Severino Di Giovanni | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1901-03-17)17 March 1901 Chieti, Italy |
| Died | 1 February 1931(1931-02-01) (aged 29) |
| Cause of death | Execution by firing squad |
| Movement | Anarchism |
Severino Di Giovanni (17 March 1901 – 1 February 1931) was anItalian anarchist who immigrated to Argentina, where he became the best-known anarchist figure in that country for his campaign of violence in support ofSacco and Vanzetti andantifascism.
Di Giovanni was born on 17 March 1901, inChieti,Abruzzo. Raised right afterWorld War I in a period of deprivations, such as hunger and poverty, his upbringing had a huge impact on his politics. He attended courses to become a teacher, and soon started teaching, before graduating, in a school in his town. He was self taught in the art oftypography and read, in his free time,Mikhail Bakunin,Malatesta,Proudhon, andÉlisée Reclus.[1]
Di Giovanni arrived in Buenos Aires with the last big wave ofItalian immigrants before World War II. He lived inMorón and travelled daily to Buenos Aires Capital to participate in meetings and plan actions againstfascism and Italian fascist supporters in Argentina.[1]
An anarchist, Di Giovanni had nothing but contempt for the party in power, theUCR, which he saw as a pale reflection of more right-wing and fascist elements in Argentine politics. Severino Di Giovanni's firstdirect action took place on 6 June 1925, during the celebration of the 25th anniversary ofVictor Emmanuel III's accession to the Italian throne, which took place at theTeatro Colón. PresidentAlvear, his wife, opera singerRegina Pacini, andCount Luigi Aldrovandi Marescotti, ambassador ofFascist Italy, were present at the act, as well as numerousBlackshirts put in place by Marescotti to prevent any disorder. When the orchestra started the Italian hymn, Giovanni and his companions threw leaflets around, at the cries of "Assassins! thieves!" The Blackshirts managed to overcome them, and hand them over to the police.[2]
After being quickly released, Di Giovanni took part in international protests against the arrest and trial ofSacco and Vanzetti, members of theGalleanist anarchist group, who were accused of a robbery and murder of two payroll guards. At the time, Di Giovanni was one of the most active anarchists in Argentina defending the two Italian immigrants, writing in various newspapers, including his own, founded in August 1925 and titledCulmine, and in the New York publicationL' Adunata dei refrattari.[3]Culmine advocateddirect action andpropaganda of the deed. Di Giovanni worked at it at nighttime, supporting his activism and family by working in factories and as a typesetter. He summarizedCulmine's objectives:
On 16 May 1926, several hours after Sacco and Vanzetti's death sentence was announced, Di Giovanni bombed theU.S. embassy in Buenos Aires, destroying the front of the building.[3] The following day, President Alvear ordered several police searches of those suspected in the attack, and the police requested assistance from the Italian embassy to identify suspects. The embassy immediately named Giovanni, who had disturbed the celebrations of the Teatro Colón. He was soon arrested by the police and tortured for five days, but would not provide information. Di Giovanni was released for lack of evidence.[4]
Meanwhile, inMassachusetts, the defense counsel for Sacco and Vanzetti managed to postpone their executions until 23 August 1927. A movement in support of the Galleanist anarchists continued to agitate for their pardon and release. On 21 July 1927, the U.S. embassy published an article in the conservative newspaperLa Nación, which described the two Italian anarchists as common criminals. On the following day, Di Giovanni and two of his anarchist comrades, Alejandro and Paulino Scarfó, blew up a statue ofGeorge Washington inPalermo, Buenos Aires,[5] and several hours later, exploded a bomb at theFord Motor Company.[5] Confronted with evidence of anarchist involvement in the bombings, on 15 August 1927, Eduardo Santiago, theFederal Police officer in charge of the investigation, claimed that everything was under control and that no anarchist in the world would defeat him. On the following day, Santiago barely escaped from the bombing of his house by Di Giovanni and his group, having gone to buy cigarettes a few minutes before.[6]
On 23 August 1927, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed; in response, a 24-hourgeneral strike was proclaimed in Buenos Aires, as well as many other capitals of the world. Several days after the executions, Di Giovanni received a letter from Sacco's widow, which thanked him for his work, and informed him that the director of the tobacco firmCombinados had proposed her a contract to produce a cigarette brand named "Sacco & Vanzetti".[6] On 26 November 1927, Di Giovanni and his comrades duly bombed Bernardo Gurevich's tobacco shop Combinados on Rivadavia 2279.[6][7] Di Giovanni and his comrades continued their anti-U.S. campaign of terror. The headquarters ofCitibank and theBank of Boston were severely damaged in a bombing on 24 December 1927, killing two people and injuring twenty-three others.[6]
At the beginning of 1928, the Italian liberal newspaper from Buenos Aires,L'Italia del Popolo, denounced the Italian consul, Italo Capil, as an informer and supporter of fascist elements in the Federal Police. Upon being told that the consul would visit the new consulate, along with the new ambassador, Giovanni and the Scarfó brothers bombed the Italian consulate on 23 May 1928, killing nine people and injuring 34 others. At the time, the Italian consulate bombing was the deadliest bombing ever to take place in Argentina.[8] Opponents of the Italian fascist government claimed derisively that the funerals of the consular employees were performed in accordance with the "fascist funeral rite", in the presence of the ambassador, the state delegate of Italian fascists in Argentina (Romualdo Matarelli), President Alvear (and his wife, Regina), and GeneralAgustín P. Justo.[9] On the same day, Di Giovanni attempted to bomb Benjamín Mastronardi's pharmacy, inLa Boca. Mastronardi was the president of the Fascist Committee of La Boca. The bomb was deactivated by Mastronardi's son.[8]
