Introduction
The Cold War was not just a political conflict at the highest level between two superpowers; it also involved smaller actors and the flow of ideas both within and across blocs. Ideology, culture, and public diplomacy played a prominent role in the ‘battle for hearts and minds’ in both Europe and Asia.Footnote 1 One of the main fronts of the cultural-ideological Cold War was occupied by young people: as soon as the Cold War started, leaders and governments on both sides of the Iron Curtain recognized the importance of appealing to and influencing young people around the globe. The Soviet Union invested heavily in youth affairs and eventually came to control the international youth organizations that had emerged out of the desire for peace in the aftermath of the Second World War. The World Federation of Democratic Youth and the International Union of Students co-sponsored international celebrations such as the biannual World Festival of Youth and Students (hereafter the World Youth Festival). This provided important opportunities for transnational youth encounters and served both as an instrument of cultural diplomacy and a tool for Soviet ideological propaganda. As such, young people became instruments of foreign policy and diplomacy in the Cold War.Footnote 2
For the newly established People's Republic of China (PRC), public diplomacy and cultural exchanges became important tools through which to redefine the nation's position in the world, promote its foreign relations, and try to influence views about China in many parts of the world. From its earliest days, China's unofficial or ‘people-to-people’ diplomacy was designed to supplement and reinforce conventional state-to-state diplomacy as well as to improve cultural and trade relations with those nations that had not yet established diplomatic ties with the new Chinese government.Footnote 3 In the years immediately following the Korean War (1950–1953), the need to counter international isolation, shape a more favourable climate towards Socialist China, and influence public opinion towards diplomatic recognition of the PRC provided the underlying reasons for a broader, more intensive, and sophisticated people's (or ‘friendship’) diplomacy programme which targeted the nations of Western Europe. Undoubtedly, the improvement in 1954 of the PRC's international standing (Geneva conference) and the consolidation of Chinese Communist power at home were important factors behind China's renewed openness and international activism in the mid-1950s.
Deemed to be symbols of the new China and its future—and celebrated as such—the younger generation also became involved in the nation's people-to-people diplomacy and external propaganda. In fact, soon after the founding of the PRC, youth exchanges came to represent a major part of the Chinese campaign to ‘win the hearts and minds’ of the people around the world, including Western Europe. Despite the growing scholarly discussion regarding the role of people-to-people external diplomacy and propaganda in early PRC foreign policy, so far no direct attention has been paid to the Chinese Communist Party's efforts to institutionalize youth exchanges and make them a tool through which the new Chinese government could pursue its foreign policy agenda. This article aims to explore youth exchanges as part of China's broader people-to-people diplomacy, focusing on the relations between Italian and Chinese youth in the 1950s and paying attention to exchanges between adult-led youth organizations and their members. As such, it aims to further our understanding of China's public engagement with Western Europe—specifically Italy—in the early Cold War years.
At that time youth interactions between Italy and Socialist China took different forms and mainly involved students and politically engaged young people. In Italy these interactions were facilitated by the left-wing political parties such as the Italian Communist Party and the Italian Socialist Party. These parties had considerable influence in Italian society. Indeed, in the absence of official diplomatic relations between the two countries, both parties played a crucial role in providing channels for exchanges and making the public aware of the importance of the new China. At the same time, youth groups affiliated with these parties were involved in international politics and developed contacts with their Chinese counterparts.
This article seeks to show that in the 1950s, the presence of left-wing political parties and their youth groups in Italy enabled exchanges between Chinese and Italian young people to take place. In addition, important opportunities for contact were also provided through participation in the activities of the Soviet-led world peace movement and related transnational youth organizations, such as the abovementioned World Federation of Democratic Youth and International Union of Students. Making use of published as well as previously unknown archival Chinese, Italian, and English sources, this article provides documentary evidence of the way in which the PRC organized and developed contacts with young Italians in the early Cold War era. As such, it considers both the Italian Communist Youth Federation (affiliated to the Italian Communist Party) and the Socialist Youth Movement (affiliated to the Italian Socialist Party), and also focuses on the World Federation of Democratic Youth, whose activities gave a few Italians the opportunity to visit Socialist China and establish political and personal ties with its young leaders.
The article is divided into three parts. The first provides an analysis of the institutional dimension and fields of activity of PRC youth diplomacy in the early Cold War era. It shows how ‘youth external affairs’ were intended to support both the Chinese Communist Party's external relations and the PRC's ‘people's diplomacy’, thus representing an important part of China's strategy to extend people-to-people contacts and expand its global influence. The second part documents youth exchanges between China and Italy, discussing mutual visits from small delegations of youth groups affiliated to the different parties. The third part delves into the activities of the World Federation of Democratic Youth and international delegations to China, which provided crucial avenues of contact between young people, and facilitated the establishment of long-lasting bonds of friendship between young political personalities. It is here that we examine the experience of Bruno Bernini, the Italian Communist who in the 1950s carried out intensive international activity as president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, travelling twice to China and establishing personal ties with Chinese leaders, especially Hu Yaobang.
