Journal articles on the topic 'Italy – Politics and government – 1945-1976'

- According to the author, after the Second World War, Italy was too weak to build an autonomous foreign policy in China or to influence the conflict between Communists and Nationalists. However, Italian diplomacy, especially the Italian ambassador in China Sergio Fenoaltea, tried to have his own vision of the Chinese Civil War and to take advantage of the weakness of Italy to establish a good relationship with the Kuomintang government: China was a great power, especially at the United Nations, and it could be very important for the future of Italy. Furthermore, Fenoaltea criticized Marshall's mediation between the Communists and the Nationalists along with the American endorsement of Jiang Jieshi. From the perspective of the Italian ambassador, the USA was not able to understand the situation in China or to support a really democratic force. Finally, Italian diplomats in China tried to be equidistant between the two parties acting during the Civil War to protect the little Italian community in China and to not impair the possibility of a pacific and positive relationship with the future winner of the Civil War. Key words: Italy-China relationship, Italian foreign policy, ambassador Fenoaltea, Chinese Civil War, international politics, Communists and Kuomintang.

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE AND. WHEN JUDITH BUTLER AND I DEcided to cochair a conference called “Human Rights and the Humanities,” we aimed to create a connection between two apparently disparate fields and to leave its nature general enough to allow participants to probe different types of relations. I say “apparently” because connections between the humanities and human rights have existed historically and conceptually in the West through the mediation of humanism. Even though in Renaissance Italy umanista, the teacher of classical languages and literatures, was contrasted with legista, the teacher of law, humanist thought held that the reading, understanding, and critique of the bonae litterae, as Eugenio Garin has argued, could contribute to the renovation of the world, social life, and government and thus to human happiness. Not surprisingly, then, civic humanism was to merge with the ideals of freedom, equality, justice, tolerance, secularism, and cosmopolitanism in the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment. And since 1945 Enlightenment humanism has provided the philosophical underpinnings of human rights declarations, covenants, conventions, protocols, and charters.

The gap between the narratives of democracy and the practices of power has been a significant source of delegitimation for the post-1945 Italian political system. The system was unable to achieve a solid and principled legitimation by meeting the requirements of a widely accepted and historically rooted notion of democracy, and had to resort to a fragile de facto legitimacy based on the absence of more desirable alternatives. This can partly account for the collapse of the Republican political system in 1992/1993 and the political instability of Italy in the last quarter century. The first section of the article presents the three most relevant narratives of democracy of the Republic’s early years: liberal, progressive, and participatory democracy. The second section argues that in the early 1960s, when the political system finally reached a reasonable level of stability, it was as an ‘Italian-style’ party democracy that did not fully meet the criteria of any of the three original narratives, which were in fact used to delegitimise it. By the late 1970s, all could see how dysfunctional party democracy was, and criticising it became a discursive resource that no political force could refrain from exploiting—including those who were in government. The third section considers how those critiques were inspired, yet again, by variations of the three original narratives. The epilogue throws a quick glance at the post-1994 period.

IT IS NOT EASY TO EXPLAIN THE REASONS THAT LED TO THE appointment of Bettino Craxi as Prime Minister. First of all, there was certainly the political fatigue of the Christian Democratic Party which had held the premiership for 35 years. AIdo Moro, a great man and leader, had tried to mediate between the various currents within the party, as well as between the party and other allied parties (the Republicans, the Social Democrats, the Socialists). But what Moro really dreamt of was a possible alliance with the Communist Party to solve at least the most serious issues, such as terrorism and economic decline. He thought of repeating with the Communists the experience the DC had had in the early 1960s with the Socialists: widening the democratic area with the view of transforming the PCI into a social democratic trend. In order to obtain this he even considered letting the PCI take part in the majority at least if not in the government itself. His disappearance had serious repercussions, especially in the Christian Democratic Party where internal friction grew even stronger than in the past. This resulted in a great drop in the party's power and ability to manage the country politically even if, at least in part, it regained in the 1979 and 1983 elections the votes lost in the 1976 elections.

In the months between the Italian armistice (September 1943) and the end of the war (May 1945), Italy became the destination of a large group of Yugoslav exiles who, in various ways, opposed Tito and the Socialist and Federal Republic in the process of being formed. These exiles, divided by nationality and political affiliation (ranging from exponents of the resistance linked to the government in exile in London to the most radical collaborators with the Nazis), were united by their staunch anti-communism. Carefully observed by both the Italian secret services and the Allied military government, with the approach of the Cold War this Yugoslav ?refractory community? was increasingly used as a centre of propaganda and in part also of information by the West. After the Tito-Stalin split, this function was reduced, and the community waited for new developments that would only appear forty years later with the dissolution of the disdained Federal and Socialist Republic. This essay is an integral part of research based on the archives of the Italian Military Intelligence Service (SIM) kept at the Historical Office of the Italian Army General Staff in Rome, in the fonds of the Confidential Affairs of the General Directorate of Public Security of the Italian Ministry of the Interior and in the ?Affari Politici - Jugoslavia? collections of the Historical-Diplomatic Archive of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The research is still in progress and aims to create a map of the Yugoslav anti-communist community in Italy from the end of the Second World War until the dissolution of the Federal Republic between 1989 and 1992.

The recruitment of about seven thousand Italian migrant workers by the postwar British Labour government is an interesting study in the use of foreign labor recruitment as a diplomatic policy. Foreign labor recruitment has generally been regarded as primarily an economic policy, with political ramifications entering into the picture in the form of domestic issues around integration, racism, labor relations and so on. However, the various British schemes to recruit Italian migrant workers from 1945 to 1951, and the discussion around the movement of migrant workers in postwar Europe carried on in various inter-European bodies, illustrate that foreign labor recruitment can be a much more complex phenomenon.

