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ANTIMILITARIST:
A CHRONICLE OF 25 YEARS OF ACTIVITY
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by Angiolo Bandinelli [1] ABSTRACT: After the war,
the Left set aside antimilitarism, which had been an essential theme of
prefascist socialism. The Resistance had extoled the armed popular revolution,
while the partisan had become the model of a thrilling political militancy.
Resistance and realism dismiss the libertarian positions. The Jacobin
Togliatti [2] and the "non-demagogic" PCI [3]
members of the Constituent Assembly. The amendments for conscientious
objection are rejected; the Catholic world condemns the heresy of conscience,
and banishes the objectors as members of a sect; the PCI, instead, contributes
to rejecting an amendment signed by Pertini [4], among
others, which establishes that "in the budget of the State, military expenses
should not exceed the expenses for Public Education, except in the case
of a parliamentary law in force for no more than a year". Then comes the
opportunism of the coalition front. The Jehova's Witnesses are alienated;
the Catholic civil disobedience between prophetism, radicalism and fundamentalism.
The Perugia-Assisi march. The Committee for nuclear Disarmament (CND):
the birth of an International? No to the diplomacy based on détente: in
both societies, the military structures represent one of the fundamental
principles of the authoritarian State. Converting these structures into
peace structures is the condition to achieve the progress of the single
peoples and of the international community. On the basis of this important,
first acquisition of objectives and methods, an analysis and a history
of the radical libertarian and nonviolent antimilitarism in the sixties,
through the battles for the recognition of conscientious objection. The history of the relinquishment
of this battle can, however, start with the recording of some speeches,
of a pacifist or more strongly antimilitarist tone, held during the sessions
of the Constituent Assembly, and of their defeat. But during the committee, the PCI, speaking through its most authoritative exponent, Palmiro Togliatti, immediately outlined (during the discussion of the article on citizens' military duties) the direction in which it was to operate in this field in the future, without hesitations. MP De Vita had suggested that the new Republic adopt the system based on the voluntary service instead of the draft. This thesis, while buttressed to some extent from the experience of the Anglo-Saxon countries, was insufficiently documented in terms of possible developments in Italy. However, on this occasion Togliatti assumed an attitude to explain and justify his refusal of the De Vita proposal, which had relevant consequences and effects. Togliatti said that with the voluntary system, "there would no longer be an entire population which takes up weapons and is ready to protect the country, but a category of professionals...", potentially dangerous for the institutions themselves. On 22 May, the Assembly discussed the text of article 52, developed by the commission. The debate highlighted a considerable antimilitarist presence, with a clear prevalence of PSI and PSLI. None of the amendments or additional commas proposed in this sense was accepted. The first amendment was introduced by MPs Cairo (PSLI), Chiaramello (PSLI), Calosso (PSI) and others. It said the following: "the military service is not compulsory. The Republic, in compliance with the international conventions, will apply the perpetual neutrality". In his addresses, MP Cairo declared himself openly "pacifist". Then MP Caporali (PSLI) proposed an addition to the second comma of the article, which, if accepted, would have introduced the principle of conscientious objection ("those who object to it on grounds of philosophical and religious reasons of conscience are exempted from servong the army". It was an obsolete way of expressing it, both in the formulation and in the substance, but it corresponded to the general level of awareness on this issue, also on an international scale. However, MP Merlin (DC) said he could not accept the addition as such because, he said, "there is no...sect of conscientious objectors in Italy" (1). With this type of statements,
the Italian official Catholic world immediately made one of its fundamental
choices, on the one hand preventing the introduction of the right to the
"heresy" of conscience in the institutions, and on the other confining
the protestant world (whence the objection to the armed military service
came, internationally) into the ghetto of the "sects". The assembly rejected
the bill; among those who voted in favour there was MP Paolo Rossi. The
additional comma proposed by Calosso, Chiaramello, Pertini, M. Matteotti
and others was rejected even more clearly - in the debate before the vote.
The comma proposed the following: "in the budget of the State, the expenses
for the armed forces cannot exceed the expenses for public education,
unless there is a law of Parliament in force for no longer than a year".
The proposal, which was greeted with irony, was called "demagogic" by
MP Laconi, while the communist group joined the faction that voted against.
The military service was lastly laid down as compulsory, even though it
was to be carried out "in the limits and conditions established by the
law". Thus, the new Republic dropped its last opportunity to assert and
institutionalize new civil rights and new forms of relations between citizens
and State which would have represented an advanced sphere of antimilitarist
struggle, refusing the introduction, in the subsequent article of the
Constitution, of the principle according to which "when public powers
violate the fundamental liberties and rights guarantied by the Constitution,
citizens have the right and the duty to resist such oppression". Apart from this debate, it
is hard to reconstruct which political or cultural forces had already
opened, at that moment, a debate in society on the subject of militarism
and pacifism. Capitini's initiative was clearly expanded, as an open expression
of the reflexions of a book, "Elements of a religious experience"
(2), which was published during fascism
thanks to the efforts of Benedetto Croce [7] (Laterza
1937), which had affirmed a civil alternative of non-violence, of "open
religion" and therefore - basically - of antiauthoritarian and antimilitarist
"dissent" against the authoritarian, militarist and class-discriminating
ideology and praxis of society and the institutions, "liberal" and fascist
at the same time, which governed the country. In 1947-7, the "Movimento
di Religione" organized by Capitini and others, proclaimed to be involved
in "an action against the war, in a teaching and a praxis of nonviolence...".
