Il Duce and His Women

by Roberto Olla

  A German Marxist theorist, Kautsky was secretary to Friedrich Engels. He was an opponent of Leninism and a fierce critic of the Russian Revolution.

  ANNA MIKHAILOVNA KULISCIOFF (1855–1925)

  Born Anja Rosenstein to a Jewish family, Kuliscioff was a Russian revolutionary, a physician specializing in gynaecology and among the founding members of the Italian Socialist Party. She changed her name to Kuliscioff (meaning “labourer” in Russian) to avoid being identified by the agents of the Tsar during her exile. She was arrested many times in Italy and had a daughter (Andreina) from a relationship with the Italian Socialist Andrea Costa.

  ARTURO LABRIOLA (1873–1959)

  A lawyer, journalist and socialist, Labriola was elected as a deputy in 1913. He became Minister of Work in 1920, during the fifth Giolitti government, and Gran Maestro of the Grand Orient of Italy in 1930. Exiled to France, he resumed contact with the Fascist regime at the time of Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, a campaign that he supported. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1946 and became a senator in 1948.

  FIORELLO LA GUARDIA (1882–1945)

  La Guardia was an American political leader and the Mayor of New York for three consecutive terms from 1933 to 1945. His mother, a Jewish woman from Trieste, was Irene Coen Luzzato. La Guardia moved to Trieste with his family in 1898. On his return to the United States he became a lawyer, and in 1916 he became the first Italian-American congressman. During the First World War he fought on the Italian front, where he rose to the rank of major and commanded a unit of American bombers. He was a fierce opponent of American Fascism and Nazism and waged an intense war against illegal gambling rings linked to the Mafia. New York City named its second airport after him.

  COSTANTINO LAZZARI (1857–1927)

  Lazzari was the founder of the Italian Labour Party in 1882, and among the founding members of the Italian Socialist Party ten years later. He was secretary of the Socialist Party from 1912 to 1919 and was persecuted by the Fascists until his death in 1927.

  GUSTAVE LE BON (1841–1931)

  A renowned French sociologist and psychologist, Le Bon had a strong influence in various political spheres, especially with his most famous work, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind.

  DOMENICO LECCISI (1920–2008)

  A journalist and politician, Leccisi was the founder of a neo-Fascist organization after the Second World War. He is mainly remembered today for stealing Mussolini’s body, and he exploited the resulting notoriety in his bid to be elected as a deputy representing the neo-Fascist party the Italian Social Movement, a post that he held from 1953 to 1963. He was a proponent of the so-called “left-wing Fascism”. In 1958 he was one of the main supporters of the “Milazzo Operation” in Sicily for the election of the Christian Democrat Silvio Milazzo against the official candidate chosen by the Christian Democrat party. Milazzo’s election was made possible thanks to the combined votes of the Italian Communist Party and of the Italian Social Movement.

  GINO LUCETTI (1900–43)

  An anarchist, Lucetti was one of the Arditi during the First World War. He was opposed to Fascism from a very early stage. Taking refuge in France, he returned to Italy in 1926 to carry out an assassination attempt on Mussolini at Porta Pia in Rome. He was sentenced to thirty years in prison. Freed by the Allies in 1943, he died on a vessel struck by German bombing.

  EMIL LUDWIG (1881–1948)

  Born Emil Cohn, Ludwig was a German journalist and author of Jewish origin. He became a Swiss citizen in 1932 and emigrated to the United States in 1940. He became famous after penning several successful biographies and interviews with Stalin (1931) and Mussolini (1932).

  EMILIO LUSSU (1890–1975)

  A lawyer, journalist, writer and anti-Fascist political leader, Lussu was a democratic interventionist during the First World War and wrote one of the most famous books on the conflict, Un anno sull’altipiano (A Year on the High Plateau). He was the founder of the Partito Sardo d’Azione (Sardinian Action Party), advocating autonomy and federalism. He was the victim of several Fascist attacks and was exiled to Lipari, where he organized a remarkable escape together with fellow anti-Fascists Carlo Rosselli and Francesco Fausto Nitti. During his exile in Paris he was among the founding members of the Giustizia e Libertà (Justice and Liberty) movement. He took part in the Spanish Civil War, returning to Italy in 1943 and joining the Resistance. He became a minister in the government formed by the Partisan Ferruccio Parri in 1945 and subsequently served in the De Gasperi government. He later transferred his allegiances from the Sardinian Action Party to the Socialist Party, although he split from the latter in 1964 and set up the Partito Socialista Italiano di Unità Proletaria (Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity). He later distanced himself from PSIUP when it became closer to the Communist Party.

