The Red Boot: the history of Italy in the Cold War (TLIAW)

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MARIO SCELBA

The Iron Sicilian

There are many factors that determined the outbreak of the Second Italian Civil War in 1948. First, Italy had suffered greatly during the Second World War. Much of its cities and infrastructure had been reduced to ruins, and entire families had been torn apart by the first civil war.
France's annexation of the Aosta Valley had only strengthened the communist and neo-fascist groups active in the country, both eager to exploit national humiliation and popular anger to control the government.

Finally, Italy had had the misfortune of having Mario Scelba as the new Prime Minister. Yet, at the time of his rise to power there was much hope in the young politician.

Scelba had been Alcide De Gasperi's right-hand man for years, becoming one of the founders of the Christian Democrats, and many considered him a hero for his support to various opposition groups, active during the Fascist government.
For this reason, Scelba was unanimously elected new leader of the DC after De Gasperi had been executed by the fascists in 1943.

In the first three years of his government, Scelba achieved many important results , including the abolition of the Savoyard monarchy and the full reintegration of the peninsula into the western political and diplomatic world.

Furthermore, in the immediate post-war period, the new Prime Minister initiated both the slow and inexorable regrowth of the Italian economy, and the first reconstruction works.

After more than twenty years of fascist dictatorship and two years of civil war, it therefore seemed that the worst was over for Italy. Unfortunately, this peace was only apparent.

Despite the efforts of Rome and the Allies to stabilize the political situation, Italy was still deeply divided. Many communist partisans had simply refused to lay down their weapons, forming various paramilitary groups hostile to the government, and some right-wing political groups still wanted to restore the old fascist regime.

Scelba's flaw that worsened the situation to the point of no return was the very reason he was appointed head of the DC: his staunch opposition to communism. The young Prime Minister was apparently obsessed with the idea that the PCI and its allies represented a serious threat to Italy.
For this reason, Scelba had tried to exclude the PCI from the first National Liberation Committee, and had expelled Togliatti's party from the government in 1946.

His paranoia, however, only increased after the expulsion of Palmiro Togliatti and other leftist politicians. The outbreak of civil wars in China and Greece convinced the Prime Minister that all leftist parties had as their sole objective the overthrow of the established order and the creation of a dictatorship similar to the fascist one.
In Scelba's eyes, every single problem that that afflicted Italy was Togliatti's fault. Strikes by workers in the industrial regions and by peasants in the South, the formation of neo-fascist groups, and even the economic problems of the First Republic were part of the communist plan to discredit his government.

For this reason, Scelba sought to strengthen security inside the Italian republic. Under his rule, not only were the funds and the number of recruits destined for the police force increased, but many suspected communists and socialists were also dismissed outright from political institutions and the army.

Scelba's anti-communist paranoia was so strong that between 1947 and 1948 the Prime Minister prevented any investigation into the attacks by criminal groups against strikers and trade unionists active in South Italy. Scelba probably had no connection to these attacks, but he feared that admitting the political reasons behind these acts of violence would have increased the popularity of the PCI.

Paradoxically, it was precisely the measures adopted by Scelba that weakened his government and strengthened his political opponents. Scelba's inability or refusal to stop the violence against trade unionists and peasants in the South seriously compromised the popularity of the DC, to such an extent that some areas of southern Italy abandoned the party in favor of the PCI, the PSI or the new Front National of Giorgio Almirante and Alfredo Covelli.

Many of the expelled soldiers became part of the various left-wing or right-wing paramilitary groups, active in the peninsula after the war. The open hostility of the government against anyone considered a leftist subversive also prompted Pietro Nenni and Giuseppe Saragat to ally with Togliatti to form the Fronte Nazionale Popolare (Popular Democratic Front).

Not only did Scelba's paranoia unite all of his left-wing opponents, but it also irreversibly divided the DC. In 1947, Giovanni Gronchi and a fairly large number of parliamentarians abandoned the DC to found Democrazia Popolare (Popular Democracy), stating that Scelba’s anti-comunist obsession was destroying the legacy of De Gasperi.

Internal tension reached its peak during the 1948 election. Togliatti and his allies were convinced that Scelba wanted to kill them, the Prime Minister feared that the Vatican too had been infiltrated by the communists, and Almirante accused both groups of being dangerous spies in the employ of Moscow and/or Washington.
The poll results were of particular concern to Scelba. While the DC was still the leading party in the South, much of Central and Northern Italy had started to prefer the DP and the FNP. Worse, even in South Italy the DC was losing precious votes to the neo-fascists/monarchists of the FN.

Even if the exact number could not be calculated, the DC was in danger of losing a large number of parliamentary seats after the election. In Scelba's eyes, the risk of an electoral victory of the National Popular Front was high.

In the end, Scelba's fears were not realized, as the DC remained the leading party in Italy. Unfortunately, Scelba also discovered that his party no longer had the number of seats in the Senate and Chamber needed to govern.
Indeed, none of the parties had won the number of seats required for the formation of a government. Less than two years after the birth of the First Republic, Italy was facing its first constitutional crisis.

Almost as a prelude to the subsequent conflict, the period between April and June 1948 is commonly known as "The Months of Lead", due to the massive violence that engulfed Italian cities.
In these two months, Italy found itself without a government, while Scelba and Togliatti both tried to convince the DP, now the third party in Italy, to ally with the DC or the FNP. At the same time, supporters of the DC and the FNP clashed with each other and with the police in the streets of the peninsula.

In the end, Togliatti became both the latest casualty of the Months of Lead and the first victim of the new civil war. On 14 July 1948 Antonio Pallante, a supporter of the overthrown monarchy, shot and killed the leader of the PCI.

How this assassination led to the outbreak of a new civil war depends on which version of events one decides to believe. According to the PCI and its allies, Togliatti's body was still warm as Scelba imposed martial law and ordered the arrest of the FNP leadership.
On the contrary, Scelba's supporters claim that the leaders of the FNP had already fled to Bologna well before Scelba knew of Togliatti's death. According to this version, Scelba would have imposed a state of emergency only because the FNP had declared war on his government, after forming the Second National Liberation Committee.

In any case, the Second Civil War became inevitable on July 4, 1948, when the troops stationed in Emilia Romagna refused orders from Rome, and swore allegiance to the government of Bologna.

In some ways, it is striking how the conflict in Italy mirrored in many aspects the civil wars in China and Greece. In all three cases, the Nationalist government was soon forced to retreat in the face of the advancing Communists/Socialists, due to its internal divisions and poor training of its troops.

The DP's decision to join the FNP in January 1949 determined the victory of Bologna. After this event, the main industrial cities of Northern Italy, including Milan, Trieste and Venice, fell into the hands of the SCLN.
Despite the huge economic and military aid from NATO, Scelba's troops thus ended up clashing with a better armed and organized army.

Rome was abandoned by Scelba and his government on 23 May 1951 and Naples, the last capital of the First Republic in mainland Italy, fell after three days of intense fighting on 10 September of the following year.
Scelba was ,however, far from any fight at the time. The Prime Minister had loaded what was left of his government onto a plane bound for his native Sicily two days before the start of the siege.

Since most of the Italian fleet had sunk or sided with his government, Scelba counted on turning Sicily and Sardinia into safe havens from which to plan an eventual reconquest of mainland Italy.

Scelba's latest plan was only half successful: although the two islands still host the government of the First Italian Republic, Scelba never arrived in Sicily.
Indeed, his plane exploded somewhere over the Strait of Messina about an hour after takeoff, killing all the passengers. It is still unclear whether it was a simple accident or whether Scelba was killed by his enemies or former allies.

In any case, his death had no particular consequences on the conclusion of the civil war. Even if Bologna had no way to invade Sicily and Sardinia, the military government, that had suceeded Scelba, could not in any way reverse the tide of the conflict.

Thanks to the mediation of the Yugoslav and French governments, a sort of ceasefire was signed by both sides in early 1953. As in China and Greece, the country's mainland came under the total control of the communist forces and their allies. Instead, the government that had opposed them had to take refuge on an island, under the constant protection of NATO.

Although neither Bologna nor Cagliari were willing to diplomatically recognize each other's rule, both were forced to accept this new status quo as they could not continue fighting.

Thus began a new era of the history of Italy.

 

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GIUSEPPE DI VITTORIO

The Trade Unionist

According to legend, Beria was executed in 1949 because Stalin was convinced that the NKVD file on Giuseppe Di Vittorio had been falsified. Although this story is clearly false, it confirms in any case the atypicity of Di Vittorio compared to the other members of the PCI.

To begin with, Di Vittorio did not come from a working-class family in the North, but from a family of Apulian labourers. Despite being one of the founding members of the PCI, De Vittorio also did not share Togliatti's admiration for Stalin at all.
During the fascist dictatorship, in fact, Di Vittorio had refused to follow Togliatti and the rest of the PCI in exile in Moscow, preferring to stay in Paris. During his stay in France, Di Vittorio had proposed for the first time the creation of a common front between the socialists and the communists, breaking away from the official position of the Comintern.

Di Vittorio's political rise began thanks to the Nazi invasion of France. In 1941, Vicky authorities arrested the Italian exile and deported him to Italy, where he was sentenced to more than twenty years in prison for his opposition to the fascist regime and support for Republicans during the Spanish Civil War.
Barely three years later, the fascist regime had been overthrown, Di Vittorio was free and the First Civil War had begun. The new conflict thus led to the rebirth of the CGIL in 1944, when Di Vittorio persuaded the communist, socialist and Catholic trade unionists to create a common front against the Salo regime.

Paradoxically, the return of democracy in Italy made Vittorio even more combative and distrustful of the government in Rome. Elected parliamentarian in 1946, Di Vittorio became famous for his frequent interventions in Parliament against Scelba's anti-leftist rhetoric, and his apparent indifference to the violence and poverty in South Italy.
The chaos of those years greatly increased Di Vittorio's political influence. The CGIL became the largest trade union in Italy, responsible for the numerous strikes that blocked the peninsula between 1946 and 1948.

Di Vittorio's real fortune was being in Bologna during the assassination of Togliatti. When the news of the death of the PCI leader spread, his collaborators and other FNP leaders were more concerned with escaping from Rome than reacting to what happened.
Unlike them, Di Vittorio was safe in the city, which many considered the inofficial capital of Italian communism. On the evening of June 14, 1948, the communist channels of the Italian radio started broadcasting Di Vittorio’s first speech in favor of the armed insurrection against Scelba.

When Saragat, Pietro Secchia and the other members of the FNP arrived in Bologna a few days later, Di Vittorio had already established the Second National Liberation Committee, and appointed the first commanders of the new Italian People's Army. At that point, his election as the new leader of the FNP was inevitable.