In 1947, Capitini wrote: Along with him, we should also
mention don Mazzolari, who, during the fascist epoch, opposed the nationalism
of the Church, its fundamental support of fascism and its ideology of
"war", and basically favoured a "civil disobedience" in the name of that
Christian radicalism which, particularly outside of Italy, had started
to characterize the Catholic world (Claudio Baglietti, exiled in Geneva
during fascism for refusing the military service, was also Catholic).
But generally speaking, the confused, radical religious and antiauthoritarian
ferment and debate, promoted in those years by Capitini (and by Tartaglia),
was stifled both by the dominant idealistic culture (Croce: "War...is
at the heart of reality, inconceivable without war..."), and by the "realism"
of the Left. In the meanwhile, after the
crisis which followed the war, the militarist reaction re-emerged, also
owing to the turn represented by the cold war climate and the recreation
of opposed military blocks. The adhesion to the NATO marked the country's
rearmament, and the ideology of the "democratic army" itself was dismissed
to the advantage of the ideology which considered the army as the banner
of civilization, etc. Capitini's nonviolence never freed itself from the
blackmail raised against it, i.e. of simply representing the utopia of
a purely religious sect. The initiative on "peace", therefore, soon became
the propagandistic instrument of the coalition movement, through the campaigns
promoted bu the Partisans of Peace. In all of its campaigns, the movement
accurately avoided resuming Togliatti's formulation of the "democratic
army" or of the "citizens-in-arms". This indication, while typical of
the communist world, and though it was resumed again during the Constituent
Assembly, sparked no debate or initiative on the part of the Left. Once
it assumed a "national" aspect, it also relinquished the debate, and in
practice accepted the fact that the movements of the Right monopolized
the sector. For years, the "Jehova's Witnesses" supplied the military prisons and the courts with plenty of material for free exercise and use. Conscientious objection was the "protest", the sign of "dissent" and of total refusal of the worldly society and its laws of this religious minority, whose roots were to be found - geographically but perhaps also culturally speaking - mostly in the rural, subversive and traditionally antistate world of the religious revivals in the style of David Lazzaretti or of the neo-Judaism of Gargano. As an extreme minority which rejected any debate and confrontation in terms of history and institutions, it expressed its conflict with the associated structures and with the State through this total protest, through the refusal of carrying weapons. The military chaplaincy's attitude toward the "Jehova's Witnesses" was one of indifference and intolerance, and it never used a bit of charity or understanding for this hated sect; indifference, if not open intolerance, was what the Left, absorbed as it was in far different problems, felt for these odd people. And yet, it is thanks to them that conscientious objection has become a relevant and political problem. Apart from the motivations, which were obviously not "political", the presence of a group of "outcasts" who refused to accept compromises on a problem of conscience, and who were capable of risking, for that problem, a serious and costly conflict with the established authority, with the establishment, with authoritarian laws and conservative structures for the simple fact of not admitting exceptions, of tolerating no infractions or protests, was an important fact. In the period in which a fiery polemic was sparked by the publication of a modest book, "L'armata s'Agapò", during which the most reactionary sectors continued to extol the military ideology, the "Jehova's Witnesses" represented, in practice, the only antimilitarist presence of a certain consistence. In 1948-1950, there was also the conscientious objection of Pietro Pinna. The latter was supported in his action by 33 British labour parliamentarians, with a petition that was rejected very firmly by the Prime Minister De Gasperi [8] himself. Pinna's objection marked the reprise of the libertarian antimilitarist origin, in a Gandhian or radical Christian form. In proposing, together with MP Umberto Calosso, a law for the recognition of conscientious objection precisely after the condemnation of Pinna, MP Igino Giordani (DC) grasped the explosive political meaning of this isolated act. "The case" - he explained - "started with the institution of the compulsory service in Europe and with the socialist currents; it emerged with socialism itself: the first conscientious objectors were those socialists who, already in the past century, refused to serve the army on account of their internationalism". And the court of Turin ruled that this conscientious objection, with its pacifist motivations, had given rise to "a vast echo and a noxious effect of disintegration in the military sphere, with an obvious danger that such facts could repeat themselves". Father Messineo, for his part, supported the most conservative reactions, bitterly attacking the very hypothesis of conscientious objection as contrary to the hierarchic and authoritarian ideology of the Church. Two parliamentary bills, one developed by Capitini and Jemolo on request of the Italian League for the Rights of Man, the other introduced by MPs Basso, Targhetti, Paolicchi and other socialist members of Parliament, marked, during these years, the insufficient progress of the battle. Both projects failed, however, chiefly in the task of showing the political conscience and the public opinion the essential points necessary to turn the pacifist commitment into an essential moment for the acquisition of larger, new civil liberties in a State which, while starting to pose itself a series of "social" issues through the new forms of State capitalism, nonetheless preserved its authoritarian, clerical and profoundly illiberal structures, even after the fall of fascism. Strong residues of discretionary power remained in the two bills (in a more marked way in Basso's compared to the Capitini-Jemolo one) for the commissions and the competent military courts-martial. The Capitini-Jemolo bill had the merit of being the first one to advocate the constitution of an alternative civil service replacing the military one. The innovation paved the way for a more advanced battle, which, however, only truly antimilitarist forces resumed and continued years later. An alternative civil service, capable of being a point of reference for all those who, regardless of their beliefs and motivations, "automatically" requested the right to objection, would have (and should have) been the historically adequate answer of a serious left-wing battle aiming to reduce - and in the long run abolish - the huge power of the military structures on the civilian and peace structures. Capitini's indication was correct; however the political initiative to support it was non-existent. All the following legislative formulations for the acknowledgment of some form of conscientious objection preferred to "mediate" with the obvious needs of the conservative sphere, limiting conscientious objection to the cases recognized by more or less militarized commissions, through an inquisitorial, illiberal and fundamentally restrictive mechanism, or in any case making the disarmed service into a punishment, as it was made to last as much as twice the time of the armed military service. The Italian left basically
