FASCISM AND THE MAFIA Notes

The Mafia and the State

The concept of the mafia as a criminal association is intertwined with the challenges faced by the new Italian state post-1860.
These challenges were exacerbated by a lack of understanding of Sicily among mainlanders.
Northerners primarily visited the island for its romantic and classical aspects, while northern Italians were focused on industrial and liberal societies, which Sicily lacked.
After 1860, the relationship between northern Italian administrators and Sicilians was strained.
Sicilians who initially supported unification felt betrayed by the rigid centralisation.
Enthusiasm for the Italian cause was driven by the Bourbon administration's growing intrusion since the 1770s.
Northern officials, upon arriving in Sicily, were disillusioned by the semi-feudal society, archaic notions of honor, pervasive blood feuds, and a lack of liberalism.
Cordero di Montezemolo, the first Lieutenant-General of Sicily, expressed his disgust at the Sicilian people.
There was a sentiment that Sicilians were more akin to Africans than Europeans, an idea that persisted and gained intellectual validation through skull measurements that identified a prehistoric 'Mediterranean race' from Africa.
Northern Italian officials struggled to overcome their feelings of superiority.
Sicilians often accused northern officials of treating the island as a colony.
Northern Italy held misconceptions about Sicily's wealth, envisioning it as a bountiful paradise.
Upon discovering the harsh reality, they blamed Sicilians for wasting their inheritance, accusing them of laziness, self-centeredness, and corruption.
Some liberals attributed these faults to Bourbon maladministration, while others believed Sicilians had a deeper personality flaw.
Centuries of neglect had allegedly led to an 'hypertrophy of the ego', while despotism and invasion had killed the sense of collectivity.
The sociologist Gaspare Nicotri described the Sicilian as thinking like an Arab, acting like a Greek, and viewing life like a Spaniard.
This viewpoint led to a perception of Sicilians as despicable and irredeemable.
Mistrust and dislike between northerners and Sicilians became mutual and the island felt "Piedmontised."
Almost every regime in Sicily saw initial enthusiasm turn into disappointment, due to overly high and vague expectations.
The government aimed to create a modern nation-state, which was unprecedented due to earlier attempts to curtail local autonomies by the Bourbons, which were largely unsuccessful.
The process of integrating Sicily into the Italian state was difficult, and references to the government's resistance were framed around the mafia.
A Minister of the Interior implied that the key issue was how to instill "the values of the state."
Most thought the solution was to combine force and reform, but force was favored in the years immediately after 1860.
The new regime depended on social groups opposed to fundamental changes, resulting in the denial of social questions in Sicily for fifteen years after 1860.
The Sicilian problem was viewed primarily as a law and order issue.
Addressing the social question was seen as alienating the big landowners who dominated the island.
Repressive measures were driven by fears of peasant discontent and external intervention. Clerical and Bourbon conspiracies were continually uncovered.
The rise in lawlessness threatened to create insurrection, so firm measures seemed essential.
Conspirators had troubled waters to fish in, and if the government failed to provide security, influential classes might support dissidents, as previously.
One major cause of unrest was conscription, from which the island had been exempt under the Bourbons.
Garibaldi tried to introduce compulsory service in May 1860 with limited exemptions, but the new Italian governments insisted on conscription to express and promote unity.
A Prime Minister stated in 1863 that it was important to show Europe that the southern provinces were equally devoted to Italy, and that liberty required legal uniformity.
Opposition to conscription grew, due to higher taxation, unemployment, and the lack of land reform.
Many wondered why they should give them their men.
Official figures reported 4,897 draft-dodgers and nearly 3,000 deserters in Sicily in 1861.
Garibaldi's support for the national cause had initially lessened dissatisfaction, but when the government fired on Garibaldi at Aspromonte in 1862, discontent turned into opposition.
At Canicattì, the populace mourned and protested the government, fostering a growing gap between people and state.
The government imposed a state of siege, arresting over 2,000 people and conducting summary executions.
Official reports spoke of widespread left-wing and Bourbonist conspiracies and the government accused Garibaldi's supporters of suborning army soldiers in Sicily.
Propaganda against the government increased, and pro-Garibaldi demonstrations and the "Garibaldi Hymn" were banned.
Arbitrariness caused more people to flee into the countryside to avoid arrest.
Relatives of army deserters faced prosecution for 'complicity', contributing to the flow of fugitives.
An account said that there were $34$ latitanti for every one draft-dodger.
