Comrade Acerbo: “Let’s leave NATO. Zelensky? He’s singing the praises of the Nazis. Rizzo? A rough-and-ready fellow. I’m off to China.”

NATO? “We should leave NATO.” Praising Hamas? “I didn’t praise Hamas, but I’m a believer in due process.” So? “So I defend Siher’s freedom of expression, just as the investigating magistrate who released him from custody defended it, and just as Marco Pannella would have defended it.” The man of the moment speaks to Il Foglio. Maurizio Acerbo, known as ‘Maturo’, who will be having dinner with Andrea Crisanti this evening. “A wonderful person, a true comrade – not just a temporary addition but a genuine member of my party, Rifondazione Comunista.” After dinner, Acerbo will set off for China. “I often go to Beijing for conferences.” So he’ll be breathing free air, real oxygen. Especially after the latest accusations from the Democratic Party reformists. But wait. “Don’t call them reformists!” he tells us. “My father, a factory worker, was a reformist. Turati was a reformist. Those people are something else. They’re usurpers of a title they don’t deserve.” All right. But Sandra Zampa and Filippo Sensi, at least on paper, are his allies. Or are they not? “They’re centrist extremists. And besides, you mention Zampa and Sensi but forget Delrio. The author of a dangerous, freedom-destroying bill.” The anti-Semitism bill. “Schlein has nothing to do with them. Nor with someone like Matteo Renzi, who gets paid by bin Salman to talk about the Saudi Renaissance, whilst compared to Saudi Arabia, Iran is Woodstock: the situation of Iranian women is Woodstock.” We’ll take that as hyperbole and, like you, we support (absolute) freedom of expression.

But let’s get back to Israel. Weren’t you praising Hamas? “No. I condemn terrorism. The one praising Hamas is Netanyahu, who has always channelled funds from Qatar and other countries to the terrorist group to prevent the Palestinians from uniting. Hamas’s number one supporter is Ben Gvir.” What is your solution? “There are two solutions. Either the ‘two peoples, two states’ solution – which is, in fact, the historical position of the centre-left before it was infiltrated by pro-Israel, and therefore pro-fascist, elements – or that the entire territory of historic Palestine becomes a secular, non-denominational, democratic state.” From the river to the sea? “Yes.” Should it no longer be called (or be) Israel? “That is for those peoples to decide. But what is certain is the contradiction inherent in Zionism. Namely, that of a state which is, today, ethno-religious. For which genocide is a specific project. A state that has lost all the socialist characteristics of its early days. But even back then, Einstein and Arendt identified fascists amongst some Jews.” Foreign policy is her forte. Will Schlein and Conte listen to her? By the way, which of them do you like best? “I hold both of them in high regard. And they’re both already on the same page as me on everything.” Yet on the European conflict, the reformists – oops, extremists – aren’t. “Let them be horrified. You know what I think.” What do you think? “That it’s a mad war, fuelled by warmongering media. And I’m talking about you too, even though I always read your work.” Thank you. “When I was an MP, between 2006 and 2008, the Italian Republic’s position was unwaveringly opposed to Ukraine’s accession to NATO. We knew what it would lead to. Today, however, Italy has followed the US, which has unleashed a war and is now washing its hands of it. Putin is being portrayed as Hitler, but only so as not to have to deal with him.” So who is Putin, then? “He’s a conservative who imprisoned my Marxist comrade Boris Kagarlickij, which is why I don’t like him. But he’s not Hitler.” And Zelensky? “Zelensky pays homage to the worst Nazi collaborators.” To whom? “To Stepan Bandera, for example. Come on, let’s be serious!” We are. “Ukraine is not Olof Palme’s Sweden. Enough of this war propaganda, and enough of following Merz’s German revanchism.”

Does it remind you of the revanchism following the First World War? “It reminds me exactly of that period. Japan is also rearming, just like Germany, and yet we always forget the 30 million deaths in China caused by Japan during the Second World War.” You admire Conte and Schlein. But it is within the M5S that some are saying they want to leave NATO. “And they’re right. We must free Europe from the stranglehold of the Atlantic Alliance. But we’ll get there.” Will Schlein get there too? “Sooner or later it will be understood that Europe must form an axis with Lula’s Brazil. Enough of NATO.” Comrade Marco Rizzo thinks so too, doesn’t he? “Comrade? Not a chance!” There’s a whiff of fratricide in the air. “He’s a ‘rough-and-brown’ type, that one. ‘Rough’ because he’s got nothing ‘red’ about him. He’s in cahoots with Meloni. He likes hanging out in the salons. He’s a character I deeply despise.” In *Libero* they wrote that during his A-levels he refused to answer a question about D’Annunzio. “It’s true. I didn’t answer. Because I’m an anti-fascist.”