By Mario Bozzi Sentieri
Attending, in Busseto, at the inauguration of an exhibition dedicated to “Giovannino Guareschi photographer”, Stefano Bonaccini, president of the Emilia-Romagna Region, as well as a leading exponent of the Democratic Party, he declared: “Reviving the memory of Guareschi through his works is a tribute to those who knew him and, above all, for the younger ones, who can find ideas and reflections that are still current in his characters. Guareschi is one of the most versatile minds of our land. A multifaceted figure in his own way, which still deserves to be explored even further".
Bonaccini's is the last step in the "customs clearance" process, left, of the author of Don Camillo, which is worth it point out, in memory above all of those young people to whom the president of Emilia-Romagna is addressing.

There was a time, Indeed, not even that far away, in which what is now considered "one of the most multifaceted minds of our land" received from Palmiro Togliatti, the top leader of the Italian Communist Party, il unappealing brand of "thrice idiot", while “Unity”, organ of the PCI itself, on the occasion of the death of the author of Don Camillo, in July 1968, he archived it with an infamous title: “The writer who never existed has died”. Still at the beginning of the 1980s, Adolfo Chiesa, on the pages of the communist “Country Evening”, spoke with disgust at the reprint of “Don Camillo”: “We hold the volume in our hands yes, but only with the tips of the fingers and at a considerable distance from the face as if to avoid getting dirty. Something similar happens when we pick up a newspaper on the street to quickly read something, but let's not forget the feeling of filth that that newspaper inevitably brings with it". And down, towards Guareschi, the inevitable accusation – good for all seasons – of having been the animator of the weekly "Candido", mirror of the most backward and fascist bourgeoisie, "scurrilous" expression against workers' rights and in defense - verbatim - of the arrogance of the bosses.
The role played weighed on Guareschi, In the 1948, during the political elections, authentic anti-communist referendum, to whom ours offered the weapons of his own creativity, fixed in the slogan, gone down in history: “In the secret of the urn God sees you, Stalin no !”, and remarked, for decades, from his catchphrase cartoons “Absolute blind ready obedience” against the “Trinariciuto” communist
a kind of orangutan dressed as a man, equipped with a third nostril (“the third hole was necessary to release all the smoke in his brain”, explained Guareschi), grappling with bizarre directives given by the party newspaper, caused by a banal typo.
You have to wait 1990 for reverse. Giovannino has been gone for twenty years, but his films continue to excite audiences, while the editions of his books find publishers halfway around the world. On the other hand, the Wall fell a year ago, dragging with it the fate of communism. Here then is Chiesa himself throw his “counter-order comrades” , reporting (in “Political satire in Italy”) the placing of figures like Guareschi on the "Index of left-wing culture"., looked at with suspicion by an environment that - in the words of the Church - he preferred, for the good of the cause, the artist who does cry.
In the 1994, in a climate of general ideological disintegration of what had been the strongest communist party in the West, there is even – thanks to Michele Serra – the distribution of “Don Camillo” with the satirical weekly “Cuore”, born from an offshoot of “l’Unità”. In that context, Serra goes so far as to state that Guareschi belongs neither to the right nor to the left, but to everyone, like the great writers, re-evaluating in a Pasolini way its anti-bourgeois populism and peasant identity.
In short, the usual "progressive" technique to save both goats and cabbages, counting on the amnesia of the masses and the good heart of a culture ready to forgive everything. However, it is Guareschi who emerges victorious, his works, his vision of life and the world. We are obviously very happy with his "customs clearance" to the left, con, good last one, an exponent of the party heir to Togliatism. A little self-criticism wouldn't hurt though. Unlike in the past (communist) there is no firing squad awaiting the "traitors" of the Cause.

SOURCE: http://www.barbadillo.it/78859-il-caso-contrordine-compagni-la-sinistra-scopre-e-riabilita-il-genio-di-giovanni-guareschi/