Giangiacomo Feltrinelli
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Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (June 19, 1926 - March 14, 1972) was a profound Italian publishing founder and left-wing Italian activist. He founded the publishing house Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore in 1954. He was also a communist and founded the GAP militant grouping in 1970.[1][2] GAP would become the second terrorist organization to be formed during the Years of Lead.
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[edit] Early life
Giangiacomo was born into one of Italy's wealthiest families descendents of Feltre, as marquess of Gargnano. His father Carl served in high positions with numerous companies including jobs in the lumber field. The young Giangiacomo first took an interest in the lives of workers and the poor during discussions with the staff who ran his family's estate. He came to understand that, under capitalism, and the fascist regime it had spawned, the vast majority of people could never attain his privileges and were compelled to sell their labour to the bosses and landowners for a pittance.[citation needed] During the latter stages of the World War II, Giangiacomo joined the partisans, led by the Italian Communist Party (PCI), fighting the invading German army and the remnants of Mussolini's regime. It was a small step from this to formally joining the PCI. Over the next few years, Giangiacomo played a key role in financing the activities of the PCI.
In the post-war period the PCI held a dominant position amongst the Italian working class. The country was in economic ruins and the ruling class was weak. Given the widespread radicalisation in society, it was entirely possible for the PCI to embark on a struggle to peacefully take power on a number of occasions. The leadership of the party, however, was firmly under the influence of the reactionary, ruling Stalinist bureaucracy in Moscow, which wanted to come to an accommodation with Western imperialism. This lead the PCI to propose a coalition government in Italy, which would see them sharing power with progressive capitalist parties and putting off the struggle for socialism to some distant date. But even this was too much for the Italian bosses, who were afraid that the PCI in office would unleash a revolution from below.
[edit] Publisher
Near the draw of 1954, Giangiacomo established a reputable publishing company, Feltrinelli Editore. The first published book from the Milan publishing house was the autobiography of the first Indian minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. In the late 1950s Feltrinelli accidentally came across the manuscript of the novel Doctor Zhivago by the Russian writer Boris Pasternak. Set in Russia, the novel follows a multitude of characters from 1903 to 1943, the period of revolution and Stalinist degeneration. At once, Feltrinelli saw a masterpiece. Joseph Stalin and the PCI leaders saw it entirely differently, they could not abide any criticism whatsoever, implied or explicit, of the Moscow regime.
Senoir Service records the fascinating correspondence between Feltrinelli and Pasternak, as they successfully resisted clumsy attempts by the Stalinist bureaucracy to stop publication. Doctor Zhivago immediately became a best seller internationally, to be followed by a hugely popular film version. Feltrinelli was soon effectively expelled from the PCI.
Feltrinelli Editore scored another coup in 1958 and became the first to publish The Leopard, by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. Described as the greatest novel of the century, The Leopard centres on the Prince of Salina in the 1860s during the Risorgimento, a movement for Italian unification.
Whatever his own reading tastes, Feltrinelli was always keen to promote the avant-garde, including the works of the influential Group 63 literary circle. He also took the risk of illegally publishing and distributing novels banned under obscenity laws, such as Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer.
[edit] Activism
Feltrinelli spent the next years travelling the world and making links with various radical Third World leaders and anti-imperialist and guerrilla movements. In 1964, Feltrinelli meets the leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro, supporter of the main South American and international movements of liberation, with which long friendship was hoped to be established. In 1967, Feltrinelli arrives in Bolivia and meets with Régis Debray. He published the writings of figures such as Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, and a series of pamphlets on the unfolding revolution in the colonial world and the Middle East.
Feltrinelli's political ideas were confused and contradictory.[citation needed] Lacking an independent class analysis, he increasingly sought to advocate guerrilla struggle to further the aims of the Italian working class.[citation needed] But guerrilla campaigns could only play a role in fighting the ruling classes in underdeveloped countries, where the peasantry predominated.[citation needed] Even then, isolated from a struggle of the working class, guerrilla movements could not provide a route to genuine socialist states.[citation needed] By contrast, Italy was a modern capitalist country. Here the struggle for power lay in the weapons of collective action by the working class, including the general strike.[citation needed]
[edit] GAP
The late 1960s and early 1970s saw a period of renewed student and labour struggles both in Italy and internationally, marking the end of the post-war economic boom and a new offensive by the bosses. Many in Italy feared an attempted coup by the rightwing in response. As the conservative labour and PCI leaders refused to develop the mass movements, and confusion and impatience grew amongst some middle class youth and workers, Feltrinelli prioritised organising clandestine resistance to the right-wing threat. Along with the sprouting of other underground terrorist groups, such as the Red Brigades, he established the Partisan Action Group (GAP). As the GAP carried out a series of small-scale bomb attacks against neo-fascist targets and employers, Fetrinelli was forced into hiding.
[edit] Death
On March 14, 1972, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli was found dead at the foot of an electricity pylon near Milan, apparently killed by his own explosives while on an operation with other GAP members. Like his father's death, the passing of Giangiacomo was immediately viewed suspiciously. Many believed Italian secret services, which had a number of informants in the underground groups, had a part in his death.
[edit] Epilogue
- Further information: History of Italy (1970s-1980s)
The sum contribution of the short-lived GAP to the class struggle, like the Red Brigades, was to disorientate some sections of the working class and to give the state excuses to use repressive measures. Yet 8,000 youth and workers attended Feltrinelli's funeral. Undoubtedly, they were paying homage to a son of the ruling class who had broken ranks and pursued an intransigent goal of revolution, as well as having created a valuable publishing house whose affordable publications both informed and enlightened.
[edit] References
[edit] Further reading
- Carlo Feltrinelli (2002). Feltrinelli: A Story of Riches, Revolution, and Violent Death. Harcourt.
