{"id":31062,"date":"2015-04-26T02:00:35","date_gmt":"2015-04-26T06:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=31062"},"modified":"2015-10-11T13:53:10","modified_gmt":"2015-10-11T17:53:10","slug":"giovanni-guareschi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/04\/26\/giovanni-guareschi\/","title":{"rendered":"Giovanni Guareschi"},"content":{"rendered":"

I first read the short stories of Giovanni Guareschi when I was about ten years old. Much of the political content flew right over my head, but I enjoyed the interplay of the two main characters, Don Camillo and Peppone, in their never-ending battles in the un-named tiny Italian village somewhere in the Po valley. From the beginning of this post, you can tell that Sarah Hoyt<\/a> is also a fan:<\/p>\n

Years ago on this blog I talked about “Technique of The Coup D\u2019Etat” by Giovanni Guareschi and I typed the beginning in here. I shall copy that. (Assume typos are mine.)<\/p>\n

At ten o\u2019clock on Tuesday evening, the village square was swept with wind and rain, but a crowd had been gathered there for three or four hours to listen to the election news coming out of a radio loudspeaker. Suddenly the lights went out and everything was plunged into darkness. Someone went to the control box but came back saying there was nothing to be done. The trouble must be up the line or at the power plant, miles away. People hung around for half an hour or so, and then, as the rain began to come down even harder than before, they scattered to their homes, leaving the village silent and deserted. Peppone shut himself up in the People\u2019s Palace, along with Lungo, Brusco, Straziami, and Gigio, the same leader of the \u201cRed Wing\u201d squad from Molinetto. They sat around uneasily by the light of a candle stump and cursed the power and light monopoly as an enemy of the people, until Smilzo burst in. He had gone to Rocca Verde on his motorcycle to see if anyone had news and now his eyes were popping out of his head and he was waving a sheet of paper.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Front has won!\u201d he panted. \u201cFifty-two seats out of a hundred in the senate and fifty-one in the chamber. The other side is done for. We must get hold of our people and have a celebration. If there\u2019s no light, we can set fire to a couple of haystacks nearby.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHurrah!\u201d shouted Peppone. But Gigio grabbed hold of Smilzo\u2019s jacket.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cKeep quiet and stay where you are!\u201d he said grimly. It\u2019s too early for anyone to be told. Let\u2019s take care of our little list.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cList? What list?\u201d asked Peppone in astonishment.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe list of reactionaries who are to be executed first thing. Let\u2019s see now\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Peppone stammered that he had made no such list, but the other only laughed.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t matter. I\u2019ve a very complete one here all ready. Let\u2019s look at it together, and once we\u2019ve decided we can get to work.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Gigio pulled a sheet of paper with some twenty names on it out of his pocket and laid it on the table.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cLooks to me as if al the reactionary pigs were here,\u201d he said. \u201cI put down the worst of them, and we can attend to the rest later.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Peppone scanned the names and scratched his head.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, what do you say?\u201d Gigio asked him.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cGenerally speaking, we agree,\u201d said Peppone. \u201cBut what\u2019s the hurry? We have plenty of time to do things in the proper style.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Gigio brought his fist down on the table.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t a minute to lose, that\u2019s what I say,\u201d he shouted harshly. \u201cThis is the time to put our hands on them, before they suspect us. If we wait until tomorrow, they may get wind of something and disappear.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