In the last few decades, ethno-regionalist parties have become leading players in many regional political systems across Europe. This increased representation has opened up new strategic opportunities for these parties, and in particular it has offered them the chance to participate in regional government. Based on a newly compiled data set of 282 governmental formations in Italian and Spanish regions during the period 1945–2011, this study develops and tests several hypotheses regarding the governmental participation of ethno-regionalist parties at regional level. These have been partly drawn from similar studies of ‘outsider’ party families, such as the Green parties or the radical right. A specific focus is then placed on multilevel dynamics, based on the idea that there is a relationship between party strategies at regional and state levels, and in particular on the perception that parties are willing to adopt compatible alliance strategies at the two levels (vertical congruence), at least under certain conditions. Both types of hypothesis (single-level and multilevel) are shown to be plausible when empirically tested on the cases of Italy and Spain. Special attention is given to the conditions under which vertical congruence is used by ethno-regionalist parties as an effective way of minimizing the risks associated with inclusion in governmental coalitions at regional level.

This article examines some of the social implications of Italy's limited purge of the bureaucracy and Fascist political class following the Second World War. Using the postwar personal correspondence of former Fascist government ministers Giuseppe Bottai (1895–1959) and Dino Alfieri (1886–1966), the article analyses the informal networks that promoted the continued influence of these ex-Fascists with high-ranking bureaucrats and other prominent individuals (such as Pope Paul VI and Aldo Moro). Thanks to the long-standing social practice of theraccomandazione, Bottai and Alfieri maintained their Fascist-era connections well into the postwar period, often serving as intermediaries between ‘ordinary Italians' and governmental, political and cultural elites. Although they no longer held political power, these ex-Fascists represented a class of ‘alternative elites' unassociated with the democratic values of the new Republic.

The destruction of the Yugoslav state in April 1941 implied it joining the ‘new European order’ under the domination of the National Socialist Germany in which the Jewish people were exposed to total annihilation. The greatest number of Yugoslav Jews saved their lives by escaping to the areas under the Italian rule. After Italy capitulated in September 1943, a larger number of refugees found refuge in neutral Switzerland. Jewish refugees, like other Yugoslav refugees, enjoyed the help of the Yugoslav government in exile through its diplomatic missions. The conflict of two resistance movements in the country caused a division among the Jewish refugees in Switzerland. Ideological, political and social differences among the refugees were also reflected in the issue of returning to the country after the war. The paper was written on the basis of archival research and relevant historiographical literature.

Indonesia was appointed as the G20 presidency holder at the 2020 Riyadh Summit and handed over from Italy on October 31, 2021 in Rome, Italy. Along with the G20 Presidency activities in Indonesia, the conflict between Russia - Ukraine heated up again in early February 2022 after the Russian fighter fleet attacked the Ukrainian border, precisely in Belarus. Various impacts were felt by countries around Russia-Ukraine including Indonesia. Indonesia as the holder of the G20 Presidency in 2022 must take a stand against Russia invading Ukraine. This paper uses qualitative research methods, data collection techniques in this paper are based on internet-based research. The Indonesian government as the G20 Presidency has also conducted political, legal and security negotiations that not only talk about the issue of war that occurred between Russia and Ukraine in early 2022 but also bring the main issue of the economy. Indonesia's duty according to the constitution is to encourage that world issues can still be resolved in the G20 forum. Indonesia's stance in realizing world peace is enshrined in the Preamble of the 1945 Constitution. In an effort to create world peace, Indonesia is considered to still have to prioritize wise steps.

Abstract This contribution analyses the change in the conception of taxation which occurred in Italy during the aftermath of World War II. From being a neutral mechanism to collect state revenue, in this period taxation became seen as a powerful political tool to redistribute income and wealth. The article primarily relies on material collected by the Economic Commission of the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly set up in 1945, a unique source which offers a comprehensive overview of the different conceptions of taxation at the time. Drawing upon their different economic and political ideologies, liberal economists and entrepreneurs, Christian Democrats, and Communists formulated alternative tax programmes. While liberal economists and entrepreneurs advocated the maintenance of the existing tax system on technical grounds, the Christian Democrats imposed a new conception of taxation as a means for income redistribution. Progressive and redistributive taxation was also present in the Communist programme, but their ambiguous tax views suffered from the lack of administrative and economic experience which liberal and Catholic economists had instead gathered before and partially even during the Fascist regime. The debate ended abruptly in 1947 with the exclusion of the left from government and the success of liberal conceptions. Nonetheless, during the 1960s, the Catholic emphasis on progressive and redistributive taxation incorporated the new Keynesian ideas on public finance and achieved a hegemonic position in the public debate, thus overcoming the traditional liberal view.

In a recent issue of Modern Italy, Sarah Morgan has offered an analysis of the Schio killings (eccidio di Schio) of July 1945 by means of a ‘constructivist’ approach.1 She compares the narratives of events provided by the Communist party (PCI), the Allied Military Government (AMG), and partisans and partisan organizations, and shows how each narrative was related to different political interests and preoccupations. Thus, the PCI, which was primarily concerned with defending the image of the ‘Resistance’ on which its political legitimacy rested, maintained that those responsible for the killings of over. fty ‘Fascists’ held in the Schio prison were not real partisans but ‘agents provocateurs’. The AMG presented the killings as a brutal example of breakdown of law and order thus casting doubt on the viability of the model of grass-root governance provided by the Committees of National Liberation (CLN). Conservative political forces pushed the AMG narrative even further and chose to regard the Schio massacre as the beginning of a cycle of violence instigated by the Communist Left. Finally, partisans and partisan organizations argued that the killings were an act of popular justice within the context of a general sense of frustration for the lack of epurazione (purging of the Fascists) and the emotions generated by the news that all but one of the Schio anti-Fascists sent to the Mathausen concentration camp had died there.

