Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (July 29, 1883 - April 28, 1945) - Italian politician, writer, leader of the Fascist Party (FFP), dictator, leader ("Duce"), who led Italy (as Prime Minister) from 1922 to 1943. First Marshal of the Empire (30 March 1938). After 1936, his official title became "His Excellency Benito Mussolini, Head of Government, Duce of Fascism and Founder of the Empire." Mussolini remained in power until 1943, after which he was removed and arrested, but released by German special forces and then headed the Italian Social Republic in northern Italy until his death. Mussolini was one of the founders of Italian fascism, which included elements of corporatism, expansionism and anti-communism, combined with censorship and state propaganda. Among the domestic policy achievements of Mussolini's government between 1924 and 1939 were the successful implementation of public works programs such as the drainage of the Pontine Marshes, improved employment opportunities, and the modernization of the public transport system. Mussolini also resolved the Roman Question by concluding the Lateran Agreements between the Kingdom of Italy and the Papal See. He is also credited with bringing economic success to Italy's colonies. An expansionist foreign policy, initially culminating in the conquest of Abyssinia and Albania, forced him into an alliance with Germany and participation in World War II as part of the Axis powers, which was the cause of his death.
Benito Mussolini, son of Alessandro Mussolini and Rosa Maltoni, was born in Verano di Costa at 2:45 pm on Sunday 29 July 1883, 14 months after the death of Garibaldi and 4 months after the death of Karl Marx. At various stages of his life, Mussolini admired these two people, although both would certainly have rejected him with horror for what he later became. Verano di Costa is a small village in the mountains above the village of Dovia in the parish of Predappio, next door to Forli , in the Romagna region, near the Adriatic coast of Italy. This is a land of violence and revolution, and violence is older than revolution, since it began many centuries before Italy became a single nation.
Alessandro Mussolini
Benito Mussolini's father, Alessandro, the son of a poor peasant, was born in Montemaggiore, in Romagna, in 1854, six years before the formation of the Kingdom of Italy, when Romagna was part of the Papal States, in which all senior government officials were priests. Only 26% of the population could read and write. The Pope even banned the construction of railroads there for fear that they would bring revolutionary doctrines to remote villages. Young Alessandro became a blacksmith. Unable to find work in Moitemaggiore, he moved to Dovia and opened his forge there. He became an ardent socialist and at eighteen joined the local branch of the Bakunin section of the International. When the residents of Dovia brought a horse to the forge, Alessandro instilled socialist ideas in them while he worked. Even customers who disagreed with him considered him a nice guy and listened good-naturedly to socialist propaganda.
Alessandro fell in love with Rosa Maltoni, born in Forli, also in Romagna, in 1858.
Rosa Maltoni
She worked in Predappio as a school teacher. She was a kind, intelligent, “conscious” woman who considered raising local children her duty. Like most Romagna residents, she was a devout Catholic. Alessandro Mussolini belonged to those few who were strongly anti-Catholic: he was a militant atheist. However, the love that broke out between the conservative Catholic and the atheist socialist was stormy and uncontrollable. Alessandro and Rosa were so in love that they were able to reconcile their religious differences. Rosa's father was initially upset by his daughter's choice; he did not want to marry her off to a supervised revolutionary, but Rosa insisted, and he gave in. Alessandro, in order to please Rosa, agreed to get married in a church. The wedding took place in Predappio on January 25, 1882.
Birthplace of Benito Mussolini
Their first child, a boy, was born on July 29, 1883. Alessandro again sacrificed his atheistic principles and allowed his son to be baptized, but insisted on the name Benito Amilcare Andrea, in honor of the three revolutionary heroes. Benito Juárez, the president of Mexico, led liberal forces in a civil war against Catholic conservatives and inspired the Mexicans to fight the French army sent by Napoleon III to install the Austrian Archduke Maximilian on the imperial throne of Mexico. Having defeated the French, Juarez took Maximilian prisoner, he was tried and shot. The royal houses of Europe and all conservatives were horrified, and the revolutionaries were triumphant, especially the Italian ones, since Maximilian was the brother of the Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, who until recently had oppressed the Italian population of Lombardy and Venice and continued to oppress the Italians of Trieste and Trentino.
Amilcare Cipriani fought alongside Garibaldi during his attempt to liberate Rome in 1862, which ended in defeat at Aspromonte. Then in 1871 he went to Paris to fight for the Commune. He survived the massacre of the Communards by General Gaston de Galife after the fall of the Commune, but was one of those captured rebels who was sent to hard labor in New Caledonia (an island in the Pacific Ocean). There he endured all the hardships of a nine-year imprisonment and was released under an amnesty in 1880. Cipriani returned to Italy and joined the internationalists, who revered him as a hero and martyr of the struggle for an idea.
Kitchen of Benito Mussolini's house in Pradappio (in Emilia-Romagna), where he was born on July 29, 1883.
Andrea Costa was another famous Italian revolutionary. In 1874 he became the leader of the internationalists and the main organizer of the Bologna uprising. He was well known in Romagna, he often visited these parts with his mistress, a blond Jewish woman from Russia, Anna Rosenstein, known as Anna Kuleshova. Like Costa, she was a strong socialist. When she was tried in Florence in November 1879 as an internationalist and terrorist, she defended herself so brilliantly that she was acquitted by the jury.
All Mussolini's children were raised together in their father's house in Verano di Costa. It was a simple structure of four rooms, sparsely furnished with a few wooden tables and chairs, and simple iron beds, forged by Alessandro in his forge. The walls were decorated with two paintings: the Madonna of Pompeii, which Rosa especially revered, and a portrait of Garibaldi, Alessandro’s favorite hero.
When he was 9 years old, he was sent to Faenza to boarding school. As in many other educational centers providing secondary education, the teachers there were monks of the Salesian Order. Discipline was strict and life for the boys was harsh. They got up at 5 am in the summer or 6 am in the winter. It was forbidden to talk while eating. His father arranged for him to attend another school, the Collegio Giose Carducci in Forlimpopoli, where teachers, rather than priests, taught and supervised. Benito stayed there for seven years, before he turned 18. He studied brilliantly, especially distinguished by his success in history, geography and Italian literature. However, there were enough troubles here too. On January 14, 1898 (he was 14 years old at the time), a classmate sitting next to him put an ink on the page of the notebook where Mussolini was writing the solution to a mathematical problem. When Benito pulled out his penknife and began to scrape off the stain, the boy hit him on the head. In response, Mussolini plunged a penknife into his buttock. In the last two years of school, he began to show interest in sex. Mussolini looked at pretty girls on the street and often visited Forlimpopoli brothels.
After graduating from school, Mussolini began looking for work. He was accepted as a primary school teacher in the small town of Gualtieri in the region of Emilia, near Parma, almost a hundred miles from Predappio. The work was poorly paid, but it gave a certain position in society and the right to be called “Professor Mussolini.” In Gualtieri he became friends with the socialist teacher Nicola Bombacci, an intellectual. He had a strange appearance and a large bushy beard. There, in Gualtieri, Mussolini had a love affair with a certain Julia F., the wife of a soldier who was serving military service at that time. They took long walks along the banks of the Po River. Their romance, full, according to Mussolini, of “cruel passion and jealousy,” ended with the return of her husband from the army.
Mussolini in 1900 at the age of 17.
Mussolini stayed briefly in Gualtieri. He decided to go to Switzerland. He wanted to travel and also meet foreign socialists and anarchists. In Switzerland, since the time of Bakunin, many anarchist circles and groups have flourished among the watchmakers of the canton of Jura. Socialists from France, Italy and especially from Russia settled there, who did not get along with the police of their own countries and turned Switzerland into a refuge for revolutionary emigrants. Mussolini, among other things, wanted to evade conscription into the Italian army, knowing full well that he should receive a summons upon reaching 20 years of age. On July 9, 1902, he boarded a night train from Chiasso to Yverdon on Lake Neuchâtel. He had some money with him, but no other means of subsistence. He planned to live in Switzerland on odd jobs and to help the friends he intended to make there.
Mussolini in Switzerland. 1904
All this time, Mussolini wrote articles in socialist newspapers: in the Lausanne “L"Avenire del Lavoratore" and others, published by Italian emigrants in Switzerland, as well as in the Milanese "L"Avant-Garde Socialista" and "Ilproletariy", the organ of the Italian socialists in New York . At the same time, he composed several poems that were also published in these newspapers, including a sonnet about the French revolutionary Gracchus Babeuf, who was guillotined during the Thermidorian reaction and revered as the first socialist revolutionary.
However, in the summer of 1903 he got into more serious trouble with the police. The carpenters of Bern went on strike, which caused great damage to the building contractors. Mussolini spoke at the May Day rally and called for a general strike in support of the carpenters. The authorities did not take immediate action, but the Swiss police took note of the “socialist revolutionary Benito Mussolini.” On June 18, he was arrested, interrogated and placed in Berne prison for 12 days, where he was presented with a warrant for expulsion from the canton. He was escorted to the Italian border at Chiasso, but immediately boarded a train to Lugano, from where he proceeded to Lausanne, where the Berne expulsion order was invalid.