According to Italian propaganda, his skills as a mediator were fundamental in securing the victory of Bologna. It was Di Vittorio who persuaded the DP to side with the SCLN, and the contacts of the CGIL allowed the various armed insurrections, which conquered much of Northern Italy between 1949 and 1950.

On September 10, 1952, what remained of the army of the First Republic either surrendered, or hurried to flee to Sicily and Sardinia. After four years of war, most of the EPI and Central Italy were loyal more to Di Vittorio than to the rest of the FNP.
Di Vittorio was then the new leader of mainland Italy. It was not a particularly enviable position at that time.

The new conflict had devastated Italy once again, destroying most of its cities, and many areas in the South were controlled by gangs of brigands. Rome was also isolated internationally, as President MacArthur and other Western leaders refused to open any diplomatic contact with the new Italian government.

In addition, many of Di Vittorio's old allies were turning against him. Many of them had learned what had happened in those years in Czechoslovakia, where the communist government had purged many of its old allies.
The socialist and DP militias had stopped collaborating with Bologna, and were ready to start a third civil war if necessary.

There was in fact strong pressure from the Soviets and the more extreme members of the PCI on Di Vittorio to get rid of “the internal enemies of the revolution”. But the leader of the CGIL surprised many, agreeing to meet the other leaders of the FNP in neutral Venice, to discuss the future of Italy.

Di Vittorio, in fact, had noticed that, in addition to the Socialists and other Czechoslovak political opponents, the Soviets had eliminated any communist, not completely loyal to Moscow. If accepting a compromise with the rest of the FNP was going to save him from becoming a Russian puppet or dying under mysterious circumstances, Di Vittorio was ready to cut a deal.

The Historic Compromise of February 13, 1953 laid the foundations of the Second Italian Republic. Di Vittorio and his cabinet (now called the Politburo) were recognized as the highest political authority, but all initiatives of the new Prime Minister had to be approved by Parliament.

The model of the CGIL was then applied to the whole of mainland Italy: the socialists and the communists divided among themselves the control of the new institutions and the government of the various Italian regions. The first action of the new Parliament was to vote unanimously for the ban and dissolution of the DC in the new state.

Despite the particular political structure and seemingly neutral name, it quickly became clear that the Second Republic was a communist country. The first Plan of the Five Years envisaged, in fact, the almost total abolition of private property in mainland Italy.
The factories and agricultural fields in each Italian region came under the control of the Regional Councils for Economic Development, whose members were chosen by the governor of the region but answered directly to the Minister of Economy.

Di Vittorio also concentrated the economy of the Second Republic towards the industrialization and reclamation of many Italian territories. Convinced that Italy should have been as independent as possible, the new Prime Minister's Five-Year Plan focused mainly on certain sectors, such as wheat cultivation and weapons production.

The CGIL became an unofficial government organization. The other trade unions were banned, and every worker in Italy had to register with the CGIL if they hoped to advance their careers.

On the other hand, the Second Republic was notable for its ambiguous and difficoult relationship with the Kremlin. Di Martino distrusted the Soviets, but mainland Italy desperately needed economic aid.
Italy's fate improved in April 1953 when Stalin, finally proving ha had an heart, died from a stroke. Nikolai Bulganin, eager to consolidate his new position of General Secretary as quickly as possible, agreed to help Rome only in exchange for the opening of Italian ports to the Soviet fleet, rather than Rome's accession to the Stalingrad Alliance.

And of course the Second Republic agreed to unquestionably follow Moscow’s foreign policy. Between 1953 and 1956, Italian propaganda completely adopted both the Kremlin's anti-Western and anti-American rhetoric, and Moscow's official line regarding the purges against Bulganin's political rivals.

For this reason, Di Vittorio made a single trip outside mainland Italy during his rule. In 1955, the Prime Minister traveled to Israel, as Bulganin believed that the visit would further strengthen the new alliance between Moscow and Tel Aviv.

However, relations between Moscow and Rome fell into crisis in 1956, following the Soviet suppression of the Bulgarian Uprising. While many communist newspapers in Europe and the rest of the world praised the Soviet military intervention, L'Unità supported in part the cause of the rioters.
Even if the Italian newspaper did not support the anti-communist cause of the Bulgarian rebels, the anonymous author of the article nevertheless denounced Georgi Dimitrov's incompetence and corruption as the main cause of the uprising. In addition, Moscow’s armed intervention was criticized as contrary to Marx’s ideals, and detrimental to the stability of European communist regimes.

Although hardly anyone read that article outside the Second Republic, the Soviet ambassador to Italy immediately requested a meeting with the Prime Minister. Neither the Soviets nor the Second Republic have any records of the conversation between Di Vittorio and the ambassador, but it certainly had no positive outcome.

A few days later, Moscow suddenly announced that interest rates for loans to the Second Republic had been raised.
Worse still, the Kremlin reminded the ambassador of the Second Republic that many Italian soldiers, who had participated in the invasion of Russia in 1941, were still prisoners in the Siberian gulags. Although the Kremlin had agreed to have them repatriated, the agreement could be interrupted at any time.

The 1956 diplomatic crisis was eventually won by Moscow. L’Unità retracted the article, and Enzo Tortora, its possible author, was fired.

However, the disproportionate Soviet reaction had important consequences for the domestic policy of the Second Republic. Suddenly, a large part of the population of the peninsula shared Di Vittorio’s distrust of Moscow.

In the last year of his government, Di Vittorio began purging various Stalinists and other pro-Soviet communists from the government, and began to take an interest in foreign policy, starting to send weapons to the forces of Hossein Fatemi during the Iranian Civil War.

Di Vittorio’s last political action was the signing of the Treaty of Eternal Friendship with the Republic of San Martino on 9 September 1957, recognising the independence of the city state in exchange for its continued neutrality.
Obviously the effects of the treaty were insignificant, but Italian propaganda still claims that it demonstrated Rome’s complete independence from Moscow.

Perhaps for this reason, many conspiracy theorists believe that Di Vittorio did not die of a heart attack, but was poisoned by Moscow two months after the signing of the treaty. Obviously these conspiracy theories tend to ignore that Di Vittorio had long suffered from heart problems, and that his designated successor was even more anti-Soviet than he was.

Di Vittorio is still a controversial figure both in continental Italy and abroad. His admirers praised his conduct before and after the Second Civil War, particularly his decision to preserve Italian democracy, and his social reforms, such as the legalization of abortion and divorce.

His detractors, on the contrary, consider him a common dictator. The foundation of the Ministry of Ideological Integrity caused the arrest and exclusion of many politicians and ordinary citizens, accused of having collaborated with Scelba or simply having sympathies for "capitalist fascism". In fact, it is not possible to justify in any way the arrest of Gronchi, the suspected death of Saragat, or the decades-long exclusion of the DP from the political life of Mainland Italy.

Many, moreover, point precisely to Di Vittorio’s economic and social policies as the cause of the violence and misfortunes that struck the Second Republic in the following decade, including the tragic end of his successor.

In any case, Di Vittorio is still considered one of the most important figures of the twentieth century, whose face decorates posters and T-shirts around the world.

 

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LUIGI LONGO

The new rooster in the henhouse

"Ugly as sin, charming as a rock, and probably one of the smartest men I’ve ever known." This is how J.William Fulbright, former Secretary of State to President John C. Stennis, described Luigi Longo in his autobiography.
Fulbright was not the only one to have this contradictory opinion about Longo (or Gallo as some of his companions had nicknamed him three decades earlier). Many of his contemporaries describe Di Vittorio’s successor as a man completely devoid of charisma, but whose intelligence was fundamental to the government of the Second Republic.

Since joining the PCI in 1921, Longo had played many prominent roles within the party. He was the one who had managed the finances of the PCI during the party’s exile from Fascist Italy, and, later, also took care of the relations between its various members spread throughout Europe.
Despite not having any military experience, Longo had also personally led the Italian communist troops both during the Spanish Civil War and during the First Italian Civil War.

After World War II, his popularity was such that Togliatti was almost forced to appoint him his deputy secretary, despite their many ideological contrasts. Thanks to his influence within the PCI, in 1948 Longo managed to persuade the Italian communists to ally with the PSI to form the FNP.

At the outbreak of the Second Civil War, Longo agreed to support Di Vittorio’s appointment as the new leader of the social-communist forces. Aware of the need to maintain a united front and the advanced age of Di Vittorio, Longo had preferred to side with the head of the CGIL rather than accidentally causing the victory of Scelba’s forces.
In return for his support, Longo had been appointed Minister of the Interior, and had secretly become Di Vittorio’s designated heir.

Between 1952 and 1957, Longo personally took care of the reconstruction of the Italian peninsula, in order to adapt the country to its new social-communist nature. Many streets and monuments, especially those previously dedicated to real or alleged enemies/opponents of the revolution (including churches in northern Italy), were rebuilt or modified in honor of Lenin and other communist/socialist figures.
Thanks to his numerous connections with the various European communist parties, Longo also played important diplomatic roles. He led the Italian delegation at Stalin’s funeral, and later also negotiated Soviet funding for the reconstruction of the Italian peninsula.

In the last years of Di Vittorio’s government, Longo enthusiastically supported the Prime Minister’s anti-Soviet move, indicating which members of the PCI needed to be expelled from Parliament.

Predictably, Luigi Longo was appointed new Prime Minister after Di Vittorio’s death. As with many other communist governments prior to his, Longo’s rule began with a purge.
Less than a year after his rise to power, Abruzzo was hit by a violent earthquake. Although the tremors were not particularly strong, most of the buildings built in the area collapsed or were severely damaged, due to their many structural irregularities.

In the following weeks, the state media pointed to the local governor’s corruption as the cause of the disaster, and Longo founded the Ministry of Internal Security to investigate these allegations. Investigations and arrests soon spread to the entire South, where many politicians, considered too pro-Soviet and/or corrupt, were arrested by the new Agenzia Nazionale di Controllo e Protezione (National Control and Protection Agency).
This move was not only due to Longo’s need to find a scapegoat for the many mistakes Rome made in South Italy. The new Prime Minister believed that the industrialization of southern Italy would free the Second Republic from Soviet influence.

The purge was followed by a new Five Years' Plan, which provided extensive funding for southern industries and infrastructure. Many of these funds were used to build numerous arms factories.

