: —NEW YORK.
TALIAN glass manufac-
turers were

_ gouging the public. Munici-
Ppalities couldn’t even afford
to replace the shattereq win-
dows in school houses. The

kids stayed home
cold schools.
Public anger mounted.
The Italian glass workers’
union stepped in. It held =
conference and, through its
new labor-management com:
miuittees, forced the price of win-
dow panes down 50 percent.
That’s just one of the
stories reflecting the
Strength of united ttalian
told me by Giuseppe dij
deputy and Communist
tary of the Genera]
tion of Labor (CGI).
Di Vittorio, vice president of
the World Hederation ef Trade
Unions, who came here to at-
tend the world labor body’s
executive meeting, is a beetle
browed, broad shouldered, vitai
‘man who looks far younger than
his 54 years.
~Baek in 1921 Di
in jail for having led 3 feneral
strike. Nevertheless the poverty
Stricken agricultural workers of

from ice

labor
Vittorio,

ia Puglie in southern Ttaly
elected him their deputy to
parliament.

Mussolini jailed him again in

1924 and he was
di2 years. But he €scaped in
1926) made his way into exile
and worked steadily for Ttaly’s
liberation. He was political com-
missar of the First internation-
al Brigade (Gyvhich included the

Sentenced to

Garbaldi Battalien) fighting
Franco and Mussolini in Spain.
Returneq to France, he be-

came a leader of the anti-Nazi
underground. The Vichy govern-
ment jailed him and then turned
him over to the Germans. He
Wes sent back to Mussolini Af
ter he had spent long months
On Ventottene, an Itatian prison
island, Maissolini fell on July 25,
1943.

Dt ViIfTTORIO made his way to
ececupied Rome and became
the head of the underground
movement there He maintained
liason with the U.S. Fifth Army
tendering the Allies invaluable
Service. He has a glowing Hifth
Army citation to prove it.
Finally victory came and Di
Vittorio was able to return to

ia Puglie. The workers came
from miles around to touch
“him, embrace him, make sure

that it was really he.

He was a founder of the Ital-
jan Confederation of Labor and
now, with Socialist and Catho-
lic ‘co-secretaries, leads the 6,-
000,000 members of Italy’s united
trade union movement.

Labor-management committees
he said, are the most important
innovation in the new Italy.
Now in all the big factories,
organized workers have an equal
voice with management (private
or government) on all questions
> even the use of profits. That’s
How the glass workers won their
victory,

Management is under obliga-
tion to advise the workers of
all facts regarding production,
Yaw materials, markets, and the
like. .

‘That’s how labor keeps anti-
' democratic employers from sa-
betaging the production so vital
for rehabilitation of Italian econ-
omy. Experience proved, Di,
Vittorio stated, that production

7 ruthlessly

many
new

co-secre-
Confedera-

Vitorio was

WS organized more Fapidly and
efficiently whereyer such commit-
tees existed.

e@
[Aven labor has also won

important victories on the
consumer front.
“Shortly | efore I came here,

I “told 500,000 workers in Mi-
lan, who had stopped work for
2 meeting against the high cost
of living, that Communists, al-
though members of the sovern-
ment, could not Support the goy-—
ernment if it failed to fight
Speculation.

“The right Wing papers caus-
6d 4 scandal! But the govern-
ment had to give in to our big-
Gest demand ands now armed
committees of workers and po-
lice are patrolling the markets
looking for hoarded Supplies.

“These committees have al-
beady uncovered hundreds of
thousands of Pounds of hoarded
meat, grain, butter and cheese
and distributed them free to the
needy.” !

The main question Di Vittorio
wanted to ask Americans was:
“Wall foreign troops quit
Italy once the peace treaty is
Signed ?”.

He told me the Italian people
believe the foreign troops will
leave, because otherwise there
can be no independence. Were
they to remain “it would cause
wide-spread agitation.”