Benito Mussolini, June 19, 1903, after his arrest by the Swiss police due to lack of identity documents
In April 1904, Mussolini was convicted in absentia by a military tribunal in Forlì for evading military service. However, a few months later the Italian government granted amnesty to the deserters. At this time, Mussolini was considering his intention to visit New York, but he wanted to see his father and mother, who dreamed of his return to Italy. He also understood that if he did not respond to the amnesty and join the army, he would have to be an exile for the rest of his life. In November 1904 he left Switzerland. At home, he immediately reported to the recruiting station in Forlì and in January 1905 was sent to the 10th Bersaglieri Regiment, stationed in Verona.
Mussolini served in the army for 21 months, devoting himself entirely to military pursuits, so that during this time he wrote only one political article. In subsequent years, he said that he enjoyed his time in the army and also realized that a person must learn to obey before commanding. Indeed, in almost two years, the naughty schoolboy, revolutionary vagabond and journalist Mussolini was replaced by an obedient and skillful soldier.
When he was demobilized in September 1906, he received a position as a school teacher in Tolmezzo, near Venice. There he started an affair with the wife of the owner of the house where he rented an apartment. In his 1911 autobiography, he describes her as a thirty-year-old woman who retained her beauty and charm despite her turbulent past. The husband found out about their relationship, but limited himself to beating Mussolini.
While in Trento, Mussolini fell in love with a married woman, Fernanda Ose Facinelli, who worked at the union headquarters. She bore him a son, who died after living for several months. Fernanda also soon died of tuberculosis. Mussolini maintained contact with her mother and, having become dictator, helped the old woman with money. His other mistress in Trento was Ida Irena Dalzer, the daughter of an innkeeper in Sardinia. Attractive, lively, enterprising, but hysterical. She was the same age as Mussolini, she was 26 years old.
The Socialists of Forlì decided to publish their own local newspaper and appointed Mussolini as its editor. He gave the newspaper the name “La Lotta di Classe” (“Class Struggle”). In the very first issue, dated January 9, 1910, he condemned parliamentarism and called “for a struggle of class against class, a struggle that will culminate in a general revolution.” Throughout 1910, he expressed extreme socialist views in the newspaper, especially attacking the militarism and nationalism of Republicans like Mazzini. “The Republicans want a national unification,” he wrote on July 2, “we want an international one. The proletariat must no longer shed its precious blood in slaughter for the needs of the Moloch of patriotism. For us, the national flag is just a rag to be thrown into the dung.”
Mussolini, editor of a socialist newspaper. Italy. 1910
In Forli, Mussolini wanted to live as husband and wife with Rachelle Guidi, who by this time was seventeen years old. She was waiting for him and was very disappointed that he never wrote to her from Trento. He only wrote notes for her at the end of each postcard he sent to his father. However, she believed that this was because he was very busy with journalism and politics. No one told her about Fernanda Osa Facinelli or Ida Irene Dalzer.
Rachelle
Rachel's mother did not really want her daughter to marry Benito, believing that being the wife of an active revolutionary socialist meant dooming herself to a hard life. Alessandro Mussolini agreed with her because he blamed himself for the hardships that his own revolutionary activities brought to Rosa. But Benito and Rachelle were determined to be together. According to Racheli, Benito eventually convinced Alessandro and her mother to agree to their union by showing up at their house with a revolver in his hand and threatening to kill her and then himself if they continued to resist. Even if Rachel's story is true - and not everything written in her memoirs is accurate - Mussolini was unlikely to seriously intend to carry out his threat. Rather, he staged a drama in which Rachel willingly took part.
The parents eventually stopped objecting, and on January 17, 1910, Benito and Rachel began their life together. There was no civil or religious ceremony, as this would have gone against Mussolini's principles. Rachel happily agreed to live with him without legal registration, because she completely agreed with his political and religious views. She was probably already pregnant, as their first child was born seven and a half months later, at three o'clock in the morning on September 1, 1910. It was a tiny girl. They named her Edda.
Mussolini with Rachel and daughter Edda
On January 27, ten days after Benito began living with Rashelyo, his father became seriously ill. He was rushed to hospital, but although he was discharged on February 9, a shadow of the former Alessandro returned home. He lived another 9 months and then relapsed. Benito sent a telegram to brother Arnaldo and sister Edwiga, who married Francesco Mancini in 1907, calling them to their father's bedside. They managed to arrive. Alessandro Mussolini died at 4 am on November 17, 1910 at the age of 56.
In August, he spoke at a conference of socialist youth in Cesena with a call to violate military discipline, this first step towards the destruction of the army, because the army and the bureaucracy are the two pillars of the bourgeois state.
On November 5, he announced that his newspaper would persistently and violently continue its anti-militarist and anti-patriotic propaganda. He proclaimed anti-patriotism because he accused patriotic politics of weakening the class struggle. Realizing that such propaganda was extremely dangerous and could lead to the newspaper being tried by a military tribunal, he was ready to suffer for the sake of the idea. “We will not defend our country because we have no country to defend.” On August 5, 1911, he wrote in La Lotta di Classe: “If the Motherland, this false fiction that has outlived its time, calls for new sacrifices of blood and money, the proletariat, following the instructions of the socialists, must respond with a general strike. The war between nations will then turn into a war between classes.” On October 14, 1911, while he was having breakfast at the Cafe Garibaldi in Forlì, the police arrested him. Nenny and Lolly had been arrested two hours earlier. On November 18, they appeared in court. Mussolini was accused of inciting the people to violence in his speech on September 24. After the lawyer's speech, when asked if he wanted to add anything to what had been said, Mussolini exclaimed: “If you find me innocent, I will be pleased, but if you declare me guilty, I will be flattered.” The court found him and his colleagues guilty. On November 23, Nenni was sentenced to one year and fifteen days in prison and a fine of five hundred lire. Mussolini - to one year in prison, and Lolly - to six months in prison and a fine of three hundred lire. Like many other political prisoners of those years, he wrote while in prison. At age 28, he wrote an autobiography entitled: "My Life from July 29, 1883 to November 23, 1911." It was written at the insistence of his socialist supporters.
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, was killed by Serbian nationalists in Sarajevo. Mussolini's editorial comment, published the next day in Avanti!, was more restrained than his enthusiasm for the assassination of Stolypin in 1911. He called the death of the Archduke and his wife a “tragic event”, but nevertheless rejoiced at the blow dealt to the Habsburg Monarchy, which, not content with the oppression of the Hungarians and Croats, aimed to expand its territories and annex Serbia. The Austrian government actually intended to use the assassination in Sarajevo as a pretext to take over Serbia.
As the crisis developed, Mussolini continued his anti-war propaganda. In an article dated July 26, he wrote in Avanti!: “Only one cry will be heard from the lips of the Italian proletariat. In the squares and streets of Italy they will sound: “Down with war!” The time has come for the Italian proletariat to reaffirm its old slogan: “Not a single man, not a single coin!”, whatever the cost.”
Executive Committee of the Second International
The Executive Committee of the Second International hastily met on July 29 in Brussels. The Italian Socialist Party was represented by Angelica Balabanova. The moment has come for all socialist parties to implement the policy announced in 1907 in Stuttgart and in 1912 in Basel, that is, to call for a general strike in the warring countries in order to stop the war. Everyone expected that the Socialist Party of Austria would lead this appeal, since, without a doubt, it was Austria that started the war. But the Austrian delegates told their colleagues in Brussels that they were not going to do anything like that. The workers of the citadel of socialism - Red Vienna - demanded revenge on the Serbs who killed their Archduke. They shouted “Death to all Serbs!” and actively supported the war. Austrian Socialist leader Victor Adler emphasized that it is better to be wrong with your working class than to be right against it.
Then the French and Belgian socialists also decided to support their governments.
Throughout August, Mussolini continued to pursue the party line in the newspaper Avanti!, but was deeply shocked by the failure of the other parties of the Second International to stop the war, especially the failure of the German and Austrian parties to condemn the aggressive policies of the emperors of Germany and Austria. He told his friend: “The Second International is dead.” Lenin remarked the same thing on the same occasion, but Lenin drew a conclusion from this: it is necessary to create a new - Third - International. Mussolini's conclusion was the opposite. In 1932, he told Emil Ludwig that it was the German Social Democrats' betrayal of the cause of internationalism in 1914 that led him to reject international socialism and then to the creation of the fascist party.
This was Mussolini's last speech in defense of socialist internationalism. October 18 at Avanti! an article appears entitled “From absolute neutrality to active and effective neutrality.” He wrote that absolute neutrality means support for the Triple Alliance of the monarchies of Italy, Austria and Germany. Socialists do not always preach neutrality and oppose war. When they make a socialist revolution, they will have to fight a revolutionary war with foreign powers, who will not stand aside and will try to suppress this revolution. Mussolini's article alarmed the leaders of the Socialist Party. The next day, 14 members of the National Executive Committee of the Italian Socialist Party, including Lazzari, Serrati, Pagnazza, Angelica Balabanova and Mussolini, met in Bologna to discuss it. They argued all day, October 19, until late in the evening, with Lazzari, Serrati and Balabanova speaking with great bitterness about Mussolini’s position.
