The Summer of ’56

That summer of ’56 was full of tension and hope. The 20^th Soviet Congress had taken place in Moscow, Khrushchev seemed the champion of a new phase in world Communism, and the first signs of thaw were in the air. We militant Communists were convinced that that process would be irreversible and also quite swift. Thinking back on it now, after twenty-four years and after all that has happened, confirms me in my view that history is not an easy work with a happy ending, but a long, tiring and slow process, devoid of any perceptible direction or meaning.

However, in those days, this was not what I felt. When I found out about the Khrushchev report which denounced Stalin’s crimes, after an initial moment of astonishment I felt as though I had been set free. That was the reaction of all my comrades then. You ask whether there was in us, in the party, a sense of defeat or humiliation: no, as far as I know, there was not. I shall try to describe exactly my reaction, which was very similar to that of others: for me de-Stalinization and the bearing of witness to the truth emanating from Moscow represented the fulfilment of Socialism. For years the country of Socialism, the USSR, had also seemed to us a dark place, governed by iron rules, by an inflexible austerity, by terrible punishments and ruthless logic. We put all this on the side of the ‘siege’, of the revolutionary struggle. But when Khrushchev denounced Stalin before the Central Committee and then to the Party Congress, we thought: right, peace is flourishing, now the fruits of Socialism will be delivered, and that oppression, the secret anguish we felt, will disappear.

In Poland the Stalinist group had been removed. Gomulka had been released. In Hungary the renewal of the party had been even more comprehensive and radical. In place of the old Stalinists were Communists who had suffered imprisonment and removal from all party office. In all this we saw the confirmation of our hopes, a genuine renewal, a turning-point of historic importance.

My idea was that after that regeneration and restructuring, the cause of Socialism would be strengthened enormously everywhere. In Italy I believed that many people who had remained distant from the Communist party because of the tragic and ferocious system we were an integral part of, would join us, would fight the same struggles as ourselves, and would share our ideals of humanity and equality.

I was part of the Federal Committee in Turin, I worked for the Einaudi publishing house, I frequented the intellectual cadres in Turin, Milan and Rome. But in those months of great creative fervour, the ruling group and the intellectuals met with the rank-and-file militants, something that had not happened with that intensity probably since the time of the Resistance and Liberation. Endless discussions, whole nights given over to assemblies, debates, in a word, tremendous political passion.

That summer Lukács came to Italy.⁵⁸ In Hungary he was once more a flag to rally round as well as a national hero. I met him with Cesare Cases who was accompanying him on his Italian trip. Lukács brought us confirmation of our hopes for a new kind of Communism. Almost in those very same days we had further confirmation, one that was even more important for those of us in the PCI [Italian Communist Party]: the interview with Togliatti in Nuovi Argomenti.⁵⁹ I recall very well the effect it had on me when I read it on the front page of l’Unità. He said, with intellectual depth, diplomatic finesse, but also (at last) with sincerity, the things I expected would be said. That morning I was in Rome. I had a rendezvous with Paolo Spriano at Villa Borghese.⁶⁰ We walked along the paths of the park for a long time until, near the pond beside the Avenue of Magnolias, we met Longo.⁶¹ He was holding the string of a wooden model motor-boat belonging to a child who was with him. All three of us spoke with great passion about what was happening. I remember that Longo told us about when he was in Moscow, so many years before, when he was secretary of the Communist Youth. He mentioned the dark air there was everywhere, the lack of freedom not just for the citizens but also for the party militants. In short, it seemed to him as well that a great weight had been lifted from his chest.

You ask me: if all of you, intellectuals, leaders, militants, had this weight on your chest, why on earth did you never think of removing it before this? Why had we had to wait for the signal from Moscow, from Khrushchev, from the Central Committee? And why then, despite everything, in that very year, 1956, did things end up as they did? Well. This was the reply that was given to you yourself, if I remember correctly, by Giancarlo Pajetta, ^§ in a press conference after the 22^nd Congress of the Soviet Union’s Communist party. You asked him more or less the same question that you are now asking me and he told you that when it comes to a choice between the revolution and the truth a revolutionary always chooses revolution. Personally I do not think that things are like that and I do not feel that that answer was acceptable. But at that time, twenty-four years ago, our perspective on things was more or less that. We Italian Communists were schizophrenic. Yes, I really think that that is the correct term. One side of our minds was and wanted to be a witness to the truth, avenging the wrongs suffered by the weak and oppressed, and defending justice against every abuse. The other side justified those wrongs, the abuses, the tyrannies of the party, Stalin, all in the name of the Cause. Schizophrenic. Split. I recall very clearly that whenever I happened to travel to some Socialist country, I felt profoundly uncomfortable, foreign, hostile. But when the train brought me back to Italy, whenever I crossed back over the border, I would ask myself: but here, in Italy, in this Italy, what else could I be but a Communist? That is why the thaw, the end of Stalinism, took a terrible weight from our chest: because our moral standing, our split personality, could finally be put together again, revolution and truth finally went back to being the same thing. This was, in those days, the dream and hope of many of us.

