Fascism, the Mafia, and the Emergence of Sicilian Separatism (1919-43) Author(s): Jack E. Reece Source: The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Jun., 1973), pp. 261-276 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1875676 . Accessed: 04/05/2013 06:22 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
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Fascism, the Mafia, and the Emergence of Sicilian Separatism (1919-43)* Jack E. Reece University of Pennsylvania
In the summer of 1937, Benito Mussolini traveled to Sicily for the second time, which was twice as many trips as any of his non-Sicilian prime ministerial predecessors had cared or dared to undertake to that Mafiaridden island. His purpose was to hymn Sicily as the center of Italy's newly won Mediterranean empire, and in Palermo he observed that Sicily was "Fascist to the bone-marrow."1 This remark has seldom failed to amuse historians and observers of Sicily who almost unanimously agree that Sicily was the least Fascist of all Italian regions. Most recently, Denis Mack Smith has written that, until the summer of 1922, Fascism made virtually no headway on the island.2 Fascists, in fact, won no seats in Sicily in the parliamentary elections of 1919 and 1921. There was no official Fascist newspaper until January 1925.3 Of the 25,000 Fascists who "marched on Rome" in October 1922, fewer than 100 came directly from Sicily.4There was, it is true, a local "Fascio di combattimento" in Palermo as early as November 1920, but its membership included no more than 120 persons. 5 Certain Sicilian writers have even pointed to the existence in Sicily in *This article is part of a more general study of the political and electoral role of the Mafia in Sicily since 1860 in which I am currently engaged. 'Cited in Giuseppe Savona, In neo-pseudo-separatismo siciliano (Palermo, 1944), p. 18. According to Denis Mack Smith, Modem Sicily (New York, 1968), p. 520, rumor had it that Mussolini intended to announce the formation of a special regional government for Sicily during this trip. Instead, he boasted only of the installations of his army, navy, and air ministries which made the island an impregnable fortress. "Only out of madness," he claimed, "could anyone think of an invasion. No one will ever disembark here, not even a single soldier." Cited in Antonio Trizzino, Che vuole la Sicilia? (Rome, 1945), p. 25. The almost effortless ease with which the Allies landed at Gela in July 1943 gave the lie to this boast. 2Mack Smith, p. 509. 3 Sicilia Nuova (Palermo), January 1, 1925. The weekly La Fiamma, founded by Alfredo Cucco at Palermo in September 1919, consistently supported the Fascists, however. Cucco's home was also the site of the first meeting of the Palermo "Fascio di combattimento" in November 1920. For further details see Pippo Ragusa, Squadrismo palermitana (Palermo, 1934), pp. 46-47, 50.52. 4This figure is based on scattered biographical data in Ragusa, esp. pp. 165ff. See also Annibale Bianco, II fascismo in Sicilia (Catania, 1923), pp. 3940. 5Ragusa, p. 52. [Journal of Modern History 45 (June 1973): 261-2761
261
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262 Jack E. Reece 1923 of an organized anti-Fascist resistance called the soldino movement.6 (Soldino referred to a small lapel button bearing the likeness of the king which the conspirators wore to identify each other.) Headed by a deputy from Messina, Professor Ettore Lombardo Pellegrino, the soldino group apparently provoked a small disturbance at Messina on May 10, 1923-an incident which was repeated on succeeding days at Palermo, Catania, Syracuse, Sciacca, Barcellona, and Castellammare. Allegedly fearing that a general armed rebellion against Fascist rule was imminent, Mussolini ordered the arrest of Lombardo Pellegrino. According to Trizzino, thousands of other islanders suffered a similar fate. Thereafter, the appearance of an armored motor patrol along the road from Messina to Palermo was sufficient to destroy what was left of the conspiracy. Despite the ease with which the soldino movement was dispersed by Fascist authorities, Mussolini himself is reported to have described it in 1927 as "the most dangerous anti-Fascist movement" to occur in Italy since his appointment as prime minister.7 Several explanations have been advanced to account for the lack of enthusiasm for Fascism in Sicily. According to Carlo Avarna di Gualtieri, Sicilians considered Fascism a political phenomenon peculiar to the North, the product of a local situation which bore little resemblance to socioeconomic conditions on the island. Fascism consequently found favor with no important group in Sicily. The dominant capitalist-industrialagrarian class felt no particular need to have its interests defended by the Fascists while the peasant masses of the population remained politically inert. As for the working class, it was a tiny minority which in any case lacked a program of specific grievances which could be exploited by the Fascists.8 Giuseppe Gennuso has similarly written that Sicilians looked on Fascism as "the plague of the Po Valley," an imposition on the island like all other goods from the North. Squadrtistaviolence erupted only sporadically in Sicily. When it appeared, it had more in common with traditional patterns of violence associated with the Sicilian vendetta than it did with political action as was the case on the continent. In Gennuso's view it was simply to misgovern and to exploit Sicily and to provide new sinecures for its proconsuls that Fascism sent hierarchs to the island. If there were native-born Sicilians who collaborated with Fascism, Gennuso assures us that they were exclusively "fugitives from local clientelistic cliques and
6Trizzino, pp. 10-12; Santi Correnti, Storia di Sicilia (Catania, 1956), p. 193; and G. Sardo, "Sicilia-cause e limiti del separatismo," in Le autonomie regionali e il Mezzogiorno, ed. Luigi Sturzo (Rome, 1944), p. 74. 7Cited by Sardo, p. 74. See also Trizzino, p. 11. 8Carlo Avarna di Gualtieri, "La questione siciliana," Nuova Antologia 82 (January 1947): 66-67.