Anzhelika Barabanova
When the discussion resumed the next morning, October 20, Mussolini proposed a resolution: the party reaffirms its principled attitude towards all wars, but considers that the line hitherto pursued by the Avanti! (absolute neutrality), too dogmatic. In accordance with the changing international situation, the party must change it to a policy of flexible neutrality. Only Mussolini voted for this resolution. She was rejected by thirteen votes to one. Mussolini demanded that the National Executive Committee convene an extraordinary party congress to discuss the party's attitude towards the war, but his demand was rejected. Then he resigned from his post as editor of Avanti! On November 15, the first issue of his own newspaper was published, which he called Il popolo d'Italia (The Italian People). With all his ardor and brilliance, he began a campaign in support of the Republicans, calling on Italy to enter the war on the side of the Allies. Socialist leaders branded him a traitor.
The explanation for the change that happened to Mussolini in October undoubtedly lies in his character, which Anzhelika Balabanova has so clearly analyzed. Whatever his merits, despite all the courage he showed in a clash with police batons, and then in the trenches under enemy fire, he did not have the courage to swim against the tide, to go against public opinion. The friends in the Socialist Party whom he admired more than others, the most determined and fierce, stood for the war. And he felt that they would soon win the support of the majority of the people. He wanted to be with them, he wanted to be popular among the masses, to receive applause from the crowd. All his life he wanted to be on the winning side, although he cruelly miscalculated in 1940.
On November 24, at a meeting of the Milan branch of the Italian Socialist Party in Milan's Teatro del Popolo, Mussolini, amid shouts and hooting from the audience, defended his point of view on entering the war and gave reasons for his actions. After heated debate, he was expelled from the party.
As soon as Mussolini began a campaign in Il popolo d'Italia for Italian intervention in the war, his opponents began to ask questions about where he got the money to publish the newspaper. November 18, three days after the publication of the first issue, in the Zurich newspaper Neue Zuricher Zeitung (New Zurich Newspaper) published a statement from a German news agency that the newspaper Il popolo d'Italia was funded by the French government.
Two days later, Mussolini denied this accusation, just as Lenin denied in 1917 that he had received money from the German government. In essence, the French and Belgian governments financed Mussolini in 1914 for the same reason that the German government financed Lenin in 1917, because they believed it was in their interests. But Mussolini and Lenin happily accepted this money and did not intend to become agents of France and Germany, but did this in order to further pursue the policy that they considered correct.
Philippe Corridoni with Mussolini during the 1915 demonstration in Milan
The Milanese "Fasi d'azione" staged a large demonstration on the evening of April 11 in Milan's Cathedral Square. Their call to the "Milanese proletarians" was published the day before, on April 10, in Il Pololo d'Italia under the heading "Fascists of Italy, occupy any square tomorrow at a price! They denied that the revolutionary fascists were warmongers and nationalists, and declared that neutrality was supported only by the monarchy, the Vatican, the bourgeoisie and Germanophile socialists bribed with von Bülow's gold. “Proletarians, come out into the streets and squares with us and shout: “Down with the corrupt mercantile policy of the Italian bourgeoisie!” Demand war against the empires that are responsible for the fire in Europe. Long live the war for the liberation of peoples!”
Benito Mussolini was arrested in Rome in 1915 for agitation
Mussolini repeated this call in the Sunday morning edition of Il popolo d'Italia and reminded readers of his words written on October 18, 1914, when he spoke of the need to “kill the letter” in order to preserve the spirit of the Italian Socialist Party. “Today we say: it is necessary to kill party to save socialism." Mussolini left for Rome on this day, April 11, to participate in a demonstration in support of interventionism. Just as he began to speak, the police appeared. He was hit with a baton and arrested, but was released a few hours later. 23 On May 1915, the Italian government gave the order for general mobilization and the next day declared war on Austria. In due course, a declaration of war followed on Germany, Turkey and Bulgaria. On May 23, Mussolini wrote in Il popolo d'Italia: “Starting today, there is only Italians... All Italians are united in a steel block... General Cadorna has drawn his sword from its scabbard and will march on Vienna. Long live Italy!"
Benito Mussolini in the uniform of the Bersaglieri Regiment during the First World War
Mussolini did not have to wait long: he was ordered to report to the barracks on August 31, 1915 in Milan, which he did, leaving the newspaper “Il popolo d'Italia” to his assistants. He was sent to the 11th Bersaglieri regiment, which was sent to Brescia. On September 17, he found himself at the front near Udine. The captain of his battalion, a reader of Il popolo d'Italia, offered to appoint him as editor of the regimental newspaper located in Udine, but Mussolini wanted to fight the Austrians at the front.
He was promoted to the rank of corporal, and began to perform the usual duties of a mid-level soldier in the active army. His colleagues loved him. In 1945, a man in Milan told the English historian Christopher Hibbert that he was a corporal in the same battalion as Mussolini, and although he was a braggart and talker, “he was a nice guy.”
The future dictator's comrades in the Bersaglières regiment drink with Benito at the front. 1917
During the last weeks of the offensive, Mussolini received a letter from Ida Dalzer, in which she reported that on November 11 in Milan she had given birth to his son and named him Benito Albino. Shortly after this, Mussolini fell ill with paratyphoid fever and was sent to a military hospital in Kividal on November 24. During his stay there, the king visited the hospital. This is how he met Mussolini for the first time. When Mussolini became better, he was transported for final recovery to Treviglio near Milan, and then given a month's leave. After the sixth Battle of the Isonzo, Mussolini was promoted to "caporalmaggiore" - a rank roughly equivalent to the English junior sergeant. Because of this, there is sometimes confusion as to what the highest rank Mussolini had earned by the end of World War I (corporal or sergeant).
Mussolini in the 14th Bersaglieri Regiment. 1915
In mid-October 1915, Cadorna launched an offensive again. The third and fourth battles of the Isonzo River continued at intervals of a day or two for seven weeks. However, the Austrians, although they did not have a numerical superiority, managed to strengthen their positions, and the Italians failed to achieve their goals. Their attacks were stopped on December 5. Losses on this front, as on the Western and Russian fronts, were very high, much greater than in previous wars. Thus, in 1859, all of Europe was shocked by the number of killed in the Battle of Solferino, where the total losses of the French, Italians and Austrians amounted to about 40,000. In the Battle of the Isonzo from October to December 1915, the Italians lost 113,000 people, the Austrians - 90,000.
Benito Mussolini during the war. 1916
On October 23, Corridoni was killed in battles near the Isonzo River. Margherita Sarfatti's story about this became one of the fascist legends. She described how one day a socialist soldier, forcibly conscripted into the army, approached Mussolini and asked him: “Are you Mussolini?” When Mussolini confirmed that it was him, the socialist soldier said: “I have good news for you. Corridoni is killed, and it serves him right.” The soldier began to curse Corridoni as one of those who dragged Italy into the war. Sarfatti further wrote that Mussolini jumped to his feet and pointed a rifle at the “scoundrel.” When, seeing this, the sergeant ran up to him and asked: “What are you doing, corporal?” - Mussolini “dropped his rifle and sadly, feeling death in his heart, walked away.” Like many of Sarfatti's stories, this one appears to be untrue. Although Mussolini did not want to refute it when Margherita published it in 1925. However, it is difficult to reconcile it with Mussolini’s War Diary, where he does not mention this incident, but writes on November 1, 1915: “Lieutenant Colonel Cassola casually told me the sad news of Corridoni’s death.” The next day, in a diary entry dated November 2, he adds: “Corridoni was killed on the battlefield. Honor and glory to him!”
Corporal of the Bersagliera Regiment Benito Mussolini at the front. 1917
On August 4, 1916, the army on the Izonz front, transferred by Cadorna under the leadership of the king's cousin, the Duke of Aosta, launched another offensive and, after fierce fighting, captured Gorizia on August 9. All of Italy celebrated the great victory. However, after the first success, the offensive fizzled out, although the fighting on the Karso plateau continued until mid-November. The losses were again very numerous. During the entire campaign of 1916, the Italians lost 405,000 people killed and wounded and 60,000 were captured.
Mussolini at the front in 1917
In the winter of 1917, during the period of military calm, the weather on the Izonz front was damp and cold. Mussolini and several other soldiers from his unit tested the gun on February 22. Around one o'clock in the afternoon several shots were fired, and Mussolini warned the lieutenant in command of the shooting that the gun had overheated. The lieutenant replied that there was only one shot left and the gun should survive. However, when fired, the cannon exploded. Mussolini writes in his diary that two soldiers were killed on the spot and five were wounded, although his biographers claim that there were more casualties. They write that five people were killed and many were wounded. Mussolini was seriously wounded by shell fragments. The left thigh suffered the most: the bone was broken.
Suffering from unbearable pain, he was taken to a field dressing station, and from there by armored car to Ronchi, to field hospital No. 46, where he underwent surgery. His biographers claim that he refused anesthesia. He himself confirmed this in 1932 to Emil Ludwig. When Ludwig asked why he refused chloroform, Mussolini replied that he wanted to keep an eye on the surgeons. However, it is more likely that he decided to demonstrate his heroism to himself and those around him. This story may well be true, although it is surprising that the military doctor did not order Corporal Mussolini to take anesthesia without talking.
Mussolini on crutches in a military hospital. 1917
Two days later, he was able, although not with his own hand, to write a letter to Rachel, in which he reported his injury and asked not to worry. However, upon learning of the injury, she immediately came to Ronchi and was allowed to visit him. According to a much later newspaper article, the king visited the hospital on 7 March. "How are you feeling?" - asked the king. “Not too good, Your Majesty,” answered Mussolini.
