Italics, e Francia dal 1919 al 1939. Instituto per gli studi di politica internazionale. Milano. 1981. 437 p.

Italian imperialism considered itself deprived of its allies in the First World War and, despite the collapse of the economy and the exhaustion of the country, hatched plans for the redistribution of colonies and spheres of influence, pursued a policy of aggression and military adventures. On the way to implementing its expansionist plans, which were expressed by fascism led by Mussolini, Italy faced first of all France, as the content of the book considered below, edited by J.-B. Duroselle and E. Serra, clearly shows. The extensive factual material provided by its authors confirms the basic laws of imperialism formulated by V. I. Lenin in his work "Imperialism as the highest Stage of Capitalism".

The peer-reviewed publication is a collection of 16 reports of participants of the V session of the Italian-French Committee for Historical Research (November 1978, Milan), revised by the authors into articles. They can be divided into several groups. Most of the articles are devoted to the history of Italian-French political relations .1 Two articles analyze the state of economic relations between Italy and France2 . The compilers of the collection paid much attention to the activities of the Italian anti-fascist emigration in France, where it left to escape the persecution of Mussolini .3 In addition, the collection includes three materials that do not belong to any of these groups .4
One of the compilers and authors of the collection is E. Serra, a prominent Italian international historian, professor at the University of Bologna, who has written a number of studies on the history of Italian diplomacy and foreign policy. He is best known to Soviet historians for his book Nitti and Russia (Bari. 1975) 5, in which the history of the early period of development of relations between the RSFSR and Italy is studied in detail, with the involvement of Italian and Soviet sources, and V. I. Lenin's personal contribution to their formation is shown. E. Serra combines his scientific activity with his work as Head of the Historical and Archival Department of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He leads the Italian side in negotiations with the Historical and Diplomatic Department of the USSR Foreign Ministry on the joint publication of a collection of documents on Soviet-Italian relations dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Italy.

The core article of the collection is an article by E. Serre, which shows the struggle between Italy and France for the redivision of the territory of Equatorial and South-Eastern Africa on a large concrete basis. The materials presented by the author clearly show that the outcome of the inter-imperialist struggle in each particular case depends on the balance of forces of the contending parties. France, which is stronger economically and militarily, at an early stage resolutely rejected the idea of war.-

1 E. Serra. The southern border of Libya and the Mussolini-Laval Agreement; M. Weiss. Jouvenal's mission to Rome (January-July 1933); P. Miltz. Pierre Laval's trip to Rome in January 1935. Bessie. The Tunisian question in the Development of Franco-Italian relations from 1935 to June 11, 1940; R. Rainero. Aspects of the crisis of the Mussolini-Laval Agreements: expropriation of Vinadio and Moncenisio; G. Pedroncini. French Strategy and Italy in 1932-1939; J.-B. Durosel. Baudouin's mission to Rome.

2 l. de Rosa. Italo-French economic relations between the two World Wars; P. Gillan. Economic relations between France and Italy from 1930 to 1939.

3 P. Gillan. The question of "refugees" and Franco-Italian relations (1925-1935); E. Dekleva. Disillusionment with democracy: Carlo Rosselli and France in 1929-1937. Unity of Action in reality: the Italian Socialists and the French Popular Front in 1934-1939; P. Milza. The idea of fascist Italy in France in 1936-1939.

4 p. Mastellone. The idea of Latinism (1914-1922). Liberal France in the Reflections of Benedetto Croce; J. Rumi. Catholic Milan and France in the 30s.

5 For G. S. Filatov's review of this book, see: New and Recent History, 1979, No. 1.

page 159

it tended to all the claims of Italy, which led to the infringement of French interests. For many years, the demands of the Italian government remained unsatisfied, which, referring to the Treaty of London of April 26, 1915, strongly raised the question of revising the southern Libyan border and annexing to Libya part of French Equatorial Africa, which gave Italy access to Lake Baikal. Chad (p. 147). France and Britain completely ignored the interests of Italy, concluding an agreement on September 8, 1919 (p. 126) on the delimitation of their colonial possessions in Equatorial Africa, which Italy also claimed. The British government, responding to the Italian protest, in a dismissive manner reported that Italy "through forgetfulness "(p.130) was not informed of the aforementioned agreement.