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Sicilian Separatism 263 arnivistes produced by the arrogant and ignorant landed proprietor class." 8 A variation on the above theme was developed in 1923 by Annibale Bianco, an early Sicilian Fascist writer. Since the struggle against Bolshevism constituted the major dynamic element in the Fascist movement, he argued, it was understandable that Fascism had the character of an artificial implantation on the island because Bolshevism hardly existed in Sicily. The number of individual Sicilian Fascists was small for the same reason. 10 Pippo Ragusa, another Fascist militant, repeated Bianco's argument a decade later and added that "because there was no true and proper red peril [in Sicily] the pioneers found it difficult to affirm their Fascist faith." 11 Non-Fascist Sicilians, particularly those associated with the autonomist movement, have offered their own explanations. for Fascism's lack of appeal in Sicily. That of Luigi Tomeucci is typical. In his view, Fascism was no more than the Po Valley totalitarian response to totalitarian communism of German origin and Russian implementation. Neither system could find a positive reception in Sicily, according to Tomeucci, because of the ancient respect shown by Sicilians for individual liberty and the sanctity of family and human life. Fascism, in essence a military dictatorship, was therefore alien to Sicily because Fascist ideology was incompatible with the Sicilian temperament. 12 The inadequacy of the foregoing analyses is apparent. Fascism was a far more complex political, social, and psychological phenomenon than either Bianco or Ragusa, for example, would have us believe. Tomeucci is equally unconvincing. In view of the long history of foreign domination in Sicily and the ease with which illiberal authoritarian regimes have been able to establish themselves on the island during the past several centuries, one may legitimately doubt the rooted commitment of Sicilians to the defense of individual liberty and the rights of men. Far more persuasive than any of the above are the arguments advanced by Michele Pantaleone and S. Massimo Ganci to explain the initial limited appeal of Fascism in Sicily. According to Pantaleone, the retarded state of Sicilian political, economic, and social structures meant that the postwar crisis did not produce there the great protest movements which swept the North after 1919. There were no factory occupations in Sicily because there were virtually no factories. If there were sporadic occupations of latifundia by land-hungry Sicilian peasants, there occurred no squadrista reaction like that spon9Giuseppe Gennuso, La questione siciliana (Rome, 1945), p. 26. 10Bianco (n. 4 above), pp. 8, 28-29, 31. " Ragusa (n. 3 above), p. i. 12 Luigi Tomeucci, II dialogo dei vivi (Palermo, 1948), p. 29. See also Trizzino (n. 1 above), p. 12.
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264 Jack E. Reece sored by the landed proprietors of the Po Valley because the land-owning class in Sicily preferred the effective and familiar repressive action of majioso organizations. 13 In addition, Ganci emphasizes that there existed in 1922 no significant middle-class strata in Sicily prepared to patronize Fascism. On the contrary, those middle-class elements which were present aligned themselves against the Fascist movement. Thus it happened that after 1922 there existed in Sicily a strand of opinion which took its inspiration from the old Giolittian Liberal party. There was also, according to Ganci, a less active resistance which drew on Catholic, Socialist, and Communist ideals as a doctrinal basis for its anti-Fascism. 14 The analyses of Pantaleone and Ganci are, on the whole, plausible, but they leave important questions unanswered. They do not explain, for example, why Fascism established itself so easily in Sicily after 1922, why there is today so much lingering nostalgia on the island for Fascism, or why so many Sicilians consistently give their votes to the neo-Fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano. 15 Nor do they explain the equally important question of why the political response in Sicily to the abrupt disappearance of the ultranationalist Fascist party in July 1943 should have been the so-called separatist hurricane which confused Sicilian politics during the two years after the Allied invasion. 16 In the pages which follow, I hope to suggest at least tentative answers to these questions. If the Liberals who had dominated Sicilian politics before 1914 eventually adopted anti-Fascist positions, their benevolent attitude toward the advent of Fascism in 1922 made far less difficult Mussolini's task of installing his dictatorship on the island. The Liberals had, after all, been very nearly wiped out in the elections of 1919 which saw the Socialists and the Catholic popolari capture all but a half-dozen of the fifty-seven Sicilian parliamentary constituencies.17 As elsewhere in Italy, myopic conservatives in Sicily looked favorably on the violence which Fascists 13
Michele Pantaleone, Mafia e politica, 1943-1962 (Turin, 1962), pp. 51-52. S. Massimo Ganci, LItalia antimoderata (Parma, 1968), pp. 262-63. 15 In every general parliamentary election since 1948 the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) has won proportionally more votes in Sicily than elsewhere in Italy. In 1953, for example, 11.7 percent of the Sicilian electorate voted for the neo-Fascists while the percentage for Italy at large was 5.9. In the provincial elections of June 14, 1971, which saw the MSI make striking gains all over Italy, Sicily led the way by giving the neo-Fascists 16.3 percent of its total vote. This represents a doubling of the MSI vote in the administrative elections of 1970 and makes the neo-Fascist group the third largest party in the Sicilian regional assembly. For further details see Corriere della Sera (Milan), April 22, 1948, p. 1; May 28, 1958, pp. 1-2; May 1, 1963, pp. 1, 7; May 22, 1968, pp. 1, 5; New York Times, June 15, 1971, p. 11; and Regione Siciliana, Le elezioni in Sicilia, dati egrafici dal 1946 al 1956 (Milan, 1956), pp. 447, 496, 632-33. 16 The phrase "separatist hurricane" belongs to Marcello Cimino whose series of articles "L'uragano separatista" appeared at intervals in the Palermo newspaper L'Ora from June 20, 1965 to April 2, 1966. 17 Mack Smith (n. 1 above), p. 506. 14