The defeat of the Belgian troops at the Battle of Ponte-Noire had in fact shown that the old colonial empires were dying, despite the violent European opposition. This opened up numerous political and economic opportunities for the Second Republic.
The Beretta MG 42/59 soon became the most exported Italian product in the world, being used in numerous conflicts in North Africa, including the violent violent collapse of Georges Bidault’s Independent State of Algeria.

The sale of arms allowed the Second Republic to repay most of its debts, while increasing its influence in the Third World.
However, like his predecessor, Longo was forced to maintain good relations with Moscow. The West was still openly hostile to non-capitalist countries, and the People’s Republic of China was living in a self-imposed international isolation after the beginning of the Great Leap Forward.

Longo’s only option was to improve relations between Rome and Sarajevo. Like his Italian counterparts, Tito was allied with Moscow simply because there were no other alternatives. Although diplomatic relations between the two countries were still strained due to Tito’s failed attempt to invade Istria near the end of WW2, it was now clear that the Second Republic and Yugoslavia needed each other.

After years of negotiations, in 1963 Italy and Yugoslavia announced a new series of diplomatic and trade agreements. Not only did the number of soldiers and border controls decrease, but it was also announced that the two countries would cooperate in economic matters.

While Longo was able to ease tensions with Yugoslavia, the Prime Minister was not as successful in the Second Republic. On 5 October 1959, a bomb exploded at the CGIL headquarters in Rome, killing 19 people.
The attack on the CGIL was only the beginning of the "Italian troubles", that is the period between 1959 and 1971, in which right-wing and leftist extremists were responsible for numerous kidnappings and murders in the vain hope of being able to overthrow the government.

Despite increasing funds for the secret police, Longo was unable to stop the violence completely. According to rumors, many investigations were covered up, because the government feared causing a diplomatic incident with Moscow or Washington.

By the end of 1967, Longo had assumed a controversial reputation. Under his rule, the 1960s coincided with the beginning of the economic boom in the Italian peninsula. Finally, average annual growth was higher than many other communist states in Europe, and unemployment, poverty and illiteracy were disappearing.

The government of Rome also realized the ambitious project of giving a television to every Italian family. Not only would this project have demonstrated the superiority of the new social-communist economy, but it would have unified the Italian peninsula on a cultural and social level. For this purpose, UTRI (Unione Televisioni e Radio Italiane), the conglomeration of all the TV and radio stations present in the Second Republic, was founded.

Longo’s decision to sell arms to anyone who was not capitalist and could afford it (including Islamist rebels active in the kingdoms of Libya and Egypt) was still met with strong resistance from Parliament.
Likewise, the Italian policy of welcoming Chinese intellectuals, scientists and nuclear physicists, fleeing the constant purges of Chen Boda, only increased Soviet distrust of the Second Republic. At the same time, Longo was declared persona non grata throughout the European Commonwealth, due to his support for separatists in Catalonia and Valle d'Aosta, and terrorist groups in Sicilia-Sardinia.

Longo’s fatal mistake was his diplomatic visit to the People’s Republic of Greece in 1968.
Longo was a supporter of the Greek Spring, initiated by the government of Grigoris Lambrakis. Not only did Longo hope to obtain a new trading partner, but also that the success of the Greek reforms would push the Soviet bloc to adopt a less hostile policy towards NATO.

Unfortunately, Longo’s visit convinced the Kremlin that Lambrakis was on the verge of rebelling against the Stalingrad Accords. Less than a week after Longo’s visit to Athens, Soviet troops invaded Greece to establish a more conservative government.

According to rumors never confirmed, Longo openly wanted to denounce the Soviet invasion, but was met with firm resistance from his Politburo and Parliament. Many Italian politicians were still loyal to Moscow, and some went so far as to blame Longo’s recklessness for what happened in Greece.
While Longo could arrest the most brazen parliamentarians and replace his too pro-Soviet ministers, the Prime Minister was not particularly keen to challenge Parliament, and risk his position.

However, Longo could change the composition of Parliament to gain full support for his foreign policy. Over the next five months, Longo met several times with Aldo Moro, leader of Popular Democracy.
During that period, the two politicians determined which members of the DP would become members of the Politburo of Longo, and later also of the Parliament. According to his collaborators, Longo was even planning to cede the governorship of some southern regions to Moro’s party.

However, Longo’s project would never come to fruition. On 21 January 1969, while the Prime Minister was on his way to Parliament to form his new Politburo, his car was attacked by an armed group. After his escort was killed, Longo was forced into the car of one of the kidnappers.
A few hours after the incident, the neo-fascist group Forza Nuova declared that the Prime Minister would have been released, only if the government had freed some terrorists arrested in the previous years.

The Parliament rejected the proposal. For the next fifty-five days, both the regular army and the secret police scrambled to find out where the terrorist group was holding Longo. Apart from many human rights violations, no concrete results were achieved.
On March 18, 1969, an anonymous phone call to Longo’s family reported that his body was in the trunk of a red Fiat, abandoned just outside Rome.

There’s been a lot of speculation about Longo’s kidnapping and murder. Although almost everyone agrees that it was the neo-fascists who pulled the trigger, some suspect that the terrorists did not act alone. According to these conspiracy theories, the CIA and/or the NKVD helped Forza Nuova to eliminate a dangerous and inconvenient communist leader.
Some even claim that the Italian government itself provided the members of Forza Nuova with informations on Longo’s route and escort. The parliamentarians would have deliberately left Longo to die, to prevent politicians, who were not part of the FNP, from putting their power at risk.

The actions of Longo’s successor have only increased the popularity of these conspiracy theories.

 

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GIOVANNI DE LORENZO

The Backstabber

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Prior to 1948, Giovanni de Lorenzo was a decorated colonel, well known for coordinating espionage and sabotage activities in Romagna against the fascist government during WW2.
For this reason, in 1947 Scelba had entrusted him with the task of spying on Pietro Nenni, Aldo Moro, and other "subversives" who were considered a threat to the stability of the First Republic.

Just over four years after that promotion, a smiling de Lorenzo sat next to Giusepppe Di Vittorio, celebrating the defeat of Scelba and the birth of the Second Republic.

To justify his betrayal of Scelba, Giovanni de Lorenzo liked to tell how in 1943 Ivano Carpenteri, a young communist, had died protecting him from some fascist soldiers. With tears in his eyes, de Lorenzo always compared the boy's sacrifice to the divine illumination that had thunderstruck St. Paul on the road to Damascus.

That single sacrifice had prompted de Lorenzo to abandon his old prejudices against the Communists/Socialists and take up their cause.
According to this version of the story, de Lorenzo had secretly collaborated with the PCI and PSI in both civil wars, as he hoped to honor the memory of his savior.

Of course, it would have been hard to believe this melodramatic story even under normal circumstances. It was even harder to believe it in De Lorenzo's case, as the man was a textbook example of a sociopath.

Indeed, it is very likely that the mysterious Carpenteri never existed at all. In reality, de Lorenzo had betrayed Scelba's government for the same reason he had sided with the anti-Mussolini front in 1943: de Lorenzo had no intention of being on the losing side.

Between 1947 and 1948, de Lorenzo had not only realized that Scelba's paranoia was partially justified, but also that the Italian army was decidedly less united and more disorganized than Rome had thought.
Had war really broken out, it was more than likely that the National Popular Front would have emerged victorious.

Thus, de Lorenzo secretly got in touch with Togliatti and began passing valuable information to the PCI. However, it seems that de Giuliano decided to fully side with the PCI only in 1949, after the fall of Milan.

After that date, the amount of information passed to the government in Bologna definitely increased. It has also been speculated that it was de Lorenzo who informed Bologna of Scelba's decision to abandon Rome, explaining the speed with which its troops arrived in the former capital.

At the end of the conflict, de Lorenzo was promoted to general, and he was given the task of creating the new intelligence services of the Second Republic.

The new intelligence chief's first visit was to the Soviet consulate. In exchange for information and other resources useful for his political career, de Lorenzo promised to inform the Soviets about what was happening in the Quirinal.

After the Abruzzo earthquake and the beginning of the Italian Troubles, de Lorenzo was appointed as the new Minister of Internal Security. Although Longo distrusted de Lorenzo, he was convinced the Minister of Internal Security posed no danger to his government, given his unpopularity and lack of allies within the Politburo.

Unfortunately, Longo had no way of foreseeing his abduction and eventual execution.

Ironically, de Lorenzo was the only member of the Politburo who benefited from Longo's death.
In 1969, Vittorio Vitali, Minister of Ideological Integrity and de Lorenzo's main ally, persuaded Parliament that Longo's death was caused by the Politburo's indifference, and its interference in the investigation.

Hypocritically, the same parliamentarians, who a few weeks earlier had praised their refusal to negotiate, forced most of Longo's ministers to resign, allowing de Lorenzo to become the new Prime Minister.

The rise of de Lorenzo ended the relative liberalism initiated by Longo. The new Politburo was controlled by the most radical wing of the PCI, which repealed many of the previous economic and political reforms. For the first time since 1948, the PSI was excluded from the government.

Citing Longo's assassination, the new Prime Minister ordered numerous arrests (including Aldo Moro and most of the DP leaders), while increasing the funds and resources available to the ACPN. By the end of 1969 every telephone on the peninsula was under surveillance.

Under de Lorenzo, the Second Republic abandoned its traditional neutrality, and began to side more and more with the Soviet Union.
In the first six months of his government, de Lorenzo made a total of four diplomatic trips to Moscow, and the Soviet ambassador became a regular guest at the Quirinal.

According to Soviet defector Yuri Andropov, de Lorenzo was almost forced to take these measures.
Apparently Secretary General Pantelejmon Ponomarenko had threatened de Lorenzo with the reveal of his previous espionage activities on behalf of the Soviets, if the new Prime Minister had not followed Moscow's instructions to the letter.

In any case, his pro-Soviet positions were only the least of de Lorenzo's problems. While the previous twelve years had shown that de Lorenzo had an innate talent for scheming, the next two showed that he was not as adept at governing.

To begin with, the Italian economy, already fragile before de Lorenzo's rise, went into crisis following his decision to sever trade relations with Yugoslavia.
The new trade agreements with Moscow soon proved to be a disaster, as Italian industries ended up paying more for raw materials and selling their products at a much lower price.

No member of the Politburo could, of course, improve the economic situation. The ministers chosen by de Lorenzo were sycophants, appointed more for their political connections than their abilities.

However, it was not the domestic policies of de Lorenzo's government that determined its demise, but his foreign policy.
In the last months of 1969, tension between Moscow and Beijing peaked to the point that both Communist powers began to increase the number of soldiers present along the Sino-Soviet border.

