A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #33: A "revolutionary" reformist: Giacomo Matteotti and the anarchists (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

On the occasion of the centenary of Matteotti's assassination, much has 
been said and written and we believe that by now the story, at least in 
its complexity, is certainly well known. Therefore, in this intervention 
of ours, after a partial reconstruction of the facts, we will try to 
frame the political, but, above all, human figure of Matteotti and bear 
witness to the profound respect and substantial closeness that the 
anarchists had for the socialist martyr, beyond the different strategies 
and political proposals.
In 1922, Matteotti was secretary of the United Socialist Party formed 
following the split with the Italian Socialist Party. Member of 
Parliament for Fratta Polesine, in the Rovigo area, he stood out for his 
rigid antimilitarism, standing out as one of the most tenacious and 
irreducible opponents of the entry into the war in 1915. He will always 
be extremely rigid and consistent with his principles and will be 
particularly courageous in opposing the violence of the squads without 
any fear. A secular martyr par excellence, his traumatic death has 
however ended up obscuring the memory of his action and today, 100 years 
later, it is necessary to recover his human complexity, his technical 
skills, his political originality: the recurring definition of 
"revolutionary reformist" that he attributes to himself and that will 
always accompany him, is only apparently an oxymoron, because if the 
tactic is firmly based on the traditional reformism common to much of 
the socialist left, the strategy, the project, the ultimate goal, are, 
without any doubt, aimed at a social transformation of society.

In 1924, the year in which Matteotti was killed, fascism, despite having 
been in power with a strong majority since November 1922 following the 
March on Rome and the call to government by the Monarchy, despite having 
achieved its objectives also thanks to the widespread, unpunished and 
indiscriminate violence of the squadrism, was not yet a complete 
dictatorship, since some prerogatives of liberal democracy still 
remained in force, such as, for example, the possibility of 
parliamentary representation of the opposition and a certain freedom of 
the press and speech. Obviously nothing was the same as before, but a 
certain space for dissent was still possible and permitted. And of this 
space, with all his courage and determination, Giacomo Matteotti himself 
"took advantage" in a particular way, among those who still opposed the 
regime.

Precisely this firm determination made him one of the most tenacious and 
incisive opponents of the Mussolini regime. Not at all intimidated by 
the ferocious violence he personally suffered in 1921 and by the 
continuous threats directed at him and his family, Matteotti, in a 
dramatic speech to the Chamber held on May 30, deaf to the vulgar 
interruptions and physical threats blatantly addressed to him, denounced 
the fascist violence and the blatant illegality of the previous 
political elections, and let it be understood that on June 13, with a 
new and equally incisive intervention, he would bring to light and to 
the knowledge of public opinion, a series of financial illegalities, 
private interests, episodes of corruption and diversion of public 
assets, committed by numerous exponents of the regime, including Arnaldo 
Mussolini himself, brother and business partner of Benito; the icing on 
the cake was the production of evidence of the contacts between the 
highest exponents of the regime and the American oil company Sinclair 
Oil, dedicated to funding "these noble and disinterested patriots" to 
conquer the Italian market, inevitably damaging national companies.

The day before his speech in the Chamber, on June 12, precisely to 
prevent this speech-denunciation (the notes he had prepared were never 
found), he was kidnapped in the streets of Rome by a group of squadristi 
led by the ferocious former Ardito di Guerra Amerigo Dumini. Perhaps the 
intention was only to prevent him from being present in the Chamber, but 
his unexpected resistance and his attempt to escape from the car used 
for the kidnapping ended with numerous stab wounds that led to his death.

The impression in the country was very strong, so much so that Mussolini 
himself, in the speech following the kidnapping, on June 12, expressed 
dismay and great concern and assured that those responsible would be 
identified and hit, and the following day he tried to attribute the 
incident to internal enemies of the regime. As reported by the anarchist 
newspaper «Fede» of Rome on July 27, Mussolini, in a subsequent speech, 
went so far as to say "that Matteotti's corpse would have been 
preferred", thus reintroducing the interesting and opportunistic theory 
of a rebellion within fascism. The body was found "luckily" on August 16 
and, faced with the dramatic and tragic discovery, the confusion and 
fear of isolation surrounding the regime, even at an international 
level, seemed to herald an imminent fall of fascism. But obviously, 
given that the instigators and executors were all internal and organic 
to the regime, this, also due to the uncertainties and hesitations of 
the opposition, managed to recover, and the closing of the accounts 
would be in the famous speech of the Duce on January 3, 1925, in which 
an open claim for the murder would be made: "if fascism is a criminal 
association, well, I am the head of this criminal association". This was 
followed, as a corollary, by the closure of Parliament and the 
progressive introduction of the very fascist laws that would lead to the 
declared birth of the dictatorship.

