Like every year, at the stroke of April 25th, the manipulations aimed at distorting its meaning and turning this date into a parade of various demands, taken from the repertoire of the left, return promptly. It vaguely praises freedom, but manifests itself against capitalismagainst NATO, against climate change (sic!), against censorship in the RAI (from what pulpit!) and this year there will be no shortage of chants against the agreements between Italian and Israeli universities.
Like every year we remember that the aforementioned celebration should actually represent the liberation from all totalitarianism, of every color. This is why every April 25th we re-propose what he wrote Ernesto Rossi (liberal economist, anti-fascist and anti-communist) in one of his letters dated September 1931, sent from the Pallanza prison where he was imprisoned: “In 1919 I found myself with the fascists, against the communist dictatorship; today I am in prison with the communists against the fascist dictatorship. And nothing could be easier than that tomorrow I would have to be considered 'subversive' by the communists…”. All this derives from the confusion generated by the fact that the left would have freed Italy from right-wing totalitarianism, when in reality, if a certain left had taken over, there would have been a transition from one dictatorship to another.
It is not denied that among the exponents of the socialist school there were authentic democrats and people who looked to a future of freedom and progress; the fact is that those ideologies, in reality, would then generate and defend regimes that were anything but democratic and liberal. The young man wrote Sergio Ricossa, with incredible lucidity and foresight, as far back as 1950: “I openly admit that many things that socialists want are sacrosanct. It's how they want it, the cause of dissent. I should forget Marxist bigotry, the long flirtation with revolutionary violence, the infamous yet undeniable kinship with fascism, the broad sympathies for Stalin, the too many and too painful historical failures, the dogmatic reluctance to admit the most eminent errors, the cultural delay sometimes masked with the arrogance of the censors, the blackmailing and monopolistic trade unionism, the not irresistible temptation to use workers for political ends, the populist and pacifist rhetoric (against the Atlantic Pact, for an Eastern pact)”. – How to ruin a country (Rizzoli 1995).
Then followed the tortuous path that led to the Italian Constitution on April 25, 1945: “The Italian constitution admits everything, proclaims that private initiative is free, but adds that it cannot take place in conflict with social utility. Since social utility is what the parties in power want, private initiative is “constitutionally” screwed if communists are in government. Question: what are constitutions for?”. (Ibid) If we then added to the word “communists” also the broader term of “statists”, this writing by Ricossa from 1949 would be even more topical. Happy liberation day.
Fabrizio Bonali, 25 April 2024
The article Marxist bigotry, Stalin, censorship: why it is good to be wary of “liberating” communists comes from Nicola Porro.