PIETRO TRESSO STILL DISTURBS ITALIAN WORKERS MOVEMENT
By Livio Maitan
ROME -- In the new atmosphere which the process of de-Stalinization has created in the Italian workers movement, the personality of Pietro Tresso has for some time attracted attention, even in the big official press of the Italian Communist party [PCI] and Nenni'ts Italian Socialist party [PSI]. .
Pietro Tresso, a well-known militant worker, was active in the PCI during the twenties, becoming one of the leaders of the party. When the crisis that was to lead to his expulsion began to take shape, he was a member of the National Secretariat, Together with two other members of the same body (Leonetti and Ravazzoli), Tresso «= who was known in the underground as "Blasco" -- opposed the Stalinist line of the "Third Period" [ultraleft ndventurisin} which Stalin sought to
impose on the Italian Communist party as well as all other sections of the Communist International,
After a very sharp debate, the Togliatti group succeeded in getting a majority through procedural trickery and a little later they expelled Tresso and his comrades, immediately opening up against them the usual campaign of denigration and slander,
Tresso then joined the Trotskyist movement, working in France in a leadership capacity, including on the international level. Arrested during the war, he was freed in 1944 by the underground fighters, He disappeared a little later under most suspicious circumstances. It was generally believed that he was killed by Stalinist agents assigned to do the job in accordance with the tactic of physically exterminating the Trotskyists which was practiced at that time by international Stalinism,
A biographical pamphlet about Tresso was published two years ago by Alfredo Azzaroni, an intellectual of right-wing socialist orientation, who collaborates in an extreme right-wing Social Democratic magazine, The pamphlet, of no pretentions in itself, carried a preface by Ignazio Silone, the well-known right-wing Social Democratic writer, who has practically retired from politics but who makes a
foray from time to time primarily against the Communist party.
It was largely due to this preface by a figure widely discredited in the workers movement that Bandiera Rossa, the newspaper of the Italian Trotskyists published a rather severe criticism of the pamphlet about Tresso, which contained some obvious errors, Azzaroni sent a letter of rectification which was published by Bandiera Rossa, Aside from this oriticism and Azzaroni's letter, the pamphlet was met with almost total silence.
A few weeks ago, without anything new seeming to have happened, Rinascita, the PCI weekly, printed a letter from Stefano Schiapparelli, who wags secretary some years ago of the Communist Federation of Vicence, the region where Tresso was born, After attacking Azzaroni's pamphlet, Schiapparelli levelled arguments in the Stalinist style against the Trotskyist movement. (For example, characterizing La Vérité, the French Trotskyist newspaper, as an “anti-Communist and anti-Soviet" organ and contending that La Vérité, for which Tresso wrote, was a legal publication while La Vie Prolétarienne, the organ of the Italian 6migrés was not.) He ended by rejecting what Azzaroni wrote about the death of Tresso, Schiapparelli, in fact, offers his own explanation, making it sound authoritative because he was in France at the time in.the same area where the group was operating that freed Tresso, - _"T precall.very well," Schiapparelli writes [Rinascita, No. 5, 1964], "that one day in the month of May 1944, a French (Communist comrade, who, as a runner for a 'resistance center! was in touch with different underground groups, on learning that I was Italian, asked me if I knew Blasco, He told me that Blasco was with an underground group (without indicating exactly where, as was the custom then in accordance with the most elementary rules of underground work), He added that Blasco had serious lung trouble and that he was being cared for as best as possible in the circumstances, He also told me that Blasco had sent the head of the underground a biography in which he mentioned having been a leader of the PCI and that he had been expel~ led for well-known reasons.
"T replied that I knew Blasco very well, that his biography corresponded with the truth and that he would have to settle his problem with the party in Italy after the liberation,"
Some time later, toward the end of July 1944, Schiapparelli, before returning to Italy, met the underground fighter once more. He told him about the death of Blasco due to his illness, "I still remem ber his words: 'Your lad is dead.! I returned to Italy at the end of July 1944, I told Comrade Amendola in Milan what I knew so he could inform whomever he had to."
