Randolfo Pacciardi

Biography

Pacciardi was born at Giuncarico, in the province of Grosseto (southern Tuscany).

In 1915 he became a member of the Italian Republican Party (PRI), and, despite being underage, he was enlisted in the Italian Army's officers school. As a Bersaglieri lieutenant, he fought during World War I, and was awarded with two silver and one bronze medals, as well as an English Military Cross.

In 1921 he graduated in jurisprudence. Later he collaborated with the newspaper L'Etruria Nuova, denouncing the increasing violences of the Fascist squads. In 1922 Pacciardi moved to Rome, where he founded the anti-fascist movement "L'Italia libera", which was suppressed in 1925. After the Fascists outlawed all the other parties, he was condemned to five years confinement, but was able to escape to Austria and then to Switzerland.

After moving to France, in 1936 he founded an Italian Antifascist Legion to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He subsequently fought at the head of the Garibaldi Battalion, part of the International Brigades in the Siege of Madrid, after which he was promoted as lieutenant colonel. Pacciardi fought against the National faction in Spain until 1937. In that year, in Paris, he founded the weekly La Giovine Italia (a homage to the ideologist of the unification of Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini). In 1938 he held a series of lectures in the United States about anti-fascism in Europe. In the same year he joined Masonry, and was confirmed as secretary of the PRI in exile. When the Italian-American antifascist Mazzini Society was founded in 1939, Pacciardi joined that too. He returned to Italy only after the liberation of Rome in 1944. In 1945 he was again confirmed national secretary of the now re-established PRI, and the following year he was elected to the Constituent Assembly of Italy.

Pacciardi's line of collaboration with the other left parties led to the entrance of PRI in the first Republic government cabinets of Italy (1947). Pacciard resigned as PRI's secretary and became vice-Prime Minister. He was Minister of Defense from 1948 to 1953, and supported the entrance of Italy in the NATO. In the 1950s PRI followed Ugo La Malfa line to not adherence to the centre governments led by Democrazia Cristiana; when in 1963 a first centre-left government, led by DC leader Aldo Moro, was created, Pacciardi and his followers within PRI voted against support to it. Also in the wake of a scandal which had involved his previous tenure as Minister of Defense (despite later he was acquitted from any accuse), Pacciardi was expelled from PRI.

In 1964 he founded a new party, Unione Democratica per la Nuova Repubblica, a newspaper, La Folla. The line of Nuova Repubblica was similar to Charles de Gaulle's. However, the 1968 Italian election proved to be a failure for the new party, with just 100,000 votes. Pacciardi himself was not re-elected to the Italian Parliament, and was later accused of having coup- and neofascist-oriented friendships. In 1974 he was investigated for participation in the so-called Golpe bianco of Edgardo Sogno.

In 1979 he asked to be admitted back to the Republican Party, which happened two years later. In 1981 he founded a new magazine, L'Italia del popolo, which he directed for ten years. He died in Rome in 1991 and was buried in the communal cemetery of Grosseto.

Personal life

Known for his jovial nature and passion for travel, Randolfo Pacciardi he met and befriended people like Ernest Hemingway and his lover Martha Gellhorn, David Ben-Gurion, Michael Curtiz (He wanted ask for advice to Pacciardi weighed in Casablanca) and Fabrizio de André, whose wedding was witnessed by the friendship with his father.

In 1918, he was initiated into freemasonry Randolfo Pacciardi he joined the lodge "Ombrone" of Grosseto, becoming "Companion" the following year. In 1937 he joined the Parisian lodge "Eugenio Chiesa", as "master" and in 1938 was elevated to 30° degree of the Scottish Rite.