Papers by siracusano gabriele
HISTORIA MAGISTRA, 2017
The Air Force Major of the Social Republic of Italy Adriano Visconti, who was a war hero celebrat... more The Air Force Major of the Social Republic of Italy Adriano Visconti, who was a war hero celebrated by the fascist propaganda for his undertakings in the skies of the Mediterranean, was captured and killed by the partisans on April 29, 1945, during the final insurrection for the liberation of Northern Italy. A political speculation was fomented on this episode by the neo-fascists and revisionists to criminalize the experience of the 'Resistance' and the activity of the Italian Communist Party, whose partisan leaders were accused to have premeditated, with the complicity of the Party, various crimes, including the assassination of Major Visconti. The available reconstructions of the end of Major Visconti are based mainly on memorial sources and they have left many unanswered questions, providing different views on military history. This article proposes a new reconstruction of this event by examining the documents of the partisan General Headquarters (Comando Generale delle Brigate Garibaldi) and those of the local organisation of Italian National Liberation Committee. The essay observes Visconti's death from the point of view of the partisans and sets it in the context of the so-called "total" war, characterized by the definition of the historian Claudio Pavone of World War II as a "civil war", "liberation war" and "class war".
Marx and Lenin in Africa and Asia, 2021
The socialist experiences that were born in West Africa during the decolonisation of the French e... more The socialist experiences that were born in West Africa during the decolonisation of the French empire (1958–1960) showed their most significant expressions in Guinea and Mali. The two new independent republics took an anti-imperialist stance and chose to pursue a ‘non-capitalist’ development, supported by the USSR. The sudden departure of the European rulers left an untrained bureaucratic apparatus: the leading parties needed a political training for their own leadership and their mass structures to pursue a strategy of political and economic control of the state. The role of African unions became necessary in the orientation of state strategies and in the ideological dissemination of Marxism among workers. The connections of the sub-Saharan unions with the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) – referring to the international communist movement – and with the French Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) and the Italian Confederazione Generale Italana del Lavoro (CGIL) show the permeability of the African workers’ movement to the Marxist ideas coming from European communism, that were integrated with anti-imperialism and pan-Africanist anti-colonialism. The Guinean and Malian trade unions took a vanguard vocation of socialism in their respective countries, also making use of the technical assistance of European trade unionists who had come on behalf of the WFTU in Africa to train Union Générale des Travailleurs d’Afrique Noire (UGTAN) cadres.
Historia Magistra, n° 23, 2017
The Air Force Major of the Social Republic of Italy Adriano Visconti, who was a war hero celebra... more The Air Force Major of the Social Republic of Italy Adriano Visconti, who was a war hero celebrated by the fascist propaganda for his undertakings in the skies of the Mediterranean, was captured and killed by the partisans on April 29, 1945, during the final insurrection for the liberation of Northern Italy. A political speculation was fomented on this episode by the neo-fascists and revisionists to criminalize the experience of the 'Resistance' and the activity of the Italian Communist Party, whose partisan leaders were accused to have premeditated, with the complicity of the Party, various crimes, including the assassination of Major Visconti. The available reconstructions of the end of Major Visconti are based mainly on memorial sources and they have left many unanswered questions, providing different views on military history.
This article proposes a new reconstruction of this event by examining the documents of the partisan General Headquarters (Comando Generale delle Brigate Garibaldi) and those of the local organisation of Italian National Liberation Committee. The essay observes Visconti's death from the point of view of the partisans and sets it in the context of the so-called "total" war, characterized by the definition of the historian Claudio Pavone of World War II as a "civil war", "liberation war" and "class war".
Third World Quarterly, 2021
The socialist experiences that were born in West Africa during the decolonisation of the French e... more The socialist experiences that were born in West Africa during the decolonisation of the French empire (1958–1960) showed their most significant expressions in Guinea and Mali. The two new independent republics took an anti-imperialist stance and chose to pursue a ‘non-capitalist’ development, supported by the USSR. The sudden departure of the European rulers left an untrained bureaucratic apparatus: the leading parties needed a political training for their own leadership and their mass structures to pursue a strategy of political and economic control of the state. The role of African unions became necessary in the orientation of state strategies and in the ideological dissemination of Marxism among workers. The connections of the sub-Saharan unions with the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) – referring to the international communist movement – and with the French Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) and the Italian Confederazione Generale Italana del Lavoro (CGIL) show the permeability of the African workers’ movement to the Marxist ideas coming from European communism, that were integrated with anti-imperialism and pan-Africanist anti-colonialism. The Guinean and Malian trade unions took a vanguard vocation of socialism in their respective countries, also making use of the technical assistance of European trade unionists who had come on behalf of the WFTU in Africa to train Union Générale des Travailleurs d’Afrique Noire (UGTAN) cadres.
