400,000 leaders are directing the Communist cells

RED STRENGTH IN ITALY
IS GROWING Reds may be By DOUGLAS HYDE real rulers in HOW Communist is Italy? That, I suppose, is as impossible to answer fully as the question : " How Catholic is Italy ?"
Figures tell only part of the story. But it is an important part and some statistics recently published in Rome, supplemented by other available material add up to a revealing picture of the hold which the Communists have on large numbers of people there.
The figures are published by the weekly paper Oggi, whose editor has done some useful researches which will help to keep those interested up to date.
On September 30, 1953, the Italian Communist Party had 2,120,208 members, organised in 52,481 factory and local branches. The branches have an average of 70 members, who are split up into cells of 10, each with its own leader.
There are in all 139,781 local leaders of this grade.
Altogether the party has approximately 400,000 people leading its various units.
During last year 28,802 members passed through its schools for training top-line leaders.
At this moment the Italian party is making a big drive for membership in the south, especially in Naples and Monarchist Avellino and Salerno, and is getting some results.
Young members
In the Young Communist League there arc 400,000 members. A campaign is being currently run to bring the total up to half a million.
The Communist children's organisation. the API.. has 200,000 members. The Holy Office not long ago made a declaration against the immorality which is widespread and deliberately fostered as a means of breaking down religious "prejudices" among the children in the A.P.I.'s summer camps.
T h e U.D.I., t h e Communist womens' organisation. has a membership of approximately 200,000.
The party's strongest "mass"
weapon is the the Red trade union body, which claims to have 5.000,000 members. Observers point out that membership is loose and so the total is easily "boosted." But it is formidable in any case.
By no means all those in the Red unions are Communist, of course, but this merely reflects how wide is the party's influence. Large numbers of Italians are led by the Communists even though they do not belong to any of the party's units.
The party judges its own internal strength by how large is the hard core of well-indoctrinated members.
The Communist who passes through the party's indoctrination courses is given an entirely new approach to life, acquires a militantly atheistic philosophy and comes out a changed man.
Great significance
The fact, therefore, that more than 28,000 passed through the parts's most intensive courses last year is of great signficance.
Between 1948 and 1950 nearly 5,000 passed through centrally organised courses. 761 attended schools organised on a county basis and 75.570 completed provincial courses. Most of the full-time indoctrination schools are situated in the Bologna and Rome areas.
C'oursas currently running there are the —Ingliatti" course. at which the aims and policies of the party are studied; the "Marx" course, where members learn their dialectical and historical materialism. and the "Lenin" and "Stalin" courses, which include intensive training in Corn
munist strategy and tactics and leadership techniques.
The party's paper Unita competes in popularity with the "Capitalist" press. It runs one of the best sports pages. wh ich attracts non-Communists to it, and has concentrated in particular on the cycling races, which are followed with tremendous interest by the Italian public.
Last summer the party organised a month of special concentration upon the paper, and extra sales brought in 339,438309 lira to the party, It is the view of Fr. Morlian, founder of the Universita Pro Deo, that "more than one half of Italy's intellectuals. artists, writers and film producers show constant Communist tendencies."
Reasons for growth
The party, despite all forecasts to the contrary, continues to grow in strength and influence.
Among reasons given by Oggi for this are:
The traditional anti-clericalism of some areas;
The fact that the party fought the now discredited Fascist regime and individual party members made themselves heroes of the large numbers of others who also opposed it;
Russia's resistance to Germany during the war: The fact that many people have gone to the Communists because they are scared of their strength-, The success of Togliatti's policy of making Communism as Italian as possible; Belief that the party has the aid and help of powerful Russia.
The success of Communist propaganda, the paper argues, has been largely due to the political ignorance of many people; only a small proportion of the population are really well informed.
Radio propaganda
In the countryside many of the people have their radios blaring all day and, because they are illiterate, get most of their information from this source. But the stations many of them get are ones behind the Iron Curtain in relatively near-by Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania, which offer excellent news and entertainment.
The paper says that poverty, low wages and class hatred are among the causes. hut stresses that these are not the only ones. It illustrates the point with the example of Sicily. where. notwithstanding the progress that the party is making there. it is still not the strongest—despite the island's appalling social conditions.