Although the Second Republic had previously tried to remain neutral during the many confrontations between the Soviets and the Chinese, de Lorenzo openly sided with Moscow, accusing Chen Boda of being a warmonger and expelling much of the Chinese embassy.

De Lorenzo had acted in the belief that the crisis was going to be short-lived, and that Beijing and Moscow would reach an agreement. Unfortunately, de Lorenzo could not foresee the coup in North Korea, or how the attempted Chinese invasion of the new Soviet ally would start the Sino-Soviet War.

It did not take long before Moscow began asking members of the Stalingrad Alliance, and its other Communist allies to assist the Soviet war effort by sending assets and "volunteers."
And of course de Lorenzo was one of the first leaders to receive such request.

Upon the news that de Lorenzo was willing to send at least six divisions to China, the streets of the peninsula were rocked by numerous protests for the first time since 1948.

In addition to the normal protests, the Second Republic was hit by a new wave of terrorist attacks.
On May 18, 1970, A Maoist group detonated a bomb at Naples central station, causing the east wing of the building to collapse and killing nearly 100 people in the process.

Rome's failed attempts to cover up what happened, first blaming a gas leak and then inesistent right-wing extremist groups, further damaged de Lorenzo's popularity with the Parliament.

Once again, events in China detemined the fate of de Lorenzo. In late 1970, Taiwanese President Sun Li-jen declared war on the People's Republic of China, followed closely by President Fred Trump and British Prime Minister Julian Amery.
The Soviets and Americans actually had no diplomatic agreement regarding a potential division of mainland China. Rather, Moscow and Washington denounced the other for "violating the sovereignty of the Chinese people" with its declaration of war.

Attempts by the Second Republic media to compare what was happening to the WW2 alliances against Nazi Germany had little success.
On the contrary, mainland Italy was shaken even more by protests and strikes.

On the one hand, many Italian citizens feared that Moscow might also invade the Second Republic by allying with the government of Sicily and Sardinia.
On the other, many were convinced that a nuclear war was imminent, and therefore sought to protest the war, or looted grocery stores.

On March 15, 1971, De Lorenzo's government officially came to an end. After the nuclear destruction of Lop Nur two days earlier, the loyalty of part of the army was the only reason why Parliament had not voted to remove de Lorenzo from office.

However, during the reunion of Parliament of that day, de Lorenzo was informed that a group of protesters (including Longo's widow) was heading towards the Quirinal.
The marchers hoped to to enter Parliament, or at least force de Lorenzo to come out so they could reveal their demands against the war.

De Lorenzo, according to many witnesses under the influence of alcohol, reportedly reacted violently to the news, cursing in front of the Politburo and its deputies, while sending troops to disperse the march by any means.
In his fury, De Lorenzo did not realize that the soldiers sent against the demonstration were the same ones who would shortly be sent to fight in China.

The soldiers, already convinced that they were going to die anyway and not particularly eager to kill in the name of the increasingly unpopular de Lorenzo, decided to side with the demonstrators and accompany them toward Parliament.

De Lorenzo, terrified that this was the beginning of a popular uprising, hurriedly fled to Bologna, where the Secret Service headquarters were located.

In the hour it took De Lorenzo to arrive in Bologna, most of the parliamentarians of the Second Republic voted for his removal as Prime Minister and ordered his arrest.

Upon receiving the news, members of the Secret Service arrested De Lorenzo the very moment his helicopter landed in Bologna.
None of them were particularly eager to die for their former leader and hoped that his arrest would persuade the new government to pardon them.

De Lorenzo managed to avoid capital punishment mainly because the Second Republic government feared setting a dangerous precedent by executing a former head of state.
According to some rumors, the former Prime Minister even revealed the whereabouts of his personal archives, filled with valuable information gathered over decades of espionage, in order to avoid a too severe punishment.

De Lorenzo was then sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison on charges of corruption and espionage.

In his particular case, the sentence ended in 1973 when the former Prime Minister killed himself (or was killed) with a poisoned coffee.

 

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PIETRO INGRAO

The liberal Stalinist

In many European and American history books, little space is devoted to what the Italian government did between 1971 and 1975. Pietro Ingrao’s four-year rule is considered far less important than other events of the same period, such as Chen Boda’s nuclear suicide in Beijing or the beginning of the military dictatorship in England.
Many even ignore that, in this period, the Italian peninsula was led by a transitional government, or the large number of reforms approved in these four years. At best, Ingrao is remembered as a simple bureaucrat, who transitioned the Italian peninsula from the Second to the Third Republic.

Yet, this is a huge oversimplification for a man that in end practically saved Italy from a third civil war.

The end of the government of De Lorenzo had in no way improved the internal situation of the peninsula. Martial law was still in force in many cities, due to rampant violence and chaos, and numerous troops were said to be on the verge of mutiny.
A lot of citizens had begun to lose confidence in the system. Shortly after the arrest of de Lorenzo, in fact, rumors began to circulate that the leader of the peninsula had actually worked for years on behalf of the Soviets.

It is in these circumstances that Parliament voted Pietro Ingrao, the almost sixty years old former Minister of Education of the previous government, as the new Prime Minister.

Ingrao's life reflected alost perfectly the political evolution of the Italian Peninsula throught the previous three decades. Ingrao had been raised in an environment devout to Mussolini, but Stalin had replaced Il Duce in his heart after he had started high school.
For almost two decades, Ingrao had vocally supported Moscow to the point he had accused the Bulgarian Uprising of being a fascist plot.

Yet, the mysterious death of Longo and de Lorenzo's increasing brutality had driven him to abandon his old devotion.

Although Ingrao was well known for his uncompromising ideological positions, the new Prime Minister enjoyed the support of much of Parliament. On the one hand, the more conservative parliamentarians liked Ingrao both for his opposition to Longo’s economic reforms and for his importance as a propagandist between 1948 and 1969.
On the other hand, the Liberals appreciated him for being the only member of De Lorenzo’s Politburo to vote for the removal of the former Prime Minister, and his many ideas about a possible liberalization of the political institutions on the peninsula.

In addition, many Members of Parliament were reassured that the reforms proposed by Ingrao aimed at the creation of an interparliamentary democracy, not a genuine one. According to Ingrao, Parliament should have been the most important political body in the new republic, and only members of the National Popular Front should have continued to control it.

Ingrao was, in any case, a compromise candidate, representing the Parliament while the Institutional Reform Committee amended the 1953 Constitution.

But Ingrao assumed his institutional role with considerable vigour. The new Prime Minister was the first Communist leader in history to officially admit that his predecessors had made serious mistakes, and that it was necessary to reform the system. As a demonstration, the new Prime Minister ordered the immediate release of Aldo Moro and the other leaders of the DP.

Given the nature of his speech, readers will not be surprised that Ingrao’s four-year rule is known as "The Time of Reforms and Trials" in much of continental Italy.

First, Ingrao managed to move the country from the Second to the Third Republic, reforming the 1953 constitution to eliminate the risk of another institutional crisis.

Parliament was greatly strengthened by the weakening of the powers of the Prime Minister and his Politburo. Parliamentary elections were to be held every four years, after which Parliament would have to vote on whether to grant the Prime Minister a further term, or to replace him.
Parliament would also have the final say in the selection of Politburo members. While the Prime Minister still had to choose his ministers, their appointment had to be confirmed by the majority of Parliament.

Ingrao also moved to limit the powers of the secret police. The ACPN was dissolved, and replaced by the much less powerful Servizi Interni di Sicurezza (Internal Security Services).
Unlike their predecessor, the SIS was not managed by a single minister, but was under the control of both the Ministry of Defence and the Prime Minister. To prevent another De Lorenzo, the Ministry of Internal Security was abolished. At the same time it was established that the head of the SIS could not run for Prime Minister, nor hold any other political position aftewards.

Like his predecessors, the reforms of Ingrao were accompanied by a new purge. De Lorenzo’s confessions had, in fact, started the Red Hands scandal.

According to the former Prime Minister, the Soviets had already infiltrated most of the institutions of the Italian peninsula. Many MPs, and military commanders had agreed to pass information, and hold pro-Soviet political positions, in exchange for gifts and large sums of money.
According to this confession, these parliamentarians and members of the military would have let numerous terrorist attacks happen to influence the government of the peninsula and to prevent it from leaving the Soviet sphere of influence.

Under the direction of Minister of Propaganda Mike Buongiorno, most of the subsequent trials were broadcast and heavily promoted on every Italian television. For almost three years, frightened politicians and tearful generals admitted their alleged crimes, taking responsibility for everything that was wrong in the Second Republic. Some of the accused preferred to flee to the Soviets rather than risk a trial, while others just decided that suicide was a better alternative.

It is possible that the whole scandal was just a setup, aimed at creating scapegoats to blame for the problems and instability of the peninsula. However, Ingrao also ordered the arrest of some of his political allies, apparently involved in the scandal.
Moreover, many trials were not shown on television, because apparently the government feared what the confessions were going to reveal.

Even if we will never know the truth, it is undeniable that the actions of the government produced the desired results. By the end of 1974, the protests and violence had almost completely disappeared, apart from the occasional terrorist attacks, and the population had returned to partially trust the government.

In the end, Ingrao’s government collapsed because of his ideological intransigence regarding the economy. Although the Prime Minister recognized the need to reform the political institutions of the peninsula, he was still convinced that its economic structure should have followed Marxist ideals to the letter.
For this reason, the Third Republic was completely taken aback by the global economic crisis caused by the nuclear destruction of Beijing. If Ingrao had agreed to at least partially liberalise the Italian economy in previous years, perhaps the Third Republic would not have been particularly affected.
But Ingrao had done nothing, and so the Italian lira ended up being almost useless paper.

It was not long before his opponents in Parliament began to attack Ingrao because of the difficult economic situation. Many of his former supporters also wanted to use him as a scapegoat, or simply wanted a new government, believing the Commission had finished its work.

In early 1975, Giorgio Amendola, Minister of the Treasury, and Manlio Brosio, Minister of Foreign Affairs, resigned to protest against the government’s economic policies. According to the rules established by Ingrao himself, their deputies should have been approved by Parliament, but most of its members did not want to cooperate in any way with the Prime Minister.
Ingrao could then start a long clash with the legislative body, which he himself had strengthened, or resign, indicating the potential successor he preferred.

On 19 March 1975, Ingrao agreed to resign, after he was assured that he would remain director of L’Unità and member of Parliament.

In later years Ingrao became more famous as a writer than a politician. While Ingrao was soon politically labelled an old hyper-conservative fossil, he also gained considerable fame for his essays and poems. When Ingrao died in 2015, the former Prime Minister was now better known as a writer and poet than as the reformer of the entire political system of continental Italy.