Mike Hawkins, Social Darwinism in European and American Thought 1860–1945. Nature as Model and Nature as Threat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 348 pp., £19.95, ISBN 0–521–57434 X.Carl Ipsen, Dictating Demography. The Problem of Population in Fascist Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 281 pp., £35, ISBN 0–521–15545–7.Simon Szreter, Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain 1860–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976, 704 pp., £50, ISBN 0–521–34343–7.Alain Desrosières, La politique des grands nombres, histoire de la raison statistique (Paris: La Découverte, 1993), 437 pp., FF 220; ISBN 2–707–12253–X; English translation by Camille Naish, The Politics of Large Numbers. A History of Statistical Reasoning (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 416 pp., $45, ISBN 0–674–68932–1.Paul Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism 1870–1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 641 pp., £22.95, ISBN 0–521–42397–X; French translation by B. Frumer, L'Hygiène de la race (Paris: La Découverte, 1998), 301 pp., FF 160, ISBN 2–707–12706–X.Over the last ten years a series of social historians have published studies of the link between the definition of scientific categories and the implementation of demographic policies in Europe. This discussion of the classification of populations in terms of social class, race or location (rural, urban, underprivileged areas) has complicated the traditional theories of the scientist and politician, Max Weber, and the student of ‘bio-power’, Michel Foucault. Now, historians of political ideas are finding living examples to illustrate recent advances in the sociology of science, establishing themselves at the interface between the history of human health and that of population policies. The aim is to throw light on the exchange between scientists and population management: among the themes to be treated are natalism, populationism, hygienism and eugenics.

The article examines the views of the prominent Russian politician and publicist Vasily Vitalyevich Shulgin (1878–1976), whom the author considers to be the largest ideologist of the “chieftain” political subculture in Russian political culture. Following Shulgin, the author distinguishes two fundamentally different models of power: “monarchical” (traditional) type of power and “chieftain” (or “charismatic”) type of power. V.V. Shulgin was one of the first Russian thinkers who, after Alexander Pushkin and Sergei Solovyov, considered the “golden age” of the Russian society to be under the rule of “leaders-heroes” (for example, Peter the Great). Shulgin explained many of the problems of Russian statehood revealed in the early 20th century by the degradation of the Russian ruling class and specifically the Romanov dynasty. Under these conditions, the national leader P.A. Stolypin (similar to Bismarck in Germany or Mussolini in Italy), able to bring the country out of crisis by evolution, had appeared “next to the monarch,” but he has not been appreciated by Russian society and it has caused a national catastrophe. The First World War has accelerated the degradation of the Russian government. The “democratic forces” that came to power in Russia for a short time could not nominate a new “leader” from their ranks (Shulgin treats Alexander Kerensky rather ironically). Shulgin foresaw that “intermediate figures” like the White generals or the Red diarchy of Lenin and Trotsky would eventually give way to the autocratic rule of an all-Russian “Chief,” who would combine the ideology of the Whites and the will of the Reds.

The article offers an overview of modern historical data on the origins, causes of World War II, the decisive role of the USSR in its victorious end, and also records the main results and lessons of World War II.Hitler's Germany was the main cause of World War II. Nazism, racial theory, mixed with far-reaching geopolitical designs, became the combustible mixture that ignited the fire of glob­al conflict. The war with the Soviet Union was planned to be waged with particular cruelty.The preconditions for the outbreak of World War II were the humiliating provisions of the Versailles Peace Treaty for the German people, as well as the attitude of the "Western de­mocracies" to Russia after 1917 and the Soviet Union as an outcast of world development. Great Britain, France, the United States chose for themselves a policy of ignoring Moscow's interests, they were more likely to cooperate with Hitler's Germany than with Soviet Russia. It was the "Munich Agreement" that became the point of no return to the beginning of the Second World War. Under these conditions, for the USSR, its own security and the conclusion of a non-aggression pact with Germany began to come to the fore, defining the "spheres of interests" of the parties in order to limit the advance of German troops towards the Soviet borders in the event of German aggression against Poland. The non-aggression pact gave the USSR just under two years to rebuild the army and consolidate its defensive potential and pushed the Soviet borders hundreds of kilometers westward. The signing of the Pact was preceded by the failure in August 1939 of the negotiations between the military mis­sions of Britain, France and the USSR, although Moscow took the Anglo-French-Soviet nego­tiations with all seriousness.The huge losses of the USSR in the summer of 1941 are explained by the following circum­stances: before the war, a large-scale modernization of the Red Army was launched, a gradu­ate of a military school did not have sufficient experience in managing an entrusted unit by June 22, 1941; the Red Army was going to bleed the enemy in border battles, stop it with short counterattacks by covering units, carry out defensive operations, and then strike a de­cisive blow into the depths of the enemy's territory, so the importance of a multi-echeloned long-term defense in 1941 was underestimated by the command of the Red Army and it was not ready for it; significant groupings of the Western Special Military District were drawn into potential salients, which was used by the Germans at the initial stage of the war; Stalin's fear of provoking Hitler to start a war led to slowness in making the most urgent and necessary decisions to bring troops to combat readiness.The Allies delayed the opening of the second front for an unreasonably long time. They, of course, achieved outstanding success in the landing operation in France, however, the en­emy's losses in only one Soviet strategic operation in the summer of 1944 ("Bagration") are not inferior, and even exceed, the enemy’s losses on the second front. One of the goals of "Bagration" was to help the Allies.Soviet soldiers liberated Europe at the cost of their lives. At the same time, Moscow could not afford to re-establish a cordon sanitaire around its borders after the war, so that anti- Soviet forces would come to power in the border states. The United States and Great Britain took all measures available to them to quickly remove from the governments of Italy, France and other Western states all the left-wing forces that in 1944-1945 had a serious impact on the politics of their countries.