The government tried to justify its response by talking of conspiracy, and the Palermo newspaper, Il Precursore, mentioned a 'diabolical organisation' spreading across Sicily.
The 'Pugnalatori' episode heightened tension when thirteen people were stabbed in Palermo.
No motive was discovered, triggering general disarmament in Sicily in order to have a fresh campaign against deserters and draft-dodgers.
Resistance to the new regime increased, and habeas corpus was suspended for the second time in a year with Giuseppe Govone arriving with twenty battalions to restore order.
Govone's brutal campaign from June to September used the 'legge Pica' from the mainland South, which allowed for summary executions, military tribunals, and forced residence imposed by a commission.
Govone instructed that anyone of military age or 'with the face of an assassin' be arrested.
Govone's campaign led to the arrest of $4,000$ draft-dodgers and $1,350$ criminals.
Operations were limited to the four western provinces that were the most troublesome parts of Sicily.
The campaign's severity led to an outcry: towns were besieged, water supplies were cut and women and children were seized as hostages.
Two widely publicized episodes caused particular outrage.
A family in Petralia was burnt alive in their house after being wrongly suspected of harboring wanted men.
Antonio Cappello, a deaf-mute, was arrested as a draft-dodger and tortured after they refused that he was handicapped.
Govone cited exceptional circumstances for his methods, but caused an uproar with a reference to the 'barbarity' of Sicily.
The government promoted him to Lieutenant-General and Garibaldi resigned his seat as a deputy.
Nearly half of the $16,225$ entries in the Sicilian conscription lists had been wrong, including women, children, and the deceased.
The government remained unrepentant and tried to reappoint Govone to Palermo in 1864.
The unification caused profound mistrust of authorities in Sicily.
The local nobility was uncooperative, and there was a deep-rooted belief in private over public justice.
The assumption that Sicilians acted out of immorality, justified exceptional measures.
Each new operation was explained by saying that previous ones had not gone far enough.
The government's use of force and repeated suspension of habeas corpus troubled liberal consciences.
Books and articles condemning the actions of the Italian state that said 'No savages in the most barbarous parts of Africa, ever treated their prisoners with more summary violence than the Piedmontese troops have in Southern Italy.'
Italian politicians believed unrest in Sicily was due to Bourbon or Garibaldian conspiracies, but the disorders indicated fundamental factors were at play.
The social and political problems were hard to admit to, because their responses being unacceptable to the conservative elite.
After 1864, the criminal aspects of the Sicilian question were highlighted.
Every government had the right to maintain public order, and a liberal regime could be forgiven for using exceptional measures when opposed by the criminal element.
Count Filippo Gualterio was appointed prefect of Palermo in April 1865.
He had a strong regard for Cavour's political methods and principles, had an authoritarian temperament, and a keen nose for conspiracies.
His appointment marked another attempt to restore order due to draft-dodging and unemployment producing lawlessness.
The problem was in justifying exceptional measures, as the government was more cautious than around the time of Govone's appointment.
Gualterio knew little about Sicily, but wrote a report to the Minister of the Interior about the province.
There were criminals and they were organised, and the 'mafia exists'.
The association of criminals was large and long-standing sore, and it has been manipulated, and all parties are guilty of using it.
The solution was to deal with it as 'criminal association' and try those involved and implicate the accomplices.
This marked the first official reference to the mafia in any official document.
Gualterio sought to deal with a political problem by criminalising it.
He explained that the 'so-called maffia or criminal association' had grown in brazenness.
Every political movement had made use of it, and the current danger was of a Bourbon conspiracy.
Gualterio stated what was needed was a thoroughgoing drive against crime, which would 'disarm' the Bourbon party 'without the complication for the time being of political trials'
The operation must appear 'nothing other than a drastic campaign against unpunished criminals'.
This fusion of politics with the idea of the mafia remained a key feature of the Sicilian problem.
When discontent took the form of the socialist International in the 1870s, the government spoke of 'the mafia'; when the Sicilian parliamentary delegation passed almost en bloc to the opposition benches in 1874, the talk once again was of ‘mafia'.
Attempts were made in the 1890s to stigmatise the socialist movement known as the Fasci as 'mafia'; the mafia was said to be instrumental in the great wave of land occupations after World War One.
The fascist government tried to strengthen its hold on the island after 1925 through a major operation against 'the mafia'.
As Gualterio saw, the concept of 'the mafia' was a powerful instrument for dealing with political unrest.
