Red Adriatic

The Communist Parties Of Italy And Yugoslavia

Eric R. Terzuolo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781000309201
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

All European Communist parties define themselves largely in terms of their relationship, amicable or not, to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Consequently, most studies of relations between Communist parties emphasize interactions with the Soviets. However, not all the smaller European Communist parties interact strictly through the medium of Moscow. There exists an extensive, genuinely bilateral aspect to the relationship between Italian and Yugoslav Communists. Both have tended to seek distinctively national paths and, to differing degrees, both have been at odds with the Soviets. The history of Italo-Yugoslav nationality and border disputes, as well as major differences in how the two Communist parties have approached those disputes, has done much to condition inter-party relations.

Red Adriatic

is the first book to focus on relations between Communist parties in adjacent countries. As such, it offers insights, both practical and theoretical, into problems of inter-party relations. Based on archival sources, as well as on published materials, it also contributes to the individual historiographies of the Italian and Yugoslav Communist parties. The study speaks to several issues in comparative Communist studies, contrasting the different ways in which the two parties have adapted to national circumstances, balancing nationalism and internationalism, and to their different leadership styles.

1
Communist Resistance and the National Question, 1941-1945

Autumn 1944 was the key moment in wartime relations between Italian and Yugoslav Communists. At this time most Italian Communists along the Italo-Yugoslav border and the partisan formations under their leadership subordinated themselves to the control of the Yugoslav National Liberation Movement. Furthermore, though some have argued that this svolta, or shift, put the local organizations at odds with the PCI Direzione (Polit büro),¹ autumn 1944 was a time of extremely cordial relations between the PCI and KPJ at the national level as well.

On October 13 the PCI organ La Nostra Lotta carried the "Greeting to our Yugoslav Friends and Allies" occasioned by the probability that Tito's troops soon would occupy and liberate the Venezia Giulia and northeastern Italy.

We salute this possibility as a great good fortune for our country and a great step along the path toward liberation...We must greet Tito's soldiers, not just as liberators on the same level as Anglo-American troops in liberated Italy, but as older brothers who have shown us the way...to victory over the Nazi occupiers and Fascist traitors...We must greet Tito's soldiers as creators of new brotherly and tolerant relations, not just among the Yugoslav peoples, but among all peoples, as creators of a new democracy, rising from the fires of the National Liberation Struggle.

PCI members were to ask other sincerely democratic forces to support "all the initiatives, all the actions, be they political or military," that the Yugoslav National Liberation Movement might take in liberating Italian territory. Italian partisan formations in Yugoslav operational zones were instructed to put themselves under command of the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia (Narodnooslobodilačka Vojska Jugoslavije—NOVJ).²

In a similar vein, although designed for circulation only in the upper echelons of the party, was a letter of October 10, 1944 from PCI General Secretary Palmiro Togliatti to Vincenzo Bianco (also known as Vittorio), the PCI representative to the Communist Party of Slovenia (Komunisticna Partija Slovenije—KPS). Togliatti wrote it after a meeting in Bari with Edvard Kardelj and Milovan Djilas, two of the top Yugoslav Communist leaders. He termed Yugoslav occupation of the Venezia Giulia a "postive fact" and called on his party to cooperate in organizing "popular governments" in liberated regions. The PCI was to campaign throughout Northern Italy and the liberated areas for solidarity and collaboration with the new Yugoslavia. Unlike the article in La Nostra Lotta, however, Togliatti's letter pointed out that Italian formations operating under Yugoslav operational control were to "maintain their national character." More importantly, the General Secretary underlined that the Italian and Yugoslav national liberation movements could not yet begin to discuss the fate of Trieste.³

