SANTA REPARATA INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF ART Academic Year 2018/2019 Spring Term 2019 History of Italian Mafia Prof. Lorenzo Pubblici Ph.D. Study Guide The origin of Sicilian Mafia: 1815-1870: protomafia Historical characters of Sicily

• Ancien Regime, The European Society before the French Revolution (1789), based on a rigid social scale and the predominance of aristocracy.

• The Spanish rule (since the 14th century) had created a system of personal ties that had become more important than the official institutions

• 1860’s: The Unification of Italy brought about a harsh resentment against the Continent

• The Legge Pica (1863) introduced very hard measures against the Brigantaggio.

• The resentment against the Central Italian Government increases.

Democratization of violence

• Early 1800’s: end of the Ancien Regime (because of the Napoleonic conquest of Italy) and end of feudalism. • Democratization of violence: can be defined as the Right of using violence against the peasants - i.e. day laborers - transferred from aristocracy to State. • The new born Italian State introduced a professional magistracy and a professional police corp, for the first time nationally wise. • Birth of a perverse relationship between the new power (local institutions) and the old one (aristocracy). • This new situation had as one outcome the convergence of interests between landowners and criminals. • This can be called, in other words the mafia .

The Gabellotti

• Tenants, administrators of sulfur mines or of the latifondo • Came from the village elites • Maintained order and social control on the people also beyond the limit of the farm • They replace the 1700’s feudal militia and the 1800’s communal militia • They filled up the spaces that the State left empty, before and after the Unification • Disintegration of the big noble patrimonies • The Gabellotti were capable of intercept/grab the fluxes of this wealth • With an increase of their resources, their capability of intimidating, through violence if necessary grew as well

Social causes for the birth of the mafia

• Social unrest, criminal emergency, political opposition etc. • 1815-1860: Political and social discontent; opposition to the official regime seen as a tyrant • Political violence is the naturally the original environment for the birth of mafia • The abigeato (rustling) was one very effective weapon used by the criminals to blackmail the landlords. • It created a need of protection, filled by new figures, the criminals/mafiosi: extra-legal methods • The mafioso integrated himself between the peasants and the land owners • Slowly the owners lose their rights, as they have been replaced by the newly formed unitarian State • The mafioso sells a good: protection, in a framework of distrust • The mafia represents, in the young Italian Nation, a new institutional system, parallel to the official State one

The first step: 1875

• Mafia becomes an extraordinary problem • 1875: a new bill to allow the Govt. to issue exceptional measures against brigands is presented to the parliament • The word mafiosi appear for the first time in an official political document • The bill was directed to Sicily, considered an primitive and anti-government region

The Giunta Borsoni

• July 3rd 1875: a parliamentary Commission is created to investigate on the social and economic conditions in Sicily • It is an invaluable document to study the proto-mafia: three kinds of mafia appear in the document: 1. blood crimes 2. theft in the country 3. associations of bandits Manutengolismo

• It’ another term to designate the early mafia. Let’s see what it was. • Brigands cannot work alone • Birth of illegal relations between the several criminals of the same area. This relations are called manutengolismo

• A political debate arose in those years (late 1800’s): • Traditionally, the Italian late 19th century politics is divided into two parts: 1. The National right wing was against the land owners 2. the left wing was against the authorities • It’s a very simplistic view, even if based on reality • The landlords needed to defend themselves and their estates • February 1st 1893, First important homicide by the mafia: the conservative Sicilian banker Emanuele Notarbartolo di San Giovanni is assassinated. Was a tireless enemy of the mafia. His battles against corruption are still today remembered in Sicily. • For the first time the Mafia kills an aristocrat

1890’s: The land and the fasci

• What were the Fasci Siciliani? • The Fasci Siciliani can be considered the first peasantry rebellion against the big landlords. • We must explain the social situation first: • Sicilian peasants were harshly exploited by the land owners • Short-term contracts with the gabellotti, who exploited the peasants

• 1891: birth of the Fasci which were socialist agrarian trade unions • But what did they want? 1. a more just distribution of land, 2. more fair/profitable contracts

• They cannot be considered as revolutionary movements as they did not want to subvert the political order. • 1893: the Government harshly repress them • Their leader, Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida is trailed and imprisoned • The mafia participated in both sides: infiltrators in the fasci and allied of the gabellotti (or gabellotti themselves) to repress the revolts. The end of the fasci

• The repression moved the equilibrium in favor of the State (and the landlords) • The mafia (Onorata società or Fratellanza) understands the tendency • 1915: Bernardino Verro is assassinated in Corleone • Verro was a unionist, active in pursuing the right of the peasants to have a more just distribution of the land.