The PRC's qingnian waishi
By the mid-1950s, youth foreign affairs (qingnian waishi) had become an important part of the PRC's unofficial or ‘people-to-people’ diplomacy. Wen Chi, then vice-director of the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League (Gongqingtuan zhongyang guoji lianluobu), described it as ‘a component of China's people's diplomacy, that is subordinated to and served the development of our country's overall diplomacy’.Footnote 4 As such, it formed a part of those ‘officially nonofficial contacts’ with other countries used by the Chinese government to expand its global influence.Footnote 5
From the earliest days of the PRC, qingnian waishi was carried out by specific departments and bureaus within three mass organizations—the Communist Youth League, the All-China Youth Federation, and the All-China Students’ Federation. Policy was coordinated and managed by the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. In the 1950s and early 1960s, external youth work consisted primarily of bilateral exchanges between national youth groups and their members as well as participation in the activities of Soviet-led international youth organizations—the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the International Union of Students—of which the PRC was a member.Footnote 6
According to the memoirs of Li Shaoming, who in 1950 was assigned the task of receiving foreign guests by the Wuhan Communist Youth League Municipal Committee (a responsibility he carried out until 1966), young people and students were the particular targets of the country's people-to-people diplomacy. It was thought that as they were young, their thoughts were still malleable and any prejudices they had about Socialist China were more easily overcome. Moreover, youth work was considered important because young people were the leaders of the future.Footnote 7 In point of fact, qingnian waishi represented the training groud for China's diplomacy personnel.Footnote 8 The Wuhan Communist Youth League Municipal Committee received 316 foreign youth delegations in 1951–1966, with an average of 20 delegations per year. The total number of young people who were invited to visit China (and passed through Wuhan) was 2,431, of whom 313 young people (68 delegations) came from 20 European countries as representatives of different political groups.Footnote 9 Indeed, exchanges with the outside world were by no means confined to Soviet bloc countries; they also involved young people from both non-bloc and capitalist countries (including those that had not yet recognized the PRC), who were mainly invited through the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the International Union of Students. If we look more closely at the available official data for Western Europe, they suggest that between 1950 and 1960, there were around 20 youth exchanges (mutual visits and delegations) between China and France, Great Britain, and Italy. These European capitalist countries had the largest number of exchanges with Socialist China at that time.Footnote 10
The local cadres in charge of receiving foreign guests were assigned a demanding job which required careful preparations and arrangements by the Communist Youth League Central Committee and involved numerous activities ultimately aimed at promoting a positive image of China. The waishi personnel were instructed to always strive to satisfy foreigners’ requests and to organize visits to places such as industrial complexes, infrastructure projects, schools, and so on. The aim was to leave them with a profoundly positive impression of the results achieved by the new China.Footnote 11
During the 1950s, the Communist Youth League's external work was mainly designed to strengthen China's ties with Socialist countries and their youth, establish contacts with youth groups of neighbouring countries, support national liberation movements in the developing world, and promote contacts with leftist youth organizations in Western capitalist countries. At the same time, the Communist Youth League took advantage of the activities of the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the International Union of Students to promote a new, peaceful image of China's youth on the global stage and gain international understanding and support.Footnote 12 At the Third World Youth Congress held in Bucharest in July 1953, which had the slogan ‘Peace and Friendship’, Hu Yaobang, then national secretary of the Communist Youth League, delivered a speech on 27 July, the same day the Korean War ended and the armistice agreement was signed. He argued that China was committed to peace, friendship, and solidarity among the youth of the whole world. In his words,
We hold that all countries of different social systems can coexist peacefully. The spirit of negotiation should and certainly will triumph over aggression and intervention. [. . .] We are convinced that the mutual understanding, friendship and solidarity between the peoples of all countries are the best means to realize the young people's desire for peace. Thus, the development of cultural exchanges between the people and youth of all countries and the strengthening of friendship among world youth will break through all artificial barriers and help to further the cause of peace. [. . .] it is indeed the most important problem in our work today to strengthen the solidarity of the peace-loving youth of the whole world and to win the thousands upon thousands [of] youth of good-will who are still staying outside the peace movement to participate in the ranks for the defence of peace. We are convinced that it is completely possible for all young people, irrespective of nationality, social strata, religious belief, political opinion and affiliation, to find [a] common language and common ideas in the common cause of defending peace.Footnote 13
At that time China's commitment to peace fell within the framework of the Soviet-led international peace movement and went hand-in-hand with opposition to American imperialism. Yet, as Anne-Marie Brady puts it, ‘for the CCP, peace meant an acceptance by the West of the Chinese revolution, an acknowledgment that the Chinese Communist Party was the legitimate government of China, and an end to Western aggression against China’.Footnote 14 At the same time, China's approach to acquiring foreign supporters tended to find and emphasize commonalities so as to create a sense of unity between Chinese and foreigners coming from different political systems and ideologies.Footnote 15 This approach—especially as promoted by Zhou Enlai—also characterized youth affairs. With the theme of peace being promoted as a common desire of the world's youth, in 1954, youth participation in the country's people-to-people diplomacy received attention in the Chinese official press, being described as benefiting the cooperation among countries with different political and social systems, and promoting international peace (deemed crucial for China's own economic development).Footnote 16 In 1957, Hu Yaobang called on the Communist Youth League and its cadres to continue strengthening friendship and cooperation with the world's youth and pointed out the importance of embracing the guiding principle of ‘seeking common ground while accepting existing differences’ (qiu tong cunyi). In so doing, Hu extended the hand of friendship to the youth of all the nations of the world, including those who had different political opinions, while affirming the importance of continuing to learn from foreign countries.Footnote 17 As such, he emphasized not just the propaganda function of youth diplomacy but also the importance of avoiding arrogance and learning good things from abroad (and from the West), a point that had just been expounded by the Hundred Flowers Movement, being ‘rubbed home in college, factory and public building’, as a young visitor to China recorded at that time.Footnote 18
