A Novel about the Beginnings of the Ventotene Manifesto

Mario Leone
Deputy Director of the Spinelli Institute, Regional Secretary in Lazio of UEF-Italy

Wu Ming 1
La Macchina del Vento (The Wind Machine) [in Italian]
Einaudi, 2019

The story told in “The wind machine” (“La macchina del vento”) has taken its Author, Wu Ming 1, a pseudonym of an Italian writer and blogger, fourteen years to complete. The idea of setting a novel in the island of Ventotene came out in 2005, drawing its inspiration from different stories, such as the Odyssey and the disappearance of the physicist Ettore Majorana, ending up with the arrival onto the last century’s political-confinement island of a physicist and a phantom time-machine, got lost during the testing phase.

This novel actually should be read starting from the end, exactly from the author’s reflections placed in the credits section. Because the work is a reveling at two levels. The first one consists of the stories of the characters who enlivened the political confinement of Ventotene during the dark ages of the Second World War (Ventotene was the place chosen by Mussolini’s regime to confine his opponents). The second level is fantasy, or rather the reverie (just to mention Giovanni Verga’s work) to endeavor to figure out the thoughts of a political exile, in particular one named Erminio Squarzanti.

The author acknowledges the differences between the confinement as described in the novel and the one coming out from the official records. The work is packed with invented characters and imaginary events, as well as exiles’ relationships and dialogues, which sound as a stretch to a demanding reader. The writer in fact apologizes to experts on the subject and to the relatives of those who really experienced the confinement, though only at the end of the novel (see pages 332-333).  On the contrary, these excuses should have been put at the beginning, like a preamble for a “safe” and more careful reading.

Emilio Squarzanti is a young university student of socialist faith, by means of whom the author gives his critical opinion about the confinement, focusing especially on dual relations: Pertini and Spinelli, Rossi and Colorni, Scoccimarro and Terracini. Squarzanti himself triggers his political analysis: mild at the beginning, it becomes stronger and stronger up to turning into a vehement opposition to the Ventotene Manifesto (whose complete heading is “For a Free and United Europe. A draft Manifesto”).

We’d rather analyze the passages which describe the conception of the Manifesto and the dialogues between its Fathers. Squarzanti switches from simply listening to these dialogues to replying as follows (see page 102): “In order to destroy any city a siege is of no use. It’s enough to leave it to its own inadequacy and its state of addiction. And the more technology will develop, the greater will be its addiction”. It’s a topic the European Federalist Movement’s Fathers were already dealing with: “Not only any city, but every State is like Ventotene”, Spinelli says. “Overcoming Fascism is not enough – Colorni replies –; liberating the countries occupied by the Germans is not enough. If we do want no more wars, we must overcome the national States”.

Nevertheless, Squarzanti’s most important encounter is the one with Giacomo Pontecorboli, another invented character: Pontecorboli is pictured as a member of the “Giustizia e Libertà” movement and he slowly lets Squarzanti feel the mysterious suggestion of Herbert George Well’s “The time machine”. In Ventotene island time is struck by the strangely functioning  clock located in Piazza Castello, which reflects the almost magical rhythm of the place. This unreal rhythm sets the pace for the reflections carried out by Spinelli, Rossi and Colorni, who were trying to overcome the reality of the world during that winter of 1941.

Squarzanti doesn’t agree with the contents of the Manifesto and tries to gain the support of other exiles. The author mingles the (invented) ideas of Squarzanti with the real philosophical discussions of Severo (who plays the role of Spinelli in the novel), Commodo (who is Colorni) and Ritroso (Rossi).

