The Bear Must Die

Land reform in Italy is a desperate human need and an almost insuperable problem. The Communists propose their usual Draconian solution: confiscate and redistribute large estates, eventually collectivize. The middleway Christian Democratic government of Premier Alcide de Gasperi rejects revolution for evolution.

For the past year De Gasperi has been pushing a comprehensive land reform act through Parliament. Its core: buy out large landholdings, cut them into small plots (about 15 acres), help the peasantry to buy and cultivate them. The political, financial, administrative and technical difficulties are staggering. For example, some localities suffer now from too much fragmentation of land ownership; in others, the land must first have irrigation, fertilizers, etc. The slowness of the government program led last fall and spring to peasant seizures of land, especially in southern Italy, where conditions are most depressing. Blood was shed, and the Communists shouted. To forestall similar incidents, De Gasperi has launched a preliminary installment of his land reform.

Called the "Sila Project," it is now under way in Calabria, on the heel of the Italian peninsula. In an eroded hilly region, about 40 miles wide and 100 miles deep, where three rich absentee families owned tens of thousands of acres, mostly idle or undercultivated, hundreds of impoverished peasant families are getting new land and new hope. Last week TIME Correspondent William Rospigliosi saw the reform in progress at Santa Severina, a village near Crotone. His report:

Skeptics & Reformers. Though it had been shouted from hilltops, none in Santa Severina believed it would really come about. A system that for generations had kept Santa Severinians hungry, thirsty, dirty, diseased and in despair could never end. Despite the local disbelief, Ente Sila (government agency for land distribution and improvement) patiently and doggedly pushed on.

Ente Sila had prepared a list of all peasants eligible for land. Beneficiaries must not own more than ten acres. Expropriated land had been charted according to productive value. Plots had been rearranged to make each nearly equal to the others in productive possibilities. They were to be assigned by the peasants' drawing lots on appointed days. The lot-drawing had won unanimous peasant approval. "Man is imperfect," observed one villager. "Only luck can assign each man the right piece of land. Only fortune can know what is best for each man in the future."

At meetings between Ente Sila and Santa Severina's people, each plot of land had been carefully discussed, each peasant had his say as to value. I was present at the meeting that preceded last week's Sunday drawing. It was held in the moonlight, in front of the municipal hall. Professor Manlio Rossi-Doria, the energetic assistant chairman of the Sila Project, spoke from an open window:

"We have ordered some 50 plows. They will be distributed as soon as you receive your land. You will be asked to pay for these plows over a period of years. You will also get fertilizer and it will be wise for you to pay for it each year, if you can. Remember you must help each other. Those of you who have a donkey must lend it to those who haven't. You must do that . . . until those without a donkey can plant enough fodder for a donkey to eat. Then we shall distribute donkeys."

A voice from the crowd said: "Where are we to get enough hay to feed a donkey?" It was finally agreed that the don-keyless would pay a small fee to donkey owners for work done. Those without money would do chores for donkey owners. In worthy cases, Ente Sila would advance money for plowing.

Today, Not Tomorrow. Amerigo Mare-scalchi, a gaunt, soft-eyed Communist, was one of the skeptical ones. On the day before last week's distribution of land, I met him as he was drilling holes for rock blasting on a road being constructed by Ente Sila. When I asked about the following morning's distribution, Amerigo shrugged. "Tonight there will be bread at home," he said. "That's enough for me. Let tomorrow take care of itself."

A fellow worker was more explicit: "Do you really think we are going to get land? That it will be enough? That they will give us help so we can till it? So we don't have to sell out to the barons in order to live and pay our debts when harvests fail? When we occupied land with the Communist Party, we felt we were winning it for ourselves. But some of us got into debt and had to hand it back if we wanted the barons' money, and no one else has any to loan. Now we just can't believe that people are going to give us land. We have looked at it all ways. We can't see where the trick lies. It wouldn't be a trick if we could find it out."