Following the end of the Korean War, China's external exchanges with young people from foreign countries increased. The PRC became the destination of many visiting delegations and, in fact, between 1953 and 1957 in numbers that greatly surpassed outgoing Chinese delegations.Footnote 19 Contacts with Western European countries such as Great Britain, France, and Italy also increased, being facilitated by—among other things—the founding of friendship associations.Footnote 20 If we look at the distribution of youth exchanges over time, the years 1956–1957 represent the period with the greatest number of youth delegations (mutual visits).Footnote 21 This trend coincided with a new direction in the PRC's foreign policy, which was characterized by the search for a more autonomous role internationally and the favouring of a more conciliatory and peaceful approach that allowed China's relations to extend beyond the Soviet bloc. As a result, by the mid-1950s, the scope of qingnian waishi had broadened. While in the early years of the PRC, the emphasis of the Communist Youth League's external affairs was on strengthening China's role within international leftist youth organizations and establishing relations with the youth of Socialist countries, at the beginning of 1956, exchanges with young people from Western capitalist countries began to be promoted with greater energy. The Central Secretariat of the Communist Youth League under Hu Yaobang promoted the policy of ‘developing friendship, exchanging experiences’ when dealing with young people from Socialist countries, while focusing on issuing as many invitations as possible to pre-eminent figures, establishing relations among individuals, and striving to make still more friends when dealing with capitalist countries.Footnote 22 In February of the same year, a youth journal in English for external propaganda entitled ‘Evergreen’ (wan nianqing) was initiated.Footnote 23 Not by chance, on 6 March 1956, a notice issued by the Executive Committee of International Activities of the Beijing Chinese Communist Party Committee (which was sent to various local units such as the Beijing Women's Federation and the Communist Youth League Beijing Committee) explicitly stated that, ‘hereafter, the delegations from capitalist countries visiting China will be more numerous’.Footnote 24
At the same time, China's activism within Soviet-sponsored international initiatives increased significantly, reaching its apex in 1957, when the PRC participated in the Moscow World Youth Festival. International organizations and events provided the PRC with crucial avenues for establishing individual contacts with foreign (and Western) youth representatives and extending the party-government's external relations. Co-organized by both the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the International Union of Students, the biannual World Youth Festival was part of the Soviet-sponsored international campaign for peace and represented a ‘key event in the transnational cultural life of the socialist bloc’.Footnote 25 Yet, because they were attended by, among others, personalities from the cultural world and young delegates (mainly representing leftist groups) from the United States and Western Europe, they allowed young people from across the Eastern and Western blocs to meet and interact with their peers from developing world nations.Footnote 26 The 1957 Festival held in Moscow was the largest and most impressive ever, and was attended by 34,000 young people from 131 countries, representing diverse forces, movements, and organizations.Footnote 27 Indeed, it turned out to be an unusually open celebration, conceived of by the post-Stalin Soviet leadership as an important opportunity to project a new, peaceful image of the Soviet Union internationally and recoup some of the prestige lost after the Soviet military intervention in Hungary. It welcomed more non-Communist young Westerners than ever before and was attended for the first time by organizations such as the World Assembly of Youth, the International Federation of Catholic Youth, and the Young Men's and Women's Christian Associations, all of whom were asked to take part in the preparatory work for the Festival.Footnote 28
The Festival envisaged rallies, seminars, discussions, sports and artistic competitions as well as bilateral meetings, and welcomed almost 7,000 young people from France, West Germany, Great Britain, and Italy.Footnote 29 It provided Socialist China with a great opportunity for promoting cultural exchanges and projecting its image internationally. In point of fact, the PRC sent a 1,222-member delegation, the largest ever to attend this kind of public celebration.Footnote 30 This delegation was particularly active in conducting external propaganda and in establishing direct contacts with representatives of national youth organizations through bilateral meetings.Footnote 31 According to Zhu Liang, who left China as early as April 1957 to participate in the work of the preparatory international committee, the Chinese delegation had 67 bilateral meetings with delegations from more than 80 countries, during which they staged artistic performances, talked about their peaceful and friendly aspirations, exchanged ideas on common problems encountered by young people, introduced achievements in the construction of the new China and showed their support for the anti-colonial struggle and the achievement of national independence to the delegations from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.Footnote 32
The general task assigned to the delegation was broad and multi-faceted: to consolidate China's unity with the Soviet Union and with the Socialist countries guided by the Soviet Union, to support the youth from newly independent and colonial countries, and to establish friendship with young people from capitalist countries.Footnote 33 Yet, Zhu Liang also remembers that Chinese participation was influenced by the political difficulties faced by the Soviet leadership at that time, not only because of the 1956 events in Hungary and Poland which had led to a wave of anti-communism and to a hostile attitude towards the Soviet Union in the West, but also because of the attempted coup against Khrushchev that had taken place in June of 1957. Zhu Liang was asked by the secretary of the Soviet Komsomol to convey to Chinese authorities that the Soviets wanted China to send a large delegation to demonstrate Sino-Soviet unity and to cooperate with the Soviet Union by ensuring that the Festival was a success. At the same time, Zhu Liang was instructed by Chinese leaders to guard against any action that could sow discord in its relations with the Soviet Union and to investigate the composition of foreign delegations that might be invited to China soon afterwards.Footnote 34 After the Festival, the Fourth Congress of the World Federation of Democratic Youth was held. In his speech, Hu Yaobang stressed that the principle of ‘seeking common ground while accepting existing differences’ was at the basis of peaceful cooperation between the World Federation of Democratic Youth and youth with different political opinions and among various national youth groups.Footnote 35
In September 1957, nearly 900 young people and students from more than 30 countries (including the United States) who had taken part in the Moscow celebration were invited to visit the PRC. Attracted by a free trip to an exotic and forbidden place, a group of young Americans went to China despite opposition from the American government, which seized their passports upon their return to the United States.Footnote 36 During their stay, they were received by Zhou Enlai, who called them ‘the pioneers in opening the contacts between the people of the two countries’.Footnote 37 Covered as it was by the Chinese press and receiving worldwide attention, this visit became one of the most publicized cases of people-to-people contact between China and the West in China's diplomatic and propaganda strategies. Through these invitations, the Chinese government aimed to project to the world the image of a country open to and supporting exchanges with the people of all nations, irrespective of the position of their own governments. In other words, participation in left-wing international events allowed China's youth organizations to increase their contacts with Western youth, contributing effectively to ‘breaking the seal off of the West towards the New China’.Footnote 38
