The particular kindness of friends: ex-Fascists, clientage and the transition to democracy in Italy, 1945–1960

Abstract

This article examines some of the social implications of Italy’s limited purge of the bureaucracy and Fascist political class following the Second World War. Using the postwar personal correspondence of former Fascist government ministers Giuseppe Bottai (1895–1959) and Dino Alfieri (1886–1966), the article analyses the informal networks that promoted the continued influence of these ex-Fascists with high-ranking bureaucrats and other prominent individuals (such as Pope Paul VI and Aldo Moro). Thanks to the long-standing social practice of the raccomandazione, Bottai and Alfieri maintained their Fascist-era connections well into the postwar period, often serving as intermediaries between ‘ordinary Italians’ and governmental, political and cultural elites. Although they no longer held political power, these ex-Fascists represented a class of ‘alternative elites’ unassociated with the democratic values of the new Republic.

Keywords:

• Fascism
• regime change
• raccomandazione
• networks
• Giuseppe Bottai (1895–1959)
• Dino Alfieri (1886–1966)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Archivio Centrale dello Stato (ACS), Carte Alfieri (CA), B. 5, f. 17, Nicola De Pirro to Dino Alfieri, letter of 24 April 1963.

2. Woller argues, however, that the presence of Fascist-era personnel in the state administration does not imply that the anti-Fascist purges were a failure. In fact, many anti-Fascists took up posts in local administration, particularly in the centre-north of the country (1997, 550–559, 572).

3. Italy’s case was part of a general trend of limited purges across Western Europe in the 1940s. See Deák, Gross, and Judt (2000); Frei (2002).

4. For more on the anti-Fascist purge trials as well as the amnesties and appeals court decisions that overturned their verdicts see Canosa (1999); Domenico (1991); Franzinelli (2006); Melis (1996, 402–436); Mercuri (1988); Murgia (1975); Woller (1997).

5. At the time Alfieri was Undersecretary of Press and Propaganda. He ran the ministry in the absence of its minister, Galeazzo Ciano, who had left his post to fight in the Ethiopian conflict.

6. For more on Bottai’s influence with young intellectuals see Ben-Ghiat (2001, 93–122). For Alfieri’s role in the cultural politics of the regime see Stone (1998, 54–60).

7. The Russian term blat and the Chinese term guanxi are conceptually similar to the raccomandazione. For more, see Ledeneva (1998, 2008); Gold, Guthrie, and Wank (2002); Qi (2013).

8. The Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome administers Dino Alfieri’s personal archive, the Carte Alfieri. Buste 4–6 contain most of his postwar correspondence. Busta 10 holds his correspondence related to Giovanni Battista Montini and the Vatican. The Archivio della Fondazione Arnoldo e Alberto Mondadori (AFM) in Milan holds Bottai’s personal archive, the Fondo Giuseppe Bottai (FGB). Buste 12–39 contain his postwar correspondence. The inventory of the FGB is available online at http://www.fondazionemondadori.it/bottai/.

9. For some of the latest scholarship on neo-Fascism see Baldoni (1993); Mammone (2007, 2011); Neglie (1996); Parlato (2006); Wolff (2012).

10. The most famous exception was Field Marshal Rodolfo Graziani (Governor of Somalia 1935, Viceroy of Ethiopia 1936–1937, RSI Minister of Defence 1943–1945), who served as the honorary president of the MSI in the early 1950s.

11. For this reason Bottai and Alfieri’s post-Fascist lives have almost entirely escaped scholarly scrutiny. Giordano Bruno Guerri has examined aspects of Bottai’s postwar life in his capacity as Bottai’s biographer and the editor of Bottai’s 1935–1948 diaries (Guerri 1996; G. Bottai 2001a, 2001b).

12. AFM, FGB, B. 33, f. 849, Giuseppe Bottai to Camillo Pellizzi, letter of 24 April 1956.

13. AFM, FGB, B. 15 and 16 contain documents related to the UCI and UMI. For more on Bottai’s involvement with these organizations see Evangelista (2013, 192–201). See also Bottai’s correspondence with Field Marshal Giovanni Messe, founder of the UCI, AFM, FGB, B. 16, f. 268.

