The European Federalist Movement in Italy: First Phase, 1918-1947

Author(s): Charles F. Delzell

Source: The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Sep., 1960), pp. 241-250
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1872427
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THE EUROPEAN FEDERALIST MOVEMENT IN ITALY:

FIRST PHASE, 1918-1947*
CHARLES

F. DELZELL

THE Italian antecedents of the European

integration movement can be traced
back at least to Giuseppe Mazzini and Carlo
Cattaneo, and perhaps even farther to the
medieval exponents of the Respublica Christiana.1 Having neither the time nor the desire to embark upon so exhaustive a task, I
shall restrict my survey to the activities of
the anti-Fascists,2 and indeed more precisely,
to the federalist current among the antiFascists.3 This is legitimate, I think, because
in the postwar years Italy has been in the
forefront in urging not just "functional"
economic federation of Europe (such as the
present Coal and Steel Community, Common Market, Euratom, etc.) but something
more: viz., a genuine political and constitutional federation of Europe with a European
parliament.
The keynote for this European federalist
movement was sounded in Italy a generation
ago by Professor Luigi Einaudi, a distinguished free-trade economist at the University of Turin and a man who in 1948 was
elevated to the presidency of the new Ital* A paper read at the session, "Toward European integration," presided over by Professor
Joel Colton of Duke University, at the Southern Historical Association in Atlanta, Nov. 12,
1959.
1 See especially Carlo Curcio, Europa: storia
di un'idea (2 vols.; Florence, 1958), Chs. 2, 8,
and 9; J. B. Duroselle, "Europe as a historical
concept," in C. Grove Haines (ed.), European
integration (Baltimore, 1958), pp. 19-20.
2 Such efforts were restricted almost entirely
to anti-Fascists, because the Fascists (with minor
exceptions) were ultranationalists. Any thoughts
that Mussolini and Hitler entertained for the
unification of Europe certainly were not based
upon the assumption of free consent.
3I am especially indebted to Altiero Spinelli
of Rome, secretary of the Movimento Federalista
Europeo in Italy, for many documents pertaining to his group and information regarding
integrationist thought in Italy. I am also grateful to the staff of the Hoover Institution and
Library at Stanford University for assistance in
my research.

241

ian Republic. In a pair of newspaper "letters to the editor" in 1918, Einaudi sharply
criticized the plans for a mere League of
Nations that left intact the sovereignty of
states.4 He compared such a league to the
American Articles of Confederation and insisted that what Europe really needed was
a replica of the American Constitution. Another fine example of federation, he observed, was the British Union with Scotland.
"Even though today it is unattainable," he
continued, men should rather bend their
efforts toward a more "concrete and logical
goal:" viz., an inclusive European state possessing the power to tax, to maintain an
army for defense, and to regulate customs,
postal communications, and railroads. Needless to say, Einaudi's appeals attracted no
mass following at the time. Yet twenty years
later they were to inspire a handful of antiFascist exiles confined on one of Mussolini's
prison isles.

Insofar as Italy heard talk about a "United

States of Europe" during the 1920's, it was
due chiefly to the work of the Austrian
Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi. His
conception of "pan-Europe" was always a
bit fuzzy. Certainly he regarded it as a bulwark against Bolshevik Russia, and he also
had a semi-racist notion of European culture which must be defended against the
Western Hemisphere and the Orient. The
count was quite willing to include Fascist
Italy in his scheme, and on several occasions he sought to arouse the Duce's interest.5 This has helped to prevent Couden4 The letters, entitled "La Societh delle Nazioni 6 un ideale possibile?" and "II dogma della
sovranitA e l'idea della Societh delle Nazioni,"
appeared under the pseudonym, "Junius," in
the Milan Corriere della sera, Jan. 5 and Dec. 28,
1918. These and other articles were republished
in book form as "Junius," Lettere politiche
(Bari, 1920), and reprinted in L. Einaudi, La
guerra e l'unita europea (Milan, 1948), pp.

11-33.

