“The Americans saved us by spraying DDT on the entire Agro Pontino and also on the Fondi plain with the planes they bombed. Holy hand, DDT, listen to me. They also brought us penicillin, don’t do it. Forget it, of course, even if it is freedom and democracy, we thank you for that too But – if you allow – we have never seen such freedom and democracy, at least before fascism.” These are some of the last lines of Antonio Pennacchi’s ‘Canale Mussolini’. The novel tells the story of the Peruzzi family, Venetian sharecroppers who are transported to the Pontine countryside following land reclamation promoted by the regime. The heroes are convinced supporters of fascism, and the story is a brave testimony to how Mussolini’s policies made inroads within some popular classes, as well as how it is impossible to fully understand a 20-year dictatorship without knowing what constitutes it. partly) its predecessor.

Thus fascism took advantage of the contradictions of the world before it.

In pre-Fascist Italy, the popular classes became indispensable when someone was needed to storm enemy trenches and a nuisance when they wanted bread or land. The distance between rulers and ruled was very deep, and Italy remained largely a land of poor and oppressed farmers, where neither a modern bourgeoisie nor a large working class had developed.

Fascism enters into this contradiction and uses it to its advantage, capitalizing on the “great fear” about the coming of a Soviet-style revolution. Once in power, he tries to do what the ruling class before him often neglected: achieve public consensus through (also) social initiatives. These are largely corporate, clientelistic, militaristic, populist and (rarely) criminal policies; In these policies, people can only applaud and stay where they are, patiently waiting to become cannon fodder once again. But there is still a break from much of what was there before.

From these premises, many anti-fascists came to the same conclusion: the new Italy had to be born with other foundations in order not to let all this happen again. The assumption is that democracy can only work if everyone is able to live a dignified life and participate in public life. It is no coincidence that even a liberal anti-fascist like Gobetti had to mention “revolution” to indicate the distance he had to make with pre-fascist Italy.

Social rights and reality: What is left of our Constitution?

And here we come to our Constitution, designed in an Italy still stained with the blood of thousands of men and women. In the first lines we read that “Italy is a republic founded on work” and that the latter is functional “for the material and spiritual progress of society”. And we see that freedom and equality can only be achieved by eliminating “economic and social barriers that hinder the development of the human personality and full participation.” This is an unprecedented break with the whole world before the birth of our Republic. So what remains of these principles today?

It makes you smile bitterly, for example, when you read Article 36, which states that every worker has the right to “remuneration commensurate with the quantity and quality of his work and in any case sufficient to ensure a free and dignified existence for himself and his family.” ” In Italy, where starvation wages, subcontracting and white deaths reign, work has changed from a right to blackmail and is often not even enough to live a dignified life. A few lines later, in article 37, it is stated that “women have the right to the same wages as men”, which a rule that is ignored in practice every day.

But the whole “social” part of the matter remains only on paper: do we really dare to say that, looking at the ridiculous amounts of minimum pensions or participation fees, the State can support and help “every citizen who cannot work”? allowances?

And what remains of Article 32: “The Republic protects health as the fundamental right of the individual and the interest of society and guarantees free care for the poor” Collapsed healthcare in Italy and blocked and endless lists in Italy? And finally, what can we say about the right to housing, mentioned in many of the Council’s resolutions, or the right to a good education in a country where the high school dropout rate is at a record high, especially among the poorest classes?

Our Constitution, born “in the mountains, in prisons and in the fields,” as Pietro Calamandrei put it, is the fruit of the reconciliation of far-flung political worlds and the sacrifice of many. His lesson is one: there is no freedom without social justice, there is no social justice without freedom. It is up to all of us to ensure that this simple evidence does not become history and expose us to new dramas. Happy April 25th.

Today.it has launched a petition demanding that the birthplace of Benito Mussolini be turned into a monument dedicated to the victims of political hatred, with an editorial by Fabrizio Gatti. If you agree with our petition, please sign here and share this article with your contacts. (English edition here).

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