Wu Ming
54
~ ~ ~
‘Postwar’ means nothing.
What fools called ‘peace’ simply meant moving away from the front.
Fools defended peace by supporting the armed wing of money.
Beyond the next dune the clashes continued. The fangs of chimerical beasts sinking into flesh, the heavens full of steel and smoke, whole cultures uprooted from the earth.
Fools fought the enemies of today by bankrolling those of tomorrow.
Fools swelled their chests, talked of ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, ‘in our country’, as they devoured the fruits of riots and looting.
They were defending civilisation against Chinese shadows of dinosaurs.
They were defending the planet against fake images of asteroids.
They were defending the Chinese shadow of a civilisation.
They were defending the faked image of a planet.
The Background
home
I The Yugoslavian front, spring 1943
ITALIAN SOLDIERS!
The Slovenian people have launched an inexorable struggle against the occupying forces. Many of your comrades have already fallen in that struggle. And you will go on falling day after day, night after night, for as long as you remain tools in the hands of our oppressors, and until Slovenia is liberated.
Your leaders will lead you to believe that the Slovenian people love you, that you are being attacked only by ‘tiny numbers of communists’. This is an insolent lie. All Slovenes are in accord with the struggle against the occupying forces. Under the leadership of the Slovenian National Liberation Committee, our entire people has organised itself into a single invincible liberation front.
ITALIAN SOLDIERS!
Your superiors are concealing from you the desperate situation into which Mussolini has hurled the ‘Italian Empire’ by selling it to Hitler. They are hiding from you the fact that Abyssinia, for which Mussolini spilled so much Italian blood, is no longer in Italian hands. They are hiding from you the impasse that Italian troops face in all of their African colonies. They are hiding from you the losses that Italian troops have suffered in the Balkans, and the fact that western Serbia, Montenegro, most of Bosnia and Hercegovina, Lika, and parts of Dalmatia have already been liberated. They are hiding from you the terrible losses and torments inflicted upon Italian troops by the crushing weight of Russian weapons on the Russian front, and by the unbearable Russian winter. They are hiding from you the chaos that is breaking out in Italian cities as a result of the growing food shortages, the result of continuous bombing by the British Air Force, and the growing discontent of the Italian people with the policies of the warmonger Mussolini, who is plunging Italy into the abyss.
ITALIAN SOLDIERS!
Understand what the Italian populace at home is coming to understand more and more, that Hitler is pushing you on all fronts: in Africa, in the Balkans, in France and in the USSR, so that you will be unable to form a resistance in your own country when he attacks ‘Allied’ Italy, just as he has attacked ‘Allied Yugoslavia’. Understand what any blind man must understand today, that Italy, as long as it gives allegiance to Germany, will suffer a terrible defeat at sea, on land and in the skies, at the hands of the united forces of Russia, Great Britain and all the freedom-loving peoples of the world.
Understand, Italian soldiers, that the only way out for you and for the whole of the Italian people is to turn your weapons against those who have brought both you and us nothing but misfortune, to turn them against Mussolini’s fascist gang! It is vain to claim that you too condemn the bestiality of Hitler and Mussolini, that you too wish to see the end of fascism and the end of the war. You must use your actions to demonstrate your love of freedom and peace, your hatred of the oppressors, both yours and ours. Otherwise what awaits you is ruin, both yours and theirs.
ITALIAN SOLDIERS!
The Communist Party of Slovenia appeals to you:
Do not carry out your superiors’ orders, do not fire on the Slovenians, do not persecute the partisans, but surrender to them, do not stand in the way of our liberation struggle!
Attack and disarm the fascist militia, the agents of OVRA and all those who are forcing you to fight against the Slovenian people.
Destroy the Italian armed forces, destroy the stores of weapons and food unless you can give them to the partisans, destroy the means of transport of the Italian army, lorries, motorcycles, horses, roads, railways, etc.!
Do not let the Italian armies be posted to the Russian front, to die for the lunatic Hitler and his satellites! Demand to return to your homeland!
Desert the Italian army, our people will be glad to help you! Give your weapons and ammunition to the partisans and the Popular Defence.
Join the Slovenian partisan units and help them, guns in hand, to bring to an early conclusion the absurd butchery of war, so that you can very soon return to your homes, to your poor abandoned mothers, wives and children, and establish a true sovereignty of the people in your own homeland.
LONG LIVE THE COMMON STRUGGLE OF ALL PEOPLES AGAINST FASCIST BARBARISM! LONG LIVE THE USSR AND ITS INVINCIBLE RED ARMY, THE MOST POWERFUL DEFENDER OF FREEDOM AND PROGRESS! LONG LIVE STALIN, THE LEADER OF THE PEOPLE AND WORKERS IN ALL COUNTRIES! LONG LIVE THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF YUGOSLAVIA! DEATH TO FASCISM — FREEDOM TO THE PEOPLE!
Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovenia
Someone had written ‘SMRT FASISMU’ in red paint on the peeling wall. The men had been lined up in front of it. Their faces were blank. Closed, absent. Like the windows of the village. The captain yelled orders at the unit. The Italian soldiers assumed their positions, rifles shouldered. Almost all of them reservists. The officer was the youngest, with a well-trimmed moustache and a grey garrison cap tilted on his forehead.
The condemned men raised their eyes to look their butchers in the face. To be certain that they were men like themselves. They were used to death, even their own, they had grown accustomed to it over thousands of generations.
On the other side eyes lowered, reflected sensations.
The two rows of men faced one another, motionless, like statues abandoned in a field.
One of the condemned men rubbed a foot against his leg, a movement at once automatic and grotesque.
The captain turned to face the houses and called the interpreter over.
‘The inhabitants of this village have given refuge to communist rebels. The same ones who cold-bloodedly murdered two Italian soldiers last night.’
The interpreter translated.
‘You have been warned! Anyone who offers refuge to bandits, anyone who offers them protection and lodging, is guilty of collaboration and will pay with his life!’
The officer let the interpreter translate once more.
‘Today, ten inhabitants of this village will face a firing squad. Let this serve as an example to anyone who seeks to help the bandits infesting these mountains!’
When the interpreter had finished, the captain stood where he was, his leather boots planted firmly in the mud, as though he expected a reply from the cluster of silent houses.
Not a sign of life. Even the air was still.
He yelled, ‘Company! Ready!’
An awkward movement ran through the row of soldiers, as though only some of them had received the order and the others had joined in afterwards. A rifle slipped out of someone’s hand.
‘That’s an order, for Christ’s sake! An order!’
At that moment three soldiers exchanged a nod of intent and swung the barrels of their guns around. One towards the captain’s head, the other two at his fellow officers.