Introduction

Hush, fascism listens to you paraphrasing, then the saying ‘Hush the enemy listens to you’ used by fascism itself during the war period, the pre-war years saw the establishment of Ovra, fascism’s secret political police. Used to repress dissent and with powers superior to the official police forces. The voluntary anti-fascist repression force, which we could label the Italian gestapo, was officially established in 1927. Six years before the Nazi one, with a network counting thousands of collaborators, of eyes and ears for the Duce, the fascist political police commanded by Arturo Bocchini, helped the regime to crush opposing parties, send before the Special Court and imprison thousands of people. About fascist Big Brother, we spoke with Mauro Canali, one of the leading scholars on the subject
How many people did the OVRA network have?

MAURO CANALI ANSWER
So let us make a distinction, the OVRA agents who were used at the end of the twenty years were certainly over a thousand. Naturally, they rotated because it happened that someone, for example, did not show his height, was excessively chatty, did not know how to hide his role, boasted and so on, and the inspector immediately took him off his feet. Spy work was exhausting, he knew no hours, he had night operations, tailing and so on. And the spies were often traitors who decided to collaborate and referred to Public Security officials who operated in the Ovra. The number of agents and officials so in the end we can say that it was close to a thousand and a half. Ovra spies, precisely Ovra, I counted a thousand. Spies that we call Ovra but are not Ovra, the so-called direct trustees, in the end I counted something like five thousand altogether. Then let’s throw in the fact that every police headquarters had a political bureau. And the political bureau had its informants. If we put them all together we arrive at hyperbolic figures, we arrive at 10 to 15 thousand informers. In other words, it was a network from which little escaped the regime

QUESTION BERTOLUCCI: What did one have to do to get attention from the OVRA

CANALI ANSWER:

On this there was an incredible imagination. Bocchini shows himself to be very intelligent. He is a skilful opponent of anti-fascists. He knows how to distinguish between the real opponent and the chatterer. They called them vociferators or mumblers those who wanted to make anti-fascism into chattering. Back then, to get attention, the first thing was the spies who would report you. All the files in the central archive of the OVRA’s attentions are the so-called green files. Each file consists of reports from OVRA spies. That is, or people who are on file there and were being controlled by the spies. There are 1500 envelopes with green files, but each envelope often contains 30-40 files. Even 50 sometimes. So, making a calculation, we arrive at almost 80-90-100 thousand dossiers of the attention seekers. Often it’s just a sheet or two, but also large files. When the alerted person was identified as a genuinely dangerous element, a great deal of control was exercised. Many of them even lived abroad and the spying came from spies operating abroad. Fake anti-fascists, often traitors, that is to say, often anti-fascists, even important ones, who had betrayed and gone on to serve the regime. That network for example all passed through consulates and embassies where there was a public security official inside, not known to the host state, who was a real spy ringleader. That is, he manoeuvred spies in France in Belgium, in Spain, in North Africa, in Eastern countries it was a bit more difficult, especially in Russia. In fact almost impossible, although even there the consul was busy. To be worthy of attention, often even a report. I’m talking to a guy and he comes out with a few jokes, the spy immediately reports back. Then there it depended on the policeman handling the spy. If the policeman had other elements to understand that this guy was not the first time, he could suggest to the spy not to let him out of his sight. To stay on his tail. Sometimes they were old, dormant anti-fascists who, given the way things had gone, had preferred not to do political work any more, but whom the police trusted very little, in the sense that they were watching them anyway. Because they could not know whether they might resume activity at some point. So there is a world of ex-anti-fascists or subversives being controlled. If they are not people who travel but are fixed persons who stay, I don’t know, in Palermo or Catania or Matera, they often give the task of controlling it to the local police headquarters and the political office of the Questura. But that’s not always the case, often they are also intellectuals who travel, who move around. And then there is a whole network of spies there to control him, to control the person. So in order to be watched, there is not, as it were, a case list to be respected. There is the sensitivity of the spy, who also received indications from the police. So much so that very often, for example, the police had to be very careful that it was not personal vendettas, because personal vendettas often took place. Someone who was obnoxious… or, I don’t know, you’d go with the wife and you wanted to get the husband into trouble: you’d start saying the husband was making strange speeches. The police were very clever at that. Very very clever police. The fascist police were very very expert at this and there were often reprimands to spies. On the reports that these present there are often comments: ‘buffoon, waffler, what are you talking about’. Or even to fire him when they realise that this one is telling tales. Or even tasty comments. There’s a spy who is openly gay, as openly gay as you could be in those days, and there’s one they guard who they suspect is gay. So they move this gay spy and order him to make contact and report back. And this Terracini does. And there are written reports as well. At one point the policeman’s bad joke in a report, he says ‘But yes, he too’, referring to the spy ‘is an expert on low spots’. So a very trivial reference, like saying that they are careful and they even know how to aim and how to use spies on the basis of what they think is useful to do. So there is an articulation. During the Spanish Civil War several, let’s say spies, came from the revolutionary ranks. There is a moment that Carlo Rosselli’s column is headed by a known spy: Enrico Brichetti. Who reports to Rome. So there is the sensitivity of the official. When they understand that there is flab, there is matter, then they push the spy to continue reporting. Towards the end, we can make an account that even, we are speaking of the direct trustees, not of the OVRA, which operates only on Italian territory, these direct trustees who, however, are always spies. There is a group leader, that is, then these spies are, as it were, given a series of trusted collaborators who work with them. Rome always pays, of course there is always Rome’s endorsement. When the spy says ‘this one would be willing to collaborate, I have convinced him’ they want to know everything and then they give the OK when they are informed and they understand that the thing is ripe. Often there are these so-called sub-dealers who do not report to Rome, but report to the spy who is considered a group leader. There are spies who have an extensive network of sub-trustees. For example Soncelli who controls the Swiss territory. In the end he has under him something like 60-70 spies operating on Swiss territory. Where Italian emigration is strong, it is necessary to control the world of exiled anti-fascism. In Spain, there is this Santorre Vezzari, the 235, who not only has an extensive group of spies of Italians staying in Spain but even bribes Spanish policemen. This also happens in France in Belgium. There are French and Belgian policemen who collaborate with OVRA. They bribe those policemen who by office have to deal with emigration. Because often the exile on the run changes his name. He presents himself with a pseudonym. When the police cannot figure out who they are dealing with, cannot identify him, they sometimes activate the French policeman or the Spanish policeman who arrests him, stops him, and then identifies the real identity and transmits it to Rome. So there is also the collaboration, of the police who host these networks of trustees. Abroad is important because they always fear the attack, that is, they always fear that someone will leave from abroad to attempt a hit, as was the case with Schirru and others. Abroad is also important because the emissaries of the parties that come to Italy to operate clandestinely always come from abroad. So all the missions that the party leaderships, now in exile, organise to send emissaries and maintain a network of contacts in Italy are controlled at source abroad. The Communists made six attempts between 1928 and 1934, and were arrested six times. Precisely for spying. In the end there is a report by Togliatti that he realises and it almost seems as if the game is lost. From 1934 to 1936-37 the OVRA no longer fears. They begin to fear again with what happens abroad, that is, with the victory of the Popular Front in France and above all the Spanish Civil War. But for two-three years they knew they had won the game with anti-fascism abroad.