5 According to Coudenhove-Kalergi, the Duce

thought of pan-Europe only in terms of a Latin

242

CHARLES F. DELZELL

hove from establishing very close links with

present-day Italians.6
At the same time that the Austrian idealist
was trying to convert Mussolini he also
turned his attention to some of the leading
oppositionists. According to him, "the whole
anti-Fascist intelligentsia" was "enthusiastic
for the'idea of pan-Europe."7 In Paris he
met in 1925 the; exiled former Premier Francesco Saverio Nitti, who was spending most
of his energy castigating the European statesmen who had drafted the Treaty of Versailles.8 Coudenhove persuaded Nitti to
serve as an honorary president of the First
Congress of pan-Europe, which assembled in
Vienna in the fall of 1926. But of all the
Italians Coudenhove met, none impressed
him 'more than the ex-Foreign Minister,
Count Carlo Sforza. Whereas most of the
others were at best "enlightened nationalists," Sforza, he discovered, was a genuine
Mazzinian "internationalist," "ready to place
his country at the service of Europe."9 Indeed, Sforza, who chose to live abroad after
1927, vigorously publicized the cause of
cosmopolitanism in lectures, articles, and
books that were translated into most of the
Western languages.10
federation to counterbalance the Germans, Anglo-Saxons, and Slavs, and toi facilitate Italian
colonization of North Africa and cultural ties
with Latin America. Regarding his gambits with
Fascist Italy, see Count Richard CoudenhoveKalergi, An idea conquers the world (London,
1953), pp. 92-94, 108-11, 186-93, 206-11.
6 For good-natured criticism of the "reactionary but innocuous" count, see socialist Ignazio
Silone's resume of the evolution of European
federalism, published first in the Swiss Libera
stampa, Jan. 2, 1945, and reprinted in the
clandestine [Milan] L'Unitsi europea: Voce del
Movimento Federalista Europeo, No. 8 (Jan.Feb. 1945), p. 6.
7 He termed Benedetto Croce, Guglielmo; Ferrero, Gaetano Salvemini, and Guido Manacorda
particularly "good Europeans" and -mentioned
also such Liberal parliamentarians as Giovanni
Giolitti, Ivanoe Bonomi, Cesaro di Colonna,
Carlo Schanzer, Luigi Albertini, and Giovanni
Amendola. Ibid., p. 111.
8 This
theme ran through most of Nitti's
many books.
p. 111.
9Coudenhove-Kalergi,
10 On Feb. 19, -1930, Sforza declared in. a lecture in Lugano: "What obliges Europe to become unified is that, in the face of the other
non-European communities that are emerging,

During the years when the Versailles settlement broke down, a few other anti-Fascist
emigres emphasized the need for radical
new steps toward European integration. In
1931, for example, Mario Pistocchi (whose
Italian citizenship was cancelled by Mussolini between 1926 and 1932) published Le
destin de l'Europe (Paris: Eugene Figuiere),
a book which won second prize in a world
competition sponsored by the Revue des
vivants. Pistocchi's book elicited a friendly
editorial by Claudio Treves, editor of the
right-wing Italian Socialists' newspaper in
Paris, La Libert4: "We hope that the DESTINY OF EUROPE will be as sensible and
full of realistic idealism as what is set forth
in the book of Mario Pistocchi," he wrote
on October 29, 1931.11Perhaps Treves would
have ignored the book had he known what
later was to be revealed: that Pistocchi
turned spy for the OVRA.12 The theme of
Pistocchi's essay centered about European
"decadence" and American "ascendancy," in
consequence of which European union was
necessary. Union of the rest of the world
was not excluded a priori, but was to be a
matter of ultimate integration. Essential
steps for a federated Europe would include
establishment of a customs union, financial
union, arbitration, and disarmament. There
must be a European parliament, formed of a
chamber of governments and a chamber of
representatives. Until such time as a single
federal state could emerge, there would be
nine ministries to co-ordinate the particular
competence of the various associated states
in the fields of foreign affairs, interior, justice, industry and commerce, agriculture,
finances, labor, colonies and mandates, and
federal defense. Pistocchi contended that
Britain must become a nation of Europe as
a result of the decline of her empire. He
it is discovering that the ideas and feelings
which every European holds in common have
greater value than the ideas and feelings which
divide them." C. Sforza, Gli Stati Uniti d'Europa
-aspirazione e realta (Lugano, 1930); reprinted
in his Mazzini (Lugano, 1931). Sforza's internationalism can be discerned in most of his
many books published while he was in exile.
"See Claudio Treves, Ii fascisma nella- letteratura antifascisXtadell'esilio, Antologia a cura
di Alessandro Schiavi (Rome,- 1953), pp. 99-104.
12 Aldo Garosci, Storia dei fuorusciti
(Bari,
1953), pp. 15, 294.

THE EUROPEAN FEDERALIST MOVEMENT IN ITALY

thought that Russia also would eventually
join the federation, but only after undergoing internal transformations. This would
be desirable, for otherwise Russia would
end up throwing in her lotwith Asia and
thus intensify the "yellow peril."
Unlike that of Pistocchi, Carlo Rosselli's
brand of anti-Fascism was quite incorruptible. Indeed, to silence him and his "Giustizia e Libertl" movement, the Fascist government arranged for his assassination
abroad in June 1937. While a refugee in
France from 1929 to 1937 Rosselli had often
talked and written of a United States of
Europe, based upon a European popular
assembly. Articles on European federation
appeared frequently in the Quaderni di
"Giustizia e Liberta" which he edited in
France from 1932 to 1935. For example, in
the fourth number (September 1932) Libero
Battistelli discussed "Disarmament and the
United States of Europe;" in the sixth
(March 1933) "Tirreno" wrote on "Federalism;" in the seventh (June 1933) Massimo
Salvadori penned some "Clarifications of
our federalism," while "M. A. G." discoursed
on "Piedmont and the federal problem."'13
Yet another staunch advocate of European
integration was Silvio Trentin, who had
been a professor of constitutional law before his escape from Mussolini's Italy. Trentin operated a bookstore in Toulouse and
militated in Rosselli's "Giustizia e Libert'a."
In 1942 he collaborated with Jean Rous of
the French underground in Lyon in promoting the "Liberer et Federer" revolutionary movement for liberation and reconstruction. It stressed the importance of
"winning the war and winning the peace"
and called for a kind of IProudhonian federation of professional and occupational groups,
as well as for limitation of the over-centralized
state, both in France and throughout Europe.
The "liberare e federare" motto was also
adopted during the war by the Zurich fortnightly, L'Avvenire dei lavoratori, inspired
by Ignazio Silone. In the summer of 1943,
after King Victor Emmanuel III dismissed
13 See also the interpretive study of Rosselli
by Aldo Garosci, La vita di Carlo Rosselli (2
vols.; Florence, 1945), II, 78-81, 84-89, and 101;
Garosci, Storia dei fuorusciti, pp. 125-29; and
the mimeographed lecture by Altiero Spinielli,
"Il federalismo europeo in Italia: nascita del
movimento," (1952), p. 2.

