‘To Learn Nothing and To Forget Nothing’: Italian Socialism and the Experience of Exile Politics, 1935–1945

Abstract

As the Italian anti-fascist exiles reorganised after the establishment of a full dictatorship in 1925, they were confronted by a series of difficult issues that no longer could be dealt with in the national context. The overriding need to heal the divisions within the Italian left now would be conditioned by choices made on the international level. The abdication of the Western democracies at Munich meant to many on the left that the Soviet Union was the essential bulwark against fascism. Within the Italian Socialist Party Pietro Nenni defended the alliance with the Communist Party and support for the Soviet Union. Alternatives offered by Angelo Tasca questioned both the exclusive alliance with the Communists and unquestioning support for the Soviet Union. Tasca also developed a European perspective which tended to marginalise the Soviets both ideologically and diplomatically. These positions put him at odds with Nenni. Tasca's position was complicated by his parallel membership of the French SFIO, his French citizenship and, in 1940, his decision to support Vichy. Tasca's defection and Nenni's triumph made the Italian Socialist Party more hostile after the fall of fascism to new thinking on European unity and alternatives to unity of action with the Communists.