If there is some truth to this story, Mussolini did not mention a word about it in his War Diary. Although perhaps this is not surprising in light of his attitude towards the monarchy and “Victor of Savoy” in 1917.
He recovered quickly, but was still seriously ill when the hospital came under Austrian artillery fire on 18 March. The Italians were convinced that the Austrians did not do this by accident, but deliberately fired at the hospital, brightly marked with a red cross, thereby violating the laws of fair war.
Benito Mussolini, in pajamas, leans on crutches after being wounded during his service as a corporal of the 14th Bersaglieri Regiment during the First World War. 1917
The hospital management, fearing repeated shelling, evacuated the wounded to other hospitals. However, Mussolini was in too serious a condition to be transported. In his War Diary, he wrote that he was left alone in the hospital in Ronchi, along with two doctors, nurses and a chaplain. However, he told Emil Ludwig that besides him there were two other patients there. It seems rather strange that if it was possible to transport him to Ronchi by armored car immediately after being wounded, then why it was not possible to transport him 24 days later, when his condition had become much better. Perhaps there simply was no suitable transport, and there is no reason to doubt the veracity of this latest entry in the War Diary. On June 15, 1917, demobilized from the army, Mussolini appeared at the editorial office of Il popolo d'Italia in Milan, leaning on crutches. He soon parted with them and could work normally. Now he was a man who had shed blood for his country, a war hero whom no one could any longer accuse him of hypocritical evasion of military service, and he began his civilian life by proclaiming in the press a campaign for war to a victorious end, for further sacrifices, for the eradication of defeatism and pacifism.
Dear citizen! [In the manuscript, after the address, there is text that was omitted during publication: “Your letter of August 30 did not find me in London and was forwarded to me here - this explains the delay in response, which I deeply regret. I thank you personally and the Italian socialists whom you represent for kindly sending me the invitation. Unfortunately, I can't use it." Ed.]
... But if I do not have the opportunity to personally attend your congress, I send you, at the same time, my best wishes for success in your activities in the interests of international socialism.
The Italian socialists are subjected to an unprecedented exceptional law, which will undoubtedly cost them several years of severe suffering. Well! And others had to go through similar trials.
After the fall of the Paris Commune, the bourgeois reaction in France was intoxicated with the blood of the proletarians, and this is the result: 50 socialist deputies in the French Chamber.
In Germany, Bismarck kept the socialists outlawed for twelve whole years, but the socialists overthrew the exceptional law, they removed Bismarck from power and are now the strongest party in the empire.
What the French and German workers did, the Italian workers will do the same. What Thiers, MacMahon, and Bismarck failed to achieve, even some Crispy will not achieve. Victory is yours! [In the manuscript, instead of the words “behind you!” written; "behind us!" Ed.]
Long live international revolutionary socialism!
Brotherly greetings
Friedrich Engels
Published in translation into Italian in the newspaper “Lotta di classe” No. 38, September 22–23, 1894.
Published according to the text of the newspaper, verified with the draft manuscript in French
Translation from Italian
Notes:
National Liberals- a party of the German, primarily Prussian bourgeoisie, formed in the fall of 1866 as a result of a split in the bourgeois progressive party. The National Liberals abandoned the claims of the bourgeoisie to political dominance in order to satisfy the economic interests of this class and set as their main goal the unification of the German states under the leadership of Prussia; their policies reflected the capitulation of the German liberal bourgeoisie to Bismarck. After the unification of Germany, the National Liberal Party finally emerged as a party of the big bourgeoisie, primarily industrial magnates. The internal policy of the National Liberals acquired an increasingly loyal character, and at the same time the National Liberals actually abandoned the liberal demands they had previously put forward.
Center- a political party of German Catholics, formed in 1870–1871. as a result of the unification of the Catholic factions of the Prussian Landtag and the German Reichstag (the seats of the deputies of these factions were in the center of the meeting rooms). The Center Party, as a rule, occupied an intermediate position, maneuvering between parties supporting the government and the left opposition factions of the Reichstag. It united under the banner of Catholicism different social status layers of the Catholic clergy, landowners, bourgeoisie, part of the peasantry of predominantly small and medium-sized states of Western and Southwestern Germany, and supported their separatist and anti-Prussian tendencies. The center was in opposition to the Bismarck government, at the same time voting for its measures against the labor and socialist movement. Engels gave a detailed description of the center in his work “The Role of Violence in History” (see this edition, vol. 21, pp. 478–479), as well as in the article “What Next?” (see this volume, pp. 8–9).
Conservatives- the party of the Prussian Junkers, the military, the top of the bureaucracy and the Lutheran clergy. She traced her origins to the extreme right monarchist faction in the Prussian National Assembly of 1848. The policy of the conservatives, aimed at preserving the remnants of feudalism and the reactionary political system in the country, was imbued with the spirit of militant chauvinism and militarism. After the creation of the North German Confederation and in the first years after the formation of the German Empire, they formed an opposition to the Bismarck government on the right, fearing that his policies would lead to the “dissolution” of Prussia in Germany. However, already in 1866, the so-called party of “free conservatives” (or “imperial party”), which expressed the interests of large farmers and some industrial magnates, separated from this party and took a position of unconditional support for Bismarck.
Moltke. "Der russisch-turkische Feldzug in der europaischen Turkei 1828 und 1829." Berlin, 1845, S. 390 (Moltke. “Russian-Turkish campaign in European Turkey in 1828 and 1829.” Berlin, 1845, p. 390).
This greeting was written by Engels in response to an invitation to take part in the third congress of the Socialist Party of Italian Workers, sent to Engels by one of the party leaders, Carlo Dell'Avalle, in a letter dated August 30, 1894. The third congress, scheduled for September 7–9, 1894 in Imola did not take place because it was banned by the police.
Engels's greeting, like the greetings received at the congress from other figures of the socialist movement (P. Lafargue, P. Iglesias, etc.), was read out at a meeting of the Central Committee of the party on September 10, 1894, and then published in the newspaper Lotta di classe" No. 38, September 22–23, 1894.
Socialist Party of Italian Workers was founded in 1892 at a congress in Genoa (adopted this name in 1893 g., with 1895 was called the “Italian Socialist Party”). The Socialist Party of Italian Workers decisively separated itself from the anarchists and in the 90s, despite some mistakes of a reformist nature, actively led the mass movement of the Italian working class.
"Lotta di classe"("Class Struggle") - a weekly Italian newspaper, the central organ of the Socialist Party of Italian Workers; published in Milan from 1892 to 1898.
Engels is referring to the law on exceptional measures to protect public safety, adopted by the Italian parliament on July 14, 1894. This law, passed as a measure supposedly aimed only at anarchists, was used by the reactionary Crispi government to fight against the labor movement and the growing influence of the socialists. On the basis of this law, the Socialist Party of Italian Workers was banned, workers' organizations were closed, workers' newspapers and magazines were banned; Arrests, searches, and trials became widespread. However, despite the brutal repression, the Italian socialists did not stop their struggle and in January 1895 secretly held the third congress of the Socialist Party of Italian Workers in Parma.
Story
Creation of the party and its first dissolution
It was formed in the city of Genoa in 1892, initially called the Italian Workers' Party.
The creation of a workers' party was brewing in Italy as the labor movement gained strength. In 1882, the Italian Workers' Party (Partito Operaio Italiano) had already been formed in Milan, so that in Genoa a certain fusion of various parties and movements was created, closer to which was the ideology of Karl Marx. The origins of the party were the Lombardian Filippo Turati and the Parmesan Guido Albertelli. It is noteworthy that the revolutionary Anna Kulisheva (real name Anna Rosenstein) also took part in the party’s activities.
In 1893, at the congress in Reggio Emilia, the party was given the official name Socialist Party of Italian Workers. But already in 1894 the party was dissolved by Crispi decree.
Re-establishment of the party in the late 1890s and early 1900s
Schisms
Radicals and Mussolini
In 1907, its most radical members left the party and decided to seek their own path, and in 1910 Benito Mussolini attended the party congress in Milan for the first time. In 1912, Mussolini received great support from his fellow party members, and the party experienced another split. With the outbreak of the First World War, the party advocated Italian neutrality, but then this position transformed into “neither support, nor sabotage,” and Mussolini was expelled from the party.
Communists
On January 21, 1921, at a congress in Livorno, some party members announced their withdrawal from the ISP and the creation of the Communist Party of Italy (Italian: Partito Comunista d "Italia; the original name remained until 1943). The breakaway was led by Amadeo Bordiga, elected general secretary, and Antonio Gramsci, who led the radical group “Ordine Nuovo” (Italian: L "Ordine Nuovo) in Turin. The PCI takes part in the parliamentary elections of 1921, in which it receives 4.6% of the vote and 15 parliamentary seats.
Prohibition by the Nazis and underground work (1925 - 1943)
After the fascists led by Mussolini came to power, many parties that did not share right-wing views were banned and went underground. Socialists were among them.
Coming Out of Underground (1944)
In 1944, the party came out of underground, and during 1947-1948 took part in the formation of the government. In 1948, at the parliamentary elections, the ISP merged with the PCI to form the People's Democratic Front.
