"Assaulting Mont Blanc armed with a toothpick". Ernesto Rossi and anti- Fascist conspiracy in Italy 1925-1930

Drawing from unpublished or little-consulted documents (police papers and underground correspondence) the A. revisits the anti-Fascist covert activity of Ernesto Rossi during the late Twenties, stressing his crucial role in the weaving of a clandestine network that would remain the principal form of opposition to the Fascist regime on the liberal-democratic and socialist side. By their strenuous commitment, Rossi and his companions — Riccardo Bauer, Nello Traquandi, Umberto Ceva, Ferruccio Parri, just to mention some of them — not only succeeded in establish a ramified diffusion of clandestine press and efficient channels of communication with the opposition abroad, but also by their shocking demonstrative actions would lay the indispensable foundations of Giustizia e Libertà, the movement born in Paris by the end of the Thirties. The A. furthermore clarifies the double investigative treatment Ernesto Rossi underwent on the part of the Fascist police services: the occasional and soft control applied since 1926 by the peripheral organs of the Ministry of the Interior and the later one, activated in a wholly separated manner by the OVRA in Autumn 1930, that resulted in the arrest of Rossi and the other leaders of Giustizia e Libertà.

Keywords: Ernesto Rossi, Liberal-democratic and socialist anti-Fascism, Fascist police services, OVRA, Italy 1925-1930, Giustizia e Libertà, Italian political emigration 1925-1930

Rodolfo Vittori, "All’assalto del Monte Bianco armato di uno stuzzicadenti" Ernesto Rossi e la cospirazione antifascista in Italia 1925-1930 in "ITALIA CONTEMPORANEA" 268-269/2012, pp 359-381, DOI: 10.3280/IC2012-268001