ABSTRACT: After the war, the Left set aside antimilitarism, which had been an essential theme of prefascist socialism. The Resistance had extoled the armed popular revolution, while the partisan had become the model of a thrilling political militancy. Resistance and realism dismiss the libertarian positions. The Jacobin Togliatti [2] and the "non-demagogic" PCI [3] members of the Constituent Assembly. The amendments for conscientious objection are rejected; the Catholic world condemns the heresy of conscience, and banishes the objectors as members of a sect; the PCI, instead, contributes to rejecting an amendment signed by Pertini [4], among others, which establishes that "in the budget of the State, military expenses should not exceed the expenses for Public Education, except in the case of a parliamentary law in force for no more than a year". Then comes the opportunism of the coalition front. The Jehova's Witnesses are alienated; Catholic civil disobedience between prophetism, radicalism and fundamentalis

m. The Perugia-Assisi march. The Committee for nuclear Disarmament (CND): the birth of an International? No to the diplomacy based on détente: in both societies, the military structures represent one of the fundamental principles of the authoritarian State. Converting these structures into peace structures is the condition to achieve the progress of the single peoples and of the international community. On the basis of this important, first acquisition of objectives and methods, an analysis and a history of the radical libertarian and nonviolent antimilitarism in the sixties, through the battles for the recognition of conscientious objection.

(LA PROVA RADICALE N.1 - AUTUMN 1971)

More than a deliberate political choice, one of conscientious objection's first motivations was the fact of asserting a religious freedom "of non co-operation" with the State: this was initially the position of the Jehova's Witnesses. Subsequently, the Catholic evangelists took up conscientious objection in order to witness, in the class struggle, that separation from the oppressive and class-conscious structures which they considered essential to restore the ancient purity and innovative force of the Christian experience and of the Church itself. A libertarian and anarchic reprise soon added to these movements. In other words, in a handful of years conscientious objection became a completely new and significant type of political experience, in that, by shattering passive bureaucratic or charismatic disciplines, it offered the individual militant the opportunity to attack the repressive institution with simple and inexpensive means, mobilizing a strong amount of popular consent on the battle.

According to the League for the Recognition of Conscientious Objection, about 500 objectors were convicted in Italy in the period after the war and until 1970. According to official data, 4 people were sentenced in 1961; 11 objectors were imprisoned in 1962; 14 people in 196; 16 in 1964; 25 in 1965; 41 in 1966. However, even more important, this numeric growth developed in parallel with a radicalization of the motivations with which the objectors faced courts, trials and sentences.

Declaring himself a conscientious objector, in 1964 the Catholic Fabrizio Fabbrini spoke about the need for a "permanent revolution of the conscience" in order to change and "indefinitely improve" social structures. In the Catholic world the conflict was fiery. Defying the hue and cry of the hierarchy, Don Milani supported Fabbrini's position. In February 1965, in the midst of the controversy, 20 military chaplains from Tuscany on leave signed a statement which contained a violent attack against conscientious objection. The chaplains, who were gathered on the "anniversary of the Conciliation between the Church and the Italian State", cunningly advocated the cessation of every form of discrimination "against the soldiers of all fronts and uniforms".

Don Milani replied with a letter that was published also on "Rinascita", and for which he and the editor of the newspaper were indicted for apology of a crime. Obviously, the indictment was a vulgar blackmail mystification, as passages of Don Milani's letter had already been published, without penal consequences, also by other papers.

Don Milani's letter was a complex "pamphlet" which contained various motivations; essentially, however, it was full of a religious humanitarianism, with a strong popular more than class-conscious strain (17). The Hierarchies were content with having raised the scandal; the court acquitted Don Milani.

"As a consequence of living and struggling in Italy, the concrete objective of my refusal is an army at the service of the Italian bourgeois leading class...". This is how the anarchist Ivo Della Savia motivated his conscientious objection in 1965. In October 1965, Della Savia was sentenced to five months of imprisonment (18). In that same period, the Waldensian Caponetto (a second-lieutenant who quit two months before discharge) and another anarchist, Mario Barbani, also objected.

On 4 and 27 November 1966, thanks to an intense publicity obtained on the press, spectacular demonstrations against militarism and for conscientious objection, organized by libertarian groups ("Onda Verde", "Gruppo provos-Milano I"), in parallel with demonstrations of radicals against the armies and military celebrations prepared in Milan an atmosphere of public debate on the conscientious objection of Andrea Valcarenghi, an exponent of "Onda Verde". Valcarenghi, Aligi Taschera and Giorgio Cavalli were indicted - with the patent purpose of intimidating other conscientious objectors - for "insulting the armed forces". During his subsequent declaration of conscientious objection, Valcarenghi said: "for too long, the national armies have proved that they do not represent a defensive institution, but that on the contrary they are a means of oppression against the peoples, both in and out of the borders of their country". About twenty demonstrations, in several cities, accompanied the beginning of his trial, whic

h took place in Naples. Accidents occurred in Rome, caused by the police, and there were several arrests.

"As a Catholic, I feel the duty to take up the Church's ambition toward the choice of a new and more evangelic position vis-à-vis wars..."

(Enzo Bellettato, 1968);

"I am a Christian...I believe the military service is currently a means to consolidate a position which I do not approve..."

(Sergio Cremaschi, 1970);

"Throughout the centuries, the homeland has been the excuse with which the privileged classes have laid the burden of the struggles they were carrying out on the poor classes..." (Lino Taschini, 1969);

"The armies, as proven by recent events, far from being a presidium of freedom, are always and everywhere a pillar of reaction, willing even to suspend the constitutional liberties..." (Piercarlo Racca, 1968);

"The existence of an army hides a mentality which considers violence as necessary to solve the relations with the others. This gives rise, among other things, to a moral which favours the strongest or the most cunning individuals...I refuse to be part of any army and I refuse to serve the army: at the moment there are few of us, but if we all refused, there would be neither armies nor wars. The reasoning is too simple, and therefore too true..." (Stefano Brusasco, 1969);

"I can perceive the dangerous tendency of turning the military apparatus into a centre of autonomous power (e.g. the Sifar), and I denounce the constant manipulation of the media for biased purposes..." (Giovanni Pistoi, 1969);

"It takes a long work of miseducation to make wars which are functional and useful to the system acceptable in the eyes of the citizens..." (Alberto Clerico, 1969);

"In terms of structure, function and use, the Italian army, and in general the armies of the Western societies, is a pillar of the bourgeois State..." (Franco Zardoni, 1970);

On the spur of these statements, some of the forces interested in conscientious objection (19) started to seek a unitarian initiative, capable of forcing Parliament once and for all to discuss and pass a parliamentary bill. The "League for the Recognition of Conscientious Objection" was established in Rome, in 1969. After a fiery debate, its constituent principles were laid down in a platform that was passed by a national assembly from 31 January to 1 February 1970. Among the participants, personalities "from the DC to the PCI", "as well as young conscientious objectors, exponents of the Catholic, methodist and Baptist world, representatives of the organizations of volunteer service and pacifist organizations".

It is possible that the League had been promoted with the purpose of endorsing three draft bills (Marcora, DC; Albarello, PSIUP; Anderlini, Independent Left) introduced in that period, and in particular the one sponsored by MP Anderlini. For this reason ,the League contained, in a unanimous form, parties of the majority and of the opposition (the Catholic-political component was and still is very strong, especially the ACLI. In fact, the greatest impulse came from this section). But already during the first internal discussions, the three bills seemed and were declared obsolete. The platform, in any case, was extremely moderate, legalistic, and far from being truly innovative and reformative. For example, it was based on the constitutional principle according to which "the regulation of the Armed Forces is based on the democratic spirit of the Republic"; it underlined that conscientious objection "is a testimony of lofty moral, civil and peace values"; however, it also laid down a series of principles, which

the bill supported by the League itself would have had to comply with, which were quite fairly considered inalienable: a) the actual regulation of the same bill; b) the creation of one or more unarmed civil services in Italy or abroad, as an alternative to the military service; c) the automatic nature of the suspension of the call-up for conscientious objectors, as of the submission of the application; d) the appointment of a Commission formed by civilians, with the sole purpose of hearing and appointing the objector to an alternative service of public utility, after considering his assets and aspirations; e) the substitutive, non-punitive value of the civil service.

The minority of political pacifists, antimilitarists, objectors and radicals failed to obtain the passage, among the points discussed, of the indication that the League would support "the allotment of sums of the State budget for civil service, in relation to the diminished expenses of the Ministry itself and to the institutional and structural requirements of the civil service". The firm radical principle (20), which aimed to make a real distinction - albeit in a slightly more than symbolic form, at least in the beginning - between a moderate and "humanitarian" legislative regulation and one capable of triggering a further civil movement, and therefore a seriously antimilitarist legislative and institutional movement, if accepted by the promoters of the League, would have dispersed the parliamentarians and the representatives of the opposition parties no less than the representatives of the government; but undoubtedly it would have given the League greater strength and authority to intervene on Parliament a

nd on the political forces, and in the debate under way in the country. For example, the League would have been far more credible in the eyes of those forces not represented in Parliament which, combining together civil rights campaigns, "pacifism" and "moderation", rejected conscientious objection as an inadequate method. These forces rejected objection, non-violence and the alternative civil service dismissing them with an extreme and unjustified superficiality and sectarianism.

The groups which had proposed the paragraph declared to be willing to accept the inclusion of the paragraph in the statement but not in the platform, as a non-binding indication.