The Allied Commission in

i

Rome has dropped the word
“control’ from its name, Be
said, but nevertheless it retains
control.

This has been an obstacle to
Italy’s democratic reconstruction
because the Italian reactionary
forces tend ‘to rely on “certain
high Allied officers’’ to reorgan-
ize and oppose the people’s de-
mocracy.

Examples are legion. Here are
some Di Yittorio mentioned:

@ WNaples telephone workers
struck to oust a Fascist boss
The British
decreed:

named Pelegrini.
military, in control,

EITC

© Feature Section

SEE. =.

&

RAIL STEAL

Page

Page

i NAA

no Pelegrini, no work.
fascist returned.

The

@ The British chose a depart-
ment store employing 500
workers as a billet, although
hotels and private establish-
ments of the wealthy could
have been requisitioned in_
stead. They arrogantly re-
fused to move out, despite the
ensuing unemployment.

@ Machines saved by Italian
Partisans at the cost of lives,
were ruthlessly destroyed when
occupation forces decided to
use various factories as living
quarters or ammo dumps.

Di Vittorio made it plain that
Italian labor opposes the post-
war schemes of economic pene—
tration being dreamed up by
foreign capital.

‘Italian workers do want and
need aid from abroad, especially
from the United States,” he ex-

plained. “We must have raw
materials, especially coal and
oil.

“But what is needed is for the
italian government to negotiate
trade and loans with foreign
governments and secure reason-
able terms with no Strings at-

a

tached that’ compromise italy’s
economic and political independ-
ence and hamper her ability to
produce.”

S a leading Communist, Di

Vittorio took special pride in
describing the tremendous pres-
tige of his party, which is now
the biggest party in italy with
2,400,000 members.

“The great Majority of the
working class follows the Com-
munist party,” he’ said. “Tn
italy’s biggest factory—the Fiat
auto works with 75,000 workers
—the majority belong to the
party. Party branches have head-
Quarters set aside officially for
them in all the big factories.

“It’s quite a thing,” he chuck-
led, “to see a Party emblem out-
Side a well-appointed factory of-
Bee, with furniture supplied by
the management.”

The Communists’ main inter-
Nal problem is leadership, Di
Vittorio explained, because only
a few thousand survived the
long years of struggle against
fascism. Most members, who
joined during and after the par-
tisan uprising, are not well
Srounded in Marxism.

Work goes on day and night
to train new leaders from the
huge membership. Full time and
part time schools and classes
have been instituted everywhere.

“But that means money and

new
Italy

aga

aN

Italian ‘workers are desperately
poor. When they can’t eat, how.
can they provide Communist or-
ganizers with everything neces-
Sary to bring leadership to re-
mote towns and -villages?

“But,” the big voice softened,
“Italian workers ~ are so ready
to sacrifice for the party which
led the fight against fascism for
20 years that they collecteq 82,-
000,000 lira for the party’s elec-
tion campaign.”

Despite all obstacles, the Darty’s
membership has zoomed.

Attendance and dues pay-
ment is about 80 Percent in
factory. branches, somewhat

lower in street branches. It is
close to 100 percent in the vyil-
lages, where Party headquarters
are the most popular Socia] and
intellectual centers.

Because unemployment is very
high, many members have had
to be exempted from dues pay-
ments, i

The Communist’ party’s amaz-
ing development, despite twenty
years of anti-Communist spropa-—
Sanda, can be explained “very
Simply,” Di Vittorio said.

“Because during 20 years of
dictatorship the Communists
fought tirelessly for the people’s
freedom; because they made the
greatest contribution to Italy’s
liberation from the German in-
vaders and Fascist traitors, Ital-
ian Communists proved to the
people that it is false that Gom-
munists are ‘bloody,” ‘sectarian,’
‘foreign agents,’ ‘immoral, ‘ene-
mies of the family.’ They. proved
te be the best Patriots and
builders of a free, independent
life for our people.”
oca20possible

ERIDAY, NO VEMBER 1, 1946