  CARLO EMANUELE MADRUZZO (1599–1658)

  Madruzzo was ordained in 1626 and was Prince Bishop of Trento from 1629 to 1658. He tried, unsuccessfully, to obtain a papal dispensation to marry his lover Claudia Particella.

  OLINDO MALAGODI (1870–1934)

  A journalist, liberal politician and senator, Malagodi took a stance of firm opposition against Fascism. He was the editor of La tribuna.

  IVAN MANASEVICH-MANUILOV

  A secret agent and a head of department of the Okhrana (the security services or, rather, secret police of Tsarist Russia, established by Nicholas II in 1881), Manasevich-Manuilov was active predominantly in Paris and in Belgium. He made use of ruthless methods, from bribery to torture to the enrolment of agents provocateurs. The fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion is thought to be the creation of the Okhrana.

  GUGLIELMO MARCONI (1874–1937)

  Marconi, the famous physicist and inventor of the wireless telegraph, founded the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company in London in 1897. The following year he established radio communication between Queen Victoria’s summer residence and the royal yacht with the Prince of Wales on board. In 1907 he launched the first radio-telegraphy service across the Atlantic. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909. He openly displayed his sympathy for Fascism. He was honoured with the title of Marchese by King Victor Emmanuel III. In 1929 he supervised the launch of Radio Vaticana (Vatican Radio).

  FILIPPO TOMMASO MARINETTI (1876–1944)

  A poet, playwright and the founder of the Futurist movement, Marinetti was a strong advocate and theorist of war. He took part in the conflict in Libya in 1911 as a correspondent, and volunteered during the First World War. He founded the Partito Politico Futurista Italiano (Italian Futurist Party) in 1919, which was soon merged with Mussolini’s Combatants’ Leagues. He took part as a volunteer in the invasion of Ethiopia and, at the age of sixty-six, in that of Russia. He joined the Italian Social Republic after 8th September 1943.

  ENRICO MATTEI (1906–62)

  An entrepreneur and businessman before the Second World War, Mattei became involved in anti-Fascism in 1943 when he joined a group of Christian Democrat Partisans, going on to play a key part in the Christian Democrat Party’s Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale dell’Alta Italia (National Liberation Committee of Northern Italy). He was among those who demanded Mussolini’s execution after his capture. After the war he was put in charge of the national oil company created by the Fascists, AGIP, which under his leadership discovered large oil and gas deposits in Italy itself. He then led AGIP’s replacement, Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (ENI), through which he negotiated a number of significant oil concessions in the Middle East, thereby limiting the power of the world’s large oil companies (the “seven sisters”, as he called them).

  GIUSEPPE MAZZINI (1805–72)

  A lawyer, journalist, campaigner for unification and republican political leader, Mazzini is considered one of modern Italy’s founding fathers. Because of his revolutionary activities, he was forced to seek refuge abroad for long periods, with frequent stays in London. In 1866 he was elected deputy in the Messina district. The elections were repeated three times, hav
ing twice been declared invalid because there were two death sentences on Mazzini’s head. However, Mazzini was elected again at the third run, and his death sentences were amnestied in 1870.

  GIACINTO MENOTTI SERRATI (1876–1926)

  A maximalist socialist leader, Menotti Serrati took on the editorship of Avanti! when Mussolini was ousted from the Socialist Party following his switch to interventionism during the First World War. He was a leader of the Socialist Party’s maximalist faction, although he stayed with the party when it split and the Italian Communist Party was formed in 1921. He led the revolutionary wing of the Socialist Party into a merger with the Communist Party in 1924.

  WEBB MILLER (1891–1940)

  An American journalist and war correspondent, Miller reported on General Pershing’s expedition against Pancho Villa in Mexico, the First World War, the Spanish Civil War, the Italian mission in Ethiopia and the Russian invasion of Finland. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1922.