The League promoted demonstrations and debates. Television accepted to introduce the subject, but even the League agreed that the program (26 February '71) was unsatisfying when not counter-productive. A "trial against the objectors" was organized in Rome at the central theatre ("Moratorium day", 13-14 June 1970), and on that occasion Fabrizio Fabbrini reproposed the "Evangelic" interpretation of the relations between State and citizens: refusal, by way of principle, of an alternative civil service, because the religious conscience cannot accept compromises and will not co-operate with the State or with this bourgeois State. Local demonstrations assumed a strong political character (Verona and Peschiera, March 1971, in support of the Catholic objector Enzo Melegari; Turin, March 1971, regional assembly with the participation of the Turin-based group of the M.A.I., of Amnesty International, Pax Christi, ACLI, CISL [5], CGIL [6], UIL [7], Mani Tese, Sviluppo e Liberazione, youth movements of the PCI, DC [8], P

SDI [9], PSIUP [10], PRI [11] and PLI [12], M.I.R., Non-violent movement for Peace, European Peace Corps. The assembly was attacked by fascist squads). An excellent initiative was the protest in support of "Pepe" Buenza (demonstration in front of the Spanish Embassy), the Spanish Catholic conscientious objector for whom the international solidarity was mobilizing, with demonstrations which found no echo in Italy in the official political forces.

During a demonstration promoted in Rome on 9, 10, 11 March 1971, the participants were charged and dispersed by the police. Despite the fact that they had notified their participation, "the young socialists practically disappeared a few days before the demonstration...while the communists appeared only after the police's brutal charge" (21), and the burden of the participation was all on the minority groups and the young Christian democrats, who participated massively. The demonstration was endorsed by important personalities, such as the President of the Constitutional Court, Branca, who sent a letter stating he favoured conscientious objection, of the constitutional judge Mortati, of the ACLI and of several parliamentarians; most of the senators met by the delegation (the Senate was discussing the parliamentary bill), however, showed "disinterest and disinformation" (22). Even more unacceptable was the position of the President of the Senate, Amintore Fanfani [13], who answered the delegation which submitt

ed a series of documents to his attention saying he would have "placed them on a stack of papers he would never have read" (22).

Despite the moderate tone, despite the fact that most of the self-managed groups, both the religious and pacifist ones and the humanitarian or antimilitarist ones (23), urged the League to carry on its battle with determination, without supporting, and in fact rejecting every mystifying bill or any bill not containing at least the fundamental principles established in the five points, the hopes of the League were frustrated. In July this year the Senate passed a bill which in practice dodged all of the League's most important requests. According to the relator, Berthet, a bill on conscientious objection was to be drafted in such a way as to respect "all the lofty principles of Homeland, safeguard and fraternity among men and peoples"; the bill could only be based on principles of an "enlightened tolerance". The parties of the left (24), defeated, voted against (25).

Despite the illusions of the moderate exponents, of the "left-wing" Catholics, concerned about avoiding further conflicts in the religious world, the battle for conscientious objection, for a bill making conscientious objection into a true civil rights, is still lacking.

A service which remains almost entirely managed, as advocated by such bill, by the Ministry of Defence and by the military, is not an "alternative civil service", but simply a punishment and a dangerous discrimination. It is obvious that few among the 11 objectors who were still detained at the end of June (according to the statements of the Minister of Defence, Tanassi [14]) will be satisfied with the results obtained. "Also regarding this bill" - says a letter by conscientious objector Daniele Rizzi from the prison of Peschiera to "Alternativa" - the sentence contained in the book "Il Gattopardo" is even more up-to-date: "Everything must change so that everything may remain as it was before". The progressivist and utterly coherent objector is still left with no alternative between prison or exile...".

The first reactions of the antimilitarists and of the pacifists at the vote of the Senate were coherently negative. The participants of the 5th antimilitarist march, from Milan to Vicenza, posed the promotion of a serious battle for the rejection of the bill by the Chamber as one of the objective of the march. On 3 August, the participants peacefully occupied the headquarters of the DC in Vicenza as a sign of protest. "In terms of civilization and fundamental human rights, the DC - explained a release of the Radical Party - has reaffirmed a position which we consider utterly criminal, against which the mild opposition or the consent given by the lay and democratic parties threatens to become a fundamental complicity". Moreover the statement said: "It is necessary to denounce the reactionary, oppressive, counter-reformist role guarantied and ensured by the DC, despite the persistent attempt to support, in this case, a loyalty to the supposed religious inspiration; that which the Concilium recognized as a righ

t of the conscience and of the individual, the Christian democratic senators consider a shame, an attempt against the life of the community. The bills introduced by the Christian democrats MP Fracanzani and senator Marcora have been transformed into an alibi and a cover, and while incomplete, they have been completely deformed". In a subsequent meeting held in Bologna in September, the antimilitarist groups decided to promote a national campaign to block the bill at the Chamber. From 10 to 16 September, the "Non-Violent Groups of Bologna" organized an informative exhibit on the "swindle law" for conscientious objection.

The terms in which the issue of the "alternative civil service" should be raised, the characteristics it should have, are problems on which the debate among the antimilitarists is open. In his statement of conscientious objection of August 1971 (after, therefore, the parliamentary vote), Giacomo Secco, from Padua (26) wrote: "In order for the law to be useful, it should be re-drafted on more democratic bases. It is obvious that, while conscientious objection arises from a refusal of the current repressive structure, the civil service which should replace the military one will need to create "liberating" structures. Thus, it could be the opportunity to realize the need, for everyone, to assume the responsibility of a fairer development of society, and therefore of giving up the system of the delegation in favour of a personal commitment in a political participation, in a testimony of community life for a society alternative to the one that oppressed us".

At the end of 1970, the Non-Violent Movement of Mestre started a campaign to collect signatures on a draft bill (which meant to be of popular initiative) which contained a series of interesting guidelines; apart from accepting the principle of subtracting the sum amounting to the presumed cost of training and maintaining the recognized objectors from the budget of the Ministry of Defence, the bill laid down that the civil service would depend on the Ministry of Labour, and that it would have had well-defined characteristics: 1) the employees would have enjoyed the same rights as all the other workers, including the right to strike; 2) it would never have assumed the function of a service replacing the workers using their right to strike; 3) as far as the use abroad is concerned, its management would have in no way been entrusted to confessional or other institutions, etc. According to the objector Antonio Riva, the alternative civil service was to aim toward the "self-management of the persons currently marg

inalized" as part of a broader movement.

According to "Radical News", the "core of the issue seems to be the following: the creation of a civil service in "alternative" to the military one should be seen in the context of a policy for the conversion of the military structures into civilian structures, of authoritarian structures into fundamentally socialist and libertarian structures. Otherwise, it would encourage the creation of a professional army, or of an army formed by citizens with patent militarist, authoritarian and warmongering tendencies, politically and technologically strengthened in its repressive purpose and in its purpose of militarizing society at large. The principle which needs to be upheld, therefore, and translated into concrete aspirations or requests or battles, is that, in the event a civil service were create in replacement of the military one, the public funds allotted should rigidly support the civilian choice. For each citizen choosing it, a corresponding sum should be assigned to the civil services and subtracted from th

e military ones.

The reasoning could and should immediately include other hypotheses of work and struggle. In a certain sense, and in "these" States, every institutional type of solution necessarily contains an amount of extreme authoritarianism. Should the principle of "service" for the community be accepted in any case, it would perhaps be more acceptable in the form of a contribution - of a given length - of a share of the salaries to be allotted for specific "social funds" (e.g. public health, Southern Italy, schools, pensions, etc)".

The extent to which the law is already, even before its final passage, obsolete and incomplete, is proven by the sensational collective conscientious objection of Alberto Trevisan and of seven more workers and students (Nando Paganoni from Bergamo, Valerio Minnella from Bologna, Neno Negrini from Olgiate, Mario Pizzola from Sulmona, Gianfranco Truddaiu from Vigevano, Giuseppe Amari from Voghera, Franco Suriano from Rome). The initiative ran parallel to the senatorial debate, with obvious polemic purposes against it, and completely overrode its predictable conclusions, making them useless and obsolete.

While Mario Paganoni and Valerio Minnella had already been arrested and were detained in the military prisons of Peschiera and Forte Boccea, the four other objectors of the group announced their decision in a press conference on 9 February (27). In the statement, they said "...We refuse to co-operate in any form with the structures which are the pillars of the current social system, starting with the ones which are of no use to the population. The army is no doubt one of the worst ones, and this is why we deem it important to react with a clear-cut refusal to the order to participate in its maintenance and enhancement. Every year, about 300,000 young men must suffer the logic of blind obedience in the army, of non-participation in the decisions, of an organization which bans the development of every critical capacity: in other words, they must pass an examination to become good servants of the system. The purpose of the armed forces is to repress those citizens who seek a free space for a free development an

d a real social justice...Four billion spent every day to maintain the army are a permanent crime against the citizens...Every position depicting the army as the necessary means to defend the homeland is fake, unless by homeland we mean the land and the industries of a restricted number of people...We are therefore determined to continue, instead of the military service, our work with the people who live in conditions of exploitation and under-development, so as to build truly self-managed structures which represent the alternative to the existing ones, and which must become a means for the anti-capitalist struggle".

Press conferences, debates (Milan, Turin, Padua, Treviso, Mestre, Bologna, Florence, Udine) and months of imprisonment proved the combativeness of the eight and of the militants who support their initiative (28). The press itself was more generous than usual in covering the events. For the first time, there were ample articles on a trial held in a climate of wide publicity, at the presence, in Padua, in the court and in the streets, of hundreds of antimilitarists and pacifists (29).

It is worth underlining that this initiative meant to propose a new form of political participation: "The method of the refusal, i.e. of non-co-operation, of civil disobedience" - wrote the eight in their collective statement of conscientious objection - "seems to us, in the current political situation, the one that is objectively most effective to struggle against the structures". This non-violent method should not be mistaken with the "no to violence" boasted by the dominant class, which hides its repressive nature in order to obtain popular consent. Moreover, by committing the individuals personally, it becomes an anti-alienation method, which increases responsibility and trains people to an active participation, which is vital for the construction of self-managed communities".

At a moment in which conscientious objection has started to become the object of a wider debate, to ripen and become deeper in its motivations, to create a new, advanced field of conflict with the regime structures, its validity, as a method and a means of class struggle, has been questioned and even denied by some forces outside of Parliament and by minority groups, such as "International Civil Service", "Lotta Continua" [15] (and "Quaderni Piacentini"), with similar motivations.

