III - The PCI during the Fascist dictatorship (1926-1943)

In 1926, Fascism completed its transformation, and the harsh repression of the State was added, to all intents and purposes, to the actions of the squadrists. During that year, Mussolini had special measures approved that strengthened the powers of the Head of Government, who was no longer required to answer for his actions before Parliament, which was reduced to a simple place of representation. Newspapers were closed and, at the same time, all associations were subjected to police control and, in fact, trade unions were also abolished, with only fascist unions recognized as legitimate interlocutors. Furthermore, municipal and provincial administrations were abolished and replaced by government authorities, the Podestà. Finally, opposition parties were dissolved and the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State, whose judges were members of the militia or military personnel, was mandated to order imprisonment, or more often, internal exile (confino) for anti-fascists. The so-called "most fascist" laws (leggi "fascistissime") thus constituted the foundation upon which the regime was built, characterized by the substantial coincidence between the structures of the State and the Fascist Party, which thus remained the only political force legitimized to exist. In 1926, Italy therefore ceased to be a liberal State and became a totalitarian State.

The Communist Party was severely hit by repression and its major leaders ended up in prison. During the "twenty years" (of Fascism), the PCI was the anti-fascist party that paid the highest price to repression[1]. The PCI headquarters were moved to Paris, while in Italy an attempt was made to maintain a clandestine organization. With the arrest of Gramsci, Togliatti, who had escaped arrest only because he was abroad, became General Secretary, while, at least initially, the clandestine action in Italy was entrusted to Camilla Ravera. Even though the PCI was the only anti-fascist party that had organized a network of this type, due to the repression by the fascist Police who effectively used the method of "infiltrators," the internal political initiative soon weakened, as evidenced by the number of members, which dropped from 10,000 in 1927 to about 7,000 in 1928[2]. The PCI, which was founded believing that revolution was imminent, was caught by surprise by the consolidation of Fascism, but despite everything, it continued to believe that this political phase would only be a brief authoritarian parenthesis and that the conditions for taking power would soon return.

Relations with the Communist International, which had been greatly strengthened by Togliatti, abruptly deteriorated in 1929 due to the position taken by Tasca, who had replaced Togliatti in Moscow, in favor of Bukharin, who was opposing Stalin at the time. After the entire PCI line, from Lyon onwards, was questioned, Togliatti expelled Tasca and realigned the Party with the International's positions, which, due to Stalin, had become rather sectarian again. In fact, the PCI was forced to associate the theory of "social fascism" with Italian socialists and the young Justice and Liberty (Giustizia e Libertà) movement, a theory based on the equalization between Fascism and Social Democracy, both understood as methods used by the bourgeoisie to maintain power. Furthermore, the hypotheses, advanced in Lyon by Gramsci, of an intermediate phase that should follow the fall of Fascism, were excluded.

These positions caused the most serious crisis the Party had known in its first ten years of life[3]: Gramsci and Terracini, from prison, made their dissenting voices heard, and three national leaders, Leonetti, Ravazzoli, and Tresso, were expelled from the Party. Despite the sectarianism, this change in political direction led to a recovery of the PCI's activity in Italy, which was particularly driven by Longo, and a significant rejuvenation of the militant base. The generational shift from those who had founded the Party to those who had joined it in a clandestine situation laid the foundations for a new rooting of the PCI in society, which would be visible especially in the years following Fascism. The foundations for the birth of the strongholds in Emilia and Tuscany, old socialist strongholds, and the growth in the countryside, can be traced back to that period and those conditions. The PCI had managed to establish itself as the only genuinely active anti-fascist force in Italy, and this had attracted many young people who also came from other cultures, many of whom were from socialist or popular families, and who often went to replace the cadres who ended up in prison. Finally, in the countryside, it was much easier to organize a clandestine network than in the cities.

When Fascism took hold of the levers of consensus, by militarizing, organizing, and channeling the masses, the PCI, even in the face of increased difficulties that prevented action that could be in some way "of the masses," was careful and flexible in understanding the importance of the aforementioned tools. The fascist structures, both because they were the only places where it was possible to talk about politics, and to avoid accusations of "Carbonarism"[4] that the International often leveled at the PCI, became a fundamental catchment area, especially in the years between 1931-32, for propagating communist ideas and, above all, for highlighting the contradictions of the Regime.

With the growth of the Nazi danger, the Communist International changed strategy and between 1934 and 1935 launched the line of uniting all forces opposing the advance of Fascisms in a "popular front." While France was the "pilot country" where the unity of the left was achieved, the situation was slightly different in the Italian anti-fascist parties. The PCI, which had struggled greatly to accept the "turn" of 1929, suffered even more in trying to emerge from the sectarianism to which that turn seemed to have destined it, as, in fascist Italy, the militants had found themselves alone facing the dictatorship. But little by little, the work of Togliatti and Grieco, who was secretary from 1934 to 1938[5], bore fruit, and, in August 1934, the "pact of unity of action" was signed between socialists and communists, which, despite the distinctions, marked the reopening of dialogue between the two workers' parties.

