When in Rome...

Italian CP leader Palmiro Togliatti 

“Are we Aryans?” is an anti-fascist pamphlet published in 1939 by Gino Bardi, editor of the Italian-American newspaper L'Unità del Popolo (People's Unity). The paper was associated with the Garibaldi American Fraternal Society, the Italian-American branch of the International Workers Order (IWO). The IWO, in turn, was associated with the Communist Party USA. Bardi's anti-Aryan pamphlet had a wide circulation in its day. Both Italian and English versions were published.

While L'Unità del Popolo was, of course, a front for the Communists, it did enjoy a kind of quasi-independence. The paper was financed by Communist-dominated labor unions, rather than directly by the party. During the Hitler-Stalin Pact, when the Communists were suddenly expected to attack Roosevelt and New York mayor LaGuardia (an Italian-American ally of Roosevelt) as “war mongers”, L'Unità del Popolo refused to follow suit. They hardly mentioned Communist Party leader Earl Browder's anti-Roosevelt campaign during the 1940 presidential elections. When Fascist Italy attacked Greece, the Greek Communists were thrown into confusion due to the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Mussolini's Italy was, of course, allied with Hitler's Germany (Stalin's temporary “ally”), while Greece was widely seen as pro-British and hence anti-German (and anti-Soviet). A section of the Greek Communist leadership therefore refused to defend Greece against Italy, instead calling for “revolutionary defeatism” on both sides in the conflict. By contrast, L'Unità del Popolo took a firm stand in defense of Greece, calling the defeat of Mussolini's army a victory for the Italian people.

“Are we Aryans?” was written before the Hitler-Stalin Pact, when broadest possible anti-fascist unity (the People's Front) was still official Communist policy. I admit that Bardi is a skilful writer – only a few turns of phrase give the game away, indicating that we are dealing with a Communist pamphlet. Otherwise, Bardi appeals to the democratic and anti-fascist feelings of both unionists, Roosevelt supporters, Jewish-Americans and Catholics. He affirmatively quotes anti-Nazi and anti-racist statements by Pope Pius XI, while accusing the Nazis of being anti-Christian. Bardi attacks the American fascist and anti-Semitic priest Father Coughlin by saying that he “looks not to the Holy Father in St Peter's for guidance, but to the Anti-Christ in Palazzo Venezia”, the Anti-Christ apparently being Mussolini!

The bulk of Bardi's pamphlet deals with the 1938 decision of the Italian Fascist regime to adopt anti-Semitic laws similar to those already in effect in Nazi Germany. He mocks the “ideological” justification for the anti-Semitic purges: the claim that Italians are actually Aryans. The author points out that Italy has always been a melting pot of many different ethnic groups, from Saracens to Visigoths. He also mocks a fascist statement according to which most Italians being descended from families who have lived on Italian soil “for at least 1000 years”. Bardi points out that Jewish communities have existed in Italy for at least 2000 years! In an interesting section on Italian-Jewish relations, the author mentions that the Jews supported Julius Caesar, that Renaissance popes were tolerant, and that many Jews fought on the side of Mazzini and Garibaldi. In passing, he notes that New York mayor LaGuardia is of both Italian and Jewish descent. Gino Bardi's response to the question in the pamphlet's title is a resounding “no”.

Weirdly, the modern edition of “Are We Aryans?” is published by Ostara Publications, a White supremacist/separatist outfit around Arthur Kemp, an ex-member of the British National Party and the Conservative Party in South Africa. I'm not entirely sure why a racist group would reprint an anti-racist pamphlet. To “prove” that Italians really are mongrels? Or does Kemp support Mussolini's original pro-Jewish and pro-British stance, before Duce made the fateful decision to join Hitler's Axis? Perhaps Ostara simply loves obscure pamphlets…