Communist cakes and ale (1949)

From the November 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Roman Catholic Church has always been well versed in the art of attracting unbelievers, and of keeping hold of them once they have entered the fold. For centuries it has used elaborate ceremonials, processions, and festivals to keep the faithful bemused and impressed.

In no other country has it rung so many changes on these methods of impressing the multitude than in Italy, nor, probably, with greater success. The pomp and pageants associated with Rome are regarded with awe and reverence all over the Catholic world. True, it began to experience some hectic competition before the war from Mussolini and his Blackshirts, but that was a passing phase and those days have gone. Since 1945, it has had the field all to itself—at least until a few weeks ago.

Now, however, another rival has appeared on the scene, and, from all accounts, a very formidable one, too. Not, as might have been expected, a new eruption of Fascists having a second attempt at achieving power and using the old and well-tried technique of pomp and circumstance to do it. No, this time it's none other than the Communist Party, ready as ever to try anything once—if it will help the Communist Party. The object on this occasion was to try to increase the sales of its daily paper, Unita, and at the same time to raise £200,000 for the party’s funds.

And, if they themselves are to be believed, they certainly went in for it in a big way? In fact, so convinced was one of their leaders, Luigi Longo, that there had never been such festive festivals as those organised by the Communist Party, that he worked himself up into a really challenging mood.

“Let our adversaries try to organise anything even remotely resembling our festivals in number and penetration. Not even the Church, now that its high functionaries have made religion a subject of hatred and division rather than of union and love, can succeed in collecting as many people as we do for its functions."—(Manchester Guardian, Sept. 26th, 1949.)

Then, really warming to his theme,

“To you, friends, who will come to Florence after hours of journeying I say we shall meet at dawn in the Plaza Santa Croce, where the unending procession will form up with the entire Central Committee of the Communist Party leading it. Then we shall march through Florence in our tens of thousands, and every Italian worker will be present in spirit with us.

. . . At the Cascine hundreds of stands with all the best products of our 150 other festivals, will be lined up. Chianti wine will flow in torrents, hundredweights of tripe will be on sale . . . The alley is full of news-vendors; each purchaser gets five copies of the ‘Unita' and joins the news-vendor in shouting his sales. . . .”

“. . . Further on there are the five villages, the the women's village, the young Communists' village where late tonight until early dawn there will be dancing, the gourmets village where 2,000 people can eat at once served by groups of comrades, with macaroni for all, roast chicken in such numbers that one might think the race of fowl had been exterminated, and rivers of the best Chianti . . . then the Italo-Soviet Association village with native Russian costumes, and then the Press village, with all the Communist papers exhibited and a nation-wide exhibition of wall newspapers from Italy’s factories. . . . After Togliatti’s speech at 5.30 p.m. mere will be the traditional giant firework display. . . . It will be a great day, another glorious step forward in the history of our paper, of our party, and of the Italian people."

The Manchester Guardian contents itself with the cryptic and sarcastic comment: “No, the Church has certainly not yet arranged anything on this scale in Italy." For our own part we rather like the second paragraph, particularly the conjunction of Unita and tripe. We hope that the Italian workers, for the sake of both their mental and physical digestions, were able to distinguish between the two.

Stan Hampson