Parri, Ferruccio

(1890–1981)

   Born near Turin, Parri fought bravely in World War I and was wounded on three occasions. He proved equally brave as an uncompromising antifascist. In December 1926, together with Carlo Rosselli and Alessandro Pertini, he helped Filippo Turati escape from Italy, and he was one of the organizers of the clandestine movement Giustizia e Liberta. In October 1930, he was arrested in Milan and was sentenced to a period of confino. At the end of 1941, Parri acted as the coordinator of the negotiations that led to the formation of the Partito d’Azione/Action Party (PdA) in May 1942.

   Parri was active both as a diplomat and as a resistance commander during the German occupation. In December 1944, on behalf of the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale-Alta Italia/National Liberation Committee-Northern Italy (CLNAI), he signed the agreement by which the British agreed to furnish the partisans operating in northern Italy with arms and money in exchange for a commitment to postwar disarmament and recognition of the government approved by the Allies. As “Partisan Maurizio,” he was one of the heroes of the popular military struggle against the Germans. In January 1945, he was arrested by the Nazis in Milan but was saved from certain death when the Allies required his restitution as a sign of German good faith in secret surrender talks that began in March 1945. After liberation, the British and Americans realized that they had to respect the “wind from the North” and incorporate the main partisan parties into the provisional government. In June 1945, Parri, whose politics alarmed the British but who was personally greatly esteemed by the Allies, became postwar Italy’s first prime minister. His government, however, lasted only until November, when the Partito Liberale Italiano/Italian Liberal Party (PLI) and the Democrazia Cristiana/Christian Democracy Party (DC)—alarmed by the influence of the left in Parri’s administration—withdrew their ministers.

   In February 1946, Parri’s dislike of the increasingly procommunist position of the PdA led him to join with Ugo La Malfa to form the so-called Concentramento Democratico Repubblicano/Democratic Republican Concentration. After receiving just 97,000 votes in the 1946 elections to the Constituent Assembly, Parri and La Malfa became members of the Partito Repubblicano Italiano/Italian Republican Party (PRI). In 1953, however, Parri broke with the PRI over its support for an electoral reform known as the “swindle law.” In the subsequent election, Parri’s Unita Popolare/Popular Unity Party obtained 170,000 votes, which tipped the balance and ensured that the swindle law’s provisions never came into effect. In 1955, Parri received over 300 votes in the first ballot for the presidency, though eventually Giovanni Gronchi was elected. In March 1963, he was made senator for life. He died on 8 December 1981, in Rome.

   See also Electoral Laws; Resistance.