Seventy years ago, on April 28, 1945, Italian partisans executed Benito Mussolini - Duce, the leader of Italian fascism and Adolf Hitler's main ally in World War II. Together with Benito Mussolini, his mistress, Clara Petacci, was executed.
Allied operations to liberate Italy from Nazi troops were coming to an end. German troops could no longer hold the territory of the Italian Social Republic under control, in the face of a massive offensive by the superior forces of the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. A small detachment of 200 German soldiers, commanded by Lieutenant Hans Fallmeier, moved towards the Swiss border on the night of April 26-27, 1945. From the village of Menaggio, to which the Germans leaving Italy were heading, the road led to neutral Switzerland. The German soldiers had no idea that partisans from the detachment of Captain David Barbieri were watching the column. The armored car following at the head of the German column, armed with two machine guns and a 20-mm cannon, posed a certain threat to the partisan detachment, since the partisans did not have heavy weapons, and they did not want to go to the armored car with rifles and machine guns. Therefore, the partisans decided to act only when the column approached the rubble that blocked its further path.
Elderly non-commissioned officer of the Luftwaffe
At about 6.50 in the morning, watching the movement of the convoy from the mountain, Captain Barbieri shot into the air with his pistol. In response, there was a burst of machine-gun fire from a German armored car. However, the German column could not continue to move further. Therefore, when three Italian partisans with a white flag appeared from behind the blockage, German officers Kiznatt and Birtser got out of the truck following the armored car. Negotiations began.
On the part of the partisans, Count Pier Luigi Bellini della Stelle (pictured), the commander of the 52nd Garibaldi Brigade, joined them. Despite his 25 years, the young aristocrat enjoyed great prestige among the Italian partisans - anti-fascists. Lieutenant Hans Fallmeier, who speaks Italian, explained to Bellini that the convoy was moving to Merano and that the German unit did not intend to engage in an armed clash with the partisans. However, Bellini had an order from the partisan command not to let the armed detachments pass, and this order also extended to the Germans. Although the partisan commander himself understood perfectly well that he did not have the strength to resist the Germans in an open battle - together with the detachment of Captain Barbieri, the partisans who stopped the German column numbered only fifty people against two hundred German soldiers. The Germans had several guns, and the partisans were armed with rifles, daggers, and only three heavy machine guns could be considered as serious weapons. Therefore, Bellini sent messengers to all partisan detachments stationed nearby, with a request to withdraw armed fighters along the road.
Bellini demanded that Lieutenant Fallmeier separate the German soldiers from the Italian fascists who were following along with the column. In this case, the partisan commander guaranteed the Germans unhindered passage into Switzerland through the territories controlled by the partisans. Fallmeier insisted on fulfilling Bellini's demands, eventually convincing Birzer and Kiznatt to drop the Italians off. Only one Italian was allowed to follow on with the Germans. A man in the uniform of a non-commissioned officer of the Luftwaffe, wearing a helmet pulled over his forehead and dark glasses, got into the truck of the convoy with other German soldiers. Leaving the Italians surrounded by partisans, the German column moved on. It was three o'clock in the afternoon. At three o'clock ten minutes, the convoy reached the Dongo checkpoint, where the political commissar of the partisan detachment, Urbano Lazzaro, was stationed as commander. He demanded that Lieutenant Fallmeier show all the trucks and, together with a German officer, began checking the vehicles of the convoy. Lazzaro had information that Benito Mussolini himself may be in the column. True, the political commissar of the partisan detachment reacted with irony to the words of Captain Barbieri, but it was still worth checking the column. While Lazzaro and Fallmeier were studying the documents of the German column, Giuseppe Negri, one of the partisans who had once served in the navy, ran up to him. At one time, Negri had a chance to serve on a ship that was carrying the Duce, so he knew the fascist dictator well by sight. Running up to Lazzaro, Negri whispered: "We have found the villain!" Urbano Lazzaro and Count Bellini della Stella, who approached the checkpoint, climbed into the truck. When the middle-aged Luftwaffe non-commissioned officer was slapped on the shoulder with the words "Chevalier Benito Mussolini!"
The last hours of life
Mussolini was taken to the municipality, and then, at about seven o'clock in the evening, transported to Germazino - to the barracks of the financial guard. Meanwhile, Clara Petacci, who had been disembarked in the afternoon from the German column along with other Italians, made a meeting with Count Bellini.
