Mauro Scoccimarro

Mauro Scoccimarro (born October 30, 1895 in Udine ; † January 2, 1972 in Rome ) was an Italian politician of the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI), who was Italy's finance minister between 1945 and 1947 and a member of the Senate from 1948 until his death ( Senato della Repubblica ) was. He was the last finance minister of the Kingdom of Italy and the first finance minister of the Italian Republic.

Life

First World War, entry into the PCI and arrest for anti-fascist activities

Scoccimarro completed a degree in economics after attending school and joined the Alpini mountain troop during the First World War , where he was last promoted to lieutenant . His war experiences shaped his later pacifist stance and during the war he joined the Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI) in 1917 , before joining the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) as a member in 1921 after it was founded. In the following years he was editor-in-chief of the Marxist daily newspaper Il lavoratore friulano and got to know Antonio Gramsci , who was a leading politician of the party after the assassination of Giacomo Matteotti and with whom he represented the PCI at the Communist International .

In 1926 Scoccimarro was arrested in Milan for anti-fascist acts against Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party and charged before the special court for the protection of the state ( Tribunale speciale per la difesa dello stato ) . sentenced to 20 years in prison. The trial against him and 21 other communists, including Antonio Gramsci, Umberto Terracini , Giovanni Roveda and Ezio Riboldi , began on May 28, 1928 in Rome under the chairmanship of General Alessandro Saporiti . The Special Court eventually sentenced him to 20 years in prison. During his prison sentence in 1932 he met Giobatta Gianquinto , who joined the Communist Party and was later mayor of Venice between 1946 and 1951 .

In 1939 the prison sentence was converted into exile , which he initially spent on the island of Santo Stefano . During the Second World War , Scoccimarro was interned with other leading socialists, communists and other anti-fascists such as Sandro Pertini , Francesco Fancello , Altiero Spinelli , Pietro Secchia , Alberto Jacometti and Mario Maovaz on the island of Ventotene and stayed there until his release in August 1943.

MP and Minister

A few months before the end of the Second World War, Scoccimarro was appointed by Prime Minister Ivanoe Bonomi as Minister for Occupied Italy (Ministro dell'Italia Occupata) in his third cabinet , and this ministerial office was held until June 21, 1945.

After the end of the war, Scoccimarro became a member of the National Council (Consulta Nazionale) in April 1945 . A few weeks later, on June 21, 1945, Prime Minister Ferruccio Parri appointed him Minister of Finance (Ministro delle Finanze) in his cabinet , to which he was a member until December 10, 1945. On December 10, 1945, Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi also appointed him Minister of Finance in his first cabinet . He also held this ministerial post in De Gasperi's second cabinet until February 2, 1947.

In the parliamentary elections of June 2, 1946 , he was elected as a candidate of the PCI for the Collegio Unico Nazionale for a member of the Constituent Assembly (Assemblea Costituente) , of which he was a member until April 18, 1948. During this time he was from May 5 to October 18, 1947, first vice-chairman and then between October 18, 1947 and January 31, 1948 chairman of the special parliamentary commission to investigate the electoral law. He was also the chairman of several other special parliamentary commissions.

senator

In the elections of April 18, 1948 Scoccimarro was elected for the first time for the Communist Party as a member of the Senate (Senato della Repubblica) , which he belonged from the first to his death in the fifth legislative term for almost 24 years.

Between the first and third legislative periods he served from May 8, 1948 to May 15, 1963 as Vice President of the Senate. In addition, between May 8, 1948 and June 11, 1958, he was chairman of the PCI parliamentary group and, at the same time, vice-chairman of the Senate's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Colonies.

During the fourth legislative term, between July 14, 1964 and July 15, 1965, Scoccimarro was vice-chairman of the Parliamentary Committee to investigate the Longarone disaster that occurred on October 9, 1963 at the Vajont dam . The damming of the Vajont reservoir led to a landslide from Monte Toc into the lake. This caused a large water wave ( tsunami ), which poured over the top of the wall into the narrow valley and completely destroyed the town of Longarone . Around 2,000 people died in the disaster. More than half of the bodies were not found.

Most recently, he was during the fifth legislative period from July 18, 1968 to October 27, 1970 Vice-Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs. After his death on January 2, 1972, Ugo Croatto succeeded him as a member of the Senate.

Publications

• La Costituente e il rinnovamento nazionale , 1946
• Dottrina marxista e politica comunista , 1946
• Su alcuni aspetti del nostro programma , 1946
• Il secondo dopoguerra , 2 volumes, 1956
• Nuova democrazia , 1958
• Ideologia e politica , 1960
• La crisi in Alto Adige , 1960
• Antonio Gramsci , in Trent'anni di storia italiana, 1915-1945. Dall'antifascismo alla Resistenza , 1961
• Ideologia marxista e programmazione economica , 1965
• Il rinnovamento e il rafforzamento del partito , 1966

Web links

• Entry (Assemblea Costituente)
• Entry on the homepage of the Senato della Repubblica (1st legislative period)
• Entry on the homepage of the Senato della Repubblica (2nd legislative period)
• Entry on the homepage of the Senato della Repubblica (3rd legislative period)
• Entry on the homepage of the Senato della Repubblica (4th legislative period)
• Entry on the homepage of the Senato della Repubblica (5th legislative period)
• Christoph Nix: Gramsci, Antonio et. al , in: Kurt Groenewold , Alexander Ignor, Arnd Koch (Hrsg.): Lexicon of Political Criminal Processes , online, as of May 2019.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Carlo Spartaco Capogreco, I Campi del duce. L'internamento civile nell'Italia fascista (1940-1943) , Torino 2004 (Einaudi), pp. 203-204
2. ↑ Italy: Key Ministries (rulers.org)
3. ↑ Ugo Croatto on the homepage of the Senato della Repubblica (5th legislative period)