On June 2, 1946, he was born the new Italy. Italians (and for the first time Italian women) were called to the polls to decide their future with two votes: one in the institutional referendum between Republic or Monarchsto; the other forelection of the Constituent Assembly.
June 2 by Pietro Nenni: “Historic, but boring”
I thought it appropriate to remember that day by reading how one of the protagonists of the anti-fascist struggle and the rebirth of Italy spent it: Peter Nenni, the socialist leader who was among the main supporters of the republican turn also delivering to history very poignant expressions and metaphors testifying to the importance of that vote (''either the Republic or the chaos'', ''the leap in the dark'', ''the north wind'').
If they go to open Nenni's ''Diaries'' On June 2, 1946, we come across a troubled leader who hides his concerns. Nenni calls the day ''historic'' for the choices that the Italian people were called to make, but ''boring'' for him because he had gone out early to go to the polling station (in section 330 of via Antonio Serra in the Tor di Quinto neighborhood in Rome), then he had been ''locked up in the house'' all day.
In the morning Come on!, the organ of the party, had come out with an editorial entitled ''A page closes''. ''It's true for the country – he adds – I would like it to be true for me too''. Tell about one phone call from Giuseppe Romita, then Minister of the Interior, who informs him that everything is proceeding in order, calmly and with a large participation of the voters (I think it was over 90%).
Then Nenni spends the evening ''in solitary waiting'' reading ''Le zero et l'infini'' by Arthur Koestler the Hungarian writer naturalized in England who was among the first, in 1950, to criticize Stalinism in a famous free essay entitled "Darkness at Noon".
'It is the novel of the Moscow trials', explains Nenni and recalls that Koestler had been sentenced to death in Spain (where Nenni had participated in the civil war (1936-1939) on the side of the Republic, calling him a heretic of the communist church.
Reading, he stops to meditate on a dialogue between two prisoners (contained in the book). Inmate n.402 states that '' l'honneur c'est vivre et mourir pour ses convinctions di lui ''. Rubasciov (a protagonist of the novel) replies: ''L'honneur c'est se rendre profit sans vanitè''.
Nenni concludes the story of his ''historic'' day here, confessing to himself: ''I feel like the first, I think like the second''. Maybe he was already thinking about the '' Popular Front '' operation?
Nenni's June 4 waiting for the results of the vote
The socialist leader returns to dialogue with his diary only on 4 June, confessing all the anxiety he feels as he awaits the results of the vote in the evening. Giuseppe Romita informs him of the republican victory, but he recommends the secret because the Allies must be informed first and then the king, who would be resigned to defeat and was making preparations for departure.
However, given that the gap is around one million votes, the government is not calm because i royalists ''might be tempted to undermine the results''.
We know that confirmation of the outcome of the vote will be awaited by the Court of Cassation, whose response will not come until June 10 (Republic 12.672.267; Monarchy: 10.688.905).
As for the count for the Constituent Assembly the DC is in the lead with 33%, then comes the PSI with 25% and the PCI with 23%.
Nenni points out the ''relative success'' of the Everyman, the first cry of populism. Which could secure about twenty elected officials. Nenni's day ends at Verano sulla tomb of Bruno Buozzi, shot years earlier in La Storta by the retreating Germans. ''Poor Bruno! – Comment – If we win we owe it also to his sacrifice ''. During the day, Giuseppe Saragat had let him know (''he was dying'') that Queen Maria Josè had voted for the socialists giving him the preference.
