ITALY: The Street of Dark Shops

Communism in Italy is big business. The party spends $40 to $48 million a year; to run its elaborate headquarters on Rome's Via delle Botteghe Oscure (The Street of Dark Shops) costs another million a year. Although the U.S.S.R. always contributes some funds, the Italian Reds last year passed along 300 million lire ($480,000) to their hard-up comrades in France. There are Communists in the Army signal corps, in the public utilities, in the railroads, in the government bureaucracy, among the magistrates.

These are among the facts about their own Communists that Italians were learning for the first time last...