243

Mussolini, Trentin returned to northern

Italy, where he soon joined the armed Resistance in the ranks of the new Action
party. During the winter of 1943-44 he died
of a heart ailment.14
The first unmistakably federalist group
to organize itself on Italian soil came into
existence in 1940-41. It was founded on the
Fascist prison island of Ventotene by Altiero
Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi, and Eugenio Colorni.
All three of these captives were democratic
socialists and persuasive writers. Rossi was a
-disabled veteran of World War I who had
helped publish the first underground antiFascist newspaper in Italy, Non mollare!,
brought out in Florence for a few months in
1925 by Professors Gaetano Salvemini and
Piero Calamandrei and others.15 Subsequently he was a "Giustizia e Libert'a" conspirator in Lombardy until his capture in
1930. Spinelli had started out in the Communist apparatus, but after ten years of
imprisonment and much soul-searching had
broken with the party in 1937. He had become a Communist at the immature age of
seventeen (in 1924), attracted chiefly by the
"internationalism" of Lenin and Trotsky.
He has explained that in his ensuing shift
to federalism, he was influenced less by the
"incoherent federalists of France who harked
back to Proudhon, or by those of Italy who
stemmed from Mazzini . . . than by the an-

tidoctrinaires of England of the '30's who

proposed to transplant into Europe the
ogreat American political experience.6
lorni, who in "normal" times had aspired to
be a philosophy teacher, was a pivotal figure
in the Socialist party's "internal center" in
Italy until the Fascist police nabbed him in
1938.
federalism see Henri
14 Regarding Trentin's
Michel, Histoire de la Re'sistance (Paris, 1950),
p. 21; Angelo Tasca, In Francia nella bufera
(Modena, 1958), pp. 62-66; Armando Gavagnin,
Vent'anni di resistenza al fascismo (Turin, 1958),
pp. 432-44; and Carl H. Pegg, "Die Resistance
als Trager der europaischen Einigungsbestrebungen in Frankreich wahrend des zweiten Weltkrieges," Europa archiv, VII, No. 19 (Oct. 5,
1952), 5198.
15 The journal has been reprinted photographically in a book by the same title and
authors (Florence, 1955).
16 See Spinelli's autobiographical account of
his conversion: "Pourquoi je suis europeen,"
Preuvies, No. 81 (Nov. 1957), 33-39.

244

CHARLES F. DELZELL

As these three prisoners on Ventotene witnessed the failure of the League of Nations
and observed Hitler's destruction of one
sovereign state after another, they began to
reflect upon the essays of Einaudi that I
mentioned earlier. Sensing that the way was
being cleared for Europe to escape from its
Procrustean bed of nationalism, they turned
for guidance to American, Swiss, and British
constitutional history. They read eagerly the
Federalist papers of Hamilton, Madison,
and Jay, and the contemporary essays of
federal unionists like Sir Walter Layton,
Clarence Streit, William Beveridge, and Barbara Wootton.
In July 1941 Spinelli and Rossi infiltrated
to the Italian mainland a "Manifesto for a
free and united Europe."17 Federal union
must have top priority among postwar tasks,
the manifesto declared. Only in this way
could the problem of Germany's future be
solved; only in this way could socialism
hope to succeed (the argument being that
while federation does not necessarily require
socialism, socialism cannot succeed except
within the framework of a broad federation
of states). The manifesto went on to proclaim that henceforth "the dividing line between progressive and reactionary parties"
would not be determined by the degree of
democracy or of socialism they advocated
but by their attitude toward the goal of a
true international state. The manifesto and
two other essays by Spinelli ("The United
17 Its first section, "Crisis of modem civilization," sought to explain how the state which
once had safeguarded the freedoms of the citizen had instead become its master. It urged
"progressiveforces, the more enlightened workers, discerning intellectuals, and industrialists
anxious to free themselves from bureaucratic
restrictions"to undertake the "salvation of our
civilization."The second section, "Postwartasks:
European unity," called for leadership from
those "who know how to collaboratewith democratic forces, with Communists"(who had just
entered the war) "and in general with whoever
will co-operate in the dismantlement of totalitarianism, but without becoming the slaves of
any of these forces." The third chapter, "Reform of society," proclaimed that the European
revolution must be socialist; yet "the guiding
principle must not be the doctrinaire one of
socialization, for that merely leads to bureau-

cratic dictatorship....

thing case by case."

