Political subversives III: Fascists and anti-fascists

Title

Political subversives III: Fascists and anti-fascists

Subject

This section of the collection reflects tensions between fascists and anti-fascists. But the anti-fascist movement in the U.S. among Italians and others had far less to fear from Mussolini than did such dissidents in Italy itself. Savage portrayals and caricatures of Mussolini and of fascism are fully reflected in the collection.

Description

The Anti-Fascist movement embraced diverse leftists, including Carlo Tresca, as noted above. Opposition to Mussolini from the left was reflected by activities of the Anti-Fascist Alliance of North America, which formed common ground for anarchists, socialists/syndicalists and communists to temporarily set aside their differences and unite against fascist oppression.  Gone, at least temporarily, were the debates about proper philosophy of the left: the goal was to unite in order to defeat fascism.

As for fascism itself, its roots were in the nationalist fervor stoked by Italy’s late 19th and early 20th century imperialist ventures in Africa, which are reflected in several items in the collection. Fascism itself, with its radical nationalist agenda, came to prominence in the first quarter of 20th-century Europe, originating in Italy during World War I.  Benito Mussolini founded the Fascist Party, a right-wing organization which launched a campaign of terrorism and intimidation against its leftist opponents, and forced the king in 1922 to name him the Prime Minister as a result of the fascists’ show of force in the March on Rome.  

In America, active fascist supporters started two magazines that vied for primacy with Mussolini as instruments of the Fascist Party in America. Agostino de Biasi’s Il Carroccio, (The Chariot) was published from 1915 until 1935 - most years of the magazine are in the collection - with a circulation of about 10,000–12,000, long-lived initially but ultimately with a circulation of only about one-third of Domenico Trombetta’s far more militant Il Grido della Stirpe (The Cry of the Race), which became the largest circulation pro-fascist periodical at about 30,000 at its height in the mid-late 1920s, dropping to about 5,000 in the late 1930s as Italian Americans soured on Mussolini.

Mussolini also promoted teaching the Italian language to Italian American schoolchildren, reflected in several items in the collection.

Both fascist and therefore anti-fascist activities were not confined to New York, Chicago and other big cities. By the early 1920s, Fascist Party cells in the United States were present in Buffalo, Albany, Rochester and Syracuse.

 

Collection Items

La secessione della "Sons of Italy Grand Lodge": Studi polemici sui diversi problemi degl'italiani in America; con prefazione del Dr. Ornello Simone [The Secession of the "Sons of Italy Lodge": Polemical Studies on Various Problems of Italians in America, with a preface by Dr. Ornello Simone]. New York: Colamco Press, 1926.
This one-of-a-kind 1926 volume tells of the internal struggles of the Sons of Italy during the fascist era about whether to support the fascist regime in Italy. Benanti seems to have been pro-fascist, but see discussion below of his later…

Mussolini en chemise [Mussolini in a Nightshirt]. Paris: Editions Rieder, 1932.
This is the French translation of Mussolini in camicia, a 1927 publication in Italian in New York, q.v., that was known and admired enough to receive this French translation, and subsequently, translations into Dutch (Mussolini in zijn hemd, 1933),…

Dio e patria: nel pensiero dei rinnegati. New York: [n.p.], [c. 1924-1925].
This work reproduces, first, the record of a debate on March 25, 1904 (and Mussolini’s preface thereto, dated July 1904), in Lausanne (Lossana), Switzerland between the then virulently anti-clerical young socialist Mussolini, already known for his…

Il fascismo [Fascism]. New York: Libreria del "Martello", [1922?].
Valera (b. Como 1850 - d. Milano 1926) was a prolific journalist and novelist - referred to as the "Zola of Italy" - who led an even more colorful life than his confreres among anti-fascists. He spent three years in prison in the late 1880s for his…

Mussolini: storia d'un cadavere [Mussolini: history of a cadaver]. New York: La Strada Publishing Co., 1942.
Vacirca’s anti-fascist biography of Mussolini covers the period from his growing up in poverty to his rise to “Il Duce” in 1925 and emperor in 1936. The bright pictorial cover (artist unknown) is illustrated with a graphic drawing of a red-eyed…

Pervertimento: L'Antifascismo di Carlo Fama [Depravity: the anti-fascism of Carlo Fama]. New York: Libreria del Grido della Stirpe, [n.d.]
Trombetta (b. Aquila, 1885 - d. New York, ca. 1950s) was a freelance journalist who immigrated to the U.S. in 1903, became an American citizenship, and then lost it. He began his journalistic career at the L’Italia Nostra (Our Italy), a weekly…

Per una concentrazione repubblicana-socialista in Italia [For a Republican-Socialist Integration in Italy]. Boston: Edizioni de Controcorrente, [1944].
A much later work of Salvemini, this essay is addressed to members of the Partita Socialista Rivoluzionario Italiana. He notes that many of the members have asked him to return to Italy, to which he responds that he has no right to participate in the…

L'assassinio di Giacomo Matteotti [The Assassination of Giacomo Matteotti]. New York: A cura dell'Italian-American Labor Council, New York City, 1945.
Preface by Luigi Antonini. Modigliani (b. Livorno 1872 - d. Roma 1947) was an attorney and politician, a Socialist Party Deputy, and brother of Amedeo Modigliani, the painter. His position as an anti-fascist was close to that of Gaetano Salvemini. He…

