Eliseo Milani, a common history
For as it was, for the difficult choices he has made, to where it was found to perform them, for their concrete results, his life is a bit strange history of the Italian Communists. Since the Communist Party Manifesto, the way rich, tenacious and troubled one of the founders of this newspaper. Experience, his, which also now offers a lot to learn
Lucio Magri
Eliseo Milani has been for me, so different but no less profound Michelangelo Notarianni, the friend and companion of a lifetime. Touch it, write to me on the day of his death, the more painful and unexpected after many years of illness so severe they had convinced would never come. The disease had to pay too much loneliness. Generating, at least in my opinion, a heavy sense of guilt which would, however, a tinge of hypocrisy in any eulogy. I miss the rest of the pen and fine psychological acuity to sketch a personality as sensitive under his skin so rough. The rest are too difficult to express my feelings in the most intimate moments of emotion. Not a bad thing, perhaps: because in a eulogy would miss the most important thing. Namely that Eliseo Milani, as it was for the difficult choices made, to where it was found to perform them, for their concrete results, is an unknown piece of the history of Italian Communists. His real life accurately recounted the origin, would give future historians materials perhaps richer and more impartial than the reading of many verbal direction of the Communist Party deliberately elusive, and many discussions of central committees always expressed in figures and thus to decipher , and instead give an idea of \u200b\u200bwhat the Communist Party is really the state, and also what could possibly become. And much more image to subvert adulterated prevailing today, that of a bureaucratic party and creed, of a history of narrow elites, and for more than a history "of the winners who were recognized at the end defeated and repentant." But to tell that life would require much more than a few hours dominated by emotions, and much more than a few folders. I shall therefore, to justify this statement and point out some points for a job search.
A life in the "New Party"
Milani's life testifies first in its concreteness as the new party of Togliatti is not left short-season intuition immediately suffocated by the cold war and the neocominternista orthodoxy, and survived only as an opening to the intellectuals and the middle classes, as prudent management of political alliances. The core of that hypothesis was to transform the working class in real national leadership.
Elisha was too young to participate in the partisan war, his policy is the generation of the fifties.
He was a peasant family in a province, Bergamo, Catholic and conservative, where the communists were and were minority. He went to work early as 11 years in business courses and Dalmine's graduating high school, and working as a turner and was studying at night to become a technical expert. And 'working life of the concrete that came to communism. Always remember, with just pride, a national general strike that served only by notifying the company, because it seemed occasional absence.
were also witness these practices, however, that helped him to grow a political group of men began to count in the factory, breaking the isolation of the PCI and overcoming sectarianism. Just to Dalmine, a few years later, he realized that the first experience of a community built on the investigation working conference, which focused on the analysis of innovations in work organization, which Amendola, present, saw the value, so as to propose to generalize in the preparation of the national working conference in parallel with the great turn initiated by the CGIL, after the defeat at Fiat. Elisha had meanwhile been called to the role of party official, and soon, to the secretary of the federation of Bergamo.
Official: that dirty word today, but what was then an official, especially in the area? He was one who, refusing to work well under certain and agreed to live with a salary lower than that often never came with food and that it was the signing in scattered sections which met in small taverns, sleeping on a cot in a corner of the office: that he spent his few free hours at the cafe of the Trade Union, a kind of "social center ahead of its time."
Other
that bureaucratic caste. To become a councilor and MP then you do not think either, that seemed almost like a diminutio capitis, only a final approval of a life well spent. Pending a revolution coming? You must be joking: the `48 was already behind and we knew how long Bergamo was the street. In the meantime he worked as well as struggles to build a square. And he lived as a great opportunity for the school Frattocchie.
indoctrination? Here, too, is no joking matter: in those days teachers were Frattocchie Cafagna, Caracciolo, Spinella and so on.
Secretary of dialogue
What was then later the secretary Milani? A bureaucrat working man's or a priest? The exact opposite. Besides the continued care of the collective works, when, for the first time at the end of the flyers we were confronted entire enterprise from which the workers came out en masse to come to the square (the big jump in July `60) Elisha allowed long , regular meetings of the federal committee to study the history of Italy, tended carefully 's intervention in the municipal council, where a party to the index, and 9 percent of the vote, repeatedly managed to drag the Socialists, but also social democrats and liberals , on the major themes of the plan, construction of abuse perpetrated within the framework of new plots sponsored by the Bishop and Charles Bernareggi Pesenti. Finally, perhaps above all, Elisha began a courageous dialogue with Catholics, not only as potential allies, but as actors, desired and welcome. The leaders of the Catholic youth Bergamo, thanks to that dialogue, not only came, but they became an integral part of the summit of the communist federation. Milani was not a case to promote the assembly where Togliatti uttered the famous "speech of Bergamo. Gave a speech that the alliance with the Catholics of strategic importance.
of dissent, balance, energy
E 'from this combination of experiences, innovative combat and cultural maturation, which originated in the Communist Party - of course not only in Bergamo but a little 'everywhere for thousands of rivulets and with many different calls in the union and the party - the first embryo of a minority official but not irrelevant, that later - when he found a reference to national, cultural and political - was named of ingraismo. A non-dogmatic, non-sectarian left, who played, even outside the Communist Party, his game in the sixties and was later defeated and partially suppressed the XI Congress of 1965. But among intellectuals and trade unionists who left full-bodied sedimentation, and tried to revive the challenge facing the much more mature round of `68.
That work was recognized early by Milani and earned him entry into the Central Committee. But it was the only secretary of the federation Eleventh Congress that does not line up and was immediately ruled out. When two decisive occasions, the first card and then Lama, came to preside over the meeting of the Federation of Bergamo and asked his companions to choose between the position of the Central Committee and criticism from opposite Elisha, they were outvoted. Milani was a dissident, but had a wide support base and that was the only case of dissidents who held or removal of the Manifesto in `69. Milani joined our group, and with him the best paintings intellectuals and workers of the organization, taking on a leadership role.
the role he had, who gained weight in this new experience I do not have time to talk about space as we should. But I would like to say something that other students who also have all the elements to do so and would help to correct an understatement and silence is not innocent, who later created about him. I would like it because this silence is connected to a delicate point that our story. That is a partly unconscious belief, according to which we stand after the radiation with certain anticipatory ideas but much against the trend, with a specific identity on the border between the PCI and the new movements, but without a detailed basis, it was a pure mistake try to live that identity with a small organization, an independent development and a newspaper associated with it. I honestly believe that arose from that choice too many errors and analysis of behavior, but more than ever I am convinced that it was a risk we run and who has left positive fruits and unjustly allowed to disperse.
Elisha was a pillar of that effort and held her in better with the tenacity, the balance, the energy that was tied to his past. And he remained until the forces were left him physically. The same energy, the genetic trait, which then faced for more than a decade, one individual but even more heroic battle against the disease to win every day in more than a piece of life, perhaps no more to change the world but to continue to understand without being broken, no stranger to hear, but rather remain attentive and involved. I do not think that before his death, we can say nothing more grateful and complimentary of not only recognize that life has been spent well in its time but that now offers a lot to learn.
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