Histoire & Politique, 38, 2019
Histoire & Politique, 38, 2019
Studi storici, 3, 2018
L'impatto dell'ideologia marxista sul mondo coloniale è al centro di dibattiti storiografici in c... more L'impatto dell'ideologia marxista sul mondo coloniale è al centro di dibattiti storiografici in cui si contrappongono diverse visioni sullo sviluppo del movimento comunista mondiale e delle dinamiche della guerra fredda al di fuori dell'Europa. Odd Arne Westad sostiene che le cause del successo del socialismo nel Terzo mondo risalgano all'ideologia rivoluzionaria bolscevica, che poneva al centro della sua politica la liberazione del potenziale produttivo del popolo: secondo la dottrina leninista, ciò avrebbe significato trasformare i contadini in moderni lavoratori, in operai, evitando però lo sfruttamento capitalista. Secondo Westad, questa teoria si sarebbe adattata perfettamente al continente africano, in cui la modernizzazione era il prodotto di un sistema imperialista che faceva dello sfruttamento la base della produzione 1 . Arnold Hughes, al contrario, riconduce l'interesse di Lenin per il mondo coloniale al solo antioccidentalismo: in un contesto rivoluzionario in cui i bolscevichi dovevano difendersi dagli attacchi delle potenze coloniali, sarebbe stato conveniente appoggiare un fattore di instabilità interno al campo nemico. Hughes ricollega questo «cynical self-interest» alla «hesitancy and manipulativeness» che avrebbe caratterizzato la politica nell'area subsahariana del piú fedele alleato occidentale dell'Urss, il Partito comunista francese. In questo senso, egli vide la formazione dei Gec (Groupes d'études communistes) in Africa da parte del Pcf come un tentativo di infiltrare e controllare movimenti anticolonialisti preesistenti nelle colonie. A questo si sarebbe aggiunto il tentativo di influenzare e dirigere il Rassemblement démocratique africain (Rda), il piú grande partito dell'Africa francofona, cercando -inutilmente -di indottrinarne i quadri dirigenti 2 .
The colonial policy of the French Communist Party (PCF) has been the subject of thorough studies
... more The colonial policy of the French Communist Party (PCF) has been the subject of thorough studies
and debates between those who think that the PCF had expressed a strong solidarity to the Africans
liberation movements of the ’50s and the ’60s, and those who conversely argued that the communist
support coming from France to these movements was too weak. Some historians have criticized the
PCF for its “Gallic-centrism” about the question of the Algerian war, considering this party as
mainly oriented to solve the class conflict in France as a priority key step to face and solve the same
conflicts in the colonies. A similar political attitude may be indeed recognized in the relationships
between the French Communist Party and the Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC), a
revolutionary and nationalist party of Cameroon, inspired by Marxism. Although the PCF was the
responsible for the creation of the UPC and others filo-Marxists parties in French Africa, its initially
close relationship with the Cameroonian organization became weaker since the mid-‘50s, when the
UPC was outlawed. This essay aims to go deep into this matter by examining the PCF archives and
trying to explain the reasons for the incomprehension between the two parties (PCF and UPC).
The Look of Italian Communist Party about French Black Africa (1958-1961)
French Sub-Saharan Afr... more The Look of Italian Communist Party about French Black Africa (1958-1961)
French Sub-Saharan Africa’s decolonization – which occurred between 1958 and 1960 – had particularly interested the Italian Communist Party for ideological originality shown by anti-colonial parties into the struggle for independence. The ideas of self-determination of peoples subjected to European domination, influenced by Marxism, by the French Communist Party and by the socialist world, it developed, however, a kind of nationalism that was independent from the working-class design and taking into account a mass of underlings ready to rise again and to gain freedom and self-awareness. If the Pcf struggled to give support to those same African movements that it had influenced himself, the Pci, that was intent on carving out a political space just inside the socialist camp, was very interested in the «afromarxiste» and nationalist experimentation in the French colonies. Especially after 1956, at the end of the Cominform and at the begin of recognition of «national roads to socialism», the Italian Communists intertwined relationships with the government of independent Guinea (1958), led by Sekou Toure, with the independence movement of Cameroon, Union des populations du Cameroun (Upc), with Mali led by Modibo Keita and with the Parti africain de l’indépendance (Pai) in Senegal. The Communist Party and its idea of Africa also influenced the vision that the Italian Left and its cultural environment had about this territory.