Three weeks after Schiapparelli'ts letter, Rinascita [No. 8, 1964] printed a short note signed "r." (It is almost certainly from Togliatti.) The note mentioned a letter received from a Communist, Elio
Franzin, who had asked that Tressots position be clarified by thorough studiés of the period, Rinascita stated that it was in agreement, adding that the historical study must be genuine and not a pretext for slander, . ,
A. second letter, which Rinascita summarized in a rather dishonest we was published -verbatim by the Socialist daily Avantilt [February Bs? ‘This was from Alfredo Azzaroni. After defending his pamphlet and mentioning the criticism that appeared at the time in Bandiera Rossa, which he misinterprets (or distorts), he poses the following questions to Rinascita and Schiapparelli:
"(1) Why did this revelation about the death of Blasoo due to an illness come so late?
"(2) Why did the receding inquiries, including one by the PCF [French Communist party), fail to uncover anything that would bolster
this tardy version? os
"(3). Why has the underground chief who is , supposed. to have.in his possession Blasco's autobiography still keep it secret?
"(4) Why haven't Amendola and the old comrades to whom Schiap-= parelli confided the truth about the death of Tresso spoken up to defend the PCI from.the accusation of having liquidated an opponent? ay didn't they speak with surviving members of his family?" .
Together with the summary of Azzaroni's letter, Rinascita ran a note in “which the author (characterizing Tresso in passing as “this comrade") declares:
"Tt is clear that Schiapparelli told only what he knew and what was reported to him. It was not possible for us, nor did it come within the jurisdiction of our party, to undertake an inquiry of our own which would have had to take place, as it did take place, in an area foreign to us and which was carried out by those who should and could carry it out,"
Bandiera Rossa, the newspaper of the Italian section of the Fourth Tnternational, joined in the polemic in its March number, After mentioning the bureaucratic performances of Schiapparelli in the Federation of Vicence and after pointing out that the comparison between the French newspaper La Vérité and La Vie Prolétarienne, organ of an émigré group, did not hold at all and demonstrated abso-= lutely nothing, Bandiera Rossa continues:
"Why did he remain silent up until now? Why doesn't he give all the information in his possession? Why doesn't he help to identify the persons he mentions, to find the documents he refers to? Must we suppose that it is a clumsy move on his part or that the higher ups are preparing something, perhaps an opportune adjustment, a trehabilitation! with some dissimulation, and Schiapparelli was asked to make the opening move?
‘"We shall see. Nevertheless right now we denounce Rinascita!lsshameful note. . .. We say bluntly that our movement does not demand any rehabilitation, because Tresso does not need to be rehabilitated, From the historical and political point of view, things are very clear to us, and if Togliatti is so concerned about avoiding speculation on the part of adversaries of the Communist movement (includ-~ ing Mr. Azzaroni, who collaborates with the disreputable right-wing Social-Democratic organ among other things), he can do something quite simple, which requires neither investigation nor. research, Let him publish or see to the publication of all the documents of the time, those of the PCI as well as those of Tresso and his comrades with regard to the question over which they were expelled, The documents are enough «- everyone can draw his own conclusions.
"On the problem of the death of our comrade, the affirmation of 'r,' that it 'was not possible for us, nor did it come within the jurisdiction of our party, to undertake an inquiry of our own... ! constitutes momumental hypocrisy, Aside from the fact that those who conducted the inquiry do not appear to have taken into account the truth which Schiapparelli now reveals to us and on which Rinascita seems to avoid taking a position, to hide behind an absurd ! jurisdic~ tion! signifies quite simply to duck the problem, to try to hush up the matter, - ,
"For those who want to investigate the facts -- and not create scandals or indulge in speculation -- the solution is very simple, Let a commission be formed composed of militants of the Italian workrs movement, representatives of all tendencies who take an interest in the question; let this commission begin to function after its composition has been unanimously accepted; let all its members take an obligation not to express any opinion or to publish anything before the work is finished, These are suggestions to which could be added supplementary guarantees, This is the proposal we make and we are quite willing to let others take the initiative in it,"