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De Gasperi and Togliatti: political leadership and personality cults in post-war Italy∗

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Marzia Marsili
Marzia Marsili*
Affiliation:
Department of Italian, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 2AA, UK. E-mail: m.marsili@rhbnc.ac.uk
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Summary

After twenty years of Fascism, political leaders were faced with the need to rediscover or invent new ways of relating to the mass public and, in the first place, to distance themselves from the type of relationship consolidated under Fascism. This article is based on an examination of the representations of De Gasperi and Togliatti in illustrated weeklies and in the satirical press, as well as their more or less hagiographical biographies. From the sources it emerges that, in the case of the Christian Democrat leader, the hypothesis that there was a personality cult is hard to sustain. By contrast, in the case of Togliatti, it does seem possible to argue that there were manifestations of a genuine cult, but these were set within the context of an institutional charisma.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 3 , Issue 2: Charisma and the cult of personality in modern Italy , November 1998 , pp. 249 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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References

Notes

1. Work in progress, Marsili, Marzia: ‘The Ghost of Mussolini in Post-war Italy: Resonances of a Personality Cult (1945–1957)’, PhD, Reading University.Google Scholar

2. On Togliatti, see Agosti, Aldo, Palmiro Togliatti, Utet, Turin, 1996; Bocca, Giorgio, Palmiro Togliatti, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1973. For De Gasperi, see Andreotti, Giulio, De Gasperi e il suo tempo, Mondadori, Milan, 1956 and De Gasperi visto da vicino, Rizzoli, Milan, 1986; Giordani, Igino, Alcide De Gasperi, Milan, 1955; Catti, Maria R., De Gasperi uomo solo, Mondadori, Milan, 1965 and Mio caro padre, Mondadori, Milan, 1979. Giordani's biography was commissioned by the DC leadership to commemorate De Gasperi. See also Lewis, Piera R., Alcide De Gasperi, SEI, Turin, 1970; Goio, Manlio, Alla ricerca di una parola: Alcide De Gasperi, Trento, 1974; Gatta, Bruno, De Gasperi politico, De Gasperi con la folia, De Gasperi con se stesso, Naples, 1983.Google Scholar

3. See Oggi, 16 November 1950, p. 9, where a picture of the Pope is taken from below underlining his impressive presence and omnipotence. In 1951 the Pope was elected ‘the man of the year’ by the readers of Oggi, see Rusconi, Edilio, ‘II tempo della scelta’, 25 January 1951, p. 5. See also ‘La giornata di Pio XII’, Famiglia Cristiana, 28 February 1954, pp. 8–9. On Togliatti, see ‘Perchè non credere a Togliatti’, Famiglia Cristiana, 30 May 1954, pp. 14–15, for an hysterical answer to a letter from Reggio Emilia.Google Scholar

4. Longanesi, Leo, Il meglio di Leo Longanesi, Longanesi, Milan, 1958, pp. 408–9.Google Scholar

5. Among many articles, see ‘Le castagne di De Gasperi’, Oggi, 1 January 1946, p. 8.Google Scholar

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7. The speech, held in Trento on 20 July 1947, was reported by many newspapers amid polemics. See for example the later article ‘Il “Ta-pum” del cecchino’, Il Candido, 7 January 1954, p. 20.Google Scholar

8. Il Candido, 23 January 1953, p. 15.Google Scholar

9. Il Candido, 24 June 1954, p. 5.Google Scholar

10. Il Candido, 21 February 1954, cover.Google Scholar

11. Epoca, 29 August 1954, cover.Google Scholar

12. Montanelli, Indro, Vita paziente di Alcide De Gasperi, Edizioni pro famiglia, booklet without date and place, but published also in weekly instalments in Oggi (first part 2 May 1948). See also Statera, Vittorio, ‘De Gasperi non ama l'economia politica’, Oggi, 23 November 1947, pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

13. Goio, , Alla ricerca, p. 9.Google Scholar

14. De Gasperi, Sister Lucia, Appunti spirituali e lettere al padre, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1968.Google Scholar

15. Examples are numerous, see for example the photographs in Oggi, 27 December 1951, pp. 10–12, and Baldacci, Gaetano, ‘Il vantaggio della stabilità’, Epoca, 7 June 1953, pp. 22–24.Google Scholar

16. Oggi, 18 August 1949, cover.Google Scholar

17. Segala, Renato, ‘L'assente è sempre presente’, Epoca, 16 August 1953, pp. 17–19. On De Gasperi and his family on holiday see also Baldacci, Gaetano, ‘L'uomo dei giorni feriali’, Epoca, 31 May 1953, pp. 15–19. Amintore Fanfani, ‘I miei incontri con De Gasperi’, ibid., pp. 13ff.Google Scholar