Interpretations of these PCI statements and estimates of their significance differ. Metod Mikuz, a leading historian of the Slovene National Liberation Movement, emphasizes that the letter fostered support for Yugoslav occupation of the Venezia Giulia and subordination of PCI-led partisan units to Yugoslav command. He also states that in his meeting with Kardelj, Togliatti recognized that Trieste and the Slovene Littoral (Venezia Giulia) belonged to Yugoslavia. On the other hand, Giorgio Iaksetich, a participant in many of the events under discussion, argues that Communist partisans were likely to turn to their Yugoslav counterparts in any case, given the fact that Anglo-American troops were advancing up the Italian peninsula, supporting anticommunist forces along the way.⁴ Pierluigi Pallante, in the most systematic study of the PCI*s wartime policy concerning Trieste, argues that the documents of autumn 1944 simply adapted the party lines devised in an earlier period to a changed political and military situation. The basic line, according to him, subordinated any national or nationalist demands "to the needs of the class struggle at the national and international levels."⁵ Certain PCI documents minimize the significance of Togliatti's letter in a different sense, noting that it did not have the desired effect of easing relations between the two parties, a fact blamed on Yugoslav intransigence.⁶

These differing interpretations suggest certain questions regarding wartime relations between the PCI and the Yugoslav Communist parties (KPJ, KPS and the Croatian party, Komunistiöka Partija Hrvatske—ΚΡΗ). How important were territorial questions to the Italian and Yugoslav Communists? To what extent did the national content of each party's wartime policy determine its positions on territorial questions? To what extent did internationalist or class loyalties play a part? How consistent were the Italian and Yugoslav Communists in their positions on territorial questions? If and when shifts did occur, were they in response to outside directives, changing conditions within the theater of war, or evolutions within the parties and national liberation movements?

The KPJ and the New PCI Center in Italy

Already in the early days of the war, the PCI and KPJ picked up discussion of their policies regarding the Italo-Yugoslav frontier. This was one result of the Comintern's July 1940 decision to permit Italian Communists in exile to reestablish an organization in Italy. The PCI would begin its work from three bases—one in France, one in Switzerland and one in Yugoslavia.

The basis of a new organizational center in Yugoslavia was readily available in the form of Umberto Massola, an exceptionally able and committed—some might say fanatical—PCI organizer. In June 1940 he fled the German advance on Paris and made his way to Ljubljana. Meeting with KPS leader Boris Kidrič on June 10, he mentioned the possibility of creating a PCI base in Yugoslavia, but met with a less than enthusiastic response. Indeed Massola's position remained precarious until August, when he met with Tito. They contacted the Italian Communists in Moscow; Togliatti's response reassured Massola somewhat and urged him to concentrate on organizing in Turin and Milan.⁷

Still a major dispute soon developed over the precise nature of the mission entrusted to Massola and Rigoletto Martini, a member of the PCI's Ufficio Esteri (foreign bureau), who joined Massola in the autumn of 1946. Martini had a letter from Togliatti, who emphasized that they were to rebuild a party organization within Italy, especially in the northern industrial cities, something that could not be done entirely from the outside. Massola contends vigorously that he and Martini were not told to create a permanent headquarters in Yugoslavia. But the Slovene Communists thought differently. At a tempestuous meeting in December 1940, they demanded a list of PCI hideouts in Italy, telling Massola: "We will see to it that trustworthy elements known to us are sent into your country." They seemed to be pressing for creation of a PCI shadow headquarters in Yugoslavia, with only Massola and Martini as staff. Martini responded that it was up to him and Massola to make decisions regarding the new PCI center.

In light of this confrontation, tne cnaracterization of the KPS attitude toward the PCI representatives as both "diffident and protective"⁸ seems appropriate, especially if one considers that protection often implies a good measure of control. Massola overcame KPS opposition and returned to Italy following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The Yugoslav connection remained important for rebuilding the PCI, but the tensions that Massola had sensed in Ljubljana also began to take on more precise form.

He remained dependent on the Yugoslav Communists for his communications link to Moscow. But in a message in the summer of 1942, Georgi Dimitrov, head of the Comintern, complained to the Yugoslavs that they told him little or nothing of the work of the Italians in Yugoslavia. When Massola became aware of the message, he was understandably concerned to discover that after almost a year in Italy, the Comintern still believed he was in Yugoslavia. The Yugoslavs suggested that perhaps Dimitrov, because of his large workload, simply had forgotten where Massola was. Then, in November 1942, Kardelj went so far as to say that the Comintern had returned the five telegrams that Massola had sent to the KPJ for transmission since his arrival in Italy. According to Kardelj, the Comintern has asked the Yugoslavs to translate them into Russian, since it had no one who could read the original French.⁹

