page_title: Gaetano Salvemini
section_title: Resisting fascism
hierarchical_section_title: Gaetano Salvemini / Resisting fascism
caption_attribution_description: English: From left to right: Italo Balbo, Benito Mussolini, Cesare Maria de Vecchi and Michele Bianchi in 1922 Italiano: «L'on. Mussolini, accompagnato dallo Stato Maggiore Fascista, passa in rivista i 40.000 fascisti schierati al campo sportivo» di Napoli
context_page_description: Gaetano Salvemini was an Italian anti-fascist politician, historian and writer. Born in a family of modest means, he became an acclaimed historian both in Italy and abroad, in particular in the United States, after he was forced into exile by Mussolini's Fascist regime.
  Initially engaging with the Italian Socialist Party, he later adhered to an independent humanitarian socialism, while maintaining a commitment to radical political and social reform throughout his life. Salvemini offered significant leadership to political refugees in the United States. His prolific writings shaped the attitudes of U.S. policymakers during and after the Second World War. His transatlantic exile experience endowed him with new insights and a fresh perspective to explain the rise of fascism, while shaping the memory of the war and political life in Italy after 1945. He advocated a third way between Communists and Christian Democracy for post-war Italy.
context_section_description: In the immediate post-war period, Salvemini was initially silent about Italian Fascism, but as a deputy he soon dissented from the political line of its parliamentary group and started a lively polemic against Benito Mussolini, who he had admired in the past as socialist leader, to the point that Mussolini even challenged him to a duel, which never took place. Nevertheless, as late as 1922, he considered the fascist movement too small to be a serious political challenge. Salvemini was more opposed to old-style politicians like Giolitti. "A return to Giolitti would be a moral disaster for the whole country," he wrote. "Mussolini was able to carry out his coup ... because everybody was disgusted by the Chamber."
  While in Paris he was surprised by Mussolini's March on Rome in October 1922, which initiated the Fascist take over of Italy. In 1923, he held a series of lectures on Italian foreign policy in London, to the ire of the Fascist government and Florentine fascists. The walls of Florence were plastered with posters saying: "The monkey from Molfetta should not return to Italy". Instead, Salvemini not only returned home, but resumed his lectures at the University, regardless of the threat of fascist students. He joined the opposition after the murder of the socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti on 10 June 1924, when it became clear that Mussolini wanted to establish a one-party dictatorship.
  He worked to maintain a strong network of contacts among anti-fascist intellectuals throughout Italy, while much of the Italian academic world bowed to the regime. With his former students and followers Ernesto Rossi and Carlo Rosselli he founded the first clandestine anti-fascist newspaper Non mollare (Don't Give Up) in January 1925. A half year later he was arrested and put on trial, but was released on a technicality, although he was kept under surveillance. Threats against his life were published in the Fascist press and his lawyer was beaten to death by Fascist blackshirts. His name was on top of the list of the Fascist death squads during raids on 4 October 1925 in Florence. However, Salvemini had fled to France in August 1925. He was dismissed from the University of Florence and his Italian citizenship was revoked in 1926.
  In exile Salvemini continued to actively organize resistance against Mussolini in France, England and finally in the United States. In 1927, he published The Fascist Dictatorship in Italy, a lucid and groundbreaking study of the rise of Fascism and Mussolini. In Paris he was involved with the founding of Concentrazione antifascista in 1927 and Giustizia e Libertà with Carlo and Nello Rosselli in 1929. Through these organizations, Italian exiles were helping the anti-fascists in Italy, spreading clandestine newspapers. The movement intended to be a third alternative between fascism and communism, pursuing a free, democratic republic based on social justice.
caption: March on Rome
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