A Civil War Read Free

Risorgimento. Abandoning a promising career as a professor of political economy, he joined the anti-Fascist cause and was instrumental in publishing the first underground anti-Fascist newspaper. Arrested for his activities, he was sentenced to
confino
on the island of Lipari, off the coast of Sicily. After a daring escape, he made his way to Paris where, in August 1929, he founded GL, the largest and most influential non-Marxist leftist movement. From Paris, Rosselli wrote essays, organised the movement, and even plotted Mussolini’s assassination. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, Rosselli was one of the first to arrive in Barcelona indefence of the Spanish Republic. Rosselli believed that the Spanish Civil War had to be transformed into a European-wide offensive against Fascism and Nazism. That idea, and his speech, ‘Oggi in Spagna, domani in Italia’ (‘Today in Spain, Tomorrow in Italy’), given over Radio Barcelona on 13 November 1936, may have sealed his fate. An anonymous police spy wrote to Rome that Rosselli was ‘the most dangerous of the anti-Fascists in exile’ and that it was necessary that he be ‘suppressed’. While recuperating in the French countryside, Rosselli was assassinated, together with his brother, the noted historian Nello, on 9 June 1937.
    While on Lipari, Rosselli clandestinely wrote his major theoretical work,
Socialismo liberale
, in which he argued that twentieth-century socialism was the logical heir to nineteenth-century liberalism. Attacked from both the left and the right, Rosselli insisted on an heretical ‘liberal socialism’ and was acknowledged as the
enfant terrible
of Italian anti-Fascism. 21 GL attracted some of the most important anti-Fascist intellectuals, and was second in influence only to the PCI.
    Another factor in anti-Fascism was Italian anarchism, led by the heroic figure of Errico Malatesta (1853–1932), the tragic figure of Camillo Berneri (1897–1937), assassinated by Stalin’s agents during the Spanish Civil War, and the romantic figure of Carlo Tresca (1879–1943), assassinated by still-unknown persons on New York City’s Fifth Avenue.
    Ignazio Silone, an important member of the PCI until he abandoned Communism and active politics, attempted an analysis of Fascism from his exile in Switzerland. For Silone, Fascism was neither accidental (‘Fascism did not fall from the heavens’) nor the destiny of Italy (‘Fascism was not inevitable’). His novel,
Fontamara
(Bitter Spring), written in exile while Silone thought he was mortally ill with tuberculosis, was the most influential piece of anti-Fascist literature, translated into a dozen languages and selling millions of copies. 22
    The culture of liberal anti-Fascism was embodied in the figure of Benedetto Croce. The philosopher had acquired such international prestige by the 1920s that the regime dared not silence him. In his works of history and historiography, Croce served as a beacon for two generations under Fascism. His work was often openly read as an implicit condemnation of Fascism.
    Anti-Fascists, led by the Communists, successfully organised mass strikes in March 1943 protesting against Fascist Italy’s continuing participation in a losing war and the dire economic and social conditions on the home front. In the summer of 1943, Rome was bombed by the Allies as they began an invasion of Sicily. Mussolini was deposed on 25 July 1943, but confusion reigned. Marshal Pietro Badoglio was named prime minister, but his radio announcement that‘the war continues’ was more confusing than inspiring. The
confinati
were released and the
fuorusciti
returned from exile, sparking the armed Resistance. 23 On 8 September 1943, Italy signed an Armistice with the Allies, and the next day the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (CLN) was formed. The CLN comprised five political parties, the Liberals (PLI), the DC, the Socialists (PSI), the PCI, and the Partito d’Azione (Actionists). Tensions