Giustizia e Liberta

Justice and Liberty (GL)

   An antifascist organization founded in Paris in 1929 by Carlo Rosselli, Gaetano Salvemini, and several other intellectuals, Giustizia e Liberta has a proud place in Italian history. Under the headline “we shan’t win in a day, but win we shall,” the movement’s journal (also called Giustizia e Liberta) declared itself to be a revolutionary organization of republicans, liberals, and socialists committed to liberty, a republican form of government, and social justice. In July 1930, the movement publicized these ideals by launching a leaflet drop over the cathedral square in Milan from an airplane purchased by Rosselli. This dramatic gesture caused the authorities to crack down; in October 1930, the leading organizers inside Italy, Ferruccio Parri, Ernesto Rossi, and Riccardo Bauer, were arrested. Rossi and Bauer were sentenced to long prison terms in May 1931. In November, GL joined the socalled antifascist concentration uniting all the political forces in exile. The giellisti, as the movement’s members became known, were made responsible for organizing resistance to the regime inside the country. This pact lasted until May 1934, when Rosselli broke with the major party in the antifascist concentration, the Partito Socialista Italiano /Italian Socialist Party (PSI) because of its increasing closeness to the Partito Comunista Italiano/Italian Communist Party (PCI).

   The movement was seriously harmed by the brutal murder of Carlo Rosselli and his brother, Nello, in 1937. Nevertheless, clandestine cells of Giustizia and Liberta were established in northern Italy, in particular, and former giellistilater became influential figures in both the PSI and the Partito d’Azione/Action Party (PdA) after the fall of the regime.

   See also Spanish Civil War.