erty, the immediate revolt of the poorer classes —in whosernname the progressives had taken power —put it in difficulty.rnCalabria revolted under the leadership of Cardinal Ruffo, andrnthe rebels undertook the armed rcconquest of the capital, convergingrnon Naples with bands of peasant volunteers. In the end,rnthe little people had the best of it: The republicans werernlynched and hanged along the streets.rnNot long afterward, the Repubblica Romana also fell, besiegedrnby Austrian and French troops sent in to support thernpope, the legitimate sovereign. Mazzini and Garibaldi, thernheart and soul of the revolution, took to their heels. Even inrnRome, the population had remained largely hostile to the )acobin-rnMazzinian government.rnThe 1848 uprising in Vienna endangered the center of thernCatholic empire. Metternich had to flee the city. But in Italy,rnand also in Berlin, the army remained almost imanimouslyrnfaithful —not only the generals and officers (for the most partrnAustrian), but even the common soldiers, often Croats,rnSlovenes, and North Italians. (Not one of the Italians enrolledrnin the Austrian army refused to march against tiie insurgents.)rnThe king of Piedmont risked a military offensive in support ofrnthe Milan uprising. The Austrian General Joseph Radetzk’ easilyrndefeated him and evenhiallv smothered the revolt.rnOrder was also reestablished in Vienna. In Milan, the commonrnpeople shouted to Radetzky, “Sun staa i sciuril” (which, inrnthe Milanese dialect, means, “It was the aristocrats who did it!”).rnThe suppression of the insurrection was followed by trials andrnrepression. The expanded Austrian police force wielded itsrnpower against die common people. For the first time, the manrnin the street in Milan realized that he was being governed by arnforeign power. The hatred was directed not so much againstrnthe Airstrians as against the “cnicchi” (the name they gave thernCroats, who called bread “kruh,” and who, with the Bosnians,rnwere the most faithfid elements of the imperial Austrian infantry).rnMeanwhile, the Kingdom of Piedmont undertook a vigorousrnrearmament. A special group of assault troops, the Bersaglieri,rnwas reorganized as a military-ideological corps with Masonicrngenerals and soldiers selected for their anticlericalism. Piedmontrnsecured the diplomatic support of England and, more importantly,rnan alliance with France.rnFrench troops, united with the Piedmontese, unleashed warrnagainst Austria in 1859, conquering Milan, Lombardy, andrnVencto. An expeditionary force composed of volunteers sailedrnfrom Ligurian ports (belonging to Piedmont) to conquer thernKingdom of the Two Sicilies, led by Giuseppe Garibaldi.rnBlond (a rarity in Italy), a fanatical Mazzinian republican, anrnadventurer famous for his exploits in South America (where hernhad learned guerrilla tactics), Garibaldi was the only one of thernprogressives and nationalists who entered into the poprdarrnimagination. Piedmontese propaganda and the internationalrnMasonic press inflated his heroic qualities. As a result. Garibaldirnhas passed into history as the Italian Simon Bolivar.rnThe Garibaldian expedition was supported by the Britishrnfleet, which covered the landing of his volunteers (dressed inrnred shirts, the color of socialism) at Palermo. The Sicilians gaverna warm reception to the “Garibaldini”; rcl}’ing on Garibaldi’srnpromise of autonomy for Sicily, they rose up to support himrnagainst flie king of Naples. The unification of Italy was sealedrnat the Southern village ofTcano, where Garibaldi consigned tornVictor Emmanuel the recently conquered South.rnFor decades thereafter, the Bersaglieri and Garibaldi’s irregularsrnhad to put down the anti-nationalist revolt in the South. Inrnthis “struggle against banditn,'” (in the words of Piedmontesernpropaganda) the South was bled dr\ One of the most developedrnregions of the peninsula became the poor and dependentrnSouth we know today.rnThe unification of Italy was made against the will of the majorityrnof the Italian people. I state this not in a spirit of contradictionrnor by way of provocation, but to let my Americanrnfriends understand the reason behind the political instability inrnItaly, which strikes foreigners as astonishing and sometimesrncomical. Italy today is a vital society of people who are trying tornlive by escaping the attention of the state’s policemen and taxrncollectors, whom they do not regard as their own.rnThe unification of Italians became a reality only later, in thernperiod between 1916 and 1918, when Italy entered the GreatrnWar. Millions of poor Italians, who had until then lacked thernright to vote, found themselves together in the trenches. Sardinianrnshepherds and Sicilian peasants, Piedmontese factoryrnworkers, farmers from the Romagna and clerks in Milan—allrnwere made brothers in the bloodiest massacre in history.rnThose who came back from the war went on to swell thernranks of fascist .svmpathizcrs. Ex-eombatants gave their support,rnen masse, to the fascist movement that, after the Great War, confrontedrnthe uprisings staged by the latest incarnation of Jacobinism:rnthe Communist Party under Soviet control.rnThe first fascist activists were called “blackshirts” becausernthe’ were veterans of the commando corps which, during thernwar, had carried out operations at night beyond flic lines. Theyrnwere skilled workers: railroad men, telegraphers, a technologicalrnelite in a backward countr’. They were bofli nationalistsrnand leftists. They rejected communism because it was anti-Italian,rnbut they were part of the working class, interested in questionsrnof social justice.rnFascism was not a reactionary movement. It was not a generals’rncoup, a Id Pinochet, but a mass movement supported b-rnmillions of pea.sants and workers. Fascism succeeded in involvingrnthe Italian masses in the construction of the national state.rnIt was not a democracy, but a caesarism of the people, and it wasrnverv popular.rnIfcily’s defeat in Worid War II interrupted the process of nationalization.rnIt was a defeat that brought shame. Italy, allied withrnGermany, detiironed Mussolini and declared itself an ally ofrnthe English and Americans who had already occupied Sicily. Arnfierce civil war was the result, with thousands dead. In Milanrnalone, between the defeat of the fascist regime and the entrancernof American troops, communist partisans killed 35,000 civiliansrnsuspected of fascist sympathies—in just a few days.rnThe general confidence in the capacity for a unitary nationrncollapsed forever. Today in Italy, to be “patriotic” is equivalentrnto being declared a “fascist” and therefore a criminal, politicallyrnincorrect, beyond the pale of civilization. It is the only countr}rnin the world where love of countr is a crime. We are thernseventh-largest economy in the world, and yet we are a politicalrnmidget; a military nonentity, with a government always in crisis;rnan unreliable ally for the Western alliance. Italy is a lively societ)’,rnbut wirtiout national solidarity. Ecry important questionrnprovokes division instead of cohesion, and civil war seems alwaysrnon the point of breaking out. No agreements can be madernwith anyone. Our official national histon- is a lie. Behold Italy:rna societ)’ fliat does not manage to be a nation.rnAUGUST 2000/15rnrnrn