 

[Gar48]

ITALO CALVINO

The intellectual

Italo Calvino was born in 1923 and, like most members of his generation, he had been part of the partisan resistance in both civil wars. Although he had distinguished himself for courage in both conflicts, Calvino had also been harshly criticized by some of his superiors for his lack of ideological fervor.
After the conclusion of the Second Civil War, Calvino decided to embrace his passion for literature. Not only did his literary career begin well before his political one, but it was instrumental in its inception.

In 1955, Calvino was hired as a journalist by L'Unità, and five years later, he became personal assistant to its editor Pietro Ingrao.
In 1962, Ingrao became a parliamentarian and he used his new connections to get Calvino hired by the Ministry of Propaganda. During this period Calvino began to forge important connections with members of the Socialist Party and with some of the more prominent reformists within the PCI.

Four years later, Ingrao as the new Minister of Education, hastened to summon his old collaborator to Rome, ceding his seat in Parliament to Calvino.
As a parliamentarian, Calvino opposed sending Italian troops to assist Russia in its conflict with China and voted for de Lorenzo's removal in 1971.

Surprisingly, Calvino declined Ingrao's offer to join his new Politburo. Indeed, Calvino suspected that his old mentor wasn’t going to hold the post for long, given his outdated economic positions.
While Ingrao started working on the creation of the Third Republic, Calvino soon began to collaborate with other reformist politicians, often presenting himself as both a more moderate and more radical version of Ingrao.

When it became clear that Ingrao's government was on the verge of falling, Calvino took it upon himself to ensure that his old mentor resigned without creating any trouble. During a private meeting, Calvino assured Ingrao that he would respect his political reforms, and let him remain in the Parliament.
With the support of the Socialist Party and the communist reformers, Calvino was then elected Prime Minister of the Third Republic. His radical ideas on the Italian economy and culture would prove crucial in the new international landscape caused by the war in China.

The Soviets had been weakened as a result of the war against Beijing. Not only had their international reputation been damaged, but Moscow was also forced to waste large numbers of men and resources against the various rebel groups, active in their occupation zone in northern China.

Meanwhile, the political situation had also changed profoundly in the Western bloc. The horror of war in China and the deaths from decades of military interventions in Third World countries had ended the anti-communist hysteria that had dominated the Western political world since 1952.
Western voters had decided to elect a new generation of leaders, more inclined to compromise and negotiation than their predecessors. One such leader was the new American President Jimmy Hoffa.

For Calvino and Tito this represented the perfect opportunity. For years Rome and Sarajevo had tolerated Soviet interference due to the lack of other options. Now Washington was willing to tolerate their communist governments if it meant weakening Moscow.
Toward the end of the year, Hoffa surprisingly announced that he would be traveling to the Third Republic and Yugoslavia for a diplomatic visit. Although the Mediterranean League would be officially created only the following year, many historians consider Hoffa's visit the moment when the Third Republic and Yugoslavia ended their alliance with the Soviets for good.

The first priority of the new Communist bloc was the establishment of new diplomatic and trade relations with Western Europe. Of course, the success of the first Italian-Yugoslav nuclear test in 1977 meant that Western Europe had to treat the Mediterranean League as an equal rather than as potential puppet.

Between 1976 and 1979 Calvino traveled several times to Paris, Madrid and other capitals of the Commonwealth of Europe for new trade agreements.
Particularly important was Calvino's state visit to Paris on November 15, 1978.
The new agreements signed with Prime Minister Alain Savary sanctioned a decrease in the number of troops present along the Franco-Italian border, and most importantly, the unofficial end of Italian aid to the separatist groups present in the Aosta Valley.

Having ensured the security of the western and eastern borders of the Third Republic, Calvino started focusing on his ambitious plans to reform the Third Republic.

The enhancement of Italian culture became one of the foundations of Calvino's internal and external policies, as demonstrated by his Five Year Plans of 1978 and 1983. Not only had the new Prime Minister always been critical of the cultural closure of his predecessors, but he also believed that the valorization of Italian history would facilitate the desovietization of the Italian peninsula.
Rome began to dispense more and more funds to Cinecittà and other cultural centers. Under the direction of Culture Minister Pier Paolo Pasolini, the regime's books and films began to focus on events and historical figures related to the socialist spirit of the Italian nation.
Many of the statues and streets dedicated to Lenin and other Soviet leaders were therefore replaced by statues and streets dedicated to Luigi Longo, Garibaldi and other figures deemed significant to the history of the Italian proletariat.

Censorship was somewhat relaxed, as Calvino allowed the diffusion of western music and fashion that fit the ideals of the new Italy.

The cultural liberalization of Calvino's government also entailed two particularly contradictory social liberalizations.
First, Calvino moved to restore diplomatic relations between the Papacy and the government in Rome. Ever since the flight of Pope Pius XII to Avignon during the Second Civil War, the position of the government of mainland Italy toward the Catholic Church had oscillated between cold indifference and open hostility.

Calvino, particularly eager to legitimize his government in the eyes of many southerner Italians, sought to exploit the new international position of the Third Republic to change the situation.
On February 11, 1979, Calvin and Pope Aleander VII signed the Lyon Accords. The Papacy agreed to lift the 1948 excommunication against members of the Popular National Front, while Rome granted more freedom to the members of the clergy in its territory.

There was no discussion of the fate of the Vatican, still claimed by the Papacy, but used as a national museum of the Risorgimento by the government in Rome since 1955. The new freedom of the Italian clergy also coincided with extensive infiltration of its ranks by the SIS.

Paradoxically, Calvino also softened the Third Republic's policies toward homosexuals . While homosexuality was tecnically still illegal, Calvino warned the SIS to cease all investigations and arrests against known or suspected “deviants”.
After de Lorenzo, Calvino hoped to deprive Western and Soviet intelligence services of any blackmail material against politicians of Third Republic. The fact that Pier Paolo Pasolini, one of Calvino's most important political allies, was openly homosexual contributed decisively to the Prime Minister's decision.

Under Calvino's leadership, Italian luxury products were sold once again in Western Europe and America for the first time since 1952. Suddenly being a fashion designer or a painter were no longer considered decadent capitalist activities but, on the contrary, useful means to support the Italian revolution.
Italian ports were reopened not only to Western commercial ships, but also to tourists eager to see ancient monuments that for decades had been accessible only to a few diplomats and Soviet bloc residents.

Hoffa's impeachment and the poor relations with his successor, William Buckley Jr, did not prevent Calvino from achieving other important results in his second and third terms.

In 1981, the government of Saudi Arabia was overthrown by the Islamists of Juhayman al-Otaybi, an event that began the many uprisings and civil wars of the Arab Winter.
As Western governments found themselves forced to ration their oil or buy ita t eorbitant prices from the Soviets and the Arab Union of Syria, Rome gained an important ally in the Middle East. In 1982, Abdessalam Jalloud was able to take control of Libya, thanks to military aid sent from mainland Italy since 1965.

Calvino was not only the first head of state to recognize the new Libyan government, but also the first to travel to Tripoli to meet with the country's new dictator.
At the end of the meeting, a triumphant Calvino announced to the crowd gathered in front of the presidential palace that the Third Republic would assist Jalloud's regime financially and militarily.
Rome justified this decision as redemption for the crimes committed by the Italian government during the colonial period. In reality Jalloud agreed to repay Rome's support through almost free supplies of oil. In exchange for the modernization and stability of his dictatorship, Jalloud had become an unofficial member of the Mediterranean League.

Although the success of the Libyan revolution resulted in the expulsion of Italian diplomats from Israel, Calvino's popularity was not affected in the slightest, and Parliament reconfirmed his government for a third term in 1983.

In the last two years of his government, Calvino was mainly concerned with expanding the Italian peninsula's nuclear arsenal, and managing the space program of the Mediterranean League.The only noteworthy event of this period was the resurfacing rivalry between Rome and Cagliari, after Sicilia-Sardina began its own nuclear program.

On September 6, 1985, Calvino suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while on vacation in Tuscany. Despite the rush to the hospital, it was impossible to save him, and Calvino died thirteen days later.
His Politburo hastened to declare that the Prime Minister had died while working in his office, and proclaimed a week of national mourning. More or less spontaneously, numerous crowds gathered in major Italian cities to commemorate the leader who had finally fulfilled the revolutionary promises of 1952.

His funeral demonstrated one last time the success of his policies. Whereas the funerals of his predecessors had been attended only by members of their families and governments, Calvino's funeral was attended by many international heads of state, including U.S. President Gore Vidal and Soviet leader Gennady Voronov.

Through his ingenuity, favorable circumstances, and much good fortune Calvino had to all intents and purposes transformed mainland Italy from a small country dependent on the Soviets to an independent state with considerable influence in the Mediterranean. Although later years would demonstrate the limitations and errors of some of his initiatives, his legacy continues to this day to influence the politics of the Third Republic.

Perhaps it was precisely the attempt to emulate the success of Calvino's legacy that ruined the one of his successor.

 

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BENIAMINO ANDREATTA

The charmless reformer

Calvino's succession was surprisingly quick and peaceful, as the Prime Minister had indicated to the Politburo and Parliament his designated successor as early as 1982.
However, the news that Calvino’s successor would be Beniamino Andreatta, his Minister of the Economy, took many Italians and international observers by surprise. Not only was Andreatta the first PSI member to be appointed Prime Minister, but he was also an almost unknown figure within the Third Republic because of his extreme secrecy.

Since his appointment to Calvino's Politburo in 1975, Andreatta had given very few interviews, and had appeared only in a small number of photographs. However, his secrecy had not prevented him from playing many important politica roles throughout his life.

At the outbreak of the Second Civil War, Andreatta was only a law student in Padua, not particularly interested in politics. His political neutrality came to an end following the violent suppression of student protests by the Italian army between 1949 and 1950.
By the time the Popular National Front insurrection reached Padua, Andreatta had been radicalized enough to side with the government in Bologna. Andreatta did not participate directly in the conflict but joined the local military administration office making sure that soldiers fighting in the Veneto received the necessary supplies.

After the end of the Second Civil War, Andreatta was put in charge of the Veneto Regional Council for Economic Development. Under his leadership, the region became one of the most productive industrial states in northern Italy.
His success had been one of the reasons why in 1965 Rome had placed him on the National Council For Southern Development, the new ministerial body that was to implement Longo's Five-Year Plan in southern Italy. Despite the instability of the region, Andreatta achieved important successes, accomplishing some of the goals set by Longo a year or two in advance.

