Deborah Gressani, Giorgio Sacchetti and Sergio Sinigaglia A Strange
Soldier Advances - The Movement for the Democratization of the ArmedForces (1970-1977), ed. DeriveApprodi, Turin 2022. ---- The experience
of the PiD, the Proletarians in Uniform, is one of those historical
experiences that risk leaving no trace, because they have no one to
remember them and claim their legacy. And yet, despite its obvious
contradictions, it cannot be denied that it had an impact on those years
and that it was able to generate conflicts and tensions within one of
the 'total institutions' (along with prisons and mental institutions)
that were called into question in the period following '68.
The first of three sections that make up the text, edited by Gressani,
begins with a necessary theoretical premise regarding the various
positions on compulsory military service in the early 1970s, when young
people formed by the clashes in Valle Giulia, in hitchhiking trips
throughout Europe, in slogans such as 'forbidden to forbid', found
themselves called up for military service and inserted into the Army, a
'total institution', in which the State is 100% State, clearer, more
obvious in its mechanisms of oppression: upon entry the recruit loses
all civil rights, is depersonalized, shaved, numbered and dressed. He is
de-civilized.
In those years, the total rejection of traditional anarchist
antimilitarism and of some Christian confessions was joined by pacifism
and non-violence borrowed from the American counterculture formed in
opposition to the US intervention in Vietnam. Lotta Continua, and later
Avanguardia Operaia and the Il Manifesto group, instead see in this
refusal of the military service disputes that would lead at most to the
institution of conscientious objection, which would end up removing
revolutionary elements from the barracks and favoring the creation of a
professional bourgeois army. For them, the military service was read (at
least in the initial phase) as an opportunity for revolutionary
intervention from within. In this way, the LC proposal also distanced
itself from the reformist line of the PCI, which saw in the <<popular
army>> a guarantee in itself of democratic protection, without any need
for militant intervention.
Below, Gressani retraces the history of the PiD and of the other groups
with which a substantial collaboration developed in the barracks, with
collective or joint signatures on leaflets and initiatives: the
Anti-imperialist Proletarian Collectives linked to AO and the Communist
Military Collectives connected to Il Manifesto.
The first area of intervention was the barracks, as a 'place' where the
total institution materializes: food, dangerous exercises, sanitary
conditions. The first protests, insubordinations, strikes begin on these
issues and Lotta Continua begins to publish letters of denunciation that
arrive from the barracks, from enlisted comrades or anonymously.
In the spring of 1970 there is a first documented case of rebellion. At
the CAR of Casale Monferrato, 800 soldiers meet in the courtyard
following 8 cases of viral meningitis, asking for appropriate
countermeasures. There followed many episodes of protest over food or
sanitary conditions. LC documented the conflict, and fueled it, with the
space Letters from Soldier Comrades.
In the summer of 1970 a network begins to form and in the autumn the LC
magazine has a column entitled Proletari in divisa, which soon becomes
an independent bulletin. On November 24, the first independent issue of
the PiD bulletin is published.
The second step is to question the principle of authority, seen as a
mechanism for the formation of obedient and disciplined citizens. Then
the watchword becomes to make soldiers aware of their civil rights, to
counter the "State within the State" (and all this in the context of the
anti-imperialist criticism of the role of the Italian Army in NATO). The
point is also to 'de-fascistize' the army to respond to possible coup
plots. However, if the demands for improvements in barracks life break
through and go beyond the militants' limits, also obtaining a certain
improvement, this second step will not take root.
Friuli, usually marginalized, becomes central as the seat of 2/3 of the
EI. And so a first timid public appearance occurs on the occasion of the
peace march (antimilitarist and non-violent) in Friuli in '72. The PiD,
although distant from the non-violent premises of the radical
organizers, and from the antimilitarist ones of the anarchist groups
that participated in force, participated in the march, and for the first
time military personnel in uniform were seen in the square with their
own banners.
In '73, partly due to the events in Chile, partly due to the
institutionalization of LC into a party, entryism from imminent
revolution changed into 'democratization'. The betrayal of the Chilean
army under Pinochet's orders makes it urgent to transfer democratic
practices to the EI in an anti-coup function. The following year, the
Carnation Revolution in Portugal reinforces this idea.
In 1974, a demonstration is held in Udine for the anniversary of the
Chilean coup, September 11, and a hundred PiD members march in uniform.
The scene of a hundred soldiers marching, handkerchiefs over their faces
and closed fists, is repeated on September 14 in Rome. On April 25, 1975
(the 50th anniversary of the liberation and the anniversary of the
Carnation Revolution), soldiers participate in the celebrations
throughout Italy. 500 in Milan, 400 in Spilimbergo (a town of 11,000
inhabitants).
A democratic unity of purpose is now achieved with the PSI and PCI in an
anti-coup function and for the revision of the "disciplinary
regulation". On November 22, 1975, 220 PiD members representing 133
barracks met in Rome. They discussed the right to assembly, health, and
the right to participate in social and political life. On December 4, a
general strike was called against a first draft of a change to the
regulation, which was deemed insufficient. The mobilization was
successful, but at this point the PCI and the unions backed out because
the next step, a union in the army, was considered too long.
The experience ended with 'the final marriage between Italy and its
military', which took place in the rubble of Friuli following the
earthquake of May 6, 1976. The text highlights various aspects that were
kept in the shadows by the institutional narrative of the Friuli
earthquake, from the refusal of the militarization of the tent cities by
the self-management committees that arose in them, to the withdrawal of
the troops in June to stop a 'civilization' of the military. The text
cites the Coordination of the Democratic Military and a meeting they
organized in Udine on June 6. The conference revealed that the only
possible relationship between the armed forces and the people was a
class relationship between troops and people, as demonstrated by the
inclusion of soldiers, opposed by the leaders, in the mechanisms of
self-management of the tent cities. Furthermore, the conference raised
the issue of military servitude and called for the social use of
barracks, the end of the militarization of the territory and indeed the
use of the army in reconstruction, the suspension of conscription for
earthquake victims.
After this swan song, the movement suffered the fate of LC and the
general ebb.
The second part of the text, edited by Sergio Sinigaglia, former editor
of LC, collects various testimonies of PiD 'veteran', also useful for
reconstructing the emotional context, often overlooked in historical
accounts, a context made of human relationships, solidarity, naivety, joy.
The text is concluded by Giorgio Sacchetti, professor of Cultural and
Social History in Florence, also a well-known historian of anarchism,
who develops an interesting discussion, from a methodological and
historiographical point of view, asking questions about the use of
sources produced by the organs of repression in the study of movements.
In conclusion, it can be said that the text is very significant because
it fills a void and has all the merits and defects of pioneering
research. It is hoped that it is a first step towards a broader research
that, for example, overcomes the flattening on the sole sources of LC
also in the sense (certainly not easy) indicated by Sacchetti: judicial,
police, EI sources. These sources could be useful for a social and
demographic analysis of the PiD: how many there were, what social
environments they came from, what areas, etc... Another order of
research could concern the reflection of the movement in the more
institutional mass media, but also in the publications of other sectors
of the post-'68 movement.
Igor Londero
https://umanitanova.org/savanza-uno-strano-soldato-recensione/
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