A few yards off, Foreman Giuseppe Tigano, who had left the Communist Party because he is one of the few believers in the Sila Project, was arguing heatedly with Michele Verardi. Tigano had ordered a gang to cut through a garden which Verardi rents from Baron Giulio Berlin-gieri. On the map (and all old inhabitants of Santa Severina confirmed this) a municipal road once ran through the garden. Through the years, Landlord Berlingieri's tenants had advanced little by little onto the road so that it gradually became part of the baronial property.

Said Tigano: "This is communal property and our road will run through it." Screamed Tenant Verardi: "What's the use of your pretending to distribute land if you take it from other poor people. It's me you're hurting. Where will I plant my cactuses? They yield good fruit. They keep me alive. This is robbery with violence." Then he burst into abuse: "May this road become a torrent with the first rains! May it drown all of you and bring a curse on your families, on Ente Sila and those it benefits!"

Finally Verardi blustered: "I'll go up to the village and call down the landlord's agent. You've always bowed your back to him. Do you think you need not bow any more? Fools, you're getting too close to a bear that has always hugged you."

Angrily Tigano retorted: "I'm no Communist any more, and I believe others will also not be Communist any more. But remember, l'orso ha da mori (the bear must die).

Drawing Ballots. Distribution day dawned brightly. Ente Sila workers had been up all night to complete the papers for the drawing. The villagers gathered in the square. A beribboned six-year-old girl dipped her hand into a box and drew out the first name: Vincenzo Nocella. But Nocella had not come to the meeting because he did not believe the land would ever be distributed. Patient, tired Ente Sila functionaries smiled. Then the child drew a plot for Nocella. The crowd was sharply attentive.

Santa Severina land is divided into good and less good zones. The best is an irrigable portion called Maestria because it needs skill to work it. The least desirable includes the land of San Francesco e Marucaro and some parts of Vallegrande. Then there are the middling lands, the Cuocino, partly dotted with olive groves. Nocella drew a poor San Francesco plot. A long sigh went through the crowd. The next name drew a middling plot. The crowd lost some of its tenseness.

After a while, the name of Maria Tigano (no relative of Giuseppe), a small, black-garbed widow, was drawn. Despite regulations barring women from distribution, she had been included because all the village insisted she must have land. "She works like a man," they said. She had many children, so she was entitled to draw two lots. A great shout rose from the crowd over her first drawing: Maestria lot No. 7. On the second ballot she again drew a good lot. Someone at the back of the crowd cried: "Luck knows whom to help. Luck is always right."

Tonight, a Prayer. It was past noon before Amerigo Marescalchi drew the middling lands of Cuocino and the pasture land Serra di Barracco. Still uncertain, he rushed home. When he caught sight of his wife Concetta in the doorway of the small, smoke-darkened room they share with eleven relatives, he cried, "It's Cuocino! It may be not much good as farming land but we can build a house there. It has rocks and I know how to blast stone. It will save us our rent, 2,000 lire a month." Concetta had tears in her eyes. "If only I can get out of this filth," she said, "I don't mind begging for bread. It's something, anyhow."

It was near sundown before the lottery was over, and Ente Sila's tired, bright-eyed Ezio Conti could show Amerigo his exact plot of land. They walked to a sandy path overhung with crumbling redstone cliffs. Below on the left stretched the land of Cuocino. With a tremor in his voice for the first time, Amerigo said: "It's somewhere down there."

When we came to Amerigo's plot, Conti led the way through a hedge. There, in the middle of a small kitchen garden planted with cabbage, was a red stake marked 38. "This is where your land begins," explained Conti. Amerigo's jaw dropped. "But this garden?" he wondered. Conti answered: "It's included. Your land goes to the ditch down there. Takes in half that oak tree." Amerigo exclaimed: "The acorns from that tree will be enough to keep a pig. We will have sausage at home."

The inspection over, Amerigo stood momentarily silent, then said: "I am glad I have got this land. Now it's up to the Communists to show us if they can get us more than this." Slowly he removed his cap. An evening breeze played through his unkempt hair. He said: "But tonight I can pray to a resurrected Christ."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.