MAFIA AND POLITICS The origin of a successful partnership: 1870-1880’s

Destra and Sinistra Storica

• In the late 1800’s, Italy was a politically divided country 1. Destra Storica: mostly land owners of Northern Italy 2. Sinistra Storica: mostly Southerners, who had strong ties to the local society

• In the elections of 1874, the Destra wins, but by a whisker... (33% to 32%)

• Hard accusations against the Left, considered to be the political face of the mafia • A highly repressive legislation soon after the elections • A common thought was that the South, and Sicily in particular, were a dangerous place, polluted by organized criminals

The Parliament’s turmoil

• The reaction of the Leftists to the Right’s accusations was harsh • A crucial political confrontation • On June 1875, while was delivering a speech on the mafia in the Parliament, Diego Tajani, was interrupted many times • He reported the connections between the police and the mafiosi in Sicily • Tajani could finish his speech only the next day…

“The mafia in Sicily is not dangerous or invincible in itself. It is dangerous and invincible because it is an instrument of local government.

• A parliamentary commission of inquiry was set up • The results it got to, were banal and discouraging:

“What is this maffia then? First of all, there is a benign maffia. The benign maffia is a kind of spirit of defiance... So I too could be a benign maffioso. I am not one, of course. But anyone who respects themselves could be”

• The papers of the inquiry were never published • Neither the Right nor the Left and much interest in understanding the Mafia • The final report of the Commission was delivered in a almost empty Chamber “Mafia is an instinctive, brutal, biased form of solidarity between those individuals and lower social groups who prefer to live off violence rather than hard work. It unites them against the State, the law and regular bodies”

• Again, a wrong, superficial view...

The Left (Sinistra Storica) in power

• March 1876: the Left coalition forms a new Government • A neat win, new Minister of Interior was Giovanni Nicotera • Another wave of harsh repression of crime in Sicily, but how did it happen for real? • A“political”use of the police • November 1877 Nicotera announced the “total defeat of the bandits who had terrorized the countryside in Sicily since 1860

• Was it true? • Nicotera’s bargain: political favor in exchange of favor to politics • Many mafiosi were left untouched by the repression, if they had right political cover • Mafiosi were gradually becoming part of a new political normality • Political friendship become more important than ever to their survival Mafia and the Italian Culture Inside and outside the organization

A new phenomenon for a new State

• Bandits: • an intermediate phenomenon between the brigantaggio and the mafia poor peasants • organized in mobs, moving from village to village • occupied these villages with arms, imposed payments to maintain the mob had no political aims • All three phenomena: mafia, brigantaggio and banditismo had one common element: • control over the territory in “substitution” of the State • were three “subversive” phenomena

A double orientation

• Bandits in Sicily were oriented both 1. to the low 2. to the high of the social rank • a very unique case in a very rigid society • land owners, nobles, entrepreneurs, notaries had “friendly” relations with bandits friends of bandits were often employed as guardians: campieri (which are the same of the gabellotti) • were often well treated by the law But why?

The bandits and the “industry” of violence

• Bandits could boycott the higher classes of land owners and nobles general social insecurity • friends of mafiosi, and then the mafiosi themselves, got the gabella, a rent of lands from the owners in order to establish their agrarian activities • That’s how the mafia becomes an industry • organized and powerful economic activity • the land owners were, in this way, victims and accomplices at the same time • a defensive reaction in difficult conditions, but a decisive input to enforce the mafia • the mafia has thus two faces: 1. a criminal and predatory one: the bandits/brigands a protective 2. legal one: the campieri/gabellotti

An ambiguous system

• Personal utility and distrust in the Central Institutions • The Manutengolismo (see above): complicity, a very vast phenomenon • The use of violence became instrument of personal affirmation • There existed, in fact: • a “popular” mafia: peasants, sulfur workers etc. • a “middle class” mafia: bullying and violence as a means for social climbing • The middle class mafia is the reason for the public opinion reaction to the mafia considered to be a problem “internal” of criminal organizations Mafia abroad New Orleans, New York and Palermo

