Journal title ITALIA CONTEMPORANEA
Author/s Giulio Fugazzotto
Publishing Year 2023 Issue 2023/303
Language Italian Pages 98 P. 241-338 File size 0 KB
DOI 10.3280/ic303-oa1
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Through the case study of the Italian Communist Party’s (Pci) Mogadishu branch, this article poses some historical issues concerning the relationship between Italian communism and colonialism. Firstly, the analysis of the branch’s relations with the British Military Administration (Bma) and the Italian community provides the opportunity to contextualise the birth of this Pci’s branch within the British-occupied Somaliland. Secondly, the article explores Mogadishu communists’ activities and their relations with the Pci in Italy, which had apparently no influence in the initial formation of the branch. These findings seem to confirm a remarkable circulation of communist ideas and practices beyond the networks of the Third International, while at the same time representing an atypical element within the political context of the early 1940s. The article then identifies militants’ recruitment in the British prison camps as a peculiar implementation of Togliatti’s “new party” formula. Finally, the article focuses on the patronising and colonialist approach that the branch adopted towards Somalis, who were constantly excluded by the communists’ political horizon.
Keywords: ; Italian Communist Party, Somaliland, Italian colonialism, Mogadishu, Third International
Giulio Fugazzotto, Il Partito Comunista Italiano in Somalia tra retaggi coloniali e funzione pedagogica di massa in "ITALIA CONTEMPORANEA" 303/2023, pp 241-338, DOI: 10.3280/ic303-oa1