In those days Vittorini came back to the party. He had left it a long time before and sympathized with radical, liberal-Socialist positions, but in 1956 he returned. He wanted to go to Budapest. He wanted to help with the reform and renewal. In Turin, the reform man, Celeste Negarville, had been sidelined for some time and the Federation was run by an old Stalinist, Antonio Roasio.⁶² But we thought that the time had come for him too to stand aside. Renewal was in the air. We waited, day after day, for the hundred flowers of Socialism to bloom.

In those months I wrote for Città Aperta the story ‘La gran bonaccia delle Antille’ (‘Becalmed in the Antilles’). I reread it just recently. It seems to me that it has not lost any of its meaning, if for no other reason than that it is evidence of a state of mind, and of a great opportunity missed. Those events estranged me from politics, in the sense that politics has since occupied in me a much smaller space than before. I think today that politics registers very late things which society manifests through other channels, and I feel that often politics distorts and mystifies reality.

Our hopes for renewal were concentrated on Giorgio Amendola.⁶³ He had taken the place of Pietro Secchia⁶⁴ at the head of the party’s organization. He maintained that we had already had our own 20^th Congress the day Secchia had been removed from office. Amendola was the image of what I thought a Communist ought to be if he was to further rigorously and humanely Socialist ideals in a country like ours. Instead he was a terrible disappointment Perhaps I had not understood Amendola’s character properly. But whatever the case, he certainly was not the ‘new Communist’ we had in mind then. What was for me and for many of us an inner split that only brought suffering, was a natural state for him. Amendola was extremely rigorous, but at the same time he possessed all the wiles of a political man. And on that occasion it was the latter aspect that prevailed.

The evening that the news arrived of the invasion of Hungary by the Red Army and of the entry of Russian armoured cars into Budapest, I was at dinner with Amendola in Turin, in Luciano Barca’s house: Barca was the editor of the Turin edition of l’Unità. Amendola has recalled this episode in one of his books. He had come to Turin to meet me and our other friends from Einaudi; to ‘keep us good’, because people realized that difficulties were on the way and we were showing signs of impatience. For me it was a decisive evening. While Amendola was talking, Gianni Rocca, editor-in-chief of l’Unità, phoned Barca. His voice was choked with tears. He told us: ‘The armoured cars are entering Budapest, there is fighting in the streets.’ I looked at Amendola: it was as if all three of us had been hit over the head. Then Amendola murmured: ‘Togliatti says that there are times in history when you have to be on one side or the other. In any case Communism is like the Church, it takes centuries to change its position. And don’t forget that Hungary was developing into a very dangerous situation . . ’ I realized then that the time of the hundred flowers in the PCI was still far away, very far away . . .

One month later the 8^th Congress of the PCI took place. Antonio Giolitti’s speech denounced the closed position of the party on Hungary. He spoke quietly, amid a glacial atmosphere. Togliatti was seated beside the rostrum, ostentatiously dealing with correspondence. Giolitti left the party and along with him several others. I decided not to leave the party then, at that time of particular difficulty, but by then my mind was made up. I went without a fuss in the summer of 1957. Many other comrades did the same: some did not renew their membership, others were expelled from the party. The whole group of Città Aperta, which was edited by Tomaso Chiaretti, was expelled. So was Bruno Corbi, Furio Diaz, Fabrizio Onofri and Natalino Sapegno all left.

If the PCI had reacted differently in 1956, its ‘legitimization’ would have taken place twenty-four years ago. How much would that have changed the history of our country? Obviously this is a question to which the only answer is: it would have changed it enormously. But none of the leaders felt they could do it. In this sense Togliatti bears a huge responsibility. Togliatti, from the turning-point of Salerno 1944 onwards, ⁶⁵ when he urged Communists to put national liberation first, always combined two positions: a broadly reformist policy as far as the PCI was concerned and loyalty to the USSR. That loyalty allowed him to be reformist. Had there been a break with the USSR then, PCI policy could have and probably would have had to be more incisive in internal policy. The problems of a left alternative would have arisen. Clearly the PCI leadership did not feel they could go down that road.

That is what happened then. Twelve years later, when it came to the invasion of Prague, its position was different, the PCI condemned the invasion, but even on that occasion there was no break with Moscow. Today, faced with the risks of the Polish situation, it seems to me that the Communist party has taken another step. And is in the right position. This long march has taken twenty-four years. I can’t honestly say whether the bus we missed in November 1956 can ever be caught again.

[Interview by Eugenio Scalfari: ‘Calvino e la storia del suo tempo’ (‘Calvino and the History of his Time’), La Repubblica, 13 December 1980.]