The hope of a possible failure of the Ethiopian campaign, which could have destabilized the Regime, was soon dashed with the Italian victory, and the PCI had no choice but to resume the old strategy of operating within the Fascist mass organizations, launching a campaign of "fraternization towards the brothers in black shirts"[6]. The campaign, which was launched through the appeal published by the "Stato operaio" (Workers' State) titled "The salvation of Italy is the reconciliation of the Italian people!"[7], was not well received by the other anti-fascist forces and the Italian militants of the Party.

With the start of the civil war in Spain, the anti-fascist sentiment regained even greater strength among the left-wing militants. At this point, the PCI Directorate in Paris supported the requests coming from the Party and set aside the line of "fraternization with the fascist masses" to organize solidarity with the Spanish comrades through the "International Brigades," in which 3000 Italian communists enlisted, having Longo and Di Vittorio among their commanders. The Spanish experience was extremely useful, not only because it prepared the Party cadres and militants for what would become the Resistance in Italy, but also because the goal of a "new type of democracy," based on the expulsion of Fascism and the hegemony of the workers' parties and conceived for the Spanish situation, constituted the basis for a much deeper agreement than the previous one between the PSI and the PCI, which was sanctioned by a new "pact of unity of action" in July 1937.

In those months, the anti-fascist front residing abroad began to solidify: the "Popular Union" had already been founded some months earlier, involving the presence of communists, Justice and Liberty, and republicans (later socialists also joined), but the PCI, which was the only organized party also in Italy, was attentive not only to the anti-fascist unity of the exiled parties but also, and above all, to the ability to genuinely influence the country[8]. This clearly pragmatic position ended up overshadowing the equally important programmatic aspects, such as filling the concept of "new type of democracy" with content, to which the other anti-fascist forces seemed to pay more attention.

The political action of the PCI went into crisis due to its relationship with the Soviet Union, primarily because of Stalin's authoritarianism, which forced Togliatti to take a firm stand against the crimes of Trotskyism and the Party to endure the accusation of "insufficient vigilance," which led to many internal problems culminating in the dissolution of the Central Committee. But it was above all the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact that created the biggest difficulties[9], as it was impossible to reconcile anti-fascist unity with the approval of the pact between the Soviets and the Nazis, and the PCI was forced to align itself with the International's positions, which theorized equidistance between the different imperialisms for communists. The situation worsened further when, with the German invasion, the PCI found itself clandestine even in Paris. Togliatti was arrested, but not being recognized, he got off with a few months in prison and, after reorganizing an embryo of the Party's foreign center, went to Moscow where the International, having definitively dissolved the Political Bureau and the Central Committee, entrusted him with the solitary leadership of the PCI.

The situation within the Party, which had deteriorated with the breakaways of Terracini and Ravera, calmed down thanks to Mussolini's Declaration of War on France and England in 1940, which also led to the recreation of the conditions for a new anti-fascist unity, which was sealed in 1941 in Toulouse by an agreement between the PCI, PSI, and GL.

[1] During the Fascist “ventennio,” 4,000 communists were condemned by the Special Tribunal, totaling 230 centuries of imprisonment. Cf. Togliatti, Il Partito, published by the Central Section of Printing and Propaganda of the PCI.

[2] Cf. Agosti, op. cit.

[3] Cf. Pistillo, op. cit.

[4] Cf. Agosti, op. cit.

[5] Bruno Grieco, son of Ruggero Grieco, in the presentation of the book:

“The history of the Communist Party is incomplete: much of the period during which Ruggero Grieco was secretary, from the second half of 1934 to spring 1938, is ignored or summarized in a few pages. Togliatti concealed much of the documentation from that period, fearing the popularity Grieco had gained in Italian antifascist circles, where he was respected for promoting the PCI-PSI Unity of Action Pact, repeated contacts with Giustizia e Libertà, and appeals to Catholics from the Central Committee. It was precisely in those years that the PCI Central Committee broke with the theory of social fascism. Under Grieco, the Central Committee applied all directions received directly or indirectly from Gramsci to build a party that wove the threads of antifascism, preparing the ground for the uprising and the Italian Resistance. Giorgio Amendola first revealed some of these obscure aspects publicly in 1966, stating that Grieco had been party secretary for four years. Grieco himself never told his son Bruno. Archive documents from that period are still ‘restricted.’ Nevertheless, much has been brought to light. The Comintern documents included in the book are revelatory and published for the first time.” Cf. Grieco, Un Partito non stalinista: PCI 1936 “Appello ai fratelli in camicia nera”, Marsilio.

[6] Cf. Agosti, op. cit. and Pistillo, op. cit.

[7] Cf. Agosti, op. cit.

[8] Cf. “Problems and Discussions,” editorial in Stato Operaio, May 15, 1939, taken from Communists and the Unity of the Working Class, curated by the PCI Central Section of Party Schools.

[9] Cf. Pistillo, op. cit.