Oliviero Zuccarini

Oliviero Zuccarini (24 August 1883 – 19 April 1971) was an Italian political journalist and Republican Party official and activist. He was arrested for antifascist activities in 1926, and though he was soon released, he remained under close police surveillance. He continued to live in Rome but kept a very low profile till after the fall of fascism. In 1946, however, he was elected a member of parliament. In the light of his background and record before 1926, he might have been expected to emerge as a leading Republican Party figure in the Chamber of Deputies, but he quickly became marginalised within the party, remaining a member of parliament for fewer than two years.

Zuccarini's republicanism was of the traditional Mazzinian variety, steeped in radicalism, anti-clericalism and uncompromising anti-monarchism. Political allies who found him resistant to compromise also criticised his excessively theoretical and romanticised approach to politics. Like Mazzini himself, Zuccarini sometimes found himself reproached for his curiously utopian brand of republicanism. According to one commentator, Oliviero Zuccarini's political philosophy amounted to an internationalist and idealistic form of republicanism that placed him somewhere between Mazzini, Mill and Sorel.

Biography Provenance and early years Oliviero Zuccarini was born into a large and growing family at Cupramontana, a small hill town a short distance inland from Ancona. Tito Zuccarini , his father, was an agricultural smallholder. Oliviero moved to Rome in order to complete his university studies and emerged in due course with a degree in jurisprudence. His interest in politics and current affairs dated back to his childhood. During 1897 he followed closely the newspaper report of the unfolding Greco-Turkish War. Closer to home, in the Kingdom of Italy, he became fascinated by the spread of republicanism during the final decade of the nineteenth century and culminated in the assassination at Monza of the (by this time conspicuously conservative) king. In 1900 Zuccarini began to contribute articles to L'Italia del Popolo, a daily newspaper base (at his stage) in Milan which drew its republican inspiration from earlier newspapers of the same name and from the still widely influential political-philosophical writings of Giuseppe Mazzini. He also set up a "Bovio Group" in Cupramontana, a "study and propaganda circle" which, in 1901, mutated into a local branch of the Republican Party. Together, the two men worked to give new impetus to the republican periodical publication "Il Attesa", with the dual objectives of opposing the policies of the Giolitti government and creating a new direction for the Republican Party.

At the 1910 biennial party congress in Florence, delegates elected Zuccarini general secretary of the party's "Social Action Committee", a new body which had been created at Zuccarini's own instigation. With Italy undergoing rapid industrialisation and a correspondingly rapid growth in factory work at the expense of farm labour, the Social Action Committee was a timely initiative which attracted new support to the party from working-class members who would otherwise have been "lost" (as many still were) to socialism. Over the next couple of years Zuccarini and Conti, supported by like-minded party colleagues, were able to consolidate their influence with party cadres, encouraging support for the party's Mazzinian ideals and opposing the government's colonialist "Libyan enterprise". Increasingly the two men came to be seen as leaders of what some characterised as the party's "intransigent faction", in opposition to a more cautious and moderate wing represented by men such as Salvatore Barzilai (also a freemason). Over the next couple of years, supported by Conti and other leading party figures such as Eugenio Chiesa (himself a former national secretary of the party) and Edoardo Giretti, Zuccarini committed to an energetic programme of renewal for the "Party of Mazzini", with national programmes for national disarmament, administrative decentralisation, tax reform and a series of social reforms such as the introduction of retirement pensions for workers, increased investment in "public works", agricultural incentives and encouragement for the application of "co-operative" business models. After 1922, "Critica Politica" fell victim to a government campaign of sustained disruption and seizures, and its publication eventually came to an end in 1926. 1921: "Il partito repubblicano dopo la guerra. La crisi e la rinascita" ("The Republican Party after the war: crises and rebirth") 1922: "Influenze mazziniane nel movimento operaio" ("Mazzinian influences on the labour movement") ran to four editions, and appears to have been the best-selling of Zuccarini's three political books from this period

Between 1920 and 1926 Oliviero Zuccarini faced a succession of court actions, initially on account of the "anti-monarchist propaganda" he was deemed to be producing and then, after 1922, on account of "political activity" in opposition to the Mussolini dictatorship. After April 1926 he was subjected to close government surveillance and took an indefinite leave of absence, which amounted to a resignation from his party role. In November 1926 he received but turned down a pressing invitation to join a "fascist corporation". He was arrested on 26 December 1926 and determined to be in possession of anti-government propaganda. He was released shortly afterwards, but the government surveillance intensified in ways which ensured that he could not undertake further journalism work. Between 1926 and 1944, Zuccarini continued to live in Rome, but there is no indication that he was involved in further acts of deemed antifascism. The author starts by contextualising contemporary politics in what he sees as a continuum between the "liberal experiment" that ended in 1922 and the fascist dictatorship that followed it. He attributes the support for an authoritarian and reactionary régime to the backwardness of the country and the failure to complete what could have become a transformational "liberal revolution". He highlights the simple inefficiency of Italy's ruling class and the enduring presence of an influential "petty bourgeoisie" susceptible to the blandishments of nationalism. And yet, those same people were happy to acknowledge the ideology of labour, a top-down authoritarian modernising agenda and the successes of Rossoni's fascist syndicalism, built on foundations already constructed long before 1922 through the brilliant exploitation of weaknesses in the liberal state. True to the Mazzinian heritage, Zuccarini also brings into the mixture the problematic nature of a labour movement and a reformist brand of socialism that had tended towards collusion with the institutions of a conservative Sardinian-Italian monarchy.

In 1965, after seventeen years during which he had been completely disengaged for the work of party congresses, Oliviero Zuccarini participated ainthe twenty-ninth congress of the Republican Party, contributing actively to a party paper on "Republican Autonomy". he project was opposed by the party leadership around Ugo La Malfa, and the paper was filed by the party as a "minority report". he majority party line of the Italian Republican Party meant restricting democratic commitment to what went on inside parliament. he focus of party policy was to be io industrial development and economic issues. rom Zuccarini's perspective, and that of his admirers, traditionalist Mazzinian republicanism had lost the war for the party's soul. evertheless, Zuccarini's lonely voice in support of local autonomy and the resolving if social problems continued to be raised in the columns of "Noi Repubblicani" till April 1970. 1957: "Un impegno costituzionale" ("A constitutional commitment")

Death Oliviero Zuccarini continued to participate very publicly in the political debate almost till the end of his life. He died on 17 April 1971 Sources differ over whether he died in Cupramontana, where he had been born, or in Rome, where he had lived and worked for most of his life.