Italian Unionist Movement

The Italian Unionist Movement (Movimento Unionista Italiano) was an Italian political party briefly in action just after the end of World War II. The goal of the party was the annexation of Italy to the United States.[1]

Italian Unionist Movement

Movimento Unionista Italiano
LeaderUgo Damiani
Founded12 October 1944 (1944-10-12)
Dissolved31 January 1948 (1948-01-31)
HeadquartersRome, Italy
IdeologyAmericanism
Liberal conservatism
Federalism
Political positionCentre-right

On 12 October 1944, former fascist sociologist Corrado Gini, Calabrian activist Santi Paladino, and ISTAT researcher Ugo Damiani founded the party, for which the emblem was the Stars and Stripes, the Italian flag and a world map. According to the three men, the Government of the United States should annex all free and democratic nations worldwide, thereby transforming itself into a world government, and allowing Washington, D.C. to maintain Earth in a perpetual condition of peace. Paladino stated, "With a federation of the United States, Italy and some other nations, and a lot of atomic bombs, there would be no wars. This would solve all of Italy's problems."[2] Paladino argued that closer union with America was necessary to counter the advance of Communism under Soviet Russian leadership.[2]

The party had a little success in local elections in Southern Italy in 1946, so they decided to run in the General election of the same year. However, the results were very poor: the party received only 0.3% of votes, and only Ugo Damiani was elected in the Constituent Assembly. As MP, Damiani supported federalistic ideas, but the goal of the party was evidently impossible to reach. Neither did the American government support the party, not being interested in its project, and the Movement was finally disbanded in 1948.

Italian Parliament
Chamber of Deputies
Election year Votes % Seats +/− Leader
1946 71,021 (13th) 0.31
1 / 556
–
Ugo Damiani
gollark: What? No. You can't measure that.
gollark: Someone truncated it because it was long.
gollark: Yes. It was originally available computing power.
gollark: I put myself in as 0.5 because I have the osmarks.tk server cluster™, palaiologos as 0.8 because they probably have a botnet or something, and baidicoot as 0.2 because he has a low-powered server of some kind.
gollark: Oh, it's arbitrary.

References
  1. "Want Italy 49th State". The Spokesman-Review. 13 October 1947. p. 19. Archived from the original on 13 May 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. "Italy: The 49th State". Time. 15 April 1946.
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