ABSTRACT: A collection of documents on the radicals' libertarian antifascism: to recognize fascism means to understand what it has been and above all what it can be. Apparent antifascism too often hides a complicity with those who represented the true continuity with fascism, the reprise of laws and methods typical of that regime. (" WE AND THE FASCISTS", The radicals' libertarian antifascism, edited by Valter Vecellio, preface by Giuseppe Rippa - Quaderni Radicali/1, November 1980)

There is a trial going on in Catanzaro. It ought to be the most important political trial of recent years with judges and lawyers searching for the truth and the democratic parties paying attention so that no useful bit of knowledge is overlooked. The stakes involved are, in fact, high: to ascertain who placed the bombs in Piazza Fontana on December 12, 1969 and who ordered them placed there. To discover this would mean finally to expel from the political scene that invisible party that for seven years has neutralised the power of the left with terrorist massacres (rather than with military coups).

Instead, there is a different kind of trial going on in Catanzaro. The subject is still Piazza Fontana, but the protagonists and the objectives are entirely different: judges and lawyers sceptical, in a hurry, and isolated from public opinion; the parties of the left indifferent; everyone only concerned with getting through a bureaucratic duty as soon as possible whose point of arrival is identical with its point of departure: "hold a trial". Not, let it be clear, ascertain who placed the bombs, who are the government's terrorists, throw light on December 12, 1969 so that we can see better even today. "Hold a trial", and better if it is done with closed eyes, trusting to that external stage direction that in all these years has fabricated inconclusive investigations and closed all the roads leading upwards. "Holding the trial" in these conditions means not wanting to hold it at all.

In Catanzaro they are, in fact, holding a regime-run trial that is based on the playing of pre-established roles and that can only continue as long as the left renounces putting the regime on trial for Piazza Fontana and vicinity.

The special correspondents sent by the newspapers, the unison "chorus", those who seven years ago lynched the monster Valpreda and the others who, at their leisure, then cast doubt on the police's version of the truth, will take care of raising an infernal lot of dust. Everybody is agreed this time: the right who continue to be yes men and the left who bow obsequiously to Communist normalisation. Is the abrogation of state and military secrets being demanded? Here we go trying to waste time again, repeat the chorus in unison. And how do the Martinelli's, the Isman's, the Sassano's think we will get to the truth if first we do not get rid of this state secret which covers the government's responsibility?

There is the inquiry, of course. But look at it closely. We are not the only ones to suggest that it is not naming the perpetrators or the instigators of the bombing. Before we did, Giorgio Galli (journalist, ed.) said so, and he has recently said so again. The inquiry is not only not proving anything about December 12, but it is non-existent with regard to the decisive question: the political organisation which is behind the bombing.

At a certain point, De Cataldo (a Radical lawyer, ed.) did participate in the trial and Radical deputies in the Chamber presented a motion for the abolition of state and military secrets. To block the blow, Andreotti promised that the secret would be eliminated. Did then the Catanzaro court rush to ask for a verification of this sudden gift after seven years of silence? Not likely. Instead it rejected De Cataldo's demands to ask the SID (military intelligence service, ed.) for all its documentation on Piazza Fontana. And the journalists, instead of making mince meat of the judges attacked De Cataldo for trying "to waste time".

What haste to serve the regime! To avoid unexpected delays they might prefer if the accused renounced their right of self-defence. The defence too, from a certain standpoint, can be seen as a waste of time. And where do they expect to get in all their hurry when they know perfectly well that on the basis of the evidence gathered in the inquiry no judge can give life in prison to Freda, let alone Ventura, without some heavy interference from the government. So now the real objective comes to the fore: get through this trial before something unforeseen puts a hitch in the painless proceedings desired by the government. Possibly in exchange for the release of Valpreda whose case, as far as can be seen, already is a victory for the left.

And so the unison chorus get a yearning for the old pleasure of a lynching. They have only just stopped shouting at Valpreda "show your face, monster!" and already they have begun to pounce on the new defendants (killers? innocent? we don't know). Paying for it is primarily Freda. Freda doesn't smile. Freda smirks. He talks in a fancy way. In short, he is intolerable. He defends himself with assurance. Consequently he is outrageous. And he wears a different sweater every day. Hide your head, monster! In our next issue, when we can draw a tentative balance of the trial, we will try to put together an anthology of the articles dispatched by our correspondents from Catanzaro.

The worst of it is that even Valpreda's defence has got caught up in the game of every-man-for-himself. This is something to be very sorry about, it is a sign of the degradation caused by the Communist normalisation. One could have understood the prudent attitude required just in order to get Valpreda cleared by the court, but not at the price of joining up with those who want to bury the search for the truth about Piazza Fontana. How can one justify the active support by Valpreda's lawyers of the prosecutor's and the presiding judge's thesis? What sense does their opposition make to De Cataldo's effort to have state and military secrets abolished? They said it was too soon to demand the lifting of state secrecy. After seven years it's too soon? And yet a few weeks before the trial Guido Calvi (a lawyer,ed.) declared that without abolishing state secrecy he could not get at the truth. Now he has given up an active role in the trial in order to accept the new directives of the regime which today does no

t present itself in Christian Democratic colours but in those of the historic compromise (the Communist expression for their decision to collaborate with the DC, ed.).

The general agreement is to hold the trial formally, without digressing, allowing oneself at most some plaintive allusion to a "government inspired terrorist attack". As far as Andreotti's promises are concerned, it is clear that state secrecy will be lifted only if there is a real strong political action for it. This is exactly where the point of De Cataldo's activity lies as Ventura's legal defender in the trial.

This defendant, in fact, had centred his defence around the request for the abolition of state and military secrets, and today he represents the most contradictory point in this regime-run trial. Contrary to Freda, who connives with the power holders in a way consistent with his Fascist convictions, Ventura has broken the conspiracy of silence and has allowed the inquiry to make decisive steps by involving the SID. In short, he is the only one, now that Valpreda's defence has taken cover, who is fighting for a "politicisation" of the trial. Is he guilty? According to the results of the inquiry, it would seem not. And if in the upshot his fight for the abolition of state secrecy should be the very thing to worsen his position, it is clear that all reason for De Cataldo's presence would vanish.

It is also true that De Cataldo took on his defence against the will of the Radical Party and its parliamentary representatives and only with the support of "Prova Radicale". What divided us on that occasion was a judgement of the opportune, not a political judgement on the trial itself and on Ventura's position concerning it, which, until he should change his mind, remains fixed in the two articles published in the first number of "Prova Radicale". There has not been any dissent even in considering inadmissible Ventura's claims to having acted as a democrat in '69. (On this point too, what was

written in "Prova" no.1 remains valid.)

With hindsight we can recognise that the party and its parliamentary group were right on one point: the presence of a lawyer is not enough to derail the logic of the regime which is conditioning the trial. Nevertheless the presence of De Cataldo may be enough to keep a door open for the overturning of the farce that is being staged in Catanzaro.

Mario Signorelli

("Prova Radicale", March 1977)