showed limits and a lack of courage and clarity in those circumstances,
committing itself exclusively to the improvement of a legislation which
did not prevent hundreds of young people from absurdly filling the prisons. The onset of this "heresy" already contained elements which were to fuel much of the "Catholic dissent" years later. Quite aptly, W. Dorigo on "Questitalia" highlighted the extremist components ("the temptation" - he wrote - "toward a left-wing evangelic extremism"), but the problem obviously should have been posed in other terms. Gozzini's conscientious objection forced once more the civilian and military authorities (the problem didn't exist for the religious ones, obviously (3)) to make choices and decisions that were relevant "institutionally". Gozzini's and Balducci's condemnation raised problems - just like a few years previously the case of the Bellandis, who were denounced to the public opinion by the bishop of Prato, and which the Italian judiciary refused to condemn - which should have urged the Italian left to an open confrontation on the subject of civil liberties. The latter should have warned that, by supporting these Catholic dissidents, it would have fulfilled a fundamental task for the growth of the conscience and of the civil institutions. The gravity of this problem and the urgent need for a strong commitment emerged from the attitude held by the judiciary and the civil authorities. The sentences against Balducci and Gozzini were maintained, but the former was released on probation, and the latter was saved by the usual ad hoc amnesty. This prevented them from becoming,
to some extent, the "martyrs" of an ideal heresy, of a civil dissent.
An event which could have created, in other words, a clash and a confrontation
in the country and in the institutions, was thus avoided. Despite the
"communist applauses" for Gozzini and Balducci, denounced by the conservative
press, this initiative's only echo and political consequence was the introduction
of new parliamentary bills for the recognition of conscientious objection
on the part of single members of Parliament and of circumscribed and limited
forces (Pistelli, DC; Basso, Psi; Paolicchi, PSI; and others), which were
also rejected. In fact, it is to be noticed that the communist applauses
for the objectors had no serious and concrete political consequences,
and that the bills were not signed by any communist deputy; it is nonetheless
important to underline that certain Catholic spheres started to feel the
need to divert the drive of the Catholic objection toward more controllable
areas, in order to avoid schisms and separations inside the Catholic front.
The Christian democrat Pedini was the author of the only bill that was
approved, a bill which enabled only certain privileged categories (privileged
for culture, "morality" and conformism) to replace the military service
with a period of social "assistance" in the developing countries. This
was devised with the purpose of defusing the discontent of certain "intellectual"
cadres, in the general belief that conscientious objection was a need
felt by cultural and politicized élites. At the national Council of
the Radical Party of November 1960, the left-wing faction proposed a draft
resolution which, "in the face of the problems of peace which currently
represent the very legitimation the foreign policy in the world", urged
the party and the left-wing forces to an initiative promoting the "atomic
and conventional disarmament of the entire European continental area",
with the consequent abolition of the armies in the countries of this area",
the "denunciation of the NATO military alliance (the non-renewal at the
expiry of 1961) and of the WEU" and the "proclamation of the right to
insubordination and to civil disobedience for all citizens who do not
accept the policy of rearmament, of war, of division and competition of
national states which belong to their class enemies and which necessarily
pursue objectives that clash with the international unity of the working
and democratic forces..." The draft statement on foreign policy, on "atomic
and conventional disarmament, and the policy for peace" of the radical
left also contained an appeal for the "federation, or in any case the
common organization of all socialist, popular and revolutionary movements
that struggle for the establishment of a regime of freedom in Western
Europe". Antimilitarism, to be recovered through a concrete policy of
the institutions for "atomic and conventional" disarmament, and through
a serious indication of unilaterality, was thus proposed to the left as
the common and unifying objective. In the history (or in the chronicle)
of the Italian left, this position was new, and represented a complete
separation from the past. It is up to us to carry out
an analysis of the positions of the left on the problems regarding foreign
policy. We will briefly mention some, which at the time were significant
and premiment. On the one hand there was the PCI, which, having refused
the "Greek way" to the acquisition of power, could not or did not want
to provide, in those years, indications other than a consent to the U.S.S.R.'s
policy, both during the stage of the cold war and when a stage of coexistence
was opened: therefore, it attacked NATO on a "diplomatic" level, but proposed
no alternative to the Italian rearmament. This position was matched, as
the opposite "choice of civilization", by the pro-NATO position of most
of the so-called "democratic left", which was fundamentally pro-American
but with reactionary tones (opposing, for example, to the Algerian war
of liberation and essentially supporting France and England at the time
of the Suez affair). Thirdly, the "neutralist" position (represented by
Pietro Nenni [9] and later on by Ernesto Rossi
[10] was relatively successful; according to this
position, Italy was to leave the Atlantic block on positions of "equal
distance" enacted by certain countries, namely the "nonaligned" ones (Yugoslavia,
for example). Each of these positions basically appealed to considerations
of "realism" and convenience, taking for granted the effective impotence
of the Italian democratic forces to take more advanced or innovative initiatives
or proposals. Faced to these - and with strong
polemic accents against them - the radical left started a critical reflexion
and aimed at broader objectives, such as - according to the radical left
- to represent a necessary and undelayable moment in the recovery of a
new autonomy of the historical left as a whole. The years between 1960
and 1964 were in any case years characterized by debates, during which
matters of considerable breadth were handled, with a political confrontation
which covered problems such as the European disarmament and the exit from
the NATO, the German issue, the policy of the blocks, still considered
as a cause of unstable equilibrium, and therefore the object of possible
political initiatives, the attitude toward Gaullism, Nasserism, etc. One
of the subjects of the conflict was Italy's joining or not the "multilateral
force", the project for a "conventional" European army suggested by the
U.S. to the European countries. The so-called democratic Left was extremely
