Word: pertini
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...merger, the political tides in Italy and the rest of Europe had been running against the Communists. Embarrassed by Russia's insistence that Italy must give up Trieste, Togliatti had received the indignant resignations of 8,000 Roman Communists in a single day. The Socialists had appointed Sandro Pertini to conduct their negotiations with the Reds, and since Pertini was known as a rabid antiCommunist, most Western observers complacently assumed that close Socialist-Communist collaboration was a dead duck...
They reckoned without Luigi Longo, who represented the Communists in the discussions with Pertini. Moscow-trained Longo, an eloquent, sardonic veteran of the resistance movement, worked on resistance veteran Pertini in a series of secret meetings beginning in July. He got nowhere until mid-October, when Pertini began to waver. Longo's arguments included the charge that De Gasperi's government was dragging its feet on nationalization and land reform. Increasingly, Longo's case was helped by the West's blunders: Paris Conference treaty terms which Italians considered harsh and impossible to meet; failure of UNRRA...
...When Pertini made his surprising report, the Socialist party executive committee voted unanimously for joint action with the Reds. Even Socialist leader Ignazio Silone, an ex-Communist whose novels (Fontamara, Bread and Wine) are magnificent tracts against both Communism and Fascism, went along with Pertini. Explained Silone: "The greatest danger to Italian democracy today is not Communism. It is neo-Fascism...