The extraordinary protagonists of the most lacerating split of the Italian left relive in the chronicle of an epochal event, animated by the highest ideals of social redemption, but blind to the fascist threat.
Marx dominates the vault of the Goldoni Theater. Above his portrait, the banner: “Workers of the world unite.” The XVII Congress of the Italian Socialist Party was held in Livorno, because the tension was very high in Florence. The city was already in the hands of the fascists. It is January 15, 1921. The point of no return has arrived in the turbulent history of the confrontation within the international labor movement: any compromise between revolutionaries and reformists is forbidden. Moscow no longer tolerates reformists. It seems a long time ago that the Winter Palace was taken. The
Revolution took place, the war is over, the specter of communism is now a state, but a new monster is becoming more and more threatening. That day the Communist Party of Italy was born. Yet it is not possible to see clearly what is about to happen in Italy.
In a political chronicle animated by the voices of epic protagonists, Ezio Mauro reconstructs a fundamental chapter of Italian history, which extraordinarily collects in itself the synthesis of the lofty ideal and tragic blindness in the face of the imminent threat of fascism.
Ezio Mauro
Ezio Mauro started his career in journalism in 1972 at the newspaper Gazzetta del Popolo in Turin. Then, he became a political reporter in Rome for La Stampa, for which he was also a foreign correspondent, writing stories and conducting investigative reports in the United States. In 1988, he started contributing to the newspaper la Repubblica, writing from Moscow. On June 26, 1990 he re-joined La Stampa, becoming its editor-in-chief two years later. On May 6, 1996 he became the editor-in-chief of la Repubblica. In 2011, he published La felicità della democrazia. Un dialogo, with Gustavo Zagrebelsky, and in 2015 Babel, his dialogue on democracy with Zygmunt Bauman. He has written L’anno del ferro e del fuoco. Cronache di una rivoluzione (2017), L’uomo bianco (2018), Anime prigioniere. Cronache dal muro di Berlino (2019), Liberi dal male (2020), La dannazione (2020), Lo scrittore senza nome (2021). His most recent book is L’anno del fascismo (2022). In 2016 he left his place as editor-in-chief of la Repubblica, but he still contributes to it.
- L’anno del fascismo (The year of fascism)
- Lo scrittore senza nome (The Writer Without a Name)
- La dannazione (The Damnation)
- Liberi dal male (Free from Evil)
- Anime prigioniere. Cronache dal muro di Berlino (Captive Souls. Chronicles from the Berlin Wall)
- L’uomo bianco (The White Man)
- L’anno del ferro e del fuoco (The Year of Fire and Fury)