STORM TROOPERS

PHOTOGRAPHS BY Italian fascism has already reaped its first crop of victims. Hundreds of left-wing militants have been murdered or maimed for life by the squadristi, the storm troopers of the extreme right.

The squadristi' act under orders from the MSI, Italy's fascist party, which has 56 members of parliament.

Activists 1n the labour movement court physical attack if they walk round areas like Rome, where the fascists have a strong following, without protection.

No security is offered by the so-called forces law and order. Most of the police are fascist sympathizers and occasions have been known to join in the frenzy at outdoor fascist rallies.

The army too is firmly on the side of the extreme right. Paratroopers flaunt their allegiance openly by marching with the fascists and donning the uniforms of the 'squadristi.

Theoretically fascism and all its trappings are illegal in Italy. A law of 1952 makes it a crime to organize a fascist party. The use of fascist speeches, uniforms, salutes, principles, emblems etc are also banned by pain of fine or up to ten years' But the police persistently ignore these regulations. Fascist attacks have been launched right under the eyes of the Carabinieri (the armed 'national guard') and riot police take no steps whatsoever to arrest fascists who salute, wear uniforms and carry emblems at meetings and demonstrations.

Fascists who are wanted in connection with bloody assaults on the left are allowed to wander free. Stefano Delle Chiaie, for example, a founder of the fanatical Avanguardia Nazionale (National Guard), is supposed to be wanted by the authorities, moves openly around Rome with no harassment from the police.

The official MSI line is that they neither approve nor disapprove of the "squadristi'. In fact the chain command goes right from the street corners and the dingy bars where the fascist gangs gather to the top of the party.

There are supposed to be two lines in the fascist movement. The fanatics disapprove of the 'respectable' policy of courting the right-wing Christian Democrats (Italy's Tory Party). They stand for 'revolurante's drive to gather all the forces of the right behind him ready for power.

But in reality the split is illusory. The MSI leaders know the 'squadristi' are an essential part of the party's armour and appeal. Their more exuberant savagery may sometimes be an embarrassment-but they will always be a part of the moveThe thugs are called in to guard the big meetings and demonstrations. They were there last week at the 10th MSI congress- -sons of the wealthy bourgeoisie, who swaggered round the hall with an exaggerated air of self-importance, and the youth from the working class, driven from the ranks of the labour movement by years of unemployment and poverty.

The 'squadristi' are fed on fascist literature of the most blatant and rabid kind.

The Congress bookstalls are loaded with speeches of Hitler, Mussolini, Ezra Pound, the Japanese novelist Mishima, the philosophy of Nietzsche and histories of fascist rebel. lion-whatever Almirante may say about his movement, he certainly knows what books his supporters like to read.

The mentality of the 'squadristi' is also familiar. They read a magazine called 'Il Borghese' (literally — 'the Bourgeois') edited by MSI ideologue and senator Mario Tedeschi.

'Il Borghese' contains nonsensical but lewd salacious attacks of figures of the left, intellectuals and artists (except for Eugene Ionesco who gets fulsome praise for attending the fascist's "Congress of Free Culture'. Ionesco said: "The revolutions that have been made in the name of justice an freedom have become a living hell.')

Adverts invite the 'squadristi' to buy revolvers, rifles, bugging devices, virility potions and elevator shoes (Just think, six centimetres... more power, more security, more success').

The magazine reflects the psyche of its readers, their insecurity, paranoia, warped emotional development and a desire to overcome these deficiencies with the mystique of fascism and the idea of being the chosen ones.

The history of the 'squadristi goes back to the end of the war when a few hardened fascists witnessed the collapse of the Mussolini regime, yet avowed to carry on their activities.

One of the most important of the new "squadristi' was Pino Rauti an unrepentant fascist.

Rauti is now an MSI deputy who has escaped a jail sentence in connection with the Milan bank bomb outrage which killed 14 people in 1969, because of the law of parliamentary immunity.

He now publishes his own newspaper, 'Presenza' (Presence') but the start of his Democracy Here is the Enemy'. His following grew and in 1955 he was able to bring out monthly magazine.

the same year he published one of Hitler's Nuremberg speeches, 'Race and Culture of Nazism' (Rauti at the time was a Nazi supporter: he decorated his office with swastikas). 1956 was a seminal year for the emergence the smaller fascist groups. Several were formed, including Rauti's Ordine Nuovo (New Ordersymbol is the axe-see the title head of the series).

decade later Ordine Nuovo boasted 5,000 brownshirt members and a weekly magazine called Noi Europa. One of its greatest propaganda drives was towards the army. The movement worshipped mythical figure called the 'Centurians', kind of political, fascist soldiers. The ideal was to transform the Italian troops and police into such creatures (in this the movement had considerable success).

Other groups formed during