La crisi sociale da Cristo a Mussolini [The Social Crisis from Christ to Mussolini]. New York: Cocce Brothers, 1933.
In this 24-page pamphlet, Lisanti praises fascism, though noting its differences from Christianity. Lisanti declares that fascism has substituted for Christ’s exhortation to “Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” the “political imperative of…

Io canto la vita e la morte! [I Sing of Life and Death!]. New York: Il Carroccio Publishing Co., Inc., 1923.
Inscribed by author "To my kinsman - Anthony Barraco with best wishes for a successful future in his chosen career. Sincerely, Rosario Ingargiola, Dec. 28, 1947." Some of the poetry was composed in standard Italian, and some in dialect.Ingargiola (b.…

Le variazioni [Changes]. New York: Il Carroccio Publ. Co., 1916.
This is the rare "secondo impressione/ secondo migliaio" in books published by Italians. Note that though published by Il Carroccio, the book was printed by Emporium Press, Francesco Tocci's shop. (Soon after this 1916 publication, Il Carroccio…

I nostri fiori alla patria [Our Flowers for the Homeland]. New York: Società Tipografica Italiana, 1924.
I nostri fiori is a collection gathered by Di Vita of poems by others of homage to Italy, either as “la patria” (the fatherland) or as “soave madre gentile” (kind, sweet mother), with an occasional expression of hope that fascism would prevail.Di…

Mussolini. New York: Italy Publishing Co., 1923.
Bound in one volume (with Guido Podrecca's Il fascismo, q.v.), not separately paginated. This, the first  (pp. 1- 174) of two works bound together, is that of De Fiori (b. Venezia, 1890; active 1910s-1940s), who knew Mussolini “intimamente” from…

La battaglia dell'Italia negli Stati Uniti - 1925-1926: articoli e note polemiche; con ritratto e autografo di Benito Mussolini [The Battle of Italy in the United States - 1925-1926: essays and polemical notes; with a portrait and autograph of Benito Mussolini]. New York: Il Carroccio Publ. Co., 1927.
This work consists of polemical articles (against syndicalists and other enemies of fascism) from the prior two years of Il Carroccio as publisher, not simply as printer (as in the case of De Fiori's Mussolini). De Biasi (b. Sant-Angelo dei Lombardi…

La bottega: scene della ricostruzione fascista [The Workshop: scene of the fascist reconstruction]. Detroit: Libreria Autonoma, 1927.
A two-act, heavily anti-fascist play published by the Detroit anarchist group’s bookstore, the Libreria Autonoma (Autonomous Bookstore). (See also Lolmo, Insurrezione e Rivoluzione, published by same publisher., part of the collecton.) Gigi Damiani…

Mussolineide: poema antifascista e di rivendicazione sociale [The Mussoliniad: An antifacist Poem of Social Demands]. [n.p.]: [n.p.], [n.d.]
This anonymous work, an elegantly written and substantial (nearly 300 pages) mock-epic in terza rima of sixteen cantos, is of course about the life and work of Mussolini. It bears signs of perhaps more communist than either socialist or anarchist…

Per un governo di pace e di liberta in Italia!  [For a Government of Peace and Liberty in Italy!] [New York]: L'Unità del Popolo, 1942.
"Appeal of the Italian National Front at the Underground Conference in Milan, December, 1942." L'Unità del Popolo was the Italian-language newspaper of the Communist Party U.S.A.

Richiamo all'anarchia: protesta e proposta anarchica in otto conferenze pronunciate in terra d'esilio durante la dominazione fascista [Call to Anarchy: Anarchic Protest and Proposal in 8 Lectures Given in a Land of Exile during the Fascist Domination]. Cesena: Edizioni l'antistato Cesena, 1965.
Virgilia D’Andrea (b. Sulmona, 1890; d. New York, 1933) did not live to see this work, published three decades after her death; she died suddenly at the young age of 43. D’Andrea immigrated to the U.S. with her lover, Armando Borghi in 1926 or 1927.…

Fascismo: masnadieri antichi e moderni [Fascismo: Ancient and Modern Brigands]. San Francisco: Tipografia Internazionale, 1943.
Dedicated to Signora Aida Fraschina. A partially satiric - “Fascismo celeste,” as well as “Fascismo biondo” and “Fascismo bruno,” are titles of some of the chapters - but also serious look at the movement by Crespi at his most playful as well as on…

Fascismo dalla marcia su Roma all'impero [Fascism from the March on Rome to the Empire]. Boston: Peabody Press, 1937.
An obviously laudatory view of fascism from the author, with an unusual smiling faced portrait of Mussolini, with facsimile signature, as a frontispiece. Boscarini was a radio announcer in Italian on four radio stations in the Greater Boston area.…

Sotto il segno del littorio I: La genesi del fascismo [Under the Sign of the Lictors I: The origin of fascism]. Chicago: Libreria Sociale, 1933.
The stunning front and back covers of Sotto il segno were illustrated by Fort Velona (b. Calabria, 1893 - d. New York, 1965), a socialist, labor organizer as well as cartoonist, who became best known for his anti-fascist cartoons, reproduced widely…
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