She asked him only one thing - to allow her to be with Mussolini. In the end, Bellini promised her to think and consult with her comrades in the partisan movement - the commander knew that Mussolini was expecting death, but he did not dare to allow the woman, who generally had no relation to political decisions, to go to certain death with her beloved Duce. At half past eleven in the evening Count Bellini della Stella received an order from Colonel Baron Giovanni Sardagna to transport the arrested Mussolini to the village of Blevio, eight kilometers north of Como. Bellini was required to keep Mussolini's "incognito" status and pass off as an English officer wounded in one of the battles with the Germans. So the Italian partisans wanted to hide the whereabouts of the Duce from the Americans, who hoped to "take" Mussolini from the partisans, and also to prevent possible attempts to free the Duce by the unfinished Nazis, and to prevent the lynching.
When Bellini drove the Duce towards the village of Blevio, he received permission from the deputy political commissar of the brigade, Michel Moretti, and the regional inspector for Lombardy, Luigi Canali, to place Clara Petacci with Mussolini. In the Dongo area, Clara, brought in Moretti's car, got into the car where the Duce was being taken. Eventually, the Duce and Clara were taken to Blevio and placed in the home of Giacomo de Maria and his wife Leah. Giacomo was a member of the partisan movement and was not used to asking unnecessary questions, so he quickly prepared an overnight stay for night guests, although he had no idea who he was receiving in his house. In the morning, high-ranking guests came to see Count Bellini. The deputy political commissar of the Garibaldi Brigade, Michel Moretti, brought a middle-aged man to Bellini, who introduced himself as "Colonel Valerio." Thirty-six-year-old Walter Audisio, as the colonel was actually called, was a participant in the war in Spain, and later an active partisan. It was on him that one of the leaders of the Italian communists, Luigi Longo, entrusted a mission of particular importance. Colonel Valerio was to personally lead the execution of Benito Mussolini.
During his sixty-year life, Benito Mussolini survived many assassination attempts. He was on the verge of death more than once in his youth. During World War I, Mussolini served in the Bersaglier regiment, an elite Italian infantry, where he rose to the rank of corporal solely because of his courage. Mussolini was discharged from the service because during the preparation of the mortar for a shot, the mine exploded in the barrel, and the future Duce of Italian fascism received a severe leg injury. When Mussolini, who led the National Fascist Party, came to power in Italy, at first he enjoyed tremendous prestige among the general population. Mussolini's policy was involved in a combination of nationalist and social slogans - just what the masses need. But among the anti-fascists, among whom were communists, socialists and anarchists, Mussolini aroused hatred - after all, he, fearing a communist revolution in Italy, began to repress the left movement. In addition to police harassment, activists of the left parties were exposed to the daily risk of physical harm by squadrists - militants of the Mussolinian fascist party. Naturally, more and more voices were heard among the Italian left in support of the need to physically eliminate Mussolini.
The assassination attempt of a deputy named Tito
Tito Zaniboni, 42, (1883-1960) was a member of the Italian Socialist Party. From a young age, he actively participated in the social and political life of Italy, was an ardent patriot of his country and a champion of social justice. During World War I, Tito Zaniboni served with the rank of major in the 8th Alpine regiment, was awarded medals and orders, and was demobilized with the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war, he sympathized with the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, who led the Popolo d'Italia movement. By the way, it is Annunzio who is considered the most important predecessor of Italian fascism, so Tito Zaniboni had every chance of becoming Mussolini's ally rather than his enemy. However, fate decreed otherwise. By 1925, the Fascist party led by Mussolini had already moved away from the early slogans of social justice. Duce collaborated more and more with big business, sought to further strengthen the state and forgot about those social slogans that he proclaimed in the early post-war years. Tito Zaniboni, on the contrary, actively participated in the socialist movement, was one of the leaders of the Italian socialists, and in addition, was a member of one of the Masonic lodges.
