Brawl

"Democracy," warned Premier Alcide de Gasperi before the packed Chamber of Deputies, "will be defended at all costs to compel respect for free institutions and prevent violence."

Around the chamber, Italy's legislators sat tense and silent as the solemn Premier asked formal approval of his new, slightly reshuffled cabinet. Communist Boss Palmiro Togliatti beat a nervous finger tattoo on his desktop. The party's L'Unita that morning had threatened: "The opposition will know how to ram De Gasperi's lies and provocations down his throat."

The Premier's voice droned on. He drew a sharp historical parallel. More than a quarter century ago Red chaos had paved the way for Fascism; now the Communists were again pursuing tactics of conflict and disruption. De Gasperi reviewed recent violent events, dwelling particularly on last month's Communist-led riots in Modena, where police shot down six strikers.

"I wonder," he said, turning to the leftist benches, "if it's really true that such massacres occur because there is a 'black priest-ridden government?' Surely you cannot deny that many men were told to go into Modena who had no legitimate business there . . ." The chamber exploded with cheers and boos. Togliatti cast aside his blue-serge-suit respectability, leaped to his feet, bellowed "Liar!" Other Communists surged up crying "Murderer! Assassin!"

"This Is Too Much." De Gasperi waited impassively for the bell to restore order. Then he continued: "Numerous trials are in progress for murders of people who were not Communists. These people are no less dead because there has been no general strike for them, no parade . . ."

Togliatti gave a mighty swipe of his desk, once more shot to his feet, raced for the government bench. "Let me go!" he shouted as two comrades seized him. "This is too much. He doesn't respect the dead. Let me go!" Other Communists yelled at De Gasperi: "Leave the hall!"

Christian Democratic deputies rushed up to form a barricade between the government and the Left. Within seconds, rival partymen were hard at it. The Reds' thick-nosed Milanese Labor Leader Gaetano Invernizzi made a flying leap from the top of the Communist benches into the heart of enemy territory. He was promptly kicked in the skull by potbellied Veronese Sculptor Eugenio Spiazzi. "Session adjourned!" screamed the chamber's President Giovanni Gronchi, jangling his bell madly.

Nobody paid the slightest attention. A swarthy young (30) Communist from Sicily, Luigi di Mauro, slipped through the melee, cocked his fist, was set to throw a haymaker against Italy's motionless Premier when another huge fist, belonging to Labor Minister Achille Marazza, appeared from nowhere and knocked him flat. In frustrated rage, Comrade Di Mauro bit Marazza's thumb to the bone. Meanwhile, Comrade Togliatti had prudently retreated to the corridor.

Catastrophe Averted. Postwar Italy's worst parliamentary brawl ended a few minutes later, quelled by chamber ushers acting as a riot squad. "Fortunately," said Milan's moderate Corriere della Sera, "what might have been catastrophe turned into grotesquerie. But the nation is tired of grotesquerie in parliament."

That evening the deputies gave a firm vote of confidence, 314 to 189, to De Gasperi's government.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.