Allied with the Communists (1949 - 1990)
Activities in the 1990s and dissolution
Renaissance
Main article: Italian Socialist Party (2007)
Leaders
National Secretaries of the PSI since 1931:
- Pietro Nenni (1931-1945)
- Alessandro Pertini (1945-1946)
- Ivan Matteo Lombardo (1946-1947)
- Lelio Basso (1947-1948)
- Alberto Giacometti (1948-1949)
- Pietro Nenni (1949-1963)
- Francesco De Martino (1963-1968), co-secretary for a year of the United Socialist Party (1966-1968)
- Mauro Ferri (1968-1969)
- Francesco De Martino (1969-1970)
- Giacomo Mancini (1970-1972)
- Francesco De Martino (1972-1976)
- Bettino Craxi (1976-1993)
- Giorgio Benvenuto (1993)
- Ottaviano Del Turco (1993-1994)
Since 2007: Engrico Boselli (2007-2008) Riccardo Nencini (2008 - to this day)
Notes
Links
- Italian Socialist Party- article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia
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If Mussolini had followed the usual path for Italian socialists, he would certainly have become one of the brightest figures of the Italian Socialist Party - and nothing more. But Mussolini was (a) an incredible scoundrel and (b) an outstanding politician
The creation and political development of Italian fascism is inextricably linked with the name of Benito Mussolini.
When discussing this figure, two “methodological temptations” must be avoided.
The first is to turn into a biographer of Mussolini.
The second is to completely disregard biographical details and devote the article to an analysis of the specifics of Italian fascism.
Of course, in response to my statement about the need to avoid these methodological temptations, they may answer me: “It’s easy to say - avoid. But as?"
I understand the validity of such an objection. But I’ll still try to “walk the razor’s edge.” And I’ll start by presenting a minimum of historical and biographical material.
Benito Mussolini was born in 1883 in the village of Dovia in the province of Forli. He is the son of a teacher (a devout Catholic) and a blacksmith (a militant socialist, an admirer of Bakunin and a member of the Second International). Due to disagreements between his parents, Benito was not baptized. From his father he adopted the ideas of anarcho-syndicalism and anti-clerical beliefs. At the church school to which he was sent in 1891, he was distinguished by his temper and was almost expelled. Later, after a series of conflicts, his mother transferred him to another school.
In his last year at school, Mussolini joined the Socialist Party and began writing articles for local Socialist newspapers, and also received his first practice in public campaign speeches. After graduating from high school in 1901, he began working as a primary school teacher in a neighboring village. Here he headed a cell of the Socialist Party and became a member of the local peasant association-syndicate.
In 1902, to avoid conscription, Benito went to Switzerland. There he worked at random non-professional jobs in Geneva, Lausanne and other cantons, and everywhere he tried to participate in local socialist meetings. In Lausanne, while attending economic lectures by V. Pareto, he became acquainted with Pareto himself, as well as with his theory of elites.
There, Mussolini met V.I. Lenin and the Ukrainian Marxist emigrant A. Balabanova, who drew his attention to the works of Marx, Nietzsche, and elite theorists. And although Mussolini firmly entered the circle of Marxists during this period, even then the influence of the ideas of Pareto, Nietzsche, Le Bon, and Sorel was constantly revealed in his statements.
In 1903, Mussolini was deported to his homeland at the request of Italy, but in 1904 he was pardoned in honor of the birthday of Prince Umberto, and in 1905 he volunteered for the army. After serving for two years, he returned to his native place. In 1908, he became a professor at a French college in the village of Oneglia, where he taught Italian, geography and history. Here Mussolini began to edit a local socialist weekly, and its main topics were criticism of the government and the Vatican.
This criticism was entirely in the spirit of “revolutionary syndicalism” according to Sorel. Until the end of the same 1908, Mussolini organized a strike of agricultural workers, and was also arrested twice - for threatening the head of an agricultural syndicate and for holding an unauthorized meeting.
In February 1909, Mussolini moved to the Austrian city of Trento in South Tyrol, populated mainly by Italians. Here he became the secretary of the local Labor Center, and then the editor of the newspaper “The People” (Il Popolo), created by the socialist politician Cesare Battisti. Here Mussolini, in collaboration with Santi Corvaia, wrote the anti-clerical novel “Claudia Particella, the Cardinal’s Mistress,” which was published in Il Popolo throughout 1910, and which for a long time quarreled him with the Vatican.
The journalistic and literary activity of the young and bright socialist ensured his rapidly growing popularity in the Socialist Party. In 1910, Mussolini returned to Forlì to edit the weekly Class Struggle. In 1911, he led a wide public protest against the colonial war in Libya and organized several strikes and demonstrations against sending troops to the front, for which he received almost six months in prison. And at the same time, the party nickname “Duce” (leader) “stuck” to him more and more firmly.
In April 1912, Mussolini became editor of the official organ of the Socialist Party, the newspaper Forward! (Avanti!). With his sharp and colorful articles, Mussolini quickly quadrupled the newspaper's circulation and made it one of the most popular in the country. At the end of 1912 he was appointed editor-in-chief of Avanti! and moved to Milan.
In 1913, when laws on universal male suffrage were passed in Italy, the Socialist Party (largely thanks to Mussolini) received strong results in the elections and a strong position in parliament. Its “left” faction, led by Mussolini, abandoned the policy of social reformism proclaimed by the government, and from 1914 led mass strikes of industrial and agricultural workers - quite in the spirit of the syndicalist recommendations of J. Sorel.
At the same time, not only among the nationalists and Catholic (Popolari party) masses, but also among the socialists, a rise in nationalist sentiment began.
Before World War I, Italy was formally part of the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Austria-Hungary. However, among the masses there was quite widespread hatred towards these allies, and especially towards the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had held the “original” Italian lands for several centuries. The Socialists were in opposition in this respect too, and Mussolini, in Avanti, wrote emphatically about the need for neutrality: “We want to remain true to our socialist and international ideas to the very foundations.”
And here we come to the moment when the biographical method exhausts its capabilities and it is necessary to use another, political method.
If Mussolini had continued to follow the usual path for Italian socialists, he would certainly have become one of the brightest figures of the Italian Socialist Party - and nothing more. But Mussolini, unlike these worthy (and in some sense ordinary) people, was a) an unprecedented scoundrel and b) an outstanding politician who captured the historical content of the era. And capable of taking risks, maneuvering, making sharp turns according to the dictates of the times.
Therefore, after the outbreak of the First World War, Mussolini suddenly - quite in the spirit of Machiavelli - changed his political position, as they say, exactly the opposite. And he published an article in the same Avanti calling on Italy to enter the war on the side of France and England, that is, the Entente. It was an incredibly risky move with enormous costs. However, Mussolini's political sense told him that both the risk and the costs were justified.
Mussolini was, of course, expelled from both Avanti and the Socialist Party. But almost immediately he founded his own newspaper, “The People of Italy,” which proclaimed a course in support of the war (this course is called “interventionist”). That is, he fully supported the revanchist ambitions of the elite - from industrialists and landowners to the Vatican (which did not go unnoticed by these elite circles) - and the broad grassroots masses. It is noteworthy that Mussolini’s new newspaper was subtitled “Socialist Newspaper” and Auguste Blanqui’s motto “Revolution - an idea with bayonets.”
At the same time, Mussolini began party organizational work. He creates (his opponents claim that with money from the largest industrialists of the Confindustria association) a political league of interventionists called “Fasci di azione revoluzionaria” - “Fashi (union) of revolutionary action” - the prototype of the future fascist party.
Let us note that Mussolini declares this political project of his under the slogan “Today is war, tomorrow is revolution,” but for the Italian ear its name simultaneously addresses Ancient Rome and violence. “Fashi” means not only a union, but also “fasces” - a bunch of rods, a symbol of the punitive powers of the “magistrates” - the highest officials of Ancient Rome. This bundle of rods (usually together with a hatchet stuck into it) was carried by the magistrates by their retinue, the “lictors.” That is, the revolutionary syndicalist idea of J. Sorel was built into the very name of the league created by Mussolini - both in terms of the ancient Roman myth and in terms of violence.
Mussolini constantly travels around the country, organizing public mass demonstrations, gathering supporters and campaigning for war. Moreover, he does this in socialist vocabulary and terminology (which, of course, terribly irritated the leadership of the Socialist Party): “The German proletariat, following the Kaiser, destroyed the International and thus freed the Italian workers from the obligation not to go to war.”
And he continuously writes articles on this topic in his rapidly gaining popularity newspaper: “Our intervention has a double meaning: national and international. It is aimed at the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy; it is possible that it will be followed by a revolution in Germany and, as an inevitable counteraction, a Russian revolution. In short, this is a step forward on the path of freedom and revolution... War is a crucible that melts a new revolutionary aristocracy. Our task is a subversive, revolutionary, anti-constitutional intervention, and not at all the intervention of moderates, nationalists, imperialists.”
May 20, 1915 Italy enters the war. In August, Mussolini was drafted into the army, and into the Bersaglieri regiment - a kind of “special forces” of that time. Where he quickly gains authority among his comrades and command not only with his agitation, but also with his personal courage: during attacks, he was more than once the first to jump out of the trench with a loud call “Long live Great Italy!” In February 1916, Mussolini “for exemplary service, high morale and the courage of a true Bersagliier” received the rank of corporal, and fought for another year - until he was wounded in the leg when a mine exploded in the barrel of a mortar.
Having been demobilized, Mussolini quickly resumed his propaganda activities, including among socialists. One of the reasons for his propaganda successes in the “right” wing of the socialists was that almost all the years of the war the Socialist Party was in strict anti-war opposition not only to the authorities, but also to the popular majority, seized by nationalist sentiments, and was constantly accused of anti-patriotism.