On November 4, 1925, Benito Mussolini was to receive a parade of the Italian army and fascist militia, welcoming the passing units from the balcony of the Italian Foreign Ministry in Rome. The socialist Tito Zaniboni decided to take advantage of this in order to deal with the hated Duce. He rented a room in a hotel, the windows of which overlooked the Palazzo Cigi, where he was supposed to appear on the balcony of Benito Mussolini. From the window, Tito could not only observe, but also shoot at the Duce who appeared on the balcony. To remove suspicions, Dzaniboni acquired the form of a fascist militia, after which he carried a rifle to the hotel.
It is likely that Mussolini's death could have occurred then, in 1925, twenty years before the end of World War II. Perhaps there would have been no war either - after all, Adolf Hitler would not have dared to join it without a reliable ally in Europe. But Tito Zaniboni, to his misfortune, turned out to be too trusting in relation to friends. And too talkative. He told about his plan to an old friend, not suggesting that the latter would report the impending attempt on the Duce to the police. Tito Zaniboni was under surveillance. Police agents followed the socialist for several weeks. But the police did not want to "take" Zaniboni before he decided on the assassination attempt. They expected to arrest Tito at the scene of the crime. On the appointed day of the parade, November 4, 1925, Mussolini prepared to step out onto the balcony to greet the passing troops. At these moments, Tito Zaniboni was preparing to commit an attempt on the life of the Duce in a rented room. His plans were not destined to come true - police officers burst into the room. Benito Mussolini, who received news of the impending assassination attempt on him, went out on the balcony ten minutes later than the appointed time, but received the parade of Italian troops and the fascist militia.
All Italian newspapers reported about the assassination attempt on Mussolini. For some time, the topic of the possible murder of Mussolini became the most important both in the press and in behind-the-scenes conversations. The Italian population, on the whole, positively perceived the Duce, sent him letters of congratulations, ordered prayers in Catholic churches. Tito Zaniboni, of course, was accused of having connections with the Czechoslovak socialists, who, according to the Italian police, paid for the impending assassination of the Duce. Tito was also accused of drug addiction. However, since in 1925 the domestic policy of the Italian fascists was not yet distinguished by the rigidity of the pre-war years, Tito Zaniboni received a relatively lenient sentence for a totalitarian state - he was given thirty years in prison. In 1943 he was released from prison on Ponza, and in 1944 he became high commissioner, responsible for filtering the ranks of surrendered fascists. Tito was lucky not only to be released, but also to spend a decade and a half on it. In 1960, he passed away at the age of seventy-seven.
Why did the Irish lady shoot the Duce?
In the spring of 1926, another assassination attempt was made on Benito Mussolini. On April 6, 1926, Duce, who was to leave for Libya the next day, then an Italian colony, spoke in Rome at the opening of an international medical congress. After finishing his welcoming speech, Benito Mussolini, accompanied by aides-de-camp, went to the car. At that moment, an unknown woman fired a revolver at the Duce. The bullet passed tangentially, scratching the nose of the leader of Italian fascism. Again, by a miracle Mussolini managed to avoid death - after all, if the woman were a little more accurate, the bullet would have hit the Duce in the head. The shooter was detained by the police. It turned out that this is a British citizen Violet Gibson.
The Italian special services became interested in the reasons that prompted this woman to decide to commit an assassination attempt on the Duce. First of all, they were interested in the woman's possible connections with foreign intelligence services or political organizations, which could shed light on the motives of the crime and, at the same time, discover the hidden enemies of the Duce, ready to physically eliminate him. The investigation of the incident was entrusted to Officer Guido Letti, who served in the Organization for the Observation and Suppression of Anti-Fascism (OVRA), the Italian counterintelligence service. Letty contacted British colleagues and was able to get some reliable information about Violet Gibson.
It turned out that the woman who attempted Mussolini's life was a representative of an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family. Her father served as Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and her brother Lord Eschborn lived in France and did not engage in any political or social activities. It was possible to find out that Violet Gibson sympathized with Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party, but never personally participated in political activities. In addition, Violet Gibson was clearly mentally ill - for example, she once had a seizure in central London. Thus, the second attempt on Mussolini's life was not politically motivated, but was committed by an ordinary mentally unbalanced woman. Benito Mussolini, given the mental state of Violet Gibson, and to a greater extent not wanting to quarrel with Great Britain in case of conviction of a representative of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, ordered Gibson to be deported from Italy. Despite a scratched nose, the day after the assassination attempt, Mussolini left for Libya for a planned visit.