The immense structural inequalities of the global social /political economy can no longer be contained through consensual mechanisms of state control. The ruling classes have lost legitimacy; we are witnessing a breakdown of ruling-class hegemony on a world scale. There is good and evil among mankind; thus it necessitates the conflict between the good and evil on Earth. We are in for a period of major conflicts and great upheavals. It's generally regarded that Mencius (c.371- c.289 B.C) a student of Confucianism developed his entire philosophy from two basic propositions: the first, that Man's original nature is good; and the second, that Man's original nature becomes evil when his wishes are not fulfilled. What is good and what is evil? Philosophers of all ages have thought over this question. Each reckoned that he had solved the question once and for all, yet within a few years the problem would re-emerge with new dimensions. Repeated acts of corruption and evil action makes a man corrupt and takes away a man from his original nature. Still now majority of the people of the world give compliance to corruption because of social pressures, economic pressures, cultural pressures and political pressures. The conflict between good and evil is ancient on earth and is prevalent to this day. May be the final confrontation between the descendants of Cain and Abel is at our doorsteps. During the 2nd World War America with its European allies went into world wide military campaign to defeat Germany, Italy and Japan. When the Second World War ended in 1945 the United States of America came out as victorious. America was the first country to detonate atomic bomb in another country. During that period Russia fell into competition with America in politically colonizing countries after countries. With the fall of Communism Russia terminated its desire wanting to be the champion of the oppressed of the world. The situation in Russia continues to deteriorate, a country which until only a few years ago was a superpower. Russians are deeply disillusioned today with the new politicians in Russia, who they says "promise everything and give nothing." The Russians still strongly oppose a world order dominated by the United States. If anyone looks at or investigates the situations in other countries it can be seen that at present almost all countries of the world are similar or same in the forms of structures of corruption and evil. The Worldwide control of humanity‘s economic, social and political activities is under the helm of US corporate and military power. The US has established its control over 191 governments which are members of the United Nations. The last head of state of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev on December 2012, at a conference on the future of the Middle East and the Black Sea region in the Turkish city of Istanbul, has warned the US of an imminent Soviet-like collapse if Washington persists with its hegemonic policies. Mass public protest occurred against US hegemony are mainly from Muslim countries of South East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, North Africa and Africa. The latest mass protests erupted in September 2012 when the divine Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was insulted by America and Israel. There were strong mass protests by people from Indonesia to Morocco and in the European countries by mostly immigrants and Australia were there are Muslim populations. This worldwide protest had occurred while the rise of the masses is ongoing against corrupt rulers in West Asia and North Africa. The masses of the people are thirsty and desperate for justice, dignity, economic welfare and human rights. Most major religions have their own sources of information on the Last Age of Mankind or the End of Times, which often include fateful battles between the forces of good and evil and cataclysmic natural disasters. Humans are evolving to a final stage of their evolution towards a 'New Age‘ that is to come which the corrupt does not understand. At present times a final battle of good versus evil on Earth will ensue. The World powers (leaders) and their entourages who are really detached from the masses have organized to keep aloft the present world order that degenerates the masses in corruption, keeps the people in unhappiness, and deprives the masses from economic well being, education and keeps promoting wars and conflicts to support corruption and evil. We are at the ?End of Times?. The Promised Messiah will come to set right what is wrong, no doubt. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v4i1.14264 Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2013; 4(1):9-19

The immense structural inequalities of the global social /political economy can no longer be contained through consensual mechanisms of state control. The ruling classes have lost legitimacy; we are witnessing a breakdown of ruling-class hegemony on a world scale. There is good and evil among mankind; thus it necessitates the conflict between the good and evil on Earth. We are in for a period of major conflicts and great upheavals. It's generally regarded that Mencius (c.371-c.289 B.C) a student of Confucianism developed his entire philosophy from two basic propositions: the first, that Man's original nature is good; and the second, that Man's original nature becomes evil when his wishes are not fulfilled. What is good and what is evil? Philosophers of all ages have thought over this question. Each reckoned that he had solved the question once and for all, yet within a few years the problem would re-emerge with new dimensions. Repeated acts of corruption and evil action makes a man corrupt and takes away a man from his original nature. Still now majority of the people of the world give compliance to corruption because of social pressures, economic pressures, cultural pressures and political pressures. The conflict between good and evil is ancient on earth and is prevalent to this day. May be the final confrontation between the descendants of Cain and Abel is at our doorsteps. During the 2nd World War America with its European allies went into world wide military campaign to defeat Germany, Italy and Japan. When the Second World War ended in 1945 the United States of America came out as victorious. America was the first country to detonate atomic bomb in another country. During that period Russia fell into competition with America in politically colonizing countries after countries. With the fall of Communism Russia terminated its desire wanting to be the champion of the oppressed of the world. The situation in Russia continues to deteriorate, a country which until only a few years ago was a superpower. Russians are deeply disillusioned today with the new politicians in Russia, who they says "promise everything and give nothing." The Russians still strongly oppose a world order dominated by the United States. If anyone looks at or investigates the situations in other countries it can be seen that at present almost all countries of the world are similar or same in the forms of structures of corruption and evil. The Worldwide control of humanity‘s economic, social and political activities is under the helm of US corporate and military power. The US has established its control over 191 governments which are members of the United Nations. The last head of state of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev on December 2012, at a conference on the future of the Middle East and the Black Sea region in the Turkish city of Istanbul, has warned the US of an imminent Soviet-like collapse if Washington persists with its hegemonic policies. Mass public protest occurred against US hegemony are mainly from Muslim countries of South East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, North Africa and Africa. The latest mass protests erupted in September 2012 when the divine Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was insulted by America and Israel. There were strong mass protests by people from Indonesia to Morocco and in the European countries by mostly immigrants and Australia were there are Muslim populations. This worldwide protest had occurred while the rise of the masses is ongoing against corrupt rulers in West Asia and North Africa. The masses of the people are thirsty and desperate for justice, dignity, economic welfare and human rights. Most major religions have their own sources of information on the Last Age of Mankind or the End of Times, which often include fateful battles between the forces of good and evil and cataclysmic natural disasters. Humans are evolving to a final stage of their evolution towards a ?New Age‘ that is to come which the corrupt does not understand. At present times a final battle of good versus evil on Earth will ensue. The World powers (leaders) and their entourages who are really detached from the masses have organized to keep aloft the present world order that degenerates the masses in corruption, keeps the people in unhappiness, and deprives the masses from economic well being, education and keeps promoting wars and conflicts to support corruption and evil. We are at the ?End of Times?. The Promised Messiah will come to set right what is wrong, no doubt. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v4i2.16372 Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2013; 4(2) 9-21

