Postcolonial studies has tended to focus on colonial relationships in the French and British context, while comparatively less attention has been given to Italian colonialism and responses to it. The paper examines the transnational anti-colonial connections forged by Italian left-wing activists with Ethiopian fighters around the time of the invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini in 1935. It will also examine the relationships established between the Italian Communist Party and Pan-African movements in favour of Abyssinia in the U.S., the Caribbean and Europe. “The Italian invasion of Abyssinia… produced the first instance of a global reaction by the black diaspora” (Young 2001: 233). At the same time the Ethiopian war can also be read as the first opportunity that the Italian Communist Party had to articulate its anti-fascism on an international scale, by sending missions to Ethiopia, to organize resistance against the fascist occupying forces with the ultimate aim of toppling Mussolini’s regime. Thus the Italian left’s engagement with anti-fascism was integral to their anti-colonial stance. By looking at historical documents about Italian leftist missions to Ethiopia and its alliances with pan-African movements, this paper aims to:
1. highlight the link between anti-fascism and the formation of anti-colonial thought;
2. show how the peculiarities of Italian colonialism, premised on a fascist rather than a liberal imperialism, may help to rethink existing paradigms of colonial discourse primarily based on British and French models.