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Sicilian Separatism 265 directed at the Socialists and left-wing popolari and viewed Mussolini's party as a most opportune defender of property under attack. Even if the Fascists talked endlessly of syndicalism, a strong state, a national, disciplined, and monolithic party, and the political efficacy of castor oil, Liberal politicians convinced themselves that it was all a matter of juvenile rhetoric and mere propaganda. The Fascists could be integrated and accommodated by the customary order of things without great difficulty, or so Sicilian Liberal conservatives thought. Likewise, the aristocratic land-owning class-especially in western Sicily--welcomed Fascism in 1922 with open arms. This was not because of any identity of views with the ideas of Mussolini but rather because this class from the beginning recognized in the new Fascist dictatorship its decisively conservative character. In alliance with Fascism these aristocrats-frightened by the scattered instances of land occupations since 1919-hoped to restore the halcyon "good old days," which simply meant the maintenance and defense of aristocratic privileges. Even more important, the Sicilian landed aristocracy almost certainly calculated that the installation of a strong police-based regimnein Sicily would enable it to shake off the increasingly onerous burden of alliance with the Mafia. For its part, the Mafia, which had so many points of contact with the conservative political formations in western Sicily-points of contact which became most clearly visible during parliamentary electoral campaigns-conducted itself vis-A-vis the Fascists much as the Liberals did during the period immediately following October 1922.18 It sought to support Fascism, ally with it, infiltrate it, and, if possible, to corrupt it. Several factors were responsible for the initial mutual tolerance demonstrated by Fascism and the Mafia. Above all else Mussolini was determined to destroy any possibility of effective land occupations and to suppress banditism. Since he had not yet in hand the police-state apparatus which was to emerge only after 1924, he had during the first two years of his regime compelling reasons to enter into collaboration with influential maftosi, men who were capable of enforcing law and order in the countryside. On the other hand, certain mafiosi had become very rich and powerful before and especially during the war in land and cattle speculation and were beginning to form what can only be described as a mafioso middle class. Many of them hoped to point their sons to more respectable careers and were therefore prepared to forego their previous criminal activities.19 This line of conduct seemed especially attractive to many "8Severalof the most important Sicilian politicians after 1860-including Francesco Crispi and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando-owed their routine reelection to the Chamber in Rome to Mafia electioneering influence. On this, see Pantaleone (n. 13 above), p. 32. '90n the embourgeoisement of the Mafia, see Pantaleone (n. 13 above), pp. 51-53; Domenico Novacco, Inchiesta sulla mafia (Milan, 1963), pp. 272-79; and E. J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels (New York, 1959), pp. 4243, 47-49.
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266 Jack E. Reece wealthy mafiosi after 1922. Alliance with Fascism appeared not only to be the best guarantee of preserving their property, advantages, and prestige, but it also provided a timely opportunity for the acquisition of social and political respectability. Hence, during the years immediately after 1922, the Mafia supported Fascism more or less freely. When they were not encumbered with too notorious a prison record or sunk in absolute illiteracy, individual mafiosi openly joined the local party organization and at times attained leading positions in it. According to one observer, the ranks of Fascist hierarchs in western Sicily were, before 1926, composed almost exclusively of landed nobles, mafiosi, and well-known lawyersfor the Mafia.20 The most noted of these was the deputy Alfredo Cucco whose mafioso activities were a matter of public record. Cucco ultimately became federale for the province of Palermo before his Mafia connections proved too embarrassing and provoked his expulsion from the Fascist party.21 Within the ranks of the intransigent "pure" Sicilian Fascists there was opposition to collaboration with the Mafia. Nino Sammartino and Guglielmo lannelli warned of the danger of a Sicilian "deformation" of Fascism. They feared most of all that contact with the Mafia would cause the movement in Sicily to lose its resolve to reconstruct the state according to the corporative and totalitarian formulas they favored.22 Annibale Bianco more generally protested the inclusion of "eleventh-hour Fascists" into the hierarchy of the new regime in Sicily, a process he thought had already gone too far by 1923. Instead of "rallying the best elements in Sicilian society [to Fascism] after the March on Rome one saw flock into the party those who always have their noses in the air testing the direction of the wind, those who are accustomed to changing their banners a hundred times a day."23 In conclusion Bianco charged that "Fascism which elsewhere is that passion, ardor and pure faith which fascinates and inspires, here [in Sicily] is calculation, convenience and profit; Fascism which elsewhere seeks to renew the Italian spirit and to rescue Italy from her internal enemies, here seeks only to conquer municipalities and to defend electoral positions; Fascism which elsewhere is eager to unite under its banner all Italians in the name of the Fatherland and its Roman civilization, here, because of the deficiencies of its leaders, instead of absorbing and destroying local factions, stimulates, fosters and reinvigorates them."24 20 Pantaleone, p. 53. Pantaleone is a native of Villalba, a notorious stronghold of the Mafia and home of the deceased capomafla Don Cal6 Vizzini. 21 Ibid., p. 59. 22Cited in Novacco, p. 281. 23Bianco (n. 4 above), p. 43. 24Ibid., pp. 53-54.