Conference Presentations by siracusano gabriele
Tempo. Tra esattezza e infinito. Atti del IX Convegno interdisciplinare dei dottorandi e dei dottori di ricerca, 2019
La tradizione letteraria occidentale, nella sua critica anticoloniale, ha spesso raccontato l'Afr... more La tradizione letteraria occidentale, nella sua critica anticoloniale, ha spesso raccontato l'Africa esaltandone i caratteri "primitivi" e "libertari", frutto di una società priva degli elementi negativi della modernizzazione. Tra questi, dunque, lo sfruttamento dell'uomo sull'uomo -prodotto del capitalismo industriale -fu analizzato come oggetto "esterno", importato dall'Europa 1 . A questa concezione "anti-materialista" si affiancò un'altra visione, legata all'universo socialista e ai partiti comunisti europei, che dal 1956 cominciarono a interessarsi al mondo coloniale come nuovo terreno di sviluppo dell'ideologia marxista-leninista. Si trattava di un punto di vista che vedeva nel progresso economico, sociale e politico del terzo mondo l'unico modo per allargare gli orizzonti del socialismo globale. Il testo s'incentrerà sulle prospettive interpretative che i partiti comunisti italiano e francese ebbero dello sforzo modernizzatore attuato nella Guinea indipendente -quale esempio perfetto delle politiche di sviluppo africane postcoloniali per il progresso socio-economico "non-capitalista" -e ai cambiamenti nel tempo di questa percezione. Il punto di vista del Pci e del Pcf in proposito sarà limitato a un arco cronologico che va dall'indipendenza della nazione africana, nel 1958, fino alla metà degli anni '70, tenendo conto delle influenze del contesto nazionale e internazionale in cui i due partiti agivano.
Books by siracusano gabriele
"Pronto per la Rivoluzione!" I comunisti italiani e francesi e la decolonizzazione in Africa centro-occidentale (1958-1968), 2023
A partire dal 1958, alcuni Stati sorti dalla decolonizzazione in Africa centro-occidentale intrap... more A partire dal 1958, alcuni Stati sorti dalla decolonizzazione in Africa centro-occidentale intrapresero politiche di stampo socialista, attirando l'attenzione dell'URSS e dei suoi alleati. I due partiti comunisti più importanti dell'Occidente, PCI e PCF, si ritagliarono un ruolo chiave nell'avvio di relazioni tra il campo socialista e Stati come Guinea, Mali o Congo Brazzaville, favorendo modelli di modernizzazione non capitalista e offrendo solidarietà attiva ai movimenti anticoloniali. Grazie a una ricerca su fonti francesi e italiane, il volume ripercorre come, tra dialogo e incomprensioni, i comunisti di entrambi i paesi si inserirono nel dibattito sui nessi tra socialismo reale e socialismi africani, costruendo rapporti politici al di là delle relazioni statali stabilite dal campo socialista. Misurandosi con l'emersione del Terzo mondo, PCI e PCF analizzarono le nuove esperienze africane attraverso lenti ideologiche e culturali differenti, che stimolarono cooperazione ma anche rivalità.
Les partis communistes occidentaux et l'Afrique. Une histoire mineure?, 2021
This chapter of the book "Les partis communistes occidentaux et l'Afrique" is dedicated to the PC... more This chapter of the book "Les partis communistes occidentaux et l'Afrique" is dedicated to the PCI analysis about the North-South relations in the 1970s and its relations with some African states in this context. The text highlights the Italian communists' policy towards the Lomé Conventions between Europe and ACP countries, the renewed dialogue with countries such as Guinea, Senegal, Angola or Mozambique and the PCI's vision of Europe's role towards Africa and the Third World.