After the expulsion of many parliamentarians following Longo's death, Andreatta was chosen by the Socialist Party to replace one of their expelled members. It was during his time as an MP that Andretta met future Prime Minister Italo Calvino. Andreatta's economic ideas impressed Calvino so much so that he wanted him as his Minister of Economy during the formation of his Politburo

During the ten years of Calvino's government many parliamentarians began to ironize that Andretta was actually not only the Minister of Economy but also the Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs. Andreatta had accompanied Calvino on all his foreign trips, and he was who negotiated many of the economic and diplomatic agreements with NATO and Libya.

Because of his decades-long collaboration with Calvino, many members of the Politburo and Parliament expected Andreatta to continue his predecessor's foreign policy.
Indeed, the international situation seemed to offer the Third Republic numerous opportunities to expand its influence. The Brazilian government had been ousted by the communists of Maurício Grabois, general Bui Tin had succeeded in reunifying Vietnam, and many communist groups seemed on the verge of winning the conflicts that had erupted in Africa and the Middle East because of the Arab Winter.

Instead, during his inauguration speech, Andreatta declared that his government would focus on strengthening the economic situation of the Third Republic.
Andreatta's new policies were due to the fact that Calvino's legacy was politically rich but financially poor. The state coffers were almost empty, both because of the continued sending of arms to communist rebels in North Africa and because of still rampant corruption.

Although the economic position of the Third Republic had definitely improved, Rome could therefore not afford a puppet state. Andreatta had seen the Soviets and Americans waste huge resources in China, South America, and the Middle East only to obtain unstable dictatorial regimes loosely affiliated with Moscow or Washington.
Andreatta believed that the Third Republic had neither the funds or the means to do this. And even if Rome could have afforded it, many of the states receiving their aid would have preferred to side with the Soviets rather than with the small and distant Social-Communist nation.

In addition, the Prime Minister feared that an aggressive foreign policy would allow army leaders to gain more power. Andreatta's conversion to Socialism had begun when he had seen his fellow students massacred by Scelba's soldiers, and de Lorenzo's eventual fate had only reinforced his distrust against armed forces.

During his government, Andreatta focused on increasing the production of consumer goods, and improving the health care system in Continental Italy. Funds from the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Industry were almost doubled between 1988 and 1993 to complete the renewal of the Third Republic's road and rail networks.

Although the quality of life in mainland Italy increased under his government, Andreatta's popularity soon began to decline. His extreme secrecy made it almost impossible to appreciate his reforms, and many Italians were convinced that he was simply continuing programs already begun by Calvino.
On the contrary, Andreatta's decision to increase the number of ministries was seen as the personification of rampant corruption, and of the bureaucratic difficulties that the people of the Third Republic had to endure on a daily basis.

At the same time, Andreatta became extremely unpopular with many members of the armed forces and their families. His distrust of the military had led him to repeal some of Ingrao's reforms, increasing the number of political commissars and giving more power to the Security Services to oversee the actions of Italian generals.

In 1989, Andreatta's popularity was further undermined by his decision to militarily support the new Iraqi president Abd ar-Razzaq an-Naif against the invading Islamic Republic of Arabia. Although much of Third Republic society sympathized with the Iraqis, many were nevertheless disgusted by Rome's support for an anti-communist government, traditionally allied with the United States.
Rumors soon spread that Andreatta's Politburo had agreed to support Iraq in exchange for large sums of money from Baghdad and Washington. The fact that this rumor began to spread around the same time new trade deals with the West were announced only increased suspicions against the government.

While Andreatta had managed to get himself reappointed Prime Minister in 1987 thanks to the popularity of his predecessor, his reappointment in 1991 was successful only thanks to the launch of the first Italian satellite into space. The Italian Space Agency's first success temporarily boosted the reputation of Andreatta, to the point that the Communists decided to renew their support for the next four years.

It had not escaped Andreatta that he had barely received the number of votes needed to win another mandate, or that most of the Communist party now seemed to distrust his socialist policies.
Only the success of the satellite launch, and the internal divisions of the PCI had allowed Andreatta to obtain another mandate. The Prime Minister doubted that he was going to have as much luck in the 1995 elections.

Andreatta also suspected his re-nomination would have failed if it had taken place just two weeks later. On December 8, 1991 Yuri Gagarin, the man who had planted the Soviet flag on the moon in 1969, was named the new leader of the Soviet Union.
Many Italian parliamentarians found themselves envying the Soviets because their government seemed intent on facing the capitalists and celebrating the successes of its revolution unlike the one of the Third Republic. Seemingly ignoring the economic woes and political instability of the Soviet bloc, parts of the Italian Parliament became increasingly critical of Andreatta.

Whie the Prime Minister wished to boost his popularity, Andreatta could neither act against his opponents in the PCI nor change his foreign policy without compromising the internal stability and international reputation of his government.
Andreatta then decided to turn his attention to the space program of the Third Republic.

On 17th December, the Prime Minister announced that before the conclusion of his third mandate, the Mediterranean League would send its astronauts into space. A crew of seven Italian, Yugoslav and Libyan astronauts would have made a space flight, circumnavigating the planet and were going to land just in time to celebrate the anniversary of the victory in the Second Civil War of the National Popular Front.

Andreatta's mistake was to entrust the management of the space mission to Bettino Craxi, Minister of Industry and his potential successor. Craxi was a diligent worker, an excellent organizer and one of the most corrupt politicians of the Third Republic.

For the next three years, Andreatta paid no particular attention to the Italian space program. Craxi, on the other hand, collaborated with his Libyan and Yugoslav counterparts both to hide the technical difficulties of the program and to lie about the costs, pocketing part of the budget. Thanks to his almost absolute control over the space program, none of the scientists and workers could criticize or denounce his actions.
Craxi thought that the use of poorer materials would in no way affect the success of the mission. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Craxi was wrong.

On 10th November 1994, the Space Shuttle Garibaldi departed on what was supposed to be a three-week journey. In reality, its journey ended after just eighteen minutes due to a fuel leak from its tank.
The explosion of the Space Shuttle was captured by Italian and international cameras, quickly traveling around the world. A wave of criticism from Italian and foreign politicians hit Andreatta's government and the streets of the peninsula were filled with protests against the Prime Minister.

Andreatta did not put up any resistance. Apparently shocked by what happened, Andreatta accepted full responsibility for the explosion of the Shuttle and announced that he would not run again at the end of his mandate.
The only political initiatives Andreatta took in his last six moths in office were the creation of a special fund for the families of the killed astronauts, and the appointment of Craxi as the new ambassador to Tunisia.

Andreatta did not run again in 1995 and after the end of his government he completely abandoned the political life of the Third Republic.
The former Prime Minister died of a heart attack in 1999 while at his residence. Surprisingly, his successor granted him a state funeral, despite their past political rivalries.

 

[Gar48]

GIORGIO NAPOLITANO

The old fox

Already during the last month of Andreatta's government, discussions began about who would be his successor. Since all the members of Andreatta's Politburo had been discredited by the shuttle explosion, it would be up to Parliament to find a suitable replacement.
It was a foregone conclusion that the new Prime Minister would be chosen from the PCI, given the unpopularity of the Socialist Party.

Although many of the younger members of the Party tried to run for the position, the PCI leadership, still controlled by the old guard, preferred older candidates.
The PCI believed that the nomination of a party member who had participated in the Second Civil War would reassure the people of the Third Republic after Andreatta's controversial government.

Seventy-year-old Giorgio Napolitano was considered the ideal candidate for multiple reasons.
Since joining the PCI in 1944, Napolitano had served in numerous institutional roles including mayor of Naples, federal secretary of the PCI in Caserta, and Foreign Minister during Calvino's government.
For this reason, many people in the Third Republic associated him with Calvino's diplomatic successes and his Neapolitan origins that would finally prove Southern Italy's full adherence to the ideals of the 1952 revolution.

Better yet, the political rivalry between Napolitano and Andreatta was well known. Napolitano had never tolerated the former Prime Minister's interference in the affairs of his ministry, and, according to some rumors, in 1985 had attempted to present himself as an alternative candidate to Andreatta after Calvino's death.
Napolitano also enjoyed the support of the armed forces, as he had promised to repeal many of Andreatta's unpopular initiatives. Finally, the PCI leadership hoped that the new economic, and political reforms proposed by Napolitano would weaken the radicals within the Communist Party.

Thus it was that in late 1995 Giorgio Napolitano became the new Prime Minister of the Third Republic. Ironically, Napolitano promised many members of the PSI and DP various positions within his Politburo so they would support him despite his advanced age.

During his first term, Napolitano was mainly concerned with rewarding his supporters and getting his rivals out of the way.
To begin with, the influence of the armed forces in the government increased significantly. General Alberto dalla Chiesa, hero of the Second Civil War, was appointed as the new Minister of Defense and the funds allocated to the military were almost doubled.

Under Napolitano the modernization of the navy was also completed, and the propaganda of the Third Republic began again to talk about the inevitable reunification of Sicily-Sardinia with mainland Italy.
Military parades soon became the norm under Napolitano's government, which introduced new anniversaries and holidays just for this purpose.

In addition to strengthening the military, Napolitano's first term focused on the fight against corruption. The Internal Security Services, led by new Justice Minister Silvio Berlusconi, began a long campaign of arrests against various politicians and industrialists accused of embezzling public money or accepting bribes.
While it wasn't as bad as the Red Hands scandal, quite a few parlamentarians were forced to resign, and were replaced with younger canditates.

In foreign policy Napolitano proved much more active than his predecessor. The new Prime Minister personally organized many of his diplomatic visits around the world, becoming the first head of state of Mainland Italy to visit the Republic of Australia and the the Kingdom of Pakistan.
His many meetings with Western heads of state had only one topic: the increasingly apparent and growing weakness of the Soviet Union. After Gagarin's death in 1997, it had become apparent that the new Soviet leader Gennady Yanayev was unable to cope with the many problems plaguing the Stalingrad Alliance.

While Washington and the rest of NATO feared that Soviet instability could result in a nuclear war, Napolitano on the contrary saw it as an opportunity. The Prime Minister had been ambassador to Athens between 1967 and 1969 and he hoped to exploit Soviet weakness to avenge the humiliation of 1968.
Between 1997 and 2000, Napolitano's government secretly contacted Kyros Florakis, head of the Greek secret police and considered by many to be the true leader of the People's Republic of Greece.
The offer was attractive: in case Soviet influence in Greece weakened or even collapsed, Rome would support Florakis militarily and financially against any external and internal enemies.