Between 1860 and 1945, the Chinese port city of Tianjin became the site of up to nine foreign-controlled concessions, including one controlled by Italy, as well as, temporarily, a multi-national military government (1900–02), and a series of evolving municipal administrations. Tianjin became the second largest industrial and commercial city in China after Shanghai, the largest financial and trade centre in the north, and one of the most vibrant commercial centres in Asia.This article focuses on the identity politics of ‘Italy’ in Tianjin. It analyses both the discursive formations and the practices of governance that characterised the Italian concession area, in the past and in the present. Using Freud’s paradigm of ‘uncanny’ (unheimlich) the article explores the context in which forms and representations that are considered ‘homely’ and ‘familiar’ by the Italians are exposed, proposed and imposed on the perceived otherness of Tianjin’s space.

This article investigates the development of the Spanish–Italian mercury cartel from the end of World War II to the mid-1950s. Previous literature has singled out the cartel as one of the most robust international cartels of the twentieth century, but as this article shows, the cartel broke down toward the end of the 1940s, and although briefly reestablished in 1954, it quickly dissolved again. Building on access to original source material from archives in Spain, Italy, the United States, and United Kingdom, we investigate the underlying reasons why the cartel broke down, and how and why it was eventually reestablished. Because both the main Italian and the Spanish mercury producers were state-owned, this article pays special attention to the influence of the political relations between Spain and Italy on the development of the cartel. The study of the mercury cartel is used as a prism to investigate the point where industry strategies meet government strategies. This article thus contributes to two major strands of literature, both to the business history literature on international cartels in the post-1945 world and to the diplomatic history literature on the intricate relationship between Spain and Italy in the early phase of the Cold War.