"Proletarians in uniform", in a document published in "Quaderni Piacentini", while acknowledging that "it is absurd to refuse a priori conscientious objection as a method of struggle, in that we cannot establish whether it points to a choice which can become a mass choice also in Italy", believes that in the ways in which it has been practised so far, it is "insufficient", "first of all because it is subjectively and objectively limited to the external part of the barracks, and then because it remains "an exemplary-demonstrative fact, more than a political fact" (such type of initiative is always individual, and, according to "Lotta Continua", "the quantitative aspect is also qualitative, in this case"), lacking in "opportunism". While, therefore, the objection of Franco Zardoni deserves a certain recognition, the position of all the other pacifist structures that operate by privileging this subject without an in-depth analysis of the class struggle, is "contradictory". According to the authors of the docume

nt, the institutionalization of the civil service, even in broader and more comprehensive forms, is not "in contradiction with the requirements of rationalization of an advanced neo-capitalist society". In a document of summer 1971, the SCI said conscientious objection was an "illuminist" phenomenon, the expression of a choice "which automatically excludes itself from history and closes itself into a subjective and voluntarist "self", with no connection with the "masses", the only necessary point of reference in the class struggle.

While the objection of voluntarism and subjectivism is an inadequate and simplistic analysis, in political and cultural terms, the denunciation of the insufficiency and dangerousness of the choices made by certain "reformist" sectors present (and influential) in the structures of the "League for the recognition of conscientious objection" is, on the other hand, valid. In any case, the debate focuses on fundamental problems in the class struggle of our country and of all neo-capitalist or State capitalist societies, where militarism is an essential and influential structure; two different guidelines and prospects ensue, according to one or the other choice: on the one hand a neo-Stalinist and fundamentally militarist indication, on the other the indication for the construction of a socialist and libertarian society.

The first National Antimilitarist Congress was held on 4 November 1969 in Milan, promoted by the Radical Party (30). Apart from the radicals, there were anarchists, non-violent pacifists, antimilitarist groups, members of left-wing parties or of youth federations. Four reports were delivered, by Marco Pannella [16], Mauro Mellini, Ugo Dessy and Carmelo Viola. Pannella's report gave an outline of the radical party's antimilitarist theses, pointing out the objectives on which the party as such was to develop its initiative. Following is an excerpt of his report.

"...My report wishes to underline a danger: that of mistaking militarism with some of its ridiculous or folkloric aspects, and of under-estimating its force and value, considering it a temporary expression of variously under-developed situations. Even in the left, it is normal not to worry too much about the fact that 2/3 of the countries represented in the United Nations and 4/5 of developing countries are ruled by military regimes. It is considered normal that the acquisition of power on the part of the military concerns only countries with a dubious historical, cultural and political position: Mediterranean and African countries and, in Europe, countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal. The situation is in fact different. Militarism is a serious candidature for the administration of contemporary society. While 2/3 of the countries of the United Nations are ruled by military regimes, while it can be said, on the basis of the current figures, that over 2/3 of the expenditure for scientific research in th

e world is managed or controlled by the military, we have to realize that beneath this candidature there cannot simply be rhetoric things such as the ones evoked during the celebrations for 4 November in Italy, or apparently folkloric ones such as in the African regimes, where, however, the military are in almost all cases the leading class which administers the national revolutions. Obviously there is a historical topicality of the values and of the forces represented by militarism. As antimilitarists, we should not reduce our struggle to simple contempt, insult or intolerance. We need to analyse the reasons for this force, if we want to oppose it politically, and not simply offer a moral testimony. We need to realize the reasons for which militarism is intoxicating, every year, the political life and the historical reality of the world...".

"THE NEW MILITARY THOUGHT"

"...The new military thought is the one that theorizes the dissolution of the army and the militarization of society. One example, perhaps the most significant, of these increasingly explicit trends both in theoretical and operative terms, is represented by the draft bill introduced in France in 1961, later only partially achieved with a series of decrees which transformed it and deprived it of part of its global logic. According to that bill, in conditions of emergency, the head of the militarized structures is no longer the general in charge of the military region, but the Prefect (a condition of emergency is not limited to cases of external war, but each time Parliament or the head of the State proclaims it). The Prefect becomes the supreme commander and the supreme organizer of society, of a society in which all citizens are militarized. The worker in the factory is a military or militarized: he will not receive the call-up notice nor will he have to leave the factory to go to the district: his way of en

gaging in war will be that of operating the factory, of managing the country. Because the only hypothesis of war which is currently possible is that of a war which depicts the fictitious fact of the national state as a prevalent fact compared to every other common interest and feeling, the citizen is organized not as an Italian or French citizen, but as a producer and as a man of order. He will not strike because he will uphold the order, because there is a state of war or emergency. Also, because he will not need to go to the district, he will not even be tempted to prepare "his own" partisan war in the mountains or in clandestine premises, and to wage it. The French draft bill is simply the most clear example of a trend which is slowly and surreptitiously advancing in every part of the world.

In a period of crisis, the new military thought is preparing to provide ideological means and political and institutional solutions for the contradictions of a capitalism which is witnessing the loss of the traditional imperialist tradition, which represented the basis for so much of its historical capacity of being a dominant class. The techniques for exploitation should modernize in order for this to remain and develop. The worst contradictions need to be solved, and at times call for the use of violence in the class coalition. This is what is happening in Latin America, where the more modern and advanced sectors of neo-colonialism and of neo-imperialism, because they cannot win their battle in the United States, need a minimum of force and violence which must appear redeeming and fundamentally homogeneous with its class interests. Therefore, as it cannot rely on the U.S. Congress, which would never be free to prevent the United Steel or other U.S. monopolies from continuing to treat the Latin American Sta

tes as the boards of directors of depending companies, facilitate and encourage the "acquisition of power" of "pure and tough" men, who are neither manufacturers nor businessmen, who do not belong to the old corrupt leading class, but who are generals or colonels or captains. That concrete act of liberation, represented by dispossession and certain forms of nationalization, are authorized. The moral lawfulness and the attitude and the technical capacity of the "young military" of being the administrators of society and of the class conflict is asserted, versus the old and decrepit part of the class coalition which wants to continue the old game in the old style. A moment of violence is necessary in order to ensure the victory of the candidature of these progressivist forces, and it is justified by denouncing the risk of more serious and irreparable alternatives. Is there any other justification for the fact that in South America and in Central America there are armies for which such a great share of the nati

onal wealth is invested? Liberal and enlightened sociologists, such as Raymond Aron, state that, while it is fair to deprecate militarism, it must be acknowledged that in many countries the military class is the only leading class which is not the direct expression of the industrial class and of the land owners, the only one which has adequate technical knowledge, international experience and the cognizance of that which a modern State must ensure society as the essential and vital minimum. It is therefore natural for it to become the leading class of its own State, because there aren't more suitable ones to carry out this reformist type of role...". "...On the other hand, the left, through certain ideological analyses and certain discoveries of the characteristics of the national bourgeoisies and of their function, has inevitably supported the objectively revolutionary value of the rise to power of military castes and classes. And the military aid to these regimes - because of a peculiar fate, Czechoslovaki

a was the main supplier of weapons - are often used by these regimes against the popular masses and the revolutionary militants. 600,000 Indonesian communists - communists by definition, since they were farmers or had been registered as such - were killed with those weapons. No one mentioned it, because they were killed by an army equipped with Chinese and Czechoslovak weapons which in that period was passing to the United States and the CIA. We have had an alleged class strategy and an alleged revolutionary strategy which have focussed in particular on the military classes in many parts of the world. We need to acknowledge a terribly confused situation, in which militarism and the authoritarian values it calls for, have been largely assumed and assimilated by our coalition...".

For the radical Party, the antimilitarist initiative was a priority already in 1962-63. At the 3rd National Congress (Bologna 1967), in relation with the "overcoming of nationalism", it had been chosen as the "fundamental and concrete means" - along with anticlericalism - "to achieve an effective transformation of society and the State". On the basis of these two fundamental points, the Radicals were to favour the meeting of the left-wing forces "in view of a global alternative to the Christian democratic system of power", and therefore struggle against "indecisions, collusions and complicities with the regime party". "Antinationalism and antiauthoritarianism are the necessary points of reference - stated the political motion of the 4rth National Congress (Florence, 1967) (31) - in order for the struggle against the clerical, corporative, interclassist and repressive regime to be "the same (and not merely connected to it) which strong radical minorities carry out throughout the world, both in the bourgeois s

ocieties characterized by political democracy and in the ones that are placed in the forefront in the anti-imperialist and anticapitalist struggle by the objective of economic development and the acquisition of a true and complete civil autonomy, both in the other societies characterized by State capitalism, albeit they too authoritarian".

The motion of the 5th Congress (Ravenna, 1968) was complex and analytical as regards the antimilitarist objectives:

"Next year the Atlantic pact will expire, and the struggle against its renewal, which must represent the basis for the antimilitarist struggle and that against the international support of the reactionary forces of our country; the crucial basis of the struggle for divorce; the denunciation of some of the regime's most sensational forms of oppression in the field of public welfare, medical care, hospitals, should represent new opportunities for the radical political initiative.

In the face of the grave events of domestic and international politics occurred in 1968 (Vietnam war, consolidation of the regime of the colonels in Greece, De Gaulle's appeal to the army during the French May, intervention of the army with a repressive function in many American cities, invasion of Czechoslovakia, developments in Italy of the SIFAR [17] affair), the Congress believes that the dangers represented by the national and international military structures have dramatically increased. The Congress, therefore, binds the Party to promote an antimilitarist movement capable of causing the masses' separation from the military institutions and the national and nationalist myths by struggling against the military organs, their international connections, their expansionist logic vis-à-vis the civilian institutions and requirements, the authoritarian spirit which they call for and uphold.

