On posters plastered on sun-warmed walls all over Italy, bat-winged devils erupted from a walled town above the Christian Democratic slogan: "Liberate our communes from the trustees of Moscow!" For the first time in four years, Italy's 7,143 communes are electing new governments next Sunday. Though only municipal elections, they will be read as a political referendum on Premier Antonio Segni's year-old Christian Democratic government. Italy's biggest political guns, from Segni himself to the Communists' Palmiro Togliatti, scoured the country orating.
In 1951 the Christian Democrats wrested such big cities as Turin, Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Florence from the Communists with the help of a tricky electoral law—since repealed—which awarded two-thirds of the seats in a city government to the party polling the most votes. This time, proportional representation rules in all cities and large towns, and Christian Democrats may find themselves without a governing majority even in towns where they top the popular poll.
The Vatican has thrown the power of the church behind them; signs on church doors warn: "Remember you are apostate and excommunicated if you vote for the Communists." But in a land where many of the people are at once Roman Catholic and anticlerical, the Vatican is being discreet. Communists are embarrassed by the dethroning of Stalin, but Communism's fellow-traveling allies, the Socialists of Pietro Nenni, are expected to do well. Four crucial races:
Rome. There is real danger of a Communist victory in the Holy City. In 1952 the Christian Democrats were actually outpolled by the allied Socialist-Communist slate, but saved by the electoral law. Under fat, fumbling Mayor Salvatore Rebecchini, Rome has been plagued by tram strikes, power and water shortages. He finally withdrew as a candidate for reelection, in the face of Communist charges of corruption centering on the projected Hotel Hilton, which is yet to be erected on Rome's outskirts. The Communist candidate is Giuseppe di Vittorio, a tough Red union leader who is rated second only to Togliatti as an orator and vote getter. If Di Vittorio wins, the Christian Democrats in the city council will try to keep him from forming a government, thus allowing the national government to appoint a prefect to govern instead.