Pietro Nenni

Italian political leader and journalist, leader of the Italian socialist Party, who filled posts in several Italian governments during the Allied occupation of Italy. He was leader of Italy’s socialist party from 1949-1969, having become a socialist in 1911.

From 1898 until he was 18, in 1909, Nenni lived in an orphanage. By 1911, impassioned with politics, he was imprisoned with a group of socialists that included Benito Mussolini for protesting against Italy’s involvement in the Turk-Italian war.

From 1911-1914, he was editor-in-chief of "Lucifero," then enlisted in the Italian Army, 1915-1918. Returning to journalism after WW I, he became director of "Giornale del Mattino," a democratic periodical published in Bologna. Two years later he became editor of Milan’s "Secolo," and within another year he was editor of "Avanti," the official publication of the Italian Socialists.

"Avanti" was suppressed in 1926, four years after Mussolini’s "March on Rome," and Nenni fled to France where he became correspondent for several French newspapers. From 1931-1939, he was the Paris director of the Italian "Nuovo Avanti," and at the same time served as secretary of the Italian socialist Party. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, Nenni and a colleague became political commissars for the Garibaldi Brigade of the International Brigade fighting with the Spanish Republicans.

Nenni was brought by the Germans to Italy in 1943 and a few months later, was imprisoned in Rome. He was released in August 1943, because the socialists threatened to call a general strike unless he and other political prisoners were released. Shortly thereafter, he became secretary-general of the party.

In June 1945, Nenni became Vice-Premier of the Actionist Party as well as high commissioner for Sanctions Against Fascism and Minister of the Constituent Assembly, which was drafting the new Italian democratic government.