Bilateral contacts and exchanges of delegations between the PRC and youth groups in Italy
After the end of the Korean War, people-to-people diplomacy provided the framework within which China increased its efforts to promote informal political, trade, and cultural exchanges with Western Europe. Its cultural strategy towards countries such as Italy was based on the promotion of China's image through the invitation of intellectuals, experts, and students, as well as public figures who had a political role. While participation in the activities of the World Peace Committee and its related organizations had provided important opportunities for Sino-European contacts from the early days of the PRC, at the national level, political parties from the left often played a crucial role in facilitating exchanges and awakening their members and society at large to China's importance for peaceful international change. In Italy, the left—the Italian Communist Party and the Italian Socialist Party—actually represented the driving force in unofficial relations between Italy and China in the 1950s.Footnote 39 As the major Communist party in Europe, the Italian Communist Party in particular remained an important point of reference for broader Sino-Italian relations up until the early 1960s when relationships between Communist parties cooled down, inevitably influenced by the developments taking place within the world Communist movement.Footnote 40 Cooperation in the realms of propaganda, economics, and culture was mainly coordinated by the Italian Communist Party, whose presence also facilitated the founding of cultural and friendship associations. A case in point in this regard is the Centre for the Development of Economic and Cultural Relations with China, which played a significant role in making Italian political institutions, companies, and public opinion more generally aware of the importance of recognizing the new China.Footnote 41
In many ways, the Italian Communist Party was also fundamental in developing youth exchanges. In fact, early youth interactions between Italy and Socialist China took different forms but mainly involved students (allied to the Italian Communist Party) as well as members and leaders of adult-led youth political organizations. The first group of Italian students went to China to study at Peking University in 1957, thanks to the scholarships offered by the Chinese government under agreements with both the Italian Communist Party and the abovementioned Centre for the Development of Economic and Cultural Relations with China.Footnote 42 Sporting events also provided opportunities for interactions, the most prominent example being the World Games of University Sport (Universiade) which took place in Turin in the summer of 1959. At the request of the Italian organizing committee, the PRC participated in the Games, sending a delegation guided by Wen Chi.Footnote 43 In 1960, a delegation of Italian students in the Soviet Union was invited by the All-China Students Federation to visit China between 29 July and 23 August. This visit was followed by a similar delegation that travelled to Beijing later in the summer of 1961. These visits involved members of the Italian Communist Party (or its youth organization) and took place within the framework of the agreements developed by the Chinese and Italian Communist parties.Footnote 44
During the 1950s, politically committed young people who belonged to party-affiliated youth groups also had the opportunity to visit the PRC and interact with its young people. The Italian Communist Youth Federation, the Italian Communist Party's junior partner, provided a privileged channel of exchange with Chinese youth through both bilateral contacts and participation in Communist-led international coordination bodies. The organization was actively involved in foreign affairs, as proven by a 1955 national document entitled ‘The Youth Initiative for a Foreign Policy of Independence and Peace’ which stated the importance of having every youth movement assume a position on the problems of Italian foreign policy. It called on young people to favour initiatives that would lead to peace and friendship across blocs and for the development of East–West economic and cultural exchanges. According to this document, national interests required the establishment of a new basis of cooperation and friendship regarding Italy's relations with the Socialist world. It also urged the establishment of diplomatic relations with the PRC, affirming the importance of sending delegations that represented all Italian youth to China to agree on the most suitable means for strengthening the ties of friendship among the peoples of both nations.Footnote 45
By then, early contacts between the Italian Communist Youth Federation and its Chinese counterpart, the Communist Youth League, had already been developed. In 1953, Ugo Pecchioli, a 28-year-old anti-fascist partisan, then member of the National Secretariat of the Italian Communist Youth Federation, was sent to Beijing to attend the Second National Congress of the New Democratic Youth League (the forerunner of the Communist Youth League). He remained in China for almost a month (20 June–18 July).Footnote 46 He travelled across the country, visiting important cities (such as Mukden [Shenyang], Fushun, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Shanghai), and had conversations with Hu Yaobang who, by Pecchioli's account, spoke frankly about the variety and complexity of the problems China was facing in the countryside in its march towards socialism. Pecchioli returned to Italy, reporting a positive image of the new China and stressing the importance of land reform, which he called ‘a document of political wisdom and humanity’ and the extraordinary qualities of the Chinese people. ‘I think,’ he wrote in the Italian Communist Party's official newspaper l'Unità, ‘that one of the greatest [qualities] is their capacity to be forward-looking, to be patient, to carefully avoid rushed decisions that can lead to serious mistakes.’Footnote 47 Pecchioli described an image of a people united in overcoming emergencies and poverty, of smiling children, of a mass of young people strenuously working to counter the inundation of the Huai River.Footnote 48 In the course of his tour, Pecchioli recorded the voices and ideas of the Chinese he met and praised the establishment of the PRC for having given an entire country new opportunities. Shanghai gave him the impression of a city that was changing its image, leaving behind the old days of imperialist corruption, chaos, and oppression. He noticed, for example, that Chinese workers now enjoyed better material conditions, and that modern transportation was starting to replace old-style rickshaws which, nonetheless, remained the main means of transportation. Yet, in the city centre he saw nightclubs frequented by ‘individuals hardened in corruption, small bootlickers and prostitutes who felt the nostalgia of the past days when a corrupted system provided them with many resources’.Footnote 49 Mukden was perceived and recorded as a busy and significantly modern town, where rickshaws had practically disappeared and had been replaced by modern means of transportation. During a visit to a metallurgical factory, he met the director, a young engineer, who expressed his admiration for the Italian Fiat and told him ‘one day Italian and Chinese workers and technicians will meet and work for each other; that day should not be far’.Footnote 50