The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. — Sun TzuWorld War II saw a proliferation of maps. From command posts to the pages of National Geographic to the pages of daily newspapers, they were everywhere (Schulten). The era also saw substantive developments in cartography, especially with respect to the topographical maps that feature in our selected films. This essay offers a preliminary examination of the battle-map as depicted in two films about the Second World War: Franklin J. Shaffner’s biopic Patton (1970) and Jack Smight’s epic Midway (1976). In these films, maps, charts, or tableaux (the three-dimensional models upon which are plotted the movements of battalions, fleets, and so on) emerge as an expression of both martial and cinematic strategy. As a rear-view representation of the relative movements of personnel and materiel in particular battle arenas, the map and its accessories (pins, tape, markers, and so forth) trace the broad military dispositions of Patton’s 2nd Corp (Africa), Seventh Army (Italy) and Third Army (Western Europe) and the relative position of American and Japanese fleets in the Pacific. In both Patton and Midway, the map also emerges as a simple mode of narrative plotting: as the various encounters in the two texts play out, the battle-map more or less contemporaneously traces the progress of forces. It also serves as a foreshadowing device, not just narratively, but cinematically: that which is plotted in advance comes to pass (even if as preliminary movements before catastrophe), but the audience is also cued for the cinematic chaos and disjuncture that almost inevitably ensues in the battle scenes proper.On one hand, then, this essay proposes that at the fundamental level of fabula (seen through either the lens of historical hindsight or through the eyes of the novice who knows nothing of World War II), the annotated map is engaged both strategically and cinematically: as a stage upon which commanders attempt to act out (either in anticipation, or retrospectively) the intricate, but grotesque, ballet of warfare — and as a reflection of the broad, sequential, sweeps of conflict. While, in War and Cinema, Paul Virilio offers the phrase ‘the logistics of perception’ (1), in this this essay we, on the other hand, consider that, for those in command, the battle-map is a representation of the perception of logistics: the big picture of war finds rough indexical representation on a map, but (as Clausewitz tells us) chance, the creative agency of individual commanders, and the fog of battle make it far less probable (than is the case in more specific mappings, such as, say, the wedding rehearsal) that what is planned will play out with any degree of close correspondence (On War 19, 21, 77-81). Such mapping is, of course, further problematised by the processes of abstraction themselves: indexicality is necessarily a reduction; a de-realisation or déterritorialisation. ‘For the military commander,’ writes Virilio, ‘every dimension is unstable and presents itself in isolation from its original context’ (War and Cinema 32). Yet rehearsal (on maps, charts, or tableaux) is a keying activity that seeks to presage particular real world patterns (Goffman 45). As suggested above, far from being a rhizomatic activity, the heavily plotted (as opposed to thematic) business of mapping is always out of joint: either a practice of imperfect anticipation or an equally imperfect (pared back and behind-the-times) rendition of activity in the field. As is argued by Tolstoj in War and Peace, the map then presents to the responder a series of tensions and ironies often lost on the masters of conflict themselves. War, as Tostoj proposes, is a stochastic phenomenon while the map is a relatively static, and naive, attempt to impose order upon it. Tolstoj, then, pillories Phull (in the novel, Pfuhl), the aptly-named Prussian general whose lock-stepped obedience to the science of war (of which the map is part) results in the abject humiliation of 1806:Pfuhl was one of those theoreticians who are so fond of their theory that they lose sight of the object of that theory - its application in practice. (Vol. 2, Part 1, Ch. 10, 53)In both Patton and Midway, then, the map unfolds not only as an epistemological tool (read, ‘battle plan’) or reflection (read, the near contemporaneous plotting of real world affray) of the war narrative, but as a device of foreshadowing and as an allegory of command and its profound limitations. So, in Deleuzian terms, while emerging as an image of both time and perception, for commanders and filmgoers alike, the map is also something of a seduction: a ‘crystal-image’ situated in the interstices between the virtual and the actual (Deleuze 95). To put it another way, in our films the map emerges as an isomorphism: a studied plotting in which inheres a counter-text (Goffman 26). As a simple device of narrative, and in the conventional terms of latitude and longitude, in both Patton and Midway, the map, chart, or tableau facilitate the plotting of the resources of war in relation to relief (including island land masses), roads, railways, settlements, rivers, and seas. On this syntagmatic plane, in Greimasian terms, the map is likewise received as a canonical sign of command: where there are maps, there are, after all, commanders (Culler 13). On the other hand, as suggested above, the battle-map (hereafter, we use the term to signify the conventional paper map, the maritime chart, or tableau) materialises as a sanitised image of the unknown and the grotesque: as apodictic object that reduces complexity and that incidentally banishes horror and affect. Thus, the map evolves, in the viewer’s perception, as an ironic sign of all that may not be commanded. This is because, as an emblem of the rational order, in Patton and Midway the map belies the ubiquity of battle’s friction: that defined by Clausewitz as ‘the only concept which...distinguishes real war from war on paper’ (73). ‘Friction’ writes Clausewitz, ‘makes that which appears easy in War difficult in reality’ (81).Our work here cannot ignore or side-step the work of others in identifying the core cycles, characteristics of the war film genre. Jeanine Basinger, for instance, offers nothing less than an annotated checklist of sixteen key characteristics for the World War II combat film. Beyond this taxonomy, though, Basinger identifies the crucial role this sub-type of film plays in the corpus of war cinema more broadly. The World War II combat film’s ‘position in the evolutionary process is established, as well as its overall relationship to history and reality. It demonstrates how a primary set of concepts solidifies into a story – and how they can be interpreted for a changing ideology’ (78). Stuart Bender builds on Basinger’s taxonomy and discussion of narrative tropes with a substantial quantitative analysis of the very building blocks of battle sequences. This is due to Bender’s contention that ‘when a critic’s focus [is] on the narrative or ideological components of a combat film [this may] lead them to make assumptions about the style which are untenable’ (8). We seek with this research to add to a rich and detailed body of knowledge by redressing a surprising omission therein: a conscious and focussed analysis of the use of battle-maps in war cinema. In Patton and in Midway — as in War and Peace — the map emerges as an emblem of an intergeneric dialogue: as a simple storytelling device and as a paradigmatic engine of understanding. To put it another way, as viewer-responders with a synoptic perspective we perceive what might be considered a ‘double exposure’: in the map we see what is obviously before us (the collision of represented forces), but an Archimedean positioning facilitates the production of far more revelatory textual isotopies along what Roman Jakobson calls the ‘axis of