COMMUNIST-LED MOTS IN ITALY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22618, 22 April 1948, Page 5

COMMUNIST-LED MOTS IN ITALY

ANGER OVER POLLING RESULTS POLICE & TROOPS DISPERSE MOBS COMMUNIST LEADER PREDICTS TENSION (N.Z.P.A.—Reuter— Copyright.) (11 a.m.) ROME, April 21. Rioting and demonstrations led by Communists against the election results have broken out in several parts of Italy. In the Foggia area the police used tear-gas to break up crowds of Left Wing demonstrators. Ten persons were injured during the rioting.

FIGHTING IN MILAN

More than 1000 demonstrated at midnight outside the Communist headquarters at San Severn. Police and carabinieri dispersed the demonstrators, who shouted that the election results were false. Police in armoured cars broke up a meeting of 2000 Communists in Carignolia. The police made 24 arrests during fighting between Communists and anti-Communists_ in Milan’s cathedral square last night. Armed bands attacked two ammunition dumps outside Piamcenza, says the British United Press correspondent in Milan. The military authorities placed the troops on the alert in a 50-mile area south-east of Milan. The attackers fired on the garrisons for more than an hour but disappeared when reinforcements arrived. The police arrested 11 during the attack. The military authorities extended the alert for army and carabineri forces to Genoa where the situation is reported to be tense. "I fear that relations between the Government and the people will shortly undergo dangerous tension,” said Signor Luigi Longo, vice-secretary of the Communist Party and the Communist “military leader,” in Italy. The election results did not mean the

CATHEDRAL SQUARE

end of the Communist Party but only a delay in development of the party’s plans, he said. Signor Guiseppe Di Vittori, the Communist secretary-general of the Italian General Confederation of Labour. hinted that Italy’s Labour Union of Communists may abandon opposition to the Marshall Plan. He said: “ vVhen someone wants to help you it is ridiculous to slap him in the face." Mr. Churchill, commenting in London on the Italian elections, said that Italy whom the Allies had liberated from Mussolini’s dictatorship had saved herself for the time being from the bolshevik dictatorship of Stalin. Italy had now regained her place in the ranks of the principal European Powers instead of being, like so many unhappy countries, made to live in a caffe with a bear. The final results of the Senate election is: Christian Democrats .. .. 1(1.730,131 Popular Front 6,955,229 Socialist Unity 1,580,722 National Bloc 1,364,741 Republicans 637,433 Monarchists .. 436,547 Italian Social Movement (Fascists) 244,646 The Christian Democrats polled 47.9 per cent.; Popular Front 31 per cent.; Social Unity 7 per cent.; National Bloc 6.1 per cent. The latest all-Italy figures for the Chamber of Deputies are: Christian Democrats .. ~ 10,878,783 Popular Front 7,060,119

CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS’ GREAT VICTORY

Enough is now known of the results of the elections to show that the Christian Democrats won a resounding victory, says the Times correspondent in Rome. The Communists, if the numbers they had hoped on gaining bv swallowing the Socialist Party and appearing under the guise of the Popular Front, are considered must be judged to have suffered a rebuff which they will have difficulty in explaining away. On the" whole, the smaller parties have not commanded large support. The Monarchist issue seems to be receding into history, while the fears of a Fascist revival, which were seriously entertained by many, have not materialised. Public opinion has chosen to range itself behind one or other of the two main contestants. Of all the varied events mostly outside Italy which have combined to produce this result, far and away the most important has been the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia. Although almost every party in the State must have added its quota to swell the Christian Democrat majority by far the biggest source of new support comes from those who might otherwise have voted Right. The ordinary men and spmen of anti-Communist tendencies who, in the old days, would have voted for the monarchy, have chosen to concentrate their votes in order to give a really big majority to the party they consider is best able to stand up to Communist pressure. « Both the Christian Democrats and the Socialist Unity Party also succeeded in drawing off a small percentage from the Popular Front. It now seems certain that nothing can prevent the Christian Democrats and their allies from having a big enough majority between them to govern without having to rely on Parliamentary support from the Right in the Chamber of Deputies, although in the Senate the Left may show greater strength. The Times, in a leader, says that Signor De Gasperi will need all the stimulus that the election vote has administered to deal with reconstruc-

tion tasks.-The Communists are little inclined to take no for an answer and Italy has yet to establish a tradition of acquiesence in Parliamentary defeat. In 1921 the Fascists were annihilated at the polls. In 1922 they seized control of the State. The Government, therefore, will not relax vigilance in watching Communist proceedings in the industrial field. The Christian Democrats must destroy the basis of Communist support by a constructive policy. The Marshallaid Plan will flow to waste unless the ground is prepared by far-reaching economic and social reconstruction. The results in two previously Com-munist-dominated areas showed a definite swing. Signor Pajetta, secretary of the Communist Party in the Lombardy Province said he was satisfied with the election results but that the “church had mobilised the whole of the forces of the Right”, nevertheless, the Parliamentary position would not be greatly changed. Signor Pajetta added that despite "considerable tricks” by the Christian Democrats —he alleged that they had prevented the Popular Front members sitting on electoral committees and on control bodies checking the count —and despite the church’s influence the Communists had got “37 per cent in Milan and 40 per cent, in Lombardy Province. “We consider this affirmation of the people’s confidence in the Popular Front,” he added. “We intend to act as a constructive opposition in Parliament, putting our programme before the people.” There were jubilant scenes all over Italy as the Christian Democrat victories were announced. Crowds in Milan ignored the loud-speakers out side the Communist headquarters. The Pope has promised that, during the next few days, he will make a statement regarding the election results. The Associated Press correspondent, in reporting this, says that the Pontiff was evidently in a good humour. Stock exchange investors in Rome and Milan plunged into heavy buying and prices shot up under the influence of the defeat of the Popular Front.