Having paid much attention to the clash of Italian and French interests in Equatorial Africa, the authors ignored such issues as the competition between France and Italy for influence in the Balkans, the struggle for dominance in the Mediterranean Sea, and for ensuring Italian interests in Tunisia.

In the early 1930s, when fascism, which had come to power in Germany, began to express its revanchist claims against France more and more threateningly, the government of the latter made an attempt to achieve rapprochement with Italy, to oppose the Franco-Italian front to Nazi Germany. Conducting diplomatic negotiations aimed at persuading Mussolini to improve relations with France was entrusted to A. Jouvenal, who was appointed Ambassador to Italy (January-July 1933). The negotiations that Jouvenal conducted with Mussolini in Rome were doomed to failure, since the Italian side put forward a number of unacceptable demands for France. Juvenal returned to Paris. However, the" pause " in Italian - French relations was not long. At the end of 1934, after P. Laval became the head of the French Department of Foreign Affairs, political contacts between the governments of Italy and France resumed.

The book covers in detail the course of the Italian-French negotiations that preceded the conclusion of the Mussolini - Laval Pact on January 7, 1935, and notes the reasons that led to a temporary Italian-French rapprochement. However, when analyzing these reasons, the book, unfortunately, does not even mention the anti-communist orientation of the foreign policy pursued by Mussolini and L'Aval, and it was precisely this orientation that pushed them towards each other. Italian-French diplomacy, trying to hide the aggressive nature of the negotiations that began, deliberately gave them a pseudo-pacifist character. Their program was formulated as follows: "(1) armaments; (2) Central Europe; (3) the Libyan border; (4) the Italians in Tunis; (5) the friendship pact" (p.196).

The imperialist collusion between Mussolini and Laval provided for the transformation of an independent and sovereign Ethiopia into an Italian colony. E. Serre's article contains excerpts from the protocol of Mussolini's negotiations with Laval. At the January 5 meeting (p. 204), Mussolini stated that " the main issue for him is the question of free hands in Ethiopia." At the second and final meeting, held on January 6, 1935, Laval confirmed that he "understood the Italian concept very well and that, with the exception of the economic interests that France wants to secure for itself, it does not intend to prevent Italian penetration into Abyssinia" (p.206).

On January 7, 1937, all the agreements collectively referred to as the Rome Pact were signed ("Treaty between Italy and France on the settlement of their interests in Africa", "Special Protocol on Tunisian Questions", "General Declaration", "Agreements on Central Danube Europe, on economic colonial Interests, on armaments").. The essence of these documents was that France, although this was not recorded in them, gave fascist Italy complete freedom of action in Ethiopia. Laval later admitted that he actually "gave" Mussolini Ethiopia .6 Having secured the support of France, Mussolini soon launched an armed attack on Ethiopia, which ended with its capture. On July 1, 1936, Mussolini announced the creation of a colonial possession from Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland, which was called the "Italian East Africa".-

6 See Diplomatic Dictionary, vol. III, Moscow, 1973, p. 54.

page 160

exact Africa" (in 1941, the Italian occupiers were expelled from Ethiopia and it once again became a sovereign state).

On the eve of World War II, the French government, in an effort to prevent the strengthening of the alliance between Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, and to change the balance of power in the European arena in its favor, tried to find a basis for a new conspiracy with Mussolini. It sent word to Rome that it was ready to recognize the Italian king as Emperor of Ethiopia, which would have meant official approval of Italy's annexation of that country. French Prime Minister P. Baudouin was sent to Rome as a confidant, and on February 2-3, 1939, he negotiated with G. Ciano. However, Mussolini's appetites were too great (the creation of an Italian zone in Djibouti; the participation of the Italian administration in the management of the port of Djibouti; the transfer to Italy of the section of the Djibouti - Addis Ababa railway passing through Ethiopia; France's support for Italian demands to England on the Suez Canal; revision of the articles of the Mussolini-Laval Agreement of 1935 on the status of Italians in Tunisia). As a result, negotiations broke down, and Baudouin returned to Paris with nothing.