active regarding the "multinational" or "multilateral"; it opposed atomic
rearmament, also on moralistic grounds, and believed it could defend with
a clear conscience a project which charged the European countries with
the task of preparing "first containment" forces based exclusively on
conventional weapons and armies, which could not, according to the proposers,
promote a true and modern "power policy". The radicals' appeal urging
the debate on foreign policy to overcome the abstractedness of certain
formulations and the elitism of restricted power groups, of the bureaucracies
and of the apparatus, and to become a moment of ideal conflict in society
objectively clashed with the slow, insufficient, tiresome revival of openly
pacifist positions, which in those years started to give signs of greater
activity and vitality. The final motion expressed
its rejection of the cold war and of the policy of the blocks, and supported
instead the potentiation of the U.N. and a total and controlled disarmament
("the progressive development of disarmament and control must advance
in parallel"). The press covered the march, which had been considerably
successful in terms of participation, in a deformed and restrictive way,
underlining aspects which were relatively secondary, such as the anti-American
attitude and the massive communist presence: for obvious reasons linked
to the situation of cold war, every position which was less than pro-NATO
appeared, or was made to appear, as related to the PCI. After the march
of Assisi (4),
many other marches were organized, and took place, often with a vast participation,
in various cities: Cagliari, Bologna, Modena, Ferrara, Marzabotto, Pesaro,
Milan, et cetera. But already during the second
one, from Camucia to Cortona, which was characterized by the participation
of delegations of the municipal administrations (March of the 100 municipalities),
it was easy to notice a diminution in the renewal and political commitment,
which were both diverted toward more harmless forms of generically unitarian,
propagandistic pacifism, and less and less up-to-date with respect to
the political problems they had been promoted for. Party bureaucracies
and apparatus combined triumphalism and opportunism, so that these initiatives
soon appeared and became useless. Generally speaking, the formation
of the pacifist groups corresponded to the new creativity which developed
among the new and old international movements; the War Resisters International,
which for decades, in its numerous and often effective national delegations,
had been carrying on the struggle for the recognition of conscientious
objection, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Committee for Nuclear
Disarmament (CND) and the committee of 100 (the result of a "radical"
schism from the CND, and whose leader was Bertrand Russell) or, in America,
the SANE and the first groups of black initiative (Bayard Rustin, etc).
And it was following the initiative of the European Federation against
Nuclear Weapons that an international conference of the various groups
was held in Oxford in January 1963. The objective of one of the presidents
of the federation, Collins, was that of extending the organization for
the antinuclear campaign on a global scale. The appeal for the adhesion
was also addressed to the strict pacifist movements and antimilitarists,
but obviously Collins wanted to contain its drive, so as to preserve a
moderate character for the future International, limited to the specific
objective. The multifarious and vigorous movement against war, in other
words, was to focus on the initiatives considered most appropriate to
support a pressure campaign on the governments, the same initiatives promoted
by the majority of the CND and which had characterized the major public
demonstrations (Easter Marches, etc.). At that moment, an essential problem
for the CND's antinuclear activists was also that of creating regular
relations, on the basis of a strong position, with the World Peace Movement,
promoted directed by the communist parties in support of the U.S.S.R.'s
policy, and which a year before has summoned the World Peace Meeting in
Moscow (5). The Oxford meeting was attended
by representatives of international antinuclear, pacifist and antimilitarists
movements (Tony Smythe and Devi Prasad for the WRI, the International
Fellowship of Reconciliation, etc) and national ones (A.J. Muste, Committee
for non violent action, USA; Homer Jack, SANE, USA; Bayard Rustin, War
Resisters League; USA; Student Peace Union, USA; Linus Pauling, Society
for Responsibility in Science, USA; Ritchie Calder, CND, GB; Peter Cadogan,
Committee of 100, GB; Claude Bourdet, PSU, France; Gregory Lambrakis,
Committee for Peace, Greece; Gunther Anders, Hiroshima Committee, Austria;
Abbey Paul Carrette, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Belgium; SDS, Federal
Republic of Germany; Frank Boaten, Continuing Committee of the Accra Assembly;
Sarva Seva Sangh, India; Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Switzerland,
etc). The Italian delegation introduced
a political document of its own, only a minimum part of which was accepted
and assimilated into the conference's final document, and fundamentally
altered in its meaning. The delegation's document said that "The creation
of a common international organization of pacifist and antinuclear movements
fulfils a historical need which the most recent international events and
trends have contributed to making more obvious and urgent. Now that the
cold war is over, and that the doctrinal positions and the interests which
caused it have been defeated, the two major world powers seem to unite
in the attempt to negotiate peacefully and to carry out a common action
to contain every forms of extremism, whatever its origin. Our task is
to support this policy with all our forces, and to protect it from any
risk of relinquishment. ...Moreover, the antinuclear
campaign can only highlight the fundamental contradiction of all those,
government officials or politicians, who try to replace the atomic arsenal
by potentiating the conventional arsenal, or, in any case, by maintaining
and modernizing the national or integrated armies. Unfortunately, scientific
progress applied to the armies cannot be stopped, until these continue
to exist. On the contrary, often even the progresses of atomic research
for peaceful purposes are currently administered by the armies...". Despite
the unsatisfying conclusion of the conference, the Italian delegation
decided to abstain rather than vote against. The situation in which the
meeting was held was characterized by the international debate on the
problem of disarmament. The Geneva Conference was being held in that period,
with the participation for the first time of neutralists and of a number
of minor powers of the two blocks. "But precisely for this reason - the
radical Giuliano Rendi said in his report - it is extremely generic and
ineffective to establish general disarmament as the objective of a European
pacifist action (making general disarmament into the objective of the
pacifists' requests and action). The political forces that carry out this
type of action...inevitable rely exclusively on the desire of peace of
both superpowers...The political solution we have to work for is that
of a bilateral, atomic and conventional plan of the European area, from
the boundaries of the Soviet Union to the Atlantic....The European lefts,
and in particular the communist left, with which we are willing to carry
out not only a debate, but also a co-operation on the fundamental reasons
of the pacifist and democratic action in Western Europe, should realize
that...the logic and the requirements of the Soviet Union's power policy
do not coincide with the reasons of the development of democracy and peace
in Western Europe...We need to give an effective and unitarian objective
to the pacifist, democratic and left-wing forces of Western Europe. The
immediate commitment we are suggesting is for Italy to take a stance against
the atomic armament of NATO; for the government of the Italian republic
not to favour, during the meetings of the Six, the Gaullist hegemony in
the Europe of the homelands...; for the agreement with the United States
for the missile bases in Italy to be denounced...These objectives should
be set in the context of a national neutralism. We really believe that
the effective dimension in which the political struggle for democracy
and for peace takes place today is the European one" (6). The pacifist movement which
merged with the Italian Meeting for Peace offered a varied pattern of
interests and forces. However, the local initiatives were numerous, and
especially in the beginning, relevant, such as to represent a promising
start for a movement with the force to characterize itself in an autonomous
way and to assume political responsibilities. One example, taken from
a local experience, can give an idea of the difficulties and inner divisions
in the organism. In April 1963, a "march for peace march" was held, promoted
by the "Committee for the atomic and conventional disarmament of Europe",
an organ where radicals and non-radicals operated
(7), and through which they participated in the national
(and Roman) peace meeting. Despite the fact that it was reserved to cadres
alone, a procession of over one thousand people crossed the streets of
the city, with the presence of other organized groups; the demonstration
was not endorsed by the Italian Movement for Peace, because an agreement
was not reached, during the preparation, on the conditions of participation
of the various groups: the radicals insisted on the maximum freedom of
presence and of political indications, whereas the Italian Movement for
Peace asked for a preventive control of the political indications and
of the slogans. The Conference of Peace was short-lived. In a meeting
of the Central Committee held in Florence in May 1964, it was already
clear that the unitarian organism could not operate effectively. In part,
these difficulties were the result of objective shortcomings and uncertainties
of Capitini's leadership, who relied on a mediation decided by the unanimity
of the vote for the possibilities of an effective development of the organism
(8). The problem of unanimity in
the fundamental political decisions - while the local initiatives continued
to develop and would have called for more and more advanced objectives
- was the obstacle which caused the end of every possibility for the Conference
to express itself on any problem. Thus, it found itself facing a "coalition"
structure in terms of facts, structures, methods and even atmosphere.
In August, the Radical Party, after a controversy that lasted at least
a year, withdrew from the Conference together with the group headed by
Capitini and the Italian Movement for Peace (Velio Spano and Mencaraglia),
deciding to participate in an autonomous way in the International Confederation
of Peace and Disarmament. Capitini had already resigned as president. The line held by the Conference
during the previous year obviously favoured the Italian Peace Movement,
which did not like the Conference to express its own political will; however,
while this objective was comprehensible for the movement controlled by
the PCI, the mistake made by the other components, of accepting such a
sabotage, was serious, and represented the essential reason for which
the attempt ceased. In October of that year, the Italian conference took
no stance on the question of the Chinese atomic bomb, while, in previous
years, the pacifists had taken a strong univocal stance against it, as
against the French atomic explosions in the Pacific. 1) the responsibility of the political contents of the demonstration was to be the result of the decisions of a special, vast committee, representative of all adhering groups; 2) the demonstration was to
express in equal proportions and with identical motivations the aggression
against Vietnam and against St. Domingo. The two proposals were rejected,
owing especially to the opposition of the Italian Movement for Peace;
the Committee for Atomic and Conventional Disarmament was forced to withdraw
from the demonstration. A similar episode of intolerance occurred, back
in June 1967, in Milan, against the "antimilitarism" of the radicals,
who therefore left the "Committee of Milan". The following were fundamentally considered as "sectarian": 1) the clear-cut opposition against rearmament and armies, both atomic and conventional; 2) the promotion of a unitarian struggle against militarism, wherever it emerged; 3) the strong opposition against
atomic proliferation, promoted both by the socialist and by the capitalist
countries. However, the movement for peace, in its two different components, had acquired a certain force and capacity of mobilization. It was at this point that the U.S. "escalation" in Indochina offered the possibility of diverting the pacifist struggle at the service of a mere sign of solidarity for the war of liberation of North Vietnam. While the objective was in itself acceptable, the conditions of the mobilization devised by the party leadership and organs were such as to represent a regress in the struggle and in its specific and immediate objectives. The struggle against atomic or conventional armaments was not even mentioned. The anti-NATO commitment disappeared from the slogans, after disappearing from the political debate. At a moment signed by the beginning of the Soviet-Chinese confrontation on the strategy of the struggle for national independence in the countries of the Third World and of Latin America, the coalition type of propagandistic structures remained without a credible line or indications. Like empty skeletons, they lost all credit both in the eyes of the so-called "avant-garde" and of the popular masses. In the ashes of this contradictory and multifarious experience, which had been incapable - because of the resistance of the diplomacies and of the apparatuses - of becoming a vast, authentic antimilitarist popular movement, the humanitarian, more or less "universalist" pacifism, still not linked to serious political battles, was also overwhelmed. The avant-garde mocked both the propagandistic mise-en-scènes of the traditional lefts and this "humanitarian" and inoffensive presence. Outside of Italy, Martin Luther King and his movement left a heritage of struggles and civil commitment which proved capable of effectively confronting the new indications of revolutionary violence copied on the experience of the guerrilla warfares, namely the one in Vietnam; in Italy, the traditional pacifism lacked the strength to sustain such a major clash. The antimilitarist initiative
thus relied on minor groups, extraparliamentarians, isolated individuals.
