Sen. Grassley: The US shouldn't blame Russia for meddling cause of... Italy 1948

[Antonio the Sixth]

What the US did in 1948 (and the 30 years that followed) was shameful and Italy is still today suffering from the traumatic consequences of their meddling.

Guess what? Two wrongs don't make a right.

No it was the best thing that happened to Italy. Look at Czechoslovakia. It probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and Italy is about 4 times richer than it would have been if it had suffered under a Communist dictatorship. "Eurocomunism" was decades away at that point. Communists in any office meant one vote, one time, and then mass anti-Semitic purges following the break with Tito.

I don't think people comprehend how awful those Stalinist regimes were. They make Putin's Russia look like Sweden. Really, the only thing comparable today is North Korea.

First of all, even in the immediate postwar Italian communists had nothing in common with their Eastern European counterparts. The Italian Constitution is such a great document because, until 1948, communists, socialist and Christian-Democrats were genuinely open to cooperating with each other. And it's not the former two who broke that spirit.

And regardless, this is utterly irrelevant to my point. There would have been ways to prevent a communist takeover without rigging elections. You can't save democracy by violating it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is a particularly strange argument as the Soviet Union ALSO tried to influence the 1948 election in Italy. Which, contrary to HOT TAKES from internet tankies, was not close: the DCs would have won a fair election comfortably.

Define "winning". I highly doubt it would have won an absolute majority of its own.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

They didn't exactly "rig" the election. Spreading lies about communist leaders isn't the same thing as what Robert Mugabe does. Actually it's pretty par for the course for campaigns. And complaining about funding DC is kind of moot when as Al noted all the funding the Soviet Union gave the communists.

Honestly I can't be bothered by spreading lies and rumors about communist leaders when they were, oh you know, SUPPORTERS OF STALIN. Its amazing the people couldn't vote against them on that basis alone and had to have some lies sent, but hey whatever. You always have the moral high ground against the part of gulags and the NKVD.

I'm actually surprised by Tony here, who has never been too fond of communists.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm not fond of communism. I most certainly would never have voted for the FDP in 1948 or for the PCI in the following decades (I would have voted for Berlinguer's PCI, but even you implicitly admitted that it's a different thing).

All I'm trying to say is that reality is more complex than what your one-dimensional, ahistorical axis of evil implies.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Define "winning". I highly doubt it would have won an absolute majority of its own.

I mean that they would have been by far the largest party and would have had no difficulty in forming a government. It's hard to work out what would have happened (other than in general terms) absent meddling from the two superpowers, but I wouldn't rule out an absolute majority: I tend to believe that the odd result that year was mostly organic, the result of a fevered and deeply polarised political atmosphere. Probably the American and Soviet governments were wasting their money, but that's kind of cold_war.txt really.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I mean as a deeply religious person it doesn't strike me as odd that, faced with the possibility* of a Communist takeover, sincere Catholics whether political or not flooded to the polls to prevent it from happening.

_{*Well 'possibility' is more accurate: it's very clear in retrospect that the numbers for a PCI victory never existed and that the party's popularity was vastly overestimated by both domestic and international observers.}

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

What would have happened to the Vatican if the commies did seize Italy, anyway?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I mean as a deeply religious person it doesn't strike me as odd that, faced with the possibility* of a Communist takeover, sincere Catholics whether political or not flooded to the polls to prevent it from happening.

_{*Well 'possibility' is more accurate: it's very clear in retrospect that the numbers for a PCI victory never existed and that the party's popularity was vastly overestimated by both domestic and international observers.}

Yeah, I don't doubt that a good part of DC's bounce was genuine (worth noting that most of it came from those who had voted for various smaller right-wing parties in 1946, not from "moderate" left-wing voters). I'm not sure if that would have been enough to get it to an absolute majority and set it on the way to dominating Italian politics for the next 40 years, but yeah, I don't doubt De Gasperi would have been the next PM regardless.

The real problem isn't so much the influence of American meddling in election results, but its influence on political culture and, even worse, on the "deep State" which, in the name of Cold-war logic, saw itself as entitled to commit all sorts of atrocities to protect the status quo. There's little doubt at this point that elements of the DC establishment and public administration had their hands in the terrorist attacks of the late 60s and early 70s (which then led to the left-wing reaction with the Red Brigades, and poisoned Italian politics for decades), and it wouldn't be surprising to learn that they had the blessing of the CIA.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, I don't doubt that a good part of DC's bounce was genuine (worth noting that most of it came from those who had voted for various smaller right-wing parties in 1946, not from "moderate" left-wing voters).

And very clearly non-voters as well.

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The strategy of tension, yes. I think much (most? All?) of the mentality of that was home grown, even if it was obviously endorsed by foreign intelligence agencies. I think what the DCs took from the 1948 landslide was that they could keep their ridiculous ramshackle party in power forever if they could maintain a permanent sense of fear amongst the aforementioned basically apolitical practicing Catholics (who could so easily have otherwise turned on them) and so creating an unbreachable vote bank. And eventually the logic of this...

[Antonio the Sixth]

The strategy of tension, yes. I think much (most? All?) of the mentality of that was home grown, even if it was obviously endorsed by foreign intelligence agencies. I think what the DCs took from the 1948 landslide was that they could keep their ridiculous ramshackle party in power forever if they could maintain a permanent sense of fear amongst the aforementioned basically apolitical practicing Catholics (who could so easily have otherwise turned on them) and so creating an unbreachable vote bank. And eventually the logic of this...

Yeah, obviously I don't want to claim that without American involvement postwar Italy would have become a shining example of democratic competition and pluralism. Most misdeeds were thought up and carried out by Italians, with Americans at most giving their blessing. Still, I do think Americans bear indirect responsibility for instilling the mentality that made it possible to justify all this. So do the Soviets, of course, who if anything intervened more directly and aggressively (though the fact that American allies were in power means that more damage can indirectly be ascribed to them). But the Cold War was clearly a foreign import, and Italian parties could have taken a very different course without it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So the whole point of the Bologna bombing was just to hope communists were blamed for it?