In this regard, we will give the floor to Nikolai Ustryalov, one of the most profound researchers of Italian and German fascism, a cadet, then a supporter of the Kolchak dictatorship, who emigrated to Harbin, China, and later became an influential “political fellow traveler” of Bolshevism.
Of course, when reading Ustryalov, one must take into account that he wrote a book about Italian fascism in 1928, before the facts of monstrous fascist crimes were widely made public, and in addition he himself was an ideologist of a specific “national-bolshevism”. Nevertheless, the leaders of the Comintern generally agreed with his assessment. And Ustryalov wrote this: “There was something impotent and half-hearted in the neutralism of the Italian socialists. Neither the outright patriotism of their European colleagues, nor the real revolutionary boldness of the Russian style... superficial pacifism, imbued with fear... Not a fanatical bet on revolution and civil war, but a washing of hands, an appeal to narrow calculations...”
But the popular majority, unlike the socialists, sincerely considered the war a chance to return the territories with a predominantly Italian population previously taken from Italy by Austria-Hungary. In the very first months of the war, more than 200 thousand volunteers took part in it.
In addition, military orders from industry, based on foreign (mainly English) and domestic loans, significantly revived the Italian economy during the war and reduced the level of social protest.
However, the end of the war very quickly dispelled mass optimistic expectations.
When Italy signed a secret agreement with England, Russia and France in London in April 1915, it was promised to return the lands of “unredeemed Italy” (Italia irredenta) - South Tyrol, part of the North Tyrol for entering the war against Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey. Adriatic, as well as give up part of the territories of the Ottoman Empire.
According to the Saint-Germain Peace Treaty of 1919, Italy received a lot of what was promised, but not all. It did not achieve its goals in Dalmatia and Albania, and did not receive the city of Fiume on the Adriatic, which had long been inhabited mainly by Italians (the Treaty of Rappal of 1920 declared Fiume an independent urban republic).
Almost all of Italy talked about the “stolen victory” and the “betrayal of the allies.” Moreover, the harshest and loudest voices came from Mussolini and his supporters in the fascist league. Thus, one of Mussolini’s first fascist comrades, Dino Grandi, stated: “The victorious tyranny of the Anglo-French plutocracy, which, having imposed the Treaty of Versailles, monstrous in its historical injustice and cynicism, on the world, made every effort to deprive us of the elementary and sacred fruits of our victory. And she succeeded! Our victory in fact turned out to be just a turn of literary speech, and our country found itself in the category of defeated and strangled countries.”
That is, the interventionist “soil” for fascism in the country after the end of the war turned out to be completely prepared. But the war prepared another, even more serious ground for fascism in Italy.
More on this in the next article.
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: Venice, the duchies of Modena, Parma, Lucca, Tuscany and Lombardy, by the end of 1860, were able to unite around the Kingdom of Sardinia, headed by Victor Emmanuel II. He was King of the Kingdom of Sardinia from 1849 to 1861. The Kingdom of Italy came into existence in 1861. Victor Emmanuel became its king. Turin was declared the capital of the country. In 1865 it moved to Florence. Later Rome became the capital.
The orders that existed in Sardinia spread throughout Italy. Its press law, adopted in 1849, also became all-Italian. Among the main provisions of this law were the requirements according to which publications that were offensive to the royal majesty and members of his family, as well as glorifying forms of government that were not consistent with the constitutional monarchy, were considered unacceptable. In particular, it was impossible to evaluate even autocratic forms of government positively. Calls for class struggle were not allowed in the press. Such press crimes were subject to prosecution.
Simultaneously with the law on the press in Sardinia, the law on public safety was also in force. It also concerned printed publications, in particular, flying leaflets, appeals, and announcements. According to the law on
for public safety, before publication they were subject to preliminary screening by the police, who could confiscate any text. For posting leaflets around the city, you had to pay a tax of five centimes. Only electoral appeals were exempt from police control. Some publishers took advantage of this. It was enough to start the leaflet with the word “Voters!” for it to be published without any restrictions. Some people abused this, and the police tightened control. Those responsible for violations of this kind were brought to justice.
The Royal Prosecutor's Office and its local representatives were given the right to confiscate newspaper issues if they contained an unacceptable publication. Each such case had to be considered in court. And the decision on guilt was made by the jury. But preparation for such vessels was highly labor-intensive and required additional time. And each fact of confiscation of a newspaper issue should have been considered in court no later than three months after its occurrence. Otherwise, the statute of limitations would expire. The court had no right to consider such a case.
The situation changed when the Penal Code was adopted in the Kingdom of Italy in 1889. According to it, liability for some press crimes was changed. Thus, cases of justification of any illegal actions, which was typical for the anarchist press, calls for class struggle, sounded from the pages of socialist newspapers, were removed from the jurisdiction of the jury and transferred to the crown court, which adhered to a more severe punitive policy.
Italian conservatives considered the press law too liberal. General Pellou wanted to make it more severe. He proposed to collect a deposit from the newspaper after the first confiscation. The money would be transferred to the state budget if the press was subject to secondary prosecution. After the third confiscation of an issue of a newspaper, according to the idea of General Pellou, the deposit had to be paid in double the amount. It is clear that this practice would ruin all freedom-loving, especially republican, newspapers. General Pellou's proposals did not receive support. He resigned. Liberal regulations regarding the press continued to operate.
However, in the country there was not only secular, but also ecclesiastical authority. She influenced the periodical press in her own way. On December 8, 1864, Pope Pius IX issued the encyclical Quanta Cura. Attached to this message was a “Syllabus,” or list of “the most important errors of our time.” In total, about eighty “misconceptions” were named in it. Among them, along with socialism and communism, both absolute and moderate rationalism, all types of liberalism, and so on were mentioned. Critically assessed
various achievements of modern civilization. In particular, the spiritual ideals of the Risorgimento movement - freedom of the press, the right to meetings and rallies, and other principles of democracy - were categorically rejected. The Syllabus became the main document for clerics, in which the Catholic ideology of those years received comprehensive expression. It was a monument to ignorance and barbarity.
The Syllabus was commented on especially widely and consistently in the clerical journal Letgure Catholice (Catholic Reading). The publication began publication on April 14, 1864. It was created by a group of young believers who considered themselves defenders of the Christian worldview. In the editorial of the first issue it was said that the task of the magazine was to combat both atheistic and rationalistic literature, and various manifestations of all types of liberalism, including moderate. "Letgure Catholice" exposed "barbaric progress and a barbaric state." The Syllabus was used as a starting document for this criticism.
The Jesuit journal Civilta Catholica (Catholic Civilization) also had significant weight. It was founded in 1850. The journal Civilta Catholica actively defended the ideas of the Jesuits. Its first editor was Father Carlo Maria Curci. He liked to repeat: “They don’t write with the pen, but with the mind.” And he was consistently guided by this principle. The Roman archives of the Jesuit Order preserved a confidential message from Curci dated November 12, 1865, addressed to his closest associates. The author noted that new conditions cannot be guided by old dogmas. The Jesuit Order must build its relations flexibly with the emerging Italian state. The Holy See is called upon to conclude bilateral agreements with him to make it easier to exercise the temporal power of the pope. The First International, founded in 1864, created a new historical situation. It will result in the spread of “dangerous socialist ideas” in society that will undermine the foundations of religion. The Jesuit Order must be prepared to endure severe trials in order to defend the Christian faith.
On June 2, 1865, the Civilta Catholic published an article entitled “The Social Consequences of Political Naturalism.” There was no signature under it. But it is assumed that it was written by Padre Liberatore, a supporter of neo-Thomism, the closest ally of Pope Pius IX. The article praised the “famous encyclical of December 8,” i.e. "Syllabus" She sharply criticized those who supported the atheistic society and the state of atheists. The author paid special attention to human rights. His conclusion: only the church guarantees absolute rights, and not just any church, but the Catholic one.
In 1876, the magazine Civilta Catholica criticized the ruling circles of Prussia, Spain and France for the fact that they, “in alliance with Italian liberalism,” were creating the preconditions for the establishment of the reign of socialism. "Those who today prevailed over the Catholics
(meaning liberals - V.P.), tomorrow they will be defeated by the socialists,” the editorial said.
From the mid-twenties of the 19th century, an economic recovery began in Italy, accelerating in the 30s and 40s. Sericulture has achieved great success. Italy has become the main supplier of silk raw materials to the world market. England bought it most of all. In Lombardy there are 16.5 million mulberry trees, and in the mid-18th century. there were only 600 thousand of them. Significant changes took place in grain production, dairy and meat animal husbandry. Feudal orders were becoming a thing of the past. Semi-feudal forms of exploitation of peasants were introduced. The number of plants and factories grew. Railway construction began to develop at a rapid pace. Capitalist production required competent, developed workers. A significant part of the Italian population did not meet the high standards. The low level of culture of the people was a brake on the path to progress.