And yet, precisely in those years, it radicalized, assumed a stronger
autonomy, opened a considerable inner debate and a debate with other forces,
it progressed toward politically more precise positions, it made itself
known to the public opinion, both in its meaning, and in the sacrifices
it demands of all those who choose it. In Bergamo the "Pacifist Committee
carried out an "intense, serious activity, which for some time made it
the strongest organized political group of the city. Later this group
changed into "Antimilitarist Collective". In addition to publishing two
bulletins of considerable circulation, "We shall overcome" and "Signornò"
(the latter representing the organ that connected the various antimilitarist
groups), the collective promoted initiatives and demonstrations, including
a popular assembly in a civic theatre (November 1969), during which Lino
Taschini declared himself conscientious objector in front of 600 people.
Conscientious objectors Antonio Riva and Sergio Cremaschi also belonged
to the group of Bergamo. In Mestre, the antimilitarist
initiative was represented by the "Non-Violent Movement", which, together
with other groups in the region, members of the League for Conscientious
Objection (Padua, Verona, Conegliano, Venice), promoted and collected
the 50,000 signatures necessary to introduce a parliamentary bill for
the recognition of conscientious objection. One of the documents which
the group printed and circulated rekindled the Luxembourg antimilitarist
and anti-imperialist trend. In Venice there operated the "International
Cultural Circle"; in Verona, where the Catholic Enzo Melegari objected,
there was the "Movement of Lay people for Latin America of the C.E.I.A.L.".
Recently the movement circulated a pamphlet on conscientious objection
containing ecclesial ("conscientious objection also against the laws of
the Church?") and nonviolent ("we could verify whether the various forms
of nonviolence, such as strike, civil disobedience, moral resistance,
are "invincible weapons" in the hands of the poor, since no one can rule
if people do not obey. Nonviolence is the weapon of the poor, because
anyone can use it: women, children, the old, because it relies on the
moral forces of man rather than on physical, technical or financial capacities")
elements, which raised questions on the fairness and the repression of
the antimilitarist protest. States the document: "It seems to us that the Courts-Martial, in the context of the discretionary quality of its powers, carry out repressive choices, because: 1) they refuse to send the trial records concerning the objectors to the constitutional court (9) which should examine them and decide whether the ordinary law on the draft, which does not provide for conscientious objection, is constitutionally legitimate; 2) when a conscientious objector is condemned, he is always denied the extenuating circumstances provided for by article 62 No. 1, i.e. of "having acted for reasons of particular moral and social relevance"; 3) conscientious objectors and arrested and imprisoned before being tried and sentenced; as soon as the Military Procurator's Office receives the denunciation of the refusal to serve the army, it issues an arrest warrant, even if this is not compulsory". An "open letter" to the parliamentarians,
the local and provincial councils of Verona (which declared to be in favour
of conscientious objection) was circulated in a flysheet, signed, among
others, by the following groups: S.Bonifacio Cultural Centre, Cultural
Centre of Valpolicella, Don Milani Group, Third World group, Group of
FUCI members, Missionary League, Emmaus Movement, Pax Christi Movement,
FGCI, PSI Youth federation, GLI, Movement of young Christian Democrats
(10). In Bologna there are the "Non-violent
groups", which rely on a press organ of the MPL; in Loreto (Ancona) an
"Antimilitarist collective" was recently established. In the last months
in Naples there has been an increasing activity on the part of the libertarian
"Neapolitan Antimilitarist Group". One of its members, the anarchist (FAI)
Ciro Cozzo, objected with strong political motivations (he was charged
for "insulting the armed forces"); its activity earned it the enrolment
of about 100 militants. It carried out its initiatives especially in the
poor neighbourhoods, with debates, distribution of fly sheets, demonstrations,
for which activities the group was denounced several times. The "Group of Pacifist Action"
was formed in Sulmona in February 1967. The group's long activity was
characterized by demonstrations, distribution of fly sheets and, as usual,
denunciations. One of its most active members, Mario Pizzola, drafted
and circulated two documents: one regarding the military regulations,
the other on the military industries in Italy, and recently declared to
be a conscientious objector. In January 1971, the group promoted the "1st
national workshop on militarism", together with the International Antimilitarist
Movement, attended by delegations of almost all Italian pacifist and antimilitarist
groups. It also prints a bulletin, "GAP". Episodes related to the antimilitarist
initiative occurred at various stages in Pisa (Ernesto Rossi group), in
Bologna (Andrea Accolti, Gianfranco Gamberini, Antonio Ghibellini, indicted
for "instigating the military to disobey the laws", Vegetti, Pesce, Secciani,
Valerio and Mauro Minnella, for crimes of instigation and insult), in
Brescia (Non-Violent Movement), Peschiera, Gaeta, Pescara, Imperia, etc. During its 27th national congress
in Rimini in 1969, it passed the following order of the day: "The FGR,
supporting the courageous and coherent battle which has been carried out
for years against the military establishment with the sacrifice and personal
dedication of the anarchist, radical and nonviolent groups, declares its
full support to the recognition and the propaganda of conscientious objection,
and the progressive conversion of the military structures into civilian
structures, truly at the service of the population. Moreover, the FGR
declares to be ready, at all levels (national, regional, local) to carry
out a continuous and constant action in order to achieve the above mentioned
