"This situation gave rise to the frenzied anti-communist agitation that has oppressed Italy for more than ten years, degrading our political struggle. This agitation is, particularly for Italy, a historical and political absurdity. It is a historical absurdity because everyone knows that if it had not been for the communists, the Italians would have lacked one of the necessary guides, perhaps the most important one, in their resistance and struggle against fascism and in the struggle for liberation. It is a political absurdity because the Communist Party is not a small, negligible entity, but is followed by the majority of workers, by large sections of the population, and by a far from small part of the intelligentsia. Banning it means introducing a division into the body of the nation that disturbs and poisons the whole life of the country. (chap. XI, p. 116)"