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@ The facts on the April 18 elections

The Halian story

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The election line-up

Nee percent of an esti
cast their ballots on April 18 to elect
Also to be elected are 237 senators, who will serv

honorary basis.

mated 29,000,000 eligible voters in Italy are expected to
574 members of the
e with 114 already selected on an

National Assembly.

This will be the second national election in Italy since the end of the war and the

first under the new Constitu-
tion drafted by the Constituent
Assembly elected in June 1946.
It will also be the first nation-
al election since the monarchy
was turned down in the June
1946 plebiscite.

Assemblymen will be chosen
on a proportional representation
pasis, with one being picked for
every 8,000 votes. Candidates
are running on 99 different
party tickets, eight of which
can be considered in the run-
ning, These are: :

(1) The Democratic Popular
Front, made up of the Com-
munist, Socialist and the small
Labor Democratic parties. Run-
ning on separate lists in the
1946 elections, these parties poll-
ed more than 8,500,000 votes or
about 39 percent of the total.

(2) The Vatican - backed
Christian Democratic or Catho-
lic Party, which polled slightly
less in the June 1946 elections,
but emerged as the largest
single party in Italy. This
party is the major government
party now.

3) The small splinter Social-
ist group headed by Giuseppe
Saragat, which broke from the
Socialist Party last yéar and
formed the Italian Socialist
Workers Party. {t is now rep-
resented in the De Gasperi gov-
ernment. J

(4) The small Republican
Party headed by Randolfo Pac-
ciardi, also represented in the
present government.

(5) The outright fascist Ital-
ian Social Movement.

(6)The National Bloc, which
ran a* poor forth in the last
national election.

(7) The negligible Monarch-
ist Party.

(8) The equally smal] Union-
ist group.

Estimates on how the vote
will go can be based on the
previous election and various lo-
eal elections since June 1946.
These show large gains for the
parties composing the Demo-
cratic Front. They also show

that the split in the Socialist
Party, which was actively back-
ed by Luigi Antonni, has not
appreciably effected the vote
of that party. The dissident
group’s vote in local elections
has been considerably lower
than had been expected.

Until recently, Left strength
has been primarily in the
north. Local elections in Sicily
on April 20, 1947, reversed the
pro-monarchy vote in the June
1946 plebiscite. About 75 percent
of the Sicilian vote went for
the monarchy in the plebiscite
while local elections ten months
later gave the Popular ‘ Demo-
cratic Front more than a third
of the vote. The latter picked
up almost 300,000 votes in Sic-
ily, while the Christian Demo-
crats—Officially anti-monarchy—
lost more than 25.000 votes.

This vote confirmed a trend
already shown in the victory of
Democratic Bloc parties in the
November 1946 municipal elec-
tions held throughout Italy.

~ The people of Milan remember

By VADIM
KOZHEVNIKOV

N the Misocco cemetery

in Milan, between the dark
green columns of clipped
cypresses and white marble
statues, there are four graves
surrounded by a single fence
of smoothly polished red
stone, .

‘And whenever you visit the
cemetery, whether rain or shine,
you will always find fresh bou-
quets of scarlet carnations stand-
ing on the graves in blue glazed
flowerpots sunk into the earth.

On Sunday hundreds of people

visit this corner of the cemetery: .

working men and women, fisher-
men,’ peasants, stepping noise-
lessly in their rope-soled shoes.
In reverential silence they stand
beside these four graves until
someone raises @& sun-bronzed
hand and begins to speak. And
evidently the speaker's words
are fiery and stinging for the
Ttalian policemen in their black
uniforms and white American
helmets back away ‘gradually
from the burning eyes and the
fists clenched in wrath.

Ask any one of these people
who is buried here and they will
look you squarely in the eyes

and reply: ey.
“Our brothers are buried
here.” :

@
N January, 1943, when things
were going badly with the
Germans at the front, the fas-

‘gists brought a group of Rus-

sian war prisoners to Milan.
They led them ‘through the
streets in chains. Their feet
were bare and their blackened
unhealed . wounds were visible
through their tattered clothing.
The Germans wanted the hor-
rible sight of these men to

feat of Russia was imminent.
But the reverse happened.
The Russian prisoners of war
marched the streets with their
heads. proudly raised, in neat
formation. Gazing straight
ahead of them they sang a song
full of impassioned words at
whose meaning the Italians
could only guess. And when 2
German soldier dressed in a
fur jacket struck one of the

Russians in the face for
pointing with a laugh to a
statue of Mussolini made of

green stone as slippery as soap,
the Russian stepped toward
the German and with his hand-
cuffed hands hurled him onto
the sidewalk with such force
that the chain broke and the
blood poured from the hands
of the Russian sliced by the
steel bracelets. 2

Here beside the Esplanada
summer cafe a pitched battle
took place between the shackled
wounded Russian soldiers and

-the German guards and Italian

police who were rushed to the
aid of the Germans. The Rus-
sians fought with their feet,
their heads, they used their
manacled hands like sledge ham-
mers. One Russian jumped on-

_ to the back of a German guard

and pushed him against the

_ plate glass window of a shop

with such force that the sharp
fragments left in the frame
pierced the head and neck of
the German.
ee e
OUR Russian soldiers who
survived the massacre were
forced by the Germans to dig
trenches in the park for a
powerful anti-aircraft battery. —
That was on the night of
February 14, 1943. The towns-
people of Milan well remember

show the Italians that the de-that cold dark night.