Meanwhile a more involved dispute was developing over the rights of Italian and Yugoslav Communists to organize in areas of mixed population along the border. During his stay in Ljubljana, Massola had agreed that the PCI organization in the Venezia Giulia should be linked to the KPS, but without putting itself under KPS control.¹⁰ During 1942, however, the Slovene Communists began to press for effective control of the PCI organization in the border provinces. For a time the KPS and KPJ had the support of the Comintern in this, and in a letter of early September 1942 Massola dissented sharply, pointing out that until quite recently, the only party organization in the region had been the PCI's.¹¹

The International's line did in fact shift toward the end of the year. In a letter to its Provincial Committee for the Littoral, dated December 31, 1942, the KPS Central Committee mentioned Comintern instructions to the effect that Slovene Communists were to support formation of PCI organizations in areas with Italian workers. The Central Committee indicated that these new Italian organizations would be under control of the PCI Central Committee and act according to PCI directives. Kardelj, in a document of November 20, already had expressed disappointment with the Comintern's new line, along with the hope that at least it would help ease relations with the Italian party.¹²

We may infer, however, that the new policy did not make itself felt immediately. Massola, ever watchful of the rights and prerogatives of his party, wrote once again in early December to the KPS Central Committee, stating: "Relations between our two parties must be characterized by a spirit of collaboration and not subordination."¹³ His efforts seemed to bear fruit, at least in the short run.

The KPJ and the Territorial Question

Why did the Yugoslav Communists care so much which party organized where? From a class perspective the question simply shouldn't have been so important. If anything the fact that most of the workers in the border areas were Italian-speaking might have suggested that the PCI should have the predominant role. Still a desire to bring regions of Italo-Yugoslav contention into the Yugoslav state seems to have been an important factor in motivating the KPJ. At what point did the Yugoslav Communists adopt relatively precise territorial demands as an important element of their policy? And why?

One argument is that if an evolution in Slovene Communist positions on territorial questions can be seen, the shift to explicit concern with acquisition of territory came in November 1942.¹⁴ a KPS Central Committee document from that month emphasized the importance of establishing party organizations throughout all Slovene territory, to make possible seizure of power everywhere at war's end.¹⁵ a letter of December 31 stated that within its "Slovene ethnic border," the Littoral would become part of a free and united Slovenia. All the cities of the region would be included, although Trieste, with its "authentically Italian character," would have to be granted special autonomy.¹⁶

Yet the KPS seems to have been quite conscious of territorial aims well before the autumn of 1942. Already in the summer of that year, its organ Delo had written that a united Slovenia would have to include not only those territories on which the Slovenes were still living, but also those territories denationalized by Fascist imperialism.¹⁷ In the summer of 1941, a KPS proclamation called for "struggle until the last Fascist oppressor is broken and destroyed, until every last bit of Slovene territory, from the Adriatic to the northern regions...is liberated."¹⁸ These statements are admittedly rather vague, but they imply essentially the same territorial demands as appear in later documents. Moreover, a number of documents indicate the early concern of KPS leaders with preparations to establish control in Trieste and other coastal cities.¹⁹

In October 1942, the KPS-led Slovene Liberation Front (Osvobodilna Fronta—OF) issued a declaration to the effect that Partisan triumphs had united the entire Slovene people, from Spielfeld to Trieste. A month later, in its greetings to the first session of the Antifascist National Liberation Council of Yugoslavia (Antifašističko Vijeće Narodnog Oslobodenja Jugoslavije—AVNOJ), the OF again spoke of a Slovenia stretching from Spielfeld to Trieste and from Kolpa to Klagenfurth.²⁰

Why did a presumably internationalist party come to accept territorial demands (often couched in language a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• INTRODUCTION
• 1 COMMUNIST RESISTANCE AND THE NATIONAL QUESTION, 1941-1945
• NATIONAL PATHS AND POSTWAR REALITIES, 1945-1948
• 3 THE COMINFORM CAMPAIGN, 1948-1954
• 4 RECONCILIATION, 1954-1960
• 5 THE PCI AND "IL SOCIALISMO REALE," 1960-1983
• List of Abbreviations
• Bibliographical Essay
• Index