Giovanni's penchant for 'propaganda by the deed' triggered fierce debates inside the anarchist community; some anarchist leaders argued that Di Giovanni's actions were counterproductive, and could only result in a military coup and a victory for fascist forces. Anarchist journals such asLa Antorcha andLa Protesta criticized Di Giovanni's methods of direct action and indiscriminate violence.La Protesta, edited by a fierce opponent of Di Giovanni, theanarcho-syndicalistDiego Abad de Santillán,[10] took an openly anti-Di Giovanni line, which hardened as the bombings got more indiscriminate.[11]La Antorcha was more ambiguous in its criticism. Neither paper pleased Di Giovanni, and both were denounced byCulmine. The war of words escalated. On 25 October 1929, someone assassinated Emilio López Arango, an editor ofLa Protesta. At first a group of bakers who were members of the same union as Arango were suspected of the killing but were never charged with the crime. Di Giovanni and his group were reportedly the prime suspects in the assassination.[11]
La Protesta immediately denounced the bombing of the Italian consulate.[12] The criticism had no effect. Three days after the Italian consulate bombing, Di Giovanni struck again inCaballito, bombing the home of Cesare Afeltra, a member of Mussolini's secret police. Alfeltra was accused by Italian anarchist exiles of having practiced torture on members of various radical anarchist and anti-fascist groups in Italy. U.S. President-electHerbert Hoover visited Argentina in December 1928. Di Giovanni wanted to bomb Hoover's train in revenge for the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, but the bomber, Alejandro Scarfó, was detained shortly before installing the explosives on the rails.[12]
This debacle led Di Giovanni to suspend his bombing campaign; he focused instead on his journalCulmine. In 1929, he wrote:
Spending monotonous hours among the common people, the resigned ones, the collaborators, the conformists – isn't living; it's a vegetative existence, simply the transport, in ambulatory form, of a mass of flesh and bones. Life needs the exquisite and sublime experience of rebellion in action as well as thought.[13]
Following theSeptember 1930 military coup, which overthrewHipólito Yrigoyen, replaced by GeneralJosé Félix Uriburu andAgustín P. Justo, Giovanni made plans to free his comrade Alejandro Scarfó from prison. Needing funds to bribe the prison guards, he assaultedObras Sanitarias de la Nación on 2 October 1930, achieving the most important robbery until then in Argentina, taking with him 286,000 pesos.[14] However, the planned breakout never occurred, and Scarfó remained in prison.
In 1927, Giovanni left his wife, and commenced an affair with América Josefina ("Fina") Scarfó, the 15-year-old sister of the Scarfó brothers, Alejandro and Paulino.[15] Fina had married anarchist Silvio Astolfi to remain with Giovanni, but was promptly cut off from all contact with her family. At the beginning of theInfamous Decade initiated by the military coup, Di Giovanni passed long periods of his time in seclusion, working on Elisée Reclus's complete works. The police attempted to arrest him at a printing shop, but Di Giovanni managed to escape during a gun battle in which one policeman was killed and another injured.
In January 1931, Di Giovanni was arrested after being seriously injured in yet another gun battle, along with Fina and Paulino Scarfó. Two other anarchists were killed in the firefight. Di Giovanni announced that the 300 chickens found in their house were to be given to the poor ofBurzaco.[14]
The military junta publicized the arrests as a victory of the new regime, and immediately organized a military tribunal.[14] Di Giovanni was ably defended by his appointed defence counsel, Lieutenant Juan Carlos Franco, who spoke out in favour of the independence of the judicial system, and alleged that Di Giovanni had been tortured by the police.[16] Franco's spirited defence of his client caused his own arrest after the trial; he was later dismissed from the ranks of the armed forces and briefly imprisoned before his deportation from Argentina. It was to no avail; the evidence against Di Giovanni was overwhelming. Both he and Paulino Scarfó were sentenced to death; Fina, being underage, was freed.[15][16]
Severino Di Giovanni was executed by firing squad on 1 February 1931; he was 29 years old. He shouted "Evviva l'Anarchia!" (Long live Anarchy!), before being hit by at least eight7.65 mm Mauser rifle bullets. After exchanging a final farewell, Paulino Scarfó was also executed a few hours later. Di Giovanni's body was to be buried secretly, on orders of the Interior Minister Matías Sánchez Sorondo, inLa Chacarita Cemetery. However, on the following day, his grave was anonymously decorated with flowers.[17]
After Di Giovanni's execution, Fina abandoned her husband Silvio Astolfi, and eventually remarried, settling down to a quiet life in Buenos Aires. After serving a lengthy prison term, Astolfi returned to Europe and carried on with his antifascist activity: he was later killed during thecivil war in Spain.[15] On 28 July 1999, Fina Scarfó obtained the love letters which Di Giovanni had sent to her from prison decades earlier, but which had been seized by the police.[17]
Fina died on 19 August 2006, at age 93.[18] Teresa Masciulli, Di Giovanni's widow, remarried, and Di Giovanni's children changed their names.[19] Alejandro Scarfó, after serving a term of imprisonment for the attempted assassination of President Hoover, was released from prison in 1935.[15]
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