Communist leader gunned down near Italian parliament
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| The Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti, pictured in 1950 |
The leader of the Italian Communist Party, Palmiro
Togliatti, was shot three times on this day in 1948 near Palazzo Montecitorio
in Rome.
Togliatti was seriously wounded and for several days it was
not certain that he would survive, causing a political crisis in Italy.
Three months before the shooting, Togliatti had led the
Communists in the first democratic election in Italy after the Second World War,
which would elect the first Republican parliament. He lost to the Christian Democrats after a
confrontational campaign in which the United States played a big part, viewing
Togliatti as a Cold War enemy.
On July 14, Togliatti was shot three times near the
Parliament building. It was described as an assassination attempt, the
perpetrator of which was named as Antonio Pallante, an anti-Communist student
with mental health problems. While the Communist leader’s life hung in the
balance a general strike was called.
He eventually recovered and was able to continue as head of
the party until his death in 1964.
Togliatti was born in Genoa in 1893. He was named Palmiro
because he was born on a Palm Sunday.
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| Togliatti, pictured with the surgeon, Pietro Valdoni, who saved his life, recovers in hospital after the assassination attempt. |
His father, Antonio, was an accountant and the family had to
move frequently because of his job. When
his father died of cancer in 2011, the family struggled financially, but with
the help of a scholarship, Togliatti was able to graduate in law from the
University of Turin in 1917.
He served as a volunteer officer during the First World War
but was wounded in action and sent home.
Togliatti became part of the group that gathered around
Antonio Gramsci’s L’Ordine Nuovo newspaper in Turin. He was an admirer of the
Russian Revolution and helped Gramsci refocus the newspaper to be a
revolutionary voice. The newspaper supported the general strike of 1921 and
began to be published daily.
A member of the Communist faction within the Italian
Socialist Party, Togliatti was one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party in
1921.
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| The young Togliatti, pictured in about 1920 |
In 1922, Fascist leader Benito Mussolini took advantage of
the general strike and demanded that the Government should either give
political power to the Fascist Party or face a coup. The Fascists demanded the
resignation of Prime Minister Luigi Facta.
King Victor Emmanuel III had to choose between the Fascists
and the anti-monarchist Socialists. He picked the Fascists and appointed
Mussolini as Prime Minister.
Mussolini pushed a new electoral law through parliament and,
coupled with his intimidation tactics, it resulted in a landslide victory for
the Fascists in the 1924 election.
In 1924, international Communists began a process of Bolshevisation, which forced each party to conform to the discipline and orders of Moscow. Mussolini banned the Italian Communist Party in 1926 and some officials,
including Gramsci, were arrested and imprisoned, but Togliatti escaped arrest
because he was in Moscow at the time.
In exile abroad in the 1920s and 1930s, Togliatti organised
clandestine meetings. He stayed in the Soviet Union during the Second World
War, broadcasting radio messages to Italy calling for resistance against the
Nazis.
In 1944 Togliatti returned to Italy and joined in a
government of national unity. He served as Deputy Prime Minister and then
Justice Minister.
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| Togliatti with his partner, Nilde Iotti, at a Communist Party conference in Russia, which they visited many times |
The writer Carlo Lucarelli gives a vivid, fictional account
of the day of the shooting in his novel Via delle oche, the final book in his
De Luca trilogy.
Togliatti survived the shooting to see his party become the
second largest party in Italy and the largest non-ruling Communist party in
Europe. The party held many municipalities and was powerful in some areas at
local and regional level.
Togliatti died as a result of a cerebral haemorrhage in 1964
while on holiday with his partner in the Black Sea resort of Yalta, which was
then in the Soviet Union. His favourite pupil, Enrico Berlinguer, was elected
as his successor.
The Russian city of Stavropol-on-Volga, where Togliatti had
helped establish a car manufacturing plant in collaboration with Fiat, was
renamed Tolyatti in his honour in 1964.
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| The Palazzo Madama is one of the features of what is known as 'royal' Turin |
Travel tip:
Turin, where Togliatti went to University and helped launch
a Communist-sympathising newspaper, is the capital city of the region of
Piedmont. It is an important business centre with architecture demonstrating
its rich history, which is linked with the Savoy Kings of Italy. Piazza Castello, with the royal palace, royal library and Palazzo Madama, which used
to house the Italian senate, is at the heart of ‘royal’ Turin.
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| The Palazzo Montecitorio was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for the nephew of Pope Gregory XV |
Travel tip
Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome, which is near the spot where
Togliatti was shot and seriously wounded, is the seat of the Italian Chamber of
Deputies, the lower house of the Italian Parliament. The building was
originally designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for the nephew of Pope Gregory XV.
The palace was chosen as the seat of the Chamber of Deputies in 1871 but the
building proved inadequate for their needs. After extensive renovations had
been carried out, the chamber returned to the palace in 1918.
