Italian communist brotherhoods in France during the 1930s: from internationalism to regionalism?

di Pietro Pinna
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 47 (2014), p. 135

During the 1930s, Italian communists founded various regional organizations in France with the aim of winning the masses of immigrants in the country, taking them away from the control of the fascist consulates. Regionalism represented an element of absolute innovation for the communists who, until then, had remained anchored in internationalism. The decision to form the brotherhoods was a reaction to the fascist penetration among immigrants and represented the result of a deep ideological revision by the Pci. This essay describes the events of the numerous brotherhoods and tries to identify the cultural and political roots of their success in some regional communities. According to the author, communist regionalism did not restrain the integration of immigrants in French society, but represented a form of mobilization that favored the entry of some of them in the public arena. Keywords: Antifascism, Regionalism, Communism, France, Associations, Italian immigrants