Eugenio Reale (

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, June 8, 1905 -

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, May 9, 1986) was an Italian politician.

Early life and activism

Born into a bourgeois family, very close to the Neapolitan aristocracy, Eugenio Reale graduated during the period when

Fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...

began to take hold of Italy’s institutions. In 1926 he approached the

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party ( it, Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist political party in Italy. The PCI was founded as ''Communist Party of Italy'' on 21 January 1921 in Livorno by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). ...

(PCI) and in 1931, after the exile of

Giorgio Amendola Giorgio Amendola (21 November 1907 – 5 June 1980) was an Italian writer and politician. He is regarded and often cited as one of the main precursors of the Olive Tree. Born in Rome in 1907, Amendola was the son of Lithuanian intellectual Eva K ...

, he became one of the main party leaders in the city of Naples. On January 27, 1932 he was sentenced by a special court to 10 years in prison for Communist activity but a 1937 pardon allowed him to be released from prison before the expiry of the sentence; he thus resumed the clandestine activity of anti-fascist propaganda and in October of the same year he moved to France, where he became editor of the newspaper ''La Voce degli Italiani''. He was arrested again and interned in the

Camp Vernet Le Vernet Internment Camp, or Camp Vernet, was a concentration camp in Le Vernet, Ariège, near Pamiers, in the French Pyrenees. Built in 1918 as a barracks but after WWI used as an internment camp for prisoners of war. From February 1939 to Jun ...

. In 1942 he was tried in

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...

for the re-establishment of the communist international; in April 1943 he was extradited to Italy where he finally began a political career after the fall of Fascism. It was Reale who welcomed

Palmiro Togliatti Palmiro Michele Nicola Togliatti (; 26 March 1893 – 21 August 1964) was an Italian politician and leader of the Italian Communist Party from 1927 until his death. He was nicknamed ("The Best") by his supporters. In 1930 he became a citizen of ...

to Naples in 1944 with Salvatore Cacciapuoti and Maurizio Valenzi on his return from the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

after his exile, and hosted him at his house. Togliatti became a personal friend and political adviser. The secretary of the PCI gave him sensitive him delicate assignments such as commercial relations with the countries of Eastern Europe in order to finance the party through commissions on each deal.

Political career

Reale was elected a member of the

High Court of Justice The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Courts of England and Wales, Senior Cou ...

in September 1944. Member of the National Council from 25 September 1945 to 24 June 1946, he was appointed Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs during the Bonomi II government, the Parri government and the De Gasperi I government. He was appointed ambassador to

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

in September 1945 (where he married Sulamita Kacyzne, who as to be his lifelong companion), and was a member of the communist party delegation (with

Luigi Longo Luigi Longo (15 March 1900 – 16 October 1980), also known as Gallo, was an Italian communist politician and secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1964 to 1972. He was also the first foreigner to be awarded an Order of Lenin. Early l ...

) at the meeting in

Szklarska Poręba Szklarska Poręba (german: Schreiberhau) is a town in Jelenia Góra County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. The town has a population of around 6,500. It is a popular ski resort. An important regional and national centre fo ...

which founded the

Cominform The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (), commonly known as Cominform (), was a co-ordination body of Marxist-Leninist communist parties in Europe during the early Cold War that was formed in part as a replacement of the ...

. In June 1946 he was elected to the

Constituent Assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...

for the PCI from the district of Naples. During the De Gasperi III government he was again Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 6 February 1947 to 31 May 1947. In 1948 he was elected to the Senate of the Republic and remained a senator until 1953.

After leaving the PCI

Reale left the PCI controversially in 1956 because of the support that the party gave to the

Soviet invasion of Hungary The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hunga ...

. The provincial secretariat of the Neapolitan Communist Party denounced him for bourgeois deviationism and expelled him. Reale believed that the party's priorities were no longer the fight against fascism or for freedom, but mere loyalty to the USSR. His sympathies therefore came to lie more with

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

and

social democratic Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soci ...

tendencies. In 1957 he founded the weekly ''Corrispondenza Socialista'' with Giuseppe Averardi. Later he developed a strong aversion towards the PCI and towards Togliatti in particular, so much that he was known as "the man who challenged Togliatti". In the sixties he distanced himself from the social democrats and became aligned with the movement of

Randolfo Pacciardi Randolfo Pacciardi (1 January 1899 – 14 April 1991) was an Italian politician. He was a long-time member of the secular, centre-left Italian Republican Party. An ardent anti-fascist, he lived in exile for many years and was an officer of the ...

who fought for a presidential and anti-communist republic. In the seventies there was talk of his proximity to the resistance committees of

Edgardo Sogno Count Edgardo Pietro Andrea Sogno Rata del Vallino di Ponzone ( Camandona, 29 December 1915 – Turin, 5 August 2000) was an Italian diplomat, partisan and political figure. He was born in an aristocratic family from Piedmont. Under Fasci ...

, who thought of appointing him Minister of the Interior in a government that he planned to form after staging a “

white coup The White coup ( it, Golpe bianco) was a planned coup in Italy intended for the summer of 1974, promoted by former anti-fascist and anti-communist partisans. It intended to force the then President of the Republic Giovanni Leone to appoint a gove ...

”. Twenty years later, in 1997, Sogno read out his list of possible ministers in a radio broadcast, including Reale's name. In reality however, Reale never met Edgardo Sogno: on the contrary, he abhorred his "coup" project.

Decorations

* Commander’s Cross with Star, Order of Polonia Restituta (26 November 1946, by resolution of the Presidium of the

State National Council Krajowa Rada Narodowa in Polish (translated as State National Council or Homeland National Council, abbreviated to KRN) was a parliament-like political body created during the later stages of World War II in German-occupied Warsaw, Poland. It was ...

)

References

{{reflist

External links

Eugenio Reale’s papers at the Online Archive of California
1905 births 1986 deaths People from Naples Members of the Senate of the Republic (Italy) Italian communists Bonomi II Cabinet