Les partis communistes occidentaux et l'Afrique. Une histoire mineure?, 2021
This chapter of the book "Les partis communistes occidentaux et l'Afrique" is dedicated to the re... more This chapter of the book "Les partis communistes occidentaux et l'Afrique" is dedicated to the relations between the two most important communist parties in Western Europe, the PCF and the PCI, and the Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC), Cameroon's independence party. The text highlights the mediating role of the two parties between the UPC and international communism, but also points of contact and tensions. The problems of Cameroon, the misunderstandings between the UPC and the PCI and the Sino-Soviet split are key elements of these complicated relations, which also show the different approaches of the two Western communist parties to African decolonisation.
Les partis communistes occidentaux et l'Afrique. Une histoire mineure?, 2021
Les partis communistes occidentaux et l'Afrique Une histoire mineure ? Ce volume consacré aux rap... more Les partis communistes occidentaux et l'Afrique Une histoire mineure ? Ce volume consacré aux rapports, discours, imaginaires politiques et évolutions des Partis communistes européens à l égard de l Afrique, des mouvements de libération, des décolonisations, et des États africains devenus indépendants, que ceux-ci se veuillent ou non socialistes. Il couvre un champ chronologique large, des années 30 aux années 90, en passant par les années de guerre, c est-à-dire un champ qui a vu de multiples bouleversements et évolutions dans le monde communiste, des 21 conditions à la chute du mur en passant par les Fronts populaires, la lutte antifasciste, la déstalinisation et la rupture sino-soviétique. Il s intéresse à divers partis communistes d Europe-italien, français, portugais, belge-, ou d Afrique-algérien, tunisien, ou d Afrique du sud, qui ont à un moment ou l autre pris leur indépendance par rapport à la maison mère. La CGT française est aussi présente, avec ce qui est d abord une filiale, la CGT-AOF-Togo puis qui prend également son autonomie. Il est aussi ici question d autres partis mais qui se disent socialistes et non communistes : le MPLA, le FRELIMO. Ces partis communistes se sont impliqués à l égard de toutes les Afriques, que ce soit l Afrique du Nord, l Afrique anglophone subsaharienne, l Afrique lusophone ou l Afrique francophone subsaharienne. L histoire des relations avec l Afrique des partis communistes occidentaux-c est-à-dire de ceux qui sont nés et se sont développés sur les territoires mêmes des (ex-)puissances coloniales-, restait un continent largement ignoré, contrairement à celle des rapports de l Union soviétique et des démocraties populaires avec les mouvements anticoloniaux ou les nouveaux États africains. Or, ces partis communistes occidentaux ont eu des analyses ou des actions, et plus globalement des échanges originaux avec les mouvements ou États africains, qu ils se soient ou non démarqués à cet égard du grand frère soviétique. Une lacune que vient combler cet ouvrage, en apportant une pierre à l historiographie du communisme, ou plutôt, des communismes, au-delà du seul cas de l Union soviétique. Les auteurs Françoise Blum est ingénieure de recherches au Centre d histoire sociale des mondes contemporains (CNRS/Paris 1). Son travail porte notamment sur les mouvements sociaux dans l Afrique des Indépendances. Parmi ses publications : Révolutions africaines : Congo-Brazzaville, Sénégal, Madagascar, années 60s-70s (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014).
News by siracusano gabriele
Università Roma Tre, Giovedì 21 dicembre 2023, ore 11, Aula 2A Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche ... more Università Roma Tre, Giovedì 21 dicembre 2023, ore 11, Aula 2A Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche con Alessandro Volterra e Michele Di Donato
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Papers by siracusano gabriele
This article proposes a new reconstruction of this event by examining the documents of the partisan General Headquarters (Comando Generale delle Brigate Garibaldi) and those of the local organisation of Italian National Liberation Committee. The essay observes Visconti's death from the point of view of the partisans and sets it in the context of the so-called "total" war, characterized by the definition of the historian Claudio Pavone of World War II as a "civil war", "liberation war" and "class war".