The American “virginity”

• 1890: capt. Hennessy, police of New Orleans, is assassinated • It’s the beginning of the “stranger plot” • A mysterious and subversive organization is considered to be behind it • Head in Sicily and killers everywhere spread in the world

• The truth, is that in the USA, the Mafia loses its regional character and gets melted with other mobs • In other words, it is a new problematic, is a multiethnic organization • The American public opinion is presented “the scandal for the non-integration “

“The innocent, harmless American people is victim of foreign criminals who, secretly, are steeling its own moral virginity. Joseph L. Albini, The American Mafia

• Also in the USA, the mafia is a link between the institutions and the illegal sub-world: • Prostitution, gambling, smuggling etc. • The pathogen germs are inside the American society (request of these goods) • Here, just like in Sicily, the triangle is re-created: politics, police, criminality

From New Orleans to New York

• New Orleans was the second American port for the citrus commerce • Fruit merchant are the Marino, Provenzano, Matranga etc. All famiglie mafiose • 1901-1914: not less than 800,000 Sicilians arrive in the USA • Many of them are criminals or, at least poor people • The mafioso system spreads abroad

• 1908: city counselor Theodore Bingham moves a first step: “the common Italian immigrant does not become a criminal once arrived in the USA”

• He believes that the American juridical system is inadequate, must be redrawn on the new criminal scenario • Bingham creates a “secret” operation. Secret, but not for too long… • The Italian-American officer Joe Petrosino is sent in Sicily in order to discover the links between the Sicilian mafia and the American one.

Joe Petrosino’s death

• Petrosino arrives in Sicily and refuses any collaboration • He will end up into the lethal triangle • March 12, 1909 is assassinated in Palermo, piazza Marina • The investigations takes the police to arrest 15 men included the boss Vito Cascio-Ferro • Did not have a scary record… •In 1903, Cascio-Ferro, was arrested by Petrosino •Cascio-Ferro was the son of a campiere •Soon became uomo d’ordine and participated to the Fasci •But, how come that a man like Cascio-Ferro participated an openly leftist movement? •It’s Only apparently a contradiction

“If the Government abandons it, it will serve the Clergy, if everybody abandon it, it will become revolutionary”

“The mafia is faithful to its origin, born from the legitimate rebellion to every form of arrogance L’Avanti! (Socialist newspaper) WWI to Fascism Mafia and its first “mutation”

Corleone

“The town is inhabited by pale, anaemic women, hollow-eyed men, ragged word children who begged for bread, croaking in hoarse accents like weary old people tired of the world”

• This kind of poverty had simple causes: • big landowners lived in the cities and leased out their estates (gabellotti) • short leases, need of making money quickly and out of the peasants • The gabellotti had to protect themselves, often in league with bandits • The gabellotti were not necessarily mafiosi, but joining the Mafia helped them a lot • The Mafia offered the military power needed to combat unruly peasants • The town of Corleone was the focus of the nation’s attention

WWI

• May 1915, Italy gets into WWI • more than 400,000 Sicilians were drafted • many deserted, abandoned the cities and became clandestine • lack of manpower, fields left uncultivated and used for herds • cattle thefts, the owners called upon the mafiosi for help • Because of this, the influence of the mafia increases quickly in Sicily • The end of WWI, lead Italy to a deep economic crisis The rise of Fascism

In Sicily

• The issues that the Fasci had first tried to address in the 1890’s had not gone away • Estates were occupied by force • Landlords felt abandoned by Rome and began to resort to violence • The mafia did the same towards the peasant cooperatives variously: • infiltrated, cajoled, corrupted, terrorized and if necessary, murdered Fascism

• Took power in 1922, became a dictatorship in 1925 • In Sicily, Fascism was not a grass-roots movement: • clienteles and cliques • the mafia had already settled the strikes and revolts • the mafiosi jumped on Mussolini’s victory chariot • but Fascism lacked a strong base of popular support there

Towards the first “mutation”

• In the early 1920’s, Fascism was fully supported by the dominant Sicilian class • Abolishment of the landlords limitation of raising the rents • Open support, by the State, to the landlords against the mezzadri etc. • In this situation, the mafia became useless. It was replaced by the Fascist State