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Other voices within the party also demanded that the Fascist state shake off the Mafia embrace and destroy the criminal society. On March 11, 1923, La Fiamma, the weekly organ of the Fascist Federation in Palermo, printed a violent attack on the Mafia.25 But Mussolini still needed his mafioso allies for a time, especially their aid in maintaining law and order in the Sicilian countryside. A conflict between the two was inevitable, however, since an absolute power such as the Fascist state claimed itself to be could not forever tolerate in Sicily a rival in the form of a mafioso subgovernment. Cesare Mori, later Mussolini's prefectoral hammer in Sicily, expressed this bluntly when he wrote that "the statist conception of Fascism, i.e. the affirmation of the State in its totality, in its force and in its prestige, made coexistence with the Mafia impossible."26 Two events during the spring of 1924 together served as the catalyst which determined Mussolini to move against the Mafia. In April there occurred the first national political elections to take place under Fascism. In order to maximize his electoral chances, Mussolini formed an alliance with the Liberal party in Sicily. A single list which included former prime minister Orlando, several representatives of the old political clienteles, and a majority of Fascists was accordingly presented. Aided by mafioso thugs and electoral managers, this list won an overwhelming victory, virtually destroying the Socialist and popolari movements in the process. 27 Its opponents on the Sicilian left destroyed, Mussolini's party then proceeded to renounce its alliance with the Liberal right and destroy it in turn. This occurred in 1925 when the Fascists inflicted a smashing defeat on Orlando's party in the Palermo administrative elections.228 In the meantime, his hand strengthened by the electoral victory of 1924, Mussolini declared war on the Mafia. In May 1924, he made a triumphal tour of Sicily to consolidate his political gains of the previous month. Stopping first at Palermo, the Duce told enthusiastic crowds that he was fully informed concerning the problems which assailed Sicily and promised to remedy them. He in fact pledged a "new deal" for Sicily and assured his audience that his government would end the tragic neglect which had been the island's fate during all previous administrations of 25Citedin Novacco, p. 281. Although Alfredo Cucco, the editor of La Fiamma, had long been associated with the Mafia, his call for its suppression was apparently an attempt to demonstrate his complete loyalty to Fascism. On Cucco's anti-Mafia activity see Ragusa (n. 3 above), pp. 49-50. 26 From Cesare Mori, Con la mafia aifemi corti (Milan, 1932), reprinted in Antologia della mafia, ed. Nando Russo (Palermo, 1964), p. 560. 27Mack Smith (n. 1 above), p. 509, rightly describes the outcome as an "electoral revolution." Fascists won thirty-eight of the fifty-seven Sicilian constituencies while the Socialists elected only two deputies and the Communists won but a single seat. 28Considerably chastened, Orlando resigned as deputy and returned to private law practice. On this, see Novacco (n. 19 above), p. 282, and Mack Smith, p. 509.
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268 Jack E. Reece post-Risorgimento Italy. 29 Moving on to Agrigento, Mussolini addressed himself to the problem of public security on the island and the baneful influence of the Mafia. In that city, "where the number of mafiosi was surpassed only by the number of their victims," the Fascist leader announced that it was "no longer tolerable that a few hundred criminals should oppress a magnificent population such as yours."30 There was always the possibility that Mussolini's pledge would not be honored, but an incident later in his tour at Piana dei Greci ensured that it would be otherwise. Piana dei Greci was the center of a notorious Mafia gang headed by Don Ciccio Cuccia, podestd of the commune.31 Cesare Mori, recently appointed to the Palermo prefecture and the man charged with making security arrangements for the trip to Piana, fixed it so that Mussolini and Cuccia would ride in the same automobile.32 His reasoning was that no one would dare touch Mussolini in the presence of so powerful a maftoso. As an added precaution Mori also provided a heavily armed motorcycle escort for the parade through Piana. All went well until the end of the procession when Cuccia turned to Mussolini and said: "There is no need for so many cops (sbirri). Beside me your Excellency has nothing to fear because I give all the orders around here." Turning to his men, Cuccia, in a voice full of authority, ordered: "Nobody is to touch a hair of my friend Mussolini's 29Reportedin La Fiamma, May 11, 1924, p. 1. Specifically, Mussolini promised that new roads and waterworks would be constructed in Sicily and that the latifundia would be equipped and the sulphur industry reformed. 30Cited in Novacco (n. 19 above), p. 283. 31 That Cuccia had been appointed podestlA, a post created by the Fascist regime to replace that of communal mayor, illustrates Novacco's point that the Mafia had "massively infiltrated" the Fascist party and administrative apparatus (ibid., p. 284). 32 Cesare Mori (born at Pavia in 1872), an exceptionally able and intelligent member of the Italian prefectoral corps, was far from a convinced Fascist. In April 1921 he was appointed prefect at Bologna, a typically Fascist region, and later in the year he served briefly as a sort of superprefect responsible for coordinating all the public security forces in the entire lower Po valley. He resigned the latter post because the government refused to accept his reasonable view that Fascism was primarily a politicosocial problem, not one for the police, and ought to be dealt with accordingly. Nonetheless, at Bologna he was known for his extreme firmness in the face of Fascist street violence and did not hesitate to use the police forces at his disposal against it. Only thus, he thought, could the authority of the state be restored. The Fascists instead charged that his actual motive was to protect the Socialists (Mori in fact was a follower of the non-Socialist Radical politician Francesco Saverio Nitti) and conducted a violent campaign against him throughout 1921 and 1922. After a monster Fascistsponsored demonstration against him at Bologna on June 26, 1922, Mori was transferred out of the region by the government. Given this background, Mori's loyal service under Mussolini in Sicily after 1924 at first seems paradoxical. It isn't because Mori served no regime for reasons of ideological sympathy. Rather he was the perfect bureaucrat who considered it his duty to carry out the orders of any legitimate government whatever its political coloration. For this loyalty he was appointed senator for life on December 22, 1928, shortly after his retirement from active service. On Mori's career before October 1922 see Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il fascista, 2 vols. (Turin, 1966), 1:28, 129-30, 203, 206, 253.
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Sicilian Separatism 269 head, the best man in the world."33 That was more than enough for Mussolini. It was intolerable that the dictator of Italy could not safely travel in a Sicilian town without depending on the Mafia for protection. After his return to Palermo the indignant Mussolini therefore ordered that Cuccia be arrested as soon as memories of the incident had dimmed. Two months later Cesare Mori had the offending podesta mafioso behind bars where he remained until his death. The arrest of Cuccia was the first round in a systematic crackdown on the Sicilian Mafia which during the next three years took on truly vast proportions. Mori's tactic was simple. Those communes notorious for Mafia activity were subjected to a police dragnet in order to capture and arrest all persons suspected of criminal activity however slender the evidence against them might be. Those who evaded Mori's police were rounded up by the simple expedient of holding their families in prison until they surrendered themselves. The prisoners were then hailed before special tribunals, actually little more than kangaroo courts, where Mori invariably obtained convictions. Although the legal irregularity of the method was clear enough, it was effective and that was all Mussolini wanted. Thousands of suspected Mafia criminals had been captured and tens of thousands of years of imprisonment had been handed down in penal sentences. Without exaggeration Mori later claimed that, thanks to his efforts, the mafioso system of extortion and the silent wall of omerte fell in Sicily.34 For many years afterward the Mafia was effectively kept underground and the incidence of its most common criminal activities-cattle rustling, robbery, and extortion-sharply declined.35 For this the masses of Sicilians were grateful, and this gratitude served as a major bulwark for Mussolini's regime in Sicily until 1943. It is also the reason why today so many Sicilians look back with nostalgia on the Fascist era and give their votes to Mussolini's neo-Fascist successors. 36 But it was not just the little people who were the beneficiaries of Mori's repression of the Mafia. The great landed proprietors gained even more substantially. Once the incubus of the Mafia had been removed, the usable income accruing to these men from their estates sharply increased since protection money no longer had to be paid. Mori reported that the annual income "The incident at Piana dei Greci is recounted in Pantaleone (n. 13 above), p. 55. 34This judgment is the central theme of Mori's Con la mafia ai ferni corti, a judgment
shared by Denis Mack Smith, Domenico Novacco and Nando Russo. See Mack Smith (n. 1 above), p. 515; Novacco (n. 19 above), p. 286; and Russo (n. 26 above), p. 544. "For illustrative statistics on the decline of mafioso criminality after Mori's police campaign, see his Con la mafia ai ferri corti, reprinted in Russo, pp. 586-87. 36The response of my regular newsdealer in Palermo in 1968 when asked what she thought of Mussolini reflects this attitude: "Ah, those were the days. What we need is another Duce. He made the streets safe. A person could go out at night and leave his door unlocked without fear."
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270 JackE. Reece after taxes of one landowner leaped from 6,000 to 30,000 lira while that of another increased from 4,000 to 60,000 lira.37 Whichever Sicilian group benefited most from Mori's repression of the Mafia is an open question. There is no doubt, however, that the immediate and most pleased beneficiary was Mussolini. This first effective assertion since 1860 of the presence, power, and prestige of the central government in Sicily made his regime, for a time at least, popular on the island. This greatly simplified the always difficult task of winning for the national government in Rome the sympathy, cooperation, and loyalty of the Sicilian population. Mussolini was so impressed with Mori's efforts that in a speech to the Chamber of Deputies on May 26, 1927-the so-called discorso dell'Ascensione-he announced that "Fascist surgery" in Sicily had been successful; the troublesome problem of the Mafia had finally been solved.3 Cesare Mori himself was far less sanguine regarding the ultimate success of his efforts against the Mafia than was Mussolini. Instead he believed that the armed repression of the Mafia was not enough to root mafioso criminality out of Sicilian society because it was primarily backward social conditions in Sicily, that is, "illiteracy, pauperism, the latiflundia system, malaria, urbanism, economic exploitation, clientelism, politico-electoral jobbery and persistent abandonment," which generated antisocial behavior.39 In his view, the real solution to Sicilian problems lay in "police action harmoniously fused with a program of social and economic reforms" designed to remove the pathological social conditions on the island which provided the Mafia with an environment in which its primitive brand of violence, fear, intimidation, and criminality could flourish. 40 What Mori in effect called for was-and Mussolini had said practically the same thing at Palermo and Agrigento in May 1924-that the systematic neglect which had been the fate of Sicily since 1860 must be ended and that a national policy of reparation and equipment be put in its place. The responsibility for initiating such a historic policy reversal vis-a-vis Sicily did not lie with Prefect Mori but rather with the government in Rome. In practice, that meant the responsibility belonged to Mussolini 37Mori (n. 26 above), p. 579. ' Mussolini's speech is reprinted in Russo (n. 26 above), pp. 545-47. That the Duce had been premature in his verdict on Mori's efforts was shown when further operations against the Mafia were ordered in 1935 and 1937 by his government. On this see Novacco (n. 19 above), p. 287. The essentially cosmetic nature of "Fascist surgery" against the Mafia in Sicily was conclusively demonstrated after the fall of Mussolini's regime in July 1943 when the Mafia reemerged from the underground hardly diminished in strength. 38 Mori, as cited in Enzo d'Alessandro, Brigantaggio e mafia in Sicilia (Messina, 1959), p. 109. 40 Mori, as cited in d'Alessandro, p. 109.