  DON GIOVANNI MINZONI (1885–1923)

  Minzoni was ordained as a priest in 1909 and served as a chaplain on the front during the First World War. He joined the People’s Party and came into conflict with Fascism, especially on the subject of the education of young people. He was bludgeoned to death on 23rd August 1923 by a terror squad led by Italo Balbo.

  MARIO MISSIROLI (1886–1974)

  Missiroli began his career as a journalist when he was only fifteen years old and was editor of several newspapers during his life: Il Tempo (co-editor in 1918), Il Resto del Carlino (1919–21), Il secolo (from 1921), Il Messaggero (from 1946) and Corriere della Sera (1952–61). In 1962 he was elected president of the Italian journalists’ union.

  ARNOLDO MONDADORI (1889–1971)

  Mondadori was the founder of the eponymous publishing house, now the largest in Italy. While working as a typographer in a stationer’s office, he issued his first publication, the socialist-anarchist magazine Luce!, in 1907. In 1919 he moved the publishing house from Ostiglia, near Mantova, to Milan.

  MANLIO MORGAGNI (1879–1943)

  A journalist and a socialist, Morgagni was the first managing director of Il Popolo d’Italia, Mussolini’s newspaper, and took an interventionist position during the First World War. He became president and managing director of the Fascist regime’s press agency Stefani. He committed suicide when he heard the news of Mussolini’s arrest.

  ODDINO MORGARI (1865–1944)

  A journalist, socialist and the secretary of the Turin branch of the Socialist Party, Morgari became editor of Avanti! in 1908. He looked after the international relations of the Socialist Party.

  CESARE MORI (1871–1942)

  Mori was a prefect and later a senator. Remembered for his “energetic” methods and the use of violence in his repression of the Mafia in Sicily, he is still called “the Iron Prefect”. During his time in Bologna he was one of the few police commanders to oppose the violence of the Fascist terror squads. He retired from active service in 1922 because of his conflicts with the Fascists. Two years later Mussolini called him back to service with the task of eradicating the Sicilian Mafia, and in 1925 he was appointed Prefect of Palermo. He was made a senator in 1929, possibly because Mussolini felt that he was becoming too prominent.

  FILIPPO NALDI (1886–1972)

  A journalist and entrepreneur, Naldi became editor of Il Resto del Carlino in 1914 and three years later founded Il Tempo. He was instrumental in obtaining the necessary capital to support the publication of Mussolini’s Il Popolo d’Italia. One of his contributors, Filippo Filippelli, was involved in the killing of the Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti. He acted as an intermediary in the oil deals between the Fascist regime and the American oil companies. After 25th July 1943 he sided with Pietro Badoglio and Victor Emmanuel III against Mussolini.

  ADA NEGRI (1870–1945)

  Ada Negri was a leading Italian poet and drew inspiration for her poetry from her job as a primary-school teacher and her working-class background. She became a Socialist and came into contact with Filippo Turati and Benito Mussolini. She considered herself Anna Kuliscioff’s spiritual twin. She joined the Fascist regime and was appointed a member of the Reale Accademia d’Italia by Mussolini.

  PIETRO NENNI (1891–1980)

  A journalist and political leader, Nenni began his career in the ranks of the Republican Party. As the founder of Bologna’s Combatants’ League, he is numbered among the first Fascists. He later joined the Socialist Party and was appointed editor of Avanti! in 1923. He lived in exile in France from 1926 and took part in the Spanish Civil War, later becoming one of the leaders of the Italian Resistance. His daughter Vittoria died in Auschwitz. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1946 and was Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1946 to 1947. In 1952 he was awarded the Stalin Prize for Peace, which he returned after the harsh Soviet repression of Hungary in 1956. He was elected as a deputy in later governments, rising to the rank of Deputy Prime Minister twice. In 1970 he became a senator for life. He was one of the founders of the Italian centre-left.

  FRANCESCO SAVERIO NITTI (1868–1953)

  A journalist, economist and radical thinker, Nitti was Professor of Financial Law at the University of Naples. An avowed anti-Fascist, he was elected as a deputy in 1904, became a minister several times and served as prime minister from 1919 to 1920. He opposed the rise of Fascism and was forced into exile in 1924. He returned to Italy in 1944 and was elected as a member of the Constituent Assembly and later as a senator.