Journalism joined the struggle to educate the working masses. Special periodicals were created that were supposed to help improve the culture of the people. This was the Piedmontese magazine "Letgure popolari" ("People's Reading"), which passed its baton to the magazine "Letgure di famiglia" ("Family Reading"). They were published by Lorenzo Valerio. In Tuscany, the magazine "Guida delleducatere" ("Guide for Education") was published, published by E. Meyer and G. Montanelli, as well as the magazine "Educatore popolare" ("People's Educator"). These publications treated the problems of public education in a paternalistic spirit, then there is praise for ostentatious entrepreneurial “charity” that creates the illusion of caring for the interests of the working people. The magazine "People's Literature", which defended the positions of the liberals, inspired readers from the lower classes that their interests were close and understandable to the bourgeoisie, the poor and the rich could always find a common language, and there was no need to exaggerate the contradictions between them.
Particular attention was paid to educating the peasants. The Piedmontese “Agrarian Society” was actively involved in this. It originated in Turin in 1842. It united large landowners and senior officials of Piedmont in its ranks. He considered his main task to be the development of agriculture and the related processing industry. Sections of the "Agrarian Society" were created in all provinces of the Sardinian kingdom. They created schools and courses for peasants that promoted advanced agrotechnical and zootechnical techniques. The newspaper "Agrarian Society" contributed to this. Practical instructions on the use of progressive agricultural technologies were printed on its pages, and the results of various studies on agricultural problems were disseminated. The newspaper kept the work of schools and courses for peasants under special control and generalized their practical experience.
The agricultural academy in Tuscany had its own newspaper. It was also designed for peasants. She contributed to their education and gave practical advice. Publications of a general economic nature also appeared on its pages. For example, about the prospects for the development of free trade, which, of course, interested many peasants. The newspaper criticized the customs policy that was carried out in Italy. The free exchange of goods between different regions of the country was limited. This hindered the national revival of Italy. The Tuscan newspaper Giornale Agrario argued for the need to introduce a unified system of measures, weights and banknotes in the country. She was supported by the Appali newspaper.
The influence of the working class grew. In May 1868, the Italian section of the First International was created in Naples.
On July 4, 1868, the first issue of the weekly newspaper "Plebe" ("The People") was published in Lodi (Lombardy). She played an important role in the development of the Italian labor movement. The editor-in-chief of Plebe was Enrico Bignami. He sought to use the newspaper to promote the ideas of socialism. Some issues of the newspaper were confiscated. Fines were imposed on her. Plebe employees were arrested several times. But the newspaper continued to be published and enjoyed great popularity.
"Gazzetino Rosa" ("Red Newspaper") was published in Milan. She was
daily. Maintained close ties with the International as
International Workers' Association, founded by K. Marx and
F. Engels in London on September 28, 1864. Fought for unity
left forces in the labor movement. In one of the issues of this newspaper there was
a large article by a Russian revolutionary and theorist was published
anarchism of Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (1814-1876),
directed against the opportunism of Giuseppe Mazzini. As a member
the First International since 1864, Bakunin himself often retreated from
demands of Marxism. Criticizing Mazzini, he conducted a complex political
game. But for “Gadzetino Rosa” he was a valuable author. Publication
received a great response.
Workers' societies played an important role in Italy. They were created
on a territorial basis, they operated in most cities. them to
by the end of 1870 there were about 1900 Coordination
interaction was ensured by convening congresses of workers' societies. 1
On November 1871, the next, twelfth, took place. But they arrived at it
representatives of only 135 societies. This indicated the emerging
split in the labor movement. With an opening speech to the participants
Congress was addressed by Giuseppe Mazzini. He declared unlawful
actions of the French workers, called on the congress to condemn the Paris
commune. The congress adopted such a resolution. In protest against her
several delegates left the meeting room.
The Neapolitan Empire enjoyed the greatest influence in Italy.
workers' federation created in early 1872. Its press organ
There was a newspaper "Campana" ("Bell"). The first issue of this publication was published on 7
January 1872. The editorial stated that the title
newspapers should not be misleading. The newspaper is not at all
intends to "call on a hungry people to hatred and revenge." She
only wants the countless victims to rally together. "We
set themselves the task of presenting without anger, but also without faint-heartedness, everything
new ideas; to follow the continuous development of these new forces;
finally, to be an expression of the needs and actions of the proletariat, an organ
socialism, which instills such horror in the bourgeoisie, but in reality
is simply another system of social order based
on freedom and equality, that is, on justice." The newspaper recognized
the merits of the Madainists during the unification of the country. Its historical
they played a role. But this experience now belongs to the past. Newspaper
promoted the ideas of socialism, taking a neutral position in
disagreements between the General Council of the International and
anarchists. It existed for several months.
The Italian government sought to limit the scope of the labor movement. In the mid-seventies, the activities of the International were declared illegal. The revolutionaries involved in it began to be brought to justice. They were accused of conspiracy against the state. One of these trials took place in November 1879 in Florence. Among those in the dock was a Russian woman, Anna Markovna Kulishova. She interacted with various workers' societies, published in "Pleb" and other revolutionary publications. She worked closely with the Italian revolutionary Andrea Costa.
They became spouses. A daughter was born into the family. But later Anna
Kulišová found herself closely associated with the revolutionary Philippe
Turati. A graduate of the University of Bologna, he was interested in
journalism. Collaborated in the Milan magazine
"Farfalla" ("Butterfly"), in the magazine "Republican Review", in
magazine "Preludio" ("Prelude"). But most often it was published in the newspaper
"Plebe". At the end of 1886, the magazine Rivista began to be published in Lugo.
Italiana del socialismo" ("Italian Socialist Journal").
Turati also published in it.
In July 1889, with the active participation of Turati, Kulishova, Lazzari, the Milan Socialist League was created, which included both workers and intellectuals. The League played an important role in the creation of the Italian Workers' Party, which emerged in 1892. The socialist press played an important role. The Italian Workers' Party (Italian Socialist Party) owned more than fifty weekly periodicals. The presenters were "Avanti!"
(“Forward!”), published in Rome, and “Tempo” (“Time”), published in Milan.
In Italy, the party press is taking shape and being formed. It has a number of features and typical signs. The printed party organ must defend the program goals of its party and participate in solving the strategic and tactical tasks facing it. He evaluates current facts and events in accordance with his party position. Gives advice and recommendations to party members.
The official organ of the Liberal Party was the Tribune newspaper. It was founded in 1883 by Prince Sciara, and in 1900 it passed into the hands of Senator Roux. She was a supporter of reforms. She was extremely restrained about the Triple Alliance (the military-political bloc of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy), arguing with the newspapers that supported it. In particular, with Popolo Romano, founded in 1873, which was a strong supporter of the Triple Alliance.
The Republican Party had two daily newspapers: Giornale del Popolo (People's Newspaper) and Italia del Pololo (People's Italy). These newspapers substantiated the advantages of the republican form of government, analyzed possible options for improving the electoral system, and popularized the program goals of their party.
Clerics in almost every city in Italy had a daily newspaper. The most important among them was the Oservatore Romano (Roman Observer), the governing body of the Holy See (the pope). The leading Catholic publications were "Oservatore Cattolico" ("Catholic Observer"), "Liberta Cattolico" in Naples, the organ of the archdiocesan curia in Naples, "Sole" in Palermo. In 1919, the first political party of Italian Catholics was created. It was headed by Luigi Sturzo. In 1894 he became a priest. He became close to the Christian Democratic movement. In 1897 he founded the weekly newspaper La Croce di Costantino (Costantino's Cross) in Caltagiron. He defended the fundamental tenets of Catholicism, fought against atheism, exposed socialist theories, although he called on Christian Democrats to focus on the “democratic rise of the lower classes” and use it to raise the authority of the church.
On May 15, 1891, the Vatican newspaper Oservatore Romano (“Roman Observer”) published the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. It was called "Rerum novarum". It was an anti-socialist document. At the same time, the pope recognized that serious social conflicts were brewing in Italy. Therefore, it is necessary to take measures “to help the proletariat.” Socialists do not try to look for them. They “incite hatred of the rich among the poor,” fight against private property, and want to destroy the family. Therefore, Catholics resolutely refuse to support them. The encyclical emphasized that social inequality is inevitable, and its severity can be overcome through
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class cooperation. The entire Catholic press highly appreciated Rerum Novarum and recognized this document as historically important and epochal.
The Conservative Party was represented by the newspaper Liberta (Freedom), founded in Rome in 1870. Here, in 1873, “Popolo Romance” (“The Roman People”), the main organ of right-wing political forces, began to appear. These publications fought against all revolutionary movements, actively defended the right to private property, and defended the moral values of capitalism.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Italian nationalism became widespread in the country. It met the requirements of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology, defended the ideas of national superiority and national exclusivity, and was used to establish “class peace” and split the labor movement. The printed organ of the nationalists was the magazine "Reno" ("Kingdom"). Adjacent to it was the journal Leonardo, named after Leonardo da Vinci, although the latter often polemicized with Regno. Subsequently, the nationalist newspaper “Tricolore” (“Tricolor Flag”) was created, which reflected in its title the unique design of the national flag of Italy. This newspaper appeared in 1908. She consistently criticized socialist ideas and called for a fight against their supporters. Even the king himself was suspected by the newspaper of having connections with the revolutionary movement.
In December 1910, the nationalists held their first congress. The main report was entitled "Proletarian classes - socialism, proletarian nations - nationalism." After the congress, the newspaper Idea Nazionale (National Idea) was created, which played a large role in shaping the movement.