While it is rekindling the national and nationalist myths as the means to survive and strengthen itself, the militarist and authoritarian reaction is based on a system of international repression which hinders and stifles the development of every autonomous and spontaneous evolution of the existing national societies. In this context, conscientious objection and every other form of struggle capable of opposing the oppressive function of the military organization should be promoted.

At an international level, the more and more patent function as an international political police and as a source of openly antidemocratic outlets ensured by the military blocks (NATO and Warsaw Pact) calls for a conscious and inflexible response of the forces of the left. A new internationalist initiative should therefore be developed in the Western countries and toward the governments of the European communist block, which must refuse every policy of power as a valid means to combat imperialism".

This theoretical and ideological reflexion had ripened throughout years of initiatives, some of which have already been mentioned (32). The "Radical Agency", one of the first organizational structures created when the left assumed the management of the party - after Piccardi's groups and the friends of "Il Mondo" [18] left - constantly provided information on the military sector and on the pacifist action. The very word "pacifism", precisely thanks to the struggle and the development of those years, assumed a different meaning from that which old and new controversies tend to give it. On the other hand, it is precisely on these "pacifist" battles that the most advanced, radical groups were formed, which challenged the emerging international "new left" (33).

One of the first documents published by the "Radical Agency" were, not incidentally, an interview with Peter Cadogan, secretary of the British committee of 100, a long article by A.J. Muste, precisely in the period (August 1963) in which he was organizing the March of 100,000 to Washington and, in September 1964, a handbook "against the law and for active non-violence" of the Committee of 100. However, through this agency, the radicals also promoted a relatively important initiative which had considerable success, despite the silence - a real act of boycott and of political indifference - of the independent and left-wing press. Picking up a piece of news which the international press had scarcely underlined, in 1964 the radicals endorsed and relaunched a proposal introduced in the Parliament of his country by the social democratic senator Hans Thirring, to abolish the Austrian army. Through the "Committee for the Atomic and Conventional Disarmament of the European Area", the radicals addressed an appeal to t

he Italian democratic forces, urging them to endorse the proposal and to use it as an element of comparison and growth for the entire left. The Thirring bill was such as to cause an international reflexion and commitment of considerable scope. The abolition of the Austrian army, according to the social democratic senator, implied the following: a) the assent of the 4 countries that signed the peace treaty (U.S.S.R., U.S., Great Britain and France); b) the guarantee of the United Nations, whose officials were to be charged with the task of controlling the country's borders, placed under the protection of the Security Council; 3) the agreement with the six countries bordering the Austrian Republic.

"Our country's public opinion should become aware - underlined the Committee's document - of the political concreteness and of the ideal rigour which the unilateral theses are assuming more and more every day as the pillar for the construction of a new society, in its two, inseparable aspects: national and international...It is also the first radical answer to the threat, which was becoming every day more serious and pressing, coming from the military authoritarianism of De Gaulle and of France, of the Spanish and Portuguese fascism, of the revanchist and reactionary forces, with the fundamental acquiescence of the classes currently in control in Italy. Every alleged "democratic rearmament" versus De Gaulle's rearmament appears more and more phony and useless. Ultimately, in this case as in that, it is the same forces that try to express themselves, impose and achieve old methods and structures, typical of the tradition and the tragic "power policy". Moreover, states the document, "the dissolution of the sca

rce Austrian armed forces (less than 1/10 of the Italian ones) would imply the conversion of about Lit. 100 billion from unproductive expenses, which damage peace and democracy, using it for sectors of investment and of promotion of economic, social and civil progress...". Sent to all Italian municipal councils and to about 1,000 citizens, the appeal was endorsed by over 400 municipal councils, with deliberations that followed serious debates, and were occasionally overridden at the initiative of the Prefect. The local councils - most democratic councils, five of which had been awarded the gold medal of the Resistance - sent their decision to the Committee, such as Reggio Emilia, through its mayor, Renzo Bonazzi. Thirring himself accepted to be interviewed by the "Radical Agency". Among the thousands of signatures that were collected among democrats and militants at the initiative of single individuals, particularly significant ones were those of Vittorio Vidali and of other exponents of the Trieste-based fe

deration of the PCI.

Two important episodes, which gave the political class the opportunity to intervene effectively in Parliament, point to the fact that the antimilitarist information, supplied with the scarce means of the "Radical Agency", was much needed, and that it filled a gap which had been left completely open by the rest of the opposition press.

In August 1963, the "Radical Agency" disclosed that Italy exported a certain quantity of weapons to South Africa, namely calibre 7,65 pistols. The export was authorized by the ministry of foreign trade, in agreement with the ministry of foreign affairs. The piece of news was underlined by the press (e.g. "L'Unità" of 22 August) with considerable evidence, and gave rise to a parliamentary initiative which forced the government to confirm, while minimizing the news published by the "Radical Agency" (34). Subsequently, on 24 September, the "Radical Agency" informed that "the first of three Italian bases for NATO submarines equipped with "Polaris" was in an advanced stage of construction on the island of Tavolara, in the gulf of Olbia, Sardinia. The news was followed by important details and indirect confirmations by international sources. The accuracy of the information triggered a broad press and political campaign. Senators Spano, Mencaraglia, Pirastu (PCI) and MPs Laconi, Marras, Ignazio Pirastu and Berlingu

er, from the same party, submitted a parliamentary question to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Defence asking to know how - if the news were correct - "the presence of such base can coexist with the solemn commitment assumed by the government last winter, which categorically ruled out the presence of Italian bases for submarines equipped with missiles",

According to "L'Unità", the circulation of the news through the island's press, which strongly underlined it, raised "sensation and concern in Olbia and in the whole of Sardinia". The PCI's groups at the Senate and at the Regional Assembly, the socialist parliamentarians Mario Berlinguer and Mario Sanna introduced interrogations, which the then Minister of Defence, Andreotti [19], answered by providing a false interpretation of the facts denounced by the radical organ and by Parliament.

The information on the development of the military structures in the world (e.g. international competition for the production of the "tank of the '70s", inquiry on the production of guns in Europe), on the activities of the pacifist, antimilitarist and international forces (see J. Muste: "Let's radicalize the pacifist movement", congress papers of the CND, etc.), on political events which had been ignored or underestimated by the press and by the opposition parties (invitation addressed to the parliamentarians of the Defence Committees to take part in a major debate on Andreotti's military policy, anti-guerrilla warfare exercises of the Italian army, controversy with the theses of the "Military Review", attack against Segni's [20] anti-repressive and subversive policy, first news on the SIFAR scandal and campaign on De Lorenzo's activities, etc), represented not only a journalistic event, but also an attempt to start concrete political initiatives. In April 1966, during the administrative electoral campaign

in Rome, the party organized a public debate on militarism at the Teatro Eliseo, with the participation of MP Boldrini (PCI) and of the socialist Alberto Benzoni. The debate clearly highlighted the confrontation between the theses of the PCI for the democratic army and the "citizens in arms", and the antimilitarist theses of the Radical Party (35). At the annual congress in Florence, one of the political reports, by F. Accame and M. Pannella, focussed on the international and military policy of the parties of the left.

Apart from being a revolt against the creation of unitarian structures (Roman Peace Committe and others), against the promotion of a constant, open confrontation with all the forces of the left, the radical antimilitarist initiative expressed itself in direct peaceful and non-violent - while not necessarily legalistic - actions that relied on the new techniques typical of the minority struggles and forces of the new left. A sit-in in front of the Monument to the homeland (a crown was offered to the unknown soldier, with the inscription "1917-1967. They're still killing you in Vietnam") on 24 May 1976, peaceful demonstrations of dissent every 2 June (which climaxed, in the last two years, in antimilitarist rallies in Piazza Navona) and 4 November, thus became opportunities for a common commitment of radical, pacifist, anarchist, socialist and republican militants. One of these demonstrations, in support of the conscientious objectors, but clearly antimilitarist, mentioned above, lead to the indictment, in Mil

an on 4 November, and in March with an irregular procedure, to the arrest of the radical students Loren-Borghesi, Luigi Maj, Luigi Metaldi from the Milanese Anti-imperialist Centre, and of the print workers Cordani and Fiorin. The trial, which represented the first case, in Italy, of a direct judicial attack on the antimilitarist positions, and which caused a commotion and a great interest in the press, represented an important opportunity at a moment in which the antimilitarist battle was in a crisis.

In July 1967, the radicals promoted the "Milan-Vicenza Anti-militarist March", which since then takes place every year (it is automatically summoned) on the same day and in the same place. Organized in ten stops, it crossed dozens of villages and cities, promoting rallies, non-violent initiatives, organizing debates among the participants or public debates, distributing dozens of thousands of fly sheets (up to 100,000 each time), causing the militants and the cadres of the local federations of the parties of the left to take a stance, relaunching the defence and the active support of the conscientious objectors with demonstrations in front of the military prison of Peschiera, stressing the opposition against the NATO and the relative military facilities in Italy, the march has been, throughout the years, a constant point of reference for all pacifists and antimilitarists.

While promoted by the Radical Party (the first edition was at the initiative of the Milanese section, and namely of Felice Accame, Carlo Oliva and Luca Boneschi), in terms of organization and achievement, it was self-managed by the participating forces. While the first edition featured the participation of the anarchist Pinelli, the anarchist, libertarian participation of the groups actively engaged in this specific field has always been relevant: W.R.I., Non-violent Movement for Peace, Pacifist Group of Bergamo, Anarchist group of Castelbolognese, "E. Canzi" Cultural Centre of Piacenza, Group of Pacifist Action of Sulmona, International Cultural Circle of Venice, Non-violent movement of Mestre, European Peace Corps of Turin, etc. Systematically denounced, every year, for organizing the march and carrying it out, the radicals have always meant to make it a non-violent, but vigorously active demonstration, as proven by the "sit-ins", the peaceful demonstrations in front of the NATO commands and facilities of

Vicenza, and the political indications ("no to all armies", "all armies are fascist"). There have been debates among the participants concerning this aspect of the initiative, and some people and some groups have left.