  MAX NORDAU (1849–1923)

  Born Simon Maximilian Südfeld in Hungary, Nordau was a sociologist, physician and journalist. In 1897 he founded, with Theodor Herzl, the World Zionist Organization, devoted to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

  GUGLIELMO OBERDAN (1858–82)

  Born in Trieste to an Italian father and a Slovene mother, Oberdan became a proponent of Italian irredentism, Italianizing his real name, Wilhelm Oberdank. He refused to fight wearing the Austrian uniform, deserted and escaped to Rome, where he continued his engineering studies. He organized a failed assassination attempt against the Emperor Franz Josef in Trieste, and was hanged on 20th December 1882.

  SERGIO PANUNZIO (1886–1944)

  A journalist, jurist, socialist and a major figure of revolutionary syndicalism, Panunzio had close political links with Mussolini. An interventionist during the First World War, he was given indefinite leave because of his haemophilia. He joined the Fascists and supported Mussolini’s subsequent drift to the right. He was the main theorist of Fascist corporatism and took an active role in the reformation of the Italian Civil Code.

  VILFREDO PARETO (1848–1923)

  An economist and sociologist, Pareto gained a degree in engineering studies from the Turin Polytechnic in 1870. He became managing director of the Società delle Ferriere Italiane (Association of Italian Steel Factories). He later returned to his research on economy and sociology, and became Professor of Political Economy at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. He had good relations with Georges Sorel and many other foreign politicians and economists.

  GIORGIO PINI (1899–1987)

  Having fought in the First World War as a private, Pini joined the Bolognese ranks of Fascists in 1920. He later became a journalist and in 1930 took on the editorship of Giornale di Genova and later the Gazzettino di Venezia. In 1936 he was appointed editor-in-chief of Il Popolo d’Italia. After the Second World War, he joined the neo-Fascist Italian Social Movement, becoming one of the major figures of the so-called “left wing” of the party.

  LUIGI PIRANDELLO (1867–1936)

  A prolific novelist, short-story writer and playwright, Pirandello was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934. His first great commercial success was with the novel Il fu Mattia Pascal (The Late Mattia Pascal), published in 1904. He is perhaps best known for experimental dramatic works such as Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore (Six Characters in Search of an Author), first performed in 1921. He was among the subscribers to th
e Manifesto of the Fascist Intellectuals in 1925.

  PASKA PIREDDA (1917–2009)

  Piredda was the only female officer of the assault-troops unit known as the Decima Mas. After gaining a degree in colonial studies in Rome, she became assistant to the unit’s commander, Junio Valerio Borghese, and later the press officer. The niece of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Grazia Deledda, she was the female face of Fascism in the propaganda of the Decima Mas, appearing also in a famous poster of the time. After 8th September 1943 she gathered a wealth of documents relating to the history of the Decima Mas.

  PIUS XI (AMBROGIO DAMIANO ACHILLE RATTI, 1857–1939)

  Having taken Franciscan orders in 1874 and been ordained as a priest in 1879, Ratti pursued an academic career within the Church and obtained three degrees (philosophy, canonical law and theology). He was an expert mountaineer and reached the top of Monte Rosa in 1889 (the first to do so on the eastern side), Mount Cervino in the same year and Mont Blanc in 1890. He wrote several articles for the Italian Alpine Club magazine. He was appointed Archbishop of Milan and Cardinal in 1921. The following year, on 6th February, he was elected Pope. In 1929 he signed with Mussolini the Lateran Pacts, which recognized the Vatican as an independent city state, thereby ending the so-called “Roman Question”.

  VÁŠA PŘÍHODA (1900–60)

  A virtuoso violinist, Příhoda is regarded as one of the best interpreters of Paganini’s music. When he was nineteen, Toscanini discovered him playing at the Caffè Grand’Italia in Milan and helped him launch his career. In 1930 he married the violinist Alma Rosè. He was accused of collaborating with the Nazis, having played in Nazi Germany and in the Third Reich-occupied territories of Czechoslovakia.