28th Garibaldi Brigade GAP Mario Gordini (Romagna) (IG, BG, 02209–12).
39 See the record of the meeting of the Piazza di Torino Command, between late March and early April 1945, and the SAP document giving a quite different explanation of the episode (Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi, L’insurrezione di Torino, pp. 143–5).
40 ‘Rapporto sul lavoro militare’, by the Turin SAP Command, 1 September 1944 (IG, BG, 06048).
41 As explained on 16 December 1944 by the ‘comrades responsible’ to Vice-Commander Pietro and the ‘comrades responsible for the 2nd Piedmont Division’, who had shown themselves not to be ‘clear’ on this. On 15 January 1945 the Command of the Turin SAP Division reproached the Command of the 4th Zone Brigade for having made the SAP, ‘a true and proper Party organisation’ (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, pp. 98–102, 234–7).
42 Casali, Il movimento di liberazione a Ravenna, vol. I, pp. 104–5.
43 See the letter from the Command of the Piedmont SAP Division to the Command of the Gardoncini Battista Brigade (undated – January 1945?) (IG, BG, 06045).
44 See the order of the day of the 2nd Sector SAP Military Command, 30 March 1945 (in Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi, L’insurrezione di Torino, p. 164).
45 These figures appear in Casali, Il movimento di liberazione a Ravenna, vol. II, p. 253. ‘Christian Socialists’ here is probably meant to mean Christian Democrats.
46 ‘Informazioni dall’Emilia’, November 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, p. 668).
47 ‘Rapporto del membro del triumvirato insurrezionale del Veneto, Oreste, sulla federazione di Venezia’, 7 March 1945, spoke of 350 SAP members who were ‘largely paper members, in that they lack weaponry’, while the other parties gave ‘inflated figures’ (stir them up in order to control them!). In the same report, the Venetian GAP were termed ‘almost nonexistent’ (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, pp. 449–53).
48 Rapporto sul lavoro militare’, by the Turin SAP Command, 1 Septem
ber 1944 (IG, BG, 06048).
49 See ‘Rapporto sul lavoro di Partito in Bergamo’, 29 December 1943 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. I, p. 193); ‘Relazione sulla situazione politica della nostra provincia’, Perugia, 27 January 1944 (IG, Archivio PCI); ‘L’ organizzazione di Terni e il lavoro militare’, 8 February 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. I, pp. 255–6); the report by the Yugoslav Urban, 23 March 1944 (cited in Ragionieri, Il partito comunista, p. 355); ‘Informazione da Udine’, December 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, pp. 166–9); ‘Rapporto sulla federazione di Venezia’, 7 March 1945, by Oreste, a member of the Veneto insurrectionary triumvirate (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, pp. 449–53).
50 Pesce, Senza tregua, p. 23.
51 Such was the gist of the critique Pietro (Antonio Roasio) levelled against G. (Giuseppe Gaddi) in an undated note (but possible to attribute to December 1943) on the Belluno federation (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. I, p. 202).
52 An adaptation, made by the Natisone Division, of the Soviet song Les Partisans (see Padoan [Vanni], Abbiamo lottato insieme, p. 178)
53 See the Party report of 20 June 1944 (cited in Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, p. 30, note 2); the news report from the Command of the Lower Po Division to the Lombardy Delegation, 5 October 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, pp. 401–3); and ‘Rapporto informativo n. 2’ to the Lombardy Delegation from the Lower Po SAP Brigade Group Command, 27 October 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, pp. 496–502). In this last document, the wait-and-see attitude is attributed to the role of the fear of reprisals in alienating peasants.
54 Handwritten document from December 1943 (IG, Archivio PCI).
55 Report by Luciano, 11 July 1944, ‘Il lavoro sportivo provinciale’ (IG, BG, 011211).
56 See the circular by the PCI federation of ‘P.’ (Padua?), undated but after the Salerno Turn (IG, Archivio PCI).
57 See, for example, Dellavalle, Operai, p. 263 (concerning February 1945).
58 See the report ‘Il lavoro militare in Piemonte, Liguria e Lombardia’, 7 May 1944, and ‘Rapporto di attività del mese di maggio’, sent from the Lombardy Delegation to the General Command, 10 June 1944 (IG, Archivio PCI; and Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, pp. 23–7).
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