Violet Gibson did not incur any criminal responsibility for the attempted murder of the Duce. In turn, in Italy, another attempt on Mussolini's life caused a flurry of negative emotions among the population. On April 10, four days after the incident, Benito Mussolini received a letter from a fourteen-year-old girl. Her name was Clara Petacci. The girl wrote: “My Duce, you are our life, our dream, our glory! About Duce, why wasn't I there? Why couldn't I strangle this vile woman who wounded you, wounded our deity? Mussolini sent another young admirer in love with his photo as a gift, not suspecting that twenty years later Clara Petacci would leave life with him, becoming his last and most faithful companion. The assassination attempts themselves were used by the Duce to further tighten the fascist regime in the country and the transition to full-scale repression against the left-wing parties and movements, which also enjoyed the sympathy of a significant part of the Italian population.
Anarchists against Duce: the assassination of veteran Luchetti
After an unsuccessful attempt by the socialist Tito Zaniboni and the unfortunate woman Violet Gibson, the baton of organizing the assassination attempts on the Duce passed to the Italian anarchists. It should be noted that in Italy the anarchist movement has traditionally had a very strong position. In contrast to Northern Europe, where anarchism was not so widespread, in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and partly in France, anarchist ideology was easily perceived by the local population. The ideas of free peasant communities "according to Kropotkin" were not alien to Italian or Spanish peasants. In Italy in the first half of the twentieth century, there were numerous anarchist organizations. By the way, it was the anarchist Gaetano Bresci who killed the Italian king Umberto in 1900. Since the anarchists had extensive experience in underground and armed struggle, were ready to commit acts of individual terror, it was they who at first were at the forefront of the anti-fascist movement in Italy. After the establishment of the fascist regime, anarchist organizations in Italy had to operate in an illegal position. In the 1920s. in the mountains of Italy, the first partisan units were formed, which were under the control of anarchists and committed sabotage against objects of state importance.
As early as March 21, 1921, the young anarchist Biagio Mazi came to Benito Mussolini's house on Foro Buonaparte in Milan. He was going to shoot the leader of the fascists, but did not find him at home. The next day Biagio Mazi reappeared at Mussolini's house, but this time there was a whole group of fascists and Mazi decided to leave without starting an assassination attempt. After that Mazi left Milan for Trieste and there told a friend about his intentions regarding the murder of Mussolini. The friend turned out "suddenly" and reported the assassination attempt made by Mazi to the police in Trieste. The anarchist was arrested. After that, the message about the unsuccessful assassination attempt was published in the newspaper. This was the signal for the more radical anarchists who detonated the bomb at the Teatro Diana in Milan. Killed 18 people - ordinary visitors to the theater. The explosion played into the hands of Mussolini, who used the terrorist attack by the anarchists to denounce the left movement. After the explosion, fascist detachments throughout Italy began to attack anarchists, attacked the office of the editorial board of Umanite Nuova, the newspaper Novoye Manchestvo published by the most authoritative Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta, who was still friends with Kropotkin himself. The publication of the newspaper after the attacks of the fascists was discontinued.
On September 11, 1926, when Benito Mussolini was driving through Piazza Porta Pia in Rome, an unknown young man threw a grenade into the car. The grenade bounced off the car and exploded on the ground. The guy who attempted on the life of the Duce could not fight off the police, although he was armed with a pistol. The bomber was detained. It turned out to be twenty-six-year-old Gino Luchetti (1900-1943). He calmly told the police: “I am an anarchist. I came from Paris to kill Mussolini. I was born in Italy, I have no accomplices. " In the pockets of the detainee, they found two more grenades, a pistol and sixty lire. In his youth, Luchetti participated in the First World War in the assault units, and then joined the "Arditi del Popolo" - an Italian anti-fascist organization created from former front-line soldiers. Luchetti worked in the marble quarries in Carrara, then emigrated to France. As a member of the anarchist movement, he hated Benito Mussolini, the fascist regime he created, and dreamed that he would kill the Italian dictator with his own hands. For this purpose, he returned from France to Rome. After Luchetti was detained, the police began searching for his alleged accomplices.