objectives, thanks to the co-operation of all antimilitarist and pacifist
groups". In almost all cities where the FGR is present, there have been
demonstrations or stances on this line, autonomously or in co-operation
with other groups. The activity of Pietro Pinna and of the nonviolent movement (in the aftermath of Capitini's teaching) is closely linked to the history of the programmatic pacifism. The movement played an important role in the debate on conscientious objection, and promoted specific initiatives. The magazine "Non-violent action" has recently become the organ of connection and information of all non-violent movements. The most recent initiatives promoted by Pinna and his group "with the purpose of extending the front of conscientious objection to the military service" is the appeal for the restitution of the discharge papers. "We will inform the public opinion of this new step made by the antimilitarist opposition during a mass demonstration". The collection of the discharge papers is still under way, promoted by the Movement in Perugia (11). The MIR, a religious, multiconfessional movement, is also divided into local groups. It keeps relations with foreign countries, and represents the Italian section of the "International Fellowship of Reconciliation". In the past years, it concentrated its action on the following subjects: 1) school of non-violence; 2) formation of an information centre on non-violence, on the causes and the effects of the war, etc; 3) demonstrations, sit-ins, distribution of fly sheets, etc; 4) struggle for the juridical acknowledgment of conscientious objection. At the annual assembly of
1971, the elected national committee was formed as follows: Fabrizio Fabbrini,
president; Hedi Vaccaro, secretary; Franco Onorati, treasurer; Domenico
Sereno Regis, Piedmont; Luigi Rosadoni, Florence; Simonetta Salacone,
Rome; Tonino Drago, Naples; Vincenzo Rizzitiello, Lucania; Beatrice Borne,
"Christian Service", Riesi and Sicily; Massimo Bernardini, Milan; Alfonso
Apostolico, Battipaglia; Valdo Benecchi, Bologna. The assembly also discussed
the "conscientious objection to military taxes" of a couple from Sarzana,
the Manuetis, who were sentenced for this initiative. Most of these groups and experiences already had the opportunity, on several occasions, of working together on common projects, or mobilizing on initiatives promoted by one or the other: a dense network (considering the scarcity of means) of mutual information enables to overcome the difficulties and multiply the energies. An attempt to organize a unitarian nucleus of connections was also started, with the creation of the "International Antimilitarist Movement" (MAI), where the adjective obviously represents a political indication, not a structural reality. The MAI was established in Bologna in September 1969, based on the principles "no to the armies" and "recognition of conscientious objection" and with the participation of anarchists, believers, followers of non-violence, radicals and pacifists. The publication "Signornò" was meant to be the means for a common connection. Its first initiative was the diffusion, for the 4th of November, of a manifesto approved by all groups, which meant to protest against the military celebrations held that day and to fight against the military structures. The MAI, however, never managed to overcome the existing divergences of formulation, and to replace the reality of an effective infrastructure of services with an internal debate, the results of which were predictable from the beginning. The refusal to serve the army on the part of the young men of the Belice Valley, on the other hand, needs to be examined outside of these experiences and activities. After the earthquake in 1968, the popular committees which had carried out a hard struggle for local development (the project of the damn on the Belice river) opened a campaign for the reconstruction of the areas damaged by the earthquake. At the end of 1969, popular assemblies decide not to pay for "electricity, water, radio and TV" as a protest against the inactivity and the indifference shown by the "outlawed State" toward the people damaged by the earthquake. The disobedience campaign subsequently became harsher, and on 31 January 1970 two young men from Partanna raise the problem of whether it was fair to serve the army for a State so patently incapable of fulfilling its duties. The anti-draft movement spread in the villages of the valley, and on 4 January the young men collected 1,000 signatures of solidarity. In March of the same year, a document was passed unanimously by the inter-municipal popular assembly of Belice, held in S. Ninfa, in which the young men considered themselves "exonerated from the military service". This "nonviolent protest" meant to be an "open challenge" against the officials in Rome, and an effective way of "raising the public opinion" against the "current policy of devastation which, while squandering Lit. 2,000 billion and over 130 million of working days a year for military structures", is incapable of promoting an effective civil development of the country, and particularly in the depressed areas. The signatories declared to be ready to "face the penalties provided for by the law". In April the "anti-draft committee" sent a letter "to the organizations and groups operating against violence and exploitation", which insisted on the fact that the refusal to serve the army was not the result of "moral or religious reasons", but of the "need to struggle" for survival. Demonstrations were subsequently dispersed by the police, which started a serious action of intimidation against the signatories or the most active of them, and of persuasion towards the families. Among the statements of solidarity with this initiative, an interesting one came from the Sicilian immigrants in Switzerland, in May 1970. On 1 June, about 400 people
participated in a demonstration. Among the young people of the committee,
Vito Accardo was arrested on 11 June, and transferred to the military
prison of Bracciano, where he refused to wear the uniform. He was therefore
indicted for disobedience. The initiative of the Belice valley urged the