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himself. Despite protestations to the contrary, however, his regime never introduced a genuine program of economic and social reforms on the island. Instead, the Fascists chose to neglect the interests and needs of Sicily just as all post-Risorgimento administrations had done. Hence the swift disappearance of Fascism from Sicily in 1943, with so little resistance and with so few immediate traces left behind. In the meantime, however, before the emptiness of Mussolini's grandiloquent pronouncements about a "new deal" for Sicily stood exposed, his promises of reform struck a responsive chord in the important sector of Sicilian opinion represented by the autonomists. Sicilian autonomists since 1860 had protested the official neglect and misgovernment of their island and had regularly demanded a system of local self-rule as the only way of solving Sicily's grave social and economic problems. Specifically, they accused the central government of having contracted a cynical alliance with the wealthy landowning class in Sicily and its Mafia allies, an alliance which meant the exploitation and studied neglect of the island. They further charged that Sicily had been treated more as a colony than as a constituent part of the Italian Kingdom. Like colonies everywhere, Sicily therefore paid more taxes than it received in benefits from the central government. In addition, the autonomists complained that Sicily was ruled by civil servants from the continent who were unfamiliar with the island's problems, inexperienced in government, or in official disgrace. They constituted, therefore, but another in the long series of foreign dominations that had oppressed Sicily for centuries. 41 Quiescent since the turn of the century, Sicilian autonomist opinion resurfaced after 1919. After so many promises made by Rome to the Sicilians in order to reinforce their wartime morale it was time, as one writer later wrote, "for a rendering of accounts."42 41 The most important statements of the Sicilian autonomist case against the central government are: Francesco Paolo Perez, La centralizzazione e la libertai (Palermo, 1862); Giacomo Pagano, Avvenimenti del 1866, setti giorni d'insurrezione a Palermo, cause, fatti, rimedi (Palermo, 1867), and Le presenti condizioni della Sicilia e i mezzi per migliorarle (Florence, 1875); I nostri mali (Palermo, n.d.); Luigi Benedetto, Sulle nostre condizioni: danni e rimedi (Palermo, 1867); Francesco Maggiore-Perni, Delle condizioni economiche, politiche e morali della Sicilia dopo il 1860 (Palermo, 1896); and Giuseppe De Felice-Guiffrida, La questione sociale in Sicilia (Rome, 1901). The Palermo-based newspapers L 'Unita Politica (1861-64), Unitd e Liberta (1863-68), and La Regione (1868-70)also promoted the views of the autonomists. In addition, the autonomist case was greatly strengthened by scholarly investigations of social and economic conditions in Sicily. The most important were: Leopoldo Franchetti and Sidney Sonnino, La Sicilia nel 1876 (Florence, 1877); Maffeo Pantaleoni, "Della regioni d'Italia in ordine alla loro ricchezza e al loro cario tributario," Giornale degli Economisti, January 1, 1891, pp. 48-96; Napoleoni Colajanni, Gli avvenimenti di Sicilia e le loro cause (Palermo, 1894); and Francesco Saverio Nitti, Nord e Sud (Rome, 1900). 42Antonio Canepa, La Sicilia ai siciliani (Catania, 1942), reprinted in Filippo Gaja, L'esercito della lupara (Milan, 1962), p. 372. See also F. Carollo and A. Stella, La Sicilia (Palermo, 1952), p. 164.
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272 JackE. Reece The most important initial sources of postwar autonomist opinion in Sicily were the Palermo newspapers Sicilia Nuova, L'Idea Siciliana, and La Regione.43 Although none of these papers ever published coherent programs of action, they were all united in demanding a system of administrative decentralization for Sicily which they saw as the only effective means for dealing with the island's economic and social backwardness." Far more interesting for the purpose of this article, however, are the attitudes expressed by these publications which served to push them toward collaboration with the Fascists. They rejected, for example, the Liberal parliamentary system as it had functioned in prewar Italy-not on principle as in the case of the Fascists, but because it had shown itself incapable or unwilling to deal with Sicilian problems.45 Like the Fascists, the autonomists were militantly anti-Socialist and violent enemies of Bolshevism.46 Sicilia Nuova even showed most tender regard for d'Annunzio's Regency of Carnaro.47 Finally, these papers echoed Fascist attitudes by calling for the end of empty parliamentary speechmaking and its replacement by action."I All these things together amounted to casting their lot with the Fascists for many autonomists. Leading Sicilian militants like Roberto Schiavo and Nino Lo Guidice of L'Idea Siciliana, in fact, later became important members of the Fascist party in Sicily. It is even plausible to hypothesize that by promoting ideas and attitudes similar to those held by Mussolini's party the autonomists-men whose moral legitimacy in Sicily was sanctioned by long historical tradition-greatly facilitated the Fascists' task in winning the Sicilian thinking public to their cause. Two additional autonomist periodicals appeared briefly in 1924. The first of these, Eurako, was founded at Termini Imerese by Salvatore Pedone and included Giuseppe Frisella Vella and Vito Salvo, both prominent autonomists, among its contributors. Alfredo Cucco, the well-known and seemingly ubiquitous mafioso and Fascist, was also associated with Eurako. Although ostensibly established to promote the interests of Sicily, the nearly exclusive stock-in-trade of Eurako consisted of vicious attacks 43SiciliaNuova was founded in 1920 by Enrico Messineo, Filippo Lo Vetere, Giacomo Lo Forte, Filippo Cassisa, and Francesco Gravante, all men long known for their autonomist views. L'Idea Siciliana was founded in 1921 by Nino Lo Guidice and Roberto Schiavo. The leading figure at La Regione, also founded in 1921, was Pietro Mignosi. 44See Sicilia Nuova, September 20, 1920, p. 5, and October 20, 1920, p. 3; L'Idea Siciliana, April 26, 1921, p. 1; and La Regione, November 20, 1921, p. 1. 45 See Sicilia Nuova, September 20, 1920, p. 5; L'Idea Siciliana, April 26, 1921, p. 1, and May 26, 1921, p. 2; and La Regione, November 20, 1921, p. 1, December 25, 1921, p. 1, and March 5, 1922, p. 1. 'Sicilia Nuova, September 20, 1920, p. 6, and L'Idea Siciliana, April 26, 1921, p. 1. La Regione does not seem to have been so concerned with the threat of Bolshevism as were the other two autonomist publications. 47Sicilia Nuova, October 5, 1920, pp. 8-10. 48Sicilia Nuova, September 20, 1920, p. 4; L'Idea Siciliana, April 26, 1921, p. 2; and La Regione, February 19, 1922, p. 2.