The special services arrested Luchetti's mother, sister, brother, his colleagues at the marble quarries and even neighbors at the hotel where he lived after returning from France. In June 1927, a trial was held in the case of the attempt on the life of Gino Luchetti on the life of Benito Mussolini. The anarchist was sentenced to life imprisonment, since the death penalty was not yet in force in Italy during the period under review. Twenty-eight-year-old Leandro Sorio and thirty-year-old Stefano Vatteroni, who were accused of complicity in the impending assassination attempt, received twenty years in prison. Vincenzo Baldazzi, a veteran of the Arditi del Popoli and longtime comrade Luchetti, was convicted of lending his gun to the assailant. Then, after serving his sentence, he was arrested again and sent to prison - this time for organizing assistance to Luchetti's wife while her husband was in prison.
There is still no consensus among historians on the nature of Luchetti's assassination attempt. Some researchers argue that the assassination attempt on Mussolini was the result of a carefully planned conspiracy of Italian anarchists, which involved a large number of people representing anarchist groups from various localities in the country. Other historians see Luchetti's assassination as a typical lonely act. Like Tito Zaniboni, Gino Luchetti was liberated in 1943 after Allied forces occupied a large part of Italy. However, he was less fortunate than Tito Zamboni - in the same 1943, on September 17, he died as a result of the bombing. He was only forty-three years old. In the name of Gino Luchetti, Italian anarchists named their partisan formation - "Battalion Luchetti", whose units operated in the Carrara area - just where Gino Luchetti worked in a marble quarry in his youth. So the memory of the anarchist who attempted to assassinate Mussolini was immortalized by his associates - the anti-fascist partisans.
The assassination attempt by Gino Luchetti seriously worried Mussolini. After all, the strange woman Gibson is one thing and the Italian anarchists are quite another. Mussolini was well aware of the degree of influence of anarchists among the Italian common people, since he himself was an anarchist and a socialist in his youth. The directorate of the fascist party issued an appeal to the Italian people, which said: “The merciful God saved Italy! Mussolini remained unharmed. From his command post, to which he immediately returned with splendid calmness, he gave us the order: No reprisals! Blackshirts! You must follow the orders of the chief, who alone has the right to judge and determine the line of conduct. We appeal to him, who fearlessly meets this new proof of our boundless devotion: Long live Italy! Long live Mussolini! " This appeal was intended to calm the agitated masses of supporters of the Duce, who gathered in Rome a hundred thousandth rally against the assassination attempt on Benito. Nevertheless, although the appeal said "No reprisals!" The indignation of the masses, who deified the Duce, with the actions of antifascists who attempted on his life, also grew. The consequences of the fascist propaganda were not long in coming - if the first three people who attempted to assassinate Mussolini survived, then the fourth attempt on Mussolini ended in the death of the assassin.
Sixteen year old anarchist torn to pieces by the crowd
On October 30, 1926, just over a month and a half after the third assassination attempt, Benito Mussolini, accompanied by his relatives, arrived in Bologna. In the old capital of Italian higher education, a parade of the fascist party was planned. On the evening of October 31, Benito Mussolini went to the railway station, from where he was supposed to take a train to Rome. Mussolini's relatives drove to the station separately, while the Duce drove out in a car with Dino Grandi and the mayor of Bologna. Fighters of the fascist militia were on duty among the public on the sidewalks, so Duce felt safe. On Via del Indipendenza, a youth in the form of a fascist youth vanguard, standing on the sidewalk, shot Mussolini's car with a revolver. The bullet touched the uniform of the mayor of Bologna, Mussolini himself was not injured. The driver drove at high speed to the railway station. Meanwhile, a crowd of onlookers and fascist militiamen attacked the attempted young man. He was beaten to death, stabbed with knives and shot with pistols. The body of the unfortunate man was torn to pieces and carried around the city in a triumphal procession, thanks to heaven for the miraculous salvation of the Duce. By the way, the first person to grab the young man was a cavalry officer Carlo Alberto Pasolini. Several decades later, his son Pier Paolo will become an internationally renowned director.
