A Communist Italy and the Mafias?

The Ubbergeek

Inspired by a thread on Italy turning Communist and it's relations with the Vatican and Church - what about the Mafias (because Cosa Nostra in Sicily is not alone...)?

After all, even nowaday, far-right sympathisers claim the Duce 'squashed mafiosi' (which is not exactly how things may have went)... So, how a Red Italia would have fared on that subject?

Granted, it's a general thread, and the HOW and by who Italy get Red may be of importance...
 

TxCoatl1970

Not an expert, but depending on the flavor of communism triumphant, it depends.
IMO the big shots get hung, middlemen get prison, small fry get conscripted into work brgades or army penal battalions.
Mafiosi go so deep underground they merge somewhere near Samoa twenty years later being more legendary than real, though the Mussian mafiya or Vory v Zakon (Thieves of the Law) flourished under Stalinist rule.
.

Togliatti's crew would've sent them all against the wall and shot 'em as social parasites.

YMMDV.

I could easily see the Mafiosi/Camorra/ trying to protray themselves as real Italians preserving Italian culture, Catholicism, and so forth to some, though as Italian society secularizes and gets more used to everyone being more educated and empowered, most would see it a romantic bullshit.

Againb YMMDV.
 

Deleted member 1487

The Ubbergeek said:
Inspired by a thread on Italy turning Communist and it's relations with the Vatican and Church - what about the Mafias (because Cosa Nostra in Sicily is not alone...)?

After all, even nowaday, far-right sympathisers claim the Duce 'squashed mafiosi' (which is not exactly how things may have went)... So, how a Red Italia would have fared on that subject?

Granted, it's a general thread, and the HOW and by who Italy get Red may be of importance...
Click to expand...

Supposedly the Mafia helped keep the Communists from getting elected in 1948, so I'd imagine that like the Fascists, which was a perversion of Socialism, the Communists would purge them from society as much as possible. The Mafia might well get help from the US and outside powers as an anti-communist force post-war too if they are fighting the Communists in Italy. As it was supposedly Mussolini put a lot of Mafiosos in prison and when the Allies marched through Italy and liberated political prisoners they gave some of them power as anti-fascists, which ended up placing the Mafia in powerful government positions as the Fascists were purged out of government; I don't know how true that was, but if so they they will have a lot of beef with Italian Communism, because it would get in the way of them making money and their power.
 

Realpolitik

Banned
oreocruncher said:
Indeed, but arguably this exclusion is one of the basis for Italy's screwed up politics...
Click to expand...

No way. Right thing to do-good job, Harry Truman. This was not some Third World country here, this was Italy-NATO itself is at risk. The Italian Communist Party post WWII was very orthodox and dedicated to the Soviet Union, who was funding it out the nose. They would have rejected any Marshall aid. And after the Czech coup and with Berlin becoming a problem?

Besides, the Italians themselves kept them out of power democratically. Truman helped, but he didn't pull a Guatemala.



Bad idea to have them in power, for Italy and the world. Only winner would be Stalin.
 

CaliBoy1990

The Ubbergeek said:
Inspired by a thread on Italy turning Communist and it's relations with the Vatican and Church - what about the Mafias (because Cosa Nostra in Sicily is not alone...)?

After all, even nowaday, far-right sympathisers claim the Duce 'squashed mafiosi' (which is not exactly how things may have went)... So, how a Red Italia would have fared on that subject?

Granted, it's a general thread, and the HOW and by who Italy get Red may be of importance...
Click to expand...

I'll just go with what TxCoatl1970 wrote:

TxCoatl1970 said:
Not an expert, but depending on the flavor of communism triumphant, it depends.
IMO the big shots get hung, middlemen get prison, small fry get conscripted into work brgades or army penal battalions.
Mafiosi go so deep underground they merge somewhere near Samoa twenty years later being more legendary than real, though the Mussian mafiya or Vory v Zakon (Thieves of the Law) flourished under Stalinist rule.
.

Togliatti's crew would've sent them all against the wall and shot 'em as social parasites.
Click to expand...

I'd pretty much agree with that, although I suspect some of them might be able to escape to the U.S. and Canada, and possibly with the assistance of certain elements of the Western governments; remember, the attitude that not a few politicos in this era held, was that anti-Communists of just about any stripe were better than any Reds.

YMMDV.

I could easily see the Mafiosi/Camorra/ trying to protray themselves as real Italians preserving Italian culture, Catholicism, and so forth to some, though as Italian society secularizes and gets more used to everyone being more educated and empowered, most would see it a romantic bullshit.

Againb YMMDV.
Click to expand...

I can see this being true for the Italian-American community as well; some of the most ardent anti-Communist conservatives might end up idolizing them, but many others would see thru the P.R.
 

The Ubbergeek

Hum, I see, thank.


That said, I am not sure if the Italian Communist Party was not homebrew actually. Lot of propaganda around this 'commies=pawns of USSR', but we know it was in parts propaganda as well.
 

birdboy2000

Banned
The Ubbergeek said:
Hum, I see, thank.


That said, I am not sure if the Italian Communist Party was not homebrew actually. Lot of propaganda around this 'commies=pawns of USSR', but we know it was in parts propaganda as well.
Click to expand...

Togliatti was quite pro-Stalin out of power and being lavished with Soviet aid (although willing to accept various differences in national conditions and so on, largely because "Vote for me and I'm going to turn Italy into a Stalinist dictatorship" loses elections) but so was Tito.

And Italy's even further away from the Warsaw Pact than Yugoslavia and has a history as a Great Power in its own right, so IMO he'd wind up breaking from the Soviets once they try to turn Italy into a Russian client state, like they tried with every red revolution outside the USSR.
 
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