War correspondent Marineti was very popular among nationalists. But another nationalist, Gabriele d'Annunzio, who was a combat pilot who lost an eye in one of the battles, enjoyed even greater influence. His combat biography helped establish the authority of this man. His journalistic activities also ensured him greater fame.
Italian actively opposed the nationalists
socialist party, originally called the Italian
workers' party and created in 1890. Inside this party
Trade unionist and social reformist tendencies prevailed. But
its influence was very significant. Already in the parliamentary elections
1900, the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) held
national parliament 33 deputies. Printing contributed to the success
socialists. In 1910, a left wing emerged within the ISP -
"revolutionary faction" The "Left" created their own Central Committee, the ace of 1911 and
its own central printed organ - the newspaper "Soffitta" ("Attic").
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) was closely associated with the Italian socialist movement. At one time he edited Avanti! He knew the works of Marx, Kautsky, and Sorel well. Often performed with
reports and lectures in various cities of Italy. When Mussolini came to Avanti!, the newspaper was edited by Giacinto Serrati. Under Mussolini "Avanti!" became the tribune of the “maximalists” - figures who advocated the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It published Antonio Gramsci and Palmiro Togliatti, who called, following the example of the Russian Bolsheviks, for the creation of a new political party of the revolutionary proletarian type. To implement this idea, a special printed organ was created - the newspaper "Ordine Nuovo" ("New System"), which began publication on May 1, 1919. It was the Ordine Nuovo group that laid the foundation of the Italian Communist Party. The founding congress of the Italian Communist Party (ICP) took place in Livorno in January 1921. The leadership of the PCI settled in Milan, but later moved to Rome. On October 11, 1921, the newspaper "Kommunista" ("Communist") began to be published. From the end of 1921, the communists began publishing the newspaper Lavoratore (The Worker). On February 12, 1924, the first issue of Unita (Unity), the organ of the Italian Communist Party, was published in Milan.
In 1921, the Italian National Fascist Party was formed. Capitalists associated with the military industry actively contributed to its creation. The interests of the fascists were reflected by the newspaper "Popolo d'Italia". It substantiated the prospects of the program goals of the new movement, criticized its opponents, primarily the socialists. The fascists were supported by the Italian king Victor Emmanuel III. He appointed Mussolini, whom the socialists expelled from their ranks in 1914, head of the government. Soon a regime of fascist terror was introduced in the country. Strict political censorship appeared. Criticism of the regime in the press was considered unacceptable. The fascists liquidated the National Federation of the Italian Press (Federazione Nazionale della Stampa Italiana - FNSI), established their own Press Service (Ufficino Stampa) in its place. Mussolini's Stefanie News Agency appeared in 1924. The government included the Ministry of Press and Propaganda, later renamed the Bureau of Culture.
The Nazis willingly created their own newspapers. They owned Giornale d'Italia (Newspaper of Italy, Rome), Popolo d'Italia (Milan). Popolo di Roma was under fascist control. Mussolini said: “I consider fascist journalism as my orchestra.” this "orchestra" included "Lavoro Fascista" ("Fascist Labor"), "Impero", ("Empire"), "Regime Fascista" ("Fascist Regime"), "Assalto" ("Assault") and others. In the newspapers Journalists who did not have a Fascist Party membership card were prohibited from working. Newspaper employees were constantly re-educated and ideologically indoctrinated. Such instructions were given personally by Mussolini.
In the initial period of their activity, the Nazis subjected undesirable publishers to physical violence. Their printing houses could
be sequestered by local prefects or simply burned by raging squadrios. Subsequently, undesirable newspapers were closed simply by the will of the authorities.
The communist "Unita", the newspaper "Stato Operaio" ("Workers' State"), the magazine "Battagli Syndicali" ("Trade Union Battles" - this magazine was published in Paris), the socialist "Avanti! ".
Some of the regional newspapers played an important role in the country. One of the most popular was the Corriere della Sera (Evening Mail). It was founded in Milan in 1876 by the owner of textile enterprises, Benino Crespi. Journalist Eugenio Torelli - 1842-1900 - was able to fill the newspaper with vivid content. He was able to group around this printed organ the best literary forces of Italy (Giovanni Verga, Grazia Deledda, Luigi Pirandello, Ugo Oietti, etc.). The baton of Eugenio Torelli was continued by another journalist Albertini (1871-1941). He turned it into a platform for the Italian intellectual elite. The newspaper began to pay much attention to the problems of literature and art. The selection of cultural news has been tightened. If some information ended up on the third page of Corriere, it almost always found its grateful reader: the newspaper knew its audience well.
The moderate liberal newspaper Secolo (Century), published in Milan, was very popular in Italy. The weight of the newspaper "Stampa" ("Seal"), which was and is published in Turin, is significant. It was founded in 1865. Published daily. It is a liberal newspaper.
A characteristic feature of the Italian newspaper was that it was similar to its French “sister” thanks to its large analytical articles. And also to the English one, which devotes the main place to the chronicle, valuing it above all else. Italian newspapers eagerly published editorials. Usually its author is the editor. In this case, there was no signature: the entire editorial board bears responsibility for the editorial.
The most influential newspapers were the newspapers of the North of the country. But in terms of the variety of forms of presentation of materials and journalistic invention, the periodical press of the South of Italy was considered more interesting.
Significant changes occurred in the country after the Second World War. On June 2, 1946, a national referendum was held in Italy. The majority of Italians participating in it spoke in favor of a republic, a minority - in favor of a monarchy. On December 22, 1947, the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution of the Italian Republic. In 1947, 114 daily newspapers and about 700 weeklies were published in Italy. To replace the fascist agency Stefani, a new press news agency, Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Assocata (National Agency of the United Press), was created. It is
is still a cooperative association of leading Italian newspapers. At the same time, the national federation of the Italian press was recreated.
The number of daily newspapers has consistently declined. In 1962, there were 90 of them. By 1973, 79 remained. Of these, 14 openly recognized themselves as organs of political parties. The number of left-wing newspapers decreased from 23 to 5.
The Italian Communist Party disappeared. In its place, the Italian Party of Communist Transformation was created. The newspaper "Unita" passed to the left democrats. Liberazione became the country's daily communist newspaper as the organ of the Italian Party of Communist Transformation. Manifesto remains an intellectual-communist newspaper, which has not betrayed its ideological principles. It is a cross between Unita and Liberazione.
After the Second World War in Italy, a merger of the newspaper and publishing business with the industrial and economic business is planned. The owner of oil refineries and oil tankers, Attilio Monti, who is also involved in the production of sugar and alcohol, also acquired his own periodicals. In Liverno he bought the newspaper "Telegrafo", in Bologna - "Resto del Chiarlino" and the sports newspaper "Stadio", in Florence - "Nazione", in Rome - "Giornale d'Italia" and "Momente Sera". He became one of the largest newspapers magnates. "Italcementi" (cement monopoly), the Eridania concern (sugar monopoly) are actively involved in newspaper publishing activities. The FIAT concern has become the owner of such newspapers as "Corriere della Sera" and "Stampa". "Stampa" belongs to it directly, and "Corriere della Sera" through the financial holding Gemina. In it, FIAT owns a controlling stake. Agnelli, who headed FIAT, shaped the information policy of these periodicals. Particular attention was and is paid to cultural issues, primarily literature. Such publications usually appear on third page They are the ones who define the face of Corriere della Sera and Stampa.
There are about 200 religious publishing houses in Italy with an annual turnover of 300 billion lire. This represents 8.5 percent of the country's entire publishing industry. The most famous clerical publishing houses are La Scuola di Brescia and Sei in Turin, specializing in the publication of school literature. Equally popular are the religious publishing houses Edizione Ragoline, Piemma, and Centro Deoniano. 134 diocesan weeklies are published. The leading role is played by the Vatican's daily newspaper, Osservatore Romano, which has weekly editions in German, French, Spanish and Portuguese. The Vatican also publishes the weekly "Osservatore della Domenica" ("Sunday Observer"), the theoretical journal of the Jesuit Order "Civilta Catholica" ("Catholic Civilization"),
the monthly bulletin of the Holy See "Acta Apostolica Cedis" ("Apostolic Acts"), the yearbook of the Vatican Secretariat "Annuario Pontificio" ("Yearbook"). The Vatican owns two book publishing houses, Libreria Editrice Vaticana and Printography of the Vatican Polyglot. In Italy, 450 Catholic radio stations and about 50 local television centers have been created. Vatican Radio supplies its programs to Catholic radio stations in various Italian dioceses and European countries.
Today in Italy there are about 150 news agencies serving periodicals, television and radio broadcasting.
The country's leading news agency is still Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Assocata /ANSA/. It was founded by a group of newspaper and magazine publishing houses on a cooperative basis. It has its headquarters in Rome. ANSA provides subscribers with domestic and international information. Maintains contacts with 65 news agencies. ANSA is connected to 960 clients in Italy and abroad. In Italy, messages from this agency are received by 82 newspapers, 32 radio and television stations, 18 agencies and 470 other subscribers. ANSA employs 830 people, including correspondents abroad and technical workers. The highest body of the agency is the ANSA Assembly, which convenes at least once a year and elects the ANSA President, as well as the Administrative Council. ANSA is a member of the European Alliance of Press Agencies - EAAP.
The second most important news agency is Agenzia Journalistica Italia (Journalistic Agency of Italy - AGI). It was founded in 1950 and is located in Rome.
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