“Fascism aims to sweep away all the corruption poisoning the country’s politics and administration. It aims to break the shady factions and maggoty cabals infesting the sacred body of the nation. It cannot neglect this terrible centre of infection. If we want to save Sicily we must destroy the mafia... Then we will be albe to set up our tents on the island; and they will be sounder than the ones that we pitched in the north by doing away with socialism” A senior Fascist militant to the Duce, April 1923

Mussolini and the mafia

• May 1924, Mussolini is in Palermo, Trapani and Girgenti • In June, back to Rome, Mussolini nominates Cesare Mori as prefect of Trapani • Mori was a tough man, expert of organized crime and of Sicily • he revoked all the licenses to carry and the licenses of campiere • Mussolini sends to Sicily the magistrate Luigi Gianpietro, other rigid man

“I was able to penetrate the Sicilian mind. I found this mind, beneath the painful scars with which centuries of tyranny and oppression had marked it, often childlike, simple and kindly, apt to colour everything with generous feeling, ever inclined to deceive itself, to hope and to believe, and ready to lay all its knowledge, its affection and its co-operation at the feet of one who showed a desire to realize the people’s legitimate dream of justice and redemption” Cesare Mori

Mori and the repression

• 20 October 1925, Mori is moved to Palermo with extraordinary powers • The repression is harsh • torture, capture of civilians, blackmail • In 1927, Mori arrested Vito Cascio Ferro for the assassination of Petrosino • In 1928, the most influential man of Sicily, Alfredo Cucco was arrested

The decline of Mori

• The alta mafia became really scared of Mori’s repression • A sneaky campaign against Mori started (secret letters to Mussolini, false news) • Mori’s enemy inside the party came out again (Bologna 1921) • Mori became “troublesome” for the regime • July 1929, Mori was removed because of length of service • Mori will die in 1942, Fascism the next year

Mori’s legacy

• After Mori’s retirement, the Ministry of Interior ordered the press to ignore the mafia • The truth is that the mafia was “re-istitutionalizing" itself • Small brigands and minor bandits were in prison • Medium bosses moved to the USA or joined Fascism • Mafia did not die, on the contrary, its final salvation came from overseas... Mafia before and after WWII Postwar again

• 1930’s: mafia is dead only on the press • The Regime did hide the homicides, the fires, the extortions etc. • The repression was going on, but without the intensity of the 1920’s • In July 1943: the Anglo-Americans land in Sicily. • The liberation starts and the Italian State is dissolved. • What about the mafia?

How to govern?

• The temporary American government of Italy needed to govern, but how? • Carabinieri and Police remain • No other power or institution has survived the war, so? • The reference model is the British colonial one: a native leader in power • The mayors are chosen between pre-fascist notable men • Social order is the first and most urgent necessity (fear of the black market) • Mafia is acceptable, but it must be a centralized Mafia, that can be controlled and that is capable to control the territory • At the end of WWII Sicily is, in fact, detached from Italy • Antifascist parties are weak here • A Movement for Sicilian independence (MIS) is created • Many mafiosi became members of the MIS • The network broken by Mori, resurrect around the MIS • For the first, and last time, the mafia seems to be looking for a political identity • The mafiosi protest to be the real victims of Fascism, and they are credible

Destra o sinistra?

• Postwar Italy is a political rebus: new form of the State (Monarchi vs Republic), new Parliament, new Govt. • The Minister of Agriculture, Fausto Gullo, proposed a radical reform of the land question • Peasants were to get a better share of the produce of land they worked and rented they were given permission to form cooperatives and take over badly cultivated land • Banishment of middlemen: this was a direct attack on the gabellotti • Landowners feared the pre-war nightmare (Communism) to now come true • They turned to the mafiosi to get a help in the question • September 16th 1944: in Villalba (province of Caltanissetta) the mayor and boss mafioso Calogero Vizzini organized an attack against the Communists that were delivering a rally. 12 were the victims. • A new season of mafia attacks on political activists, trade unionists and ordinary peasants In some towns and villages, the peasant movement was terrorized into submission • February 1944: the American Consulate is established in Palermo • It relied on the Office of Strategic Service for its intelligence • The OSS in turn relied in part on the mafia, especially on don Calogero Vizzini (see picture on the right)

The economic factor

• Fascism and war had made cattle and grain crucial for Sicily • The province of Caltanissetta was the main producer of corn • citrus export (Palermo) were, on the contrary, in a deep crisis because of the war • Calogero Vizzini (aka don Calò) gets this chance and represents the move of the focus to the countryside • Don Calò is now, true or exaggerated, the most influential man in Sicily