The advantage of the collection is that its authors, along with articles covering Italian-French foreign policy relations, paid attention to the foreign economic relations between these countries. The collection traces in detail the development of Italian-French trade in the period between the two World Wars. It reaches its peak in the mid-20s. The world economic crisis of 1929-1933 led to a further aggravation of imperialist contradictions. The French government, trying to protect its industry, adopted a number of protectionist measures (for example, reduced quotas for the import of Italian goods, increased customs duties on them), which led to a sharp reduction in the volume of Italian-French trade, hitting primarily the interests of Italy (p.417).

A significant place in the collection is devoted to the activities of Italian anti-fascist emigrants living in France, including socialists who fought for the overthrow of Mussolini. The authors highlighted a number of major issues that have not lost their political significance to this day. These include, for example, the question of unity of action between the Italian Communist and Socialist Parties, on which an agreement was signed on August 14, 1934. E. Dekleva begins her article with an analysis of this document. It emphasizes that the purpose of the agreement was to organize a "proletarian struggle against fascism and war" and that communists and socialists, acting together, retained "their entire functional autonomy" (p. 303).

The cooperation of the Italian Socialists with the Communists has had a beneficial effect on the position of the ISP on a number of major international issues. Thus, during the period under review, Italian socialists spoke positively about the Soviet foreign policy course aimed at preventing war and consolidating peace, which both then and today expresses the fundamental interests not only of the Soviet people, but also of the peoples of the whole world. The organ of the ISP "II Nuovo Avanti" on October 30, 1937 in the article "Salute to the Soviet Union" wrote: "The voice of Litvinov in Geneva or Maisky in London was spoken not only by the Soviet but also by the European proletariat" (p.326).

The collection describes how Italian socialists enthusiastically welcomed the coming to power of the Popular Front government in France, believing that this country would play a vanguard role in the fight against fascism in Europe. However, they soon became disillusioned. The policy of" non-intervention", which the government of L. Blum began to pursue from the first days of its existence, undermined the strength of Republican resistance, meant "giving the aggressors complete freedom to strangle the Spanish Republic" 7 . The ISP highly appreciated the policy of the Soviet Union, which provided all-round unselfish assistance to the struggling Republican Spain. "In Spain, Russia, unlike France," P. Nenni wrote in 1938, "fulfilled its duty" (p.325).

Much attention in the collection is paid to C. Rosselli, one of the prominent representatives of the Italian anti-fascist emigration, the leader of the group "Justice and Freedom", who launched an active campaign aimed at "overthrowing the Government of Italy".-

7 Istoriya vneshnoi politiki SSSR [History of Foreign Policy of the USSR], vol. I. 1917-1945, Moscow, 1981, p. 326.

page 161

put down the dictatorship (Mussolini) and restore it (in Italy. - Author) democracy on new foundations" (p. 39). Rosselli, known for his heroism and selfless dedication to the cause, called on the Italian emigration to take immediate decisive action and transfer the struggle directly to Italy. Mussolini and his cronies saw Rosselli as a dangerous enemy. By the hands of the French fascists (Cahulars) they committed a brutal massacre of Rosselli and his brother in June 1937.

The authors, unfortunately, did not provide adequate coverage of the entire system of international relations. The Western reader would probably be interested, for example, to get acquainted with the position of the USSR, without which it is impossible to form a correct idea of the most important international problems not only in Europe, but also in the whole world.

The peer-reviewed book, prepared with a large amount of previously unknown factual material, is generally of great interest to those who study international relations between the two World wars.

page 162

Permanent link to this publication: