BOLLETTINO DELL’ARCHIVIO PER LA STORIA DEL MOVIMENTO SOCIALE CATTOLICO IN ITALIA - 2014 - 2-3

If there is a common feature in the action and thought of both don Primo Mazzolari and Guido Miglioli, it is their commitment to the poor in the name of their fidelity to Gospel. The personal events of both their lives intersected with each other unavoidably, not only as they came from the same land – Cremona countryside – but also because their humanity was able to change deep divergences into opportunities of dialogue, public debate and friendship. Mazzolari did to not follow Hon. Miglioli when he decided to join Italian Communist Party in the post WWII period, but he had a Faith-animated esteem for him, who had been a trade unionist and the founder of the periodical “L’Azione”.

This article examines one of the most forward-looking political theories developed by Guido Miglioli, the charismatic leader of farmers’ unions of the province of Cremona and nonconformist leader of the IPP (Italian Popular Party): his theory was the need of an across-the-board alliance between the IPP and the ISP (Italian Socialist Party) against Fascism. In particular, this article investigates the events which led to the only practical fulfillment of his project after WWI – the unified events he organized on 1st May 1922 in the province of Cremona – and the reasons of its subsequent failure.

Through documents preserved at the Komintern Archive in Moscow, the author retraces the period that Guido Miglioli spent in Russia. In 1925 he was hosted by Krestintern, took part in the Plenum and he was allowed to visit the Russian countryside. In particular, he went to Ukraine and Georgia. During his journey, he wrote articles and reports in which he expressed his opinions about any kind of agricultural cooperation he met, he gathered data, decrees and official documentation in order to have material to produce a book, which would be an  opportunity for Krestintern to show the achievements of peasant revolution. After further journeys, he published more books, such as Le village soviétique and La collectivisation des campagnes soviétiques.

This essay deals with a crucial phase in ACLI history: its split-up caused by the decisions taken at the 1959 National Congress. This Congress established the incompatibility between political and managerial positions within the Association. Consequently, a part of the Association, headed by Livio Labor, opposed Piazzi presidency, who was elected after the 1959 Congress and was basically in favour of granting broad exemptions from the application of the incompatibility rules. The internal opposition published two periodicals to shape an alternative association model (first “MOC. Ideas, Issues, Debates in Christian Workers’ Movement” and then “Debates in Christian Workers’ Movement”). Those periodicals, published between 1960 and 1961, became precisely the lab in which the ‘new ACLI’ of this phase gradually emerged and especially changed after the victory of the Labor’ group at 1961 Bari Congress and his subsequent election as movement’s national president.

In this essay, the author presents an unpublished paper written by Mario Romani. In it, as required by Catholic University’s Rector, Agostino Gemelli, the then young scholar analyzes and comments on a bill about trade unions which had been proposed by Amintore Fanfani in 1947. Romani revealed his awareness for those labour issues, trade unionism and industrial relations regarding which he would become a sharp and refined expert.

The essay explains the history of the Société de Protection des Apprentis et des Enfants Employés dans les Manufactures (SPAEEM). This association was founded in Paris in September 1866 by Jean-Baptiste Dumas, an important French chemist and politician who was also member of the Académie de France. SPAEEM primarily aimed to improve work conditions of apprentices and minors who were employed in French factories. The “Bulletin”, published between 1867 and 1914 and which has yet not been deeply studied by historians, allows us to rebuild the role of the Society in the political, social and economic context in which it was set up. It also allows the author to define SPAEEM’s structure and describe the main features of the first four presidencies, from its foundation to 1914.