Those with power in Sicily invariably had contacts with people who might be described as mafiosi; therefore, if being 'mafioso' indicated membership of the mafia, accomplices could be charged with criminal association.
The idea of the mafia also helped to direct attention away from the social and economic causes of unrest and offered justification for repressive measures.
The Palermo revolt in 1866 was an embarrassment to the new state with the authorities highlighting its criminal aspects as the mafia being behind it.
Habeas corpus was suspended and military operations were carried out to restore order.
Many factors lay behind the rising: the dissolution of religious corporations had increased unemployment, while the 'corso forzoso' was adding to the malaise.
There was resistance to conscription, with taxes being higher than they had been under the Bourbons, and insult by insensitive Piedmontese and general maladministration.
Disappointment at the government's failure to tackle public works or land reform added to this issue.
When the Austro-Prussian war led to a withdrawal of troops from Palermo, insurrection quickly resurfaced.
The peasant revolutionaries of 1848 and 1860 led insurgents, and the city was run by 40,000 insurgents.
The rising lacked coordination and political purpose, and insurgents had hoped middle-class elements would come forward to guide the movement.
Members of the nobility were forced to append their names to the rebels' manifestos, but frustration did not lead to widespread lawlessness as members were respectful and treated prisoners with care.
Most said the rising was a spontaneous expression of resentment, with any Bourbonist or Republican instigation was a quick surge from a surge of popular anger.
General Raffaele Cadorna, who was sent to suppress the rising, was convinced of the need for exceptional measures.
Cadorna highlighting atrocities that had allegedly been committed by the insurgents, he spoke of the military hospital being sacked, the sick being thrown to the ground, and mainland soldiers being singled out for execution.
Cadorna made other accusations.
- The Istituto Garibaldi had been looted and stripped to its nails.
- A soldier had been crucified
- A wounded policeman burnt alive, and the flesh of carabinieri sold openly in the streets
- At Misilmeri, a policeman had been bitten to death and his body torn apart by women.
Cadorna also said that the insurrection had been planned by monks.
The Prime Minister backed down supporting military tribunals, but he backed down after Cadorna threatened to resign.
The general’s admission of atrocities circulated, but was later admitted to be no more than gossip and the issue was raised again in 1875, but no documentation could be discovered.
Sicily was now branded as a region of cannibalism.
The claim that human flesh was sold resulted from a metaphor: 'Meat was being sold at five lire a kilo', which meant there was a scene of carnage.
Parliament stated the repressive measures in Sicily was a consequence of the discovery of a disciplined association of criminals.
Bourbonist conspirators had failed to find support among the common people and had fallen back on agreements with the maffia.
The Minister of the Interior expressed that the maffia sometimes reminds us of an old secret society with how it operates, for a fearless hand may push them to hurl.
The Palermo rising involved horrendous and bloody depredations.
The romantic nationalism surrounding conspiracy and secret societies, lent an aura of respectability to conspiratorial theories of causation.
The Times reported the presence of bourgeois elements among the rebels, and added, “Indeed, the Maffia, a secret society, is said to include among its members many persons of an elevated class.”
A Florentine newspaper, the Opinione, suggested because of the population’s susceptibility to chaos, the Palermo rising was part of a European legitimist conspiracy.
The mafia was a prominent peasant leader, and their social movement was led by Salvatore Miceli and Giuseppe Scordato, were celebrated in ballads that were strongly anti-governmental.
The Sicilian elite had been threatened for nearly a century by the progress of democracy, causing the unrest to become an issue for the police.
The Marquis di Rudinì, the young mayor of Palermo, highlighted “The Mafia, is powerful, perhaps more so than we think; and in a great many cases it is impossible to expose and punish it, since there is no evidence with which to conduct prosecutions.”
A number of other people claimed that were Mafia affiliates who could move freely and safely throughout the countryside.
A criminal conspiracy was viewed as an explanation for the Sicilian problem in Palermo, citing any sign of civil morality.
The governments in the 1860s was focused on political consolidation, so criminal activity as the focus became the approach.
General Cadorna’s repression of the Palermo rising had done little to generate stability.
Political opposition became more persistent and organised with Red flags and insurrectionary manifestos, and Giuseppe Mazzini arrived in Sicily to promote a republican revolution.
Soldiers and magistrates were assassinated, often in mysterious circumstances.
The socialist International spread, and the Sicilian parliamentary delegation became dogged in its opposition.