One must handle every-

States of Europe and the various political

tendencies"'18 and "Marxist policy and federalist policy" 19) were later published by
Rome:
in Nazi-occupied
the underground
"A. S." [Altiero Spinelli] and "E. R." [Er18In this essay Spinelli discussed three rival
currents in Europe: racism, democracy, and
communism. Hitler's Nazis could impose unity
upon Europe, but only the "master vs. slave"
type, he explained. Communists mistakenly be-lieve that the central problem is to abolish
capitalism. But capitalism does not of itself lead
to imperialist war. Communists, moreover, have
ignored the problem of an international political power to draw up economic plans. Socialist
countries would have even greater problems of
international relations than capitalist ones, for
every economic problem would also be a political one.
What is needed is international law, and this
can best be created by federal means. To be
sure, federalism is alien to the European tradition, except for Switzerland, and perhaps it lacks
a "myth." Yet the most important thing is to
have favorable circumstances; and these are
likely to be forthcoming at the end of the war,
because except for Britain, half of Russia, and
a few secondary states, all of Europe has come
under German sway with consequent collapse
of old state structures. An Allied triumph will
provide the favorable point of departure for
the federalist idea, and because of the freshness
of war memories, the immediate postwar years
will not be characterized by aggressive nationalism.
19 In this article, also written in 1941, Spinelli
first summarized Marxism and then noted the
splits among the Socialists. He pronounced himself on the side of the "unprejudiced" who
perceive that socialism and Marxism do not
coincide. Next he discussed the evils of present
society: (1) the privilege of wealth, peculiar to
capitalism; and (2) sectionalism, peculiar to a
syndicalist regime. One can cure the second
evil, leaving intact the former (e.g., the federation of the thirteen American colonies); but
the evil of poverty cannot be eliminated unless
one attacks the problem of sectionalism. The
federalist solution attacks first the sovereign
states, the worst of all the sectional ills. So long
as a system lasts which generates imperialism,
any reform aimed at other objectives is impossible, he argued. Alongside sectionalism of a
geographic sort are monopolies in industry and
finance. Such monopolies must be socialized;
parasitical stockholders must be dispossessed.
Only in a revolutionary situation can such basic
prerequisites for gradual social reform be attained.

THE EUROPEAN FEDERALIST MOVEMENT IN ITALY

nesto Rossi], Problemi della federazione
europea (Rome: Edizioni del Movimento
Italiano per la Federazione Europea, 1944).
An introduction was written by Colorni,
who had become editor of ,the covert Socialist party newspaper in Rome, Avanti!
The entry of the United States into the
war provided the Italian federalists with
renewed inspiration and enabled them to
become somewhat less worried about the
likelihood of Soviet Russian domination of
Europe. In the Western hemisphere Sforza
gained recognition in 1942 as the most authoritative spokesman of Italian anti-Fascism.
In August of that year he promoted a "panAmerican Congress of Free Italy," which
met in Montevideo. There Sforza affirmed
that after the overthrow of Fascism, the
Italians would be ready to "co-operate with
courage and serenity toward the solution of
any international problem concerning them,
on only one condition: that there will be
no discussion of Italian problems as such,
but of Italian sides of European problems."20
When news of this conclave reached Spinelli on Ventotene four months later, he
tried to send Sforza a message,21 urging him
to go farther and advocate a precise European federation in contrast to the vague
organization contemplated in the Atlantic
Charter. In retrospect, it is interesting to
note that Spinelli foresaw correctly the positive attitude the United States would eventually take toward the problem of European
integration.22 Though Sforza never received
Quoted in C. Sforza, "Italy and her neighbors after the war," Foreign affairs, XXII (Oct.
1943), 106-13. Regarding the Montevideo Congress see also C. Sforza, Problemi italiani: punti
di orientamento formulati al Congresso di Montevideo, nell'agosto del 1942, a cura del Movi
mento Liberale Italiano (Naples, 1943); C. Sforza,
L'Italia dal 1914 al 1944 quale io la vidi (Rome,
1944), pp. 175-88; and Garosci, Storia dei fuorusciti, pp. 219-22.
21 It is printed and discussed in C. Sforza, 0
federazione o nuove guerre (Florence, 1948), pp.
xii-xiii, 103-10.
22 "In the United States, more than in all
other countries," he argued, "your words spoken
in a federalist sense can arouse sympathy, and
precisely because they come from the United
States they will have greater resonance throughout the European continent. . . . Is not [America's] present greatness founded on the Federal
Constitution of 1787? America, the eldest daugh20

245

this message, he did write an article for Foreign affairs in October 1943 suggesting a
Latin federation composed of Italy, France,
and a "free Spain." Sforza envisioned that
such a federation could be broadened to include Portugal, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Greece,
and perhaps others. His proposal elicited no
favorable response from French officials in
Algie'rs. And in New York the exiled leader
of the Catholic Popular party, Fr. Luigi
Sturzo, decried Sforza's scheme as "meaningless, unless to counterbalance British or
German influence in Latin Europe."23
Meanwhile, Colorni (who earlier had been
transferred to confino on the mainland) escaped to Rome, where he established in
May 1943 a federalist nucleus and published
the first issue of the underground newspaper, L'Unita Europea: Voce del Movimento Federalista Europeo.24
Two months later the palace coup d'e'tat
overthrew Mussolini. The new royal dictatorship freed the anti-Fascist prisoners but
forbade overt political activity during the
weeks when the king and Marshal Badoglio
awkwardly sought an armistice with the
Allies. This did not deter a score of federalists (including Spinelli and Rossi) from
gathering secretly in Milan on August 27
at the home of Avv. Mario A. Rollier. Several of the group (Colorni, Leone Ginzburg,
and Guglielmo Jervis) were to lose their
lives in the ensuing liberation struggle. The
band of idealists named themselves the
ter of Europe, is called today for the second
time to save European civilization. Yet if this
war, like the preceding one, should end with
affirmation of the national ends of the victorious
peoples, her intervention will have been of little
value, and America too will be dragged quickly
into another world conflict. The solidarity
among the various continents already is so compact that peace in Europe has become the indispensable condition of peace and prosperity
for America and the permanence of her political
freedoms.
"Only Europeans who have reflected upon the
profound significance of the work of Washington, of Hamilton . . . can invoke the help of
Americans for a task congenial to their spirit
and corresponding to their lasting interests."
Quoted in ibid.
23 L. Sturzo, Italy and the coming world
(New York, 1945), p. 218.
24 The Hoover Institution at Stanford possesses several issues.

246

CHARLES F. DELZELL

Movimento Federalista Europeo (MFE; European Federalist Movement) and approved

a six-point declaration that stressed first the
need for armed resistance against Nazism.
With what proved to be excessive optimism,
it next emphasized the importance of winning the battle of federalism during the
revolutionary upheavals that presumably
would occur right after the war (as they
had in 1918). Spinelli argued that the war
was "disqualifying" most of the old nationalistic politicians, and that the actual decisions in favor of federalism need be taken
by only a few hundred enlightened politicians.25 The declaration went on to stress
that the European citizenry, not the states,
must control directly the executive, legislative, and judiciary organs of the new Federation of Europe. Though the Milan conferees did not explicitly debar any group
fighting against Fascism, they made a veiled
reference to Soviet Communism when they
observed "that a federalist orientation excludes any form of totalitarianism and excludes also those forms of unity that are
either hegemonic or only superficially federalist and really subject to the iron control
of totalitarian bodies of whatever type."26
In the discussions Spinelli underscored how
Italy could benefit by joining a democratic
European federation. Politically, it would
help her to consolidate democracy; economically, it would enable her to plan production in the most rewarding way, to secure
the necessary capital, to export surplus labor
to countries needing manpower, and to undertake broad social reforms; while culturally, it would permit Italy to strengthen
her already numerous ties with other nations.27 Before adjourning, the Milan federalists instructed a Provisional Committee
to keep in touch with similar groups in
other countries.
Italian federalists participated actively in
the armed resistance which began on September 8, 1943, and they published eight
25 See especially his arguments in "Le vie della
politica estera italiana," written in September
1944 and printed in A. Spinelli, Dagli stati
sovrani agli stati uniti (Florence, 1951), pp.
158-59.
26 See covert [Milan] L'Unita europea, No. 5
(July-Aug. 1944), p. 1.
27 Spinelli, Dagli stati sovrani agli stati uniti,
passim.

clandestine issues of their newspaper,

L'Uniti Europea.28 Most of the federalists
joined one or another of the five parties in
the new Committees of National Liberation,
patently hoping to steer them toward federalist goals. Except for the Communists
(and also the extreme rightist factions), most
of the new political parties found it expedient to pay lip-service to the cause of
European integration.29 But in the absence
of formal party congresses, such declarations
were unbinding. Federalistic members of the
Italian Socialist party were handicapped too
by the "unity of action" pact which then
linked their party to the Communists. It was
hard for the Socialists to speak out for something their Communist partners opposed.
Yet even this obstacle was hurdled for a
time by Colorni, who edited Avanti! in
Rome. Unhappily for the federalists, the
Nazis caught and killed Colorni on the very
eve of that city's liberation.30
The Christian Democrats were the largest
of the new Italy's "mass parties" to seek a
federalist goal, to be reached in accordance
with the proclamations of Pius XII and the
most recent tradition of Catholic political
thought. The Catholics (who until 1919 had
been ordered by the Vatican to boycott the
political life of the Italian Kingdom31) were
28 The first two issues (May and August 1943)
were edited by Colorni; the remainder by Avv.
Mario Rollier. The third appeared early in
September and discussed the Milan meeting.
29 See especially the article by "Proc," entitled
"Consuntivo: cosa ne e del federalismo nei
partiti politici italiani alla fine del 1944?" in
L'Unita' europea, No. 8 (Jan.-Feb. 1945), pp. 1-2
and 8.
30 He was captured on May 31, 1944, on his
way to a meeting of Socialist and Communist
conspirators. See L'Unita europea, No. 5 (JulyAug. 1944), p. 4. The federalist credo that he
intended to propose to the Italian Socialist party
was printed in ibid., No. 6 (Sept.-Oct. 1944),
pp. 2-3.
31 In 1919 Sturzo's new Popular party had
backed Wilson's League of Nations. During his
long exile after 1926 Sturzo advocated a more
effective League. If there was to be any federation of Europe, it must include both Britain
and Soviet Russia, he believed. Sturzo, Italy and
the coming world, pp. 217-25 and 267-74, and
his Nationalism and internationalism (New York,
1946).
In the 1930's Coudenhove-Kalergi found the
Vatican Ossei-vatore romano willinig to display

THE EUROPEAN FEDERALIST MOVEMENT IN ITALY

probably, the least nationalistic of all the
major democratic forces. By way of contrast,
Europe's Socialists, who had started out as
internationalists, proved to be better at
nationalizing
anything
themselves,than
else.32 And the Liberals, who had spearheaded the Risorgimento, were generally reluctant (except for Einaudi's group) to minimize the sovereignty of their precious creature.33 No such considerations inhibited the
Christian Democrats. Moreover, the fact that
Alcide De Gasperi came from the borderlands34 helped to augment their "European"
outlook. De Gasperi (and like-minded men)
realized that defeated Italy could no longer
aspire to play off the victors as she had
tried in the past. The days of "sacred egoism" and "waltz turns" designed to "gain
much" from the great powers were gone
for good. Only federation could provide
prostrate Italy with any sensible hope for
security and economic well-being.
I should caution, however, that Christian
Democratic pre-eminence in the integration
movement dates chiefly from 1946-47 in
Italy-in other words, after De Gasperi had
gained political power and the vexing issues
of the Italian monarchy and the peace treaty
had been settled.35 During the months of
the bitter underground struggle there had
been a minimum of contact between the
Christian Democrats and the MFE in Italy
-partly because of the anticlerical and antiat least a "friendly attitude" toward his panEuropeanism, in contrast to the snubs he usually
received in the Fascist press. Coudenhove-Kalergi, p. 112.
32 This was revealed, for example, when British Laborites assumed political power and took
responsibility for economic planning.
33A. Spinelli, "The growth of the European
movement since World War II," in Haines (ed.),
European integration, pp. 44-45.
34De Gasperi came from the Trentino and
had been in the Austrian parliament before
World War I. It is interesting to note that two
eminent French and German Christian Democratic federalists, Robert Schuman and Konrad
Adenauer, also came from the borderlands. The
fullest biography of the Italian statesman is
Giulio Andreotti, De Gasperi e il suo tempo
(Milan, 1956).
35In
the postwar era the Italian Christian
Democrats associated themselves with the international Catholic federalist movement, Nouvelles ]Rquipes Internationales.

247

royalist bias of the latter group. Members of

Spinelli's MFE had found instead their most
congenial company in the small but vigorous Action party, made up of republicans
with socialist leanings.36 That party's Resistenza hero, Ferruccio Parri, was to become
Italy's first postwar premier and an enthusiastic backer of federalism.
Neighboring Switzerland provided the Italian federalists with their safest base of operations during the Resistance struggle. Men
like Einaudi and Rossi, who had raised their
heads during the summer of 1943, had no
choice but to seek refuge in the mountain
republic when the Nazis overran northern
Italy in September.37 It was in Switzerland
that Einaudi announced his formal adherence to the MFE.38 He and Rossi proceeded to publish a formidable amount of
federalist literature-of which the most important was a long pamphlet by Rossi
("Thelos"), entitled L'Europe de demain. It
was printed in ten thousand copies on very
thin paper and sent covertly in May 1944
into Nazi-occupied France.39
36 Spinelli, Rossi, and Ginzburg joined its ranks.
Other Actionists who backed federalism were
Ferruccio Parri, Ugo La Malfa, Piero Calamandrei, Aldo Garosci, etc. Regarding the Action
party's "European" orientation, see the clandestine "Quaderni del Partito d'Azione," No. 2,
by Francesco Fancello, II Partito d'Azione nei
suoi metodi e nei suoi fini (Jan. 1944), p. 39; No.
10, Punti programmatici fondamentali del Partito d'Azione, pp. 12-13; and No. 15, by "Edgardo Monroe" [Mario Rollier], Stati Uniti
d'Europa?
37 Even before September 8, 1943, a sizable
group of Italian anti-Fascist exiles had found
haven in Switzerland. Among the most active
was Ignazio Silone, who kept up a flow of reformist socialist propaganda and was friendly to
the cause of European federation.
38 Under the pen-name, "Junius," Einaudi
wrote a pamphlet, I problemi economici della
federazione europea, which dealt with concrete
economic problems that a European federation
must resolve. Published in Lugano in 1944 in
the series, "Nuove edizioni di Capolago," it was
reprinted after the war in Einaudi, La guerra
e l'unita europea, pp. 35-120.
39 The long article's subsections were: (1) Destruction of our civilization; (2) International
anarchy; (3) Failure of the League of Nations;
(4) Federalist solution; (5) Europe and the German problem; (6) European unity; (7) United
States of Europe; and (8) Utopia and reality. In

