Ivan Matteo Lombardo

Ivan Matteo Lombardo (22 May 1902 – 6 February 1980) was an Italian politician.

Lombardo was born in Milan in 1902. A budding young journalist, from 1920 to 1922 he was editor of the labour section of Avanti!, the daily newspaper of the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano; PSI). Following Benito Mussolini's assumption of power he was conscripted into the Italian army, serving in Libya until 1925. He then spent the next twenty years engaged in "activity in trade and export business, market research, [and] management of industrial plants."^[1] In 1942 he was involved in reconstituting the PSI, which had been banned by Mussolini 16 years previously. According to his biography on the Historical Archives of the European Union website, he was "very active" during this time in the Italian Resistance.^[2]

Hitherto a discreet industrialist, Lombardo was thrust into the limelight upon being nominated as secretary of the PSI in April 1946. Regarded as an implacable opponent of communism, he was selected for the role (without his knowledge) by the leader of the PSI's right-wing current, Giuseppe Saragat, and was accepted as a compromise candidate by the other leading factions at the party's annual spring conference in Florence. Lombardo was in Washington, D.C. as part of an official trade delegation when the decision was announced (in his capacity as Under-Secretary of Commerce and Industry in De Gasperi's first government), and he found out about it – with much incredulity and bemusement – only after reading reports on the conference in the American press and upon receiving congratulatory telegrams from well-wishers.^[3][4] He served as secretary for an interim period, and in January 1947 was replaced by Lelio Basso.

Following the 'Palazzo Barberini split' later that year – which established a new party led by Saragat, the Italian Socialist Workers' Party (Partito Socialista dei Lavoratori Italiani; PSLI) – Lombardo chose to remain with the PSI. Indeed, at the 1947 International Socialist Conference in Zurich he even hatched an unsuccessful plan to reunite the two parties, aided by the diplomat Francesco Malfatti and the British Labour Party politician Denis Healey.^[5] However, when the PSI formed an electoral alliance with the Italian Communist Party in early 1948 Lombardo founded his own breakaway grouping, the Union of Socialists (Unione dei Socialisti; UdS). At the general election in April of that year he and the UdS allied with Saragat's PSLI to form a joint ticket under the banner of Socialist Unity (Unità Socialista), which gained 7.1% of the votes cast for the Italian Chamber of Deputies and 33 seats.^[6] Lombardo later argued that his principal reason for leaving the PSI was its opposition to the Marshall Plan, as he explained to Philip C. Brooks of the Harry S. Truman Library in 1964:

Since the [PSI] Convention had decided to join the Communists in the Popular Front, and feature as the fundamental issue for the incoming general elections a staunch opposition to the Marshall Plan, I had no choice but to quit the party, and I formed a group which participated in the election campaign on the same ballot with Saragat's Social Democratic Party [sic]... For many years a large section of the Italian public opinion, which was heavily influenced by Communists, was convinced that the intent of the Marshall Plan was to destroy the industrial and agricultural structure of our society.^[7]

Lombardo was secretary of the UdS until June 1949, when he was succeeded by Ignazio Silone. In December of that year the party was dissolved, and its members joined forces with the former Minister of the Interior, Giuseppe Romita, to create another new group, the Unitary Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Unitario; PSU). Soon afterwards Lombardo joined the PSLI, which in turn merged with the PSU in 1951 to form the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano; PSDI).^[8]

During this time Lombardo was twice a government minister, firstly as Minister of Industry and Commerce from 23 May 1948 to 7 November 1949 (De Gasperi V Cabinet), and then as Minister of Foreign Trade from 27 January 1950 to 5 April 1951 (De Gasperi VI Cabinet). He stood down as a Member of Parliament at the end of the first legislature in June 1953. Two years later, in 1955, he was appointed as President of the General Committee and of the Board of the National Council for Productivity (CNP) in Rome, and in 1959–60 he served as head of the Atlantic Treaty Association (ATA) in Brussels.^[1]

Although he remained a social democrat throughout the 1950s, Lombardo increasingly fraternised with those outside the democratic left who, like him, were discomfited by the apparent inability of the Italian state to contain the threat posed by international communism. Adamant that only a powerful, anti-communist executive and an end to partitocrazia ("particracy") could halt the instability then plaguing the First Republic, in 1963 Lombardo signed a manifesto – together with Randolfo Pacciardi, Tomaso Smith, Alfredo Morea, Raffaele Cadorna and Mario Vinciguerra – proposing the establishment of a presidential republic similar to that recently introduced in France by Charles de Gaulle. This manifesto soon evolved into a new centrist political party led by Pacciardi, the Democratic Union for the New Republic (Unione Democratica per la Nuova Repubblica; UDNR), which made very little electoral impact but was noted for its association with figures from the neo-fascist right, such as Enzo Maria Dantini, Fabio De Felice and Giano Accame, who were attracted to the party by its emphasis on strong, personalised leadership and promises to "remake the state".^[9][10] Although Lombardo was described in contemporary press reports as a founder member of the new party, he seemingly never campaigned on its behalf.^[11]

Fuera de estas intrigas internas, las actividades políticas de Lombardo en sus últimos años se centraron principalmente en su participación en diversas organizaciones internacionales dedicadas a la derrota del comunismo. En la década de 1960, argumentó que Italia estaba particularmente expuesta a la amenaza de una invasión soviética debido a su posición vulnerable en el Mediterráneo, describiendo al país como "una posible cabeza de puente que podría convertirse en el paso hacia Europa Occidental o el paso hacia el continente africano". ^{[ 12 ]} Desarrolló estos temas en una conferencia muy publicitada sobre la "guerra revolucionaria", organizada en mayo de 1965 por el Instituto Alberto Pollio de Estudios Militares en el Hotel Parco dei Principi de Roma, donde presentó un trabajo titulado "Guerra comunista permanente contra Occidente". ^{[ 13 ]} Esta conferencia, financiada a través del Instituto por la agencia de inteligencia militar italiana SIFAR , ha llegado a ser considerada un momento fundamental en la strategia della tenzione (" estrategia de tensión "), y contó con la asistencia de varias personas que posteriormente participaron en diversas campañas de terror neofascistas. ^{[ 14 ]}

Tales intervenciones, y otras más, han llevado a comentaristas como Jeffrey Bale y Massimo Bonanni a definir a Lombardo, en estas últimas décadas, como perteneciente a la derecha conservadora del espectro político. ^{[ 15 ] [ 16 ]} Aunque seguía siendo atlantista y proeuropeo, sus vínculos con organizaciones de extrema derecha como la salazarista Convergência Occidental y la Liga Mundial Anticomunista eran bien conocidos en los círculos anticomunistas. ^{[ 17 ]} En 1997, el aspirante a conspirador y renegado político Edgardo Sogno reveló que, de haber tenido éxito su intento de liderar un golpe de Estado en 1974 (el llamado Golpe Bianco , o " Golpe Blanco "), habría instalado a Lombardo como Ministro de Hacienda en el gobierno de emergencia resultante, junto con Pacciardi, Accame y otros espíritus afines (algunos de los cuales, como el político y periodista Eugenio Reale , aparentemente desconocían lo que se proponía en su nombre). ^{[ 18 ]}

Lombardo falleció en Roma en 1980, a los 77 años. Sus restos están enterrados en el Cementerio Monumental de Milán . Su colección de documentos se encuentra depositada en el Archivo Histórico de la Unión Europea en Florencia . ^{[ 19 ]}