These ideas take form overnight under the pseudonym of Acribio, and they represent a sort of reinterpretation of the Manifesto, modified by the judgement of other exiles such as Fundo and Pertini; the latter wouldn’t sign in the end the Manifesto because of Squarzanti.[i]

Squarzanti blames the Manifesto for not taking into account the opinion of the popular masses, for it considers them “passive and lacking consciousness”, it shows “no confidence in them”, and the proletariat is associated with “worthless impulses, particularism, and very limited views”. He accuses the Manifesto because it seems to state that only a “small group of enlightened people” (“a revolutionary party” in his own words) might take action from above, even overcoming democratic procedures, to reach the goal of a European Federation, which Fascism had just delayed  (see pages 270-273).

But Squarzanti’s opinion (the writer complains) doesn’t mirror the true spirit of the Manifesto, as the following passage proves: “The slow process whereby vast numbers of men meekly allowed themselves to be passively molded by the new regime, adjusted themselves to it and thereby contributed to its consolidation, has now stopped; instead, the opposite process has begun. This huge wave, which is slowly swelling up, brings together all the progressive forces, the most enlightened parts of the working class unswayed by either fear or flattery from their ambition to a higher way of life: the more perceptive intellectuals, offended by the degradation imposed on their intelligence; the entrepreneurs, ready for new challenges, who want to be free from restrictive red tape and national autarchy, and, finally, all those who, through an inborn sense of dignity, do not intend to bow down under the humiliation of servitude. The salvation of our civilization is now entrusted to all these forces”.

And then the opinion about Fascism, which only Squarzanti considers as just “an incident”. About that, actually, the Manifesto says: “Germanyʹs defeat, however, would not automatically bring about the reorganization of Europe in line with our ideal of civilization. In the brief but intense period of general crisis ..., the most privileged classes of the old national systems will try, underhandedly or violently, to dampen the wave of internationalist feelings and passions, and will contribute ostentatiously to the reconstruction of the old state institutions”.

There’s more, in fact. Squarzanti wrongly believes that in the Manifesto there is no real European patriotism, but here too a more careful reading would show: “They (i.e. the reactionary forces) will try to insist on the restoration of the nation state. This will allow them to take hold on the most widespread feeling among the population, a feeling most hurt by the recent events, which can be easily manipulated to reactionary ends: patriotism. […]The most pressing problem, without solving which any other progress is merely an illusion, is the definitive abolition of the division of Europe into national, sovereign states”.

Squarzanti doesn’t notice that the Manifesto puts the overcoming of national states at the basis of the federative project, which will end with the creation of the United States of Europe: it will then play the role of an interlocutor guaranteeing the balance in international relations: “the European Federation is the only conceivable guarantee that the relations with the American and Asian peoples can be held on a basis of peaceful cooperation, awaiting a more distant future when the political unity of the entire globe becomes possible”. The Manifesto focuses mainly on Americans and Asians because no other populations were detected being able to start a Third World War (not the Africans, and not for their lesser importance).

Squarzanti doesn’t even recognize Commodo’s (that is, Colorni’s) influence. That’s a pity, considering that Colorni convincedly signed the Manifesto and took care of its publication and diffusion. Moreover, he wrote the preface to the 1944 edition,  which played a very important role in the interpretation of the document, as Spinelli himself acknowledged: “my way of thinking wouldn’t be what it is now, had I not spent two years discussing with him almost daily, in a critical and constructive manner”.

[i] Pertini himself will confirm his refusal to sign the Manifesto much later, after becoming the President of the Italian Republic. During a speech given on 7^th October 1982 in front of the Italian MEPs, he said: “I’m going to make a public confession, like some Dostoevsky’s characters did”. And addressing Spinelli: “You surely remember that after having signed  the Manifesto I finally withdrew my adhesion. Then many polemics followed, but I’ve never explained to you the real reason why I behaved like that. The fact is I was in complete agreement with you, but my comrades  in Paris didn’t like my act, which would have made the relationship between the Socialist party and other parties more complicated.  Eventually  I had to obey party’s orders. But today I wouldn’t act like that again. You do understand me because you too managed how not to obey. At that time, I was not up to doing that, and I did it wrongly” (from “Diario Europeo”, A. Spinelli, 1976-1986, edited by Il Mulino, 1992).