248

CHARLES F. DELZELL

In Switzerland the Italian federalist refugees quickly learned of the existence of

parallel groups in the resistance movements
of other countries. They worked hard to
co-ordinate these currents and were greatly
assisted by Rev. Dr. Willem Visser 't Hooft,
the late Dutch Secretary-General of the
World Council of Churches. They held their
own version of a Dumbarton Oaks Conference in his Geneva home between March
and May 1944. At the end of that time a
group representing undergrounds of eight
countries (France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and
Germany) signed a memorable "International Federalist Declaration," edited by the
Italians, which emphasized the need for an
immediate common struggle for federal
union by all the European resistance movements. This declaration was infiltrated into
the countries still under occupation and
was also sent to England.40
January. 1945 it was printed by the Geneva
Centre d'Action pour la Fd&ration Europeenne in a volume with other federalist documents of the underground: L'Europe de demain
(Neuchatel: Ed. Baconni&re).
Rossi also collaborated in Switzerland with
the Comitato Italiano di Cultura Sociale, which
undertook the tutelage of Italian youths interned there. He wrote the chapter, "La nazione nel mondo," in Uomo e cittadino, a volume published by this committee, and he
penned the sections dealing with federalism in
a small political dictionary that accompanied it.
He also prepared for publication eight periodicals of the MFE which circulated in mimeographed forn and included essays by Roepke,
Layton, Beveridge, and Wootton. Finally, he was
responsible for publishing four pamphlets in
the "Nuove edizioni di Capolago" series, including Einaudi's (cf. n. 38) and his -own (signed
"Storeno"), Gli Stati Uniti d'Europa.
Another Italian in Switzerland who wrote on
the general subject was Umberto Campagnolo,
Repubblica federale europea: unificazione giuridica dell'Europa (Milan, 1945).
40 See L'Unit& europe
No. 5 (July-Aug. 1944),
p. 1, and ibid., No. 8 (Jan.-Feb. 1945), p. 4, for
text; reprinted in L'Europe de demain, pp. 6875. The declaration noted the solidarity of the
Resistance movements and gave its approval to
the "essential declarations of the Atlantic Charter," but immediately added that "these ends
can be achieved only if the- different countries
of the world agree to transcend the dogma of
absolute sovereignty of states by integrating
themselves into a single federal organization."

Meanwhile, in occupied France a Committee for European Federation, which had

organized itself in Lyon, received a copy of
the Italian federalist theses drafted in Milan
and followed these almost word for word
in a declaration it issued in June 1944.41
And when the French committee learned
that the Dumbarton Oaks draft proposal
for a United Nations included no federalist
principles,42 it recommended the summoning of an international meeting of federalists
in Paris. With the help of the "Mouvement
de Liberation National" and "Combat," this
Paris conference took place March 22-25,
1945, a month after the Big Three had met
in Yalta.43 Spinelli, his wife, and a secretary
A worldwide federal union was not yet feasible,
but a European one was, especially inasmuch
as "European peace is the master key to world
peace." Only a federal union would permit participation of the German people in European
life without their being a danger; make possible
the solution of boundary questions in frontier
zones of mixed population; permit the safeguarding of democratic institutions in countries
lacking political maturity; allow economic reconstruction of the continent and suppression
of monopolies and national autarchies; permit
the logical and natural solution of problems of
access to the sea, rational use of rivers crossing
several states, and control of the, Straits.
"The Federal Union must possess essentially
(1) a government responsible not to the governments. of the various member states but to
their peoples, by whom it must be elected and
over whom it must be able to exercise direct
jurisdiction within the limits assigned to it; (2)
an armed force at its orders, which excludes all
other national armies; (3) a supreme tribunal,
which will judge all questions relative to the
interpretation of the Federal Constitution and
resolve all conflicts among member states or
between outside states and the federation."
41 Printed in LEurope de demain, pp. 75-78;
also in L'Unitd europea, No. 6 (Sept.-Oct. 1944),
p. 4.
42 The
pessimism with which federalists
greeted the Dumbarton Oaks plan can be seen
in the article, "Dopo Dumbarton Oaks: 'Le
Nazioni Unite' e il federalismo europeo," in
L'Unita europea. No. 6 (Sept.-Oct. 1944), pp.
3-4.
43 For the MFE's reaction to the United Nations blueprint revealed at Yalta and to Italy's
inability to attend the impending San Francisco
Conference, see "San Francisco e l'Italia," in
L'Unita
europea, No. 8 (Jan.-Feb. 1945), pp.
1-2.