As can be read in the «Conferenziere Libertario» of September 1924 (a 
Roman periodical), they want to make people believe that "Matteotti's 
assassins are at most the fascists of the squads who do not intend to 
put down the truncheon, the undisciplined, the unwary, people who have 
exaggerated orders and customs, committing a crime that instead of 
bringing profit has damaged fascism". It is no coincidence that the show 
trial of Chieti in 1926 saw the acquittal or amnesty for all the 
defendants, and even a second trial, held in 1947, will end, beyond the 
sentence for Dumini and three other perpetrators, in a very short period 
of detention, as new amnesties will take over.

Looking now at the reactions of the anti-fascist opposition forces, we 
cannot ignore a certain ambiguity on the part of the maximalist and 
communist components, not so much on the execration of the murder, but 
on the "political" interpretation judged too legalistic and reformist of 
the figure of Matteotti. A profoundly unjust criticism born of the 
sectarianism of that historical period.

Coming now to an analysis of the ideal bond that united and still unites 
today the anarchist movement to the figure of Matteotti and his 
political experience, what we will see is the profound respect, in the 
words and writings, of the exponents of the anarchist movement for the 
human and political figure of the deputy from Rovigo: respect that never 
allows itself to be conditioned by the evident and historical distances 
not only ideological but also tactical and strategic. Already on June 
14, 1924, two days after the kidnapping, the Correspondence Office of 
the Italian Anarchist Union (today's Italian Anarchist Federation) 
issued a statement in which it stated that it was "sure to interpret the 
feelings of its members and of all anarchists in general, expressing its 
own moved and lively solidarity in their pain".

Reading the pages of the libertarian newspapers of the time, it is clear 
that everyone, beyond the known organizational distances, showed a 
sincere closeness and a certain identification with the martyr, 
recognizing his profound honesty and intransigence with respect to the 
brutality of a regime, the fascist one, that did not take individual 
dignity into account in the slightest. Matteotti always placed the 
respect for the dignity of each person at the cornerstone of his thought 
and action, accompanied by a human solidarity indifferent to individual 
contradictions: in essence, the recognition that the individual, every 
individual, has the right to be interpreted in his essence and in his 
complexity. And just like Matteotti, anarchists also have a deep respect 
for the individual, understood in all his human and behavioral 
components, and for this reason they have found in life, in the 
political struggle, in the accusations launched against fascism by 
Matteotti many of their own characteristics.

Exemplary, in this regard, are the words of Luigi Bertoni that appeared 
in «Il Risveglio comunista anarchico» of September 13, 1924 (a bilingual 
Italian and French periodical from Geneva): "This is why our thoughts 
incessantly turn not to exceptional heroes, but to an ever-increasing 
number of men, who feel more their conscience, dignity and solidarity as 
men" and of August 30 of the same year: "serene and fearless he 
continued his highly civil work as an advocate of the human right to the 
free expression of a noble thought and a nobler propaganda. And it is 
over his corpse as a generous soldier of freedom that Benito Mussolini 
then decided to pass and repass - Anarchists, The highest example of 
generosity, faith and heroism comes to us today from someone who did not 
fight in our ranks, and it is more admonishing and more solemn. He who 
entrusted his cause to reason alone lies torn apart by the most 
monstrous violence. This violence must be overcome with the force of 
legitimate defense so that in the end reason may triumph".

And again «L'Adunata dei Refrattari» of June 28, 1924 (New York weekly 
of Italian language): "Matteotti is not the enemy who undermines the 
enemy; he is something better and more important: he is the accuser who 
fearlessly takes on the serious and dangerous task of unmasking in the 
face of the world the voracious tapeworm that absorbs the last residual 
energies. Remembering Matteotti and his courageous work we intend to 
remember and avenge all the fallen, all the murdered, all the beaten, 
all the imprisoned".

There are many others, almost all, the anarchist and libertarian papers 
that tell us about Matteotti, and here it becomes impossible to name 
them all. But it is good to remember that the anarchists will continue 
to hold his name and his example high during the long anti-fascist 
exile, in the war in Spain, in clandestinity, in the Resistance and also 
in the post-war period.

Massimo Ortalli and Gianandrea Ferrari

https://umanitanova.org/un-riformista-rivoluzionario-giacomo-matteotti-e-gli-anarchici/
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