The Heretics

"If there are more Communists in Reggio Emilia than in the whole of England, it is all due to Valdo Magnani." That was how the comrades of the Red Belt felt about the up & coming secretary of their best-organized provincial federation.*

Slight, sallow Valdo Magnani, 38, college-trained in economics and philosophy, had joined the party in 1936, fought in Fascist Italy's army (as an artillery captain) until Mussolini's downfall, then switched to the partisan anti-Fascist forces. In 1946 he emerged as Reggio Emilia's ace Communist organizer. Militant, tireless, persuasive, he gained 10,000 new party members for his province in the past two years, a time of dwindling ranks for Italian Communism in general. In 1948 he was handily elected to the national Chamber of Deputies.

Valdo Magnani's closest friend was his fellow deputy from Bologna, Aldo Cucchi, in private life a surgeon who also specialized in studies of hemp workers' diseases. Cucchi had led an Italian partisan unit against the Nazis and Fascists, won his country's highest gold medal for bravery. In the Chamber of Deputies, he acted as a bodyguard for Communist Boss Palmiro Togliatti.

At different times in the past year or so, Friends Valdo and Aldo paid visits to Russia and to satellite Soviet East Europe. Both were disturbed by what they saw. Confided Cucchi: "That country doesn't interest me half as much as it used to." Agreed Magnani: "My honesty has been too much exploited. Between what I saw in Poland and what I have been told in the Communist propaganda sheets, there is an abyss."

Yawns to Shock. Late last month the doubts erupted dramatically in public. Before a party provincial congress, Magnani made a routine report. As delegates yawned and prepared to recess, Magnani said: "Now I want to talk to you as comrade to comrade . . .

"It is the duty of Italian Communists to defend the sacred ground of the fatherland from any aggression, no matter whence it comes . . . Russia must be looked at with a liking by all Marxists, but at the same time must be considered a nation like all the others . . ."

Yawns swiftly changed to gaping shock. Magnani had blatantly voiced the heresy known as national deviation, or Titoism. Party bigwigs huddled in an emergency meeting, summoned Magnani, demanded his retraction. The dean of Italy's Communist Senators, Umberto Terracini, who himself had once been suspected of deviation, gave Valdo Magnani a confidential caution: "A few years ago, I too wanted to hit against the steel wall, but I broke my fist and it still hurts."

Fear to Defiance. But Magnani still wanted to hammer on the steel wall. He told his family: "If you hear that I have committed suicide, don't believe it." His old friend Aldo Cucchi joined him in heresy. In Rome, the two declined to see the party fathers. Instead, they resigned as Communists and as Deputies. Said Cucchi: "In the Italian Communist Party, there is no freedom to express one's own opinion . . ." Said Magnani: "I can no longer remain representative of a party which does not share my views." Last week they issued a joint call to all comrades:

"Communists must unconditionally ... declare themselves against any aggression."

The Chamber of Deputies, by an overwhelming vote, rejected the Deputies' resignation. The Red vilification apparatus clawed at the heretics: They were "traitors . . . automatically expelled." They were trying to smear "the patriotic and peace-defending line of the Communist Party in order to slander the Soviet Union." Party goons threatened Magnani and Cucchi on a train from Rome. Anti-Communist groups gleefully plastered up slogans: "Magnani and Cucchi Chose Italy."

Crack to Chasm? For this week the party ordered Reggio Emilia's Red-run labor unions to go out on a 24-hour "anti-traitors general strike." When support for the strike appeared dubious, it was postponed. The party organ, Unita, cried: "For every two traitors who leave, 2,000 new members join."

It sounded more than a bit like whistling in an unplumbed dark. Magnani and Cucchi were symptoms of party dissension, which is still largely subsurface. They were a crack that could become a chasm, with effects of unforeseeable consequence. The two heretics, it was said, would next issue a manifesto for an independent Italian Communist Party. Already, in the heart of the country's Red Belt, they had adherents. On Reggio Emilia's grey stone walks were chalked: "Long live Valdo and Aldo!"

-Reggio Emilia in northeastern Italy (pop. 400,000) has 67,000 dues-paying Communists, where all Britain (pop. 49 million) has only 40,000.

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