THE EUROPEAN FEDERALIST MOVEMENT IN ITALY

of the Italian Action party went to the Paris
conclave. Other participants included George
Orwell, Spanish exiles, Frenchmen, Swiss,
Austrians, Germans, and Greeks. The resolution, drafted by Spinelli,,called not for
new parties but for "establishment of close
international agreements among all [existing] movements, parties, and states that advocate a European federalist policy, with
the hope of developing a common and coordinated action."44
A month later Allied armies, aided by the
Italian underground, drove the Germans
out of the Po valley. The MFE quickly
opened the doors of its headquarters in
Milan at Via Monte Napoleone 27 and began legal' publication of its newspaper.45
MFE organized about one hundred sections,
claiming by mid-1947 some 15,000 members,
mostly in northern Italy.46
But the world and local situation greatly
hampered the growth of the federalist movement in Italy until 1947. In the first place,
the Allies forestalled most of the postwar
revolutionary upheavals that Spinelli's group
had hoped to take advantage of. And the'
violence that did break out in contested
Trieste strengthened the hands of Italian
nationalists rather than the federalists. Moreover, until 1947 the Big Three talked in
terms of world, not European, organization,
and they clearly intended to preserve national sovereignties. And now that the war
was won, the British lost most of the interest
in European integration that they had shown
in the dark, early phase of the war. Then,
too, as Stalin tightened his grip on Eastern
Europe, it became useless to plan any more
for unification of all Europe. Perhaps, as
Spinelli has written, the Italian federalists
should have raised their voices at this time
44 See L'Unit& europea, No. 9 (Apr. 29, 1945),
pp. 3-4, for Spinelli's report of the congress's
work.
45 It was edited first by Rollier and Rossi in
Milan; later it was moved to Turin, where Professor Augusto Monti served as director and
Professor Francesco Lo Bue became managing
editor.
Meantime in liberated Rome, A. Allia published a book, Confederazione europea (1944).
46 See Ferruccio Parri, Piero Calamandrei, Ignazio Silone, Luigi Einaudi, and Gaetano Salvemini, Europa federata (Milan, 1947), p. 92.
The expansion of the MFE is documented in
the postwar issues of its organ, L'Unita europea.

249

against the spread of Communism and incited toward federation the peoples who
remained free in the West.47 But this was
hard to do, especially in view of the bitter
fight being waged against the House of
Savoy-an issue which was not settled till
the referendum of June 1946. Since Italian
federalists overwhelmingly preferred a republic, they could not afford to alienate
Communist voters until this goal was won.Under these circumstances, those who had:
founded MFE became disinterested even
though they did not abandon it. When the
Italian federalists met in Venice for their
first national congress in October 1946, their
objectives were hazy, and the movement fell
pretty much into the hands of crypto-Communists.48

Notwithstanding, a federalist parliamentary group (led by ex-Premier Parri, Professor Calamandrei, and Ugo La Malfa) that
had organized itself within the newly elected
Constituent Assembly chalked up a signal
triumph in the drafting of the Constitution,
though the implications were not fully understood by most of the men who voted for
it. This was article #1, whereby Italy consented, "on condition of parity with the
other states, to the,limitation of sovereignty
necessary for a system that assures peace
and justice among nations." Analogous articles were inserted by federalists in the new
French and German constitutions and haveproved quite useful.
The frustrating postwar months of "mairking time" came to a halt as Soviet expansionism became clearer and Secretary of
State George Marshall announced his famous plan in mid-1947. This signified that
America, instead of pursuing the nearly
hopeless task of finding an accord with Russia, would take the initiative in giving
strong support to those European states
which pledged themselves to work toward
economic unification.
Italy's federalists quickly sensed their new
opportunity. A few days later (July 29)
Einaudi mounted the rostrum of the Constituent Assembly to urge his more Cisalpine-minded colleagues to ratify the peace
treaty regardless of its harshness and thus
close an unhappy chapter of Italian history.
47 Spinelli, "II federalismo europeo in Italia:
nascita del movimento," p. 8.
48 Ibid.

250

CHARLES F. DELZELL

He proclaimed with great earnestness that

the country's next goal must be the United
States of Europe. "We shall never arrive at
the conquest of a rich variety of national
lives, freely operating within the framework
of a unified European life, unless one of the
European peoples takes the lead," Einaud;
argued. "I hope that this people will be the
Italians!"49 Einaudi's appeal was heeded.
Under the leadership of Premier De Gasperi,
Foreign Minister Sforza,50 and their successors, Italy's centrist parties have campaigned
49 His speech is reprinted in Einaudi, La
guerra e l'unita europea, pp. 121-33.
50 See Sforza, 0 federazione europea o nuove
guerre, and his memoirs, Cinque anni a Palazzo

resolutely not just for "functional" communities of the Schuman coal-and-steel type
but for a genuine political and constitutional federation of Europe that would include both Britain and Germany. The
parliament of such a European Federation
should, according to the Italian federalists,
be responsible to peoples and not to states,
and it should have sovereign control over
foreign policy, defense, currency, and interstate commerce.
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY

Chigi: la politica estera italiana dal 1947 ai

1951 (Rome, 1952).