By presenting to Italian readers the image of a country reborn as a result of revolution and which could be appreciated for the spirit and extraordinary qualities of its people, his accounts, albeit undoubtedly influenced by an ideological affinity, contributed to the diffusion of a positive image of the new China in Italy. These accounts also served Beijing's propaganda needs, which, in the following years, would increase efforts aimed at shaping public opinion and forging the image of China abroad through its cultural diplomacy programmes. Indeed, once they were back in Italy, many visitors would somehow themselves become conduits of Chinese people's diplomacy/propaganda, producing publications that generally described the achievements of the revolution and the construction of socialism in China in a positive way, while also appreciating Chinese culture and traditions.Footnote 51
This positive image contrasted with the representation of Italy in Chinese official journals such as World Affairs (Shijie zhishi) which, in line with political and ideological alignments and official propaganda, tended to emphasize the negative aspects such as Italy's subordination to the United States, imperialist oppression, poverty, and widespread underdevelopment.Footnote 52 An interview with Pecchioli, which appeared in this journal during his visit, was not an exception. This interview covered issues such as Italy's post-war domestic political situation and socio-economic conditions as well as the Italian Communist Youth Federation's struggle for the rights of young people, and for peace and national independence. Pecchioli talked about post-1945 political changes in Italy, reporting on the 1947 ousting of Communists and Socialists from the government and the subsequent decision of the republican government to ally itself with the United States. Particular attention was paid to the economic and social rights of the youth in the context of a post-war Italy beset by heavy unemployment and inflation. Pecchioli discussed young workers’ low wages as well as the backwardness of the countryside and the difficulties children and young people from the lower strata of society, especially in the South, had accessing education.Footnote 53
In 1957 (four years later), exchanges of delegations took place on the occasions of the national congresses of both the Communist Youth League and the Italian Communist Youth Federation. A three-member Chinese delegation from the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, guided by Yang Haibo, travelled to Italy between 16 June and 12 July, as they had been invited by the Italian Communist Youth Federation to attend its Fifteenth Congress (Bologna, 20–23 June).Footnote 54 This event was attended by many foreign delegations as well as by national leaders from the Italian Communist Party, including Togliatti and Pajetta, a member of the Italian Communist Party National Secretariat.Footnote 55 During the official banquet, the Chinese delegation had a brief conversation with Togliatti, the national secretary,Footnote 56 from whom they got the impression (later reported to China's higher authorities) that the Italian Communist Party attached great importance to the experience of the Chinese Communist Party and the thought of Mao Zedong, a part of whose works had already been published in Italian.Footnote 57 In fact, despite ideological divergences (which would soon emerge) between the Italian Communist Party and the Chinese Communist Party (and which would lead to the development of differentiated positions), Italian Communist leaders had a largely positive opinion of the Chinese revolution because of its peculiarities. They appreciated the way in which the Chinese Communist Party leaders had defended the autonomy of the Party and sought distinctive features in their revolutionary action.Footnote 58 This judgement seemed consistent with Togliatti's commitment in the mid-1950s to set the so-called ‘Italian road to socialism’ (which was at the core of the Italian Communist Party's renewal) within the framework of a broader search for national roads to socialism which differed from the model provided by the Soviet Union.
The Chinese delegation then embarked on a tour across Italy, visiting several cities (including Milan, Rome, and Naples, and smaller towns such as Empoli) and attending mass meetings and conferences. According to a report the delegation submitted to the Central Secretariat of the Communist Youth League upon returning to China, the delegation spoke warmly of the achievements of the construction of the new China, replying to the questions Italians seemed particularly interested in such as the nationalization of industry, the peaceful liberation of Taiwan, the Hundred Flowers Movement, rural collectivization, workers’ living conditions, and women's emancipation. During the visit, the delegation observed and commented favourably on Communist administration at the local level and gathered information on the Italian Communist Party's and Italian Communist Youth Federation's organization and influence on the Italian people and youth. They were particularly interested in the difficulties of Communist penetration within the school system and among the students, as well as in the Italian Communist Youth Federation's efforts to mobilize and unite all young people under the ideal of opposing atomic weapons. The delegation met and had general conversations with representatives of other Party-affiliated youth organizations (such as the Italian Socialist Party, the Italian Socialist Democratic Party, and the Christian Democrats), all of whom, according to the report, were interested in the China question and expressed the hope that they would be able to visit China in the near future. The delegation also toured a few factories and met with some Italian small businessmen interested in the Chinese market, claiming to favour the strengthening of both commercial and cultural ties between the two countries. At the end of the visit, the Secretariat of the Italian Communist Youth Federation expressed its wish to strengthen political and cultural ties between Italian and Chinese youth. It placed a journalist from Nuova Generazione, the Italian Communist Youth Federation's official mouthpiece, in Beijing, and sent a delegation representative of all Italian youth to China.Footnote 59
This case exemplified the far-reaching scope of the delegation's visit, which involved many activities that went beyond forging relations between Communist forces. It envisaged setting up contacts with young people affiliated with both governing and opposing parties as well as prominent leaders of the Italian left. The Chinese youth delegation also met with Pietro Nenni, the national secretary of the Italian Socialist Party (who was reported to have addressed the delegation with a slightly cold attitude).Footnote 60 Two years earlier, Pietro Nenni had been invited by Zhou Enlai, the Chinese prime minister, to visit China. The choice of Nenni fell within the Chinese diplomatic strategy and was most probably due to his interest in China and recognition of its importance for peaceful international change, and also to the fact that the Italian Socialists were closer to the government than the Communists and were thus in a more favourable position to eventually press for recognition of the PRC.Footnote 61
According to the evidence gathered thus far, contact with the leaders of the Italian Socialist youth mainly developed in the mid-1950s: bilateral exchange of delegations took place in 1957–1958 in the wake of the Moscow Youth Festival in which Emo Egoli participated as vice-president of the Preparatory International Committee and national secretary of the Italian Socialist Youth Movement. In October of 1957, on behalf of the Italian Socialist Party's Central Youth Commission, Egoli sent a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China to invite Chinese delegates to the upcoming Seventh Congress of the Italian Socialist Youth Movement to be held in Salerno from 12–15 December. As a result, Qian Liren, vice-director of the International Liaison Department of the Communist Youth League Central Committee, travelled to Italy at the end of the year.Footnote 62
The international activities of the Socialist Youth Movement increased over the following year, and on the basis of bilateral agreements, a few delegations were sent to the Soviet Union and other Socialist countries, including the PRC.Footnote 63 A three-member delegation guided by Emo Egoli, who had just been replaced by Vincenzo Balzamo as national secretary of the Italian Socialist Youth Movement, visited China in the summer of 1958 (26 June–2 August) with the hope of strengthening Italian Socialist youth relations with the PRC.Footnote 64 The delegation arrived in Beijing and was received by, among others, Liu Xiyuan, then president of the All-China Youth Federation and central secretary of the Communist Youth League.Footnote 65 After visiting Beijing, they travelled across the country (Henan, Jiangsu, Shanghai, among other cities), left China for a short visit to North Korea, and then went back to Shenyang and visited Dalian and Anshan. From the archival sources that have been accessed so far, it seems that the Chinese authorities were well informed about Italian domestic politics, including the divergences between the Italian Socialist and Communist parties on international issues (for example, on the meaning of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and on the Soviet's repressive action in Hungary) and about the relations between the Italian Socialist Youth Movement and the Communist youth.Footnote 66
As the first delegation of the Italian Socialist Youth Movement to be invited to the PRC, the Chinese youth leaders attached particular importance to organizing the visit and satisfying the delegates’ requests (to the best of their ability), with the aim of providing them with a good impression of China's current Socialist construction, the extraordinary revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses, and the advantages of the Socialist system.Footnote 67 For example, instructions sent by the national leadership of the Communist Youth League to lower level committees on how to deal with Italians arriving in Shenyang from North Korea required the local cadres to induce them to observe and admire the scope and speed of the development of heavy industry, the Soviet Union's disinterested help, as well as the workers’ good living conditions.Footnote 68 The Italian visitors were positively impressed by their tour of the PRC; in an article published upon his return to Italy in the Socialist Youth's paper La Conquista, Emo Egoli wrote: ‘The Chinese people is united and aware of its tomorrow. And every people that has great goals and an astonishing hurry of self-improvement, cannot but be a great people whose destinies are clearly marked.’Footnote 69
Initiatives of the World Federation of Democratic Youth and Bernini's travels to China
The World Federation of Democratic Youth was created in 1945 in London to establish cooperation among international youth for the defence of peace and peoples’ independence. Upon the outbreak of the Cold War, however, it soon became a ‘front organization’ with a political character subordinated to the Soviet propaganda machine. The International Union of Students, founded in 1946 in Prague, suffered a similar fate.Footnote 70 As such, both organizations ended up being dominated by Communists, even though they operated in ways that differed from the Soviet-sponsored Communist Youth International (1919–1943) and references to communism were generally avoided in favour of ‘new slogans calling for democracy, peace and friendship’.Footnote 71 These slogans transcended national differences and had the potential to appeal to many people who, in the wake of the Second World War, wished for a peaceful world. By the early 1950s, the World Federation of Democratic Youth was already a large organization: its membership grew from 30 million young people representing 65 countries in 1945 to 83 million young people from 90 countries in 1953.Footnote 72
As early as September–October 1950, the World Federation of Democratic Youth undertook an important initiative to honour the successes and the victory of the Chinese people and youth, and to show solidarity with the world's youth, not just in their work of constructing a ‘new China’, but also in their struggle against American aggression and imperialism in East Asia. The Cold War had already become ‘hot’ on the Korean peninsula and the PRC was sending its first troops in support of the North Koreans. An international delegation composed of 42 delegates from 32 countries (the Soviet Union, people's democracies, capitalist countries, and colonial and semi-colonial countries)—the largest ever organized since the founding of the federation—led by Enrico Boccara, an Italian anti-fascist partisan member of the executive committee of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, was sent to China and allowed to travel across the country. After a 40-day tour, but before leaving the country, the delegation addressed a message to the United Nations asking them to recognize the PRC as the only genuine representative of the Chinese people.Footnote 73
The activities of the World Federation of Democratic Youth provided many foreign youth representatives, who would eventually assume leadership positions in the future, with a rare opportunity to establish early contacts with Chinese youth leaders and to visit Socialist China. Included here are the young Italian Communist leaders, Enrico BerlinguerFootnote 74 and Bruno Bernini who, as presidents of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (from 1950 to 1953 and from 1953 to 1959, respectively), would develop a passion for international issues and worked side by side with youth leaders of different countries at very early stages in their careers. These early contacts would later lead to concrete results. For example, at the beginning of 1979, when the Chinese Communist Party laid the basis for resuming its relations with the Italian Communist Party after 16 years of interruption, Wu Xueqian, deputy director of the Chinese Communist Party's External Liaison Department, was chosen as the most suitable person to be sent to Rome to secretly meet his Italian counterpart. He was chosen because of his youthful experience with the World Federation of Democratic Youth, where he got to know and work with Enrico Berlinguer, who had since become the national secretary of the Italian Communist Party.Footnote 75 Their first contact was most probably provided by the World Federation of Democratic Youth Executive Committee (Bucharest, 17–21 January 1950) in which Berlinguer participated as president of the National Youth Alliance of the popular democratic front (composed of both Communists and Socialists) and Wu Xueqian as the Chinese representative of the newly founded Communist Youth League of the PRC.Footnote 76 Both Enrico BerlinguerFootnote 77 and Bruno Bernini also developed personal contacts with Hu Yaobang, who in July 1953 was elected vice-president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth in Bucharest.Footnote 78 It is to Bernini's experience that we now turn our attention, as he also had the opportunity, as president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, to visit China twice in the mid-1950s. During these visits he formed an impression of China as a dynamic and open country, whose weight and importance to the international balance of power could not be neglected.