Democrazia Cristiana

• When the American government in Sicily was dismantled, a new party got power in Italy: Democrazia Cristiana (DC) in 1948 • DC promised the creation of a Regional Assembly in every Italian region • Don Calò sees in the DC the best vehicle for his interests • The DC was the party of family values, provate property, social peace, anticommunism • Had the support of the Vatican • 1947: Cold War starts. DC is the American political reference in Italy • 1948: first political elections since Mussolini’s regime was established: it is a DC triumph • The mafia doesn’t need separatism anymore. DC became its political reference both, nationally and locally. Another step in the transformation of the mafia SALVATORE GIULIANO • The agrarian reform of minister Fausto Gullo (see above) produced a harsh social crush • Landlords, conservative and backed by gabellotti mafiosi • Peasant movements, headed by unionists (Accursio Miraglia, Placido Rizzotto and others) • Spring 1945, the army of the MIS (see above), called EVIS, recruited a bandit, Salvatore Giuliano • The purpose of the MIS was to create the conditions for a secession of Sicily • But who was Salvatore Giuliano?

From the family farm to the mafia

• Giuliano was son of former migrant, went to school and worked hard in the family farm • During the American occupation, he worked as a delivery man for the Public Energy Company • His criminal career starts on Sept. 2nd, 1943: stopped at a checkpoint, reacted by shooting • December 23rd, during a police search, he killed a carabiniere • January 1944, Giuliano succeed in escaping from prison many of his relatives and friends • It will be his first gang: robberies, kidnappings, extortions etc. • In his whole activity, Giuliano killed not less than 430, with the support of Ignazio Miceli • According to the depositions of his collaborators, Giuliano became a man of honor (mafioso) in this period

Cornell of the EVIS

• Spring 1945, Giuliano became member of the EVIS as Cornell • The guerrilla against the Italian police started • Giuliano is presented, by the propaganda, as a sort of Robin Hood • The Italian Government creates a General Inspectorate for the Police in Sicily: 1123 men • January 1946, Giuliano’s gang attacked the Radio of Palermo, but something was about to change... The decline

• 1946, the MIS decides to go back to legality and participate to the elections of June 2nd • King Umberto II gives to Sicily a special status (17 days before the referendum…) • Same year, the Italian Government decides to give the general amnesty for political crimes • The MIS members leave the Giuliano’s gang • The bandit is not anymore a Robin Hood, but just a vulgar and violent criminal to eliminate

Portella della Ginestra

•Spring 1947, Giuliano gives an interview to the American journalist Michael Stern •Giuliano gives Stern a letter for President Truman, asking for money and arms to make Sicily part of the USA •May 1st, circa 2,000 workers - mostly peasants - meet nearby Portella della Ginestra (Palermo) •Giuliano’s gang suddenly start shooting on the crowd 11 are killed, 27 seriously wounded

The end

• The homicides, attacks to police and carabinieri stations, fires etc. continues for months • August 19th, 1949: the massacre of Bellolampo-Passo di Rigano 7 carabinieri were killed • The Ministry of Interior suppress the General Inspectorate and creates the CFRB • The CFRB used all the means, legal and illegal to find and defeat Giuliano’s gang • July 5th 1950, Giuliano is found dead in the courtyard of an attorney’s house in Castelvetrano • Officially Giuliano was killed in a shooting with the carabinieri, but things don’t match..

The debate

• Suspects fall immediately on Giuliano’s lieutenant, Gaspare Pisciotta • During the trial for the massacre of Portella della Ginestra, Pisciotta confessed and accused… Pisciotta was not believed, but things seemed to confirm his version: Pisciotta was an informer of the CFRB, had false documents too well done 1954, Pisciotta died in the prison of Palermo, poisoned with a coffee

After Giuliano

• 1950: a new agrarian reform is launched: • land property was limited to circa 494 acres (200 Ettari) • Landlords were compelled to keep the land (improve, recovery, reclamation etc.) • Many new companies were created to realize this plan • Most of them were soon given to well-known mafiosi: don Calò, Giuseppe Genco Russo etc. • Estates were dismembered, agriculture became cheaper compared to commerce and services Public companies started hiring people • And the country was about to change... radically