and debates between those who think that the PCF had expressed a strong solidarity to the Africans
liberation movements of the ’50s and the ’60s, and those who conversely argued that the communist
support coming from France to these movements was too weak. Some historians have criticized the
PCF for its “Gallic-centrism” about the question of the Algerian war, considering this party as
mainly oriented to solve the class conflict in France as a priority key step to face and solve the same
conflicts in the colonies. A similar political attitude may be indeed recognized in the relationships
between the French Communist Party and the Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC), a
revolutionary and nationalist party of Cameroon, inspired by Marxism. Although the PCF was the
responsible for the creation of the UPC and others filo-Marxists parties in French Africa, its initially
close relationship with the Cameroonian organization became weaker since the mid-‘50s, when the
UPC was outlawed. This essay aims to go deep into this matter by examining the PCF archives and
trying to explain the reasons for the incomprehension between the two parties (PCF and UPC).
French Sub-Saharan Africa’s decolonization – which occurred between 1958 and 1960 – had particularly interested the Italian Communist Party for ideological originality shown by anti-colonial parties into the struggle for independence. The ideas of self-determination of peoples subjected to European domination, influenced by Marxism, by the French Communist Party and by the socialist world, it developed, however, a kind of nationalism that was independent from the working-class design and taking into account a mass of underlings ready to rise again and to gain freedom and self-awareness. If the Pcf struggled to give support to those same African movements that it had influenced himself, the Pci, that was intent on carving out a political space just inside the socialist camp, was very interested in the «afromarxiste» and nationalist experimentation in the French colonies. Especially after 1956, at the end of the Cominform and at the begin of recognition of «national roads to socialism», the Italian Communists intertwined relationships with the government of independent Guinea (1958), led by Sekou Toure, with the independence movement of Cameroon, Union des populations du Cameroun (Upc), with Mali led by Modibo Keita and with the Parti africain de l’indépendance (Pai) in Senegal. The Communist Party and its idea of Africa also influenced the vision that the Italian Left and its cultural environment had about this territory.
Conference Presentations by siracusano gabriele
Books by siracusano gabriele
News by siracusano gabriele
This article proposes a new reconstruction of this event by examining the documents of the partisan General Headquarters (Comando Generale delle Brigate Garibaldi) and those of the local organisation of Italian National Liberation Committee. The essay observes Visconti's death from the point of view of the partisans and sets it in the context of the so-called "total" war, characterized by the definition of the historian Claudio Pavone of World War II as a "civil war", "liberation war" and "class war".
and debates between those who think that the PCF had expressed a strong solidarity to the Africans
liberation movements of the ’50s and the ’60s, and those who conversely argued that the communist
support coming from France to these movements was too weak. Some historians have criticized the
PCF for its “Gallic-centrism” about the question of the Algerian war, considering this party as
mainly oriented to solve the class conflict in France as a priority key step to face and solve the same
conflicts in the colonies. A similar political attitude may be indeed recognized in the relationships
between the French Communist Party and the Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC), a
revolutionary and nationalist party of Cameroon, inspired by Marxism. Although the PCF was the
responsible for the creation of the UPC and others filo-Marxists parties in French Africa, its initially
close relationship with the Cameroonian organization became weaker since the mid-‘50s, when the
UPC was outlawed. This essay aims to go deep into this matter by examining the PCF archives and
trying to explain the reasons for the incomprehension between the two parties (PCF and UPC).
French Sub-Saharan Africa’s decolonization – which occurred between 1958 and 1960 – had particularly interested the Italian Communist Party for ideological originality shown by anti-colonial parties into the struggle for independence. The ideas of self-determination of peoples subjected to European domination, influenced by Marxism, by the French Communist Party and by the socialist world, it developed, however, a kind of nationalism that was independent from the working-class design and taking into account a mass of underlings ready to rise again and to gain freedom and self-awareness. If the Pcf struggled to give support to those same African movements that it had influenced himself, the Pci, that was intent on carving out a political space just inside the socialist camp, was very interested in the «afromarxiste» and nationalist experimentation in the French colonies. Especially after 1956, at the end of the Cominform and at the begin of recognition of «national roads to socialism», the Italian Communists intertwined relationships with the government of independent Guinea (1958), led by Sekou Toure, with the independence movement of Cameroon, Union des populations du Cameroun (Upc), with Mali led by Modibo Keita and with the Parti africain de l’indépendance (Pai) in Senegal. The Communist Party and its idea of Africa also influenced the vision that the Italian Left and its cultural environment had about this territory.