An anti-fascist partisan from Livorno, Bernini joined the Italian Communist Party in 1943 and, a few years later (after the end of the Second World War), became a member of the National Secretariat of the Youth Front. In 1950, he joined the reorganized Italian Communist Youth Federation, working side by side with Enrico Berlinguer. In 1953, he was appointed president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (despite initial resistance from the Soviet Komsomol, which supported the French candidate), after which (until 1959) he worked and lived in Budapest, where the Federation's headquarters were located.Footnote 79
Following the death of Stalin in 1953, the International Union of Students and, to a lesser extent, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, tried to emerge from their isolation and to formulate a more moderate policy aimed at broadening their membership and influence among the world's youth (especially among youth from the newly independent states in Asia, Africa, and Latin America) and attracting non-Communist youth groups.Footnote 80 After his appointment, Bernini strove to make the World Federation of Democratic Youth more open and pluralistic, to represent and foster cooperation among different youth organizations (not just Communists) for the benefit of world peace. He was well aware that such a dialogue about and collaboration in the struggle for peace against colonialism, aggression, and violence required the World Federation of Democratic Youth to overcome any ‘partisan’ political conception and to reduce the prominent role of the Communist youth organizations. While not welcomed by the Soviet representatives (Komsomol), this reorientation of policy was nonetheless supported by Chinese leaders, who were at that time increasing their efforts to open a dialogue with Western Europe and to create a more favourable international environment for China's development and transition to socialism. From their perspective, it was possible that these leftist international youth organizations might provide an important network for establishing contacts with young people from both Western Europe and the newly independent countries of the developing world. Working side by side with Chinese representatives gave Bernini the opportunity to gain more knowledge of China's approach to and conception of international relations, and allowed him to appreciate what he would define as ‘a conception of friendship and internationalism, heavily anchored to the respect for the principles of autonomy and national sovereignty’.Footnote 81
On 9–15 August 1954, an important international meeting was held in China:Footnote 82 263 people from 68 countries, including representatives of affiliated youth organizations as well as observers and guests of different political persuasions, gathered in Beijing to participate in the work of the Council of the World Federation of Democratic Youth. This meeting called for peace and the easing of international tensions, the strengthening of the struggle of the world's youth and their unity against colonialism, and an improvement in the living conditions of the young of newly independent countries in the developing world.Footnote 83 In his report entitled ‘The Youth Movement of Colonial and Under-Developed Countries for Their Rights, National Independence and Peace’, Bruno Bernini said that the establishment of the PRC had been a fact of historical importance (a ‘shock for the colonialist world’).Footnote 84 He also emphasized the significance of the Council being held in Beijing, the capital of a people whose victory and endeavour provided an example and inspiration for the countries that were experiencing the moment of decolonization.Footnote 85 Hu Yaobang delivered a congratulatory and rhetorical speech entitled ‘Chinese Youth and the World Youth Forever Friends’ (Zhongguo qingnian he shijie qingnian yongyuan youhao), emphasizing that the only way to ensure the rights and interests of young people and a glorious future for them was to oppose American imperialism and to gain peace and national independence. In his speech, he also stressed that different convictions, beliefs, and aspirations existed among young people, but that all youth were pure and enthusiastic, and no discrimination and hate should exist among them.Footnote 86
It was in fact the first time that a Council was held in Asia; its focus was to be on the problems encountered by the youth movements in colonial and dependent countries, and observers from non-affiliated organizations were in attendance. The choice of Beijing was mainly due to recent developments in the national liberation movements in colonial countries and, especially, a result of the Geneva Conference on Korea and Indochina, which had brought Asian countries to the centre of world attention and, at the same time, greatly enhanced the international prestige of the new China.Footnote 87 For the PRC, hosting such a large international meeting, involving not just plenary sessions but also mass rallies and get-togethers, was an opportunity to enhance its international image and to attract the sympathy and support of the youth of both Western and developing world countries. In fact, Bernini observed that Chinese leaders had demonstrated an awareness of the backwardness and serious problems still facing the country and, thus, of the need to search for broader international solidarity and friendship. In his words:
For me, it was the first World Council in which I participated as President and it was the first time that an important meeting of the WFDY [World Federation of Democratic Youth] was held in the People's Republic of China. I remember that we were received with large youth demonstrations; then, the unforgettable visits to Monuments and historical sites in Beijing—in particular, the Imperial Palace and the Great Wall; and at last, the tours in the most decayed areas of the city, with so many people, women and children, who lived in shanties in conditions of backwardness beyond words: this in order that we understood—Hu Yao Ban told me—the enormous endeavour of reconstruction and development ‘the new China was striving for’.Footnote 88
Bernini's work was appreciated by Chinese leaders, especially because of the crucial role he played in mediating and reaching a consensus between the different positions of the Chinese and Soviet representatives on the priorities of youth in the developing world. His contribution attracted the attention of the young Hu Yaobang, with whom he established a relationship of mutual respect. Bernini's ideas regarding the World Federation of Democratic Youth's renewal and openness were also appreciated and supported by the Chinese Communist Party's older leaders with whom he was able to talk. For instance, during a meeting he had with Zhou Enlai, then minister of foreign affairs and premier of the PRC—a man he later remembered as ‘extraordinarily affable’—Bernini was first reassured that China's Communist Youth League fully supported the World Federation of Democratic Youth's policy of openness. Then, the conversation touched upon issues related to the experience of the united front among the youth in Italy, and the Italian Communist Party's contribution to world communism, with Zhou Enlai praising Togliatti for his great contribution to overcoming Communist isolationism or sectarianism at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, held in the summer of 1935.Footnote 89