A constant point of reference of the radicals' antimilitarist initiative is the analysis they carry out of the societies characterized by State capitalism, the Soviet societies of Eastern Europe, where the radicals denounce the influence represented by the military structures ("the red armies") as typical of an administration of power which prevents the acquisition of truly socialist and libertarian objectives. The events of Czechoslovakia, in 1968, provided a dramatic opportunity for a vigorous initiative to denounce this reality. "Groups of activity and hunger strike for Czechoslovakia", promoted by the radicals in Rome, Milan, Pescara and Sulmona, carried out an 11-day hunger strike to provide a stimulus and an opportunity to intervene for those forces of the left which, apart from deploring the facts, did not deem appropriate an active initiative of solidarity with the Czechoslovaks. "Radical News" wrote in those days: "The grandiose demonstration of civil resistance afforded by the Czechoslovak populati

on should be a teaching for the supporters of violence and the armed revolution in every circumstance and condition (36). The Czechoslovak experience rediscovers the importance of civil resistance and nonviolence as possible revolutionary means, capable of involving and mobilizing vast democratic masses of citizens and workers"; and therefore: "The events in Czechoslovakia confront the entire left with the problem of an urgent reconsideration of the real function carried out throughout the world by the military structures. Never as in this moment has it been clear that there are, and cannot be, democratic and popular armies as opposed to bureaucratic and fascist armies. Everywhere, even in the communist world, the armies' function is a repressive and totalitarian one; their task is no longer that of guaranteeing, in the age of the atomic bomb and of intercontinental missiles, the defence of the national boundaries and of international security, but that of controlling and stifling with weapons every democrat

ic change from the base, and every revolutionary ferment".

In September, the Radical Party endorsed an initiative promoted by the War Resisters International. The WRI asked the participating organizations to send a number of militants in the capitals of the countries of the Warsaw Pact by a given date, with the task of staging peaceful and non-violent demonstrative actions, distribution fly sheets to protest against the intervention of the Pact's troops in Prague. The Italian delegation that went to Sofia was formed by: Antonio Azzolini, Marcello Baraghini, Silvana Leonardi and Marco Pannella. The support given to the WRI's initiative was fully justified: it was a way, while not the only one, with which minority groups and organizations could assume a positive and relatively inexpensive initiative, completely self-managed, which urged the public opinion and the official political forces to overcome their hesitations considering the gravity of the events in Czechoslovakia. In Italy, statements of solidarity and of commitment against the aggression came from Ferruccio

Parri [21], Danilo Dolci [22], Simone Gatto, Riccardo Lombardi [23], Aldo Capitini, the Italian Anarchist Federation, etc. In the days immediately prior the demonstration, an "Anti-Atlantic Committee for Czechoslovakia" had been created, in the aftermath of the activities related to the hunger strike. "The imperialist violence in Vietnam and in the Third World - stated the committee's platform - and the immanent risk of an involution in the countries of the Atlantic Pact, corresponds to the oppressive mechanism of the Warsaw Pact". An appeal had therefore been addressed to "all those who militate in the left, all those who believe in progressivist internationalism, all those who struggle for a free and conscious choice of socialism and for the dissolution of the military blocks", for an initiative and a struggle with the following purposes: 1) obtaining the withdrawal of the troops of the Warsaw Pact from the territory of Czechoslovakia; 2) materially expressing the bonds of solidarity of the Italian partie

s of the left with the Czechoslovak socialism; 3) ensure its free development versus the current authoritarian pressures". The initiative was endorsed by the following: Senator Adriano Ossicini, Senator Gian Mario Albani, MP Ferdinando Santi, MP Renato Ballardini, MP Riccardo Lombardi, MP Nevol Querci, MP Loris Fortuna [24] , Fabrizio Cicchitto (dir. com. CGIL), Gianfranco Spadaccia (nat. secr. Radical Party), Wladimiro Dorigo (editor of "Questitalia"), Giuseppe Loteta, Piero Boni (Nat.secr. FIOM), Giuseppe Giorgio Pazzini (Nat.counc. ACLI), Vittorio Bellavite (ACLI research office), Mauro Mellini, Antonio Fontana, Giovanni Emiliani, Luigi Capogrossi Colognesi, etc.

"Between political manipulations of social democratic forces which passively accept the logic of the policy of the blocks, when they are not protagonists and accomplices - wrote "Radical News" in September of that year - and declarations of principle of the communist parties, which are important and positive, but do not translate into a political initiative and a democratic struggle, the European left once again threatened to remain passive and paralysed by its own divisions, its own uncertainties and contradictions, in the face of dramatic and decisive events".

The uncertainties, the contradictions, the division which the radicals denounced then have not diminished throughout the years; even if the surge of alarm and fear which occurred when a number of journalists, or Senator Parri, opened their denunciation campaign which lead to the SIFAR scandal, triggered the political and parliamentary initiative, enabled a certain change of direction with respect to previous mistakes, misunderstandings and tactics (e.g. certain choices and distinctions advanced by "L'Unità" and by the PCI in the military class, and the support which that party gave the career ambitions of the "neutralist" and "democratic" De Lorenzo), in fact the global attitude held by the parties of the left and by the democratic forces on the problems of militarism and of the struggle against the armies has not changed. There has never been a global strategy of change, bringing about a change of direction, or an explicit condemnation of militarism even when it takes a "revolutionary" shape.

Faced to this laceration and to the lack of unifying and truly revolutionary objectives, the groups and sectors not represented in Parliament, which have supported the need for a revolution "with weapons" enjoyed ample credit, in those years. The results of this are visible, and serious. In order to oppose the revolutionary "violence", the dominant classes and the establishment have enhanced and strengthened the impact and the force of the largely militarized "State violence". Frustrated classes, and ample sectors of the working classes themselves, ultimately welcomed this "State violence" as a factor of stability and security. "Law and order" once again became a credible slogan even in the eyes of those whom the revolutionary and liberating drive should have helped become the allies and protagonists of a creative turnabout in the direction of freedom.

On 18 October a trial against 42 people was opened in Turin at the Court of Assizes: 36 members of "Lotta Operaia" and "Potere Operaio" [25], and 6 journalists who had accepted to be responsible directors of "Lotta Continua" even simply to guarantee this newspaper and its political group that freedom of press which fascist and illiberal laws grant only to the circle of journalists and the newspapers of the regime. Among the charges: "propaganda and subversive and anti-national apology", and "instigation to disobey the military discipline". The military ideology, ignoring the problems of freedom of expression and the rights guarantied by the Constitution, will no doubt urge a confirmation of its absolute and sacred impact on society, of its ideals and future development by sentencing the defendants. It is against the indications, the reality and the dangers represented by this militarism which the Radical Party is underlining the need for an unrelenting antimilitarist struggle, especially in its ideal motivat

ions, and in its democratic and libertarian choices.

Updating note:

In autumn this year, the activity has concentrated on the struggle for the recognition of conscientious objection and for the preliminary rejection of the draft bill passed by the Senate on 27 July: a bill which has immediately been dubbed a "swindle law", a law "against" conscientious objection.

A press conference was held in the Radical Party's headquarters in Rome, during which the League for Conscientious Objection, pacifists, objectors, antimilitarists and parliamentarians gave an account of their positions vis-à-vis such draft bill, at a moment in which its discussion in Parliament seemed imminent. The President of the Chamber, Mr.Pertini, deeming, in good faith, that the bill was such as to fulfil the requirements for which it had been urged, had included its examination in the order of the day of one of the first sessions in September. However, with the probable purpose of favouring a prompt approval, he had charged a commission with the relative discussion. While the concern for a prompt definition of the problem is understandable, the fact of subtracting such a delicate and important matter to that dutiful publicity which only an ample debate in the Chamber can ensure, was an alarming fact. The press conference featured the presence, apart from representative of the League, of the radicals

Marco Pannella and Roberto Cicciomessere, Mario Savelli as representative of the Christian-Social Movement, and MPs Anderlini, Fracanzani, Servadei and Fortuna. A fracture and a serious contrast in positions occurred immediately, on analysing the bill. Senator Anderlini maintained that, while imperfect, the law was to be carried on until approval. In his opinion, the military circles had already advanced a strong resistance to its passage, and that it was to be improved only later. Anderlini's thesis - who was obviously denying his previous withdrawal of his bill in sign of protest - was questioned by the other participants. The League and even the parliamentarians maintained that the law was unacceptable (because it was even more restrictive than the intentions of the military circles) and that, had it been impossible to amend it suitably, it would have been necessary to operate for its non-approval. In any case, the procedure of the discussion by the commission was considered unacceptable: the speakers agr

eed that every pressure was to be enacted in order to obtain its rejection, and that the bill was to be discussed in Parliament.

Simultaneously, a series of initiatives agreed during the above mentioned meeting in Bologna in early September, advanced the struggle in the streets and in the eyes of the public opinion. The mobilization was extremely wide, thanks in particular to the unexpected presence and commitment of strong groups of antimilitarists and pacifists which had been formed in several cities. Demonstrations in front of Parliament and in front of the Court Martial in Turin during the trials against the objectors Mario Pizzola and Matteo Soccio, a hunger strike, started simultaneously in Rome - with Roberto Cicciomessere [26] and others - and the distribution of fly sheets (CEP) in Turin, the dispatch of thousands of notes of protest to the parliamentarians of the Chamber defence committee, were amply covered by the press and were noticed by the public opinion. The parliamentarians were also sent an exhaustive and detailed document (signed by the "Third Day Community", by the European Peace Corps, by the Republican Youth Fede

ration, by the antimilitarist groups of Vicenza, Ancona, Pescara, Reggio Emilia, Naples and Padua, by the MAI, by the Non-violent Movement for Peace of Perugia, Brescia, Condove, by the MPL of Gorizia and Udine and by the Radical Party), containing the reasons for the determined opposition against the governmental project, and which urged the parliamentarians to operate in order to achieve ameliorative amendments or, failing this, to reject such an insufficient and dangerous text. Other and new initiatives showed how compact and unanimous the antimilitarist front was in rejecting that draft bill which, on the contrary, in the intentions of its proposers was to subdue the opposition of the objectors by breaking up their unanimity. On 21 September, answering the proposal and the invitation of Pietro Pinna, 22 citizens, in different cities, returned their discharge papers to the military district, motivating the act as an a posteriori "expression of conscientious objection" and a further demonstration of antimi

litarist dissent. The press has to this moment divulged only the names of five of these objectors, all of them members of the "Group of Non-Violent action of Val Susa", the activities of which we mentioned above: Achille Croce, Alberto Perino, Massimo Maffiolo, Pier Sandro Roccati and Pier Giovanni Listello.

