Ugo La Malfa
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Ugo La Malfa | |
|---|---|
Minister of Transports | |
| In office 17 June 1945 – 8 December 1945 | |
| Prime Minister | Ferruccio Parri |
| Preceded by | Francesco Cerabona |
| Succeeded by | Riccardo Lombardi |
| Secretary-general of PRI | |
| In office 1965–1975 | |
| Preceded by | Oddo Biasini |
| Succeeded by | Oddo Biasini |
| Member of the Constituent Assembly | |
| In office 25 June 1946 – 31 January 1948 | |
| Constituency | Single national constituency |
| Member of the Chamber of Deputies | |
| In office 8 May 1948 – 26 March 1979 | |
| Constituency | Bologna (1948–1976) |
| Constituency | Roma (1976–1979) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 16 May 1903 Palermo, Italy |
| Died | 26 March 1979 (aged 75) Rome, Italy |
| Political party | PdA (1942–1946) CDR (1946) PRI (1946–1979) |
| Children | Giorgio |
| Residence(s) | Rome, Italy |
| Alma mater | Ca' Foscari University of Venice |
| Profession | Politics Journalist |
Ugo La Malfa (16 May 1903 – 26 March 1979) was an
Early years and anti-fascist resistance
La Malfa was born in
During his years at the university, he had contacts within the republican movement of Treviso and other anti-fascist groups. In 1924, he moved to Rome and participated in the foundation of the Goliardic Union for Freedom. On 14 June 1925, he took part in the first conference of the National Democratic Union, founded by Giovanni Amendola. The movement was later declared illegal under Mussolini's fascist government. In 1926, he graduated from university with a thesis dealing sharply with human rights. During his military service, he was transferred to Sardinia in order to disrupt the anti-fascist publication Pietre, on which he worked. By 1928, he was among those arrested following the 12 April bombing in the Fiera di Milano for allegedly planning to assassinate Italian King Victor Emmanuel III, only to be interrogated and released.
In 1929, he took a job editing the
Republican career
In 1945, under the reconstruction government of Ferruccio Parri, La Malfa assumed the role of Minister of Transportation. In the following government, under Alcide De Gasperi, he was Minister of Reconstruction, a position later renamed Minister of International Commerce. In February 1946, the first conference of the Partito d'Azione was held, during which Emilio Lussu prevailed in determining party philosophy, and La Malfa and Parri left the party. In March, he participated in the constitution of the Republican Democratic Concentration, which supported the republican referendum in June and contested the related general election. La Malfa and Parri were both elected to the Constituent Assembly of Italy, and with the encouragement of Randolfo Pacciardi he joined the Italian Republican Party, commonly known as the PRI.
Designated to represent Italy at the International Monetary Fund in 1947, he was named vice president of the Fund the following year. Meanwhile, with Giulio Andrea Belloni and Oronzo Reale, he assumed the temporary role of party secretary. Reelected to the parliament in 1948, and confirmed into the subsequent legislature, he held numerous positions, including as a "minister without portfolio" charged with reorganizing the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (IRI), before he was appointed Minister of Foreign Trade in 1951. His work on liberalizing the Italian economy and lowering import tariffs was fundamental to the "economic miracle."
In 1952, he proposed, without success, a "constituent program" between the secular parties. In 1956, while maintaining the autonomy of the Republican Party from Marxist economic theories and its position on the left of the political spectrum, he favoured the unification of the three major socialist schools to make the divide between his party and theirs more comprehensible.
After the Republicans withdrew support for the government in 1957, Randolfo Pacciardi left as director of the party. La Malfa assumed direction of the party's newspaper, La Voce Repubblicana, in 1959. In 1962, he was named Minister of the Budget in the first center-left government under
During the tumultuous 1970s, the Republican Party played a small but vital role in determining the government of Italy and maintaining continuity. Following the fall of
The last years of his life were among his most productive. Upon defeating resistance from left-wing republicans in 1976, La Malfa brought the party into the pan-European federation which later became the
On 24 March 1979, he suffered a
Legacy
For many, La Malfa was "the needle" that sewed the Italian republic together and kept it from coming undone, especially because of his role as a peacemaker between contrasting parties. He understood the futility and irresponsibility of governing without the communists, who held upwards of one-third of the seats in parliament. His economic principles, though they often appeared unrealistic and visionary, such as a common European monetary system, were revolutionary and helped make Italy for many years second in economic growth only to
In Rome, Piazzale Romolo e Remo was renamed Piazzale Ugo La Malfa, and his hometown of Palermo was named Via Ugo La Malfa in honour of him.
His son Giorgio La Malfa is president of the PRI, and was Minister for European Affairs in Italy until 2006.
See also
Notes
- Paolo Soddu, Ugo La Malfa. Il riformista moderno, Carocci, Roma 2008.
References
- ^ Mireno Berrettini, La Gran Bretagna e l’Antifascismo italiano. Diplomazia clandestina, Intelligence, Operazioni Speciali (1940-1943), Firenze, 2010
External links
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