Ignazio Silone

Pescina, 1900–Geneve, 1978

Ignazio Silone in his study. Source: mangialibri.com.

As a political and literary figure, Ignazio Silone, co-founder with Nicola Chiaromonte of the monthly magazine “Tempo presente” (Present Times), had important contacts with Russia and the Soviet Union both during his membership of the PCI (Italian Communist Party) and after his expulsion in 1931. During his life, Silone was subjected to continuous reassessment, speculation and judgement, a process that continued after his death. However, his contributions to disseminating expressions of Soviet dissent in the 1950s and 1960s in Italy is irrefutable (cf. Guagnelli 2012-2013).
His articles published by the magazine edited by Chiaromonte demonstrate particular interest in the trial of Andrei Siniavskii and Iulii Daniėl’, who Silone defended in 1966, as well as in the people of Hungary and Czechoslovakia as victims of Soviet invasion in 1956 e 1968 (cf. Silone 1956a, 1956b, 1966, 1968a, 1968b, 1968c). The ideological crisis Silone experienced in the 1920s, unresolved by his visit to the Soviet Union in 1927, deepened after the war, which convinced the writer to condemn every form of political coercion. In defending Soviet dissent, Silone confirmed his opposition to all dictatorial regimes (he had long been critical of Lenin’s purges, cf. Larocca 2014). As Togliatti stated, he was far from being passive or indifferent. In 1968, when Soviet tanks entered Prague, Silone attacked the USSR repeatedly in “Tempo presente”, expressing solidarity and sympathy towards the Czech people (cf. Silone 1968a, 1968b, 1968c). Silone’s anti-totalitarian position led him to join the international editorial committee of the tamizdat magazine, “Kontinent”, (he was a member until n. 17 of 1978, the year of his death): his role as editor of Vladimir Maksimov’s magazine, was a natural step in his intellectual development as he became increasingly committed to opposing every form of censure or violation of individual rights. In the article Eshchë raz o pravde istorii (Once again, on the truth of history) published in n. 2 of 1975 of “Kontinent” (cf. Silone 1975), Silone underlined the necessity of recognising the historical crimes committed by the CPSU (citing the case of Kirov). Togliatti’s PCI did not voice disapproval (cf. ibid.).
In 1940 Silone had severely criticised the political position of the Italian Communist Party in La fine di un concordato (The end of an agreement), for its subservience to the “bureaucratic dictatorship” of Stalin’s regime (cf. Silone 1998). Silone’s description and denunciation of the dark side of the Soviet regime offered an “emergency exit”, an alternative to the direction that he believed had been taken by Togliatti’s party, which was one of the “softer instruments employed by Muscovite terror against heretics of international communism” (Silone 1969: 162).

Giuseppina Larocca
[30^th June 2021]

Translation by Tammy Corkish

Bibliography

• Guagnelli S., Tempo presente. Una rivista italiana cripto tamizdat, “eSamizdat”, IX (2012-2013): 87-104.
• Larocca G., “Così avete contribuito a reabilitare ciò che di sublime v’è nell’uomo”. Lettere di Anželika Balabanova a Ignazio Silone, “Russica Romana”, XXI (2014): 109-138.
• Silone I., La fine di un concordato in Id., Romanzi e saggi. 1927-1944, vol. I, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milano 1998: 1351-1355.
• Id., Ideologie e realtà sociali, “Tempo presente”, 1 (1956a): 3-7.
• Id., Invito a un esame di coscienza, “Tempo presente”, 1 (1956b): 681-689.
• Id., Intorno al processo, “Tempo presente”, 2 (1966): 4-6.
• Id., Ešče raz o pravde istorii, “Kontinent”, 2 (1975): 360-362.
• Id., I fatti di Praga, “Tempo presente”, 3-4 (1968a): 2-3.
• Id., Da Praga a noi, “Tempo presente”, 9-10 (1968b): 2-3.
• Id., Solidarietà con la Cecoslovacchia, “Tempo presente”, 9-10 (1968c): 105.
• Id., Uscita di sicurezza, Vallecchi, Firenze 1969.
• Togliatti P., Contributo alla psicologia di un rinnegato, “L’Unità”, 6.01.1950.