The whole of these demonstrations, as we said above, were exhaustively covered by the media, and therefore reached the public opinion to a considerable extent. While press organs such as the weekly "Settegiorni" had already devoted a growing attention to these problems and to the pacifists' struggles, this time a paper such as "Il Manifesto" [27], which previously seemed to privilege the line of the "struggle in the barracks" as advocated by "Lotta Continua", now seemed to provide objective information.

On 3 October in Piazza Navona, a demonstration took place in Piazza Navona in Rome, summoned by the Radical Party, "against the swindle law on conscientious objection" and for Italy's unilateral disarmament. The demonstration obtained a surprising success; almost 2,000 people participated. The demonstration relaunched the subsequent initiatives, which the press had been informed of through a press conference held on the previous day.

Until that moment, there had been a series of considerable achievements. Firstly, the national direction of the PSI, involved in the problem by MP Fortuna, had asked the party organs to support the proposals and the amendments of the League during the parliamentary debate. Moreover, among the democratic parliamentary groups, sufficient forces had been collected to prevent the passage of the draft bill in the commission (the group chairmen would have asked for the call in the Chamber at the beginning of the debate; in alternative, the signatures of 63 parliamentarians were available to advance the same request, in conformity with the procedure); lastly, a new and positive fact was that MP Fracanzani introduced a new draft bill which accepted most of the requests of the more radical objectors, and proposed them in a satisfying, while not exhaustive, way.

It was obvious that the mobilization and the initiatives had deeply changed the prospects of the parliamentary debate. In fact, the opponents were enacting an attempt to avoid the confrontation. MP Buffone, a Christian democrat, who should have been the reporter in the commission, twenty days later notified the commission itself of his refusal to illustrate the report. This manoeuvre obviously aimed at postponing the parliamentary progress, with the hope of shelving the draft in the delays of the parliamentary deadlines of the end of the year. In the meanwhile, the most active groups in Rome prepared a major initiative. A demonstration was organized for 30 October, to be held in St. Peter's Square, with the participation of about 160 pacifists and antimilitarists from various European countries. Apart from supporting the struggle for conscientious objection in Italy, the demonstration meant to draw international attention on the case of the non-violent Catholic objector Pepe Buenza, currently detained in the

prisons of his country.

Notes:

(1) After "Plotone di esecuzione", where Forcella and Monticone gave a vivid account of the hate and of the antimilitarist despair of the rural masses, it is necessary and possible to answer this statement today. "As of January 1930, through the words of the Gospel, I became a conscientious objector enlightened by the Father...I realized those who joined the "party of the fascist regime" were selling their bodies and souls to a diabolic and bloodthirsty man...Thus, I was forced to close my barber shop, with considerable economic damage and loss of physical fitness...". From the testimony of conscientious objector Nicola Balducci.

(2) Where he wrote words that pinpointed a new conception of associative relations, of the use of the energies: "Non-cooperation with those who act unjustly (a tax evader, a burglar, a murderer or any other person) underlines that person's wrong. Boycotting, passive resistance, can be used on a large scale...".

(3) Regarding the bonds between militarism and the Catholic church, in terms of repressive institutions and ideology, and on the violent reactions of the official church against the conscientious objectors, even after the liberalization of the Vatican Council II (obviously advocated by the French Catholics, but in practice denied to the Italian ones), a research by Alessandro Coletti is being published on conscientious objection, which analyses such attitude, and whence we took many news.

(4) As a consequence of the stance held by Rossi and the left, and of the participation in the Peace March, the Radical Party's leadership accepted a pre-congress motion which urged the radicals to participate in the pacifist demonstrations ("no to all bombs"). This occurred, however, on the eve of the party's crisis in 1962. After the crisis, the left having assumed the leadership of the party, antimilitarism became a binding and chief indication, together with anticlericalism.

(5) At the international Peace meeting in Moscow (9-14 July 1962), the Italian delegation included Danilo Dolci and others, as well as MPs Luzzatto and Amendola. Two radicals represented the party's left wing. The Congress mostly accepted the theses of the British pacifists and generally of the pacifists from the Anglo Saxon countries (there were 190 American delegates), supported by several other delegations (e.g. the Indian one) and was not, despite the moderate nature of its conclusions ("there can be no disarmament without control, nor control without disarmament") a purely propagandistic meeting, as it was depicted also in Italy (e.g. by the autonomist socialists, who sent a letter signed by Nenni and Lombardi, referring to it in this way).

(6) The meeting closed with a document which endorsed the following points of the radical theses:

1) "The plans that provide for the complete, atomic and conventional neutralization of the European area, from the borders of the U.S.S.R. to the Atlantic...need to be relaunched organically and achieved in the short term".

2) "In this prospect of European disarmament, which is the specific responsibility of the democratic forces of our countries, a major peaceful mobilization must take place, with the purpose of converting the traditional structures and the war-oriented mentality into a general renewal of the institutions, of the structures and of the European ethic and social life, such as, for example, passing from the compulsory military service to an alternative civil service"

3) The connection with the European pacifist forces was pointed out as one of the chief tasks of the Italian organization, which, for its part, was to grow in strength "through the diffusion of its regional, provincial and municipal committees", while acknowledging the need for "the democratic political forces to become aware" of the growth of the pacifist movement from 1961 to that moment, and "perceive the need to overcome mistrust and uncertainties related to the past in order to achieve a different attitude of the leading class on this essential problem while respecting its complete autonomy".

7) Among its founders, Corrado Antiochia, Ezio Bartalini, Pietro A. Buttitta, Andrea Gaggero, Giuliano Rendi, Ida Sacchetti and Gianfranco Spadaccia.

8) To give a picture, albeit incomplete and inaccurate, of the characteristics of the meeting, following is the list of the participants the meeting. Central Committee: Pietro Pinna, Maria Comberti, Ines Zilty Gay, Guido Graziani, Luciano Mencaraglia (replacing Velio Spano), Ferruccia Cappi Bentivegna, Aldo Putelli, Leonida Spaziani, Elio Spaziani; representatives of the local committees: Alberto l'Abate (Florence), Mario Levi (Turin), Emilio Argiroffi (Calabrian committee), Dante Cruicchi (Emilia-Romagna committee), Bruno Benassi (Bologna), Giacomo Minguzzi (Ravenna), Eliseo Spiga (Cagliari), Ida Sacchetti (Rome), Maurizio Pedrazza Corlero (Verona), Carla Marazza Ganduscio (Palermo). The following participated as observers: Anna Luisa L'Abate (Florence), Marco Pannella, Alma Sabatini, Nicoletta Riccio, Salvatore Ricciardi, Giuliano Rendi and others, from Rome. The representatives of the local groups were numerous, as you can see, as the delegation of the PCI. The socialists, on the other hand, had long sinc

e withdrawn from this unitarian organ, as well as from every concrete political initiative on the problems of disarmament, etc. and of foreign policy generally speaking.

9) A new case was raised for the first time at the trial against Alberto Trevisan. Paolo Tosi raised a question of constitutional illegitimacy vis-à-vis art. 14. last comma, of the military peace regulations, considered in conflict with articles 25, 101 and 111 of the Constitution. The objection was rejected.

10) The "News bulletin of the groups in Veneto members of the L.R.O.C." published and circulated an "open letter of a group of military" in the shape of a circular letter which - while based on an interesting analysis of the military structure and of the military service - concluded by urging to reform inadequate structures (shorter military service, seen as a moment of "formation of the citizen", etc), an answer from the antimilitarists of Mestre, denouncing the "militarist attitude" of the type of solutions offered (no even to a "unionization" of the protest), an anarchist document of absolute refusal of a "mystifying" civil service ("...the radical transformation of our society can only be achieved through a revolutionary movement of the proletariat versus the existing repressive system, versus State capitalism, army, church, education, parties, unions..." etc.

11) The initiative was decided during a "camp" held in August in Melfi, with the participation of antimilitarists from various cities (Turin, Venice, Brescia, Ravenna, Perugia, Arezzo, Rome, Bari), members of the CEP, the MIR and the Non-Violent Movement.

12) On New Year's Day, a pacifist and antimilitarist march and a "vigil" were held in Filetto, the village where Monsignore Defregger was killed, with the participation of most of the participants of the meeting (in addition to external presences, namely Catholic groups).

13) Regarding the role assumed by the army in the struggle against banditry in Sardinia, in Pratobello and in the areas of greater popular and rural tension, a more pondered analysis would be interesting. The sensational events were denounced, by means of an antimilitarist analysis, by "Radical News". Ugo Dessy, from the direction of the Radical Party, provided exhaustive material on the militarization of Sardinia and on the silence of the press and of the left also during radical and antimilitarist congresses (Naples, 1970).

14) Obviously, also as a result of this invitation, "L'Unità" started to devote some "features" on the problem of life in the barracks, the "costs" of the army, etc., always in terms of "democratization" ("L'Unità", May 1971) and in particular to support the draft bill introduced by MP Boldrini, which proposed to reduce the service to 12 months.

