The Struggle for Modernity: Echoes of the Dreyfus Affair in Italian Political Culture, 1898-1912
1998; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 33; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1177/002200949803300402
ISSN1461-7250
Autores Tópico(s)Italian Fascism and Post-war Society
ResumoDuring the last two years of the nineteenth century, Italy underwent a serious economic, social and political crisis, which seemed to threaten the existence and progress of a liberal democracy in the making. In spring 1898, while Italian public opinion was deeply immersed in the Dreyfus Affair, the government used military force to suppress widespread popular protest which culminated in violent rioting, during which more than a hundred demonstrators died. Politicians and journalists both extreme left-wing democrats and right-wing Catholics who were considered to have instigated the agitation, were arrested and given severe sentences. The Conservatives thought that in this way they would halt the progress of democracy, in order to defend the state from the potential danger of a socialist revolution and a reaction from the Church. In 1899, the government, led by General Luigi Pelloux, a member of the liberal left, tried to introduce reforms to limit constitutional liberties in the name of the Reason of State, but the parliamentary opposition of socialists, radicals and left-wing liberals caused his plans for the restoration of an authoritarian regime to fail. At the very beginning of the twentieth century, Italy renewed its march towards democracy, while in France the victory of Dreyfus's supporters ushered in an era of radical government. In Italy, also, a new period of liberal politics began, characterized by the parliamentary hegemony of Giovanni Giolitti, who was head of government, with only short breaks, from 1903 to 1914. The so-called 'Giolitti era' represented an epoch of economic progress, civil modernization, cultural renewal and democratic reforms that favoured the ascent of the popular classes and the formation of a modern and productive bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, to many contemporaries and especially to the young, Giolitti's long parliamentary supremacy was a reflection of political corruption, a crisis of state, a weakening of the nation and serious moral decay of individual and collective conscience.'
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