The Impact of Communism on Calvino’s Literature: Context for 'The Baron in the Trees' Anonymous 11th Grade

During the 1940s in the midst of World War Two, the Nazi regime occupied much of Italy as the dictator Benito Mussolini allied with Germany; however, in 1943, the Italian resistance assassinated Mussolini marking the collapse of his fascist regime, thus shifting the power to Pietro Badoglio (History.com Editors). Rather than continuing to ally with Germany, Badoglio planned to surrender Italy to the allies to free the region of Nazi occupation (Ibid). However, after the fall of Mussolini, Germany also formulated plans to invade Italy and continue the fascist governmental system, thus causing Italy to be overrun with conflict and political imbalance in the following years (Ibid). In turn, the weakened Italian public and political system brought rise to many authors, one of the most notable being Italo Calvino, a journalist and writer most well known for his fictional novels. During the period in which Mussolini ruled over Italy, Calvino went into hiding in order to avoid serving the military, and it was at the time that he became educated in Communist ideologies. In 1944, influenced by his mother, Calvino joined the Garibaldi Brigades, an Italian resistance group, to fight against Nazi occupation in Italy. After Italy became...