Title: The political police and denunciation during Fascism: a review of recent historical literature 1
Abstract: Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 I am grateful to Adrian Lyttelton and Paul Corner for their insights on a draft of this review. 2 The research revealing Ignazio Silone's relationship with the Fascist political police is collected in Biocca and Canali (2000 Biocca, Dario and Canali, Mauro. 2000. L’ informatore: Silone, i comunisti e la polizia, Milan: Luni. [Google Scholar]). See also the new biography in Biocca (2005 Biocca, Dario. 2005. Silone: la doppia vita di un italiano, Milan: Rizzoli. [Google Scholar]). For a refutation of Biocca and Canali's conclusions, see Tamburrano et al. (2001 Tamburrano, Giuseppe, Granati, Gianna and Isinelli, Alfonso. 2001. Processo a Silone. Ladisavventura di un povero cristiano, Mauduria: Lacaita. [Google Scholar]). 3 The exception is the work of historian Paola Carucci, who has written several articles on the police (see Carucci 1976 Carucci, Paola. 1976. ‘L'organizzazione dei servizi di polizia dopo l'approvazione del testo unico di pubblica sicurezza nel 1926’. Rassegna degli archivi di Stato, 36: 82–114. [Google Scholar]; 1980 Carucci, Paola. 1980. “‘Arturo Bocchini’”. In Uomini e volti del fascismo, Edited by: Cordova, Ferdinando. 65–103. Rome: Bulzoni. [Google Scholar]; 1996 Carucci, Paola. 1996. “‘Il Ministero dell'Interno: prefetti, questori e ispettori generali’”. In Sulla crisi del regime fascista, 1938 – 1943: La società italiana dal ‘consenso’ alla Resistenza, Edited by: Ventura, Angelo. 21–73. Venice: Marsilio. [Google Scholar]: 21 – 73). For a popular account of political policing, see Fucci (1985 Fucci, Franco. 1985. Le polizie di Mussolini, Turin: Mursia. [Google Scholar]). 4 On the Matteotti murder, see Canali (1997 Canali, Mauro. 1997. Il delitto Matteotti: affarismo e politica nel primo governo Mussolini, Bologna: il Mulino. [Google Scholar]). 5 Two self-exculpatory memoirs are Leto (1951 Leto, Guido. 1951. Ovra: fascismo, antifascismo, Bologna: Cappelli. [Google Scholar]) and Senise (1946 Senise, Carmine. 1946. Quando ero Capo della Polizia, Rome: Ruffolo. [Google Scholar]). 6 Additional zones were subsequently established in Puglia (1932), Umbria – Abruzzo – Molise – Rieti (1932), Sicily (1933), Sardinia (1937), Campania (1938) – including the provinces of Catanzaro, Reggio Calabria, and, in 1939, Potenza – and Littoria – Frosinone – Viterbo – Castelli Romani (1939). New Ovra zones were carved out of existing ones and individual provinces shifted from one jurisdiction to another. In 1941, for example, the Ovra established a zone for Tuscany, which was then reintegrated into the second zone in July 1941. Similarly, a tenth zone was established for eastern Sicily (June 1940 – October 1941). Finally, a branch of the Ovra was established in ‘Eastern Italy’, or Dalmatia under Italian military occupation. See Franzinelli, Tentacoli: 245 – 51. 7 For an overview of this historiography, see Rapone (1999 Rapone, Leonardo. 1999. Antifascismo e società italiana, 1926 – 1940, Milan: Unicopli. [Google Scholar]). 8 For an overview, see the excellent essays essays in Di Sante (2001 Di Sante, Costantino, ed. 2001. I campi di concentramento in Italia: Dall'internamento alla deportazione, 1940 – 45, Milan: Franco Angeli. [Google Scholar]). 9 On the coercive function of these institutions and policies, see Corner (2002 Corner, Paul. 2002. ‘Italian Fascism: whatever happened to dictatorship?’. Journal of Modern History, 74(2) June: 325–351. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 10 On evangelicals and other religious minorities under Fascism, see Rochat (1990 Rochat, Giorgio. 1990. Regime fascista e chiese evangeliche: direttive e articolazioni del controllo e della repressione, Turin: Claudiana. [Google Scholar]). 11 For one interesting attempt at a synthesis, see Bosworth (2005 Bosworth, R. J. B. 2005. ‘Everyday Mussolinism: friends, family, locality and violence in Fascist Italy’. Contemporary European History, 14(1) February: 23–43. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]).
Publication Year: 2006
Publication Date: 2006-05-31
Language: en
Type: review
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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