In the autumn of 1874, exceptional measures were required to deal with the mafia and address one cause behind Minghetti’s decision
The Paris Commune of 1871 had been popularly ascribed to the International, and its bloodiness led many, including professional criminologists such as Cesare Lombroso, to equate socialism with lawlessness.
Police reports in 1874 failed to distinguish between 'mafiosi' and 'internazionalisti, with there thought that some recent kidnappings in Sicily, made it easy to imagine that they were part of the 'subversive plan of a real association'.
A government report said the government should be aware of workers organisations being fronts for criminals, and another cause for concern was for the growth parliamentary opposition in Sicily.
The landowners denounced governmental illiberalism, years of repression had helped engender the very unrest that the state sought to control.
The gentry was bruised by exceptional laws as well as being excluded from government, in addition to taxation.
In the late summer of 1874, the government in favor of exceptional measures for Sicily, arrest started to occur for manutengolismo.
Those associated with protecting landowners and middle class people were intimidated and discredit.
The government asked the Sicilian prefects in the spring of 1874 to furnish information about the mafia and, they the put the question of the mafia firmly on the map in May 1875.
The Times referred to the information they presented, though nobody was able to give an exact explanation of what it was.
Its mysterious influence is felt in all except the most private affairs of daily life.
The prefects were lost on what a precise term was.
Prefect Berti of Girgenti spoke around the word on many occasions, but when they came up with specific definition, they always failed to find any precise definition.
Berti stated “maffia” was to be found in all social classes.
Perfect Fortuzzi was more accommodating to the government line stating, the only way to get rid of the mafia was with exceptional measures.
Fortuzzi stated: “Maffia” was an instinctive and general evil deriving from a horror of work, and was expressed in acts of intimidation, and could include a peasant or duke.
The other prefects felt equally uncomfortable with a term. Prefect Cotta Ramusino of Trapani stated “maffiosi…have no conventions or laws'; they indulge in acts of daring and arrogance; and though there might be a “force of attraction” between them, it was wrong to suppose that there was any ‘affiliation’.
Even though the vagueness ran heavy throughout, the government was determined to press ahead with exceptional measures, making it hard to determine those from Sicily.
In the 1920s, it was said that Cesare Mori the reason for the campaign against the government's work by attributing the blame of the mafia towards government control. That had a cam-pain on the opposition, and polarised position irreparably, with island prejudice and Sicily seen as an island that could not be redeemed.
The bill for exceptional measures was debated at length with it being difficult what the “mafia” meant, with many complaining of those were being labeled as one.
There began to be talk of wanting to clamp down how willing a willingness was with potential protectors.
Though the Sicilian ruling class denied the existence of the mafia in 1875 it was hard to which way to fall.
The landowners were worried about social unrest, with them needing a police operation to butter their position.
Local relationships were essential to political success and the power of those connections.

The State and Sicilian Society

Northern officials arriving in Sicily post-1860 encountered a culture and economy distinct from their expectations, marked by destitution and factional politics.
The violence, disregard for public authority, and individual justice led the new state's efficient administration frustrated.
The state's moral isolation seemed to challenge the idea that liberalism was natural, raising questions about why Sicilians resisted government's changes.
The Garibaldians dominated public opinion and that was the real reason of little of government support.
Violence seemed to increase post-unification, with killings in broad daylight, and no testimony from witnesses.
The Palermo newspaper, Il Precursore, spoke of a 'diabolical organisation', with why people refused to talk.
Pietro Ulloa, the Procurator General at Trapani, wrote that there was no employee in Sicily who had not succumbed to some overweening character.
Towns entrusted themselves to informal groupings with a local notable such as a landowner or a priest, that to protect supporters from prosecution, or to persecute enemies, and witnesses were nonexistent.
What changed in Sicily after 1860 was the Piedmontese valuing a centralized government.
Carlo Filangieri claimed in 1852 that fear was important for effective rule, and Pietro Ulloa was largely exceptional in his concern a good government.
Intolerance, bewilderment, and the fear drove them to adopt highly un-liberal measures.
Francesco Crispi claimed in 1875 that policing was more savage and that was part of they didn't cooperate.
This promoted the view that crime and justice were personal matters, fostering the use illegal methods.
This attitude was known as ‘omertà', was soon linked to the idea of the mafia, and derived from the dialect word “omu” (man).
Not just was it the disinclination to authorities that made one take his own courage.
Omertà was sanctioned by the saying : “Good is he who sees and is silent,and he is truly a man who reveals nothing.