Rome's offer would be realized in 2001 at the beginning of Napolitano's second term. As many of the European regimes loyal to Moscow collapsed during the European Spring, Rome moved to eliminate the pro-Soviet regime in Athens.

The Third Republic's fleet began a series of exercises in the Ionian Sea and Napolitano personally sent a telegram to King Constantine II, threatening severe consequences if the government in Crete tried in any way to interfere "with the free will of the Greek proletariat."
Evidently Belgrade had received a different message, since at the same time the Yugoslav government was sending many of its troops along the Greek border.

In the end there was no invasion. Thanks to the aid he had previously received from Rome, Florakis took control of the country and, having obtained the support of the army, violently suppressed the protests of the students gathered in Syntagma Square.

After the coup in Greece, Napolitano was the first world leader to offer a diplomatic solution to resolve the crisis which was devouring much of Eastern Europe. Not only did Napolitano fear that Yanayev would resort to the Soviet nuclear arsenal, but he was also concerned that a total collapse of the Stalingrad Alliance would also have negative consequences in the Mediterranean League.

In the end, nuclear war was advertd not so much because of Napolitano's diplomatic offert but more because neither Michail Gorbačëv, head of the NKVD, nor Boris Yeltsin, Minister of Defense, wanted to die as a result of Yanayev's folly. On July 16, 2001, the two ministers announced that Yanayev had died due to a sudden illness (a weird way to say suicide) and that Alexander Rutskoy, formerly Foreign Minister, was the new Soviet leader.

Although Third Republic propaganda still insists that Rome's role was pivotal during the Helsinki Accords, many historians agree that Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema did little besides pose for journalists. President Colin Powell did not trust Rome, and the Soviet government was furious about what happened in Greece.

Although Napolitano gained international recognition for Florakis as the new leader of mainland Greece, the Prime Minister could prevent neither the reunification of Germany nor the end of communist governments in East Austria, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Worse, the remaining European members of the Stalingrad Alliance (Romania, Bulgaria and Albania) were still fiercely anti-Italian and loyal to Moscow.
In any case, the expansion of the Mediterranean League and the partial end of Soviet power in Eastern Europe made Napolitano the most popular man in the entire Third Republic. Unfortunately, this popularity was not destined to last.

Almost immediately, the People's Republic of Greece proved to be a heavy and costly burden. The Greeks hated the brutality and corruption of the new government, and soon the entire country was rocked by numerous protests and strikes.
Greece joining the Mediterranean League in 2003 also produced contradictory results. While it allowed Rome to control much of the trade routes along the Mediterranean, it also rekindled tensions with Washington.

During his third term, Napolitano thus had to face the increasingly hostile President John Bolton. What humiliated the Prime Minister was not the imposition of sanctions, but his inability to respond. The Third Republic's economy depended mostly on trade with the United States, making it almost impossible for Rome to impose sanctions against Washington in turn.

Because of the events in Greece, many PCI members began to lose confidence in Napolitano. The party's liberal current was disgusted at the idea of supporting the openly Stalinist regime in Athens, while the more radical current criticized the Prime Minister for refusing to send troops to defend Florakis.

The coup de grace for Napolitano's government came on Nov. 7, 2005, when the Mediterranean Bloc found itself bordered by another openly anti-communist alliance.
Although the Helsinki Accords had provided for their complete neutrality, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Austria announced the formation of the Warsaw Pact, a military and economic alliance based on the model of the European Commonwealth.

French Prime Minister Noël Mamère's diplomatic visit to Warsaw confirmed that the new alliance was not neutral as it claimed to be, but on the contrary was supported by NATO.

As a result of these events, Napolitano almost completely lost the support of Parliament. The PCI thought that the 80-year-old prime minister was unable to cope with the new dangers , while the PSI had never forgiven Napolitano for his old rivalry with Andreatta.

Napolitano could have won a fourth term in 2007 if he had agreed to expel members of the other parties from his Politburo and replace them with more radical members of the PCI.
Perhaps hypocritically, however, Napolitano did not want to grant power to what he called "red fascists." By now the Prime Minister had achieved his political goals, and he was still moderately popular.
If he could not be loved like Calvino, at least Napolitano could retire from politics without being hated like de Lorenzo.

During his last speech in Parliament, Napolitano warned his party against the growing influence of the Togliattian current and named his successor.
To secure even more fame in the history books, Napolitano announced not only that his successor was going to be a woman but also that the new Prime Minister was part of the DP instead of the PCI or PSI.

After the conclusion of his third and final term, Napolitano returned to his native Naples. His stay in the city was abruptly interrupted by the events of 2012, however, and he currently resides in the People's Republic of Brazil.

 

[Gar48]

ROSY BINDI

The Fake Hope

At the time of her appointment as Prime Minister, Rosaria "Rosy" Bindi was the first leader in mainland Italy not to have fought in the Second Civil War and to have been born in Social-Communist territory. In fact, Bindi was born in 1951 in Tuscany, while both central and northern Italy were already under the control of the Second National Liberation Committee.

Raised in the birthplace of the Italian Revolution, Bindi became interested in politics at an early age. She joined the Italian Communist Youth Federation as soon as possible and impressed some of her teachers with her knowledge of Marx and Togliatti.

However, after graduating with a degree in engineering, Bindi joined the DP, attracted by what she percieved as a "good mixt of socialist ideas and rational Italian values". Her decision surprised many of her professors , with many now believing that Bindi's political career had been nipped in the bud.

Indeed, Bindi's political career could only begin after Calvino's liberalizations. Despite being a member of neither the PSI nor the PCI, Bindi joined the Regional Economic Council of Tuscany in 1978.
Thanks to her organizational skills, in 1985 Bindi became Premier of the Council and was awarded the Order of Longo for overseeing the modernization of the Arno floodway, making the canal completely navigable.

Andreatta's rise greatly helped the career of Bindi. In an attempt to weaken his communist opponents, in 1989 Andreatta appointed Romano Prodi as new Foreign Minister.

Prodi was a longtime ally of Bindi, and hastened to bring her into the foreign ministry. After her appointment as “ Undersecretary for European diplomatic relationships ”, Rosy Bindi participated in numerous diplomatic visits both in Western Europe and in the Soviet Bloc.

It seems that this experience influenced her future political ideas. On one hand, Bindi was surprised by the way Western Europeans openly expressed their views and criticized their political leaders which was absent in the Third Republic. On the other hand, she was disgusted by the rampant poverty in the Soviet Bloc and how local communist leaders preferred to protect their power rather than improve the situation.

In 1993, Bindi succeeded Aldo Moro as leader of Popular Democracy. Although some DP members criticized Bindi for ger frequent absencies from Parliament, and her decision to move the party further to the left (including adding sickles and hammers to the party logo) , her leadership proved fundamental in 1994.

Bindi in fact hastened to declare that the DP would no longer support Andreatta and his Politburo after the explosion of the Garibaldi spacecraft. At the same time, she met secretly with Giorgio Napolitano.
Bindi knew that the PCI wanted to appoint Napolitano as new Prime Minister, but that they did not have enough votes. In exchange for support from the DP, Napolitano had to accept Bindi and some of her allies within his government.

So in 1996 Bindi became the new Minister of Industry. Her appointment proved to be fundamental for the modernization of the armed forces, wanted by Napolitano.
Although the task should have fallen on the Minister of Defense, it was Bindi who oversaw the project, finding all the necessary funds and resources.

It soon became clear that Napolitano had designated Bindi as his successor. During his second term, Napolitano allowed Bindi to preside over some of the Politburo meetings and even encouraged her to take an interest in other political areas, in addition to industry, preparing her for future higher positions.

At the time of her appointment as Prime Minister in 2007, Bindi had inherited almost absolute control of trade routes in the Mediterranean , an unstable economy in rapid decline, a bad relationship with the Soviets and NATO and enough nuclear warheads to transform much of France into a radioactive crater.

Bindi belonged to a new generation of politicians, too young to remember the time before the revolution. Like many other members of her generation, the new Prime Minister was more familiar with the corruption and burocratic problems of the Third Repuclic than with all the nationalistic claims of Rome against Sicily-Sardinia or Greece. It was clear that many more reforms were needed.

In her inauguration speech, Bindi declared that her political program was based on the three concepts of “Apertura, Velocità e Trasparenza” (Openness, Acceleration and Transparency).

First, Bindi forced many of the older and more hostile parliamentarians to retire. Furthermore, the government of the Third Republic introduced new individual freedoms for citizens, regarding freedom of speech and religion.

The Third Republic media was finally allowed to express limited criticism of the Third Republic government, especially against the corruption and wealth of some members of the PCI and PSI. During her rule, Bindi also tolerated some strikes and unauthorized demonstrations from Rome.

To demonstrate the validity of her reforms, Bindi began to participate in public debates and conferences, where she answered the questions of the spectators ( with the necessary precautions to avoid dangerous questions and uncomfortable situations obviously ). For the first time since 1971, a politician from mainland Italy admitted that their predecessors, including Longo and Calvino, had made many mistakes that still plagued the country.

Political reforms coincided with new economic initiatives , as Bindi intended to completely transform the economy of the Third Republic. During the Parliament's session on April 25, 2009, Sergio Marchione, Minister of Economy, announced that the government was considering a new set of laws to legalize the private ownership of service companies, in the manufacturing industry and in external trade.

At first it seemed that Bindi's reforms were working, at least in the field of foreign policy. Although Washington continued to be wary of Rome, other heads of state decided that they could negotiate with the new government of the Third Republic.
Bindi was able to restore diplomatic ties between Rome and Tel Aviv, interrupted after the Libyan revolution of 1982 and managed to obtain important agreements for the reduction of the number of nuclear warheads both with the European Commonwealth and with the Warsaw Pact.

Bindi's reforms had different effects in the rest of the Mediterranean Bloc. If on the one hand the Libyan government refused to adopt those reforms, on the other the Yugoslav Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić approved similar initiatives to reduce ethnic tensions within the country.

However, Bindi's main concern was to apply her reforms in Greece. The stability of Greece was fundamental for the economic and political success of the Mediterranean League, but at the same time Bindi did not want to waste resources to support an unpopular government.

In 2010, Bindi personally met Kyros Florakis, urging him to recognize that he did not enjoy the support of the Greek proletariat and to try to agree with the opposition to create a stable government.

The results of Bindi's insistence were first contradictory and then, disastrous. Florakis agreed to suspend martial law and to grant more freedom of movement but at the same time refused to resign and initiate the required economic reforms. Attempts to negotiate with his political opponents also proved futile, as none of them wanted to negotiate with the butcher of Syntagma.

The only result of Bindi's insistence was the killing of Florakis in 2010, an event that plunged Greece into chaos. His successor hastened to restore martial law across the country while numerous armed groups, supported by both NATO and the Soviets, rose up against Athens.

The Second Greek Civil War took Rome by surprise, and divided the government. The First Minister was reluctant to send troops into a foreign conflict, while most of the Politburo and Parliament feared that the loss of Greece would damage the economy and reputation of the Mediterranean League.

Eventually, Bindi approved the sending of Italian troops to protect the main Greek cities, but she refused to militarily assist Athens in its military campaign against the rebels.
“ Our allies can rely on our bullets and financial support. I do not consider it necessary to add our blood to the aid sent. ” So it was that Bindi justified his decision in one of her last speeches to the Parliament.

Despite this, Italian soldiers began to die once again in Greece, due to car bombs and aguates in the cities they protected.

Violence in Greece was not the only problem caused by Bindi's political decisions. In 2010 the conclave of Avignon elected as new Pope Luigi Padovese, archbishop of Milan.

Padovese was the first Italian elected Pope since the death of Pius XII. He was also well known for his firm opposition to the government of the Third Republic, to such an extent that he had been arrested multiple times for subversive activities. The new Pope soon got to work, preaching against the immorality and brutality of the Third Republic, and arguing that it was the duty of every good Christian to oppose the communists and their allies.

Many Italian parliamentarians accused Bindi of being responsible for the election of the new anti-communist Pope. Without her liberalization and failures in Greece, Avignon would never have dared to humiliate Rome in this way.
Some even began to suspect that Bindi was secretly working for the Pope, as her party was well known for its support for Catholic-communism, an ideology that mixes the precepts of the Bible with Marx's theories.

Many of her old allies had also begun to be wary of the First Minister. Her economic solutions had not produced significant results, and political reforms were damaging the institutions of the Third Republic.

Thanks to the relaxation of censorship and greater freedom of speech, the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula knew that the situation in Greece was getting worse every day, to such an extent that sending other soldiers against the rebels would soon become inevitable. Many had also begun to lose faith in the government, as they now knew how many of its institutions were corrupt, and that Bindi's solutions were apparently not working.

Eventually, Rosy Bindi's government did not end because of the new civil war in Greece, the economy or the new Pope, but because of homosexuality.

In early 2012, Rosy Bindi proposed a new reform to her Politburo that would completely decriminalize homosexuality throughout the Third Republic. In fact, Bindi asked to make the unofficial policy of tolerance of Calvino official.

Bindi, however, had not realized how much the recent failures had radicalized part of the parliamentarians of the Third Republic. In their eyes, Bindi's proposal was only a further attempt to normalize another symbol of capitalist corruption.
Many MPs also feared that this decriminalization would once again harm the government's popularity. Many inhabitants of the Third Republic had grown up with the idea that homosexuality could not exist in the perfect social-communist society and now Bindi wanted to officially admit that the government had never believed in its own propaganda.

None of them intended to see the Third Republic collapse because of Bindi's utopian hopes. It was necessary to act.

Bindi's government ended in October of that year, while the First Minister was on vacation in Genoa. On the morning of ’ 8 December the streets of Rome were invaded by army tanks and all television channels began to broadcast Verdi's Nabucco repeatedly.

The government of the National Security Committee had just begun.

 

[Gar48]

THE NATIONAL SALVATION COMMITTEE

The end of an era?

“Italy is sick and we are the cure.” It was with this sentence that Elisa Zeli, officially the new First Minister of the Third Republic, concluded the first press conference of Il Comitato Di Salvezza Nazionale (the National Salvation Committee) in 2012.

With these words, the Committee referred to the mysterious conspiracy that had made necessary the intervention of the armed forces and the arrest of a large part of Parliament and the entire Politburo of Bindi. According to a series of documents released by the new Italian government, in the last seven years the political institutions of the Third Republic had been infiltrated by agents serving both Moscow and Washington.

For this reason, the thirteen members of the Committee had been forced to intervene, collaborating with other patriots in the army to depose the treacherous government and restore stability in the Third Republic.

Obviously this news was received with much skepticism by the rest of the world. Not only was such a collaboration between Moscow and Washington highly unlikely but all members of the Committee were well known for their past opposition to Bindi's reforms.

The first action of the National Salvation Committee, after revealing the existence of the alleged conspiracy, was the imposition of martial law and the dissolution of Parliament. Although its members originally promised that it would only be of a temporary measure, the state of emergency has been in force in Italy for more than four years.

Due to censorship and the closure of borders, it is difficult to know what is going on in the Third Republic. However, what emerges from the stories of many Italian exiles is not reassuring.

Following Rosy Bindi's sudden death in early 2013, CSN decided to extend the state of emergency indefinitely. Although Bindi's death occurred in unclear circumstances, the Committee still claims that the woman was killed by agents working for the mysterious international conspiracy.

The hunt for all these agents and those who helped them started the so-called “ Great Italian Purge ”. We can only speculate on the number of Italians arrested and tried since the CSN coup, but, according to some rumors, it is a very large number.

Although at the beginning the purge had affected only the political allies of Bindi, it has now extended to every sector of Italian society. Many of Ingrao's old reforms have been abolished, significantly increasing the authority of the Internal Security Services.

Political ideas are not the only reason why an inhabitant of the Third Republic now risks arrest. According to the CSN, many ideas and behaviors tolerated by previous governments are now part of the mysterious “ disease ” that afflicts mainland Italy.

Ironically, Catholics and homosexuals are now persecuted in the same way by Rome. Churchmen and those who considered sinners of the worst kind often find themselves sharing the same cell, accused of working for one or more foreign governments.

It is not clear what CSN hopes to achieve with this purge. If the aim is only to eliminate the old supporters of Bindi, the Italian government has long since achieved this result.

Yet the arrests and sham trials are continuing, even against Italian politicians who had originally supported the coup or at least had not protested in any way.

Perhaps CSN members fear that they themselves will fall victim to a coup d'état at the hands of unsuspected Italian politicians and soldiers. Or perhaps they desperately need scapegoats to justify many of their failures.

In recent years, the CSN has discovered that, unlike many of its true and alleged political enemies, the economy cannot be intimidated by the secret police or be arrested in case of problems. The repeal of Bindi's reforms and the imposition of more stalinist economic policies have only worsened the difficult economic situation of the Third Republic.

At the same time, CSN's foreign policy has prompted the United States, the USSR and their allies to impose heavy sanctions against the Third Republic.

Under the National Salvation Committee, the Third Republic has undertaken a very aggressive foreign policy. Previous diplomatic agreements with the Warsaw Pact and the European Commonwealth have been canceled, while the production of weapons and atomic bombs has been increased.

Some international observers believe that this production is an attempt by the Third Republic to dissuade the Soviets and Americans from arming rebel groups active in Greece.

Indeed, Rome made this increase in war production coincide with the beginning of its special military operation in the greek mainland. According to the propaganda of the National Salvation Committee, the Italian army had to intervene militarily in Greece to defend Athens from the attack of Cretan fascist-capitalist groups, supported by the Soviet Union and NATO.

There must be many fascist groups in Greece, given the high number of Greek fighters and civilians killed by the Italian expeditionary force, starting from 2012. And Italian soldiers must be very unfortunate, since 5000 of them have already been killed by what Rome calls “ poorly organized fascist robbers. ”

Although Rome continues to insist that victory against the Greek rebels is imminent, Athens now controls only the areas surrounding the main Greek cities. On the contrary, the rural areas of the country are controlled by several rebel groups, which enjoy the support of the population.

Perhaps for this reason, the Italian army recently declared that it is necessary to increase the number of Italian soldiers to be sent to the Greek Socialist Republic. At this point it seems that Rome also wants to impose military leverage on university students, and perhaps even remove the age limit for the recruitment of soldiers.

For now, the CSN government survives only thanks to its brutality. The recent student protests in Milan and Rome have been mercilessly suppressed, and not a day goes by without the approval of at least one new decree relating to internal security.

Yet there are many future dangers that CSN risks facing, starting with its internal rivalries.

Although the CSN has proudly called itself a collective dictatorship, it seems that the fear of popular revolt is the only thing that holds its thirteen members together. The recent resignation of Beatrice Ornelli, former Minister of Defense, over the military failures in Greece, clearly shows that numerous internal struggles are taking place within the CSN

In addition to the rivalries between its members, a further danger for the CSN is represented by the Italian armed forces. Many generals are in fact furious with the government both for the numerous purges and for its interference in the management of the special mission in Greece.

The recent criticisms of Mario Andena, commander of the Italian expeditionary force in Greece, against the military strategy adopted by Rome and the poor training of the new recruits seem to confirm this discontent.

General Andena is extremely popular in Italy for his victories against the Greek rebels, and has many connections with the Libyan and Yugoslav governments. If the general tried to take control of the Third Republic, he would have the support of the rest of the Mediterranean League and a large part of northern Italy.

And finally, the population of the peninsula itself could end the government of the CSN and perhaps the Third Republic itself. The revolutionary zeal of the Cpmitee has in fact created numerous problems in Southern Italy.

Many inhabitants of the southern regions, traditionally more conservative and religious than the rest of their compatriots, aren't happy about the renewed persecution against the Catholic Church or the imposition of new taxes to finance the war in Greece.

For this reason, many suspect that the explosions that hit the air bases of Naples and Cosenza last February were terrorist attacks, and not simple accidents, as reported by the media of the Third Republic.

We have no way of predicting what will happen in mainland Italy in the coming months or years. Perhaps the CSN will survive, perhaps the army will turn against it, or perhaps popular discontent will cause a new revolution or a civil war.

Unfortunately, all these scenarios represent a significant risk for Europe. If the CSN remained in power, the political instability of the Third Republic would only increase.

An army takeover could restore political stability in mainland Italy, but the situation in Greece would deteriorate significantly. Andena and his supporters are in fact convinced that Rome's military strategy in Greece should be much more aggressive, to the point of suggesting the use of chemical weapons in areas controlled by the rebels. In addition, some of them still refuse to recognize the independence of Sicily-Sardinia, and in the past they have also proposed an invasion of the small republic.

Finally, many fear that a popular uprising could start a third civil war in Italy, especially if Yugoslavia and Libya decide to intervene. Since both the Third Republic and its two allies have numerous nuclear warheads, the risk of an atomic war is high.

In a few months it will be the sixty-fifth anniversary of the victory of the Second Liberation Committee during the Second Civil War. Who knows if by then there will still be someone in mainland Italy alive and healty enough to celebrate it.