Evening star., 1953-12-27
Extreme Notionosts Chances for Comeback Enhanced
By Uprour Over Trieste and Success at Polls in June

one journalist called "a past
too soon forgotten"
Student riots have long been
part of the European political
landscape, but Italians who
have seen many over the years
found aspects Of this one pro-
foundly disturbing.
It was q storm that de-
scended on downtown Rome
that morning of November 6,
and that is what it sounded
like: A great thunderstorm
that gathers ominouSly for
brief minutes and then comes
hurting down on you, driven
by a mighty wind. But this
storm of shouting, screaming.
sometimes chanting students
thousands of them-com-
pletely jamming the Via del
Corso, paralyzing traffic on
one of Rome's busiest streets.
These youngsters, many Of
them Is and 16-year-olds from
the high schools, would stop
long enough to chalk epithets
about Marshal Tito, General
Winterton, Anthony Eden and
the U. S. A. on buildings, buses
and streetcars. Then they
would go rushing on toward
Piazza Venezia behind their
leaders. who were blowing
furiously on police whistles.
They threatened to turn
over a truck whose driver had
tried to cross the Corso. They
screamed insults at policemen,
bus and taxi drivers and ordi-
nary citizens who got in their
way.
Excuse me, pig. If I call
you Tito" they scrawled on
Corso buildings; Go home.
Winterton;" Down with the
English" death to the
U. S. A." Hardly a building
escaped.
At the Piazza Venezia. where
Mussolini used to harangue
students, along with others.
from his balcony these young
sters were harangued by a
couple of political heirs of II
Duce.
Interior ministry riot squads
brought up fire hose to keep
the demonstrators out of Pi-
azza di Spagna. But the
power was down, the hose sent
only a puny squirt of water.
and spectators joined the riot
ing students in shouts of deri-
sion.
Fanaticism disfigured many
of those young faces: faces of
boys and girls who would have
been only 2 or 3 years old
when MuSsolini plunged Italy
into World War II.
A University of Minnesota
professor, DR.. Alan Tate, was
roughly handled and his car
damaged by angry students
until friendly older Italians
rescued him. The correspond
ent of an Austrian newspaper
had his British-made car
burned up. The crowd smashed
windows at the Anglo Ameri-
can Hotel. And the riot squads
had to use tear gas as well as
fire hoses to disperse 10000
demonstrators in front of the
American Embassy.
Hornessed Fonoticism
What was impressive - and
perhaps most frightening -
was the way this youthful
fanaticiSm was harneSsed.
There was organization and
the organizers were skilled.
This mob was not orderly, but
it was ordered.
1t was ordered by young men
carrying the banners of the
lily of Trieste or the flame Of
the neo-Fascist party or the
tricolor of Italy. These young
men knew what they were do
ing.
When they wished they could
hold the mob back-as they
did by stretching a Gordon
across Via del Condotti while
their leaders tried to persuade
the riot squads to let them
into Piazza di Spagna. And
when they wished to turn on
the volume of abuse and
epithet they could do that, too.
What did it all mean?
One distinguished Italian
democratic leader was deeply
troubled when asked this
question a day later. He paced
up and down his Office and
said. with emotion:
This is faScism. For the
first time since the war we're
really seeing something that
looks like fasciSm. You know,
this was one way that fascism
got its foothold in Italy. The
student demonstrations,
whipped up by the Fascists,
helped bring on the march on
Rome"
This man did not mean
that the MSI will soon come to
power. He meant that fascism
is a state Of mind, as well as
a system of government. He
meant that it would be wrong
to judge the strength Of the
Fascist state of mind in Italy
today by the fact that q neo-
Fascist Party won 20 chamber
seats in the last election.
This Italian would agree
with the Liberal weekly, II
Monde, that the shrill cries Of
the neo-Fascists and Monarch
ist press, as well as the stu
dent demonstrations, are, at
present, "the hysterical exas-
perations of a minority"
pIit xx,hof xx,nr1iao I,ivn l.. 49,