15) The episode involving Beck Peccoz (but prohibitions had been registered also in previous years, and for less revolutionary papers such as "L'Espresso") caused the Turin section of the National Association of Democratic Jurists to take a stance ("The episode occurred in the barrack of Artegna, Udine, 114th "Mantova" Regiment. The colonel in charge of the regiment carried out an inspection concentrating exclusively on Beck Peccoz on 10.12.1970. Having found him with a copy of the mentioned newspaper, at first he transferred him to Tricesimo, 17 days later denounced him and had him imprisoned with charges of continued seditious activity") which also called for a "democratic reorganization of the army" and "a popular control of its functioning by all military". The incredible incoherence of the requests does not affect the emotional participation of the democratic jurists.

16) From "L'Unità", 5 June 1971. "The Constitutional Court will rule on the legitimacy of art. 266, which concerns the instigation to disobey the laws; the decision was taken by the Court of Assizes of Bari, during a summary trial concluded late last evening, the two defendants being Leonardo Panza and Francesco Ventricelli, who were released at the request of the court. The two young men had distributed antimilitarist prints last Saturday to some soldiers. Among other things, they announced the need to "organize ourselves in the barracks against the beastly life they force on us, against every-day humiliations". The defence counsels of the two students, lawyers Pietro Laforgia and Aurelio Gironda, had raised an objection of unconstitutionality, based on the conflict with art. 21 of the Constitution, which safeguards the right to demonstrate one's opinions freely. The Court of Assizes deemed this objection "not explicitly groundless", forwarding the papers to the Constitutional Court. The ordinance issued by

the Court is interesting. Among other things, it states that "through art. 21, the Constitution obviously meant to reconfirm for each individual, in perfect conformity with a system of social coexistence based on democratic principles, the right to express one's opinion and one's dissent in relation to the concrete organization of any body, including the armed forces, even simply with the purpose of checking whether such body is based or not on that democratic spirit which the Constitution itself lays down in all of its rules: considering, therefore, that the legitimacy of every demonstration of thought is not meant to undermine the organization of the armed forces as an institution that aims to defend the homeland, but simply means to criticize specific structures or concrete methods of application of the institutional functions, there ensues that the question of constitutional legitimacy of art. 226 of the penal code is not explicitly groundless".

17) For his self-defence (he refused a personal counsel and accepted only the Counsel appointed by the Court), Don Milani used, among others, Tridentine texts on the disobedience to the State that were clearly counter-reformist and reactionary. Clearly, for Don Milani it was a case of naivety, but the misunderstanding has never been totally explained by the other Catholic objectors.

18) During a debate held in the Radical Party's headquarters, a document of solidarity and protest was developed and divulged, signed by Mario Barbani, Fabrizio Fabbrini, Marco Pannella, Giuseppe Pinelli, Pietro Pinna and Aldo Rossi.

19) Its promoters were Senator Anderlini, lawyer Peyrot and the MIR.

20) In any case, the radicals were not prejudicially against Parliament tackling a serious debate on the basis of the various projects introduced. The fact that Parliament needs to discuss such an essential matter of civil right with a responsible and open attitude has always been one of the party's indications and objectives. In June 1970, reaching an electoral agreement with the PSI for the administrative elections, the radicals asked, as an essential condition, the PSI's commitment to reopen the debate in parliament on the relative draft bills, when the Chambers resumed activity, and a communiqué in this sense was signed and circulated by the two parties. According to the radical party, this step was not to mean the equivalent of "yielding to the 'system'" and a concession to the institutions, but the condition to develop the struggle against militarism at a higher level". For this reason, the radicals struggled to obtain extremely rigorous positions on the part of the League, in order to provide such str

uggle with an advanced indication.

21) Material of the League.

22) Material of the League.

23) In March, the MIR passed a document which denounced the inadequacy of the draft bill which had just been passed in the commission by the reporting committees, and stressed the need for an organic law at "popular initiative" The following participated in the proceedings of the assembly: P. Balducci, F. Fabbrini, A. L'Abate, P. Pinna, L. Pisadoni, L. Santini and André Trocme".

24) On 30 March, Anderlini officially withdrew his draft bill in sign of protest.

25) Once again, the parties of the left, which had nonetheless assumed the initiative, left its conclusion to the parties of the right. In fact, while they had endorsed the parliamentary progress of the bills, they had no intention of promoting a real campaign. Precisely in the days of the debate at the Senate, a round table appeared on "Rinascita", between the secretaries of the youth federations, which highlighted a fundamental convergence of the various positions on a vague "democratization" of the armed forces. The representative of the FGCI, Veltroni, maintained the need and the possibility of a reform making the army "efficient" as well as "democratic", and "capable of reflecting the innovative impulses which come from the country". The statement is the sign of a fundamental political ignorance, to say the least.

26) Giacomo Secco is a Catholic, his objection is profoundly "ecclesial" and politically characterized. In his statement, he endorses the motivations of Paganoni, Minnella, Negrini, Pizzola, Trevisan, Amari and Truddaiu.

27) The trial against Pizzola was held in Turin on 28 September. Other recent trials for conscientious objection have been those against Daniele Rizzi (2 September) and Matteo Soccio (19 September), in Turin.

28) In an attempt to stop the mobilization of the antimilitarists, the judiciary and the military structures immediately started a chain reaction. The Procurator's Office of Padua indicted the "Non-Violent Group of Camposanpiero" (Padua) at first for instigation to conscientious objection and then for "instigation" to desertion. The "Group of Camposanpiero", of a "spontaneous nature", was formed on the basis of the objective of conscientious objection "as a means of struggle and opposition to a society which is violent in its structures, and a proposal of alternative structures". In particular, it operated in support of Luigi Trevisol, parson of Torre di Fine (Venice), indicted (together with the four directors of the Cineforum of Portogruaro Piero Anese, Bruno Toffanello, Gastone Rabbachin and Luigi Villotta) for insulting the institutions, as it had divulged antimilitarist and pacifist material. In Milan, three antimilitarists, Massimo Mazzanti, Francesco Milazzo and Fernando del Grosso, were arrested and

tried for having posted the antimilitarist poster diffused (in thousands of copies and postcards) during the collective conscientious objection. For the same reason, 2 militants had been indicted in Turin, 1 in Padua and 1 in Rome.

29) The trial against Ciro Cozzo, the objector from Naples, was also an occasion for a considerable interest of the press. Exhaustive excerpts of the trial were published by several newspapers.

(30) As of 1969, every year, the radical party holds a national antimilitarist congress, immediately after the party's national congress. To date two of such congresses have been held, in Milan in 1969, and in Naples in 1970, with a strong participation of libertarian groups. During the congress in Naples, Ciro Cozzo announced his conscientious objection.

(31) A message of greeting was sent to the congress by Devi Prasad, Secretary-general of the WRI. Thanks to his invitation, the radicals participated in the 2nd Meeting of the Association's European sections, in France. During this meeting, a series of possible initiatives were examined, including civil disobedience. However, this was one of the last meeting on an international level. The Confederation, created in Oxford, lost all function and importance once the drive of the "antinuclear" intiative, of its majority, ceased.

(32) The radicals had contributed a determined antimilitarist and antinationalist presence during the two previous years, in the European Federalist Movement (Giuliano Rendi, Gianfranco Spadaccia, Angiolo Bandinelli, Federico Bugno, Stefano Silvestri, Franco Sircana, etc). A document of this federalist left caused a debate in the EFM and was introduced at the 9th Congress of the Movement, held in Lions in February 1962.

In November of the same year, the radicals also participated in the International Conference against War, called in Amsterdam by the British Committee of 100, by the War Resisters International and by the Japanese Zengakuren. Apart from underlining the theses of the pacifist and antimilitarist internationalism, the conference provided an interesting definition of "direct action". According to the Conference, direct action was to mean: a) the acceptance of personal responsibility for the action that needs to be carried out; b) the creation of new forms of organization in which the personal responsibility eliminates the previous distinction between leaders and base, and promotes a new, creative association of peers; c) forms of initiative in which the responsibility is taken by those who volunteer rather than by those who are elected.

(33) The constant mistrust shown by the PCI and by the traditional parties of the left toward pacifism is not only the consequence of disinformation and scarce interest, it is also a political choice, which differs only in terms of methods of struggle from the mistrust shown by the movements of the left not represented in Parliament. On the other hand, it is ascertained that pacifism still represents an essential component in the international debate. In any case, such diffidence has lead to a constant incomprehension and minimization of the European and American struggles of the "new left", precisely in a moment in which, through pacifism, they have carried out exemplary and active libertarian battles: Cf. Massimo Teodori, "La nuova sinistra americana", Feltrinelli, 1970.

(34) The government's answer was that they were "small weapons". It is true that they were guns of obvious use in the climate of racist and anti-black psychosis.

(35) The debate was carefully followed and integrally recorded by stenographers and experts from the Ministry of Defence, as an example of dangerous infiltration, by General Aloja, in his book "Mani rosse sull'esercito", which accused the radical theses of being the most advanced and dangerous ones for Italian militarism.

(36) During and immediately after the Algerian war of liberation, the radicals had sounded a warning on the gravity and dangerousness of a struggle for independence and freedom such as to promote only the growth of a military-type of leading class, linked to military structures. A similar stance was taken repeatedly during the Vietnam war; the radicals stressed, for example, the Buddhist, pacifist-type of initiative which, while momentarily defeated, is neither defeated nor has it disappeared, as proven by recent facts.

Translator's notes

[1] BANDINELLI ANGIOLO. (Chianciano 1927). Writer. Former member of the Partito d'Azione; secretary of the Radical Party in 1969, 1971 and 1972; he was also treasurer of the party for five years. In 1979 local councillor in Rome, deputy in the ninth legislature. For many years, editor of several radical publications ("La Prova Radicale", "Notizie Radicali", etc), author of essays and articles relative to the history and the theory of the party, many of which are contained in the book "Il radicale impunito". Writes for newspapers and magazines and for Radio Radicale with notes and editorials.