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Sicilian Separatism 273 on the pre-Fascist political system and slavish praise for Mussolini who was lauded as the savior and renovator of the island.49Similar in outlook was Sebastiano Consoli's Sicilia Nostra which in addition sought to present Fascism as the legitimate heir of the Sicilian autonomist tradition.50 All five of the autonomist publications discussed above, each of which claimed a press run of 8,000-10,000 copies, disappeared during the summer of 1924. Whether this was an act of voluntary renunciation or a matter of governmental suppression is not clear. In any case, they were replaced in August by a single officially sanctioned monthly called Problemi Siciliani, headed by Filippo Lo Vetere until his death in 1931 and thereafter by Giuseppe Frisella Vella.51 Like its predecessors, the new periodical specialized in attacks on the pre-Fascist regime,52 exposition of the problems of Sicily,53and obsequious praise for Mussolini who was confidently expected to solve them. 54 In general, the intellectual content of Problemi Siciliani was far from impressive and its adulation for Mussolini in time became almost loathsome, so much so that one suspects that it was meant to be taken ironically.55But Problemi Siciliani was important simply because it existed and thereby provided a means for preserving the autonomist tradition in Sicily, however attenuated that tradition may have become through association with Mussolini's regime. Sicilian autonomism was, in fact, the only political opinion which maintained any degree of organizational continuity on the island throughout the Fascist era. The full implications of that situation were to become apparent in mid-1943. In the meantime, it is remarkable how long the autonomists maintained 49 See Eurako, March 24, 1924, p. 2, and June 8, 1924, p. 1. On the occasion of Mussolini's trip to Sicily in May 1924, Eurako wrote: "Let us hope that Benito Mussolini, the man of iron will and the temper of steel, the marvelous author of the march on Rome, will know how to leave his ineradicable mark on our Sicily-ever exploited and never indemnified-and in this confidence we extend our warm and sincere greetings." See Eurako, May 11, 1924, p. 1. 'Sicilia Nostra, March 6, 1924, pp. 1-2. On the other hand, Eurako considered Mussolini "the heir of a great Sicilian, Crispi." See Eurako, March 24, 1924, p. 2. 51In July 1936, Problemi Siciliani became Problemi Mediterranei-a title, according to the editors, "more in keeping with our mission." See Problemi Mediterranei 13 (July-August 1936): 1. According to Mack Smith, the real reason for the name change was that Mussolini had asserted that he had solved all of Sicily's problems. Therefore, Problemi Siciliani was obliged to take a new name or disappear. See Mack Smith (n. 1 above), p. 513. 52See,for example, F. Lo VGtere, "Metodo e disciplina," Problemi Siciliani, September 2, 1924, p. 34, and Problemi Siciliani, January 1, 1925, pp. 2-3. 53Duringits first year alone, Problemi Siciliani published articles on land drainage, petroleum exploration, emigration, the crisis in the citrus industry, the problem of public security, and the corrupting influence of the Mafia on Sicilian public life. 54See, for example, Problemi Siciliani, October 1925, p. 47, and February 28, pp. 27 ff. Cesare Mori also won handsome praise from Problemi Siciliani. See its no. 2, November 1925, p. 235. 55Bootlicking praise for the Duce reached a peak in February 1929 immediately after the signature of the Lateran Treaty. See Problemi Siciliani, February 15, 1929, p. 1.
