For nearly a decade Italian Socialists have been living with the bitter aftermath of the day in January 1947 when a lean, jut-jawed young intellectual bearing an honored name rose to address a party congress in the Great Hall of Rome University. The speaker was Matteo Matteotti. His father was Socialist Leader Giacomo Matteotti, modern Italy's No. 1 political martyr.*
Young Matteo Matteotti, bone-bred Socialist that he was, was nonetheless outraged by the alliance which Socialist Party Leader Pietro Nenni had just made with the Communists. Sadly, Matteotti charged Nenni with spreading "fear and terrorism" in the party. Then, amidst...