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It was as though history's heart had skipped a beat. For a brief, illusory moment, other struggles between Communism and the West seemed suspended—as if the contestants paused to watch the outcome of the stirring battle being fought in Italy. At dawn this Sunday, Italians will go to the polls to choose, in a democratic election, between Communism and the West.
On all the stormy battlefields of peace, the pause was noticeable. In Germany, the squabble over Berlin, a diversionary action in the deeper struggle for Germany and Europe, trailed off in angry mutterings; Finland had a breathing spell . In France, the Communists were hanging back, not sure what to try next. Even Greece was relatively quiet. The most exciting action in which Communism (allegedly) had a hand occurred far from the battle zone, in Bogota (see LATIN AMERICA) .
What happened in Italy in the days just ahead would answer one vital question: Can Communists capture a nation where there is neither Red army nor Red police? The result would decide whether Italy would take her place with Western Europe (and Western Union) or with the satellite East. And that decision, in turn, would affect the worldwide question of war & peace. For it was a simple fact that Italy formed a precarious bulge in the West's defenses: if this battle of the bulge were lost, Communism would stand at the Alps and reach deep into the Mediterranean.
Those, in addition to the immediate fate of 50 million Italians, were the stakes involved in the Italian elections.
That the result could even for a moment be in doubt was a bitter comment on the West's terrible uncertainty. It was in the Italian peninsula that the West's Christian faith, bearing a cross and strange new hopes, had begun its conquest of the world. Was it to be defeated now, on the soil on which it had been strongest, by the new tyrannical faith of Communism?
The Cream-Puff Contrast. How was the battle of Italy going? A TIME correspondent cabled some impressions:
"Rome's aged brown walls are heavy with garish tapestries—purple, green, red, black election posters, shrieking at the people. (If you want jobs and bread, some land to till, some peace to enjoy, vote Communist; if you believe in God, fear Communisn, hate tyranny, vote Christian Democrat.) I drove to the imposing stone building which houses the U.S. Embassy, talked about the bread and pasta from America which alone have saved Italians from starvation; of the American coal which alone has kept Italy's railways running and its blast furnaces roaring. Would not all these things, for which the U.S. asked neither thanks nor service, be enough to persuade the Italian people to vote for their own freedom, against Communism? We knew it was possible—but far from certain.
"A few blocks away, along the Via Vittorio Veneto, in Rome's most luxurious cafés, aristocrats were discussing, over cream puffs, how to get out of Italy in a hurry. In front of the cafés, crippled children on crutches hobbled in a pathetically grotesque dance, hoping for a few lire from wealthy passersby. It is such contrasts, an expression of the fact that Italy's upper classes still live in luxury while two million unemployed must worry about their daily bread, that help Communism most in Italy."