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The Italian Communist Party and the “Israel Question” During the First Years of the Cold War. Towards a Historical Semantics of Communist Anti-Zionism

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The European Left and the Jewish Question, 1848-1992

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Abstract

Reflecting on the relationship between Jews and the Left during her time, French scholar of communism Annie Kriegel emphasized the need to discern two fundamental issues: the Jewish question on the Left and the position of Jewish people within the Left. We can apply this perspective also to the communist milieu, noting, however, the persistence within that world of an organizational model based on the iron moral discipline of its followers, on the individual internalization of the party’s primacy, and on its indissoluble political and ideological unity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It’s significant that Luca Riccardi’s book almost entirely ignores the Stalinist gestation phase of the PCI’s anti-Zionism, as well as the national implications of the Soviet State’s antisemitism.

  2. 2.

    In Matteo Di Figlia’s book, the story of the relationship between the Left and Jews unfolds mainly in a local and family context. The study fails to provide a real in-depth analysis of the external ideological conditionings and the impact of the Cold War on the relationship between Jewish identity and political identity.

  3. 3.

    Interrogazione di Terracini al governo per il riconoscimento dello Stato di Israele. 1948. L’Unità, May 26

  4. 4.

    Magnani and Cucchi were two local leaders of the PCI accused in 1951 of working for Tito’s Yugoslavia.

  5. 5.

    De Rosa, Gabriele. 1949. Politica estera. Il riconoscimento di Israele. L’Unità, January 28; Ferrara, Maurizio. 1951. Il Medio Oriente in rivolta contro l’imperialismo. Rinascita, October 10.

  6. 6.

    See for example the article Intensa fioritura della cultura yiddish nel Birobigian. 1953. L’Unità, January 1. See also Gli ebrei nell’URSS. 1951. Rassegna Sovietica, August-September.

  7. 7.

    Pastore, Ottavio. 1952. Traditori senza razza. L’Unità, November 26.

  8. 8.

    Quaderno dell’attivista. 1953 february 1. See also: Sciovinismo e americanismo sono i due pericoli di Israele. 1950. L’Unità, May 13.

  9. 9.

    Quaderno dell’attivista. It is extremely important to emphasize the agreement between the Stalinist Left of the PCI and the Italian Socialist Party during the early years of the Cold War on the issue of Israeli nationalism and Zionism as expressions of the “reactionary” and “class” politics of the Jewish “bourgeoisie.” (Tarquini 2019c).

  10. 10.

    Dulles aiutò Hitler. 1953. L’Unità, January 31.

  11. 11.

    L’affare Rosenberg. 1952. L’Unità, November 22. Slansky e Rosenberg. 1952. L’Unità, November 28.

  12. 12.

    Le organizzazioni sionistiche al servizio degli Stati Uniti. 1953. L’Unità, January 23. I dirigenti del sionismo contro i lavoratori ebrei. 1953. L’Unità, January 27.

  13. 13.

    Terroristi jugoslavi condannati in Ungheria. 1952. L’Unità, November 15.

  14. 14.

    Il milionario che rubò il sole. 1951. Il Pioniere, April 14: 7.

  15. 15.

    The stereotype of the Jewish high finance conspiracy, based on a reactionary class politics, is argued with extreme lucidity in the “ideological consultations” of the Quaderno dell’attivista. 1953, February 1.

  16. 16.

    Jacoviello, Alberto. 1950. Grandi speranze in viaggio. L’Unità, May 4: 3. Id. 1950. Lettera dalla Palestina. L’Unità, May 7: 3. Id. 1950. Lettera da Tel Aviv. L’Unità, May 16: 3. Id. Nazareth in Galilea fortezza rossa di Israele. L’Unità, May 14: 3. Id. 1950. Gerusalemme divisa fra due fazioni antagoniste. L’Unità, May 18: 3. Id. 1950. Lo Stato di Israele vuole “creare gli ebrei”. L’Unità, May 13: 3.

  17. 17.

    Scoperta in Unione Sovietica una banda di medici assassini. 1953. L’Unità, January 14. Berlinguer, Giovanni. 1953. Infami delitti compiuti sotto la maschera della scienza. L’Unità, January 20.

  18. 18.

    One can surmise Palmiro Togliatti’s answer to these subtleties by reading between the lines of a letter that the secretary of the PCI sent to Ada Alessandrini on 9 February 1949, in response to a specific request for the PCI to intervene in defense of the Catholic Cardinal Mindszenty, accused by the Hungarian communist regime of crimes against the State. The legal and politically opportunistic arguments to deny this request were encapsulated in this dry conclusion: “… if there are Catholics who do not understand the reason for this sentence, it means that they are not good democrats, or not good enough to understand that at some point the enemies of democracy can no longer be left free.” (Togliatti 2014: 131).

  19. 19.

    Fondazione Gramsci of Rome. Archivio del Partito comunista italiano. Movimento dei Partigiani della Pace. Fondo M, 1952, microfilm 0349/1 and 1953 microfilm 0408.

  20. 20.

    We know from historical documents that some representatives of the Israeli communities turned to Communist leaders directly, in the hope of creating diplomatic channels with countries of Eastern Europe, in particular with Poland, to go to the places where relatives and members of the Italian Jewish communities had died during the war.

  21. 21.

    In a June 1949 report on the work of the Ufficio culturale (Office of Culture), Emilio Sereni, writing on the need to defend culture against cosmopolitanism and Americanism, touched on this point with extreme clarity: “Whoever is responsible for cultural work must, first of all, know that he is the representative of the working class among intellectuals and that he maintains a politics of alliance. Turning intellectuals towards Marxist means increasing their ability to bring alliances to the working class. And this should not come about by spreading psychological terrorism among comrades, because we intend to achieve this transformation through a real class struggle, a struggle fought within ourselves between the bourgeois culture that has formed us and the new one that must transform us.” Fondazione Gramsci of Rome. Archivio del Partito comunista italiano. Commissione culturale. 1949. Relazione sui lavori dell’ufficio nazionale per il lavoro culturale, June 14-16.

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  1. Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Andrea Guiso

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  1. Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Alessandra Tarquini

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Guiso, A. (2021). The Italian Communist Party and the “Israel Question” During the First Years of the Cold War. Towards a Historical Semantics of Communist Anti-Zionism. In: Tarquini, A. (eds) The European Left and the Jewish Question, 1848-1992. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56662-3_15

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