Political subversives III: Fascists and anti-fascists
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Subject
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
Rapsodie Mussoliniane: a cura del Gruppo Legionari AOI dell'Associazione Italiani all'estero [Mussolinian Rhapsodies] edited by the Gruppo Legionari AOI of the Association of Italians Abroad]. Alburnus Publishing Co.: New York, 1938 - XVII.The author of this poetic paen to Mussolini, born in Ottati (SA) in Campagna, was an optometrist or ophthalmologist whose office was in Brooklyn. He…
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…
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…
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),…
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…
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.…
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,…
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…
L'Italia sotto il Fascismo: ii suoi aspetti economici, politici e morali: discussi in contradittorio dal Prof. Gaetano Salvemini e dal Prof. Bruno Roselli: con premessa e commenti di G. Di Gregorio [Italy under Fascism: its economic, political and moral aspects: discussions in debate of Prof. Gaetano Salvemini and of Prof. Bruno Roselli, with introduction and comments of G. Di Gregorio]. New York: "Il Martello" Publ. Co., Inc., [1927]. This work is an account, translated from the English original, of a debate between Salvemini and Roselli that took place on January 22, 1927 in New…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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