Word: magnani
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...Valdo Magnani's closest friend was his fellow deputy from Bologna, Aldo Cucchi, in private life a surgeon who also specialized in studies of hemp workers' diseases. Cucchi had led an Italian partisan unit against the Nazis and Fascists, won his country's highest gold medal for bravery. In the Chamber of Deputies, he acted as a bodyguard for Communist Boss Palmiro Togliatti...
...different times in the past year or so, Friends Valdo and Aldo paid visits to Russia and to satellite Soviet East Europe. Both were disturbed by what they saw. Confided Cucchi: "That country doesn't interest me half as much as it used to." Agreed Magnani: "My honesty has been too much exploited. Between what I saw in Poland and what I have been told in the Communist propaganda sheets, there is an abyss...
Yawns to Shock. Late last month the doubts erupted dramatically in public. Before a party provincial congress, Magnani made a routine report. As delegates yawned and prepared to recess, Magnani said: "Now I want to talk to you as comrade to comrade...
Yawns swiftly changed to gaping shock. Magnani had blatantly voiced the heresy known as national deviation, or Titoism. Party bigwigs huddled in an emergency meeting, summoned Magnani, demanded his retraction. The dean of Italy's Communist Senators, Umberto Terracini, who himself had once been suspected of deviation, gave Valdo Magnani a confidential caution: "A few years ago, I too wanted to hit against the steel wall, but I broke my fist and it still hurts...
Fear to Defiance. But Magnani still wanted to hammer on the steel wall. He told his family: "If you hear that I have committed suicide, don't believe it." His old friend Aldo Cucchi joined him in heresy. In Rome, the two declined to see the party fathers. Instead, they resigned as Communists and as Deputies. Said Cucchi: "In the Italian Communist Party, there is no freedom to express one's own opinion . . ." Said Magnani: "I can no longer remain representative of a party which does not share my views." Last week they issued a joint call...