The soldier Lussu was born in
Armungia,
province of Cagliari (
Sardinia) and graduated with a degree in law in 1914. Lussu married
Joyce Salvadori, a notable poet, and member of the noble Paleotti family of the
Marche, who were counts of
Fermo. Prior to the entry of Italy into
World War I, Lussu joined the army and was involved in several skirmishes. As a complementary officer of the
Brigade "Sassari" in 1916 he was stationed on the
Asiago Plateau. The brigade had arrived on the plateau in May 1916 to help in the Italian effort to stop the Austrian
Spring offensive. In the month of June 1916 the brigade conquered
Monte Fior,
Monte Castelgomberto,
Monte Spil,
Monte Miela and
Monte Zebio. After the war Lussu published the novel "
One Year on the High Plateau" (''Un anno sull'altipiano
) about his experiences of trench warfare on the Asiago Plateau. The 1970 movie Many Wars Ago'' ("Uomini contro") by
Francesco Rosi is based on this book.
Politics and exile After the war Lussu, together with
Camillo Bellieni, founded the
Partidu Sardu-''Partito Sardo d'Azione'' (
Sardinian Action Party), that blended social-democratic values and
Sardinian nationalism. The party took a formal position in 1921, opposing the increasing power of the
Fascist movement. Lussu was elected to the Italian parliament in 1921 and, in 1924 was among the
Aventine secessionists who withdrew from the Italian Parliament after the murder of
Giacomo Matteotti. Lussu's anti-Fascist position was, at the time, one of the most radical in Italy. Lussu was physically attacked and injured by unknown aggressors several times. In 1926, during one of these attacks (notably, the same day that
Benito Mussolini suffered an attack in
Bologna), Lussu shot one of the
squadristi (italian blackshirts), in self-defense. He was arrested and tried, being found non-guilty due to the right to self defense, only to be later sentenced (due to fascist political interference) to 5 years of confinement on the island of
Lipari, within the
Aeolian Islands near the northern coast of
Sicily. In 1929 Lussu escaped from his confinement and reached Paris. There, together with
Gaetano Salvemini,
Carlo Rosselli,
Riccardo Bauer,
Ernesto Rossi and other anti-fascist refugees he founded
Giustizia e Libertà (Justice and Freedom), an anti-Fascist movement that proposed revolutionary methods to upset the
Italian Fascist Regime. While in exile, he came to be known as "Mister Mills". In 1938, Lussu's novel "
One Year on the High Plateau" (''Un anno sull'altipiano'') was published in Paris. This thinly fictional account tells of the lives of soldiers during World War I and the trench warfare they encountered.
One Year on the High Plateau underlines, with chill rationalism, how the irrationalities of warfare affected the common man. Gifted with a keen sense of observation and sharp logic, Lussu demonstrates how distant the real life of soldiers is from everyday activities. In a notable passage, he describes the silent terror in the moments preceding an attack, as he is forced to abandon the "safe" protective
trench for an external unknown, risky, undefined world: "All the machine-guns are waiting for us".
Return to Italy Lussu took part in the
civil war in Spain. Between 1941 and 1942 he was the protagonist of the most important "episode" of the collaboration between British
Special Operations Executive and Italian antifascism in exile. He tried to get the clearance for an antifascist uprising in his home island of
Sardinia, which the SOE supported at some stage but did not receive approval from the
Foreign Office. He returned to Italy after the
armistice of 1943 when joined the
Italian Resistance and became the secretary of the
Sardinian Action Party for southern Italy. He became the leader of the left wing of the party and later joined forces with the
Italian Socialist Party (PSI). After World War II he served as the
Minister for Post-War Assistance in the government of
Ferruccio Parri and later as a minister without portfolio in
Alcide De Gasperi's government. In 1964 Lussu separated from the PSI, creating the
Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP). Ideological differences with the political line of ''Partito Sardo d'Azione'' deepened and Lussu left Sardinia. Emilio Lussu died in Rome in 1975. ==Works==