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Patrick Gallo. For Love and Country: The Italian Resistance.
Lanham: University Press of America, 2003.
viii + 361 pp. Notes, index. $55.00 (paper),

Reviewed by Stanislao G. Pugliese, Hofstra University.

While there exists today an extensive literature in English on Italian fascism, there is no corresponding body of work on the Italian anti-fascist Resistance. Other than Charles F. Delzell's monumental and groundbreaking work in 1961, Mussolini's Enemies: The Italian Anti-Fascist Resistance, there has not been a comprehensive work devoted to the subject. The Delzell book was reprinted in 1974 by Howard Fertig but is presently out of print. More narrowly focused, but an important work in its own right, was Frank Rosengarten's The Italian Anti-Fascist Press (1968; also out of print). Recently, David Ward published Antifascisms: Cultural Politics in Italy, 1943-1946 but this is a work concentrating on the tension between Benedetto Croce's liberal anti-fascism and the more rigorous and demanding anti-fascism of the Action Party represented by Carlo Levi. Patrick Gallo's For Love and Country is therefore to be welcomed by students and specialists alike. The narrative is chronological and this perhaps is best for a topic that few readers in the United States are familiar with.

...Gallo has done an admirable job of synthesizing a vast and contentious body of scholarship and obviously has a deep admiration and respect for the anti-fascist Resistance, qualities that are today sometimes lacking in the scholarship.

The appropriate topics are covered, but an examination of the political ideologies behind each of the anti-fascist parties is missing. Gallo mentions the various parties and movements involved (from the monarchists on the right to the communists on the left), but the reader has no idea what these parties represent. Gallo does mention the tension between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill because of their conflicting view of the Italian partisans.

[RAA NOTE: It is suprising to me that few writers give much attention to the fact that both Britain and the USA (from 1922- 1935) were VERY strong supporters of Mussolini, (up until the time Mussolini invaded Ethiopia), and regarded him as an indispensable bulwark against the Communist Threat in Europe.]

By including material on the Holocaust in Italy, Gallo implies that it cannot be separated from the Italian Resistance but he does not make this argument explicitly. The result is that this material, while important, sometimes seems out of place. What was the connection between anti-Semitic legislation and the anti-fascist
Resistance? Many leaders in the left-wing parties were Jewish, such as Umberto Terracini, Emilio Sereni, Claudio Treves, Giuseppe Emanuele Modigliani (brother of the painter Amadeo), Carlo Levi, Primo Levi, Mario Levi, Leone Ginzburg, and Carlo and Nello Rosselli. What was the relationship (if any) between their Jewishness and anti-fascism?

[RAA NOTE: What does either writer mean when they refer to the Holocaust in Italy?
Are they speaking of the 400+ Massacres of 15,000 Italian Citizens by Germans,
(Friedrich Andrae’s book "Even against Women and Children, The War of the Wehrmacht against Civilians in Italy 1943-45) or the Transporting of 8,000 Jews by Germans from Italy to Concentration Camps?

[RAA NOTE 2: To further pursue Pugliese's question regarding the relationship between Jewishness and anti-fascism, it would also be informative to question
Jewishness and pro-fascism. For instance, 6 of the Founders of the Fascist Party were Jewish (del Vecchio, Cepelli, Daus, Bolaffi, Turati, Avia), and 15% of the 40,000 Marchers on Rome were Jewish, which is astounding considering that there were only 34,000 Jews in all of Italy in 1922. This would be a strong argument that Fascism was a good idea, gone bad. What other reason could there be for so much Jewish support?  Try Reading the Fascist Manifesto. See NOTO BENE below.]

This is a work of synthesis, not analysis ,with little or no use of archival material. Nor is there any discussion or examination of the historiographical debates surrounding the Italian Resistance. Gallo does not offer a new interpretation of the Resistance nor does he offer a concise thesis. On the positive side, the author does offer new information on a critical episode in the Italian Resistance: the via Rasella attack and the subsequent Fosse Ardeatine massacre. He has reconstructed the events in a dramatic narrative. Gallo makes good use of interviews with some of the major protagonists of the Resistance.

Another strong point of the book is also one of its critical flaws: Gallo concentrates on the Resistance in Rome and the surrounding Lazio region. But Rome was liberated in June 1944 (a day before D-Day) and so the work passes over nearly another year of armed resistance in the north of Italy. There should be more on the Spanish Civil War which was crucial--intellectually, politically, and militarily--for the Armed Resistance of 1943-1945. Gallo concludes with material on the post-war trials of fascist and Nazi criminals, including that of SS Captain Erich Priebke in the 1990s.

The book will be of interest to a wide range of readers: those concerned with the Resistance and those curious about fascism and anti-fascism in Italy. Academics and scholars will not gain much from it but it may be adopted for course use if the publisher offers a corrected edition.

Library of Congress call number: D802.I8 G294 2003
Subjects: World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--Italy.
Citation: Stanislao G. Pugliese. "Review of Patrick Gallo, For Love and Country: The Italian Resistance," H-Italy, H-Net Reviews, March, 2004. URL: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=143091084662631.

H-Net Review: Stanislao G. Pugliese on Patrick Gallo, For Love and Country: The Italian Resistance
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NOTO BENE:
In The Jews of Italy (February 1939) Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, No. XXIV, page 7: "As far as Jewish youth is concerned, Zionism has made hardly an appeal, and they have been, by and large, entirely swallowed up in the world of Fascist ideals". Page 8: "With the friendship and understanding cooperation of premier Mussolini, it looked like Italian Jewry was about to experience a tremendous revival." Page 9: "An indication of how secure the Jewish community felt was the fact that a Rabbi appeared in a synagogue pulpit in full Fascist uniform for the first time in Italian history on July 13th [1938] when Rabbi Feldman of Poland was formally installed as chief Rabbi of Florence." Page 12: "When, in 1925, an attempt was made on Mussolini's life, the Jewish Fascists held a Thanksgiving Service for his escape." Page 13: "There was a time when certain Jewish circles inclined to the belief that no inherent conflict existed between the essential principles of Judaism and Fascism." Page 18: "Many of Mussolini's closest associates were Jews. ... Professor Giorgio Del Vecchio was one of the founders of the Fascist party. ..., a Jew, Giacomo Cepilli, is the leader of the Fascist forces in Trieste. ... Two Jews, Simon Daus and Gini Bolaffi, are among the 37 Fascist heroes buried in the Italian Panthenon at Florence, a Fascist shrine reserved for those killed defending Fascism. ... Another Jew, Augusto Turati, was the first General Secretary of the Fascist Party." ... Page 20: "Gino Avia was the scientific expert for the drafting of the new constitution of the country, based on Fascist principles."