14. ACS, CA, B. 8, f. 45, ‘100 industrie tessili al mercato internazionale di Milano’.

15. See, for example, Boissevain (1966); Galt (1974).

16. See, for example, some of the recent publications on nineteenth-century American machine politics: Connolly (2010); Dowdy (2006).

17. For some of the most recent work on the attitudes of ordinary Italians toward Fascism see Duggan (2012); Corner (2012).

18. In his study of patron–client relationships in Southern Italy, Anthony Galt notes that the term ‘friends’ has also been applied to clearly unequal relationships of exchange (1974, 188).

19. ACS, CA, B. 5, f. 13, Vittorio Cini to Alfieri, letter of 24 August 1948.

20. ACS, CA, B. 8, f. 45, ‘100 industrie tessili al mercato internazionale di Milano’.

21. In 1943–1944, Bottai hid in convents and monasteries in Rome as well as Castel Gandolfo thanks to the assistance of Montini, Cardinal Giuseppe Pizzardo, and Domenico Tardini (Vatican Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs) (G. Bottai 2001a, 523 n. 233). The Vatican assisted many Fascists, anti-Fascists, Jews, and others in their attempts to hide from authorities in the volatile years of 1943–1945.

22. ACS, CA, B. 10, f. 54, Giovanni Battista Montini to Alfieri, letters of 9 and 14 December 1944, and Montini to Carlotta Bonomi (Alfieri’s wife), letter of 13 January 1945.

23. Ibid., Montini to Alfieri, letter of 9 March 1944.

24. ACS, CA, B. 10, f. 54 contains Alfieri’s correspondence with Montini.

25. “L’ambasciatore Alfieri ricevuto dal Papa.” Corriere della Sera, February 16, 1964, ACS, CA, B. 10, f. 54.

26. AFM, FGB, B. 18, f. 343, Annio Bignardi to Bottai, letter of 26 October 1957. The ellipsis is original.

27. Ibid., Bottai to Bignardi, letter of 31 October 1957.

28. AFM, FGB, B. 21, f. 447, Luigi Contu to Bottai, letter of 27 June 1957.

29. Ibid., Bottai to Contu, letter of 16 July 1957.

30. Ibid., Mario Pantaleo to Bottai, letter of 29 July 1957.

31. AFM, FGB, B. 21, f. 444, Bottai to Salvatore Comes, letters of 25 September and 3 October 1957.

32. AFM, FGB, B. 21, f. 447, Bottai to Contu, letter of 3 October 1957.

33. AFM, FGB, B. 23, f. 512 contains the correspondence between Bottai and De Pirro.

34. Truffelli identifies Malvestiti’s first name as Pietro. I have used Piero throughout the text in conformity with the correspondence between Malvestiti and Bottai.

35. AFM, FGB, B. 29, f. 716, Bottai to Piero Malvestiti, letter of 16 May 1958.

36. Ibid., Bottai to Malvestiti, letter of 24 February 1958. Segnalazione is one of the most frequently used synonyms for raccomandazione.

37. Ibid., Malvestiti to Bottai, letter of 24 May 1958.

38. For more on the Moro affair see Drake (1995). For its impact on the Italian psyche see Glynn and Lombardi (2012).

39. In addition to Bottai, Gonizzi contacted Luisa Orsini, daughter of the former Fascist Prefect of Modena, and Amalia Baccelli, the director of the MSI’s female auxiliary. Both of these women sought to assist imprisoned neo-Fascists like Gonizzi (see AFM, FGB, B. 27, f. 642, Antonio Gonizzi to Bottai, letters of 18 September 1957 and 18 January 1958). Because raccomandazione ‘culture’ is based on interpersonal relationships, women as well as men had the potential to serve as effectual patrons in mid-century Italy.

40. AFM, FGB, B. 27, f. 642, Bottai to Gonizzi, letters of 26 September 1955 and 16 May 1956.

41. Ibid., Bottai to Gonizzi, letter of 4 August 1955.

42. AFM, FGB, B. 31, f. 804, Bottai to Aldo Moro, letter of 2 February 1956.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 752-2010-0816].