Late October 1999. Aldo Cazzullo arrives in Tunis while news of Bettino Craxi's hospitalization spreads in Italy. The socialist leader, who took refuge in Hammamet in Tunisia in 1994 to escape arrest, will die a few months later, on January 19, 2000. Starting from these personal memories - Craxi's illness, the desperate attempt to save him with surgery, his death and funeral - Cazzullo in Craxi. The Last True Politician (Rizzoli, 2025, Euro 25.00, pp. 280. Also Ebook) offers a story that explores the figure of the man and politician who embodied more than anyone else the modernization of the Italian Republic and the crisis of the party system. A portrait enriched by personal anecdotes and an exceptional selection of photographs, which aims to reconstruct the story of Craxi as a young militant, his rise to power and his relationships with national and international leaders of the time, also highlighting the human and intimate dimension of the socialist leader. The book also goes as far as examining the Craxi legacy, that unresolved issue of the end of the First Republic that finds a palpable representation in Craxi: a man of power venerated and reviled, the scapegoat of a period marked by corruption, an exile considered illustrious by some and a fugitive by others (and by Italian justice). Twenty-five years after the death of Bettino Craxi, the author of the book defines him as the last true Italian politician with depth and vision. But where does this definition come from? We ask Aldo Cazzullo himself.
“My book begins by saying that I am one of the millions of Italians who didn’t like Craxi, when he was Craxi, because I found him arrogant. The portrait I paint of the socialist leader in the book is, therefore, chiaroscuro, made of light and shadow. Craxi made mistakes, he also committed crimes, but he was a great politician. After him there were no more politicians of that level. Berlusconi boasted of not being a politician and, deep down, Ciampi wasn’t one either. Perhaps we have actually had two political leaders lately, who were Matteo Renzi and Giorgia Meloni. Renzi self-destructed and we will see what happens to Meloni”.
What were his greatest successes?
“There is no doubt that Craxi had extraordinary qualities: he was the first socialist Prime Minister, he won the referendum on the sliding scale that served to lower inflation. Usually Prime Ministers lose them, as we know.
He defended national sovereignty at Sigonella in 1985 when the Americans wanted to violate it. In short, he certainly had some historical merits. It was also a different political era: in the 1980s the Italian economy was galloping, it surpassed that of the United Kingdom. Italy was an average country in a small world, now Italy is a small country in a big world. This honestly has nothing to do with the figure of Craxi, but objectively it seems to me that we can say that the level of the political class has nevertheless fallen considerably”.
What were Craxi's greatest virtues?
“His virtues were a solid education, a great personality, the ability to decide, courage, even physical courage. I like to remember when he went to Chile to lay a flower on the tomb of Salvador Allende, in the midst of Pinochet's dictatorship. A soldier ordered him to stop, pointed his gun at him, told him not to take a step or he would shoot. Craxi advanced, laid down the flower and the soldier didn't shoot”.
And his big mistakes?
“There were two. The first was participation in a rotten, corrupt and indefensible system. The second was not understanding in time that his season was over. He did not understand that the fall of the Berlin Wall would have blown up the Italian political scene. The fear of communism was no longer sufficient to maintain consensus for a political system like that of the First Republic. When Mario Segni launched the referendum on the single preference that was supposed to limit the excessive power of the secretariat over the parties, Craxi invited Italians to desert the consultation and go to the seaside. Instead, everyone went to vote precisely because Craxi had said not to.
Is there a Craxi legacy today?
"Today, paradoxically, the legacy of Craxi, a man of the left, is being claimed by the right. So there is a certain confusion. Craxi certainly knew how to point out some issues that are still current: governability, even presidentialism."
Do you have a personal memory of Craxi that you would like to tell us?
“In the book, in addition to Craxi, I recount my personal experience in contact with the socialist leader in the last months of his life. I remember that when Craxi fell ill, almost all the journalists went to Hammamet to talk about his illness. Everyone wrote that Craxi was negotiating his return to Italy. I wrote that the socialist leader had said: 'I want to be operated on here in Tunisia, die here, be buried here'. And that's what happened”.