QUESTION BERTOLUCCI: But in general, is it known how many people ended up in the net? (arrested and then judged)

CANALI ANSWER: Well there is the special court. All the files of the special court are in the archive and it’s a huge thing.

QUESTION BERTOLICCI: But we are still talking about thousands of people?

CANALI ANSWER: More. And added up they did centuries in jail. I was watching a 1936 raid in Empoli, between Prato and Empoli and Florence they arrested 97 militant communists. The Spanish Civil War also set the PCI in motion. Some because several young Italians escape from Italy, secretly cross the border and go to fight in Spain. And they need to identify them. Because as they passed clandestinely then they know they can return clandestinely. So they want to know and they take action. It is no coincidence that the OVRA network in Sardinia was activated around 1936-1937. Because Sardinia becomes a good passage to then go to Spain. The anti-fascists embark clandestinely and through Sardinia go to Spain via Corsica. Then they activate this OVRA network in Sardinia and there are thousands and thousands who go before the special courts. The special court had to have some semblance of legality. Because after all the regime said ‘I have made laws’, then willy-nilly they are laws of the state. The state is fascist and we made the laws. If you go against the laws you go to jail. And so the special court, in order to preserve this semblance of legality, held a trial. Of course a sui generis trial. And sometimes during the trial it was even necessary to reveal the identity of the spies. Because some magistrates, who were fascist, hypocritically wanted to preserve a semblance of legality. When the police realised that there was some magistrate who was pushing the trial to the point of wanting the statements of the spies who had initiated the operation, then they took the path of confinement more decisively. Because confinement was an administrative act, there was no need for a trial. In fact, there was no trial. Confinement was mainly given as an administrative sanction, without a crime. You went five years in exile simply because the state considered you dangerous. You’d finish five years in Longobucco or Canicattì. And you’d leave, you’d be forcibly removed from your family and go into exile. So you kept a person away for five years and controlled like in jail. Because there were then the militia, there were the police, it wasn’t that the confined person walked around, he could get away. He was controlled. So the police, in order not to reveal their network of information in a trial, preferred to send him to confinement. They would take the suspect and put him before the provincial commission for confinement, which was made up of the prefect, a priest, the commander of the Carabinieri Legion and the secretary of the Fascio. A group of notables who decided: ‘you are considered by us to be dangerous to the state and so you go down there for five years without the need for a trial or evidence’. An appeal could be made but it was usually rejected. The police began to use the instrument of confinement more consistently in the mid-1930s instead of the special court where they still needed the judicial process, evidence and all. They called the policeman who had to make the report and so on. The special court, however, continued. Especially with the war the special court works a lot. For example with the north-eastern borders, with Slovenia and all that part there. There are also shootings there. So the special court has an enormous activity against anti-fascists. It is a terrible machine. The Ovra also works in prison and also works in confinement. They also manage to infiltrate as prisoners even spies who are still apparently anti-fascists. In reality they collaborate with Ovra, they put them inside the cells because they know that, especially the communists, in jail they maintain a clandestine network of contacts. And this the police want to know. So when someone decides to collaborate and they catch him in the raids, they give him the sentence anyway and send him to jail. But he goes to jail already by collaborating. Then they show that with an amnesty, a special occasion, they take the years off him. At the confinement the same thing happens. There are OVRA spies that they send into exile. Because at the confinement camp they are afraid of escapes. Especially after Rosselli’s famous one in 1929, whereby apparently anti-fascist OVRA spies often go to the exile and stand among the internees, collect and then send information. It is a hellish machine in some respects.