Felice Chilanti (10 December 1914 in

Ceneselli Ceneselli is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Rovigo in the Italy, Italian region Veneto, located about southwest of Venice and about west of Rovigo. Ceneselli borders the following municipalities: Calto, Castelmassa, Castelnovo ...

– 26 February 1982 in

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 ...

) was an Italian

anti-fascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...

and

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

Biography

He was born to a Rovigo peasant family soon before Italy entered

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Chilanti moved to Rome as a teenager to study agronomy and from 1934 took up employment as a writer for the farming union’s in-house journal. He was soon drawn to the Fascist Left by Giuseppe Bottai and Edmondo Rossoni who were syndicalists who viewed Fascism as a social revolution against capitalism. Chilanti wrote an October 1939 article in

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...

's ''Gerarchia'' welcoming the Hitler-Stalin pact as heralding the future collaboration of the Soviet and Fascist régimes. During the war Chilanti became increasingly disillusioned with his government's failure to live up to its purported anti-capitalist objectives. While seeking to advance such radical policies he formed a group around the newspaper '' Ventuno Domani'', whose collaborators included novelist

Vasco Pratolini Vasco Pratolini (19 October 1913 – 12 January 1991) was an Italian writer of the 20th century. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times. Biography Born in Florence, Pratolini worked at various jobs before entering the li ...

. This 'anarcho-Fascist' circle drew the attentions of philo-Nazi American poet

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

. Chilanti and his ally, Vittorio Ambrosini, mounted one of the most militant of all Left-Fascist projects when they attempted to eliminate the foreign minister

Galeazzo Ciano Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari ( , ; 18 March 1903 – 11 January 1944) was an Italian diplomat and politician who served as Foreign Minister in the government of his father-in-law, Benito Mussolini, from 1936 until 19 ...

, whom the plotters saw as a conservative brake on the regime. Chilanti was quickly arrested and sent into internal exile onfino Chilanti then adopted communist politics from his Croatian cellmates. During the

Italian Resistance The Italian resistance movement (the ''Resistenza italiana'' and ''la Resistenza'') is an umbrella term for the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Social ...

Chilanti was co-editor of the dissident-communist newspaper ''Bandiera Rossa'', organ of the

Movimento Comunista d'Italia The ''Movimento Comunista d'Italia'' (MCd'I), best-known after its newspaper ''Bandiera Rossa'', was a revolutionary partisan brigade, and the largest single formation of the 1943-44 Italian Resistance in Rome. History Growing out of communist unde ...

, an idiosyncratic force that Chilanti labelled 'the party of

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

who fought for Bordiga'. After liberation Chilanti joined 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). ...

. He later grew disillusioned and signed up to the extra-parliamentary Avanguardia Operaia. As a result of throat cancer Chilanti was unable to speak in his final years. Chilanti wrote numerous novels of which many were of a semi-autobiographical bent. :it:Felice Chilanti, Retrieved

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chilanti, Felice Italian anti-fascists Italian male journalists Italian resistance movement members 1914 births 1982 deaths Italian Communist Party politicians 20th-century Italian politicians 20th-century Italian journalists 20th-century Italian male writers