Opposition To Fascism
Following World War I, Mussolini created the paramilitary Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, and then the National Fascist Party which came to power in 1922 (after its March on Rome). Filippo Turati and Anna Kulischov, who knew Mussolini well, were major opponents of Fascism, and lived under constant surveillance and threats. In a series of prescient speeches, Turati argued that the new revolutionary program adopted by the PSI in 1919 would lead to disaster, and he advocated political alliances with other opponents of Fascism. This policy was rejected and the PSI split in 1921, with the formation of the Italian Communist Party. In 1922, when Turati's group was expelled and established a new group, the United Socialist Party (PSU). In 1924, Turati's disciple and Secretary of the PSU, Giacomo Matteotti, was assassinated by Mussolini's Ceka; this seminal event prompted Mussolini to formalize his dictatorship between 1925 and 1926.
In 1926, Turati fled Italy in a dramatic escape to France - aided by Carlo Rosselli, Ferruccio Parri and future president of the Italian republic Sandro Pertini. In Paris, he was the soul of the non-Communist anti-Fascist resistance, traveling across Europe and alerting democrats to the Fascist danger - which he saw as a phenomenon with far-reaching consequences. He died in French capital in March, 1932.
After World War II, Turati's remains were transferred after to Milan's Cimitero Monumentale, where he is buried next to Anna Kulischov.
Read more about this topic: Filippo Turati
Famous quotes containing the words opposition to, opposition and/or fascism:
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“When feminism does not explicitly oppose racism, and when antiracism does not incorporate opposition to patriarchy, race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other and both interests lose.”
—Kimberly Crenshaw (b. 1959)
“Under the species of Syndicalism and Fascism there appears for the first time in Europe a type of man who does not want to give reasons or to be right, but simply shows himself resolved to impose his opinions.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)