Nicola Bombacci (24 October 1879 – 28 April 1945) was an Italian

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

revolutionary and later a

fascist Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...

politician. He began in the

Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a Social democracy, social democratic and Democratic socialism, democratic socialist political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parti ...

as an opponent of the reformist wing and became a founding member of the

Communist Party of Italy The Italian Communist Party (, PCI) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It was established in Livorno as the Communist Party of Italy (, PCd'I) on 21 January 1921, when it seceded from the Italian Socialist Part ...

in 1921, sitting on the fifteen-man Central Committee. In his career within the left-wing, he was often called ''Il Lenin di Romagna'' (

Romagna Romagna () is an Italian historical region that approximately corresponds to the south-eastern portion of present-day Emilia-Romagna, in northern Italy. Etymology The name ''Romagna'' originates from the Latin name ''Romania'', which originally ...

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

). During the latter part of his life, particularly during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Bombacci allied with

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

and the

Italian Social Republic The Italian Social Republic (, ; RSI; , ), known prior to December 1943 as the National Republican State of Italy (; SNRI), but more popularly known as the Republic of Salò (, ), was a List of World War II puppet states#Germany, German puppe ...

against the

Allied invasion of Italy The Allied invasion of Italy was the Allies of World War II, Allied Amphibious warfare, amphibious landing on mainland Italy that took place from 3 September 1943, during the Italian campaign (World War II), Italian campaign of World War II. T ...

. He met his death after being shot by communist partisans and his body was subsequently strung up in Piazzale Loreto.

Biography

Italian Socialist Party

Nicola Bombacci was born near

Forlì Forlì ( ; ; ; ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) and city in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, and is, together with Cesena, the capital of the Province of Forlì-Cesena.The city is situated along the Via Emilia, to the east of the Montone river, ...

on 24 October 1879. During his adolescence he joined the

(PSI), of which he became suddenly a national leader at the head of the revolutionary wing, known as ''Massimalisti''; other notable members of this

far-left Far-left politics, also known as extreme left politics or left-wing extremism, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single, coherent definition; some ...

wing were

, who also hailed from the countryside surrounding Forli, and Costantino Lazzari. In 1919 Bombacci became the Secretary of the PSI and in the

general election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...

in the same year he led the socialists to their best result ever; the PSI won the election with 32.3% of the vote and became the first party by votes and seats. The following year, Bombacci resigned as Secretary of the PSI, due to some tensions with the right-wing of the party led by

Filippo Turati Filippo Turati (; 26 November 1857 – 29 March 1932) was an Italian sociologist, criminologist, poet and socialist politician. Early life Born in Canzo, province of Como, he graduated in law at the University of Bologna in 1877, and particip ...

Italian Communist Party

2nd World Congress of the Comintern Lenin Zinoviev Bukharin Gorky

In 1921 Bombacci became one of the founding fathers of the

(PCdI). Despite this, due to his days in the PSI as a fellow ''Massimalista'', he remained a friend of Mussolini even after the latter had eschewed socialism in favour of

fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...

. Bombacci was eventually expelled from the PCdI in 1927 for embracing a pro-fascist position. From that year onwards, he became an open fascist, although he never officially joined the

National Fascist Party The National Fascist Party (, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian fascism and as a reorganisation of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. The party ruled the Kingdom of It ...

. In the '' La Verità'' journal in 1936, Bombacci confessed "his adhesion to Fascism but also to Communism", writing: "Fascism has made grandiose Social Revolution, Mussolini and Lenin, Soviet and Fascist corporate state, Rome and Moscow. Several stands already taken had to be rectified, we have nothing of which to ask pardon for as both in present and past we are impelled by the same ideal: the triumph of work." By the beginning of the 1940s, Bombacci had officially distanced himself from communism by publishing pamphlets warning the Italian population on the dangers of

Bolshevism Bolshevism (derived from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined p ...

and how

Stalinism Stalinism (, ) is the Totalitarianism, totalitarian means of governing and Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953), 1927 to 1953 by dictator Jose ...

had degenerated socialist values.

Italian Social Republic

After Mussolini was ousted as Prime Minister of the

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy (, ) was a unitary state that existed from 17 March 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 10 June 1946, when the monarchy wa ...

in 1943, Bombacci remained loyal to Mussolini and tried to help him legitimize the

and relegitimize

Italian fascism Italian fascism (), also called classical fascism and Fascism, is the original fascist ideology, which Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini developed in Italy. The ideology of Italian fascism is associated with a series of political parties le ...

. He was the author of the economic theory of fascist socialization, prepared for the 1943 Congress of Verona. Nicknamed "the Red Pope" by the bourgeoisie, Bombacci told a crowd in Genoa in 1945 that "Stalin will never make socialism; rather Mussolini will." The project of socialization overseen by Bombacci was viewed with suspicion and boycotted by the occupying Nazi German forces; it was also unpopular among the Italian proletariat, who responded with huge strikes.

Death

The dead body of Benito Mussolini Piazzale Loreto

Bombacci was shot on 28 April 1945 at Dongo (province of Como) where he had been captured, along with Mussolini, by Italian communist partisans. He was summarily shot alongside Mussolini. Before his execution, Bombacci shouted out "Long live Mussolini! Long live socialism!" After his death, he was hanged upside down at Piazzale Loreto in a public display, along with Mussolini,

Clara Petacci Clara "Claretta" Petacci (; 28 February 1912 – 28 April 1945) was a Mistress (lover), mistress of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. She was killed by Italian resistance, Italian partisans during Death of Benito Mussolini, Mussolini's summar ...

, the secretary of the Republican Fascist Party, Alessandro Pavolini, Achille Starace and others. Above the body of Bombacci, there was a handwritten sign that read "" (Super-Traitor). Four days after his death, his old friend and comrade

Victor Serge Victor Serge (; born Viktor Lvovich Kibalchich, ; 30 December 1890 – 17 November 1947) was a Belgian-born Russian revolutionary, novelist, poet, historian, journalist, and translator. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks in Janu ...

read of the event in a newspaper in Mexico, where he was living in exile, and wrote several pages in his journal concerning him. Engaging in what he called "practical psychology", Serge tried to imagine how a former communist could become a fascist: "Among some Italians, particularly among the ex-Marxists and ex-syndicalists, two visions became apparent: that with the liberal democracies exhausted and socialism weakened, the corporatist regimes were going to impose their new formulas; and that through this narrow gate would pass collectivism, the precondition for a socialism different from that desired by the nineteenth century, ... corresponding better to man's basic nature."

References

External links

In a time of duplicity
by

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bombacci, Nicola 1879 births 1945 deaths Executed Italian people Italian Socialist Party politicians Italian Communist Party politicians People from Civitella di Romagna People of the Italian Social Republic People executed by Italy by firing squad Former Marxists Fascist politicians Politicians killed in World War II