Fraser Ottanelli

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Fraser Ottanelli | Anti-Fascism and the Shaping of National and Ethnic Identity: Italian American Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War | Journal of American Ethnic History, 27.1 | The History Cooperative

Anti-Fascism and the Shaping of National and Ethnic Identity: Italian American Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War

ON AUGUST 20, 1937, a front-page article in the Italian American Communist weekly L'Unità Operaia, reported that one of its leaders, Nello Vergani, had been killed while fighting Fascist troops in Spain.¹ Vergani, whose real name was Mafaldo Rossi, was born and raised in Molinella, a town near Bologna well-known for its tradition of militant rural labor activism, where his political activities had earned him the designation by Italian police of "Communist terrorist,"² as well as several beatings from Fascist Blackshirts. In 1924, Rossi emigrated and Fascist police traced his movements from France to Germany, Brazil, Algeria, and, eventually, North America. In 1926, arrested while trying to cross illegally from Canada into the United States, Rossi jumped bail and settled in New York.³ Although he adopted several aliases to conceal his identity, Rossi remained under surveillance by Italian authorities from virtually the moment he arrived in the United States. By June 1927 the Italian consulate in New York had reported to Rome that Rossi was one of the most active, visible, and "dangerous" Communists within the Italian American community. He soon became one of the leaders of the Alleanza Antifascista del Nord America (Antifascist Alliance of North America, or AFANA). After its dissolution, Rossi headed the Italian-language bureau of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and served as business manager and editor of L'Unità Operaia, as well as of the Italian bulletin of the United Shoe and Leather Workers Union.⁴

For Rossi, as for many other men and women from around the world, the Spanish Civil War became the symbol of the global fight against exploitation, oppression, and racism. Beginning with the Spanish Army's rebellion against the democratically elected center-left Popular Front government in the summer of 1936, the conflict was quickly internationalized when General Francisco Franco received material support from Hitler and Mussolini. As Franco's troops advanced through the Spanish countryside, the slogan "Madrid will be the tomb of fascism" embodied the certainty that events in Spain foreshadowed the global defeat of Fascism and Nazism. Eventually, together with 2,800 volunteers from the United States, Rossi joined 35,000 men and women from over fifty countries in the fight to defend the Spanish Republic. Rossi was only thirty-five years of age when he was killed by enemy artillery while leading an advance.⁵ In honoring him, the editorial in L'Unità Operaia stated emphatically, "we promise to fight to the end to ensure that liberty will prevail not only in Spain but ... also in Italy."⁶

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