Two Bombs

The bomb that wrecked a wing of the British Embassy in Rome was not the worst blast to hit the West's position in Italy last week, but it was pretty bad. One of the Tommies who guard the Embassy described the explosion:

"I went to bed as usual last night.

There was the usual --noise. Then

there was a louder --noise and I fell

out of bed. I looked out of the window and saw a huge gash from the front porch to the dining room. I said, 'We've 'ad it.' My mate, who sleeps in the same room, said: 'We ain't 'ad it, we're still 'ere.' 'E was right. 'Twas then I saw the Union Jack still flying."

The other bomb was figurative and political. The Socialists joined the Communists in a pact calling for "unity of action." This did not mean fusion, which the Socialists, after a furious split, had rejected last April. But an agreement calling for a vigorous nationalization program and the conquest of power by the working classes would probably pry the Socialists loose from their coalition with Premier Alcide de Gasperi's moderate Christian Democrats. Right-wing Socialist Giuseppe Saragat, who had led the fight against fusion, went along witH the new pact and read into it a portentous international significance. He said:

"It is my impression that the period of tripartite coalition in Europe [between Christian Socialists, Socialists and Communists] is over and that a new period of the left-wing popular bloc is beginning."

Winning an Argument. The shock of the Socialist-Communist pact was aug mented by surprise. Since last spring, when left-wing Socialist Pietro Nenni and Communist leader Palmiro ("Hercules") Togliatti put their heads together in a vain attempt at merger, the political tides in Italy and the rest of Europe had been running against the Communists. Embarrassed by Russia's insistence that Italy must give up Trieste, Togliatti had received the indignant resignations of 8,000 Roman Communists in a single day. The Socialists had appointed Sandro Pertini to conduct their negotiations with the Reds, and since Pertini was known as a rabid antiCommunist, most Western observers complacently assumed that close Socialist-Communist collaboration was a dead duck.

They reckoned without Luigi Longo, who represented the Communists in the discussions with Pertini. Moscow-trained Longo, an eloquent, sardonic veteran of the resistance movement, worked on resistance veteran Pertini in a series of secret meetings beginning in July. He got nowhere until mid-October, when Pertini began to waver. Longo's arguments included the charge that De Gasperi's government was dragging its feet on nationalization and land reform. Increasingly, Longo's case was helped by the West's blunders: Paris Conference treaty terms which Italians considered harsh and impossible to meet; failure of UNRRA shipments because of U.S. strikes; resentment at the cutting of Italian forests by Allied occupation authorities. All of these contributed to Italian disillusionment with democracy and to the growth of an underground neo-Fascist organization which, rumor says, is headed by Augusto Turati, former Fascist party secretary.

When Pertini made his surprising report, the Socialist party executive committee voted unanimously for joint action with the Reds. Even Socialist leader Ignazio Silone, an ex-Communist whose novels (Fontamara, Bread and Wine) are magnificent tracts against both Communism and Fascism, went along with Pertini. Explained Silone: "The greatest danger to Italian democracy today is not Communism. It is neo-Fascism."

Losing a Country. On the basis of last June's elections, the Socialists and Communists together are now the strongest group in Italy, with about 40% of the vote against 35% for the Christian Democrats. De Gasperi may be forced to deal with the right (thus alienating some of his present supporters), or else take a back seat to the Marxists.

If Western democracies were to stay in the game in Europe, Britain and the U.S. would have to re-examine their policy towards Italy, where they had suffered a major loss after starting with all the trumps.

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