combination’ (Linguistics and Poetics 358). Here, otherwise unconnected signs (in our case various manifestations and configurations of the battle-map) are brought together in relation to particular settings, situations, and figures. Through this palimpsest of perspective, a crucial binary emerges: via the battle-map we see ‘command’ and the sequence of engagement — and, through Greimasian processes of axiological combination (belonging more to syuzhet than fabula), elucidated for us are the wrenching ironies of warfare (Culler 228). Thus, through the profound and bound motif of the map (Tomashevsky 69), are we empowered to pass judgement on the map bearers who, in both films, present as the larger-than-life heroes of old. Figure 1.While we have scope only to deal with the African theatre, Patton opens with a dramatic wide-shot of the American flag: a ‘map’, if you will, of a national history forged in war (Fig. 1). Against this potent sign of American hegemony, as he slowly climbs up to the stage before it, the general appears a diminutive figure -- until, via a series of matched cuts that culminate in extreme close-ups, he manifests as a giant about to play his part in a great American story (Fig. 2).Figure 2.Some nineteen minutes into a film, having surveyed the carnage of Kasserine Pass (in which, in February 1943, the Germans inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Americans) General Omar Bradley is reunited with his old friend and newly-nominated three-star general, George S. Patton Jr.. Against a backdrop of an indistinct topographical map (that nonetheless appears to show the front line) and the American flag that together denote the men’s authority, the two discuss the Kasserine catastrophe. Bradley’s response to Patton’s question ‘What happened at Kasserine?’ clearly illustrates the tension between strategy and real-world engagement. While the battle-plan was solid, the Americans were outgunned, their tanks were outclassed, and (most importantly) their troops were out-disciplined. Patton’s concludes that Rommel can only be beaten if the American soldiers are fearless and fight as a cohesive unit. Now that he is in command of the American 2nd Corp, the tide of American martial fortune is about to turn.The next time Patton appears in relation to the map is around half an hour into the two-and-three-quarter-hour feature. Here, in the American HQ, the map once more appears as a simple, canonical sign of command. Somewhat carelessly, the map of Europe seems to show post-1945 national divisions and so is ostensibly offered as a straightforward prop. In terms of martial specifics, screenplay writer Francis Ford Coppola apparently did not envisage much close scrutiny of the film’s maps. Highlighted, instead, are the tensions between strategy as a general principle and action on the ground. As British General Sir Arthur Coningham waxes lyrical about allied air supremacy, a German bomber drops its payload on the HQ, causing the map of Europe to (emblematically) collapse forward into the room. Following a few passes by the attacking aircraft, the film then cuts to a one second medium shot as a hail of bullets from a Heinkel He 111 strike a North African battle map (Fig. 3). Still prone, Patton remarks: ‘You were discussing air supremacy, Sir Arthur.’ Dramatising a scene that did take place (although Coningham was not present), Schaffner’s intention is to allow Patton to shoot holes in the British strategy (of which he is contemptuous) but a broader objective is the director’s exposé of the more general disjuncture between strategy and action. As the film progresses, and the battle-map’s allegorical significance is increasingly foregrounded, this critique becomes definitively sharper.Figure 3.Immediately following a scene in which an introspective Patton walks through a cemetery in which are interred the remains of those killed at Kasserine, to further the critique of Allied strategy the camera cuts to Berlin’s high command and a high-tech ensemble of tableaux, projected maps, and walls featuring lights, counters, and clocks. Tasked to research the newly appointed Patton, Captain Steiger walks through the bunker HQ with Hitler’s Chief of Staff, General Jodl, to meet with Rommel — who, suffering nasal diphtheria, is away from the African theatre. In a memorable exchange, Steiger reveals that Patton permanently attacks and never retreats. Rommel, who, following his easy victory at Kasserine, is on the verge of total tactical victory, in turn declares that he will ‘attack and annihilate’ Patton — before the poet-warrior does the same to him. As Clausewitz has argued, and as Schaffner is at pains to point out, it seems that, in part, the outcome of warfare has more to do with the individual consciousness of competing warriors than it does with even the most exquisite of battle-plans.Figure 4.So, even this early in the film’s runtime, as viewer-responders we start to reassess various manifestations of the battle-map. To put it as Michelle Langford does in her assessment of Schroeter’s cinema, ‘fragments of the familiar world [in our case, battle-maps] … become radically unfamiliar’ (Allegorical Images 57). Among the revelations is that from the flag (in the context of close battle, all sense of ‘the national’ dissolves), to the wall map, to the most detailed of tableau, the battle-plan is enveloped in the fog of war: thus, the extended deeply-focussed scenes of the Battle of El Guettar take us from strategic overview (Patton’s field glass perspectives over what will soon become a Valley of Death) to what Boris Eichenbaum has called ‘Stendhalian’ scale (The Young Tolstoi 105) in which, (in Patton) through more closely situated perspectives, we almost palpably experience the Germans’ disarray under heavy fire. As the camera pivots between the general and the particular (and between the omniscient and the nescient) the cinematographer highlights the tension between the strategic and the actual. Inasmuch as it works out (and, as Schaffner shows us, it never works out completely as planned) this is the outcome of modern martial strategy: chaos and unimaginable carnage on the ground that no cartographic representation might capture. As Patton observes the destruction unfold in the valley below and before him, he declares: ‘Hell of a waste of fine infantry.’ Figure 5.An important inclusion, then, is that following the protracted El Guettar battle scenes, Schaffner has the (symbolically flag-draped) casket of Patton’s aide, Captain Richard N. “Dick” Jenson, wheeled away on a horse-drawn cart — with the lonely figure of the mourning general marching behind, his ironic interior monologue audible to the audience: ‘I can't see the reason such fine young men get killed. There are so many battles yet to fight.’ Finally, in terms of this brief and partial assessment of the battle-map in Patton, less than an hour in, we may observe that the map is emerging as something far more than a casual prop; as something more than a plotting of battlelines; as something more than an emblem of command. Along a new and unexpected axis of semantic combination, it is now manifesting as a sign of that which cannot be represented nor commanded.Midway presents the lead-up to the eponymous naval battle of 1942. Smight’s work is of interest primarily because the battle itself plays a relatively small role in the film; what is most important is the prolonged strategising that comprises most of the film’s run time. In Midway, battle-tables and fleet markers become key players in the cinematic action, second almost to the commanders themselves. Two key sequences are discussed here: the moment in which Yamamoto outlines his strategy for the attack on Midway (by way of a decoy attack on the Aleutian Islands), and the scene some moments later where Admiral Nimitz and his assembled fleet commanders (Spruance, Blake, and company) survey their own plan to defend the atoll. In Midway, as is represented by the notion of a fleet-in-being, the oceanic battlefield is presented as a speculative plane on which commanders can test ideas. Here, a fleet in a certain position projects a radius of influence that will deter an enemy fleet from attacking: i.e. ‘a fleet which is able and willing to attack an enemy proposing a descent upon territory which that force has it in charge to protect’ (Colomb viii). The fleet-in-being, it is worth noting, is one that never leaves port and, while it is certainly true that the latter half of Midway is concerned with the execution of strategy, the first half is a prolonged cinematic game of chess, with neither player wanting to move lest the other has thought three moves ahead. Virilio opines that the fleet-in-being is ‘a new idea of violence that no longer comes from direct confrontation and bloodshed, but rather from the unequal properties of bodies, evaluation of the number of movements allowed them in a chosen element, permanent verification of their dynamic efficiency’ (Speed and Politics 62). Here, as in Patton, we begin to read the map as a sign of the subjective as well as the objective. This ‘game of chess’ (or, if you prefer, ‘Battleships’) is presented cinematically through the interaction of command teams with their battle-tables and fleet markers. To be sure, this is to show strategy being developed — but it is also to prepare viewers for the defamiliarised representation of the battle itself.The first sequence opens with a close-up of Admiral Yamamoto declaring: ‘This is how I expect the battle to develop.’ The plan to decoy the Americans with an attack on the Aleutians is shown via close-ups of the conveniently-labelled ‘Northern Force’ (Fig. 6). It is then explained that, twenty-four hours later, a second force will break off and strike south, on the Midway atoll. There is a cut from closeups of the pointer on the map to the wider shot of the Japanese commanders around their battle table (Fig. 7). Interestingly, apart from the opening of the film in the Japanese garden, and the later parts of the film in the operations room, the Japanese commanders are only ever shown in this battle-table area. This canonically positions the Japanese as pure strategists, little concerned with the enmeshing of war with political or social considerations. The sequence ends with Commander Yasimasa showing a photograph of Vice Admiral Halsey, who the Japanese mistakenly believe will be leading the carrier fleet. Despite some bickering among the commanders earlier in the film, this sequence shows the absolute confidence of the Japanese strategists in their plan. The shots are suitably languorous — averaging three to four seconds between cuts — and the body language of the commanders shows a calm determination. The battle-map here is presented as an index of perfect command and inevitable victory: each part of the plan is presented with narration suggesting the Japanese expect to encounter little resistance. While Yasimasa and his clique are confident, the other commanders suggest a reconnaissance flight over Pearl Harbor to ascertain the position of the American fleet; the fear of fleet-in-being is shown here firsthand and on the map, where the reconnaissance planes are placed alongside the ship markers. The battle-map is never shown in full: only sections of the naval landscape are presented. We suggest that this is done in order to prepare the audience for the later stages of the film: as in Patton (from time to time) the battle-map here is filmed abstractly, to prime the audience for the abstract montage of the battle itself in the film’s second half.Figure 6.Figure 7.Having established in the intervening running time that Halsey is out of action, his replacement, Rear Admiral Spruance, is introduced to the rest of the command team. As with all the important American command and strategy meetings in the film, this is done in the operations room. A transparent coordinates board is shown in the foreground as Nimitz, Spruance and Rear Admiral Fletcher move through to the battle table. Behind the men, as they lean over the table, is an enormous map of the world (Fig. 8). In this sequence, Nimitz freely admits that while he knows each Japanese battle group’s origin and heading, he is unsure of their target. He asks Spruance for his advice:‘Ray, assuming what you see here isn’t just an elaborate ruse — Washington thinks it is, but assuming they’re wrong — what kind of move do you suggest?’This querying is followed by Spruance glancing to a particular point on the map (Fig. 9), then a cut to a shot of models representing the aircraft carriers Hornet, Enterprise & Yorktown (Fig. 10). This is one of the few model/map shots unaccompanied by dialogue or exposition. In effect, this shot shows Spruance’s thought process before he responds: strategic thought presented via cinematography. Spruance then suggests situating the American carrier group just northeast of Midway, in case the Japanese target is actually the West Coast of the United States. It is, in effect, a hedging of bets. Spruance’s positioning of the carrier group also projects that group’s sphere of influence around Midway atoll and north to essentially cut off Japanese access to the US. The fleet-in-being is presented graphically — on the map — in order to, once again, cue the audience to match the later (edited) images of the battle to these strategic musings.In summary, in Midway, the map is an element of production design that works alongside cinematography, editing, and performance to present the notion of strategic thought to the audience. In addition, and crucially, it functions as an abstraction of strategy that prepares the audience for the cinematic disorientation that will occur through montage as the actual battle rages later in the film. Figure 8.Figure 9.Figure 10.This essay has argued that the battle-map is a simulacrum of the weakest kind: what Baudrillard would call ‘simulacra of simulation, founded on information, the model’ (121). Just as cinema itself offers a distorted view of history (the war film, in particular, tends to hagiography), the battle-map is an over-simplification that fails to capture the physical and psychological realities of conflict. We have also argued that in both Patton and Midway, the map is not a ‘free’ motif (Tomashevsky 69). Rather, it is bound: a central thematic device. In the two films, the battle-map emerges as a crucial isomorphic element. On the one hand, it features as a prop to signify command and to relay otherwise complex strategic plottings. At this syntagmatic level, it functions alongside cinematography, editing, and performance to give audiences a glimpse into how military strategy is formed and tested: a traditional ‘reading’ of the map. But on the flip side of what emerges as a classic structuralist binary, is the map as a device of foreshadowing (especially in Midway) and as a depiction of command’s profound limitations. Here, at a paradigmatic level, along a new axis of combination, a new reading of the map in war cinema is proposed: the battle-map is as much a sign of the subjective as it is the objective.ReferencesBasinger, Jeanine. The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre. Middletown, CT: Columbia UP, 1986.Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbour: U of Michigan Press, 1994.Bender, Stuart. Film Style and the World War II Combat Genre. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.Clausewitz, Carl. On War. Vol. 1. London: Kegan Paul, 1908.Colomb, Philip Howard. Naval Warfare: Its Ruling Principles and Practice Historically Treated. 3rd ed. London: W.H. Allen & Co, 1899.Culler, Jonathan. Structuralist Poetics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975.Deleuze, Gilles. 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