Later, in the autumn of 1956, Bernini returned to China as part of an international joint youth delegation and met with Mao Zedong, who also expressed his support for the renewal of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, thereby opposing the idea of a federation that was a rough copy of the Cominform. In a world divided into political and military blocs, he was reported to be in favour of transforming the World Federation of Democratic Youth into an organization that would unite Communist youth with all those youth movements in the capitalist world which, despite not aspiring to socialism, did not agree with American domination and wanted to affirm the autonomy of their people and safeguard world peace. Deng Xiaoping, then secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party, also met with and spoke to the delegation on 17 November. As Bernini reported in his autobiography, Deng Xiaoping replied to criticism by a British delegate of China's limited conception of freedom by stating that ‘China, like every country, has its particular internal rule, related to current difficulties’ and ‘today the essential thing—internationally—was not the concern over internal limits of other countries but rather the cooperation based on mutual respect and interest’, so as ‘to overcome the backwardness and facilitate the progress of every people’, and ‘this is the meaning of our government's international commitment, aimed at developing relations of collaboration and exchange with every country, that, besides being of mutual interests—is also decisive ‘to overcome prejudices and build world peace!’.Footnote 90
Bernini attended these meetings in Beijing as the leader of an international joint delegation that visited China for one month in October/November, at a time when the Hundred Flowers Movement was unfolding in the country and the Soviet repression in Hungary was taking place. The delegation was invited by the Communist Youth League as part of a series of initiatives that were undertaken by the Chinese to overcome the divergences that were emerging with the Soviets within the international Communist movement. At the same time, the initiative was aimed at facilitating collaboration between the World Federation of Democratic Youth and European non-Communist youth organizations.Footnote 91 As the British delegate, Michael Croft, founder of the National Youth Theatre, wrote soon after his visit, for the Communist leaders of the World Federation of Democratic Youth ‘it was a major prestige effort, [. . .] to gather under one roof “all shades of religious and political opinion”’. For this reason, ‘Bernini did not wish to be regarded as leader of the delegation nor to let it be thought that the delegation was in any way tied to the W.F.D.Y. [World Federation of Democratic Youth].’Footnote 92 According to Qian Liren, the initiative of inviting an international youth delegation benefited China's collaboration with the World Federation of Democratic Youth and broadened its external relations. With the exception of a minority of representatives from organizations affiliated to the World Federation of Democratic Youth, the 33-member delegation included young people who were not members of any organization as well as members of non-affiliated organizations of different political opinions or independent organizations from both Western capitalist countries and Asian and African nations. These included, for example, representatives of international and national Christian youth organizations who, despite being sceptical about the Federation and seeing it as ‘the tool of the Soviet group to infiltrate the West’, were curious to visit Socialist China. For China, it was a great opportunity to impress Western delegates, in particular with its great achievements and to make them realize China's weight and importance as a world power. As Qian Liren put it, ‘without the mutual cooperation between China and the World Federation of Democratic Youth, it might have been very difficult to form such a largely representative delegation at that time’.Footnote 93
Thanks to his active international commitment as president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, Bernini thus visited China twice, obtaining a recognition and appreciation of important Chinese leaders with whom he maintained contact in the years that followed. In the early 1980s, for instance, Hu Yaobang, then secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party, received Bernini and his family warmly in Beijing for an informal private visit which proved how past experiences and contacts had turned into enduring bonds of friendship and mutual respect.Footnote 94 According to Antonio Rubbi's memoir, in the 1980s—when relations between Communist parties had been resumed—Hu Yaobang never missed an opportunity to invite both Ugo Pecchioli and Bruno Bernini to China. At the end of every meeting among party representatives, he used to ask the Italians to tell Pecchioli and Bernini he wished to see them.Footnote 95
His travels to China in the 1950s also left Bernini with a profound impression both of the country and the potential of the PRC to contribute to peaceful international change. As he put it:
From those travels in China, from the unforgettable experiences I made—of an immense people, exhausted by backwardness and poverty from which it was determined to free itself—and from the relations I had with the leaders of the youth and the Party—Hu Yao Ban, Ciu En Lay and Die Xiao Pin—I got convinced not only of the importance of the contribution that would have come to the World Federation of Democratic Youth renewal, but also of the important contribution that the new China would have made to the development of new relations of international collaboration and, especially, between the industrialized North and the Countries of the Third World, crucial for both the progress of the peoples and the world peace.Footnote 96
Conclusions
This article has explored links and interconnections between Chinese and Italian young people in their role as political actors participating in adult-led organizations, both at the national and international levels. The evidence gathered and examples provided above show that the contacts established in this period involved young people who were affiliated with left-wing youth groups, and mainly developed as an extension of party-to-party relations. At the same time, it took the case of the World Federation of Democratic Youth to show that transnational, Soviet-influenced youth organizations provided important occasions for China's international projection, and for establishing personal ties between young leaders who, years later, would emerge as pre-eminent political figures at the national level.
These visits/exchanges, albeit very limited in numbers, allowed a few Italians to experience the ‘Other,’ acknowledge the importance and weight of China for a peaceful international change, and build personal contacts with the leaders of China's youth who, in the 1980s, would assume national high-level leadership positions within the party and the government apparatus.
This article also shows how in the 1950s, peace and friendship were encouraged by the PRC who sought common ground with the youth from countries with different political systems and ideologies. Young people were given particular attention as pioneers of the Socialist construction of the new China and were conceived of as a group that was particularly well suited to promoting the PRC's international contacts and projecting a peaceful image of China abroad at a time when, following the end of the Korean War, the PRC was increasing its efforts to establish an enduring dialogue with Western Europe.
A decade later, Chinese youth would become the symbol of rebellion against authority and Mao's Cultural Revolution would inspire student movements in the West. In the wake of the Sino-Soviet split, the Italian Communist Party would no longer serve as the main channel of exchange between the two countries and China would attempt to reach out and organize contacts with newly emergent pro-Maoist actors, which provided new vehicles for disseminating China's ideological propaganda within Italian society. While many intellectuals, experts, and students who had been living in China in the late 1950s would play a significant role in increasing people's knowledge of Chinese politics and the subsequent development of Maoism in Italy, the impact of the experiences and accounts of pro-Maoist groups by the first young Italian visitors mentioned in this article and their knowledge about Socialist China in the 1960s remains a question for further investigation.
