The Street of Dark Shops

Communism in Italy is big business. The party spends $40 to $48 million a year; to run its elaborate headquarters on Rome's Via delle Botteghe Oscure (The Street of Dark Shops) costs another million a year. Although the U.S.S.R. always contributes some funds, the Italian Reds last year passed along 300 million lire ($480,000) to their hard-up comrades in France. There are Communists in the Army signal corps, in the public utilities, in the railroads, in the government bureaucracy, among the magistrates.

These are among the facts about their own Communists that Italians were learning for the first time last week. They were set down by Luigi Barzini, 45, one of Italy's outstanding correspondents (trained at Columbia School of Journalism), in a series of articles that were running in Milan's influential Carriere della Sera (arc. 450,000). His was Italy's first serious journalistic analysis of the Italian Communist Party, an eloquent comment on the present state of Italian journalism. Barzini went to the Reds themselves for facts and figures, and after some stalling they gave him at least part of what he asked for. His pieces are not roars of rage or compendiums of gossip; they are quiet and factual, but because his digging was so unprecedented, they have pay dirt in almost every paragraph.

Tomorrow's Salvation. Communist Boss Palmiro Togliatti, when he goes to work, dresses and acts like a big industrial executive. Writes Barzini: "Togliatti knows that nobody likes really militant Communism. He knows that such Communism always ends tragically, causing powerful defense coalitions to be formed against it. Togliatti will make any sacrifice and concession just so the party can survive. There are only two things that he is afraid of: isolation and unwavering anti-Communism."

Under this "soft policy," Italian Communism has become a "serious, dangerous and learned party." It has virtually rid itself of Bolshevist fanatics, irrepressible terrorists and chronic barricade jumpers. As a result, older Italians find it hard to believe that Togliatti's suave, businesslike minions are really Communists, and younger Italians find it hard to believe that Communists are furious and disorderly men. The Reds no longer try to scare the middle classes. "Today in Italy," says Barzini, "it is neither dangerous nor uncomfortable nor damaging to be a Communist, and having been one might mean salvation tomorrow."

Please, No Adventures. Many Italian Communists, under their comfortable Red exteriors, says Barzini, are actually individualists and freedom lovers who fear to see an all-out Communist victory. "Reds in the Romagna and Emilia are by tradition liberty-loving, they scarcely tolerate discipline, they are not fond of the bureaucracy that Communism would inevitably establish. Almost all of these people are aware of the fact that freedom is useful to everybody, not only to the rich but also to the worker and farmer as well. They have, by their struggles, won rights which do not exist in Marxist countries."

Since Allied liberation in World War II, the party line in Italy has been not to make but to avoid a revolution. "One of Togliatti's duties in the period right after the war was precisely to see to it that Communists did not attempt to come to power by force, even though the moment seemed ripe for just that. The partisans were still armed; there were entire regions in a state of terror; the government was weak, and the Reds held key posts in the government and police force. But, as Togliatti explained, the Allies would have crushed any such insurrection attempt. Whenever Togliatti talks about such matters today, he invariably recalls what happened in Greece in 1944.* Togliatti is not keen on adventures."

Courteous Revolution. In case of war with Russia, the Italian Communists have plans all ready. Six, years ago, when Togliatti was shot and almost killed, the comrades momentarily showed their rough hand. They blocked 70 roads leading to Genoa, thus preventing government troops from entering the city. In Venice, they seized the radio station and broad cast false news. In an emergency, Barzini believes they could take over "all vital points"in the nation in a few hours. "In Italy, public order is maintained not so much by legal force as by the prudence of the Communists."

Meanwhile, they are biding their time "Slow penetration" is the party line. "This amounts to a silent, courteous revolution, gaining ground through good manners, a revolution carried out with the backing of the law, with no haste, moving from one election to the next, finally pre- senting the nation with a fait accompli, without provoking strong reactions, and with hardly anybody realizing what is happening."

Strengthen the Middle. What is the defense against slow penetration? Reporter Barzini has no magic formulas. He believes in reinforcing the"state authority" and in"methodic, inflexible application of the penal and civil codes, the prosecution of illegal practices, of corruption and indulgence in our public life, the moderni- zation of bureaucracy, all that reassures a confused public that there is protection under the law, that there is no need to seek protection from the Communists.

"Though the solution to the problem may be difficult, complicated and long, the government should realize that it can solve the Communist problem only by strengthening the middle class, helping it financially and morally, restoring its dignity, authority, pride and self-confidence . . . If Italians who are in a position to change our economy just wait to see how things go, how elections turn out, how others defend them from Communism, then the battle is lost."

* When Greek Communist partisans tried to seize power in Athens after the Nazi occupiers fled, they were put down by British armed intervention.

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