.

The battery was well camou-
flaged with trees and models of
buildings made of straw. That
night the Anglo-American air

force raided the city. The raid ©

was unexpected. © Nevertheless.
two American bombers were
shot down by long-range guns
in the first few minutes.

And then something happen-
ed: the Russian soldiers threw
down their spades, tore off their
tunics, soaked them in oil is-
sued for cleaning rifles, set fire
to them and threw the pieces

of burning clothing onto the. -

heap of camouflage straw. The
whole battery was enveloped in
flames in a few moments mak-
ing it a perfect target for the
bombers. The Russians picked
up their spades again not to
resume their digging’ but to
smash the sights of two of
the: Suns.

The British and Americans
were able to drop their load and
return to their base without fur-
ther losses. This time their
blow had struck at a military
target lit up by fire, and not,
as was often: the case, at the
working class districts of the
city plunged in darkness.

The Russian soldiers made

‘themselves targets for the An-

glo-American bombs im _ this
strange and distant land just as
they would have done in their
native land, fighting for every
inch of their soil, inspired by a
tremendous love for their coun-
try and moved by an overpow-
ering hatred for the enemy.

AFTER the British and Ame-

rican troops came to Milan
Italian workers went to the
British general in command of
the forces and told him about
the exploit of the Russian sol-
diers who had saved the lives
of the British and American

HE Vatican is worried
about the fact that Ital-
ian Catholics will vote for
the Popular Democratic
Front of Communists and So-
cialists. This is made clear
by its efforts to turn the
Italian elections into a_ holy
* war, by a holy crusade, after
the religious question was
taken out of the political
realm last spring.

Jt was then that, on Com-
munist initiative, the Italian
Constituent Assembly voted to
include the Lateran Pact of
1929 as an integral part of
the Italian Constitution, mak-
ing Catholicism a state reli-
gion and _ recognizing the
privileges of the Vatican as
an independent state.

This was not a_ political
manoeuver. . It. had .as_ its
purpose recognition of the
rights of Catholics to prac-
tice their religious faith free-
ly and without hindrance
from any source. By the
satne token, it obligated the
Church not to interfere in
non-religious matters.

To the Vatican and its po-
litical supporters in Italy and’
the U.S. this action came as’
a severe blow. They had hop”
ed to precipitate a_ bitter
fight on religious issues and
thereby take popular atten-
tion away from pressing eco-
nomic problems.

They failed then, but are
still trying.

The Holy See has unleashed
a wave of political activity.
Six cardinals have threatened
with excommunication any

Pope Pius I1X addresing a rally in Rome

Role of the Vatican

-line for the Christian Demo-

Catholic who votes: for the
Left bloc. Tens of thousands
of priests, nuns and monks,
not only will vote down the

crats, but are also campaign-
ing actively for that party.
How the Italiari people feel
about the Vatican’s extra-
ordinary efforts to influence
their political decisions is il-
*lustrated by this anecdote
about an Italian farm work-
er last summer. It was in
the small agricultural town
of Bentivoglio. Sitting in his
living room they were talk-
ing about his problems as a
‘ssharecropper. Adorning the
walls were crucifixes and a
picture of the Holy Mother.
He was a devout Catholic,
went to mass regularly.
After he outlined what the
Land Workers’ Union had ~
done to better his conditions,
the was asked what political
party he supported. He
thought the answer -obvious.
When pressed, he said it
should be clear that he voted
for, belonged to and support-
ed the Communist Party.
. But, how did he square
this with his parish priest?

ness how I vote.” : :
_ Bentivoglio has some 3,000
voters. They are all peasants
of one kind or another. In |
the last local election the
Communists alone polled 2,200
‘votes.

fiers, The workers advised the
general to visit the grave and
accord military honors to the
remains of the heroes. _

_ The general politely thanked
the workers. And when they
had left he ordered the Italian
police, the same police who had
served under Mussolini, to
heighten the watch on those
who visted the Misocco ceme-
tery. To newspaper correspond-
ents the general said that he
suspected the delegation of
workers that had visted him of
but one thing—trying to mini
mize the military services of
the combined: Anglo - American
forces. }

But the Italian people had
their own opinion of the mili-
tary services of true fighters.

‘On the day the Anglo-Ameri-
can occupation: forces held a
military parade, thousands of
workers and peasants came out
onto the street with flags,
marching in neat columns to

.

‘the centre of the city. The po-
lice, convinced that this demon-
stration was being held in hon-
or the Anglo-American forces,
permitted them to pass. But
before reaching the main
square where the Anglo-Ameri-
troops were lined up, the dem-

onstration swerved sharply and

‘headed for the Misocco ceme-
tery where between the dark
green columns of cypresses and
the white marble monuments
lay .the simple graves
Russian warriors.
- \ : 6
]F EVER

in ‘Milan you must go to
on plot No. 16 you will find
four graves where the Soviet
fighting men — Andrei Petrov,
Stepan Gaxrilov, Semyon Che-
my and Vasily Vaselovsky—are
buried. And whenever you go
there, whether rain or shine,
you will see fresh scarlet car-

nations in glazed clay jars sunk —

into the ground.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 16, 1918—PAGE 7

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