The name of the young man who shot at Mussolini was Anteo Zamboni. He was only sixteen years old. Like his father, a printer from Bologna Mammolo Zamboni, Anteo was an anarchist and made the decision to kill Mussolini on his own, approaching the assassination attempt with all seriousness. But if Father Anteo then went over to the side of Mussolini, which was typical for many former anarchists, then the young Zamboni was faithful to the anarchist idea and saw in the duce a bloody tyrant. For conspiracy, he joined the fascist youth movement and acquired avant-garde uniforms. Before the assassination attempt, Anteo wrote a note, which said: “I cannot fall in love, because I don’t know if I will remain alive by doing what I decided to do. To kill the tyrant who torments the nation is not a crime, but justice. It is wonderful and holy to die for the cause of freedom. " When Mussolini learned that a sixteen-year-old teenager had attempted his life and that he was torn to pieces by the mob, Duce complained to his sister about the immorality of "using children to commit crimes." Later, after the war, one of the streets of his hometown of Bologna will be named after the unfortunate young man Anteo Zamboni, and a memorial plaque with the text “The people of Bologna in one strive honors their courageous sons, who died in twenty years of anti-fascist struggle, will be placed there. This stone has illuminated the name of Anteo Zamboni for centuries for the selfless love of freedom. The young martyr was brutally murdered here by the thugs of the dictatorship on 31-10-1926."
The tightening of the political regime in Italy followed precisely the assassination attempts on Mussolini, committed in 1925-1926. At this time, all the basic laws were adopted that limited political freedoms in the country, massive repressions were launched against dissidents, primarily against the communists and socialists. But, having survived the assassination attempts and brutally retaliated against his political opponents, Mussolini could not retain his power. Twenty years later, he, along with Clara Petacci, that same fan from the mid-twenties, was sitting in a small room of the de María family's country house, when a man came through the door and announced that he had come to "save and set them free." Colonel Valerio said so in order to calm Mussolini - in fact, he, together with a driver and two partisans named Guido and Pietro, arrived in Blevio to carry out the death sentence of the former dictator of Italy.
Colonel Valerio, aka Walter Audisio, had personal accounts with Mussolini. As a young man, Valerio was sentenced to five years in prison on the island of Ponza for his participation in an underground anti-fascist group. In 1934-1939. he was serving a prison sentence, and after his release he resumed clandestine activities. From September 1943, Walter Audiio organized partisan units in Casale Monferrato. During the war years, he joined the Italian Communist Party, where he quickly made a career and became an inspector of the Garibaldi brigade, commanded units operating in the province of Mantua and in the Po valley. When the fighting unfolded in Milan, it was Colonel Valerio who became the protagonist of the Milanese anti-fascist resistance. He enjoyed the confidence of Luigi Longo and the latter commissioned him to personally lead the execution of Mussolini. After the war, Walter Audisio took part in the work of the Communist Party for a long time, was elected a deputy, and died in 1973 of a heart attack.
Execution of Benito and Clara
Gathering up, Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci followed Colonel Valerio into his car. The car started to move. Having approached the Villa Belmonte, the colonel ordered the driver to stop the car at the blind gates and ordered the passengers to get out. “By order of the command of the Liberty Volunteer Corps, I have been entrusted with the mission to carry out the sentence of the Italian people,” Colonel Valerio announced. Clara Petacci was indignant, not yet fully believing that they were going to be shot without a court verdict. Valerio's assault rifle jammed and the pistol misfired. The colonel shouted to Michel Moretti, who was nearby, to give him his machine gun. Moretti had a French assault rifle of the D-Mas model, issued in 1938 under the number F. 20830. It was this weapon, which was armed with the deputy political commissar of the Garibaldi brigade, that put an end to the life of Mussolini and his faithful companion Clara Petacci. Mussolini unbuttoned his jacket and said, "Shoot me in the chest." Clara tried to grab the barrel of the machine gun, but was shot first. Benito Mussolini was shot with nine bullets. Four bullets hit the descending aorta, the rest - in the thigh, neck bone, occiput, thyroid gland and right arm.
The bodies of Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci were taken to Milan. At a gas station near Piazza Loreto, the bodies of the Italian dictator and his mistress were hung upside down on a specially constructed gallows. They also hanged the bodies of thirteen fascist leaders executed in Dongo, among whom were the general secretary of the fascist party Alessandro Pavolini and Clara's brother Marcello Petacci. The fascists were hanged in the same place where six months earlier, in August 1944, the fascist punishers shot fifteen captured Italian partisans - communists.
