A-Infos (en) Italy, Umanita Nova #27-25 - Anarchists in the Transition (1937-1948). Historiographical Reflections on the 80th Anniversary of the FAI (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

While numerous initiatives are underway to mark the 80th anniversary of 
the founding of the Italian Anarchist Federation, including a 
challenging scientific conference (Carrara, October 11-12, 2025), I 
would like to briefly outline-for the readers of Umanità Nova-a couple 
of methodological and, in my view, substantive issues I recently 
addressed in an essay currently being published by Viella, a collective 
volume dedicated to anarchists in the Resistance (edited by Claudio 
Silingardi). This involves, first and foremost, overcoming the "sacred" 
nature of the periodizing caesura of 1945 by adopting a more 
appropriate, albeit complex, one: the decade of crisis from 1937 to 
1948, thus radically shifting our perspective. Finally, it is necessary 
to explain the "reduction" of anarchist ranks after World War II, a 
clear and often overlooked phenomenon, widely attested by sources.

The inadequacy of 1945 as a global and Italian periodizing caesura is 
confirmed, however, by notable continuities. The first is that of the 
internment camps, which, after July 25, 1943, continued their function 
in Italy under the Badoglio government-as in the case of Renicci 
d'Anghiari, which was intended for Slavs and anarchists-concentration 
camps that, after the liberation of Auschwitz (January 27, 1945), 
continued in the USSR, in the form of the Gulag, and well beyond 
Stalin's death.

The second continuity is that of the Italian state, examined by Claudio 
Pavone. He identifies four sets of factors as obstacles to 
discontinuity: the Resistance's underestimation of the problem of the 
state, along with the precariousness/inconsistency of the CLN; the de 
facto role of continuity played by the Italian Social Republic and the 
restoration implemented by the Allies; the compromise on which the 
Constituent Assembly was born and the weaknesses in implementing the 
Constitutional Charter; the ludicrousness of the purges and sanctions 
against fascism; and, finally, the persistence of the parastatal 
apparatuses developed in the 1930s and of the prefect's personnel.

The caesurae of 1937-1948, pertinent to the specific twentieth-century 
trajectory of Italian anarchism, intersect with both the global wartime 
and postwar dynamics, typical of protracted civil wars, and the specific 
national context of reference: Italy as a country. A context where, in 
that precise period, institutional traumatic events with lasting 
sociopolitical and cultural consequences were converging. This is the 
so-called "decade of the Italian crisis" and of transitions evoked by 
Giovanni De Luna. A decade that had highlighted the enormous 
difficulties of emerging from a twenty-year dictatorship and a ruinous 
war, and which would continue to fuel "watertight compartmentalized" 
narratives and "interpretative feuds." The time was therefore ripe "for 
a comprehensive and complete account of those years." Years in 
which-after the stinging defeat of anti-fascism in Spain and the advent 
of the racial laws-the Second World War was precipitating, as was the 
Italian Social Republic (RSI), the Holocaust, the Resistance, the 
Kingdom of the South... The early 1940s saw the beginning of the 
establishment of the three major parties-DC, PCI, and PSI-which would 
dominate for the next half century (that is, until the collapse of the 
Italian political system in 1992), and the institutional referendum and 
with it the Savoy dynasty were further precipitating; Thus, the 
centuries-old battle of popular anti-dynastic forces came to an end, the 
Cold War erupted, and the fascism-anti-fascism duo was juxtaposed with 
the new communism-anti-communism duo, while the political space and 
agency for "third forces," particularly those of libertarian 
inspiration, shrank. And the Democratic Republic was born...

The aforementioned 1948 can be considered a demarcation ad quem, a 
defining year that-in my opinion-beyond the innumerable political and 
institutional continuities of the context, and even some interesting 
personal experiences of militant longevity, marked a new "point of no 
return" (the second in chronological order after 1937) towards 
libertarian retrenchment. What certainly wasn't diminishing was the 
quality of theoretical reflection, quite the opposite. A case in point 
is "Volontà," a magazine that, under the editorship of Giovanna Caleffi 
Berneri, from its founding through the following decade, served as a 
crossroads and intellectual laboratory for dialogue between libertarians 
and the heretical left in Europe. Rather, the times and ways of 
conceiving public space and communication had changed, along with global 
geopolitics. The lack of generational turnover was one of the reasons 
for the movement's decline; perhaps not the only one, as can be seen 
both from studies based on police sources and from those derived from 
the careful study of the 1940s and 1950s by the weekly "Umanità Nova."

After the war, the movement lost its class base, coinciding with the 
profound transformations of the country. Partisan militancy as a 
struggle for national liberation against the German occupier, the call 
to the Risorgimento, and the Soviet myth were the elements that had a 
significant impact on the transition to democracy. Anti-fascism, 
converted into a system of government, served as a means of reconciling 
the political and the state. The PCI and CGIL, aided by the development 
of mass parties and Togliatti's inclusive strategy, inherited the legacy 
of subversion on the left. The remaining decline occurred with the Cold 
War. Even in areas with a consolidated libertarian tradition, 
sympathetic cliques split, especially during the referendum of June 2, 
1946, and the 1948 elections, events of no return. Once the workers' 
movement had integrated into the state, normalization began. The phase 
of radical anti-fascist opportunities had proved ephemeral; instead, a 
phase of abandonment of great hopes was dawning. At that point, 
political nostalgia remained an ineffective and fragile support for 
stimulating creativity and social imagination (at least until the 
awakening, and the still-distant new Grand Espoirs of the radical left 
in 1956 and 1968).

Giorgio Sacchetti

https://umanitanova.org/anarchici-nella-transizione-1937-1948-riflessioni-storiografiche-nell80-della-fai/
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