A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #12-26 - Hitting Mussolini (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Mimmo Franzinelli, Hitting Mussolini. The Attacks on the Duce and the 
Construction of the Fascist Dictatorship, Mondadori Le Scie, Milan, 
2025, pp. 354. ---- A perplexed Mussolini in austere bourgeois attire, 
with a custom-made felt bowler hat and a prominent nose bandage, graces 
the cover (cover design by Beppe Del Greco based on a period 
photograph). A depiction of the aftermath of a pistol shot fired by 
Violet Gibson in April 1926, that image embodies contradictory meanings, 
both of defiance and vulnerability; a self-referential interpretation of 
a biopolitics of power, it aptly introduces the book's underlying theme. 
Namely, what connection could there be between the attacks on the Duce 
and the regime's structural establishment?

"The impact of the attacks on collective life is far more significant 
than history textbooks suggest. Particularly in dictatorships, for the 
possibility of mounting major political provocations and/or manipulating 
controversial episodes to one's advantage" (p. 3), is the book's 
promising incipit. Mimmo Franzinelli, a brilliant and prolific historian 
of fascism and the Italian Republic, offers us a summary of four 
"medallions" dedicated to four terrorist actions, committed against the 
dictator between the end of 1925 (Tito Zaniboni) and 1926 (the 
aforementioned Gibson, Gino Lucetti, and Anteo Zamboni), in the crucial 
years of Mussolini's transition to the regime form and the concurrent 
enactment of the "fascist laws." Consequently, the anarchist attackers 
Michele Schirru and Angelo Sbardellotto, who, in 1931 and 1932 
respectively, would be sentenced to death by firing squad for the sole, 
proven, "intention" of committing that criminal act, have not been 
included. The focus therefore concerns the speculative ways in which the 
dictatorship would have, in effect, "used" the aforementioned episodes 
to justify the reintroduction of capital punishment in the Kingdom, the 
banning of political parties, and the establishment of the Special 
Tribunal for the Defense of the Stateall devices designed to crush and 
prevent any possible anti-fascist action.

The author, who has sought to "retrace and interpret the turbulent 
events of an Italy rapidly marching toward dictatorship, amidst the 
impotence of the opposition" (p. 5), simultaneously expresses a value 
judgment and questions "the (dubious) utility of countering the nascent 
tyranny through individual actions or plots centered on the elimination 
of a figure supported by an efficient power apparatus and strong in 
support of significant consensus" (ibid.). This thesis, while not new, 
is nevertheless somewhat questionable. Because, while the failed attacks 
were certainly exploited by propaganda to fuel the myth of Il Duce and 
strengthen the police and state control apparatus, they were not the 
actual cause of that epochal tightening of repression, which was merely 
the mere, timely implementation of a plan. Similarly, drawing a parallel 
with the final phase of the regime, the Nazi-Fascist massacres were not 
the consequence of some reckless, "treacherous" action carried out by 
partisan guerrillas, being themselves part of a pre-planned program.

The attacks examined over the course of that crucial two-year period, 
Franzinelli emphasizes, cannot be ascribed to a single plan and each 
have a completely different nature and dynamics. We are faced with a 
bizarre jumble. Just as the personalities of the attackers are diverse: 
former Socialist MP Tito Zaniboni is contradictory, externally directed, 
and "existential"; Irishman Gibson was "mystical" and mentally unstable; 
child attacker Anteo Zamboni, lynched by a crowd in Bologna, was 
inscrutable. Gino Lucetti, whose actionsthough unrealisticgained 
widespread support among anti-fascist exiles, from anarchists to the 
Anti-Fascist Concentration, are objectively different. This is evident, 
for example, from the compulsive coverage of the press abroad (e.g., the 
Parisian "Veglia," which published a special issue dedicated to him on 
the occasion, or "La Libertà," etc.).

Moreover, that brutal goaleliminating the Duceaimed at changing Italy's 
destiny, had long been shared by the entire insurgent wing of 
anti-fascism: from the Republicans to the anarchists, to the 
liberal-socialist crucible that would later give rise to Giustizia e 
Libertà. Furthermore, there is historical evidencethough not considered 
by Franzinellithat points to a shared participation and intense 
preparatory phase for the Lucetti assassination. This is a reliable oral 
source, that of the Carrara partisan commander Ugo Mazzucchelli 
(1903-1997), collected by the authoritative historian Gino Cerrito (Gli 
anarchici nella Resistenza apuana, Pacini Fazzi 1984, pp. 19-20), who 
tells us of a clandestine conference held in Livorno in the summer of 
1925, at which he was present along with two Livorno comrades, Augusto 
Consani and Virgilio Recchi, and other unidentified people, including 
"two miners from San Giovanni Valdarno" (Ibid.). Further confirmation of 
this comes from a recent collection of memoirs by various authors (Siamo 
Liberi? Resistenza e Liberazione nella Valle dell'Arno, Mompracem 2025, 
pp. 18-19), which confirms the climate of expectation and the contextual 
"pre-insurrection" situation perceived in the Tuscan mining basin.

Giorgio Sacchetti

https://umanitanova.org/colpire-mussolini/
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