unions, for the first time, to take a stance on the problem. The FlM-CISL,
during its 3rd organizational assembly (30-6-1970), expressed it sympathy
with the movement, and invited the provincial structures to discuss "civil
disobedience" in the factories. Almost in parallel, the FIOM-CISL expressed
its more generic support. In total, 19 people from the Anti-draft Movement
were indicted. Organized by the Group of Pacifist Action and by the International Antimilitarist Movement, a meeting was held in Sulmona in the first three days of January 1971 (12) on the subject of militarism and on the "political implications of militarism". The problems which the meeting meant to discuss were rather far-reaching: 1) The definition of antimilitarism; 2) Antimilitarist struggle and struggle against the system (link between the army and the other structures of society, militarism, capitalism and class struggle, etc; 3) Military situation and military policy in Italy, functions of the Italian Army; 4) Abolition and democratization of the army (this subject includes the professional army, the struggle inside the barracks, the relation between antimilitarism, conscientious objection and civil service; 5) Relations between the antimilitarist movement and the forces of the extraparliamentary and antiparliamentary left; 7) Conversion of the military structures into civilian structures; 8) Action plan.
1) The refusal of the law for the recognition of conscientious objection as it was emerging during the debate in the senatorial committee (we will analyse this law further on); 2) the quasi unanimous recognition of the fact that antimilitarism represents essentially a political position, which does not mean simply the struggle against the "degenerations" of the military power; 3) An open discussion on the "antimilitarist" value of those positions which, during the class struggle and the struggle against the system, also advance the needs for a struggle "in the army", against those who believe that the battle for conscientious objection and the nonviolent method are still the most effective means, while not the only ones, of the antimilitarist struggle "against the armies". During the debate on the latter
point, there was a discussion on the position of the militants from "Lotta
Continua" [14] which circulated
the supplement "Proletarians in Uniform". They are the positions and the
initiatives of one of the components of the Students Movement which formed
the above mentioned group after the crisis of the movement. Apart from engaging in a controversy
with the "revisionists" (14),
which it considered guilty of betraying this front, "Lotta Continua" also
strongly attacked both pacifists and antimilitarists for the initiative
on conscientious objection. This opened an important debate which was
bound to have consequences on the progress of the antimilitarist struggle. The most serious and sensational
denunciation, which is more likely to stir a vaster initiative, is the
one relative to private Beck Peccoz, sentenced for having read and distributed
"Lotta Continua" to three more soldiers (15).
The thesis of Lotta Continua is: "We need to create a background on the
soldiers' struggle, a structure of self-defence...We need to use these
trials as moments of clarification and attack against the army..." "We
are in the condition to guarantee an efficient legal assistance to these
soldiers...". And therefore: "We are already seeing a convergence in the
struggles, which expresses itself in the refusal of the hierarchy, in
the struggle against the "noxiousness", on the request for freedom of
press, freedom of meeting and of expression, in the struggle against the
segregation in the barracks...". The situation we have tried
to illustrate, while incomplete and insufficient, can be useful to give
a valid idea of the extension which the antimilitarist action has assumed
in considerable sectors of militants, and of the type of problems, debates
and analyses which it has raised. While we perceive - as we will to explain
further on - the relevance assumed lately by the question of conscientious
objection, and of the drive caused by the new, unexpected politicization
of a problem which seemed doomed to remain limited to the sphere of "religious"
and moral interests, of the new mobilization of active and determined
militants, we need to recognize that perhaps the twenty-year attempt made
by the left, the party bureaucracies and the moderate and reactionary
forces, to deny the very existence of an antimilitarist drive in the country,
has basically failed. And it has failed precisely thanks to these groups,
which are apparently isolated and in fact are more and more capable of
involving in their initiative, larger and larger parts of citizens, workers
and democrats. 1) "The plans that provide
for the complete, atomic and conventional neutralization of the European
area, from the borders of the U.S.S.R. to the Atlantic...need to be relaunched
organically and achieved in the short term". 2) "In this prospect of European
disarmament, which is the specific responsibility of the democratic forces
of our countries, a major peaceful mobilization must take place, with
the purpose of converting the traditional structures and the war-oriented
mentality into a general renewal of the institutions, of the structures
and of the European ethic and social life, such as, for example, passing
from the compulsory military service to an alternative civil service" 3) The connection with the
European pacifist forces was pointed out as one of the chief tasks of
the Italian organization, which, for its part, was to grow in strength
"through the diffusion of its regional, provincial and municipal committees",
while acknowledging the need for "the democratic political forces to become
aware" of the growth of the pacifist movement from 1961 to that moment,
and "perceive the need to overcome mistrust and uncertainties related
to the past in order to achieve a different attitude of the leading class
on this essential problem while respecting its complete autonomy". Translator's notes
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