Anti-fascist movements in Republican Italy (1945–2018)

ABSTRACT

This article examines the political movements that from the end of the Second World War until 2018 have explicitly inscribed themselves in the tradition of anti-fascism: the women who built nursery schools in Emilia Romagna; the young people with the ‘striped T-shirts’; the students of 1968; the protesters who mobilized on 25 April 1994 to defend the values of the Resistance and the constitution after Silvio Berlusconi’s rise to power; the ‘Panther’. Finally, it will examine a wide arc of political actors – including immigrants – who united anti-racism and anti-fascism after Luca Traini’s 2018 attempted massacre in Macerata. The article highlights how, over the decades, anti-fascism has proven to be a generative resource: it has not only been transmitted to new generations and new social actors, but has also been given new meaning over time to address new questions coming from the present. The fascism evoked has never been an eternal and a-historical phenomenon or a simulacrum of it.

RIASSUNTO

Questo articolo esamina i movimenti politici che dalla fine della Seconda guerra mondiale fino al 2018 si sono inscritti esplicitamente nella tradizione dell’antifascismo: le donne che costruirono le scuole dell’infanzia in Emilia-Romagna; i giovani dalle “magliette a strisce”; gli studenti del Sessantotto; i manifestanti che si mobilitarono il 25 aprile del 1994 per difendere i valori della Resistenza e della costituzione dopo l’ascesa al potere di Silvio Berlusconi; la “Pantera”. Infine, un vasto arco di attori politici – tra cui gli immigrati – che unirono l’antirazzismo e l’antifascismo dopo la tentata strage di Luca Traini nel 2018 a danno di sei persone di origine africana a Macerata. L’articolo evidenzia che, nel corso dei decenni, l’antifascismo ha dimostrato di essere una risorsa generativa: esso non solo si è trasmesso a nuove generazioni e nuovi attori sociali, ma si è anche risignificato nel tempo, incontrando nuove domande provenienti dal presente. Quanto al fascismo evocato, esso non è mai stato un fenomeno eterno e a-storico oppure un suo simulacro.

KEYWORDS:

• anti-fascism
• fascism
• political movements
• memory
• republican Italy
• democracy

PAROLE CHIAVE:

• Antifascismo
• Fascismo
• movimenti politici
• memoria
• Italia repubblicana
• democrazia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

^1. Courtesy of Lorenzo Bosi.

^2. Statement made to the TV programme In Onda on 4 March 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZaRh_BbCmA (last accessed 6 July 2023).

^3. Rapini (2007).

^4. In 1949, the date of the liberation of Milan, 25 April, was chosen as the national holiday to celebrate the liberation from Nazi-Fascism.

^5. See Gregorio Sorgonà’s contribution in this special issue.

^6. As a result, one person was killed in Licata, five in Reggio Emilia, four in Palermo and one in Catania.

^7. I am referring to General Giovanni De Lorenzo’s ‘Piano Solo’ in 1964 and the 1970 golpe Borghese by Prince Junio Valerio Borghese, a member of the Italian Social Republic between 1943 and 1945.

^8. The slogans of the feminist movement included the following: Comrades in struggle, fascists in life/let’s put an end to this ambiguity.

^9. The first French edition dates back to 1972; the Italian translation by Alessandro Fontana was published by Einaudi in 1975.

^10. N.a., “Si potrebbe.” il manifesto, 7 April 1994.

^11. The article commented on the headline of L’evenement du jeudi of 14 April 1994, ‘Le Téléfascisme.’ The magazine’s cover showed an arm outstretched in the Roman salute coming out of a television set.

^12. Innocent Oseghale was sentenced to life imprisonment on 22 February 2023 by the Criminal Court of Perugia (second degree) for voluntary murder aggravated by sexual violence.

^13. Wilson Kofi (20) is from Ghana; Omar Fadera (23) is from Gambia; Jennifer Otiotio (25), Gideon Azeke (25) and Festus Omagbon (32) are from Nigeria; Mahamadou Toure (28) is from Mali.

^14. https://www.cronachediordinariorazzismo.org/quinto-libro-bianco/ (last accessed 9 August 2023).

^15. This is a deliberate wordplay, as both ‘folly’ and fascism begin with the letter F.

^16. http://www.csasisma.org/2018/02/inizia-per-f-ma-non-e-follia.html (last accessed 9 August 2023).

^17. The mayor of Macerata, Romano Carancini (Democratic Party) called for a ‘spontaneous suspension of any albeit legitimate desire to have one’s voice heard’. Follia razzista, l’appello del sindaco: «Si fermino tutte le manifestazioni», in «Il Resto del carlino» 7/2/2018 Cronaca di Macerata, https://www.ilrestodelcarlino.it/macerata/cronaca/traini-macerata-carancini-follia-razzista-1.3708867 (last accessed 24 August 2023). Interior Minister Minniti (Democratic Party) declared on the same day that he wanted to ban all demonstrations, https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/cronache/sale-tensione-macerata-polemica-sul-divieto-ai-cortei-1492265.html (last accessed 24 August 2023). Despite the defection of the national secretariats of the National Association of Italian Partisans, the C.G.I.L., the Italian social promotion organization A.R.C.I. and the social justice network Libera, who preferred to organize demonstrations in other cities, many local circles participated as did the Federazione Italiana Lavoratori Metalmeccanici (F.I.O.M.).

^18. Including Carlo Abbamagal, on whose antifascist experience the historian Matteo Petracci (2022) and the Wu Ming writers collective organized public events https://www.wumingfoundation.com/giap/2018/02/partigiani-africani-a-macerata/#more-32930 (last accessed 24 August 2023). See also the website with the significant title Resistenze in Cirenaica (Resistances in Cyrenaica) https://resistenzeincirenaica.com/ric/ (last accessed 24 August 2023).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrea Rapini

Andrea Rapini is Professor of Contemporary History at the Department of Education and Human Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. He has been visiting researcher at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and Chercheur résident at the École française in Rome. His studies have concerned the history and memory of anti-fascism, business history, the welfare state and the history of knowledge. His publications include Anti-fascism and Citizenship. Giovani, identità e memorie nell’Italia repubblicana (Bononia University Press, Bologna, 2005); The History of the Vespa: An Italian Miracle (Routledge, London and New York, 2019); A Social History of Administrative Science in Italy. Planning a State of Happiness from Liberalism to Fascism (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2022); (with Pierre Weill), ‘Histoire des savoirs et relations de pouvoir. Les métamorphoses de la science administrative italienne (1875–1935)’, Annales. Histoire Sciences sociales, n. 2, 2024.