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274 Jack E. Reece their alliance with Fascism in the face of so little actually accomplished by Mussolini and his government for Sicily. Of funds allocated for drainage and irrigation, for example, less than 2 percent was spent in Sicily-a much smaller percentage than had been spent on the island by pre-Fascist administrations. 56 Likewise, during the period 1933-37 only a single acqueduct (it was less than two miles long) was constructed by the government in Sicily while 400 were being erected elsewhere in Italy."7Not even the systematic weeding out of Sicilians from high governmental and party positions was interpreted by the Problemi Siciliani group, at least not publicly, as a recrudescence of traditional continental hostility for Sicilians. With the exception of Guido Jung, a Jewish nonpolitical technocrat, no Sicilian sat in any of Mussolini's cabinets after 1926. Sicilians were likewise eliminated from the ranks of Mussolini's national councillors; in 1943 only eighteen of a total of 663 were Sicilians. Native Sicilians were similarly replaced by continentals in the Fascist party apparatus on the island; by 1941 all nine of the provincialfederali of the party were from the mainland.'& The Problemi Siciliani group kept its silence until 1934 concerning Fascism's failure to introduce an era of meaningful reform in Sicily. In that year, however, Antonio Pipitone Cannone, a veteran autonomist, published an article in the appendix of an auxiliary publication of Problemi Siciliani which pointed out that if Fascism had accomplished much in Sicily, it was still far too little.59 Elsewhere Pipitone Cannone warned that Sicilians "were not resigned to their fate" and like a smouldering volcano waited for "the moment of explosion." & Autonomist discontent made the authorities sufficiently uneasy so that in 1935 a group of autonomists among the student population at the University of Palermo was arrested and prosecuted.6"This growth of autonomist disaffection was almost certainly a consequence of Mussolini's decision to embark on imperial adventures in Africa and Spain. The huge sums required for such ventures-whose value seemed problematical at best-might better have been spent, the autonomist probably reasoned, in Sicily and other backward regions of Italy. 56By comparison, three times as much money was spent in Apulia for drainage and irrigation and fifteen times as much in Emilia. Reported in Mack Smith (n. 1 above), p. 518. 57Ibid., p. 519. On the failure of Mussolini's government to deal with Sicily's most pressing problems of equipment and hygiene see Carollo and Stella (n. 42 above), p. 164, and Gennuso (n. 9 above), pp. 23-25. 5 Trizzino (n. 1 above), pp. 13-15. 59Antonio Pipitone Cannone, "Aspetti inesplorati di un problema siciliano," in La Sicilia: Affermazioni e orientamenti (Rome, 1934), p. 685. Before 1922, Pipitone Cannone had been associated with the autonomist newspaper La Regione. fIbid., p. 627. 6tCorrenti (n. 6 above), p. 193.
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Sicilian Separatism 275 Two incidents during the early 1940s served to exacerbate further the resentment of the autonomists, and that of many other Sicilians as well. The first of these involved Mussolini's order of August 5, 1941, which required that all native-born Sicilian state officials resident in Sicily be transferred to the mainland and replaced by continentals. The conclusion was inescapable that the loyalty of Sicilians as a group to Italy was suspect; and that rankled.62The second incident occurred two years later when General Mario Roatta issued a proclamation on May 5, 1943, urging the Sicilian people to resist a possible Allied invasion of their island. Unfortunately, however, he made a tactless distinction between Sicilians and other Italians which seemed to imply that the islanders were not Italians at all. Roatta's proclamation not only lowered the morale of the Sicilian population in general, but it also nourished the resentment of the anti-Fascist autonomists and pushed them into ever more extreme positions.63 As early as 1942 there existed in fact a clandestine separatist movement which came into the open in July 1943 pledged to insititutionalize the distinction General Roatta had so thoughtlessly made. With the fall of Fascism at the end of July 1943 and the completion of the Allied occupation of Sicily at the same time, the prospects of the autonomists seemed excellent. The authority of Rome on the island was broken and Allied occupation officials at first demonstrated sympathy for their cause. During the first several weeks after the fall of Sicily there was in fact no other apparent political alternative on the island. The Liberals were aged and otherwise held in little esteem. The leaders of the Catholic movement were either in exile or prudently inconspicuous as many of them sought to conceal their past record of collaboration with the Fascists. The Socialists and Communists, even where they had any potential strength, lacked effective leaders and were otherwise in disarray. The autonomists, therefore, had the field to themselves, and in these propitious circumstances many among them were won over to the hitherto unthinkable separatist solution for Sicily's problems. With the active encouragement and financial assistance of American and British officials, who were simultaneously breathing new life into the virtually moribund Mafia,64 it seemed that the so-called separatist hurricane would sweep the island and 62For a typical reaction see Trizzino (n. 1 above), pp. 15-16. The measure was hardly a Fascist innovation; the Neapolitans had attempted much the same thing in 1837 as had the Piedmontese in 1862 with the Pica law. The consequence on both occasions was the outbreak of rebellion in Sicily. 63 See Salvo Di Matteo, Anni roventi, la Sicilia dal 1943 al 1947 (Palermo, 1967), p. 51, for the text of Roatta's proclamation and a discussion of its negative impact on the Sicilian population. 64On the complicity of the Allies in the revival of the fortunes of the Mafia see Pantaleone (n. 13 above), pp. 62-77.
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276 Jack E. Reece detach Sicily from the united Italian state.0 This eventuality was blocked only when Rome-reluctantly responding to Allied pressure-cut the ground from under the separatists in 1945 by granting regional autonomy to Sicily, the goal for which the overwhelming majority of Sicilian autonomists had been striving since 1860. 65The leader of the intransigent separatists was Antonio Canepa whose pamphlet La Sicilia ai siciliani-written under the name of Mario Turri-had been distributed in Sicily by the tens of thousands since 1942. Canepa, a young professor of law, had previously been a most orthodox Fascist, even writing a three-volume Sistema di dottrina delfascismo (Rome, 1937). He was the victim of a political assassination on June 17, 1945. For further details concerning his career see Di Matteo (n. 63 above), pp. 403-8.
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