[2] TOGLIATTI PALMIRO. (Genua 1893 - Yalta 1964). In Turin he cooperated with A. Gramsci, among the founders of the Italian Communist Party, which he was secretary of from 1927 until his death. Exiled in Russia, he was member of the secretariat of the Comintern, and played an important role in Spain during the civil war. Back in Italy in 1944, he launched a "national" policy based on the fact of voting the Lateran pacts, clashing with the lay forces of the country. Member of government from 1944 to 1947, also as minister. After the elections of 1948, he monopolized the opposition's role, but he also favoured a "dialogue" with the Christian Democracy and the Catholic world, without ever breaking with the Vatican. His project of an "Italian way to socialism" did not achieve its fundamental objective, and on the contrary lead to a stalemate in the political system, preventing the Left from acquiring any "alternation" in power from the Christian Democratic Party.

[3] PCI. Italian Communist Party.

[4] PERTINI SANDRO. (Stella 1896 - Rome 1990). Italian politician. Socialist, was imprisoned and exiled during the fascist regime.. From 1943 to 1945 he participated in the Resistance. Secretary of the Socialist Party, deputy, president of the Chamber (1968-1976), President of the Republic (1978-1985).

[5] CISL. CISL. Federation of Italian Trade Unions. Catholic by inspiration (but with lay components), it was established in 1950 to counter the power of the CGIL, the communist-oriented labour union.

[6] CGIL. CGIL. Italian General Confederation of Labor. Established in 1906 by reformist socialists, it currently represents mostly communist and socialist forces, whose parties (especially of the former) it acted as the "drive belt" in the world of labour, where it still detains a strong majority. Among its most prestigious exponents, Giuseppe Di Vittorio, Luciano Lama, Bruno Trentin, Ottaviano Del Turco, etc.

[7] UIL. UIL. Italian Labour Union. Socialist-oriented national labour union. The third numerically speaking after CGIL and CISL. Originally it used to be the union of smaller, less representative unions, then it gradually evolved, also intellectually. Its current secretary is Piero Larizza, who succeeded Giorgio Benvenuto.

[8] DC. Italian Christian Democratic Party.

[9] PSDI. Italian Social Democratic Party.

[10] PSIUP. Maximalist socialist party, result of a schism of the left-wing groups of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) in 1964, and dissolved in 1972.

[11] PRI. Italian Republican Party.

[12] PLI. Italian Liberal Party.

[13] AMINTORE FANFANI. (Arezzo 1908). Italian politician, professor of economic history, eminent personality of the Christian Democrat Party which he was secretary of from 1954 to 1959 and from 1973 to 1975. He gave a strong corporative impulse to the party with the use of public industry as a key element of economic development. Prime Minister (1958-'59; 1960-'62; 1982-'83), foreign minister on several occasions, president of the Senate from 1958 to 1973 and from 1976 to 1982.

[14] TANASSI MARIO. (Ururi 1916). Secretary of the Italian Social Democratic Party (PSDI) since 1963; achieved the socialist unity, which later failed, becoming co-secretary of the Unified Socialist Party (PSU) from 1966 to 1969. Defence Minister (1968-69, 1970, 1970-72, 1973-74), he was convicted by the constitutional court for the Lockheed scandal (1979).

[15] LOTTA CONTINUA. One of the most important and widespread political movements of the extreme left, established in 1969 in Turin. In 1971 it created the homonymous newspaper, which became immediately popular. It detached the extraparliamentary Left from the laborite prejudicial, penetrating the youth and students' milieu, the conscripts, the prisons, etc. Its chief leader was the journalist and writer Adriano Sofri.

[16] PANNELLA MARCO. Pannella Giacinto, known as Marco. (Teramo 1930). Currently President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, which he is one of the founders of. At twenty national university representative of the Liberal Party, at twenty-two President of the UGI, the union of lay university students, at twenty-three President of the UNURI, national union of Italian university students. At twenty-four he advocates, in the context of the students' movement and of the Liberal party, the foundation of the new radical party, which arises in 1954 following the confluence of prestigious intellectuals and minor democratic political groups. He is active in the party, except for a period (1960-1963) in which he is correspondent for "Il Giorno" in Paris, where he established contacts with the Algerian resistance. Back in Italy, he commits himself to the reconstruction of the radical Party, dissolved by its leadership following the advent of the centre-left. Under his indisputable leadership, the party succeeds in

promoting (and winning) relevant civil rights battles, working for the introduction of divorce, conscientious objection, important reforms of family law, etc, in Italy. He struggles for the abrogation of the Concordat between Church and State. Arrested in Sofia in 1968 as he is demonstrating in defence of Czechoslovakia, which has been invaded by Stalin. He opens the party to the newly-born homosexual organizations (FUORI), promotes the formation of the first environmentalist groups. The new radical party organizes difficult campaigns, proposing several referendums (about twenty throughout the years) for the moralization of the country and of politics, against public funds to the parties, against nuclear plants, etc., but in particular for a deep renewal of the administration of justice. Because of these battles, all carried out with strictly nonviolent methods according to the Gandhian model - but Pannella's Gandhi is neither a mystic nor an ideologue; rather, an intransigent and yet flexible politician -

he has been through trials which he has for the most part won. As of 1976, year in which he first runs for Parliament, he is always elected at the Chamber of Deputies, twice at the Senate, twice at the European Parliament. Several times candidates and local councillor in Rome, Naples, Trieste, Catania, where he carried out exemplary and demonstrative campaigns and initiatives. Whenever necessary, he has resorted to the weapon of the hunger strike, not only in Italy but also in Europe, in particular during the major campaign against world hunger, for which he mobilized one hundred Nobel laureates and preeminent personalities in the fields of science and culture in order to obtain a radical change in the management of the funds allotted to developing countries. On 30 September 1981 he obtains at the European parliament the passage of a resolution in this sense, and after it several other similar laws in the Italian and Belgian Parliament. In January 1987 he runs for President of the European Parliament, obtain

ing 61 votes. Currently, as the radical party has pledged to no longer compete with its own lists in national elections, he is striving for the creation of a "transnational" cross-party, in view of a federal development of the United States of Europe and with the objective of promoting civil rights throughout the world.

[17] SIFAR. Information Service for the Italian Armed Forces, established in 1949 at the orders of the Defence Chief of Staff. In 1966 it was dissolved because of serious "deviations" and replaced with the SID (Defence Information Service), which was abolished in 1977 and replaced by the SISMI (Military Security Service).

[18] IL MONDO. Political and cultural weekly magazine, established in Rome by Mario Pannunzio. For seventeen years it was the expression and the symbol of the best lay, liberal, radical and democratic Italian tradition. Most of its journalists participated in the foundation of the radical Party. Ceased publications in 1966, was taken over by Arrigo Benedetti in 1969. Subsequently became an economic magazine.

[19] ANDREOTTI GIULIO. (Rome 1919). Exponent of the Christian Democratic Party. Secretary of A. De Gasperi, very young, as under-secretary of the Presidency of the Council, he began an uninterrupted career as minister: Interior (1954), Finance (1955-58), Treasury (1958-59), Defence (1959-66), Industry (1966-68), Budget (1974-76). Prime Minister from 1972 to 1973, then from 1976 to 1979 and from 1990 to date.

[20] SEGNI ANTONIO. (Sassari 1891 - Rome 1972). Italian politician, Christian Democrat. Minister of Agriculture in 1946, he developed the agrarian reform of 1949. Prime Minister (1955-57 and 1959-60), then President of the Republic in 1962, he was forced to resign in 1964 because he was severely ill. He was thought to be the possible mastermind of an authoritarian coup to overthrow the first government of Centre-Left, which he considered too "progressivist".

[21] PARRI FERRUCCIO. (Pinerolo 1890 - Rome 1981). Italian politician. Antifascist, leader of the Partito d'Azione, played a key role in the Resistance, as head of the partisan forces under the name of "Maurizio". Prime Minister in the first government after the liberation, he was overthrown in 1945 to make place for De Gasperi's Christian Democracy. Senator for life as of 1963, president of the parliamentary group of the Indepdent Left as of 1968. Editor of the political newsmagazine "L'Astrolabio".

[22] DOLCI DANILO. (Sesana, Trieste 1924). Italian sociologist. Studied the phenomenon of the mafia, moving to one of the poor neighbourhoods of Palermo where he struggled, also with nonviolent methods, for the civil development of the area.

[23] LOMBARDI RICCARDO. (Regalbuto 1901 - 1984). Italian politician. Among the founders of the Partito d'Azione, later joined the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), which he became president of in 1980.

[24] FORTUNA LORIS. (Breno 1924 - Udine 1985). Italian politician. In 1965, he sponsored the bill on divorce which was passed by Parliament after years of initiatives and campaigns carried out in cooperation with the Radical Party in 1970. He also sponsored bills on abortion and passive euthanasia (the latter was not approved). Minister of civil defence and community affairs.

[25] POTERE OPERAIO. Italian political movement of the extreme Left, established 1966 and dissolved in 1973. Theorized the armed conquest of power.

[26] CICCIOMESSERE ROBERTO. (Bolzano 1948). Radical deputy belonging to the European Federalist Group. Conscientious objector, arrested and convicted; following his initiative, in 1972 this civil right was recognized in Italy. In 1970 treasurer of the Radical party, which he was also secretary of in 1971 and 1984. In 1969 secretary of the LID (Italian League for Divorce), member of the European Parliament from 1984 to 1989. Architect and organizer of "AGORA' telematica", multilingual computer communications system.

[27] IL MANIFESTO. Monthly magazine (and political movement) established in 1969 by exponents of the communist party (A. Natoli, R.Rossanda, L.Pinto, L.Magri, etc.) who were later expelled. In 1971, the magazine became a daily newspaper and supported communist formations not represented in Parliament.