At this point Brusco came into the discussion.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYou must be crazy,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t start out to kill people before you think it over.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not crazy and you\u2019re a very poor Communist, that\u2019s what you are! These are all reactionary pigs; no one can dispute that, and if you don\u2019t take advantage of this golden opportunity then you\u2019re a traitor to the party!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Brusco shook his head.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you believe it! It\u2019s jackasses that are traitors to the Party! And you\u2019ll be a jackass if you make mistakes and slaughter innocent people.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Gigio raised a threatening finger.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s better to eliminate ten innocents than to spare one individual who may be dangerous to the cause. Dead men can do the party no harm. You\u2019re a very poor Communist, as I\u2019ve said before. In fact, you never were a good one. You\u2019re as weak as a snowball in hell, I say. You\u2019re just a bourgeois in disguise!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Brusco grew pale, and Peppone intervened.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s enough,\u201d he said. \u201cComrade Gigio has the right idea and nobody can deny it. It\u2019s part of the groundwork of Communist philosophy. Communism gives us the goal at which to aim and democratic discussion must be confined to the quickest and surest ways to attain it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Giggio nodded his head in satisfaction, while Peppone continued: \u201cOnce it\u2019s been decided that these people are or may be dangerous to the cause and therefore we must eliminate them, the next thing is to work out the best method of elimination. Because if by our carelessness, we were to allow a a single reactionary to escape, then we should indeed be traitors to the Party. Is that clear?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d the others said in chorus. \u201cYou\u2019re dead right.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are six of us,\u201d Peppone went on, \u201cAnd twenty names on that list, among them the Filotti, who has a whole regiment in his house and a cache of arms in the cellar. If we were to attack these people one by one, at the first shot the rest would run away. We must call our forces together and divide them up into twenty squads, each one equipped to deal with a particular objective.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cVery good,\u201d said Gigio.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cGood, my foot!\u201d shouted Peppone. \u201cThat\u2019s not the half of it! We need a twenty first squad, equipped even better than the rest to hold off the police. And mobile squads to cover the roads and the river. If a fellow rushes into action in the way you proposed, without proper precautions, running the risk of botching it completely, then he\u2019s not a good communist, he\u2019s just a damn fool.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It was Gigio\u2019s turn to pale now, and he bit his lip in anger, while Peppone proceeded to give orders. Smilzo was to transmit word to the cell leaders in the outlying settlements and these were to call their men together. A green rocket would give the signal to meet in appointed places, where Falchetto, Brusco and Straziami would form the squads and assign the targets. A red rocket would bid them go into action. Smilzo went off on his motorcycle while Lungo, Brusco, Straziami and Gigio discussed the composition of the squads.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYou must do a faultless job,\u201d Peppone told them. \u201cI shall hold you personally responsible for its success. Meanwhile, I\u2019ll see if the police are suspicious and find some way to put them off.<\/em><\/p>\n

Don Camillo, later waiting in vain for the lights to go on and the radio to resume its mumble, decided to get ready for bed. Suddenly he heard a knock at the door and when he drew it open cautiously, he found Peppone before him.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cGet out of here in a hurry!\u201d Peppone panted. \u201cPack a bag and go! Put on an ordinary suit of clothes, take your boat and row down the river.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Don Camillo stared at him with curiosity.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cComrade Mayor, have you been drinking?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHurry,\u201d said Peppone. \u201cThe people\u2019s Front has won and the squads are getting ready. There\u2019s a list of people to be executed and your name is the first one!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Spoiler alert, though this is not one of the stories that you read for the denouement: by the end of the story, the entire cell except Gigio is crammed in Don Camillo\u2019s closet, as each successive comrade shows up to try to save him and is shoved into the closet as the next one comes along.<\/p>\n

Then it is revealed that they didn\u2019t in fact win the election, but more importantly, the entire cell, which had lived in fear of the Stalinist *sshole who pulled book and fervor on them every time and made everyone of them live in terror of being denounced as insufficiently fervent, now knows who the enemy really is. That is, each individual now knows he is not an isolated individual surrounded by good party members who will turn on him, but one in a collection of decent individuals kinda sorta following an ideology but not so far it blunts their humanity and ONE isolated *sshole turning them against each other for the power.<\/p>\n

At the end of the story, Peppone finds Gigio proudly waiting to send up the red rocket and kicks him all the way to main street.<\/p>\n

Gigio\u2019s power is gone, because he\u2019s revealed to be ONE individual working for himself and only that, and a hateful, little one at that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you’d like to know more about Guareschi and his work, you could do worse than to read the entries at The Little Blog of Don Camillo<\/em><\/a>, which unfortunately hasn’t been updated for a few years, but has lots of details both about the Little World and its author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I first read the short stories of Giovanni Guareschi when I was about ten years old. Much of the political content flew right over my head, but I enjoyed the interplay of the two main characters, Don Camillo and Peppone, in their never-ending battles in the un-named tiny Italian village somewhere in the Po valley. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[32,62,57,339,53],"tags":[360,108,780],"class_list":["post-31062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-europe","category-humour","category-italy","category-politics","tag-christianity","tag-coldwar","tag-communism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-850","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31062"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31064,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31062\/revisions\/31064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}