18. Cavalli, Luciano, Carisma: Le qualità straordinarie del leader, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1995, pp. 47ff.Google Scholar

19. Ibid., p. 51.Google Scholar

20. Quaderno dell'attivista, 15 January 1951, cover. This picture was also distributed as a card.Google Scholar

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22. Scuderi, S. (ed.), Vita di un italiano, Edizioni di cultura sociale, Rome, 1953, is the biography edited in occasion of his birthday; Palmiro Togliatti: cinquant' anni nella storia dell'Italia e del mondo, was edited by l'Unità in 1965, as collection of pictures and testimonies after his death.Google Scholar

23. Il Candido, 9 August 1953, p. 9.Google Scholar

24. Mafai, Miriam, L'uomo che sognava la lotta armata, Rizzoli, Milan, 1984.Google Scholar

25. See Barzini, L. Jr., I comunisti non hanno vinto, Mondadori, Milan, 1955, p. 36; Spriano, Paolo, Le passioni di un decennio, Garzanti, Milan, 1986, pp.50 ff.Google Scholar

26. Mafai, , ‘Quinto banco primo settore’, Vie Nuove, 27 August 1964, pp. 36–7.Google Scholar

27. Mafai, , L'uomo, pp. 13 ff.Google Scholar

28. La Fronda, 10 July 1951, issue dedicated on ‘Who is Togliatti?’, p. 7.Google Scholar

29. Cacciapuoti, Salvatore, Da Napoli a Pechino, via Mosca, Teti, Milan, 1977, p. 24. Bocca recorded a similar situation in Rome in Togliatti, p. 515.Google Scholar

30. ‘In tutti i dialetti d'Italia il popolo canta Togliatti’, Vie Nuove, 29 March 1953, pp. 11–16.Google Scholar

31. Crainz, Guido, ‘La vespa e il viatico’, in Tranfaglia, Nicola (ed.), Il 1948 in Italia: la storia e i film, La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1991, pp. 116–23, p. 123; Casula, Felice, ‘I comunisti’, ibid., pp. 129–36, p. 134.Google Scholar

32. Togliatti è tomato, 1949.Google Scholar

33. Il Costruttore, 1 February 1953, pp. 14–15.; Quaderno dell'attivista, 1 April 1953, pp. 212–13.Google Scholar

34. Marcella, and Ferrara, Maurizio, Conversando con Togliatti, Edizioni di culture sociale, Rome, 1953, and on the diffusion see their ‘Quando Togliatti parlava di se stesso’, Vie Nuove, 26 August 1965, pp. 8 ff.Google Scholar

35. Il Costruttore, 11 December 1953, p. 13; among these short films, which were shown everywhere, were Palmiro Togliatti: vita di un grande patriota (1, 000 lire), Antonio Gramsci: vita di un grande italiano (400 lire).Google Scholar

36. Posthumous biographies of Togliatti (and articles in magazines) often affirmed the existence of a cult, see Galluzzi, Carlo, Togliatti Longo Berlinguer: il mito e la realtà, Sperling & Kupfer, Varese, 1989, and the debatable Seniga, Giulio, Togliatti e Stalin, SugarCo, Milan, 1961, pp. 29–35. Most of the commemorations of the PCI leader when he died underlined how no cult of personality existed in Togliatti, see Rinascita and Vie Nuove August and September 1964, and August 1965.Google Scholar

37. Il Candido, 25 March 1956, p. 14.Google Scholar

38. Le cronache de Il Popolo di Milano per la scomparsa dell'on. Dott. Alcide De Gasperi con l'aggiunta di scritti e commenti, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1979 (1954), pp. 69–73.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., p. 70.Google Scholar

40. Ibid.Google Scholar

41. ‘L'Italia s'inchina al grande Presidente’, in Le cronache, pp. 75–8.Google Scholar

42. Vie Nuove, 20 August 1964.Google Scholar

43. See Guttuso, Renato, ‘Un quadro di storia’, Rinascita, 6 September 1974, pp. 13–28.Google Scholar

44. Ibid.Google Scholar

45. Vie Nuove, 3 September 1964, p. 2 (coloured insert).Google Scholar

46. Ibid.Google Scholar

47. Ibid.Google Scholar

48. Vie Nuove, 27 August 1964.Google Scholar

49. Agosti, , Togliatti, pp. 554 ff.Google Scholar

50. M.a., ‘L'Italia con Togliatti’, Rinascita, 17 October 1964, p. 24.Google Scholar

51. ‘Hanno scritto al compagno Togliatti’, Rinascita, 5 September 1965, pp. 17–19.Google Scholar